“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

He thinks Trump will hurt all the people he doesn’t like, and he’s right.

Completely agree. The airport chaos is allowing Bannon to slip in and tighten his grasp over Washington.

Yeah, there’s some trial and error involved in their process, but Trump and Bannon have both talked about their desire to destroy the state, in the hopes that whatever comes out of the ashes will be more to their liking. So they’re trying to break things, trying to create chaos.

It’s what happens when you have people with no government knowledge or experience at all appointing similar people, all of whom want to destroy the systems they’re in charge of, so they feel no need to learn about those systems. They’re actively trying to sow chaos, too.

They don’t understand squat, but they also don’t care. Bannon and Trump have both expressed distain for the systems of government and a desire to see them totally destroyed. They’re trying to break things, so they don’t care if what’s being written is legal or workable.

Hell, who even knows about England right now. I’ve got friends down at Downing Street protesting Trump’s planned State Visit.

DAMN STRAIGHT. Bannon wasn’t elected to SHIT.

This has not really gotten a lot of attention because it’s been buried under the daily news catastrophes.

Anyway, also today I called my (republican, awful) Congressman and cried on the phone to some college staffer, ha ha. I was like “Listen, Joseph, you and I are going to become very close because you’re going to be hearing from me a lot.”

so what, exactly, should the opposition do? I am trying to pick and choose my fights carefully and enact self care and yes, keep calm and carry on. and focus. but I’m distressed by my friends and their distress.

Nothing was more deserving of a harsh, librarian-stereotypical, loud “SHHHHHH!!!!” with accompanying glare.

And the true owner is buried behind a wall of offshore shell companies no one can penetrate.

I have exactly the same concerns. His entire campaign ran on misdirection. Event the terrible things he said or tweeted kept us off of more substantive discussions about his competence and dedication.

Remember in that dossier how Putin offered 19% of a state oil company to Trump? Well 19.5% of a State Oil company changed ownership in December.

At the library where I work, a patron came to the reference desk on Saturday and commented that people were protesting at JFK. Not a huge political conversation (which I don’t have with patrons), just an offhand comment.

I used to have a green card. It took the US 7 years of screening before I was granted it, 7 years of rigmarole up the wazoo. There was nothing they didn’t know about me. So if they’re going to deny entry to green card holders, they’re actually stating that they have no confidence in their own damn agencies.

This isn’t incompetence. Trump may be an idiot, but his two Steves aren’t. They know exactly what they are doing. This big, flashy, apparently clumsy executive order was designed to create chaos and confusion and to elicit outrage and protest from their political opponents. Meanwhile, Trump’s inner circle of advisors…

I goes deeper, they have deliberately gutted the staff and budget of various departments rendering them impotent and transferred authority over to Trump’s inner circle (Bannon et al.) thus bypassing any possible Congressional oversight.

He has no idea what’s in it. He’s not a lawyer, he’s never been in government or military service. He has the same understanding of the Constitution as his redneck supporters.