Donald Trump, the first week is BAD. What next? Come all ye Beautifuls!

[Roussette]

Here we are!

he provision enables primary legislation to be amended or repealed by subordinate legislation with or without further parliamentary scrutiny

Christ. I was listening to Yes Minister yesterday and that exact phrasing was used to justify an action - Hacker asked why it wasn't going before the House. Sir Humphrey used those words to justify it.

The blue pill indeed.

I'm too depressed to even try to write anything funny now. But I need to be on this thread.

So, this is a place-mark. The best kind of place mark. It's great, it really is. Etc

also I am supposed to be job hunting

Hell, I' supposed to be working as well from home. Got to keep being paid whilst all this goes on...

I'm meant to be looking after DS... bad mummy

Political strife is great news for preschoolers, as it means extra Cbeebies time!

I think we are going to need to take to the streets against May. I'll be watching speech carefully tomorrow. The image I have in my head at the moment is her in her negligee in his bedroom asking to get into bed with him.

When I pick DS up, I generally tell DS about the latest thing Trump has done. That or the latest MN thread

The Rogue Rangers have had to get non government employees to take over the account due to the repercussions on their colleagues :(

BoreOfWhabylon
"Sending the shamrock" refers to the tradition of the Irish Ambassador giving the U.S. president shamrocks on St Patrick's Day - they're flown over from Ireland. If you're interested in the history of it all I've found a video about it:
www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/the-60-year-history-of-sharing-a-bowl-of-shamrocks-with-the-us-president-for-st-patricks-day-photos-video-198938271-237572711

amispartacus
I was attacked on Twitter by a Trump supporter for daring to say going on the Women's March on Sunday had left me out of spoons. She ended up apologising. And reconsidering her use of the term "snowflake" as an abusive one. I was not what she was expecting. I did feel slightly bad though: bad form to enter into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent & she really had no coherent argument...

BigBadgers
His installation has been being 4channed, I fear it was only a matter of time before he snapped. Surprised the revolting article who 88d didn't get it. Oh & apparently the Senator is A Very Nice Man, according to a friend who's met himself in person.

pausingflatly/spudlet/amispartacus
It's an interesting one isn't it? Suspect that they'd be much less bothered about Irish Illegals as they're not so much The Other. Can't imagine it'd do wonders for Irish economy to have to reabsorb all those people - though I can't imagine they'd be coming back en masse. UK economy will have more of an issue ifwhen we lose freedom of movement AND all the people who currently work for the EU have to move back here (unless they're able to wangle new jobs via a [newly-gained-or-otherwise-]dual!citizenship)... There must be British nationals living in the U.S. illegally too - I wonder how many 😕

Re critical thinking not being in the curriculum - media studies is much maligned on here but I think it's extremely valuable in today's world for looking at coded messages. Both my DCs have taken it and both are pretty astute and point out things I've missed. DS has long been convinced that Trump would win.

He's going to start a war, isn't he?

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-trump-freeze-barack-obama-aid-package-palestinian-authoritiy-221-million-white-house-a7546746.html

De-lurking to add this beauty.

Watching all the goings on with a mix of fear, horror and bemusement.

We lived in Texas for a number of years and have some friends and aquantainances who voted trump. Some are abhorrent in their views, (these are aquantainces - not friends!) others genuinely felt they had no choice and made the decision based on either saying no to HRC, saying no to abortion at any stage (i.e. Late stage abortions) or saying yes to a conservative majority in the Supreme Court. I disagree with them but I'm trying to hold their views and mine in balance and learn to accept that while we don't agree, I can still see the good motivations in their decisions and we need to live in community with one another.

Many other friends voted either HRC or third party - inc those who have voted Republican their whole lives - and are equally horrified at what is going on just now.

We have mutual friends of the Bush family (we actually know one of HW & Barbara's grandsons but don't know the rest of the family) and it was very widely know than HW and Barbara are 100% against Trump. Barbara is very much the matriarch in that family and her voice is highly respected among many southern republicans - much more so than the voices of her husband or sons.

This is interesting. www.ctvnews.ca/world/albright-i-stand-ready-to-register-as-muslim-1.3257426

www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/25/donald-trump-is-making-major-policy-pronouncements-based-on-what-he-sees-on-tv/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandomuk_2_na&utm_term=.db0a3e8535d1

When I was at school critical thinking was covered in other subjects, certainly from yr 7 onwards in particular in English, science, and especially history where we often had to analyse and compare the reliability of various sources etc. This was in the late 90s/early 00's, and I remember a few years ago hearing a lot of moaning in the news about "the way history is taught now", and how terrible it was that the emphasis had moved away from reciting dates and Tudor kings. I am sure there are those who would love to remove traces of critical thinking from the syllabus - it would be very convenient.

The pipeline issues are apparently causing a ruckus in Canada as well.

www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/world/canada/canada-justin-trudeau-keystone-xl.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

It is horrible to see the sycophancy May is showing towards Trump, on behalf of the UK. I do understand the need for diplomacy, but does she have to be so unconditionally fawning? I suppose she has calculated that we don't have much choice. .
She's keen to use his love of Scotland to ingratiate herself. Meanwhile a hamper of jam and shortbread for Melania, as she plays on a village green, vicar's wife stereotype of Britain.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-38756197

She is doing this in the name of the British people, and it's infuriating. I wonder how we will be remembered by history if she continues on this trajectory?
I had a quick look for some petitions on the matter, and found a couple but they do not have many signatures yet:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/178057
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/172220
petition.parliament.uk/petitions?q=trump&state=open

And this is not Trump, but Republicans and his supporters. Watch out for it being rolled out or attempted throughout the USA.
It's positively

Wyoming lawmakers launch bill that would ban selling renewable energy

"If enacted, it would force utilities to use power from only approved energy sources like natural gas, nuclear power, hydroelectric, oil – and of course coal."

Because they want to protect the coal industry, apparently. At least they can't ban already existing hydroelectric energy sources.

Thank you for that link, GingerIvy:
Their tweets echo feminist icon Gloria Steinem who said during a speech at last Saturday’s Women’s March: "If you force Muslims to register, we will all register as Muslims."

IIRC, many Dutch people did similar during the Nazi occupation. Interestingly, despite this heroism, the proportion of Jewish people rounded up was higher in the Netherlands than in France because Dutch paperwork was more complete.

The Dutch censuses had been very thorough, and the Nazis used these and other "normal" documentation to identify Jewish people.

In France, the staff at the population bureau didn't make an overt gesture of resistance but just quietly failed to record who was Jewish - they literally didn't punch the column on the IBM punch cards.

Ah, but it takes more than critical thinking to deal with the recent media activity.

The media campaign has required understanding how to target emotion and subconscious reactions. I bet media studies is good at revealing that.

Sorry, realise I was being a bit cryptic above.

In stark terms: however bad a use to which May puts any of her Henry VIII clauses, this may pale compared to the use to which some future government may put them.

I'm not talking about any particular law here; it's a general problem.

The moment they start talking about registering anyone of a particular religion, the world needs to sit up and take notice, fighting against it. I struggle to understand why people (especially Trump supporters) do not see this.

She's keen to use his love of Scotland to ingratiate herself. Meanwhile a hamper of jam and shortbread for Melania, as she plays on a village green, vicar's wife stereotype of Britain.

She's making England look like country bumpkins, looking to borrow a cup of sugar, because we're poor. Frankly, I'd rather weather financial difficulty in the UK than make a deal with the devil.

It is wrong, but I can see why she is doing it. After all we have pissed off lots of European countries. So the US is the natural place to turn to.

If they want to ban renewable energy it will kill off long term prosperity, they'll be stuck burning fossil fuels and the rest of the world will be zipping along on free energy from super efficient photovoltaic cells

Ditto anything else which is anti progressive, the rest of the world will just leave them behind, the USA will start look backward and primitive