monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Does this qualify for the very bad jokes thread?

The flag fluttering above the U.S. Capitol is emblazoned with a crescent and star. Chants of “Allahu Akbar” rise from inside the building.

That’s the provocative opening scene of a documentary-style movie outlined 10 years ago by Stephen K. Bannon that envisioned radical Muslims taking over the country and remaking it into the “Islamic States of America,” according to a document describing the project obtained by The Washington Post.

The outline shows how Bannon — years before he became a strategist for President Trump and helped draft last week’s order restricting travel from seven mostly Muslim countries — sought to issue a warning about the threat posed by radical Muslims and their “enablers among us.” Although driven by the “best intentions,” the outline says, institutions such as the media, the Jewish community and government agencies were appeasing jihadists aiming to create an Islamic republic.

“The coverage never changed, it never progressed, it never matured,” Conway, who serves as counselor to the President, told radio host Sean Hannity. “It never took on the aura of respect that it deserved, and if you are not showing the President and his main spokespeople respect, then you’re not showing the office respect, and you are inciting mob mentality if not mob violence. You are encouraging people to go out there and unpeacefully protest and block airport entrances for people who are going to visit a sick parent and can’t make their flight, or are going for a bereavement call and can’t make their flight.”

Trump: I’m President, So No More Protest or Media Accountability

Donald Trump is not an autocrat yet, and he may never become one. But his administration continues to broadcast autocratic views on politics. It is worth highlighting some of these statements simply because a kind of discourse that once would have been considered shocking has quickly become routine.

This morning, Trump repeated one of his favorite authoritarian tropes by insisting that protesters against him have been secretly paid — “Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters,” he ranted on Twitter. Kellyanne Conway, meanwhile, insists that protests are not democratic. “There’s nothing peaceful and nothing democratic about folks who are out there just trying to re-litigate the election and protesting things they know nothing about,” she tells Sean Hannity. The election result, in Conway’s view, settled all political questions, and any protest against Trump’s policies is therefore undemocratic.

HOW TO STAY SANE AS A CARTOONIST IN TRUMPLAND

Calls mount for Trump administration to label Muslim Brotherhood 'terrorist organization'

The Trump administration could soon declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, a move that would greatly restrict the controversial group’s global reach...

If the U.S. declares the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, it would make it a criminal act for Americans to fund the group, ban banks from processing money for it, bar people with ties to the group from coming to the United States and make it easier to deport immigrants who have worked with the organization.

“It is time to call this enemy by its name and speak with clarity and moral authority,” Cruz said in a statement introducing the bill.

The Brotherhood’s critics include prominent Muslim leaders in the U.S. and around the world, with prominent sheikhs of both Shia and Sunni Muslim groups accusing it of engaging in terrorism.

“President Trump must go ahead with his listing of the Brotherhood,” Sheikh Mohammed el Hajj Hassan, founder of the American-Muslim Alliance, told Fox News. “This group since its inception practiced killing crimes and terror attacks in the Arab world. In Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and other countries their clerics call for violence.”

Lebanese Sunni sheikh Moreib said “Terrorism is the enemy of the whole humanity, including Muslims; these Takfiri [apostate] terrorist organizations distort the real image of Islam and offen[d] Muslims - who want to live in peace and security with all segments of the society."

Several U.S. allies – Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – have also declared the Brotherhood a terror group.

At any rate, under Obama three quarters of the prisoners were released.

I think he best remember that (unless he really believes he is omnipotent)

Does the president recognize Islam as a religion? When Iskeep posed the question to Gorka, the White House aide focused his answer on the administration combating "radical Islamic terrorism." Inskeep eventually interrupted in the hopes of pinning Gorka down on the question at hand.

"I think you should ask him that question," the former Breitbart editor replied.

The evasive response added some ambiguity to the matter, but even that says something important about Team Trump's perspective. Had the NPR host asked if Christianity or Judaism are religions, it's likely any White House official would answer, "Of course."

That Gorka did not offer this same response about one of the planet's largest faith traditions is problematic

Donald J. Trump :

When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot , come in & out, especially for reasons of safety & security - big trouble!

The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!

About one-third of all Americans think that you have to be a Christian to truly be an American — despite the history of religious liberty that dates back to the nation’s very earliest days.

In a timely survey released Wednesday afternoon, just as the United States is debating the merits of suspending immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, the Pew Research Center asked residents of numerous nations what it takes to truly belong in their countries. Americans were far more likely than residents of other countries included in the survey to say that religion was key to sharing in the national identity.

Thirty-two percent of Americans said one should be Christian to really be American, compared to just 13 percent of Australians, 15 percent of Canadians and 15 percent of Europeans who felt the same way about belonging in their homelands.

Hundreds of Texans traveled from all over the state to testify on the bill and proceedings were repeatedly disrupted by protesters. Supporters say the measure will impose the rule of law, but civic groups, immigration lawyers, church leaders and Hispanic activists oppose it...

A Texas Senate panel shrugged off 16 hours of sometimes tearful pleas and defiant opposition to approve a "sanctuary cities" proposal that would withhold grant funding from local jurisdictions that don't hand over immigrants already in custody for possible deportation.

Individual sheriffs and police chiefs — particularly in heavily Democratic areas — have long opposed enforcing federal immigration law... the Travis County sheriff said the jails in the state capital, Austin, will no longer honor most federal immigration detainers.

Justin Shanes ‏@justinshanes Feb 2
Finding these Bowling Green Massacre jokes to be a little too soon. Out of respect, we should wait until it takes place.

Natasha Rothwell ‏@natasharothwell Feb 2
Saddened and sickened by Frederick Douglass' silence surrounding the Bowling Green Massacre.

Donald J. TrumpVerified account
‏@realDonaldTrump
When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot , come in & out, especially for reasons of safety &.security - big trouble!