Last Call For Church And State Of Insanity

The Trump regime's version of the National Prayer Breakfast turned into a spat about how people should pray for Trump's TV show "Celebrity Apprentice" because replacement host Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't doing so hot in the ratings, ha ha ha what a card that Trump.

Also he promised to end the separation between church and state by eliminating the Johnson Amendment.

President Trump vowed Thursday to overturn a law restricting political speech by tax-exempt churches, a potentially huge victory for the religious right and a gesture to his political base. 

Mr. Trump said his administration would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches from engaging in political activity at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status. 

Repealing the law would require approval by Congress. Certain tax-exempt organizations — in this case, churches — are not allowed to openly endorse or campaign for political candidates. If they do, under existing law, they risk losing the benefits of their tax-exempt status. 

Speaking to a gathering of religious leaders, the president also defended his immigration policy, brushed aside concern about his harsh phone calls with foreign leaders, and ridiculed Arnold Schwarzenegger for his poor ratings in replacing Mr. Trump as host of “Celebrity Apprentice.” 

He did not mention an executive order on religious freedom, which critics said would restrict the rights of lesbians and gay men; a draft of the order has circulated, but administration officials have denied that it will be adopted. 

In addressing the issue of churches and political speech, Mr. Trump said, “I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.” 

He added that “freedom of religion is a sacred right, but it is under serious threat.” 

During his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump promised to push for repeal of the law, which was passed in 1954 and named for then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who proposed the change to the tax code.

Churches would then be free to endorse candidates and donate millions while still remaining tax-exempt, something that would certainly tip the balance of power in US politics permanently towards the GOP.  But hey, no difference between the parties, right?

Flag, Still Burning

So we've apparently solved that little mystery involving the military vehicle convoy here in Kentucky flying the Trump campaign flag and yeah, it's completely not cool.

The military convoy spotted on Sunday flying a Donald Trump flag near Louisville belonged to an East Coast-based SEAL unit, a Navy spokesperson told ABC News. 

Military officials have launched an inquiry to determine if any misconduct can be linked to the incident. Regulations do not permit an unauthorized flag on a military vehicle. 

Photos and a video of the convoy spread quickly on social media, with many questioning the identity of the occupants and whether the vehicles belonged to a military unit or were military surplus. 

The video shot on Sunday on a highway near Louisville showed the lead vehicle of a convoy flying a large blue Donald Trump flag from an antenna. 

The vehicles did not have any identifiable markings and the mystery deepened when local military bases in Kentucky said that the vehicles did not belong to their units. 

"The convoy were service members assigned to an East Coast-based Naval Special Warfare unit driving vehicles while transiting between two training locations," Lieutenant Jacqui Maxwell, a spokesperson for Naval Special Warfare Group 2, told ABC News. Naval Special Warfare Units is the official Navy term for its elite SEAL special operations teams.

So, yeah, nothing to worry about, except the guys who are supposed to stay under the radar are apparently super cool trucking around with a Trump flag on their ride to let everybody know who they're really loyal to,

Cult of Personality in the military praising a leader rather than a country they're sworn to protect? Gosh, that's never gone horribly wrong in world history, right?

Exit question: Does Trump hear about this story and start tweeting that he'll protect these guys? Where does that leave us?

Our Little Domestic Terror Problem Magically Goes Away

Did you really think the Trump regime was ever going to lift a finger to try to stop the next Dylan Roof when A) white people can't be terrorists duh have you heard and B) those who are most likely are already working for law enforcement and the military anyway?

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.

Such a change would reflect Trump's election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase "radical Islam" in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries.

You can thank our new DHS Secretary for that.  John Kelly has decided that since the white supremacists he knows of are kind of his bosses at the White House, it's best not to investigate them at all.

A source who has worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the program said Trump transition team members first met with a CVE task force in December and floated the idea of changing the name and focus.

In a meeting last Thursday attended by senior staff for DHS Secretary John Kelly, government employees were asked to defend why they chose certain community organizations as recipients of CVE program grants, said the source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

Although CVE funding has been appropriated by Congress and the grant recipients were notified in the final days of the Obama administration, the money still may not go out the door, the source said, adding that Kelly is reviewing the matter.

No, I wouldn't expect the program to see a dime and for it to be converted into the Trump regime's new anti-immigrant police force.  That's coming soon to a neighborhood near you, folks.

StupidiNews!

• The White House is denying reports that Trump abruptly ended a tense phone call with Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull over accepting refugees from America's Pacific ally.
• Thousands protested Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos speaking at UC Berkeley last night, campus police say non-student agitators arrived from off-campus to start violence.
• The Pentagon is looking into reports of multiple civilian deaths in a botched raid in Yemen last weekend that allegedly killed at least 30 civilians, including 10 women and children.
• Newly-confirmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is vowing to Congress to keep his former company Exxon-Mobil out of decisions for at least two years, Democrats say that's not enough.
• Trump FCC officials are dropping the government's legal defense of limits on how much prison inmates can be charged for calling family members.

Last Call For The Resistance Department

Funny thing about Trump going on camera and online to say he's going to fire tens of thousands of federal employees and silence tens of thousands more: said federal employees aren't exactly going to stand around and just accept that with a smile.

Less than two weeks into Trump’s administration, federal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can do to push back against the new president’s initiatives. Some federal employees have set up social media accounts to anonymously leak word of changes that Trump appointees are trying to make. 

And a few government workers are pushing back more openly, incurring the wrath of a White House that, as press secretary Sean Spicer said this week about dissenters at the State Department, sends a clear message that they “should either get with the program, or they can go.” 

At a church in Columbia Heights last weekend, dozens of federal workers attended a support group for civil servants seeking a forumto discuss their opposition to the Trump administration. And 180 federal employees have signed up for a workshop next weekend, where experts will offer advice on workers’ rights and how they can express civil disobedience. 

At the Justice Department, an employee in the division that administers grants to nonprofits fighting domestic violence and researching sex crimes said he and his colleagues have been planning to slow their work and to file complaints with the inspector general’s office if they are asked to shift grants away from their mission. 

“You’re going to see the bureaucrats using time to their advantage,” said the employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Through leaks to news organizations and internal complaints, he said, “people here will resist and push back against orders they find unconscionable.” 

The resistance is so early, so widespread and so deeply felt that it has officials worrying about paralysis and overt refusals by workers to do their jobs. 

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.”

The thing with a federal bureaucracy designed to continue working past any single President is that most of the time it works as intended, and it doesn't turn on a dime.  Federal employees have families and pay taxes and grocery shop and go to worship and drop their kids off at school just like anyone else with a job.  There's also a lot of them, although the federal workforce as a percentage of the US population is actually under 2% these days, the lowest it has been in decades.

Still, given the more than 320 million Americans these days, that's still a lot of people, and they know how to fight from within the system.

The big weapon is leaks, and yes, before you go all "well, actually" on me I know the Obama administration took a very dim view of whisteblowers and leaks in general.  They also paid for it with massive espionage and data breaches.

I don't think Trump will be any better, and a whole lot more people are going to be motivated to leak frankly.  We're already seeing that with draft executive orders and other inside information hitting journalist's mailboxes daily at this point, and it's been less than two weeks.

Bottom line is to expect more leaks. A lot more.

Trump's Warren Terrah

From all reports it looks like Trump's first significant military action as President was ordering a raid in Yemen to get AQAP bad guys, and the raid went south in a New York minute.

Nawar Anwar Al-Awlaki, the 8-year-old daughter of former al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed in a joint American-UAE raid against the terror group Sunday, according to the girl's family. 

Anwar Al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who directed attacks against the US, was killed in a targeted drone strike in 2011. 

Multiple US officials told CNN that an assessment of civilian casualties is still ongoing and that there was no hard intelligence yet to suggest that al-Awlaki's daughter was killed. 

The raid also resulted in the death of US Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens who was fatally wounded in a firefight that saw three other US service members wounded and 14 al Qaeda fighters killed. 

Initial reports conducted by the elite special operations force that carried out the mission found no evidence of civilian casualties, but a US official told CNN that subsequent intelligence led the military to believe that there was a high likelihood that some civilians were killed. 

The official added that during the gun battle, al Qaeda fighters took up firing positions on the roof of a nearby building and that the US troops came under fire, calling in an airstrike against the building which likely led to the civilian casualties. 

The raid encountered more problems when an MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft was forced to undergo a "hard landing" which resulted in three additional service members being injured. The military opted to destroy the aircraft in an airstrike to prevent it falling into enemy hands. 

It was the first counterterrorism operation approved by President Donald Trump though US officials note that given the complexity of the raid, planning for the mission began during the administration of Barack Obama. 

An 8-year-old dead, a SEAL killed in combat, and a lost Osprey.  Had this happened as Hillary Clinton's first military order, we'd have House Republicans screaming about a second Benghazi investigation and vowing impeachment proceedings.

Instead, this story has effectively vanished.  Ask yourself why that is.

And Our Chief Export Is Pain

The Trump regime is apparently planning to make good on those threats to move forward on major immigration changes inside the US, and is now apparently sending around rough drafts of executive orders that will effectively end legal immigration as well as crack down with massive force on undocumented immigrants.

The Trump administration is considering a plan to weed out would-be immigrants who are likely to require public assistance, as well as to deport — when possible — immigrants already living in the United States who depend on taxpayer help, according to a draft executive order obtained by The Washington Post. 

A second draft order under consideration calls for a substantial shake up in the system through which the United States administers immigrant and nonimmigrant visas overall, with the aim of tightly controlling who enters the country, and who can enter the workforce, and to reduce the social services burden on U.S. taxpayers. 

The drafts are circulating among administration officials, and it is unclear whether President Trump has decided to move forward with them or when he might sign them if he does decide to put them in place. The White House would not confirm or deny the authenticity of the orders, and White House officials did not respond to requests for comment about the drafts on Monday and Tuesday.

If this is true, then bad, bad times are coming.

The administration would be seeking to “deny admission to any alien who is likely to become a public charge” and develop standards for “determining” whether an immigrant can be deported after five years if that person receives a certain amount of public assistance, including Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Medicaid. 

The second order, titled “Executive Order on Protecting American Jobs and Workers by Strengthening the Integrity of Foreign Worker Visa Programs” calls for “eliminating” the “jobs magnet” that is driving illegal immigration to the United States, according to a copy obtained by The Post. The order would rescind any work visa provisions for foreign nationals found not to be in “the national interest” or in violation of U.S. immigration laws.

It weighs how to make America’s immigration program “more merit based,” calls for site visits at companies that employ foreign workers, and tasks the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with producing a report twice a year on the total number of foreign-born people — not just nonimmigrant visa holders — who are authorized to work in the United States.

It also instructs DHS and the State Department to submit a report on “the steps they are taking to combat the birth tourism phenomenon,” meaning instances in which noncitizens come to the United States to have children, who in turn gain citizenship, a popular conservative refrain but one that is dismissed by immigration experts as a relatively minor problem. 

Together, the orders would aim to give U.S. citizens priority in the job market from top to bottom by preventing immigrants from taking jobs and pushing some immigrants out of jobs they currently have. 

“The unlawful employment of aliens has had a devastating impact on the wages and jobs of American workers, especially low-skilled, teenage, and African American and Hispanic workers,” the draft order says.

If that last part sounds creepy, it's because "We have to get rid of them, they're taking your jobs" was used before about, oh, say 80 years ago by an unemployed Austrian painter who went into German politics.

Exit question:  Who exactly would enforce all this with Trump's "freeze" on federal hiring?  Because it sure sounds to me like the regime would need a whole hell of a lot of bodies to crack heads, raid houses, and roll up on businesses.  Think "a national version of Joe Arpaio's deputy posse".  You know, the guy currently facing all kinds of charges for failing to heed civil rights laws in his zeal for rounding up brown people.

And if a screaming populist demagogue who is demonizing a segment of the population for removal and wants legal reasons to create a force with the purpose of removing that segment doesn't get your hackles up, then you're way past gone.  These are actual Brownshirts, guys.  (Not to be confused with Browncoats).

This is moving remarkably quickly.  Understand that this is moving so fast because it's not only a top priority of Trump, but of the actual man running the White House: Steve Bannon, who has long been virulently anti-immigrant.  And again, the difference is Bannon's not just gunning for undocumented folks, he wants to drastically reduce legal immigrants into the country as well.

On a March 2016 episode, Bannon said that restoring sovereignty meant reducing immigration. In his radio shows, he criticized the federal H-1B visa programs that permit U.S. companies to fill technical positions with workers from overseas. 

The “progressive plutocrats in Silicon Valley,” Bannon said, want unlimited ability to go around the world and bring people back to the United States. “Engineering schools,” Bannon said, “are all full of people from South Asia, and East Asia. . . . They’ve come in here to take these jobs.” Meanwhile, Bannon said, American students “can’t get engineering degrees; they can’t get into these graduate schools because they are all foreign students. When they come out, they can’t get a job.” 

“Don’t we have a problem with legal immigration?” asked Bannon repeatedly. 

“Twenty percent of this country is immigrants. Is that not the beating heart of this problem?” he said, meaning the problem of native-born Americans being unable to find jobs and rising wages. 

In another show, Bannon had complained to Trump that so many Silicon Valley chief executives were South Asian or Asian. This was a rare time when Trump — normally receptive to Bannon’s ideas on-air — pushed back. “I still want people to come in,” Trump said. “But I want them to go through the process.”

There's no reason to believe that Bannon won't get his way on this, either.

America has a long history of letting immigrants in, but also of treating those immigrants like garbage. Scapegoating immigrants has long been the hallmark of America's nationalist movement. History teaches us these movements almost always become violent in the end.  We're entering another such period now, and there's no reason to believe that it will go any better this time around.

In fact, there's every reason to believe that it's going to get very bloody, and quickly.

StupidiNews!

• The Trump regime has selected 10th Circuit conservative Neil Gorsuch to be nominated to the Supreme Court, he is the son of Reagan's EPA chief Ann Gorsuch.
• The US Army Corps of Engineers is expected to grant final approval for the Dakota Access pipeline along Standing Rock Sioux lands today, opponents vow to go to court to block it.
• While just short of half of Americans approve of Trump's Muslim immigration ban so far, less than one-third believe it will make America "more safe" in a new Reuters poll.
• Thousands protested in Romania's capital of Bucharest on Tuesday as the government ended corruption investigations into several cabinet members and sought to pardon those convicted. 
• A Carnegie Mellon University AI named Libratus took on some of the world's best Texas Hold 'Em poker players and won $1.7 million in the "Brains vs Artificial Intelligence" tournament.

Last Call For Flag, Burning

Meanwhile, here in Kentucky, nobody seems to know who a military convoy that rolled through Lexington on Sunday flying a "Trump" flag actually belonged to, and nobody's taking responsibility for it.  Yet.

Flying a large "Trump" flag, a mysterious convoy of military vehicles rolled down Interstate 65 through Louisville on Sunday morning. But nobody is claiming it. 

A spokesman for Ft. Knox, Patrick Hodges, said it wasn't theirs. 

Same for the Kentucky National Guard, said Maj. Stephen Martin, director of public affairs. 

A Defense Department spokesman, Maj. Jamie Davis, who examined images of the four-truck procession for the Courier-Journal, said he doesn't think it belonged to any service branch — and that the vehicles may have been military surplus. 

Davis said it would violate regulations to fly such a flag on a military vehicle. “That is not standard procedure,” he said. He also said it would have been against the rules to run a military convoy without unit markings on the trucks. 

Chris Rowzee, a spokeswoman for indivisibleky, a new activist organization in Louisville, said that as a retired veteran who served 28 years in the Air Force, “I can't even begin to describe how disturbed I am by this.” 

While Donald Trump is president, she said, the military is supposed to be a nonpolitical organization in which servicemen and women swear an oath to the Constitution, not to any particular president. 

“To show a partisan political leaning on a military vehicle is very reminiscent of Nazi Germany,” she said.

 

Invisibleky posted photos and a video of the convoy on its website. Rowzee said the group thinks the trucks may have belonged to a military contractor, if they weren't being operated by the military.

So yes, this actually happened.  Somebody decided it would be really cool to drive around several military trucks with at least one of them openly flying a Trump regime flag.  Every alarm bell in the universe ought to be ringing in your head at this one, guys.  We know Trump has his own security team separate from the US Secret Service and that our military and police have a real problem with white nationalists in the ranks.

This is the kind of thing that will become more prevalent.

By the way, can you imagine the national freakout if a military truck was ever spotted flying an Obama flag?

The Fight For SCOTUS

I'll believe this when I see them actually do it, but apparently Dems are going to try to call Mitch McConnell's bluff and will filibuster Trump's expected Supreme Court nominee this week.

Senate Democrats are going to try to bring down President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick no matter who the president chooses to fill the current vacancy.

With Trump prepared to announce his nominee on Tuesday evening, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said in an interview on Monday morning that he will filibuster any pick that is not Merrick Garland and that the vast majority of his caucus will oppose Trump’s nomination. That means Trump's nominee will need 60 votes to be confirmed by the Senate.

“This is a stolen seat. This is the first time a Senate majority has stolen a seat,” Merkley said in an interview. “We will use every lever in our power to stop this.”

It’s a move that will prompt a massive partisan battle over Trump’s nominee and could lead to an unraveling of the Senate rules if Merkley is able to get 41 Democrats to join him in a filibuster. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also reminded her Twitter followers on Sunday night that Supreme Court nominees can still be blocked by the Senate minority, unlike all other executive and judicial nominees.

Any senator can object to swift approval of a nominee and require a supermajority. Asked directly whether he would do that, Merkley replied: “I will definitely object to a simple majority” vote.

Merkley's party leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, has said he will fight "tooth and nail" any nominee who isn't "mainstream." 

So the question is who cracks first here, the Dems or the Trump regime?  History tells us the Dems will probably be smashed into oblivion and will have folded by March 1, with Trump's nominee getting an easy confirmation vote before Tax Day.  The Dems folded on Samuel Alito and that was with the Christmas holiday, in a matter of three months.

I dearly hope I'm wrong, but Senate Dems continue to disappoint me at nearly every turn.

The Sinking Ship Of State, Con't

The Trump regime is discovering the problem with career State Department diplomats: they're pretty good writers with excellent skills of persuasion.

Numerous diplomats have drafted a memo of dissent denouncing President Donald Trump's executive order banning the resettlement of refugees and barring travel from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The current draft of the memo, which was obtained by the Lawfare blog, describes Trump's actions as "counterproductive" to its stated goal of protecting Americans from potential terrorist attacks. According to the memo, the order will instead exacerbate relations with the targeted countries.

The State Department confirmed the existence of the memo to Mother Jones on Monday.

"We are aware of a dissent channel message regarding the Executive Order titled 'Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,'" State Department spokesman Mark Toner said when reached for comment. "The Dissent Channel is a long-standing official vehicle for State Department employees to convey alternative views and perspectives on policy issues. This is an important process that the acting secretary, and the department as a whole, value and respect. It allows State employees to express divergent policy views candidly and privately to senior leadership."

The "dissent channel" was established in the 1970s for career diplomats to confidentially express opposition to the administration's foreign policy.

"We are better than this ban," the draft memo adds. "Looking beyond its effectiveness, this ban stands in opposition to the core American and constitutional values that we as federal employees took an oath to uphold."

From the memo:

The United States is a nation of immigrants, starting from its very origins. The concept that immigrants and foreigners are welcome is an essential element of our society, our government, and our foreign policy. So, too, is the concept that we are all equal under the law and that we as a nation abhor discrimination, whether it is based on race, religion, sex, or national origin. Combined together, that means we have a special obligation to maintain an immigration system that is as free as possible from discrimination, that does not have implied or actual religious tests, and that views individuals as individuals, not as part of stereotyped groups. 

The Executive Order frames the ban as a 90-day suspension of entry for these nationals until their countries can set up arrangements to provide adequate information to determine that an individual seeking a benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat. This is a high, vague, and nebulous bar. In some cases, the governments of these countries may be wholly incapable of providing this information; in others, the government may be unwilling. In either case, individual citizens will pay the price, a situation which runs counter to US. values of fair play and offering equal opportunities to all.

How long the State Department gets to keep its dissent channel, well that's really the question now, is it?

In all seriousness, this should be extraordinarily disturbing to folks.  State Department dissent channel stuff should be taken pretty seriously, it's there for a reason.  The Trump regime's official response?  If you don't like it, quit.

Asked about a memo signed by dozens of State Department diplomats opposing the temporary ban on refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the US, spokesman Sean Spicer encouraged the federal employees to "either get with the program or they can go." 

"The president has a very clear vision. He's been clear on it since the campaign. He's been clear on it since taking office, that he's going to put this safety of this country first. He is going to implement things that are in the best interest of the safety of this country prospectively, not re-actively," Spicer said at the White House. "And if somebody has a problem with that agenda then that does call into question whether or not they should continue in that post or not."

Once again, dissent will not be tolerated in the Trump regime.

StupidiNews!

• In a statement former President Obama "fundamentally disagrees" with the Trump regime's refugee ban executive order and says airport protests are "exactly what we expect to see".
• Trump is expected to sign an executive order today commissioning a complete review of the nation's cybersecurity, calling it a top priority of American defense.
• Turkish authorities have fired more then 90,000 civil servants over the last six months as President Regep Tayyip Erdogan's government purge since last July's coup still continues.
• Trump's expected Supreme Court pick will come tonight at 8 PM, Democrats are still considering whether or not to block the nominee.
• A new reports finds that the majority of Washington DC surveillance camera recorders were knocked out a week before the Trump inauguration by malware.

Last Call For The Orange Coup-Coup Birds

This analysis of the Trump regime's first 10 days is making the rounds, and given the evidence at hand it's fairly compelling stuff.

I see a few key patterns here. First, the decision to first block, and then allow, green card holders was meant to create chaos and pull out opposition; they never intended to hold it for too long. It wouldn’t surprise me if the goal is to create “resistance fatigue,” to get Americans to the point where they’re more likely to say “Oh, another protest? Don’t you guys ever stop?” relatively quickly. 

However, the conspicuous absence of provisions preventing them from executing any of the “next steps” I outlined yesterday, such as bulk revocation of visas (including green cards) from nationals of various countries, and then pursuing them using mechanisms being set up for Latinos, highlights that this does not mean any sort of backing down on the part of the regime. 

Note also the most frightening escalation last night was that the DHS made it fairly clear that they did not feel bound to obey any court orders. CBP continued to deny all access to counsel, detain people, and deport them in direct contravention to the court’s order, citing “upper management,” and the DHS made a formal (but confusing) statement that they would continue to follow the President’s orders. (See my updates from yesterday, and the various links there, for details) Significant in today’s updates is any lack of suggestion that the courts’ authority played a role in the decision. 

That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored. 

Yesterday was the trial balloon for a coup d’état against the United States. It gave them useful information.

That;s a very serious accusation, but I myself have said several times that if you wanted to lead a de facto coup in the US, the Trump regime has been following that playbook for more than a year.

A second major theme is watching the set of people involved. There appears to be a very tight “inner circle,” containing at least Trump, Bannon, Miller, Priebus, Kushner, and possibly Flynn, which is making all of the decisions. Other departments and appointees have been deliberately hobbled, with key orders announced to them only after the fact, staff gutted, and so on. Yesterday’s reorganization of the National Security Council mirrors this: Bannon and Priebus now have permanent seats on the Principals’ Committee; the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have both been demoted to only attending meetings where they are told that their expertise is relevant; the Secretary of Energy and the US representative to the UN were kicked off the committee altogether (in defiance of the authorizing statute, incidentally). 

I am reminded of Trump’s continued operation of a private personal security force, and his deep rift with the intelligence community. Last Sunday, Kellyanne Conway (likely another member of the inner circle) said that “It’s really time for [Trump] to put in his own security and intelligence community,” and this seems likely to be the case. 

As per my analysis yesterday, Trump is likely to want his own intelligence service disjoint from existing ones and reporting directly to him; given the current staffing and roles of his inner circle, Bannon is the natural choice for them to report through. (Having neither a large existing staff, nor any Congressional or Constitutional restrictions on his role as most other Cabinet-level appointees do) Keith Schiller would continue to run the personal security force, which would take over an increasing fraction of the Secret Service’s job. 

Especially if combined with the DHS and the FBI, which appear to have remained loyal to the President throughout the recent transition, this creates the armature of a shadow government: intelligence and police services which are not accountable through any of the normal means, answerable only to the President.

It's an ugly subject, frankly.  Again, we're already in the early stages of a constitutional crisis as of this weekend anyway.  Do I think a coup is coming?  I couldn't tell you, but the path we're going down really does have only two conclusions.

The notes may be in a different key, the instruments different, but the Trump regime band is playing one of the oldest songs in the book right now, and for now the country is playing along.

When the music suddenly stops, that's when history tells us the darkest refrain begins.

Russian To Judgement, Con't.

Americans continue to want answers about Russian interference in our elections and Putin's relationship with the Trump regime.  As much as Trump would like to make it so, this story isn't going away.

American voters believe 53 - 39 percent that the Russian government interfered with the 2016 presidential election and support 56 - 30 percent the sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama Administration, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. In fact, 76 percent of those who support existing sanctions want tougher sanctions.

Russia is an adversary of the U.S., 46 percent of American voters say, while 9 percent say Russia is an ally and 41 percent say it is neither an ally nor an adversary, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds.

A total of 67 percent of American voters say alleged Russian interference is a "very important" or "somewhat important" issue, and 68 percent want the matter investigated.

In a separate question, voters support 62 - 32 percent investigations into potential links between President Donald Trump's campaign advisors and the Russian government.

President Trump is "too friendly" towards Russia, 49 percent of voters say, while 3 percent say he is "too unfriendly" and 43 percent say he has the right attitude towards Russia.

Voters trust Congress more than Trump 60 - 29 percent to handle America's policy towards Russia.

"Beware the Russian Bear, say American voters, most of whom believe the Kremlin meddled in the U.S. presidential election," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "President Donald Trump is too friendly with Russia and voters say 2-1 they would rather have Congress, not the president, handle future relations with Russia.

"Should we let bygones be bygones? Absolutely not, say Americans, who want an investigation - and tougher sanctions."

Trump's storm of executive orders may be flooding the zone, but it's not enough to get America to forget about his real boss, Vlad.  Even 43% of Republicans want Trump regime ties to Russia to be investigated.

This is the real issue, guys.  The rest is designed to distract from the fact we have foreign agents running the executive branch.

Authoritarianism For Dummies

While the battle over the Trump regime's awful immigration ban continues, regime spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway wants to know when media critics of Trump will be disposed of.

Kellyanne Conway in an interview Sunday slammed the media, asking when network reporters will be fired over their coverage of the Trump administration.

"Who is cleaning house? Which one is going to be the first network to get rid of these people, the people who think things were just not true?" Conway asked on "Fox News Sunday."

Conway, a key adviser to President Trump, criticized networks for their coverage of her "alternative facts" statement one week ago, noting that there were other things she said in Sunday show interviews that could have been the reporters' focus.

"I went on three network shows and spoke for 35 minutes on three network Sunday shows. You know what got picked? The fact that I said 'alternative facts,' not the fact that I ripped a new one to some of those hosts that they never cover the facts that matter," Conway said.

"Not one network person has been let go. Not one silly political analyst and pundit who talked smack all day long about Donald Trump has been let go," she added. "I'm too polite to mention their names, but they know who they are, and they are all wondering who will be the first to go. The election was three months ago. None of them have been let go."

Dissent will not be tolerated by the Trump regime, you know.  Eventually the answer to "Who will rid me of these troublesome media priests?" will be answered by heavy White House pressure from the regime and heads will roll pretty quickly.

Actual President Steve Bannon has long wanted the destruction of the America free press.  Conway is laying down yet another warning that this is one of the Trump regime's major goals.  When it happens, it will happen blindingly fast.  Once the first goes, well, many many more will follow. The regime will need total control of the media before too long, and it will most likely get it, at least for a while.

You didn't think this had a happy ending, did you?