Tag: Trump Administration

5 Reasons It’s So Hard Not To Help Donald Trump

The following article by @LOLGOP was posted on the National Memo website January 30, 2017:

You probably hate using the words “President Trump” as much as I do.

Even if you do not invest the office of the presidency with mystical properties, you still recognize its extraordinary power to do good, or to strand thousands of people who are in the process of becoming permanent residents of the United States in countries and airports around the world.

“I am the President of the United States, clothed with immense power!” Tony Kushner has Abraham Lincoln say in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Continue reading “5 Reasons It’s So Hard Not To Help Donald Trump”

We Conservatives Warned You, Trump Will Not Get Better. Here’s What You Can Do.

The following article by Elliot A. Cohen of the Atlantic was posted on the DefenseOne.com website January 29, 2017:

President Trump, accompanied by Vice President Pence, center, shakes hands with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday at a Republican congressional retreat. (Matt Rourke/AP)

To my friends thinking of serving this administration, either you stand up for your principles and decent behavior, or you go down as a coward or opportunist.

I am not surprised by President Donald Trump’s antics this week. Not by the big splashy pronouncements such as announcing a wall that he would force Mexico to pay for, even as the Mexican foreign minister held talks with American officials in Washington. Not by the quiet, but no less dangerous bureaucratic orders, such as kicking the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of meetings of the Principals’ Committee, the senior foreign-policy decision-making group below the president, while inserting his chief ideologist, Steve Bannon, into them. Many conservative foreign-policy and national-security experts saw the dangers last spring and summer, which is why we signed letters denouncing not Trump’s policies but his temperament; not his program but his character. Continue reading “We Conservatives Warned You, Trump Will Not Get Better. Here’s What You Can Do.”

Border Officers: Real Security is More Complicated than Building a Wall

The following article by Patrick Tucker was posted on the NextGov.com website January 26, 2017:

U.S. Border Wall Already in Place

President Donald Trump’s new executive orders to extend walls along the U.S.-Mexico border and deport undocumented individuals may have a popular appeal, but achieving real border security will likely take longer than many Trump supporters hope.

“We’re not ready to do it yet,” said one U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told Defense One on condition of anonymity at the 11th annual Biometrics for Government and Law Enforcement Summitt in Arlington, Virginia. “I think it will take years.”

Even CBP officials who spoke on the record said challenges to fully securing the border and identifying undocumented aliens will extend well beyond the construction of a wall, Right now, CBP catches 85 to 95 percent of undocumented people crossing the border, according to Antonio Trindad, CBP’s director of enforcement systems. Continue reading “Border Officers: Real Security is More Complicated than Building a Wall”

Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration

The following article by Karen DeYoung was posted on the Washington Post website January 29, 2017:

President Trump’s elevation of his chief political strategist to a major role in national security policy, and a White House order banning refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries from U.S. entry, appeared to come together as cause and effect over the weekend.

Stephen K. Bannon — whose nationalist convictions and hard-line oppositional view of globalism have long guided Trump — was directly involved in shaping the controversial immigration mandate, according to several people familiar with the drafting who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Continue reading “Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration”

Jihadist groups hail Trump’s travel ban as a victory

The following article by Joby Warrick was posted on the Washington Post website January 29, 2017:

President Trump signs an executive order Friday at the Pentagon that temporarily bans people from seven mostly Muslim countries from entering the United States. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Jihadist groups on Sunday celebrated the Trump administration’s ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, saying the new policy validates their claim that the United States is at war with Islam.

Comments posted to pro-Islamic State social media accounts predicted that President Trump’s executive order would persuade American Muslims to side with the extremists. One posting hailed the U.S. president as “the best caller to Islam,” while others predicted that Trump would soon launch a new war in the Middle East. Continue reading “Jihadist groups hail Trump’s travel ban as a victory”

Officials worry that U.S counterterrorism defenses will be weakened by Trump actions

The following article by Greg Miller and Missy Ryan was posted on the Washington Post website January 29, 2017:

President Trump signs an executive order Friday at the Pentagon that temporarily bans people from seven mostly Muslim countries from entering the United States. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Though cast as measures meant to make the country safe, the Trump administration’s moves during its first week in office are more likely to weaken the counterterrorism defenses the United States has erected over the past 16 years, several current and former U.S. officials said.

Through inflammatory rhetoric and hastily drawn executive orders, the administration has alienated allies, including Iraq, provided propaganda fodder to terrorist networks that frequently portray U.S. involvement in the Middle East as a religious crusade, and endangered critical cooperation from often-hidden U.S. partners — whether the leader of a mosque in an American suburb or the head of a Middle East intelligence service. Continue reading “Officials worry that U.S counterterrorism defenses will be weakened by Trump actions”

‘I Can’t Get Out Fast Enough’: Meet the Feds Who Say They’re Leaving Under Trump

The following article by Eric Katz was posted on the Government Executive website January 27, 2017:

“Most people are pretty somber,” says Antoinette Henry, a long-time employee at the Housing and Urban Development Department. “They’re either quiet or manic.”

Henry has worked as a career civil servant for 33 years. She had planned to stay at the department and apply for a promotion, as her boss recently left federal service. When President Trump took office, however, those plans changed.

“I think I’m going to go,” she said. “There’s too much uncertainty.” Continue reading “‘I Can’t Get Out Fast Enough’: Meet the Feds Who Say They’re Leaving Under Trump”

The DeVos Dynasty: A Family of Extremists

The following article by Catherine Brown and Ulrich Boser was posted on the Center for American Progress website January 23, 2017:

Photo: AP/Carolyn Kaster

On Tuesday, Betsy DeVos appeared in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to be considered for the country’s next secretary of education. In her hearing, DeVos tried to present herself as a run-of-the-mill school advocate and a thoughtful visionary who uses a research-based approach to improving schools and enhancing children’s wellbeing. But a closer look at DeVos’s background—and the transcript from Tuesday night’s hearing—shows that she instead represents an extremist, right-wing perspective. Continue reading “The DeVos Dynasty: A Family of Extremists”

Study: 43,000 Americans Could Die Because Of Obamacare Repeal

The following article by Ilana Novick was posted on the AlterNet website January 23, 2017:

Remember death panels? It seems like only yesterday when rabid Tea Partiers tried to convince the public that under the Affordable Care Act, Grandma’s fate was in the hands of so-called death panels, a fictitious team of insurers and (probably devil-worshippers) Democrats who would determine the extent of coverage. Many of the most diehard proponents of this lie, who went on to benefit from the ACA, are about to meet the real death panelists—their names are Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Tom Price, and Donald Trump, and according to two experts who have studied the impact of insurance coverage on death rates for 30 years, approximately 43,000 Americans are at risk of death if the ACA is repealed. Continue reading “Study: 43,000 Americans Could Die Because Of Obamacare Repeal”