Anti-Immigration Nation

By the way, the Trump regime has ordered Homeland Security to go after anyone who is helping undocumented immigrants.

Easily overlooked in the small print of President Donald Trump's Sanctuary Cities Executive Order signed Wednesday is a clause making it a crime to help an undocumented immigrant.

The sweeping wording is contained in Section 6 of the executive action titled 'Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,' and would appear to include even the actions of legal immigrants seeking to protect undocumented family members.

The Secretary of Homeland Security "shall issue guidance and promulgate regulations ... to ensure the assessment and collection of all fines and penalties ... from aliens unlawfully present in the United States and from those who facilitate their presence in the United States," it reads.

The rule is similar to one that was included in an early draft of Arizona's controversial 2010 anti-immigrant bill SB1070, which proposed making it a Class One misdemeanor to "conceal, harbor or shield" an undocumented immigrant. Class 1 misdemeanors carry a maximum fine of $2,500 and up to six months in jail.

But boy we dodged a bullet on that Hillary bitch, she might have put Wall Street people on her Cabinet or something.  It's a good thing we're not a bunch of bigoted, hateful, retaliatory bastards either.

A Texas mosque was set on fire just hours after Trump signed an executive order restricting migration from Muslim-majority countries.

The Islamic Center of Victoria was set on fire around 2 a.m. on Saturday, according to local reports.

Victoria Fire Marshal Tom Legler told the Victoria Advocate he had no theories about the cause of the fire, but he is seeking assistance from state and federal fire investigators.

“It’s a house of worship,” Shahid Hashmi, the president of the center, told the Victoria Advocate, as he watched the center burning. Hashmi also said he will not speculate about the cause of the fire, but mentioned the center was burglarized last week.

This is America now.  This is who we are.  This is who we elected to represent and lead us.  This is what the rest of the world knows we are.

They will not tolerate us for long.

Binging On Purging

The Trump regime begins the Great De-Musliming of America as we will now find out if there's anything to the concept of the Bill of Rights left.

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.

At least one case quickly prompted a legal challenge as lawyers representing two Iraqi refugees held at Kennedy International Airport in New York filed a motion early Saturday seeking to have their clients released. They also filed a motion for class certification, in an effort to represent all refugees and other immigrants who they said were being unlawfully detained at ports of entry.

Mr. Trump’s order, enacted with the stroke of a pen on Friday afternoon, suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The White House said the restrictions would protect “the United States from foreign nationals entering from countries compromised by terrorism” and ensure “a more rigorous vetting process.” But critics condemned Mr. Trump over the immediate collateral damage imposed on people who, by all accounts, had no sinister intentions in trying to come to the United States.

An official message to all American diplomatic posts around the world provided instructions about how to treat people from the countries affected: “Effective immediately, halt interviewing and cease issuance and printing” of visas to the United States.

Confusion turned to panic at airports around the world, as travelers found themselves unable to board flights bound for the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates and, in at least one case, ejected a family from a flight they had boarded.

And so on World Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Trump regime closes the door to people in countries we're bombing the crap out of, but not the countries where the 9/11 terrorists actually came from (which happen to be countries Trump has economic ties to with his business organization. Go figure.)

In red states this is being hailed as "about damn time we started kickin them out" and such.  In blue states, employees are finding they may not be allowed back Stateside anymore, and it may not help as we're now revoking entry privileges for green card holders, which could affect as many as 500,000 people and their families.

The legal challenges are already beginning, but at this point I would have to expect retaliation from the rest of the world, especially from multinational businesses.

So here we are the new bad guys on the block.  And this is just his first week.

In The Fetal Position

After two days of testimony by medical experts and state witnesses, a US federal judge has once again blocked Texas's fetal tissue remains disposal regulations.

A federal judge on Friday blocked Texas from requiring that fetal remains to be buried or cremated, saying the rule placed burdens on access to abortion that “substantially outweigh the benefits.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly vowed to appeal, setting up another high-stakes battle over Texas’ attempts to regulate abortion providers — seven months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned two Texas regulations that would have left nine abortion clinics operating in the state.

After hearing two days of testimony early this month, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued a preliminary injunction Friday that indefinitely prohibits Texas from enforcing the rule, which would require health facilities to ensure that fetal tissue is buried or cremated — with the ashes buried or appropriately scattered — whether from an abortion or miscarriage.

The rule didn’t apply to miscarriages at home or to early-term, drug-induced abortions that typically take place at home.

Sparks said the new standards were vague, inviting interpretations that would allow state health officials “to exercise arbitrary, and potentially discriminatory, enforcement on an issue connected to abortion and therefore sensitive and hotly contested.”

Worse, Sparks wrote in his order, state officials admitted that the new policy offered no health benefits and replaced tissue-disposal regulations that caused no health problems. While Texas leaders said the change was needed to promote respect for life and to protect the dignity of the unborn, it appeared that the rule “may be pretext for restricting abortion access,” Sparks said.

With only one identified vendor willing and able to dispose of fetal tissue as required by the new rule, the judge said it was reasonable to conclude that a lack of vendors could prohibit compliance — “which would deliver a major, if not fatal, blow to health-care providers performing abortions.”

Well no kidding the point of the bill is "restricting abortion access".  Dumping ridiculous regulatory burdens on women hasn't managed to end legal abortion in states, but dumping regulation after regulation on abortion providers has eliminated access for tens of millions of women in the South, Midwest, and Mountain West.

I'm glad to see that this is so obviously a back door method of restricting abortion that even a judge appointed by Poppy Bush can see it.

But thanks to voters, eventually Trump will get his Supreme Court pick on the bench, and most likely that will mean states like Texas will be able to regulate abortions into oblivion before too long, I fear.