Malala speaks up:

Malala Yousafzai’s statement on President Trump’s latest executive order on refugees:

“I am heartbroken that today President Trump is closing the door on children, mothers and fathers fleeing violence and war. I am heartbroken that America is turning its back on a proud history of welcoming refugees and immigrants — the people who helped build your country, ready to work hard in exchange for a fair chance at a new life.

I am heartbroken that Syrian refugee children, who have suffered through six years of war by no fault of their own, are singled-out for discrimination.

I am heartbroken for girls like my friend Zaynab, who fled wars in three countries — Somalia, Yemen and Egypt

Trump says his Nazi-style ban on refugees is working “nicely.” His stupidity is exceeded only by his callous indifference to the miseries of anyone who isn’t Donald Trump.

The fallout from President Trump’s temporary ban on refugees to the U.S. struck with full force Saturday, blocking some travelers from boarding their planes overseas, compelling others to turn around upon arrival in the U.S., and prompting customs agents at New York’s JFK Airport to detain at least a dozen people, including a former Iraqi translator for the U.S. military in Baghdad.

The growing chaos also sparked legal challenges, airport protests, condemnations from politicians and denunciations from advocacy groups.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Saturday tweeted an offer of support to those

https://youtu.be/-SAdmW3-unM… Read the rest

The Times reports on the horrors Trump has unleashed.

President Trump’s executive order on immigration quickly reverberated through the United States and across the globe on Saturday, slamming the border shut for an Iranian scientist headed to a lab in Boston, an Iraqi who had worked as an interpreter for the United States Army, and a Syrian refugee family headed to a new life in Ohio, among countless others.

Around the nation, security officers at major international gateways had new rules to follow. Humanitarian organizations scrambled to cancel long-planned programs, delivering the bad news to families who were about to travel. Refugees who were airborne on flights when the order was signed were detained at airports.

Reports rapidly surfaced

The fascists at work:

Vice President Pence and Defense Secretary James Mattis stood directly behind their boss Friday, one man on each side, as President Trump announced an order that will ban half the world’s Shiite Muslims from entering the country for months.

“I’m establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States,” Trump said from his podium at the Pentagon. “We don’t want ’em here.”

Malevolent imbecile. Immigrants are already vetted. Nobody’s flinging the doors open to Islamist terrorists.

Pence nodded along to the words. It was just over a year earlier when he had called Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States “offensive and unconstitutional.” That was before

Jon Finer in Foreign Policy on how Trump is already disabling the State Department.

It’s no surprise that political appointees are asked to leave, he says.

But what is happening these days at the State Department — where a slew of senior career diplomats and management professionals have been given the non-choice between resigning effective Friday and being summarily relieved of their duties and where several others have retired voluntarily — is different and could be damaging. These are not, for the most part, people who have any role in implementing signature Obama administration policies on which the new team has signaled a different direction, like the Iran nuclear deal, fighting climate change, addressing women’s issues globally, or managing

Funny thing: Trump’s hot new immigration ban is illegal. It’s kind of odd that no one managed to tell him that before he announced it.

The Times explains how it’s against the law:

President Trump signed an executive order on Friday that purports to bar for at least 90 days almost all permanent immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, including Syria and Iraq, and asserts the power to extend the ban indefinitely.

But the order is illegal. More than 50 years ago, Congress outlawed such discrimination against immigrants based on national origin.

That decision came after a long and shameful history in this country of barring immigrants based on where they came from. Starting in the late 19th century, laws

Trump’s way of observing Holocaust Remembrance Day:

President Trump on Friday closed the nation’s borders to refugees from around the world, ordering that families fleeing the slaughter in Syria be indefinitely blocked from entering the United States, and temporarily suspending immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries.

In an executive order that he said was part of an extreme vetting plan to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists,” Mr. Trump also established a religious test for refugees from Muslim nations: He ordered that Christians and others from minority religions be granted priority over Muslims.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day. Nice timing.

The executive order suspends the entry of refugees into the United States for 120 days and directs officials to determine additional

No.

… Read the rest

Yesterday Trump outdid himself. First he put his name to a bombastic but empty statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day that made no mention of Jews or Roma or leftists or lesbians and gays or disabled people – and then later in the day he slammed the door on refugees.

President Trump on Friday closed the nation’s borders to refugees from around the world, ordering that families fleeing the slaughter in Syria be indefinitely blocked from entering the United States, and temporarily suspending immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries.

Also yesterday, a new Twitter account appeared: St Louis Manifest. The St Louis was a ship – this ship:

On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis

Chris Cillizza at the Post wonders how long it will take for Trump to lose it over all these leaks that show what a chaotic childish fool he is.

I’ve never seen so much leaking so quickly — and with such disdain for the president — as I have in the first six days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Two recent examples:

1. This from the New York Times today on Trump’s impulsiveness:

Mr. Trump’s advisers say that his frenzied if admittedly impulsive approach appeals to voters because it shows that he is a man of action. Those complaining about his fixation with fictional voter fraud or crowd counts at his inauguration, in their view, are simply seeking ways to undercut

It’s taken me all day to catch up with the story about Trump going whining to the Park Service demanding new photos that showed 10 billion people on the Mall for his inauguration.

On the morning after Donald Trump’s inauguration, acting National Park Service director Michael T. Reynolds received an extraordinary summons: The new president wanted to talk to him.

In a Saturday phone call, Trump personally ordered Reynolds to produce additional photographs of the previous day’s crowds on the Mall, according to three individuals who have knowledge of the conversation. The president believed that the photos might prove that the media had lied in reporting that attendance had been no better than average.

Trump also expressed anger over a

Trump says more bad shit.

President Donald Trump said in a new interview Friday that persecuted Christians will be given priority over other refugees seeking to enter the United States, saying they have been “horribly treated.”

Speaking with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump said that it had been “impossible, or at least very tough” for Syrian Christians to enter the United States.

“If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair — everybody was persecuted, in all fairness — but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought  it was very, very unfair. So

The theocrats marching to demand a restoration of forced pregnancy got a boost from the Trumpists today.

Abortion opponents gathered on Friday in Washington for their annual march, which has taken place every year since 1974 to protest the Supreme Court’s 44-year-old Roe v. Wade decision from 1973.

■ Vice President Mike Pence, the highest-ranking official to ever speak in person at the march, told the crowd that “life is winning.”

■ Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, also addressed the crowd.

■ The march drew thousands of activists.

They want to make sure women go back to being victims of their own bodies.

In previous years, no president or vice president has ever addressed the march in person. This

The Trump-May meeting from the BBC’s point of view.

Prime Minister Theresa May is holding talks at the White House with US President Donald Trump.

They posed for photographs in front of a bust of Sir Winston Churchill – which Mr Trump pointed to, saying it was “a great honour” to have it back.

The new president had the bust restored to the Oval Office after it was removed by former president Barack Obama.

Mrs May smiled and told him: “Thank you, we were very pleased that you accepted it back.”

Sigh. A Fox News talking point. That whole fraudulent fuss about Churchill’s bust was a racist dogwhistle back in the early days of Obama’s tenure. Oh oh oh, … Read the rest

The White House has put out a statement in the name of Trump that’s titled On International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror.

Yet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest.‎ As we remember those who died, we are deeply grateful to those who risked their lives to save the innocent.

In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never

More on the silencing of the EPA:

The Trump administration is examining the website of the Environmental Protection Agency to determine which information will remain, underscoring concerns that climate change and other scientific data might be removed.

EPA employees have also been instructed not to release press releases, publish blog posts or post anything on social media. It’s part of a crackdown by the new administration that seems to be especially felt at the EPA and the Interior Department, leaving some employees “terrified.”

EPA spokesperson Doug Erickson said the objective of the website review is to have an agency page that reflects the new administration’s policies.

But the science is what it is, regardless of policies.

Asked if climate

Obviously I can’t vouch for this, because it’s anonymous, so keep that in mind – but for what it’s worth, this is being passed around on Facebook:

From an EPA staffer:
“So I work at the EPA and yeah it’s as bad as you are hearing:
The entire agency is under lockdown, the website, facebook, twitter, you name it is static and can’t be updated. All reports, findings, permits and studies are frozen and not to be released. No presentations or meetings with outside groups are to be scheduled.
Any Press contacting us are to be directed to the Press Office which is also silenced and will give no response.
All grants and contracts are frozen from the