| Week #15: February 26, 2017 |
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This week had two themes: The first was Trump's lack of empathy -- the cruelty and heartlessness towards Americans not white, straight, Christian and male. Trump and his regime continued to target the defenseless, including transgender individuals, Native Americans and people of color. The second theme was Russia: ties between the Trump regime and Russia are continuing to pour out -- meanwhile, the regime is actively seeking to suppress information.
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| 1. |
Despite Trump saying he would not enter any new overseas deals once he took office, Donald Jr. and Eric announced the opening of a Trump-branded golf course in Dubai. US taxpayers continue to pay the cost for the security detail that covers Trump's sons on such trips. Read More About This |
| 2. |
At Trump's campaign rally in Florida, he referenced a Swedish terrorist attack that never happened as a rationale for his anti-immigrant policies. Read More About This |
| 3. |
When questioned about his source, Trump tweeted he learned about the Sweden attack that never happened by watching Fox News. Read More About This |
| 4. |
DHS' Kelly ordered the creation of a new office in ICE named VOICE (Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement), and ordered all resources set aside to advocate for "illegal aliens" moved over to VOICE. Read More About This |
| 5. |
The NYT reported on a back-channel plan, originally handed in a seal envelope by Cohen to Flynn, for a Ukraine and Russia 'peace plan' (with new leadership in Ukraine), in exchange for US lifting sanctions. Other Ukraine connections mentioned Artemenko, Manafort and Sater. Read More About This |
| 6. |
The Ukraine lawmaker, Artemenko, who allegedly worked with two Trump associates on the back-channel plan, faces a treason inquiry. Read More About This |
| 7. |
TPM reported on the significance of Sater's involvement, and his ties to Russia and Trump, dating back to the Trump SOHO Hotel. Read More About This |
| 8. |
Daily News reported that as Trump's Muslim Ban faced court challenges in NY after the rollout, Stephen Miller called the Brooklyn US Attorney at home and told him how to defend it. Read More About This |
| 9. |
WSJ reported that the Trump regime is using unrealistically rosy growth forecasts to hide that his plan would lead to a soaring deficit. Read More About This |
| 10. |
WSJ also reported that the Trump regime is considering changing the way the US trade deficit is calculated -- again to hide reality. Read More About This |
| 11. |
NYT reported on struggles within the WSJ between journalists and owner Murdoch over the direction of the paper, and coverage of Trump. Read More About This |
| 12. |
The Kremlin is preparing a psychological dossier on Trump for Putin. Preliminary findings are that Trump is "risk taker" who can be "naive." Read More About This |
| 13. |
The Senate Intelligence Committee is looking at possible collusion between Russia and Trump staff, including Manafort, Trump's former campaign chair. Read More About This |
| 14. |
The Senate Intelligence Committee sent letters to a dozen intelligence agencies, organizations and individuals demanding they preserve communications related to Trump's possible ties to Russia. Read More About This |
| 15. |
In the past two months, there have been 69 threats at 54 JCC's in 27 states. Also, this week 170 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in Missouri were vandalized. Read More About This; Click here, also |
| 16. |
Bowing to pressure, and perhaps a tweet by Hillary, Trump finally blandly responded to the alarming rise of anti-Semitism, calling it "horrible," but offering no actions or solutions. Read More About This |
| 17. |
The Ann Frank Center issued a harsh statement, including, "The President's sudden acknowledgment is a Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own administration." Spicer scolded the Ann Frank Center for their statement. Read More About This |
| 18. |
The NSC spokesperson resigned over Trump's disturbing and repeated attempts to undermine US intelligence. Read More About This |
| 19. |
Republicans home for break and attending town halls all over the country were greeted by overflowing rooms of angry constituents, questioning them on repealing ACA and holding Trump accountable. Chants of "do your job!" were heard at many meetings. Read More About This |
| 20. |
By the end of the week, numerous elected Republicans disappeared or refused to meet with constituents. Rep. Gohmert blamed his refusal on the Gabby Giffords shooting, to which she replied, "Have some courage. Face your constituents." Read More About This; Click here, also |
| 21. |
After Trump's announced Muslim Ban, interest in trips to the US has declined, likely to cost jobs in the tourism sector. Read More About This |
| 22. |
A NBC News/Survey Monkey poll found that 2/3 of Americans fear the US will become involved in another war. Read More About This |
| 23. |
The Trump regime issued new immigrations enforcement policies, which included, among other things, hiring 10,000 additional ICE officers, and expanding the definition of crimes to include charged but not convicted. Read More About This |
| 24. |
NYT Editorial Board called Trump's 'deportation force' an assault on American values. Read More About This |
| 25. |
Horrific and heartless stories of deportations continued, including a 26 year-old woman with a brain tumor who was taken from a hospital. Read More About This |
| 26. |
WAPO reported Deputy NSA K.T. McFarland was once accused of violating voter registration laws by being registered to vote at two different addresses. In NY, this is a felony offense. Read More About This |
| 27. |
More than one million people signed a White House petition -- a White House petition record -- requesting that Trump release his tax returns. Read More About This |
| 28. |
PM Trudeau said Canada will continue to accept asylum seekers from the US. Read More About This |
| 29. |
The Air Force said it cannot account for the $1 billion in savings alleged by Trump on two new Boeing airplanes. Read More About This |
| 30. |
Mexico rejected Trump's immigration plan to deport migrants illegally crossing the US border, including non-Mexicans, to Mexico Read More About This |
| 31. |
Trump touted his immigration raids, referring to them as a 'military operation.' While visiting Mexico to assure our seemingly former ally, Kelly attempted to clarify that it wasn't really a military operation. Read More About This; Click here, also |
| 32. |
As Kelly and Tillerson visited Mexico, relations between the US and Mexico are now at their lowest point in decades. Of note, Kelly and Tillerson's message differs from Trump's stance. Read More About This; Click here, also |
| 33. |
WAPO reported that Tillerson has largely been offstage, and not given power, decision-making or been included in meetings by Trump. Read More About This |
| 34. |
The State Department continues to be dysfunctional, including no daily briefings. Read More About This |
| 35. |
The State Department issues a warning to its employees on leaking -- which was promptly leaked. Read More About This |
| 36. |
Trump rescinded rules that had provided protection for transgender individuals to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity. Read More About This |
| 37. |
The US Interagency Council on Homelessness's page on LGBT youth homelessness was taken down. Read More About This |
| 38. |
HuffPost reported additional detail on Trump's activities during the failed Yemen raid. As the raid went awry, putting Navy SEALS and civilians at risk, Trump was at dinner with Bannon and Kushner, and later tweeting and deleting and tweeting about an upcoming show on CBN. Read More About This |
| 39. |
In another case of nepotism, Eric Trump's brother-in-law has been appointed to a key position at the Department of Energy. Read More About This |
| 40. |
POLITICO reported that while serving as Trump's campaign manager, Manafort faced a blackmail attempt by a Ukrainian parliamentarian to expose him and the Trump as Russian-friendly . Read More About This |
| 41. | NYT reported McMaster may reorganize the NSC, and that Trump didn't understand the significance of the EO which elevated Bannon, and took the intelligence director and Joints Chief chairman off the council. |
| 42. |
At CPAC, Bannon was openly hostile to the media whom he referred to as "corporatist, globalist media," and "the opposition party." Read More About This |
| 43. |
Bannon also vowed a daily fight for "deconstruction of the administrative state." This comes as only 34 out of 700 open positions in the executive branch which require Senate confirmation have nominees. Read More About This |
| 44. |
The White House assigned DHS to work with intelligence to write a report to back his Muslim Ban, and the danger caused by the 7 countries. Sources said intelligence is concerned, including about the veracity of the claim. Read More About This |
| 45. |
The DHS report was later leaked out -- it found there is not a threat from the 7 countries targeted by Trump's Muslim Ban. Read More About This |
| 46. |
WAPO's The Fix calculated that Trump has lied an average of 4 times per day since taking office. He has not yet had a day in office without a lie. Read More About This |
| 47. |
A shocking op-ed, "I Was a Muslim in the Trump White House," described a woman working for the NSC who lasted for 8 days under Trump -- and described how diversity was viewed as a weakness. Read More About This |
| 48. | The remnants of a Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Camp was set ablaze by opponents, as the government deadline came for getting off the land. |
| 49. |
CNN reported that Priebus tried to get the FBI publicly refute recent reporting on Trump's ties to Russia. The FBI refused. Such communication is problematic because of decade-old restrictions. Read More About This |
| 50. |
The White House confirmed conversations between Priebus and the director and deputy director of the FBI, but denied there was anything wrong with these conversations occurring. Read More About This |
| 51. |
Trump continued his gaslighting strategy of deflecting to the leaks, while not acknowledging the growing evidence of his ties to Russia. Read More About This |
| 52. |
The Russian ambassador to the UN died suddenly in NYC. Churkin was the fifth Russian ambassador to die in the past three months. Read More About This; Click here, also |
| 53. |
A group of law professors filed a misconduct complaint against Conway. The letter said Conway should be "sanctioned for violating government ethics rules" and "conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation." Read More About This |
| 54. |
Border patrol agents stopped travelers on a domestic flight from San Francisco to New York, and asked passengers deporting the plane to show identification. Read More About This |
| 55. |
Reporters from the NYT, BuzzFeed News, CNN, LA Times and Politico were excluded by Spicer from a closed door White House briefing on Friday. BBC, theGuardian and the Daily Mail were also excluded. Read More About This; Click here, also |
| 56. |
In protest, ABC and TIME chose not to attend the briefing, and the WSJissued a statement objecting and saying they will not participate in closed briefings in the future. Read More About This |
| 57. |
At CPAC, a section of the audience waved Russian flags until staff came and took the flags away. Read More About This |
| 58. | At CPAC, Trump delivered yet another dystopian speech, but failed to acknowledge actual hate crime happening in our country, including a Kansas bar shooting, where a white man yelled "get out of my country," at two Indian American men, before shooting into a crowd and killing one. |
| 59. |
The father of the slain man appealed to parents in India not to send their children to the US, saying, "There is a kind of hysteria spreading that is not good because so many of our beloved children live there." Read More About This |
| 60. |
WAPO reported that in addition to the Trump regime's efforts with the FBI to discredit news on their ties to Russia, they also sought the help of senior intel officials, and GOP leaders Sen. Burr and Rep. Nunes, who head the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Read More About This |
| 61. |
A NBC/WSJ poll found that 53% of Americans want Congress to look into Trump's ties to Russia, only 25% do not. Read More About This |
| 62. |
Breaking with Trump, McMaster advised his staff that use of the label "radical Islamic terrorism" is not helpful. Nonetheless, Trump continued to use the term in his CPAC speech. Read More About This |
| • | Our economy and economic policy is being run predominantly by former employees of Goldman Sachs. |
| • | US taxpayers are footing the bill for 3 Trump residences: the WH, NYC and Mar-A-Lago. |
| • | Meanwhile, Melania does not appear to be conducting much if any of the typical FLOTUS duties. |
Replicated from: https://medium.com/@Amy_Siskind/week-15-experts-in-authoritarianism-advise-to-keep-a-list-of-things-subtly-changing-around-you-so-d6adf0feade
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