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READ THIS! It's from BlackCat here [ http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=128246824 ]
An Iraqi man stands next to an ad for a 13-day trip to the United States at a travel agency in the capital Baghdad on January 28, 2017
(photo by SABAH ARAR/AFP)
AFP
January 29, 2017 16:35 GMT
US faces growing Iraqi backlash to travel ban
Washington faced a growing backlash in Baghdad on Sunday to its decision to bar citizens of Iraq, a key partner in the war against jihadists, from entering the United States.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring citizens of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen from entering the US for at least 90 days, a move he billed as an effort to make America safe from "radical Islamic terrorists".
The move has sparked anger in Iraq, whose forces have been fighting against the Islamic State group with American assistance for more than two years, and led to calls for a reciprocal ban on US citizens.
"We clearly demanded that the Iraqi government deal reciprocally in all issues... with the United States of America," Hassan Shwairid, the deputy head of the Iraqi parl iament's foreign affairs committee, told AFP.
Because of its role in fighting IS, Iraq is worthy of special treatment rather than restrictions, Shwairid said.
"It is not possible for Iraq to fight (IS) today on behalf of all countries of the world (and) be dealt with like other countries," the lawmaker said.
Shwairid said that the call did not apply to the thousands of American military personnel in the country as part of the US-led coalition against IS.
It "is not related to the soldiers because they are present in the framework of the forces of the international coalition", he said.
A foreign ministry official said that meetings were ongoing to determine Iraq's response.
"Intensive meetings are taking place now and a crisis cell was formed in the foreign ministry to discuss the stance of the American administration," the official said on condition of anonymity.
'Get your nationals out'
Earlier on Sunday, the Hashed al-Shaabi, a powerful paramilitary umbrella organisation that includes Iran-backed Shiite militias that fought against American forces in past years, called for US citizens to be banned from the country.
"After the decision of the American president to prohibit the entry of Iraqi citizens to the United States of America, we demand Americans be prevented from entering Iraq, and the removal of those of them who are present," the Hashed said in a statement.
The statement did not specify if the call applied to American military personnel in Iraq, and the Hashed al-Shaabi's spokesman was not immediately reachable for comment.
Both units from the Hashed and American troops are deployed in the Mosul area as part of the operation to retake the city from IS, and heightened anti-US sentiment among militiamen could increase the danger to Washington's forces.
The Hashed al-Shaabi has played a significant role in halting IS's sweeping 2014 offensive that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad, and later in pushing the jihadists back.
But it has also faced repeated accusations of abuses including summary executions, kidnappings and destruction of property in the course of the war against IS.
Trump's travel restrictions also drew condemnation from populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, America's bete noir for much of its 2003-2011 war in Iraq.
"You enter Iraq and other countries with all freedom and prevent their entry into your country," Sadr, the scion of a powerful clerical family who rose to widespread fame due to his condemnation of and violent resistance to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, said in a statement.
Sadr condemned this as "arrogance" and told the US to "get your nationals out before removing expatriates".
I told you, when you let stupidity elect people and then let them make decisions ... ... un un uh ..shame on you republicans!
http://al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/2017/01/us-politics-migration-iraq.html#
thank YOU Black Cat!
Kellyanne Conway goes on bonkers rant, calls for Trump's media critics to be fired
By Laura Clawson
Sunday Jan 29, 2017 · 3:31 PM PST
Kellyanne Conway continues to be a factory for a mind-boggling combination of ridiculous nonsense and terrifying nonsense. On Fox News Sunday, Donald Trump’s top non-Ivanka woman assailed the media for pointing out that last week she described blatant lies as “alternative facts”—gosh, why would that draw notice, especially when it’s such a perfect statement of how your boss plans to govern?—then launched into a rant about how media figures who criticized Trump should be fired:
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. They are on panels every Sunday. They’re on cable news every day.
Who’s the first editorial -- the first blogger that will be left out that embarrassed his or her outlet? We know all their names. I’m too polite to call them by name. But they know who they are, and they’re all wondering, will I be the first to go?
The election was three months ago. None of them have been let go.
And yet we deal with him every single day. We turn the other cheek. If you are part of team Trump, you walk around with these gaping, seeping wounds every single day, and that's fine. I believe in a full and fair press.
I’m here every Sunday morning. I haven't slept in a month. I believe in a full and fair press.
McCain blasts Bannon placement on National Security Council
By Burgess Everett
01/29/17 11:52 AM EST
John McCain is harshly criticizing the elevation of White House strategist Steve Bannon to President Donald Trump's National Security Council, calling the move "radical" because it minimizes the role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“I am worried about the National Security Council. Who are the members of it and who are the permanent members? The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure from any National Security Council in history," McCain said on "Face the Nation" on CBS on Sunday morning.
As the Senate Armed Services chairman, McCain said it's concerning that Trump has centralized power around Bannon, a former executive at Breitbart who is credited with developing Trump's form of populist and combative politics. The Arizona Republican said the most important decision-maker on the National Security Council, Gen. Joseph Dunford, is now being shut out of critical meetings.
"The role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been diminished, I understand, with this reorganization. The one person who is indispensable would be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in my view," McCain said of Dunford. "So it’s of concern, this 'reorganization.'"
White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended the reshuffling, which makes Bannon's presence permanent on the panel and changes Dunford's from mandatory to optional. Spicer said that the new structure will "streamline" decision-making and praised Bannon, a former naval officer, as someone with a "tremendous understanding of the world and the geopolitical landscape that we have now."
Notably, McCain praised the rest of Trump's national security team, including retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the national security adviser. Flynn embraced the "lock her up" chant during Trump's campaign against Hillary Clinton.
“The national security team around President Trump is very impressive," McCain said. "Gen. Flynn is great."
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/mccain-bannon-nsc-234329
I so wonder what it is that this fat slob white nationalist gives and does for t, that makes him jelly in bannons ugly old hands? don't you? it must be good ....
Betting has begun on how long it takes for Trump to completely blow out!
From President Trump to Donald Dump. Vegas oddsmakers place 4 to 1 odds it'll take only six months.
� Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 29, 2017
[
]From President Trump to Donald Dump. Vegas oddsmakers place 4 to 1 odds it'll take only six months.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 29, 2017
Dick Cheney Thinks Trump's
Muslim Ban Is 'Against
Everything We Stand For'
Caitlin Cruz
December 8, 2015, 7:00 AM EST
Even former Vice President Dick Cheney has denounced Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's plan to ban Muslim immigration in America.
Cheney, a decisive conservative himself, said Monday on The Hugh Hewitt Show [ http://www.hughhewitt.com/vice-president-dick-cheney-san-bernardino-obamas-foreign-policy-setting-history-straight/#more-29615 ] that the ban "goes against everything we stand for and believe in."
"I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion, goes against everything we stand for and believe in. I mean, religious freedom has been a very important part of our history and where we came from," Cheney said on a Monday appearance on the radio show. "A lot of people, my ancestors got here, because they were Puritans."
Cheney called Trump's plan a "mistaken notion" and said to solve refugee and immigration problems, the U.S. must examine why they need to leave their countries in the first place.
"It’s a serious problem to make certain that the people coming in don’t represent ISIS. You’ve got to set up a vetting process," Cheney said.
Listen to Cheney here. [ http://www.hughhewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/12-07hhs-cheney-2.mp3 ] The comments on the ban start at 19:50.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dick-cheney-donald-trump-muslim-ban-extreme
Senate Democrats have the power to stop Trump. All they have to do is use it.
We're inclined to compromise. But if we want to hold this administration accountable, we'll need to play hardball.
By Adam Jentleson January 27 at 1:43 PM
Adam Jentleson, formerly deputy chief of staff to Sen. Harry Reid, is the senior strategic adviser at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
GOD, I KNEW I was going to miss Harry, I just didn't think it would be immediately!.. a plain and truthful talker, people hate that
As a Democratic Senate aide for the past seven years, I had a front-row seat to an impressive show of obstruction. Republicans, under then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, decided they would oppose President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at every turn to limit their power. And it worked: They extorted concessions from Democrats with threats of shutdowns, fiscal cliffs and financial chaos. I know firsthand that Democrats’ passion for responsible governance can be exploited by Republicans who are willing to blow past all norms and standards.
Now we have a president who exemplifies that willingness in the extreme. Partly, this explains why he faces more questions about his legitimacy [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/20/americans-have-seen-the-last-four-presidents-as-illegitimate-heres-why/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.9d7f023f0a59 ] than any president in recent history and why he drew three times as many protesters as inauguration attendees last weekend. But in something of a mismatch, Republicans’ unified control of government means that the most effective tool for popular resistance lies in the Senate — the elite, byzantine institution envisioned by the founders as the saucer that cools the teacup of popular opinion.
Senate Democrats have a powerful tool at their disposal, if they choose to use it, for resisting a president who has no mandate and cannot claim to embody the popular will. That tool lies in the simple but fitting act of withholding consent. An organized effort to do so on the Senate floor can bring the body to its knees and block or severely slow down the agenda of a president who does not represent the majority of Americans.
The procedure for withholding consent is straightforward, but deploying it is tricky. For the Senate to move in a timely fashion on any order of business, it must obtain unanimous support from its members. But if a single senator objects to a consent agreement, McConnell, now majority leader, will be forced to resort to time-consuming procedural steps through the cloture process, which takes four days to confirm nominees and seven days to advance any piece of legislation — and that’s without amendment votes, each of which can be subjected to a several-day cloture process as well.
McConnell can ask for consent at any time, and if no objection is heard, the Senate assumes that consent is granted. So the 48 senators in the Democratic caucus must work together — along with any Republicans who aren’t afraid of being targeted by an angry tweet — to ensure that there is always a senator on the floor to withhold consent.
Because every Senate action requires the unanimous consent of members from all parties, everything it does is a leverage point for Democrats. For instance, each of the 1,000-plus nominees requiring Senate confirmation — including President Trump’s Cabinet choices — can be delayed for four days each.
While the tactic works well, as we’ve seen for the past eight years, there remains the question of strategy. Should Democrats be pragmatic and let Trump have his nominees on a reasonable timetable, so as not to appear obstructionist? So far, this has been their approach to some of Trump’s Cabinet picks.
But it’s also fair to say that, by nominating a poorly qualified and ethically challenged Cabinet, Trump forfeited his right to a speedy confirmation process, and Democrats should therefore slow it down to facilitate the adequate vetting that Trump and Senate Republicans are determined to avoid by rushing the process before all the questionnaires and filings are submitted. Four days of scrutiny on the Senate floor per nominee, even after the committee hearings, is a reasonable standard for fulfilling the Senate’s constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.
Democrats can also withhold their consent from every piece of objectionable legislation McConnell tries to advance. With 48 senators in their caucus, they have the votes to block most bills. But even when Democrats don’t have the votes, they can force McConnell to spend time jumping through procedural hoops. This is the insight McConnell deployed against Reid to manufacture the appearance of gridlock, forcing him to use the cloture process more than 600 times.
Finally, Democrats can withhold their consent from Trump until they feel confident that foreign governments are not interfering in our elections. Credible reports hold that U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating whether Trump’s campaign cooperated with the Russian government on Vladimir Putin’s personally directed meddling. Withholding consent from Trump’s agenda until an independent, bipartisan probe provides answers is not just reasonable; it’s responsible. If Democrats withhold consent from everything the Senate does until such a process is established, they can stall Trump’s agenda and confirmation of his nominees indefinitely. Sen. Richard Durbin has been a leader in demanding an independent investigation. But unless Democrats back their calls with the threat of action, McConnell will steamroll them and never look back.
Of course, it would be unwise to deploy this strategy blindly. The kind of universal obstruction pioneered by McConnell during Obama’s presidency is not in Democrats’ nature: They believe in the smooth functioning of government.
But Democrats’ concern with delivering results for their constituents is also part of who we are and something we should embrace. Even for innately cautious Democrats, some issues demand dramatic action. If Trump wants to put their concerns about his legitimacy to rest, he can reach out with consensus nominees and policies, and come clean about his ties to Russia and his tax returns (which may show whether he has compromising financial debts to Russian interests). Until then, Democrats can stand up for America by withholding their consent.
Go to the link for embedded links and an appropriate youtube
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/democrats-in-congress-can-block-trumps-agenda-if-they-want-to-heres-how/?tid=pm_opinions_pop&utm_term=.291afcb424ac
Live From the White House, It’s Trump TV
By DEREK THOMPSON JAN. 28, 2017
Na Kim; Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times
Now in the White House, President Trump is poised to enact his agenda through extraordinary means — by broadcasting an alternative reality in which he seeks a monopoly on his own narrative and facts. It is 20th-century strongman meets 21st Century Fox.
In conversations with dozens of entertainment and media executives and academics from hit-making industries over the past few years, I have learned that there are three overarching rules of popular entertainment. Each applies to Mr. Trump.
First, every successful franchise is fundamentally a hero myth. The primacy of heroes is self-evident in film, where five of the 10 highest-grossing movies of 2016 were superhero and fantasy sequels and spinoffs. But the creation of fictional heroes is what television is all about, too. “I define a hero as somebody who can do what we can’t do,” Nicole Clemens, a former executive vice president for series development at FX, told me. “That would include a brave fireman, but also a sociopath.”
Savior-to-sociopath might measure the full spectrum of Americans’ feelings about Mr. Trump. His self-regard is legendary. His buildings are Pharaonic, emblazoned with golden surnames. Producers on the “The Apprentice” edited his entrances and utterances for maximum authority, painting him as a Caesar of the boardroom. Mr. Trump carried this mythic posture through the primaries, where he said what other candidates never would, and into the Republican National Convention, where he told his supporters that he could do what they could not. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he said, “which is why I alone can fix it.” In other words, I’m not a politician. I’m a superhero.
The second rule of popular entertainment is that, as critical as it is to write stories that move people, distribution is more important than content. On Twitter, Mr. Trump’s ability to distribute his message directly to voters is both novel and nostalgic at once. In the radio era, Franklin D. Roosevelt reached tens of millions of people with his fireside chats. When television eclipsed radio, presidential addresses remained blockbuster events. In 1970 alone, Richard Nixon delivered nine prime-time addresses to the nation, which reached half of all television-owning households.
But the presidency’s star power has shrunk as the entertainment options around him have grown. Ronald Reagan’s average address reached less than 40 percent of households, and Bill Clinton’s reached 30 percent. At the same time, the average presidential sound bite on the news shrank from 40 seconds in 1968 to less than seven seconds in the 1990s. Cable created the golden age of television, but it ended a golden age for the bully pulpit.
That is, before Mr. Trump. Twitter in his hands is an old-fashioned mainline to voters, with a key twist. Mr. Trump’s chief audience — the one he watches constantly and whose insults hurt the most — isn’t the public. It’s the newspapers and TV shows; the mass media is the audience. In a 2013 meeting of New York Republicans, when people told him he couldn’t run for president by relying on TV alone, Mr. Trump disagreed, according to Politico. “It’s really about the power of the mass audience,” he said.
In an attention economy where success is theoretically driven by microtargeting and nifty viral ideas, Mr. Trump may have initially seemed like a dinosaur. But network scientists agree with the president’s instincts. In their famous study of viral online content, the researchers Sharad Goel, Ashton Anderson, Jake Hofman and Duncan Watts found that social distribution was chaotic, unpredictable and rarely produced hits. Instead, they wrote, “popularity is largely driven by the size of the largest broadcast.” Neither purely viral nor traditional, Mr. Trump’s media strategy is an ingenious blend of old and new — a direct line to voters, consistently amplified by the largest broadcasters.
THE third rule of popular entertainment is the most distressing for the news media and for the country at large. The dark history of 20th-century entertainment is that media blockbusters seek to become monopolies. For nearly half of the 1900s, the movie studios owned movie theaters, before the Supreme Court ruled it illegal. Throughout the century, music labels bribed radio stations to play their handpicked songs over and over, until states cracked down on this practice, known as “payola.”
This is the point where Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon’s ambitions meet. The White House wants to establish a political media monopoly, which seeks dominion over its own set of facts, by demonizing critical news sources (even those within the government) and promoting sycophantic alternatives.
The president has now labeled CNN “fake news” on live television and on Twitter. His adviser Kellyanne Conway deemed a series of obvious lies about the size of his inaugural crowd “alternative facts.” Mr. Trump issued gag orders to prevent government agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency, from making public statements that presumably contradict his personal beliefs. In the last month, the administration has hailed the Fox News Channel, cited stories from Breitbart, the largest platform for the alt-right, and tweeted stories from LifeZette, a site that traffics in false pro-Trump rumors. We are seeing the origins of a White House Media Group, a constellation of pro-Trump sources that get access and kudos at the expense of traditional news companies.
In a world of Trump-branded media, what role do we, the viewers, play? The next few years will be full of false certainties — and false uncertainties. Objective lies will get government support; objective truths will be darkened by cynicism. It could also be an age of brilliant investigative journalism and renewed civic engagement. Before Mr. Trump, social media had shrunk the universe of news to a handful of preferred stories picked by peers. But democracy was not designed for catharsis, and news was never meant to be therapy. Digging out the truth, for both reporters and readers, is painstaking and sometimes painful work. But the next four years are going to hurt, anyway. We might as well spend the time learning to love digging.
It’s hard enough to predict the next four hours of the Trump administration, much less the next four years. But the publicity-driven instincts that got Mr. Trump to the White House may serve him terribly in the Oval Office. He is unpopular and torn between paradoxical instincts to condemn traditional news companies while seeking out their approval. The volume of early leaks suggests that many aides are already weary of a president who elevates representations of popularity over politics and policy.
But Mr. Trump has had dreadful weeks before — and here we are. Several months ago, many people thought that he would badly lose the presidential race and build a television network, Trump TV. Instead, he has won both: a presidency that seeks to broadcast a separate media reality, in which an unpopular president is actually a hero of the people. If he succeeds, the Trump Show will be worse than reality television. It will not be reality at all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/opinion/sunday/live-from-the-white-house-its-trump-tv.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-top-region®ion=opinion-c-col-top-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-top-region
Insurers Urge Individuals To Sign Up For O'Care Exchanges After WH Pulls Ads
By Lauren Fox January 27, 2017, 1:46 PM EDT
After the White House cut off outreach and advertising in the final days of open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act's exchange in 2017, insurers continued to encourage individuals to enroll to keep costs down Friday.
America's Health Insurance Plans, the national association for insurers, issued a statement Friday emphasizing the importance of robust sign ups.
“Every American deserves coverage, and open enrollment is the best opportunity people have to get coverage that gives them access to high-quality care. At a time when the individual market faces challenges, we need as many people as possible to participate - so that costs go down for everyone," Kristine Grow, the senior vice president of communications of AHIP, said in a statement. "Balancing out the risk pool is an important action that can be taken now to help stabilize the market, improve affordability, and send strong signals as health plans develop their products for 2018.”
A key concern among insurers is that cutting off outreach in the last days of open enrollment may hurt efforts to attract young enrollees who tend to procrastinate signing up for the exchanges until the last minute, but also tend to be healthier and can help drive down costs.
The Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/white-house-stops-ads-outreach-for-last-days-of-aca-enrollment/2017/01/26/a2f92682-e420-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html?utm_term=.dafd23415445 first reported Thursday that Trump administration officials had instructed HHS officials to stop millions of dollars in advertising that was already scheduled and purchased.
“It’s outrageous. It’s irresponsible,” said Ben Wakana, a senior HHS spokesman until Trump took office, told the Washington Post. “They are deliberately undermining open enrollment to try to get a lower enrollment number.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/insurers-urge-individuals-to-sign-up-for-exchanges-after-wh-pulls-ads
such a dumb ass ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
******************************
Trump Enraged as Mexican President Meets with Meryl Streep Instead
Today 10:48 A.M.
MEXICO CITY (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump’s personal war with Mexico escalated further on Friday after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled his meeting with Trump and scheduled one with Meryl Streep instead.
“The American people are a great people, and no one personifies that greatness better than Meryl Streep,” Peña Nieto said in an official statement.
The summit with Streep was widely seen as a prelude to Mexico establishing full diplomatic relations with the Academy Award-winning actress.
At the White House, Trump’s advisers were reportedly considering a host of retaliatory measures, including Steve Bannon’s proposal that the President of Mexico be told to “shut up.”
During his daily press briefing, the White House spokesman Sean Spicer called Peña Nieto’s decision to meet with Streep instead of Trump “absurd.”
“President Trump is a much greater American than Meryl Streep and has won way more Oscars than she has, period,” Spicer said.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-enraged-as-mexican-president-meets-with-meryl-streep-instead
EPA goes rogue, launches unofficial Twitter account that Donald Trump can’t censor
Thank God we still have so many smart ELITES around ... to subvert anus breath! ..
By Bill Palmer | January 25, 2017 |
You can now count the Environmental Protection Agency among the federal agencies who have officially gone rogue. Yesterday the National Park Service launched an ambitious attempt at defending itself against the censorship of Donald Trump: after he temporarily took away their Twitter privileges and then late forced them to delete factual tweets about climate change, the NPS launched its own unofficial Twitter account which Trump can’t touch. And today the EPA joined the NPS in going rogue online.
Climate rebels in action.
EPA employees, whose identities must remain anonymous in order to make sure Trump can’t punish or fire them, are now posting under the Twitter username @ActualEPAFacts — and the account is quickly gaining popularity as the day goes on. The rogue Twitter account was started seven hours ago when it announced that “Donald Trump forced us to remove this page” along with a link to a now-deleted climate change article on the epa.gov website. The account has then since gone on to make the case as to why Trump nominee Scott Pruitt, who pretends climate change isn’t real, is unfit to lead the agency.
The rest of the unofficial EPA account on Twitter consists of links to useful climate change and environmental news, as well as the ongoing documentation of Trump’s and Pruitt’s attempts at dismantling the agency from within. Yesterday we reported that anonymous EPA employees were leaking Pruitt’s every secret move to the media in the hope that the public would become outraged enough to fight back — which is now happening.
Yesterday we reported on the unofficial National Park Service account on Twitter, which had 90,000 followers at the time and now has more than half a million. Currently the unofficial Environmental Protection Agency account on Twitter has around eight thousand followers. Feel free to support the rebels at the EPA by following them on Twitter.
There is at least a MILLION embedded LINKS in here.. ;)
http://www.palmerreport.com/news/epa-goes-rogue-launches-unofficial-twitter-account-that-donald-trump-cant-censor/1176/
AI
