monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

You guys were r anting and raving before the election that Hillary would start a nuclear war if she was elected. Now, less than 100 days in, Trump has launched 50 missiles against Syria, a Russian ally. The Russians have promised retaliation (unspecified) if the US takes military action agains Syria. Trump, apparently with NO foresight or forethought has done just that. Seems apparent that the real threat of war was never from Hillary, but from Trump. When will the first Russian cruise missile take out the White House?

The Gulf war was a major error: we should have let Saddam remain, keep Kuwait and continue his fight with Iran

"If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way we let them kill as many as possible." (Truman, 1941)

The Russians have promised retaliation (unspecified) if the US takes military action agains Syria. Trump, apparently with NO foresight or forethought has done just that.

((I just get goose pimples, like when Kate Smith sings "God Bless America"))


Park Service To Use Trump Donation To Search For Millions Still Missing On National Mall


Staying true to his word, Donald Trump has given away his first quarter salary as President to the National Park Service. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was delighted to receive the donation, and said the money will be put to good use searching for the million or more people who tragically went missing at a park called the National Mall back in January.

Zinke said funds for finding lost backpackers has never been more needed and appealed for further aid. Though it’s usual for a few hundred people to go missing in America’s wilderness parks every year, already in 2017 over a million have been reported lost, with most of them disappearing on a single day in January.



Possible reasons being explored are that they got disoriented after their GPS failed, they are just trying to get away from it all and will re-emerge when ready, or that they were eaten by bears.

“But a million or more people missing translates into a lot of hungry bears, and their range normally doesn’t extend into the District of Columbia.”

Though the chances of finding someone alive diminishes the longer they are gone, Zinke remains hopeful.

“They’re out there somewhere. I can feel it.”

You guys were r anting and raving before the election that Hillary would start a nuclear war if she was elected. Now, less than 100 days in, Trump has launched 50 missiles against Syria, a Russian ally. The Russians have promised retaliation (unspecified) if the US takes military action agains Syria. Trump, apparently with NO foresight or forethought has done just that. Seems apparent that the real threat of war was never from Hillary, but from Trump. When will the first Russian cruise missile take out the White House?

Twitter is suing the US government after it demanded it reveal the identity of an anti-Trump account.

The @ALT_USCIS profile was an anonymous profile account criticising President Trump’s immigration policy.

The account claimed it was being run by federal employees at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Twitter has requested a court block the Trump administration’s request, calling it a matter of free speech.

The challenge was filed in San Francisco, where the micro-blogging service is based.




"The rights of free speech afforded Twitter's users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the US Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech,” the company argued.

It added that the government "may not compel Twitter to disclose information regarding the real identities of these users without first demonstrating that some criminal or civil offense has been committed".

The move was backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"We are pleased to see Twitter standing up for its users' rights, and the ACLU will soon be filing documents in court on behalf of this user," the ACLU said in an emailed statement.

"To unmask an anonymous speaker online, the government must have a strong justification. But in this case the government has given no reason at all, leading to concerns that it is simply trying to stifle dissent."


In January, when Donald Trump became President Trump, several so-called "alternative" accounts for US government services began appearing online.

Most claimed to be authored by current or former employees at those agencies, and they offered harsh criticisms of their new boss.

According to the filing, the government sought to use a power given to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) - one typically used to obtain records relating to imported merchandise - to get detailed information on who was behind @ALT_USCIS.

The request asked for "all records regarding the twitter account @ALT_USCIS to conclude, User names, account login, phone numbers, mailing addresses, and I.P addresses".

It demanded Twitter hand over the information by 13 March 2017 - though the company was not actually sent the request until the 14th.
In response, Twitter has told the court that "permitting the CBP to pierce the pseudonym of the @ALT _UCCIS account would have a grave chilling effect on the speech of that account in particular and on the many other 'alternative agency' accounts that have been created to voice dissent to government policies".

The account itself tweeted on Thursday the portion of the US Constitution that protects free speech.

The accounts were motivated by the gagging of the official National Parks Service Twitter account which, on the day of President Trump's inauguration, retweeted a picture comparing his crowd size to that of President Obama's inauguration in 2009. It was briefly shut down, before reappearing with an apology for the tweet.

According to press reports at the time, President Trump himself called the head of the National Parks Service to complain.

The furore prompted an apparent "rogue" former employee at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota to commandeer the park's Twitter account to published a variety of statistics and facts relating to climate change.

The tweets were quickly removed and the former worker's access revoked - but not before a flurry of new accounts claiming to be from within agencies appeared.

The veracity of the accounts was hard to verify given the authors insisted on keeping their identities secret in order to protect their jobs.