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Trump’s First Two Days of February
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Updated: 2 February 2017, 9:09 PM EST
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This is a collection of stories from just the past 48 hours or so that I’ve found to be alarming and/or outrageous. This is not about stuff I simply disagree with politically, and so, for example, there’s nothing here about the nomination of Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
I found a few of these stories hard to categorize. For example, should the stories about Trump’s belligerent phone call with Australia’s prime minister be filed under “National Security” or “Incompetence”?
It seems to me this pace of alarming news is unsustainable.
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Me: John Gruber, http://twitter.com/gruber
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National Security
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Reuters and The New York Times have US military sources who told them the botched Navy Seal team raid in Yemen was approved by Trump without sufficient intelligence, ground support, and backup
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Reuters: "U.S. military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.
“As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al Qaeda base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists.”
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NYT: “Mr. Trump’s new national security team, led by Mr. Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a retired general with experience in counterterrorism raids, has said that it wants to speed the decision-making when it comes to such strikes, delegating more power to lower-level officials so that the military may respond more quickly. Indeed, the Pentagon is drafting such plans to accelerate activities against the Qaeda branch in Yemen.
“But doing that also raises the possibility of error. ‘You can mitigate risk in missions like this, but you can’t mitigate risk down to zero,’ said William Wechsler, a former top counterterrorism official at the Pentagon.
“In this case, the assault force of several dozen commandos, which also included elite soldiers from the United Arab Emirates, was jinxed from the start. Qaeda fighters were somehow tipped off to the stealthy advance toward the village — perhaps by the whine of American drones that local tribal leaders said were flying lower and louder than usual.”
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Trump didn’t bother to show up in the White House Situation Room during the raid: https://twitter.com/tommyxtopher/status/827218130728534017
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Reuters: “Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam”
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Reuters (emphasis added): “The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.
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.
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National Security Advisor Mike Flynn said the US was “was ‘officially putting Iran on notice’ in reaction to an Iranian missile test and an attack on a Saudi warship by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen but gave no details about how Washington intended to respond.”
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Bipartisan resistance from longtime national security professionals:
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Asked whether federal workers are dissenting in ways that go beyond previous party changes in the White House, Tom Malinow­ski, who was President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said, sarcastically: “Is it unusual? . . . There’s nothing unusual about the entire national security bureaucracy of the United States feeling like their commander in chief is a threat to U.S. national security. That happens all the time. It’s totally usual. Nothing to worry about.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/resistance-from-within-federal-workers-push-back-against-trump/2017/01/31/c65b110e-e7cb-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html
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Trump badgered prime minister of Australia, our closest military ally in the world:
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Washington Post: “It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.
Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.”
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“We have always been at war with Australia.” https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/827042477479698432
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Good thread by Foz Meadows on the implications of this botched call: https://twitter.com/fozmeadows/status/827031408287764480
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House rolls back rule restricting gun sales to severely mentally ill
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Losing His Marbles, Incompetence
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Trump asks “Where’s Rudy?” and looks around the room, when Rudy Giuliani is literally sitting right in front of him, facing Trump.
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You really have to see this video to believe it: https://twitter.com/tommyxtopher/status/826521935987298304
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Trump mocks Arnold Schwarzenegger for low ratings of “The Apprentice” at National Prayer Meeting
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CNN reported that the White House explanation for Trump’s bizarrely confrontational phone call with Australian PM was that “It was at the end of a long day, he was tired and fatigue was setting in.” The phone call was at 5:00p ET.
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The AP reports that on phone call with Mexican president, Trump threatened to send US armed forces into Mexico to take care of “a lot of bad hombres down there”.
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Spokesman for Mexican president denies Trump said that, but note that the AP does not retract that the above came from the White House’s transcript of the call: “A person with access to the official transcript of the phone call provided only that portion of the conversation to The Associated Press. The person gave it on condition of anonymity because the administration did not make the details of the call public.”
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Second source: "The Mexican website Aristegui Noticias on Tuesday published a similar account of the phone call, based on the reporting of journalist Dolia Estevez. The report described Trump as humiliating Pena Nieto in a confrontational conversation.”
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Later, the AP tweeted: “BREAKING: US official: Trump remark about having military deal with ‘hombres’ in Mexico was ‘lighthearted,’ part of security talks.” https://twitter.com/AP/status/827150802766675968 That’s a great joke to make, very funny.
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Trump gave a speech on Black History Month, in which it seemed clear he didn’t know who Frederick Douglass was, speaking of him in the present tense: "an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.”
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Full transcript of his borderline incoherent and mostly self-serving speech: http://twitter.com/ddale8/status/826822342961745922
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CNN reporter Jim Acosta: “Source familiar with Trump foreign leader calls says the POTUS convos are turning faces "white" inside the WH.”
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NYT columnist Charles M. Blow speculates that Trump isn’t acting like he plans to be president for long
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Blow: “Furthermore, and this is just a wild theory of mine, it is not clear to me that Trump will hang around for a full term, not so much because he might do something to spark an impeachment proceeding, but because it’s not clear to me that he wants to serve out the term.
Trump is simply not behaving like a president with an eye trained on longevity. He is a singularly unpopular new president who is doing absolutely nothing to increase his popularity and everything to constrict it.
His furious, prodigious pace of edicts also bespeaks a man who feels like he’s on a clock and his time is running out. He seems like a man about to burn out or be kicked out — but of course that could just be my wishful thinking.”
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Unprecedented amount of leaking to the press from the White House, much of it highly unflattering to Trump
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TPM: “I can’t recall having seen a situation where there appears to be so much leaking of such an intimate nature in such a short period of time,” Russell Riley, expert on presidential history at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, told TPM.
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White House staffers leak to Politico to express surprise over the number of leaks from the White House: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-aides-distrust-confusion-leaks-234550
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Trump’s personal doctor told The New York Times that Trump takes Propecia, a prescription drug for hair loss, with side effects that might include insomnia, ‘brain fog’, and suicidal thoughts.
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(OK, this one is only slightly alarming, and included mostly because it’s amusing.)
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Rule of Law
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GOP approved two cabinet nominees with no Democrats present.
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Trump vows to ‘totally destroy’ the Johnson Amendment, law prohibiting churches from engaging in political activity at the risk of losing tax-exempt status.
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Steve Waldman: "This change would be horrible for politics — and even worse for religion.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/opinion/how-trump-would-corrupt-the-pulpit.html?ref=opinion
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Trump threatens to pull federal funding from UC Berkeley over protests:
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Tweet: “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?”
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White Nationalism, Bigotry, Racism
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House minority leader Nancy Pelosi describes Steve Bannon as a “white supremacist” and no one bats an eye.
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White House statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day specifically and purposefully avoided any mention of Jews, exactly the same stance antisemitic groups have long taken:
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The State Dept. drafted its own statement, which did specifically mention Jews, but the White House nixed it: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/white-house-holocaust-jews-234572
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David Duke’s take on the Trump administration: “It appears Dave, that everything I've been talking about for decades is coming true and the ideas I've fought for have won.”
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Trump conflates “refugees” with “illegal immigrants”:
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70 high school students in Texas give Nazi salute in group photo, chanting “Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!”
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Kellyanne Conway tells Chris Matthews most Americans aren’t aware that two Iraqi refugees “were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green Massacre” because the media didn’t cover it. Truth: the media didn’t cover it because it didn’t happen. No such event took place.
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Environment/Climate
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Congress repeals rule restricting coal companies from dumping waste in streams:
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Corruption
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House approves resolution killing SEC requirement for oil, gas, mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments — on the same day Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson was confirmed as Secretary of State: