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February 4, 2017

sane

The authors are real. The articles are fake. Who is behind the sinister ‘CGS’ website? (Yahoo News)

“The CGS Monitor … has taken fake news to new depths with its use of fake opinions,” Mefford wrote in a posting this week on the Atlantic Council’s website. “How do we really know who said what? Academics, scholars, politicians, and writers must now vigilantly manage their brand as a core part of their work. Your opinion, it turns out, may no longer actually be yours.”

Even South Park “Can’t Keep Up” with Donald Trump

How do you do you “do” satire when the entire American scene seems like one giant episode of a satire movie?

Parker noted that the show’s most recent season, which coincided with the bitter final throes of the election season, tried at first to mock current events—before admitting that their efforts “couldn’t keep up” with the unfolding reality.

“You know, it was like what was actually happening was way funnier than anything we could come up with,” Parker continued. “You know what I mean? So. . .we decided to just kind of back off and let them do their comedy and we‘ll do ours.”

Along those lines…

How to Stay Sane as a Cartoonist in Trumpland

I know we’ll all “remain sane” somehow—we have to, so that we can be smart and energized and fight back. But with three years and fifty-odd weeks to go, there are definitely moments when I find myself in total sympathy with this comment someone recently added to his post of my cartoon on Twitter: “My desire to be well-informed makes me wish I could fall asleep and wake up on a different planet.”

Posting for its relevance to the climate debate generated by the Trump presidency…

The Snow Guardian of the Rockies

For over 40 years, a man named billy barr (he prefers his name to be spelled all lowercase) has lived alone in a small cabin in Gothic, Colorado. It’s one of the coldest and most isolated places in the United States. Bored and without anything to preoccupy himself, he began recording snow levels in 1973. “The main thing I interacted with was the weather and the animals, so I just started recording things just cause it was something to do,” he says in this short film, The Snow Guardian, by Day’s Edge Productions. “I had nothing to prove, no goals, no anything.” Climate researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab discovered that barr’s detailed records showed compelling evidence of climate change, and the data has been vital in understanding the severe impending effects of global warming. For more information, visit www.endofsnow.com and read “The Hermit Who Inadvertently Shaped Climate-Change Science.”

The Deep Denialism of Donald Trump

There are horrific lies of omission: last week, the White House released a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that pointedly declined to refer to Jews, because others were killed, too. And there are denials of truth that are impossible to categorize: the President met with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an anti-vaccine zealot with a history of falsehoods, and talked to him about possibly forming a commission on vaccine safety. (After Kennedy said he’d actually been asked to lead such a commission, provoking dismay, the Trump team said that no decision had yet been made.) Then there are lies so ludicrous that it is hard (though essential) to take them seriously: according to Trump, the United States has just gone through the most devastating instance of voter fraud in the nation’s history. And, in his telling, every one of the millions of illegal votes happened to be cast for his opponent.

 

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February 1, 2017

Muslim ban

Starting off with a few fun tweets…

rowling

Setting a dangerous precedent, the President has now refused to work with CNN:

White House ices out CNN (Politico)

The White House has refused to send its spokespeople or surrogates onto CNN shows, effectively icing out the network from on-air administration voices.

“We’re sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda,” said a White House official, acknowledging that CNN is not such a place, but adding that the ban is not permanent.

A CNN reporter, speaking on background, was more blunt: The White House is trying to punish the network and force down its ratings.

“They’re trying to cull CNN from the herd,” the reporter said.

Administration officials are still answering questions from CNN reporters. But administration officials including White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway haven’t appeared on the network’s programming in recent weeks.

Spicer, speaking at an event at the George Washington University on Monday, denied that CNN was being frozen out, pointing out that he’s answered CNN’s questions in the regular daily briefings.

But, he added “I’m not going to sit around and engage with people who have no desire to actually get something right.”

Calling something fake news because you don’t like the facts is completely in line with the post-truth presidency.

Steve Bannon’s own words show sharp break on security issues

Rhetoric like this is dangerous and quite insane.

Steve Bannon, who has ascended in just months from relative obscurity to become one of President Trump’s most influential advisors, has said that Islam is “the most radical” religion in the world and the U.S. is engaged in a civilizational struggle potentially leading to “a major shooting war in the Middle East again.”

This is eminently reassuring as well, given his new role on the NSC:

“We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years, aren’t we?” he said in March 2016. “There’s no doubt about that. They’re taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. They come here to the United States in front of our face — and you understand how important face is — and say it’s an ancient territorial sea.”

This man is unhinged:

“The way the media is presenting this, it’s almost like they’re conforming to blasphemy law,” he said. “They will not criticize Islam, the president of the United States will not criticize Islam. Mrs. Clinton will not criticize Islam. Do you get a sense that the media in the West — and I mean in London and in the United States — is almost working under the precepts of sharia law right now?”

Concern about brewing conflict, he said, was a fundamental concept behind Bannon’s media enterprise. “Our big belief, one of our central organizing principles at the site, is that we’re at war,” he said.

“It’s war. It’s war. Every day, we put up: America’s at war, America’s at war. We’re at war,” he said in December 2015. “Note to self, beloved commander in chief: We’re at war.”

No ‘G’day, mate’: On call with Australian prime minister, Trump badgers and brags

“This is the worst deal ever,” Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center. Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admissions of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”

U.S. officials said that Trump has behaved similarly in conversations with leaders of other countries, including Mexico. But his treatment of Turnbull was particularly striking because of the tight bond between the United States and Australia — countries that share intelligence, support one another diplomatically and have fought together in wars including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump Executive Order Threatens Foreign Students. How Will Their Universities Respond?

“One of things we are advocating is that schools resist providing information about their students from the federal government,” says Shirin Vossoughi, an assistant professor at Northwestern University. “It’s possible that in the future the Trump administration may attempt to withhold funding from publicly funded schools if they refuse to share information, but it’s important for them to stand strong on this issue.”

The University of Alberta is actively recruiting students from the affected travel ban countries:
The U of A has waived application fees for citizens of the seven countries affected by the U.S. travel ban. Applicants from these affected countries with questions about study permits, or concerns about meeting application or document deadlines, should contact University of Alberta International at welcome@international.ualberta.ca for advice. The university will make efforts to accommodate, wherever possible.

Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam

The program, “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.

Leaked Draft of Trump’s Religious Freedom Order Reveals Sweeping Plans to Legalize Discrimination

The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act.

Language in the draft document specifically protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”

declutter

And I end today with a protest poem from 1914 by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Here it is read by Amanda Palmer.

PROTEST

To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticize oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and childbearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.

Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.

Originally posted at Brainpickings.org.

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January 31, 2017

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The Complicated Relevance of Dr. Seuss’s Political Cartoons

One of these in particular, a drawing lampooning the non-Interventionist America First movement, has been reemerging recently amid protests against President Trump’s executive order barring immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The cartoon, which mocks an apparent blithe naiveté about the dangers posed by Nazi Germany, as well as a callousness regarding the lives of children who aren’t American citizens, makes it a striking accompaniment to modern protests, not least of which is that Trump has named one of his own official platforms “America First.”

Donald Trump is purging career officials and surrounding himself with unqualified partisans

Currently, the five most powerful people that most have Trump’s ear are: a media propagandist in Breitbart’s Steve Bannon; a pollster in Kellyanne Conway; a general in Michael Flynn, who had such a penchant for conspiracy theories that his colleagues began to refer to them as “Flynn facts”; a lawyer who ran the national Republican Party in Reince Priebus; and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Those five are advising someone who has never served in government and who clearly does not understand government.

Continuing with the trend of painting Bannon as the power behind the throne…

Steve Bannon is calling the shots in the White House. That’s terrifying.

Bannon is not the president’s servant. The president is his tool. For years, Bannon cast about for the proper vehicle to carry the fight forward. Sarah Palin, Rick Perry –they were considered possible material. Now in Donald Trump he has found adequate if imperfect stuff. Both are workaholics. Both share a protectionist mindset. Both are combative.

But Bannon, in contrast to the president, is not easily distracted. He is intelligent, articulate, focused in his ideology and dedicated to the struggle.

We’re starting to see theories about the nefarious aims of the government emerge with analysis of recent events, reinforcing fears that preceded Trump’s inauguration. More along these lines should be expected.

The Immigration Ban is a Headfake, and We’re Falling For It

Jake Fuentes argues that the new administration is testing the boundaries of governmental checks and balances in an effort to consolidate power. He argues the playbook could look something like this:

We launch a series of Executive Orders in the first week. Beforehand, we identify one that our opponents will complain loudly about and will dominate the news cycle. Immigration ban. Perfect.

We craft the ban to be about 20% more extreme than we actually want it to be — say, let’s make the explicit decision to block green card holders from defined countries from entering the US, rather than just visa holders. We create some confusion so that we can walk back from that part later, but let’s make sure that it’s enforced to begin with.

We watch our opposition pour out into the streets protesting the extremes of our public measure, exactly as we intended. The protests dominate the news, but our base doesn’t watch CNN anyway. The ACLU will file motions to oppose the most extreme parts of our measure, that’s actually going to be useful too. We don’t actually care if we win, that’s why we made it more extreme than it needed to be. But in doing so, the lawsuit process will test the loyalty of those enforcing what we say.

While the nation’s attention is on our extreme EO, slip a few more nuanced moves through. For example, reconfigure the National Security Council so that it’s led by our inner circle. Or gut the State Department’s ability to resist more extreme moves. That will have massive benefits down the road — the NSC are the folks that authorize secret assassinations against enemies of the state, including American citizens. Almost nobody has time to analyze that move closely, and those that do can’t get coverage.

When the lawsuits filed by the ACLU inevitably succeed, stay silent. Don’t tell the DHS to abide by the what the federal judge says, see what they do on their own. If they capitulate to the courts, we know our power with the DHS is limited and we need to staff it with more loyal people. But if they continue enforcing our EO until we tell them not to, we know that we can completely ignore the judicial branch later on and the DHS will have our back.

Once the DHS has made their move, walk back from the 20% we didn’t want in the first place. Let the green card holders in, and pretend that’s what we meant all along. The protestors and the ACLU, both clamoring to display their efficacy, jump on the moment to declare a huge victory. The crowds dissipate, they have to go back to work.

When the dust settles, we have 100% of the Executive Order we originally wanted, we’ve tested the loyalty of a department we’ll need later on, we’ve proven we can ignore an entire branch of government, and we’ve slipped in some subtle moves that will make the next test even easier.

We’ve just tested the country’s willingness to capitulate to a fascist regime.

Along these lines, here is the much cited blog post from Google engineer Yonatan Zunger:

Trial Balloon for a Coup? (Medium.com)

That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.

It looks like we can anticipate even tighter immigration restrictions…

Trump administration circulates more draft immigration restrictions, focusing on protecting U.S. jobs

The Trump administration is considering a plan to weed out would-be immigrants who are likely to require public assistance, as well as to deport — when possible — immigrants already living in the United States who depend on taxpayer help, according to a draft executive order obtained by The Washington Post.

A second draft order under consideration calls for a substantial shake-up in the system through which the United States administers immigrant and nonimmigrant visas, with the aim of tightly controlling who enters the country and who can enter the workforce, and reducing the social-services burden on U.S. taxpayers.

Anddd… it’s Supreme Court nominee day…

What Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s SCOTUS Pick, Means for American Women (Slate)

Gorsuch may end up ruling on laws that ban abortions after a certain pre-viability gestation threshold, force abortion providers to get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, or require abortion clinics abide by unnecessary building codes. Several states already have laws like these percolating through the courts…

Gorsuch is also likely to face cases that put contraceptive access and insurance coverage on the chopping block. Whether or not Republicans follow through on their promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they are likely to continue trying to make birth control and abortion care more expensive and difficult to get. Just last week, they passed a House bill that would discourage insurance providers from covering abortion in their plans.

Trump’s Grand Strategic Train Wreck (Foreign Policy)

Quoting this one a little more.

First, the framework:

At a minimum, a grand strategy consists of an understanding of the basic contours of the international environment, a country’s highest interests and objectives within that environment, the most pressing threats to those interests, and the actions that a country can take in order to address threats and promote national security and well-being. Grand strategy, then, is both diagnostic and prescriptive. It combines an analysis of what is happening in the world and how it impacts one’s country, with a more forward-looking concept of how a country might employ its various forms of power — hard or soft, military or economic — to sustain or improve its global position. Every grand strategy has a “what” dimension, a notion of what constitutes national security in the first place, and a “how” dimension, a theory of how to produce security in a dynamic international environment and given the tools at hand.

Trump see the world in terms of three dangers:

The first is the threat from “Radical Islam” — which, for the president and many of his closest advisors, poses an existential and “civilizational” threat to the United States that must be “eradicated” from the face of the Earth….

Second, Trump portrays unfair trade deals and the trade practices of key competitors as grave threats to the U.S. economy and therefore a national security priority….

Third, and finally, Trump has consistently railed against illegal immigration, arguing that the pace and scale of migration has cost American jobs, lowered wages, and put unsustainable strains on housing, schools, tax bills, and general living conditions. He has also consistently framed immigration as an issue of personal and national security, arguing that illegal immigration is associated with crime, drugs, and terrorism — and claiming, without providing supporting evidence, that “countless Americans” have died as a consequence. And, tying the issue back to his diagnosis of the terrorist threat, Trump has consistently portrayed Muslim refugees, immigrants, and the children of immigrants as a “Trojan Horse” for the spread of radical Islam in the United States.

There are four key pillars to the Trump Doctrine:

The first is what White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon proudly calls“economic nationalism.” Trump has signaled a willingness to embrace a protectionist and mercantilist foreign policy more familiar to the 19th and early 20th centuries than to the 21st. In his inaugural address, for example, Trump declared: “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our product, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.”…

A second key pillar is what might be called “extreme” homeland security. This includes the infamous wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and other investments in stepped-up border security. It includes Trump’s threat of mass deportations of illegal immigrants, starting with those with a criminal record. And his approach calls for an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees, a temporary ban on all refugees, and a suspension of legal immigration from several Muslim countries until such time as “extreme vetting” procedures can be put in place to ensure that entrants to the United States “share our values and love our people.”…

What we call “amoral transactionalism” represents the third, and perhaps most central, feature of Trump’s grand strategy. In Trump’s view, the United States should be willing to cut deals with any actors that share American interests, regardless of how transactional that relationship is, and regardless of whether they share — or act in accordance with — American values. …

The final pillar of Trump’s grand strategy is a muscular but aloof militarism. For decades, Trump has advocated “extreme military strength.” On the campaign trail and during the transition, Trump called for larger U.S. naval, air, and ground forces, and significant new investments in cyber warfare capabilities and nuclear weapons. (On January 27, Trump announced an executive order to follow through on this commitment, but the details remain unclear.) Yet Trump’s stated purpose is not to engage in military adventures, or to bolster U.S. alliances, but rather to deter potential adversaries and defeat those who attack the United States.

Now go read the rest for the analysis of what this means…

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President Bannon

bannon

As I mentioned in my last post, we’re seeing a new tactic popping up – the elevation of Bannon as the defacto King with Trump as mere mouthpiece and one has to wonder how long Trump will indulge this narrative if it really gathers steam. I think it will be an effective strategy for sowing division between the two, as Trump is a textbook narcissist who will tolerate no challenge to the idea that he is the ultimate captain of the ship.

To that end, here’s some of the narrative so far…

bannon2

bannon3

Is Donald Trump Just a Pawn in Steve Bannon’s Game? (Vanity Fair)

But Bannon, who jokingly refers to himself as “Darth Vader,” is perhaps alone in viewing the Trump administration as a means to a specific philosophical end.

This strategy so far has worked for Bannon, either because Trump understands he needs him or hasn’t caught wind of the fact that he might be being played. The reason why Kushner rose to prominence so quickly, after all, is the fact that Trump knows where his loyalty lies, and that is squarely behind him. If Trump feels that Bannon’s own motives are setting him up to lose, then it’s anyone’s bet as to how topsy-turvy this West Wing could get.

refugee1

pres_bannon

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January 30, 2017

1939

Suspect in Quebec Mosque Attack Quickly Depicted as a Moroccan Muslim. He’s a White Nationalist. (The Intercept)

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer exploited the attack to justify President Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. “It’s a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the President is taking steps to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to our nation’s safety and security,” Spicer said at this afternoon’s briefing when speaking of the Quebec City attack.

But these assertions are utterly false. The suspect is neither Moroccan nor Muslim. The Moroccan individual, Mohamed Belkhadir, was actually one of the worshippers at the mosque and called 911 to summon the police, and played no role whatsoever in the shooting.

Trump fires acting AG after she declines to defend travel ban (CNN.com)

President Donald Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates Monday night for “refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States,” the White House said.

“(Yates) has betrayed the Department of Justice,” the White House statement said.

Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration (Washington Post)

Bannon has no job experience in foreign policy. After serving in the Navy for seven years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, his eclectic career took him to Goldman Sachs, to consulting to documentary filmmaking and then to the running of Breitbart News, a far-right website known for peddling conspiracy theories.

From his perch as chief of Breitbart News, which produced a satellite radio show, Bannon cemented his role as a champion of the alt-right, an anti-globalism movement that has attracted support from white supremacists and helped power Trump’s populist White House victory.

Trump sees Bannon as a generational peer who shares his anti-establishment instincts and confrontational style. According to several people familiar with their relationship, Bannon has cultivated a rapport with Trump over security issues in recent months, and impressed Trump with his grasp of policy in talks they have held together with top intelligence and military officials.

Starbucks to hire 10,000 refugees worldwide after Trump ban (Yahoo.com)

Message from Howard Schultz to Starbucks Partners: Living Our Values in Uncertain Times

We are living in an unprecedented time, one in which we are witness to the conscience of our country, and the promise of the American Dream, being called into question.

The promise prompted #boycottstarbucks to trend on Twitter, here is a sampling of some of the tweets:

On the anti-boycott front:

On the pro-boycott front, it was framed as stealing American jobs from Americans. Weirdly, mainly black people and veterans featured prominently in the narrative, presumably as representative of America’s version of refugees for those pro-boycott?

We started to see an interesting framework develop where the credit for what is happening in the US is shifting from Trump to Bannon. This may be a particularly effective tactic. Trump is nothing if not a narcissist. One can imagine that he will not tolerate anyone overshadowing his moment in the sun, and if the messaging in the media increasingly focuses on Bannon instead of Trump, perhaps he will distance himself from this dangerous demagogue, which can only be a good thing.

President Bannon? (NYT)

As his first week in office amply demonstrated, Mr. Trump has no grounding in national security decision making, no sophistication in governance and little apparent grasp of what it takes to lead a great diverse nation. He needs to hear from experienced officials, like General Dunford. But Mr. Bannon has positioned himself, along with Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as the president’s most trusted aide, shutting out other voices that might offer alternative views. He is now reportedly eclipsing the national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

While Mr. Trump long ago embraced Mr. Bannon’s politics, he would be wise to reconsider allowing him to run his White House, particularly after the fiasco over the weekend of the risible Muslim ban. Mr. Bannon helped push that order through without consulting Mr. Trump’s own experts at the Department of Homeland Security or even seeking deliberation by the N.S.C. itself. The administration’s subsequent modifications, the courtroom reversals and the international furor have made the president look not bold and decisive but simply incompetent.

How Trump’s Immigration Order Is Affecting Higher Education (The Atlantic)

There will be wide-ranging effects on post-secondary education that are of particular interest to me, not the least of which will be on enrollment and retention rates. Students from affected countries mid-research who cannot pursue research or leave the country, students from other countries who cannot now journey to the US to present research at conferences, professors who are now limited from travel either into or out of the US. This has cast a dark shadow, indeed.

Tech companies to meet on legal challenge to Trump immigration order (Reuters)

A group of technology companies plans to meet on Tuesday to discuss filing an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging U.S. President Donald Trump’s order restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, said a spokesperson for a company organizing the gathering.

The meeting is being called together by GitHub, which makes software development tools.

Amicus, or friend of the court, briefs are filed by parties who are not litigants in a case but want to offer arguments or information to the judge.

Alphabet Inc’s Google, Airbnb Inc and Netflix Inc are among the companies invited, a separate person familiar with the situation said.

Representatives for Google and Netflix could not immediately be reached for comment. An Airbnb spokesman declined to comment.

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January 29, 2017

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon - tt_c_c170125.tif

UBC Statement in response to U.S. executive order

The University of British Columbia is deeply concerned about a new executive order signed by President Trump on Friday preventing individuals from seven countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days. We are especially concerned about the effect of the executive order on some UBC students, faculty and staff, as well as other scholars in Canada, the U.S., and around the world.

Therefore, I have established a task force, headed by Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President International pro tem Pam Ratner and including representatives from across the university and from both campuses, to determine what assistance the university can offer those affected.

The task force, with an initial budget of $250,000.00, will begin its work immediately.

We will also work closely with the provincial and federal governments, responsible agencies and community groups and other universities across Canada, through Universities Canada, to respond to this unfolding situation.

UBC strongly affirms that it will continue to welcome students, faculty and staff from around the world, including those seeking refuge from violence and hardship. Along with the other members of Universities Canada, we support Prime Minister Trudeau’s recent statement that Canada will continue to welcome those fleeing persecution, terror and war regardless of faith and affirming that diversity is our strength.

UBC’s academic strength and stature depends upon the freedom of our faculty, staff and students to travel abroad for purposes of scholarship and study and upon our ability to welcome the most talented individuals from around the world to our campuses. Actions that restrict this movement based on a person’s nationality or birthplace go against our values as a university.

We will continue to monitor developments and will keep the university community informed of the task force’s deliberations and actions.

In the meantime, students, faculty, staff and other members of the UBC community with concerns about the implications and effects of President Trump’s executive order should contact Adel el Zaim at 604-827-4140 or adel.elzaim@ubc.ca

Kaine likens Trump Remembrance Day statement to Holocaust denial

One could think it was an inelegant framing, an attempt to be inclusive of the myriad victim groups, but why give Trump the benefit of the doubt when the undoubted architect (Bannon) is well-positioned to utilize the favourite tactics of neo-nazis and deniers? The minimization and attempt to erase Jews from the narrative of their own destruction is a preferred tactic of the deniers. It was a whitewash, pure and simple. Otherwise, the statement would have acknowledged the driving force behind the genocide was the destruction of the Jews and then included a comprehensive acknowledgement, by naming, of the other groups targeted. Naming and acknowledging holds power. That the highest leader in the land doesn’t understand that, or willfully neglects it to court the worst subhuman impulses of the alt-right, is a scary thing indeed. Does he have a rudimentary level of intelligence? This should have been a no-brainer.

Kaine also linked the Trump administration’s break with precedent to Trump counselor Steve Bannon, the former publisher of Breitbart, a news site adopted by the so-called “alt-right”.

“I think all of these things are happening together,” Kaine said, “when you have the chief political adviser in the White House, Steve Bannon, who is connected with a news organisation that traffics in white supremacy and antisemitism, and they put out a Holocaust statement that omits any mention of Jews.”

Lyft will donate $1M to ACLU after Trump immigration ban (The Hill)

The ride-hailing company Lyft is pledging to donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in response to President Donald Trump’s immigration ban.

In a letter emailed to customers early Sunday morning, Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green announced their decision to donate money to help “defend our constitution.”

The email condemned Trump’s executive order halting the Syrian refugee program and banning entry to all citizens of several Muslim-majority countries.

“Banning people of a particular faith or creed, race or identity, sexuality or ethnicity, from entering the U.S. is antithetical to both Lyft’s and our nation’s core values,” the co-founders wrote.

“We stand firmly against these actions, and will not be silent on issues that threaten the values of our community.”

The million-dollar donation to the ACLU will be made over four years.

Meanwhile, as Uber violated the taxi work stoppage at JFK on Saturday night, a movement took  off to dump Uber accounts:

McCain, Graham: Trump order may become ‘self-inflicted wound’ in terrorism fight (The Hill)

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday said they fear President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration “will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.”

“Our most important allies in the fight against ISIL are the vast majority of Muslims who reject its apocalyptic ideology of hatred,” the senators said in a joint statement, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.”

China military official says war with US under Donald Trump ‘becoming practical reality’

War with the US under Donald Trump is “not just a slogan” and becoming a “practical reality”, a senior Chinese military official has said.

The remarks were published on the People’s Liberation Army website, apparently in response to the aggressive rhetoric towards China from America’s new administration.

They communicated a view from inside the Central Military Commission, which has overall authority of China’s armed forces.

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Benjamin Wittes on the EO on Visas

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Outside JFK January 29, 2017 – copyright Craig Ruttle| @dpa

This post over at Lawfare is well worth a careful read.

Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence: Trump’s Horrifying Executive Order on Refugees and Visas

Benjamin Wittes writes:

You don’t target the wrong people in nutty ways when you’re rationally pursuing real security objectives.

When do you do these things? You do these things when you’re elevating the symbolic politics of bashing Islam over any actual security interest. You do them when you’ve made a deliberate decision to burden human lives to make a public point. In other words, this is not a document that will cause hardship and misery because of regrettable incidental impacts on people injured in the pursuit of a public good. It will cause hardship and misery for tens or hundreds of thousands of people because that is precisely what it is intended to do.

He continues:

I would wax triumphant about the mitigating effect of incompetence on this document, but alas, I can’t do it. The president’s powers in this area are vast, as I say, and while the incompetence is likely to buy the administration a world of hurt in court and in diplomacy in the short term, this order is still going take more than a few pounds of flesh out of a lot of innocent people.

Moreover, it’s a very dangerous thing to have a White House that can’t with the remotest pretense of competence and governance put together a major policy document on a crucial set of national security issues without inducing an avalanche of litigation and wide diplomatic fallout. If the incompetence mitigates the malevolence in this case, that’ll be a blessing. But given the nature of the federal immigration powers, the mitigation may be small and the blessing short-lived; the implications of having an executive this inept are not small and won’t be short-lived.

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Shaping the Resistance

The scene at JFK as taxi drivers strike following Trump’s immigration ban (USA Today)

New York taxi drivers have their own response to President Donald Trump’s immigration ban: A strike.

As protests continue to break out across major U.S. airports Saturday night following President Trump’s immigration ban, taxi drivers at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport have gone on strike.

In postings to social networks Saturday the New York Taxi Workers Alliance announced that from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET there would be no pickups at JFK as a protest to the immigration ban that some are taking as a ban on Muslims.

Airbnb Is Offering Free Housing To Those Turned Away By Trump’s Refugee Ban (BuzzFeed)

This evening Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky posted a message on Facebook criticizing President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily halting the US refugee program. “Not allowing counties or refugees into America is not right, and we must stand with those whoa re affected,” Chesky wrote.

Chesky announced that Airbnb will provide free housing to refugees who have been turned away from US-bound flights, and are not in their “city/country of residence,” he said. Neither Chesky nor Airbnb responded to questions about the specifics of the program. An Airbnb spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the company “will leverage existing tools and will share details in the next few days.”

Lawyers Work Pro-Bono for Detainees

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University of Michigan Issues Letter of Support for International Students

Full text reproduced as a static link was unavailable at the time of posting:

Protecting the interests of our international community of scholars

For generations, the University of Michigan has been known throughout the world as a leading international community of scholars. U-M has admitted international students since the late 1840s, and our first foreign-born faculty member was hired in 1846. Our ability to attract the best students and faculty from around the globe enhances our teaching, learning, research and societal impact and is in part responsible for our standing as a great public research university.

Fostering an environment that promotes education and research at the highest levels is among my most important responsibilities as the University of Michigan’s president. The leadership of the university is committed to protecting the rights and opportunities currently available to all members of our academic community, and to do whatever is possible within the law to continue to identify, recruit, support and retain academic talent, at all levels, from around the world.

We are currently focused on potential changes to immigration laws, policies and practices that could affect the status and safety of U-M students and personnel, particularly international students and those who may be undocumented. This includes several programs and policies that affect international students and faculty. Additionally, we are working to understand the implications on our community of the “extreme vetting” executive order blocking immigration from certain countries.

Many of our efforts are in collaboration with major academic organizations including the Association of American Universities (AAU) and Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). U-M is among more than 600 colleges and universities who have signed a letter supporting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Executive Order. Here on campus, we have established a working group to help us better understand the needs and concerns of international members of our campus community and to consider ideas for additional support.

The university also supports legislation known as the BRIDGE Act that would allow individuals in the U.S. who arrived as children to stay in the country for another three years without the threat of deportation, while Congress addresses changes to the immigration system. BRIDGE stands for Bar Removal of Individuals who Dream and Grow our Economy, and it was introduced with bipartisan congressional support.

More information on U-M’s support of undocumented students, as well as information on how you can contact your legislators if you wish to support BRIDGE, is available from Public Affairs. We will keep the U-M community informed by updating this page with any related developments, so I urge you to check it regularly.

The university’s actions related to immigration status are consistent with our long-standing positions on non-discrimination, privacy and public safety. Those are:

  • The University of Michigan welcomes and supports students without regard to their immigration status. We will continue to admit students in a manner consistent with our non-discrimination policy. Once students are admitted, the university is committed to fostering an environment in which each student can flourish.
  • The university complies with federal requirements associated with managing its international programs. Otherwise, the university does not share sensitive information like immigration status.
  • Campus police do not inquire about or record immigration status when performing their duties.
  • In accordance with federal law, the enforcement of immigration law rests with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Campus police will not partner with federal, state, or other local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration law except when required to do so by law.
  • The university maintains a strong commitment to the privacy of student records for all students, consistent with state and federal laws. We do not provide information on immigration status to anyone except when required by law.
  • The university offers in-state tuition to undocumented students who meet certain conditions.
  • The university offers confidential counseling services to all students.

Note: this post is an exact copy of the On the Agenda: Protecting the interests of our international community of scholars post made on the site of President Mark S. Schlissel January 28, 2017.

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ACLU Victory

Judge Blocks Part of Trump’s Immigration Order

Judge Ann M. Donnelly of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, ruled just before 9 p.m. that implementing Mr. Trump’s order by sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.”

Dozens of people waited outside of the courthouse chanting, “Set them free!” as lawyers made their case. When the crowd learned that Judge Donnelly had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, a rousing cheer went up in the crowd.

While none of the detainees will be sent back immediately, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case expressed concern that all those at the airports would now be put in detention, pending a resolution of the case. Inviting the lawyers to return to court if the travelers were detained, Judge Donnelly said, “If someone is not being released, I guess I’ll just hear from you.”

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Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism (2008–2013) on Twitter – January 28, 2017 (compiled):

Just spoke to a former staffer of mine who was raised in Iran. Immigrated to Canada at 14, he ran as a Conservative for Parliament at 19. He is so Canadian he has a maple leaf tattoo. He despises the Iranian dictatorship & would be thrown in jail if he returned there. He has renounced Iranian citizenship, & is one of the most hawkish people I know on national security & integration. He is running a successful startup in the USA. As a result of yesterday’s Executive Order, he is now barred from entering USA, where he has created dozens of jobs. Yazidi refugees from Daesh’s genocide, US military officers of Iranian origin & countless others join him in being inadmissible to the US. Meanwhile, Wahabi militants from Saudi Arabia are unaffected by this EO. This is not about national security. It is a brutal, ham-fisted act of demagogic political theatre. Now we are hopelessly polarized between the false choice of open-border naïveté and xenophobia. The Government of Canada should immediately facilitate temporary residency for bona fide travellers stranded by the EO, e.g. by issuing ministerial instructions to visa officers for issuance of Temporary Residence Permits under Sec 25 of Immigration & Refugee Protection Act.

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January 28th, 2017

Trump rewrites American valuesPolitical cartoon courtesy of Peter Brookes.

Your daily Trump news for January 28th:

A Sweeping Order Unlikely to Reduce Terrorist Threat (NYT)

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, no one has been killed in this country in a terrorist attack by anyone who emigrated from, or whose parents emigrated from, any of the seven countries named in the order’s four-month visa ban: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen…

Justin Trudeau posted a pointed rebuke on Facebook today:

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As Trump’s draconian executive order began to have real world effects, the news picked up fast with impact stories…

Banned From U.S.: ‘You Need to Go Back to Your Country’

Seyed Soheil Saeedi Saravi, Iran

Mr. Saravi, a young scientist in Iran, had been scheduled to travel to Boston, where he was awarded a fellowship at Harvard to study cardiovascular medicine, according to Thomas Michel, the professor who was to supervise his research. Then the visas for Mr. Saravi and his wife were suspended, Professor Michel said.

“This outstanding young scientist has enormous potential to make contributions that will improve our understanding of heart disease, and he has already been thoroughly vetted,” Professor Michel wrote to The New York Times. “This country and this city have a long history of providing research training to the best young scientists in the world, many of whom have stayed in the U.S.A. and made tremendous contributions in biomedicine and other disciplines.”

A Doctor Waits For the Plane Carrying His Wife, A Syrian Refugee, to Land 

At JFK, the Times reports, International Refugee Assistance Project supervising attorney Mark Doss asked a border agent who to call.

“Call Mr. Trump,” the agent replied.

According to flight trackers, Salem’s wife’s plane is currently halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, and running about 25 minutes ahead of schedule. What will happen to her once the flight lands at Dulles is anyone’s guess. A number listed for Dulles media relations rang through to a broken voicemail.

Salem is now racing against the clock to save her from being turned away, but he’s having trouble finding a way to get her representation.

“I spoke to lawyers but in the airport they don’t allow any lawyers,” he said.

On the lighter side of things:

FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States (The Onion)

Multiple intelligence agencies confirmed that the militant Islamist organization and its numerous affiliates intend to carry out a massive, coordinated plan to stand aside and watch America’s increasingly rapid decline, with terrorist operatives across the globe reportedly mobilizing to take it easy, relax, and savor the spectacle as it unfolds.

How Does Trump’s Immigration Freeze Square With His Business Interests?

He has significant commercial interests in Turkey and Azerbaijan, is developing properties in Indonesia and Dubai, and has formed companies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. His daughter Ivanka said in 2015 that the company was looking at “multiple opportunities in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia — the four areas where we are seeing the most interest.”

Terry McAuliffe Statement at Dulles Airport (YouTube)

Discriminatory tactics breed hatred… This is not the nation that we know, this is not the nation that we love.