ALL RIGHT
https://twitter.com/NatashaFatah/status/1083787531378978817… Read the rest
ALL RIGHT
https://twitter.com/NatashaFatah/status/1083787531378978817… Read the rest
The BBC on Rahaf al-Qunun’s escape to Canada:
The UN’s refugee agency has said it considers her to be a legitimate refugee.
Refugee status is normally granted by governments, but the UNHCR can grant it where states are “unable or unwilling to do so”, according to its website.
Thai immigration officials told Reuters that Canada had “granted her asylum”, however Canadian officials told the BBC they currently have “nothing to confirm” on the issue.
I didn’t know the UNHCR can grant refugee status on its own; that’s useful.
The BBC talked to another Saudi woman.
… Read the restRahaf is an inspiration. But she’s not the first one who did this and definitely not the last one.
What we are going
A court in Myanmar has rejected an appeal by two Reuters reporters jailed for breaking a state secrets act.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced to seven years in September in a case condemned around the world.
They exposed the summary execution of 10 Muslim Rohingyas by the security forces during the military’s anti-Rohingya operation in 2017.
State murder shouldn’t be protected by state secrets acts.
… Read the restWhen arrested the two were investigating a mass execution of Rohingyas, hundreds of thousands of whom have been forced to flee destruction and persecution in the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar (also called Burma).
UN investigators have called for top Myanmar generals to be investigated for genocide, and
White nationalists marching in Princeton:
A white supremacist group — the New Jersey European Heritage Association — plans to host a march in Princeton Saturday, a move that local officials say they don’t condone, but can’t stop.
Now look here – that’s my hometown, and that’s no good. (It’s also quite surprising, because Princeton is frankly very up itself…but then come to think of it that’s probably why they chose it. “Take that, you exurban preppy elleetist snobs.”)
… Read the restThe Princeton Police Department was notified that flyers were posted around town advertising the march, which is happening in Palmer Square. The department will have a strong presence in the area Saturday, Chief Nick Sutter said.
“We want everybody to be
Good news:
https://twitter.com/NatashaFatah/status/1083747366568583168
Thailand’s immigration police chief says a Saudi woman who fled alleged abuse by her family will leave Bangkok for Canada.
Police Chief Surachate Hakparn says the 18-year-old woman, Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, is leaving on a flight late Friday evening. He gave no other details.
He earlier said that several countries including Canada and Australia were in talks with the U.N. refugee agency on accepting Alqunun.
Well done Canada.
This doesn’t mean she has refugee status now, but it’s a step in a good direction.… Read the rest
Now here’s an excellent plan.
President Donald Trump has been briefed on a plan that would use the Army Corps of Engineers and a portion of $13.9 billion of Army Corps funding to build 315 miles of barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the briefing.
The money was set aside to fund projects all over the country including storm-damaged areas of Puerto Rico through fiscal year 2020, but the checks have not been written yet and, under an emergency declaration, the president could take the money from these civil works projects and use it to build the border wall, said officials familiar with the briefing and two congressional sources.
And that plan … Read the rest
Hmmmm.
AP FACT CHECK: Democrats put the blame for the shutdown on Trump. But it takes two to tango. Trump's demand for $5.7 billion for his border wall is one reason for the budget impasse. The Democrats refusal to approve the money is another. https://t.co/9IWnqUgl2d
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) January 9, 2019
The rapist’s demand for the woman to spread her legs is one reason for the rape. The woman’s refusal to comply is another.… Read the rest
Oh god oh god oh god he did say it
"They say a wall is medieval—well, so is a wheel," Pres. Trump says at meeting near southern border. "A wheel is older than a wall."
"There are some things that work, you know what? A wheel works, and a wall works." https://t.co/1QHVGTRFOZ pic.twitter.com/Vgs87esAmz
— ABC News (@ABC) January 10, 2019
Gail Collins addresses something I wondered about after watching a fragment of Trump’s attempted speech the other night:
… Read the restMaybe all this wall obsessing makes Trump tired. He certainly seemed low-energy during his Oval Office address. “He makes Jeb Bush look like a combination of Mighty Mouse and Bruce Springsteen,” a friend of mine said after the president finished his nine-minute speech to the American people.
For every viewer whose response to the talk was “Wow, we should do something about immigration!” there must have been a hundred whose first reaction was “Why does this man keep sniffing?” Deviated septum? Nasal polyps? Trump’s breathing has actually sounded strange for a long time, but most of us have chosen to ignore it
Really? REALLY?? REALLY???
Trump: "A wheel is older than a wall. And I looked, and every single car out there, even the really expensive ones that the Secret Service uses, and believe me they are expensive, I said, 'Do they all have wheels?' 'Yes.' 'Oh. I thought it was medieval.'"
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 10, 2019
Trump has gone to Texas, even though he didn’t want to, so that he can…look studly on the border? Or something?
He does look hawt, you gotta admit.
CreditCreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
President Trump arrived in this border town Thursday on a trip that he did not want to take to discuss a crisis that Democrats say does not exist.
He’s helpless. If they tell him to go to this border town in Texas, he has to go.
… Read the restBut as the government shutdown neared the end of its third week, the president left Washington with no additional negotiations scheduled with congressional leaders. In remarks to reporters on Thursday, Mr. Trump left open the possibility of
Justin E. H. Smith on the higher bullshit:
… Read the restDerrida means nothing without his Parisian institutional setting, but once that setting comes into focus, he continues to mean nothing, though now in a different way: he means nothing, individually, because the tricks he was encouraged to perform that so dazzled the crowds at Johns Hopkins and Irvine were taught to many others just like him, who would all of course insist on their own uniqueness, would claim they were always outsiders to the true French intellectual elite, but only because you cannot enter the tightest nucleus of this elite if you do not claim to be an outsider to it, all the while, all of them, yielding up only minor
Victims of forced marriages overseas will no longer have to take out loans to pay for their return to the UK.
It emerged last week in an investigation by The Times that those unable to cover flights, food and shelter were made to take out an emergency loan.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the policy was changing as victims “may have endured particular suffering”.
Existing loans will be written off and the women’s passports returned.
The Foreign Office is going to try to get the money back from the people who arranged the forced marriage, which seems only fair.… Read the rest
This one will lose him some MAGA fans, because he’s playing them for suckers.
President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that his oft-made 2016 campaign promise that he would build a wall and Mexico would pay for it didn’t mean it would be a direct payment, despite outlining just that scenario during his campaign.
Yeah, they’re not going to like that, because he said it to them and they know that and nobody likes being played for a sucker.
… Read the rest“When during the campaign, I would say ‘Mexico is going to pay for it,’ obviously, I never said this, and I never meant they’re gonna write out a check, I said they’re going to pay for it. They are,” he said
Deutsche Welle reports that the Trump administration has downgraded the diplomatic status of the EU delegation to the US.
The unannounced move by the US State Department, which has not previously been reported, downgraded the EU delegation’s diplomatic status in Washington from member state to international organization.
“We don’t exactly know when they did it, because they conveniently forgot to notify us,” an EU official who is familiar with the matter told DW in an interview.
“I can confirm that this has not been well received in Brussels,” the person said, adding that the issue and an official EU response was still being discussed.
Welllll who needs Europe when we can have Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia? Europe is for … Read the rest
Russell Berman in the Atlantic:
… Read the restEric Young is the president of the union that represents the approximately 30,000 employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons who are working during the government shutdown.
Young’s members, scattered at 122 facilities located in largely rural areas across the country, aren’t being paid and don’t know when their next paycheck will come. Like the leaders of virtually every federal-employee union during the past three weeks, he has condemned the shutdown and its toll on innocent workers as “unconscionable.”
“My personal opinion,” Young told me over the phone from his office in Arkansas, “is that it constitutes involuntary servitude.”
Neither Young nor any of his partners in union leadership, however, will urge their members
Meanwhile this vehicle we’re trapped in is racing toward the cliff.
President Trump slammed his hand on a table and stormed out of a White House meeting with congressional leaders on Wednesday after Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said she would not fund a wall along the southern border, dramatically escalating the confrontation over the government shutdown.
Stunned Democrats emerged from the White House meeting declaring that Mr. Trump had thrown a “temper tantrum.” The president’s allies accused Democrats of refusing to negotiate. Then he tweeted that the meeting was “a total waste of time.”
As opposed to rage-tweeting, and withdrawing emergency aid to victims of wildfires, and watching Fox News for 8 hours a day? Those are valuable … Read the rest
But, in much better news –
Incredible news for Saudi teen @rahaf84427714.
The UN says she should be granted asylum in Australia as a refugee.
This the power of a Twitter campaign and the bravery of one young woman.#SaveRahaf #رهف_محمد_القنون pic.twitter.com/2x06dFYrRe— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) January 9, 2019
https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714/status/1082961242979938304
Kudos to the Government of Australia !!! @Liam_Cochrane @australian @SkyNewsAust @westaustralian @PravitR #RahafMohamed #RahafMohammedalQunun #RahafMohammed #Rahaf #Saudi #SaudiWomen @veen_th @JeromeTaylor @RichardBarrow @leunigcartoons pic.twitter.com/JbisWws7GE
— stephff cartoonist (@stephffart) January 9, 2019
Make America demonic again.
Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg… Read the rest
The Fire fighters’ union responds:
… Read the restAs Californians struggle to recover from a series of devastating wildfires, the president of the United States has launched another impulsive, reckless and uninformed tweet threatening to halt federal funding dedicated to helping fire fighters keep their communities safe.
“This is yet another unimaginable attack on the dedicated professionals who put everything on the line, including their own homes, to protect their neighborhoods,” says Harold Schaitberger, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters. “While our president is tweeting on the sidelines in DC, our fellow Americans 3,000 miles to the west are mourning loved ones, entire communities have been wiped off the map and thousands of people are still trying to