| Week #10: January 22, 2017 |
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This Week's Observation: This week’s list includes two articles, one by McClatchy and one by the NYT, with breaking news on Russian interference in our election, including possible Trump team complicity. Both articles are shocking and disturbing, yet garnered little attention. It’s as if the American people are losing faith and trust in our institutions, and giving up that there will be accountability and consequences.
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| 1. |
The Sunday Times reported that Trump's first meeting, as president, will be with Putin. Read More About This |
| 2. |
In interviews with the Times of London and Germany's Bild, Trump referred to NATO as "obsolete." Read More About This |
| 3. |
Next day, the front page of Le Monde showed Trump standing with his back turned, and a title, "Trump Contre L'Europe" (translates, Trump Against Europe). Read More About This |
| 4. |
The Trump transition team is considering a plan to evict the press corpsfrom the White House. Trump later clarified, saying he won't evict all press, but he will pick who is allowed to come. Read More About This |
| 5. | Trump's war of words with Rep. Lewis continued for four days. |
| 6. |
Trump canceled his plan to visit Museum of African American History on MLK Day. Spicer said Monday, Trump never planned to be in DC, after Conway said the prior Friday, Trump was going. Read More About This |
| 7. |
A dossier provided to US Intelligence alleges that Trump agreed to sideline the issue of Russian intervention in Ukraine after Russia promised to feed the emails it stole from prominent Democrats' inboxes to WikiLeaks. Read More About This |
| 8. |
Trump ally Rep. Rokita is considering legislation that would allow Trump to fire federal employees for no cause. Read More About This |
| 9. |
Trump publicly traded barbs with outgoing CIA Director John Brennan. Brennan said Trump,"does not yet" fully appreciate what embracing Russia might mean, and called Trump's response, "repugnant." Read More About This |
| 10. |
After saying that the American people don't care about his tax returns at his press conference, an ABC poll found 74% of Americans want Trump to release his returns. Read More About This |
| 11. |
In a 2014 interview, Trump identified Russia as the US's "biggest problem" and greatest geopolitical foe. Read More About This |
| 12. |
On Sunday talk shows, Preibus and Rep. Chaffetz warned and attackedthe director of the Office of Governmental Ethics, who has publicly challenged Trump's conflicts of interests. Read More About This |
| 13. |
In a speech, Putin defended Trump, and said the Obama administration was trying to undermine Trump's legitimacy. Read More About This |
| 14. |
Trump's cabinet level appointees are the least diverse in decades: 18 of 23 are white men, and none are Latino. Trump defended this, saying his cabinet has the highest IQ of any cabinet ever. Read More About This |
| 15. |
Michael Flynn's son tweeted an article from a Kremlin-funded websitewhich said Flynn should take control of the 16 US Intelligence agencies. Read More About This |
| 16. |
A disturbing WAPO article detailed Trump's isolation at Trump Tower, including his leaving the building only once over several days, and interacting with very few people. Read More About This |
| 17. |
NBC and WSJ reported that jobs at GM and Bayer, which Trump took credit for, were in the works for years; and that corporate leaders are crediting him to avoid his Twitter wrath. Read More About This; Click here, also |
| 18. |
In Greenwich, CT, a Republican official grabbed a woman by her genitals, bragging "I love this new world, I no longer have to be politically correct." He was caught on tape, and later arrested. Read More About This |
| 19. |
Trump was sued for defamation by one of the woman who accused him of unwanted sexual advances. Attorney Gloria Alfred said she will subpoena unseen "The Apprentice" footage. Read More About This |
| 20. |
SOS nominee Tillerson's disclosure says he intends to stay away from State decisions benefiting Exxon for only one year. Read More About This |
| 21. |
Media was banned from Trump's DC hotel in the days leading up to his inauguration. Trump did, however, stop by his DC hotel, and Spicer told the press, "I encourage you to go there, if you haven't been." Trump still benefits financially from the hotel. Read More About This |
| 22. |
Passwords used by Rudy Giuliani, Trump's incoming cybersecurity advisor, and 13 other Trump team staff, were leaked in a mass hack. Read More About This |
| 23. |
A CBS News poll found Trump's favorably had fallen to 32%. Similarly, a Fox News poll had him at 37% favorability. Trump is the first incoming president to have a net-negative approval rating. Read More About This; Click here, also |
| 24. |
Trump bragged about "displaying our military," including possible military parades in major US cities. Read More About This |
| 25. |
Trump also had tried to include tank and missile launchers in his inaugural parade. Read More About This |
| 26. |
McClatchy reported that the FBI and 5 other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been investigating how money may have covertly moved from Kremlin to help Trump win. Read More About This |
| 27. |
Nearly 70 members of Congress and Secretary of State Kerry boycotted Trump's Inauguration. Read More About This |
| 28. |
Rep. Cummings who did attend, explained, "members of Congress have a lot of information that the public does not have," and eventually the American people would understand the boycotts. Read More About This |
| 29. |
As Trump takes office, he has the fewest cabinet members approved of any modern day president. Trump has nominated only 28 of 690 Senate-confirmable jobs in the Executive Branch. Read More About This |
| 30. |
The day before his inauguration, Trump asked 50 Obama administration officials to stay on in their roles. Read More About This |
| 31. |
As Trump takes office, the State Department says they have not been instructed on whether to attend upcoming peace talks. Read More About This |
| 32. |
The Trump team tried an additional form of suppressing the media, serving CNN with a retraction request, which the network is forced to responds to, for a routine story. Read More About This |
| 33. |
In a parting interview, VP Biden told Vanity Fair, he is worried Trump might destroy Western civilization. Read More About This |
| 34. |
The NYT reported law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining communications and financial transactions between Russian officials and Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Roger Stone. Read More About This |
| 35. |
Despite his efforts to promote ticket sales through a heavily advertised online video, Trump Inauguration and events were poorly attended, and no well known celebrities agreed to perform. Read More About This |
| 36. |
The Guardian's Editorial Board described Trump's Inaugural speech as, "bitter, blowhard and banal," and said, in contrast to FDR's speech of overcome fear, Trump "told the world to be very afraid." Read More About This |
| 37. |
The streets along with Inaugural parade had thin crowds, and the entire stands were empty (see video below). Read More About This |
| 38. |
Trump team banned the Department of Interior from Twitter, after the department retweeted photos of small crowds on Inauguration Day. A National Park Spokesperson apologized. Read More About This |
| 39. |
Within hours of Trump being sworn in, all mention of climate change, civil rights and LGBT were removed from the White House webpage. Read More About This |
| 40. |
Upon taking office, Trump was likely already in violation of the federal lease with his Trump hotel DC property. Read More About This |
| 41. |
An estimated 2.5 million Americans marched in the Women March, ten times more than showed for Trump inauguration. AP reported that 500,000 marched in DC alone, doubling the expected attendance. Read More About This |
Replicated from: https://medium.com/@Amy_Siskind/week-10-experts-in-authoritarianism-advise-to-keep-a-list-of-things-subtly-changing-around-you-so-7b0dc11fa8c
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