If Trump Was Colluding With Russia Prior To The Election, Why Would He Need To Establish Backchannel Communications With Russia After The Election?

The latest headlines regarding the Trump administration and Russia report that Robert Mueller is investigating meetings to establish back channel communications with Russia in January 2017. The Washington Post reports:

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gathered evidence that a secret meeting in Seychelles just before the inauguration of Donald Trump was an effort to establish a back channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin — apparently contradicting statements made to lawmakers by one of its participants, according to people familiar with the matter.

In January 2017, Erik Prince, the founder of the private security company Blackwater, met with a Russian official close to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and later described the meeting to congressional investigators as a chance encounter that was not a planned discussion of U.S.-Russia relations.

A witness cooperating with Mueller has told investigators the meeting was set up in advance so that a representative of the Trump transition could meet with an emissary from Moscow to discuss future relations between the countries, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Maybe we have more cases of people in the Trump administration lying about their contacts with Russia. There is certainly a long list of examples of this. The connection to Blackwater is of some interest, but not terribly surprising considering that Erik Prince had a loose connection to the incoming administration, being the brother of Betsy DeVos.

Besides multiple lies involving members of the Trump administration, adding to questions of obstruction of justice, there are serious questions regarding money laundering and possibly other financial crimes. Where the Russiagate hysteria falls apart is with the claims from many Democrats that collusion between Trump and Russia altered the election result.

To date the claims that Russia altered the election result have been falling apart and there has been no evidence of any successful collusion. While Russians did entice Donald Trump, Jr. with claims of information on Russia, showing that he would have had no problems with such collusion, it turned out that Russia did not actually have information to provide at the Trump Tower meeting.

There have been a number of other stories regarding attempts to establish backchannel communications between members of the Trump administration and Russia just prior to the inauguration. Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about meeting the Russian ambassador in December 2016 but, as historian Jackson Lears recently wrote, “This is the sort of backchannel diplomacy that routinely occurs during the interim between one administration and the next. It is not a sign of collusion.”

There was also the report that Jared Kushner had attempted to set up backchannel communications between the Trump transition team and Russia after the election. However, if there was any nefarious goal here, it was suspected to involve Kushner’s financial problems with his Manhattan property.

The question which reports such as this raise is that, if there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the campaign, why were there so many efforts to establish backchannel communications after the election? If there was collusion before the election, they would have already needed to have had some means of communication before the election.

While such attempts to communicate with Russia just prior to the inauguration may or may not have been for nefarious purposes, maybe Mueller is onto a crime here with attempts at establishing backchannel communications with Russia before the election–especially with individuals lying about such attempts. However, it makes little sense to both claim that Trump was successfully conspiring with Russia during the campaign, and that crimes were committed in attempting to establish backchannel communications after the election.

Quote of the Day: Seth Meyers On Hillary Clinton’s Call To Eliminate The Electoral College

In an interview with CNN yesterday, Hillary Clinton said that the Electoral College “needs to be eliminated.” “Same with regular college!” said Betsy DeVos. –Seth Meyers

Late Night Comics Speculate On An Early End For The Trump Presidency

I’m picturing Mike Pence sitting in his office trying to decide when Trump has acted just crazy enough that he can invoke the 25th Amendment and be seen as a hero. There are certainly plenty of psychiatrists who would argue Trump is unfit to fulfill the duties of the presidency. I’m not sure what the odds are of Trump being removed, either under the 25th Amendment or impeachment, but humor writers have seen this as likely.

Earlier in the year I noted a sequence on The Last Man On Earth in which a plague killed off politicians going through the lines of succession. They started with President Pence, implying that one way or another Donald Trump was already gone. (The video at the link concludes with the death of President Betsy DeVos.)

Late night comedians have had several similar jokes this week:

Vice President Mike Pence denies he’s planning to run for president in 2020. He said, “I’m pretty sure I’ll be president way before then.” –Conan O’Brien

Mike Pence is denying speculation that he wants to be elected president in 2020. Pence was like, “I think you mean re-elected president in 2020.” –Jimmy Fallon

According to The New York Times, Vice President Mike Pence is planning on running for president if Trump doesn’t run for a second term. But he issued a statement strongly denying the article, saying it was disgraceful, offensive to me, my family and our entire team. He said to suggest he is running for president in 2020 is laughable and absurd. Right, why would Mike Pence want to be president in 2020? He’s going to be president much, much sooner than that. –Jimmy Kimmel

Vice President Mike Pence is adamantly denying a New York Times article claiming that he has begun a secret campaign for a presidential run in 2020. He says he has even less interest in being president than Trump does, which is saying something. Pence is like, “This is ridiculous. I’m not focused on being president in 2020, I’m focused on being president after Trump is impeached sometime this year.” –James Corden

Meanwhile in today’s news, Congressional investigators now want to question Donald Trump’s personal secretary, Rhona Graff, in the Russia investigation. If either were still alive, Richard Nixon and Rosemary Woods might tell Donald Trump that bad things can happen after a president’s personal secretary is questioned by such a Congressional probe, even if the specifics were different.

Of course we would have a new set of problems if Mike Pence were to replace Donald Trup. Pence could not honestly say, as Gerald Ford once did, “our long national nightmare is over” should he become president. Hopefully, should Donald Trump be removed from office the Republican brand will be so damaged that Pence won’t be able to do much harm. We can also hope that whatever brings down Trump also brings down Pence. However, unless they are separate events and another Vice President is chosen, Paul Ryan would be next in line.

The 2016 Major Party Candidates Were Very Similar In Many Ways

The 2016 presidential featured a battle of the two worst people in America. While they have their differences, both are far more alike that supporters of either would admit. They are both corrupt. They both have a very similar disdain for civil liberties. They are both conservative on social/cultural issues–Clinton more ideologically, and Trump possibly more out of political expediency. Neither can be trusted on foreign policy. Both are tone deaf.

Doing a Google search for “tone deaf hillary clinton” I just received 228,000 hits. While he didn’t use the term, Joe Biden was getting at this when he criticized Clinton this week for failing to talk to middle class voters–a conclusion many others have come to. As I noted again earlier this week, data shows that a key reason Clinton lost was that large numbers of working class voters shifted from Obama to Trump.

Of course if you live in the fantasy land of Clinton apologists, where they are convinced that misogyny and not political incompetence and dishonesty doomed Clinton, this counter-argument was given: “Virtually every time I hear someone complaining about something Hillary Clinton supposedly failed to say, it’s not really a problem with her not having said it. It’s a problem with their having failed to hear it.” (Yes this really is a direct quote–follow the link if you doubt it.) To them Clinton managed to lose to a candidate as atrocious as Donald Trump, a man who probably would have lost in a landslide to a name randomly picked out of the phone book,  despite doing all the right things. Democrats certainly can no longer claim to be part of the reality-based world.

(Continuing ten minutes later, after I stopped laughing over that defense of Clinton.) While Donald Trump might have carried out the con of the century in convincing working class voters that his policies would help them, he is certainly not doing anything now to hide his love for the ultra-wealthy. The Washington Post reports:

Ahead of release of financial disclosures, Trump administration brags about how many wealthy people it has

Starting Friday evening, the White House will begin to release financial disclosure forms filed by about 180 members of the Trump administration who are either commissioned officers or paid more than $161,755.

Already, the administration is bragging that its members are way wealthier than those who worked for former president Barack Obama — a point of pride that doesn’t quite match the president’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” of wealthy GOP donors, lifelong political operatives and those who are simply out-of-touch with everyday Americans…

It’s no secret that Trump, who brags about his immense wealth, has filled his administration with fellow uber-wealthy people. The billionaires include Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose family started a marketing company; Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a venture capitalist who has focused on buying businesses in distress; and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, hedge fund executive and Hollywood financier.

That’s as tone deaf as anything to come from Hillary Clinton. Trump’s act was enough to beat a terrible candidate such as Clinton, but it is not working in the White House.  Democrats just might do very well in 2018 when Donald Trump is in the White House and Hillary Clinton is not on the ticket.

SciFi Weekend: Last Man On Earth Kills Off Pence Administration; SNL Does SciFi Skit On Trump; Riverdale Renewed; Doctor Who; Broadchurch Season 3; Passengers; The Night Manager; The Americans

The Last Man on Earth returned with an episode which barely involved the regular cast. The, staring Kristen Wiig and Laura Dern. goes back to before the virus killed off virtually everyone. In a news report Mike Pence was referred to as the president. Wiig’s character was shocked that there was no vaccine for the virus, arguing that the president must have a vaccine. That led clips from news reports showing a series of funerals for President Pence, followed by President Paul Ryan, President Rex Tillerson, President Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, and finally President Betsy DeVos:

There was no explanation as to why Donald Trump was not mentioned, with Mike Pence president at the time. This might suggest that Trump was impeached before the virus struck.

The episode progressed to having Kristen Wiig move to a bunker with only her dog for company. She gradually went crazy, including trying to get the dog to say “milk.” She turned out to be the person who sent out the drone shot down by Melissa (January Jones) in a previous episode. Kristen Wiig might be interacting with the regular cast as she left the bunker to search out the people she saw via the drone. Of course they have all moved on from the home where they were spotted by the drone, and we don’t know if she is immune to the virus.

While Donald Trump was not recognized as president on Last Man On Earth, he was portrayed once again by Alec Baldwin on a science fiction themed cold open on Saturday Night Live (video above). The New York Times recapped this and other political skits on the show:

Sure, “Saturday Night Live” has offered ample criticism of President Trump and his young administration. But in its latest episode, the program expressed confidence that he’ll be in office until at least 2018, long enough to see America decimated by an alien invasion force from the planet Zorblatt 9…

A military officer played by the cast member Kenan Thompson told him, “The aliens are killing us, sir. They have the most advanced weaponized technology we’ve ever seen. What should we do?”

The Trump character responded, “Here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to bring coal back, O.K.? We’re going to have so much coal, you’re going to say, ‘Where did all this coal come from? I never knew there could be so much coal.’”

Informed that the aliens had already vaporized the state of California, Mr. Baldwin answered, “So then I won the popular vote?”

As Mr. Trump, he explained that the aliens had already been secretly living in the United States for hundreds of years. “Look, there’s one right there,” he said, indicating Leslie Jones. “And so is the woman next to her, right there,” he said, pointing at Sasheer Zamata.

Asked where he was getting his information, Mr. Baldwin replied, “From a very reputable source, Infowars. It’s a radio show hosted by Alex Jones. You know he’s legit because he’s always taking off his shirt.”

When the aliens at last overrun the base and learn that Mr. Trump is president, one creature (played by Bobby Moynihan) declares, “Really? This is going to be so easy.”

Riverdale has been renewed for a second season. I wonder if the season finale is already set, or if knowing that there is a second season will  affect when we find out who killed Jason Blossom. Screener looks at the major suspects. On the one hand, viewers might be disappointed if there is not some answer in the foreseeable future after following the show. On the other hand, ending the mystery requires them to come up with something new to hook the viewers.

The series is sort of a Twin Peaks light with its murder mystery in a small town. Twin Peaks quickly went down hill after it revealed who killed Laura Palmer, and we found that they didn’t have much more story to tell. (Hopefully they have come up with more story for the upcoming Showtime revival). There certainly is plenty of potential in Riverdale for additional stories, and not everything going on this season is centered around the murder of Jason Blossom. Perhaps it will be more like Veronica Mars in having a different mystery each season.

The CW Network has also renewed The 100 for a fifth season.

We are down to less than a month until the start of series ten of Doctor Who. The Gallifrey Times has an updated episode guide with what is known so far about every episode. The final two episodes feature the original Mondasian Cybermen seen on The Tenth Planet in 1966. New Who created an alternative time line in which the Cybermen were created on earth.

In other Doctor Who news, Radio Times looks at the question of Time Lords aging, or “why did Matt Smith’s Doctor look so young on his ‘farewell tour’ (the 200 years he lives through in series 6), but become an old man while defending the town of Christmas on Trenzalore for 300 years in The Time of the Doctor?” Plus we learned last week that a CIA hacking tool revealed by Wikileaks is called the Weeping Angels.

Broadchurch was of special interest to Doctor Who fans from the start with a cast which includes David Tennant and Arthur Darvill. It became even more significant when show runner Chris Chibnall was picked to replace Steven Moffat. After two episodes of Broadchurch, it is showing promise to surpass the second season and be more like the first. While the murder of the first season still is having an impact, the second season is concentrating on a different crime, a rape. There are already multiple suspects, and more are likely to be added. Beth Lattimer, a key character from the first season, remains a significant part of the story, having become a rape counselor.

It looks like, as usual, the story is as much about the effect on the town as the crime itself, plus the show has already gotten into other topics including the challenges to the small town newspaper. I would suggest that even those who gave up the show in its second season give it another chance. Broadchurch is currently on Mondays on ITV. BBC America will be carrying the show in the future but has not posted a date yet.

Similarly I would recommend that those who gave up on Homeland give the current season a chance, but beware it does start out slow. The payoff the last few episodes makes it worthwhile.

Nerdist looks at the Easter eggs in the Deadpool 2 trailer (video above). This includes posters for Firefly, presumably due to Morena Baccarin being in both Firefly and Deadpool.

Netflix releases Iron Fist this week, with early reviews not being very favorable.

A premiere date for season seven of Game of Thrones has been announced. The seven-episode season will start on July 16.

Passengers will never become a classic science fiction movie, despite a cast led by Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt.  It is best to go into in looking for mindless escape and ignore how creepy the actions of the male lead were. Despite its flaws, the movie was actually enjoyable and even good for some unintentional laughs, such as with the resuscitation scene. Look at it more as a rom-com about the dangers of waking up a woman too soon in order to have sex with her. Or, if you are looking for comedy, you could just watch the blooper reel above (which some are arguing is far better than the actual movie).

The Night Manager was one of the top shows of 2016, but the miniseries completed the events of the John le Carré novel. A second season is being written, but has not yet been picked up. There is no information on what it will be about. It might take other elements from le Carré’s books, especially as some of the characters do appear in other novels. I imagine they could also come up with an original story based on elements and characters from the first miniseries. As I posted previously, the producers of The Night Manager are also working on a miniseries based on  The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

The Americans returned last week and is receiving additional media attention due to Russia being in the news recently. This includes articles in USA Today and Entertainment Weekly. The Americans has consistently been one of the best shows on television since it premiered.

Betsy DeVos Sees Segregation As Example Of Providing More Options

Betsy DeVos was appointed Secretary of Education in the Trump cabinet, despite a lack of qualifications, based upon her work promoting school choice. She wrote a statement which cites segregated schools as an example of what we could get when we have school choice. Politco reports:

“HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice,” DeVos said in the statement, released Monday night in advance of Trump’s planned signing of an executive order giving the schools more clout. “They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.”

The executive order, which Trump is scheduled to issue Tuesday afternoon, was supposed be an easy bit of outreach on the final day of Black History Month to the black community that soundly rejected Trump on Election Day. It is expected to move a federal initiative focused on the colleges from the Education Department to the White House and set an aspirational goal for government spending at the schools.

But the goodwill was quickly overshadowed by DeVos’ statement, which came on the heels of a Monday meeting between Trump and presidents of the schools that left some dissatisfied. Some experts on historically black institutions panned the statement as ignorant, while others said she was inadvertently praising segregation.

Maybe such segregated schools would be the choice of segments of Trump voters (the more despicable ones), but black students certainly have never seen this as giving them more options.

At Slate, Ben Mathis-Lilley  writes Insane Betsy DeVos Press Release Celebrates Jim Crow Education System as Pioneer of “School Choice”

First of all, it sounds like a seventh-grader wrote this, which is perhaps what happens when you put someone who has never really had a real job in charge of the Department of Education. Second, this official 2017 federal government press release celebrates legal segregation (!!!) on the grounds that the Jim Crow education system gave black students “more options,” as if there was a robust competition between HBCUs and white universities for their patronage. (When black Mississippian James Meredith chose the “option” of enrolling at the University of Mississippi in 1962, a massive white mob formed on the campus; two people were shot to death and hundreds injured in the ensuing battle/riot, during which federal marshals came under heavy gunfire, requiring the ultimate intervention of 20,000 U.S. soldiers and thousands more National Guardsmen.)

I tweeted this before reading the statement by DeVos, but it still holds: Just in case something horrible happens, please don’t let Betsy DeVos be the designated survivor during Trump’s speech to Congress.

Quote of the Day: Seth Meyers On Betsy DeVos

A snowstorm in the Northeast today caused many schools in the area to close. Said Betsy DeVos, “What? The school closures weren’t supposed to start yet.”  –Seth Meyers

Country Now Evenly Divided On Impeachment Of Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s first three weeks in office have been a disaster, with Trump learning that being president is a hard job which he is not prepared for. Public Policy Polling shows that his support has dropped further from last week, with 46% both favoring and opposing impeachment:

PPP’s new national poll finds that Donald Trump’s popularity as President has declined precipitously just over the last two weeks. On our first poll of his Presidency voters were evenly divided on Trump, with 44% approving of him and 44% also disapproving. Now his approval rating is 43%, while his disapproval has gone all the way up to 53%. If voters could choose they’d rather have both Barack Obama (52/44) or Hillary Clinton (49/45) instead of Trump.

Just three weeks into his administration, voters are already evenly divided on the issue of impeaching Trump with 46% in favor and 46% opposed. Support for impeaching Trump has crept up from 35% 2 weeks ago, to 40% last week, to its 46% standing this week. While Clinton voters initially only supported Trump’s impeachment 65/14, after seeing him in office over the last few weeks that’s gone up already to 83/6.

While I don’t actually see impeachment as anything imminent, Common Dreams reports that, “On Thursday, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) filed a ‘resolution of inquiry’ that amounts to the first legislative step toward impeachment.”

The poll looked at several issues where support for Trump is falling. This includes Obamacare:

47% of voters now say they support the Affordable Care Act to only 39% who are opposed. It just keeps getting more popular. And only 32% think the best course of action to take on health care is repealing the ACA, while 65% would like Congress to keep it and just fix parts that need fixing.

More now oppose Trump’s executive order on immigration than back it. Among those in support, a strong majority see the Bowling Green Massacre as a reason for why it is needed.

Voters think he’s over reaching to make a country safe…that they already consider to be safe. 66% of Americans consider the United States to be a safe country, to only 23% who consider it unsafe. Perhaps as an outgrowth of that sentiment only 45% of voters support Trump’s Executive Order on immigration, to 49% who are opposed to it. Among those who do support it you have to wonder how well thought out their position is- by a 51/23 margin Trump voters say that the Bowling Green Massacre shows why Trump’s immigration policy is needed.

By a 48/43 spread, voters do think that the intent of the Executive Order is to be a Muslim ban. And just 22% support a Muslim ban, to 65% who are opposed. The order has also increasingly raised issues about Trump’s competence in voters’ eyes- only 27% think the Executive Order was well executed, to 66% who think it was poorly executed. The spread on that question was 39/55 when we asked last week.

Another aspect of voters already feeling safe is that they don’t want to pay for the wall with Mexico. Just 32% support a 20% tax on items imported to the United States from Mexico, to 55% who are opposed to that concept. And in general only 37% of voters want the wall if US taxpayers have to front the cost for it, to 56% who are against that.

Betsy DeVos is also unpopular. Protesters were trying to prevent Betsy DeVos from entering a public school. While I totally sympathize with their view of her, I’m not sure this is a good idea. I don’t know if she has ever even seen the inside of a public school before. It might be a good idea for her to see what a public school is like, and that they are not threatened by grizzly bears. If they did want to keep her out they might have dressed up as grizzly bears in burkas. What could be scarier to her? (For those not familiar with her record, see this post.)

Betsy DeVos Joins Donald Trump’s Bizarro World Cabinet

Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Education secretary today, joining Donald Trump’s Bizarro World cabinet despite the lack of any experience in education beyond lobbying against it, along with massive conflicts of interest. I imagine the next step will be to replace public education with vouchers for Trump University.

I have previously posted some background information on Betsy DeVos for the benefit of those who have not been here in Michigan to observe her major contributions towards moving the state towards the right and damaging public education. This includes How Betsy DeVos Used God and Amway to Take Over Michigan Politics from Politico Magazine, and a letter from fellow graduates and students of Calvin College opposing her nomination. In addition, The Washington Post had A sobering look at what Betsy DeVos did to education in Michigan — and what she might do as secretary of education:

President-elect Donald Trump has made a number of controversial cabinet nominations already. But none seems more inappropriate, or more contrary to reason, than his choice of DeVos to lead the Department of Education.

DeVos isn’t an educator, or an education leader. She’s not an expert in pedagogy or curriculum or school governance. In fact, she has no relevant credentials or experience for a job setting standards and guiding dollars for the nation’s public schools.

She is, in essence, a lobbyist — someone who has used her extraordinary wealth to influence the conversation about education reform, and to bend that conversation to her ideological convictions despite the dearth of evidence supporting them…

Largely as a result of the DeVos’ lobbying, Michigan tolerates more low-performing charter schools than just about any other state. And it lacks any effective mechanism for shutting down, or even improving, failing charters.

We’re a laughingstock in national education circles, and a pariah among reputable charter school operators, who have not opened schools in Detroit because of the wild West nature of the educational landscape here…

What Detroit needs are better, high-quality choices — public, charter, whatever.

But DeVos and her family have stood in the way of improving what we have. They’ve stood for the charter industry and its middling results, over our kids.

I’m certain she’ll try to make the nation’s charter landscape look more like the chaos we face here in Detroit, and less like it does in states like Tennessee or Massachusetts or Maryland — all much better performers who have tighter reins on charter creation and proliferation.

Her lobbying hasn’t been good for Detroit, or Michigan.

It won’t be good for the nation.

My prediction about Trump University above is only a slight exaggeration considering the conflicts of interest DeVos has been involved with, including Neurocore, a company with a reputation for using high pressure sales tactics to sell unproven treatments for ADHD. The Hill has posted The ethics case against Betsy DeVos:

As former ethics counsels to Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, we’ve reviewed more than our share of ethics filings for cabinet nominees. Seldom have we seen a worse cabinet-level ethics mess than that presented by Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s choice for education secretary.

Her extensive financial holdings present significant—and unresolved—conflict of interest issues. She also failed to provide the Senate with accurate information about her involvement with outside organizations. We have regretfully come to the conclusion that these concerns disqualify DeVos for that cabinet position.

…DeVos’ failure to meet even minimum standards leaves us with no choice but to speak out.

For example, DeVos intends to maintain the $5 million to $25 million she and her husband have invested in Neurocore, a biotech company that claims to have “helped thousands of children” with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Neurocore is listed with its logo and a link to its website along with several other investments on a website operated by Windquest Group, an investment company owned by DeVos and her husband…

In her hearing, DeVos also made claims than strain credulity. For example, she was asked under oath about tax filings that listed her as vice president of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation. The Prince Foundation, established by her parents in 1989, reportedly made significant contributions to anti-LGBT groups over the years, including at least $5 million to conservative religious groups that support conversion therapy.

DeVos denied that she had that role at the Prince Foundation, and when confronted in her hearing by Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) with actual forms indicating she was an officer, DeVos attributed it to a “clerical error”—one that persisted for 17 years.

Betsy DeVos fits in this cabinet purely based upon her opposition to the government programs her department deals with, and a history of massive contributions to Republican candidates. It is certainly not due to any qualifications in education.

Bowling Green Massacre And Nomination of Betsy DeVos Promote Further Protests

After being mocked for her alternative facts in using a Bowling Green Massacre which never existed to justify Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, Kellyanne Conway admitted she was wrong said that, “Honest mistakes abound.” This was after the Bowling Green Massacre became the subject of further demonstrations. The New York Daily News reported:

New Yorkers can be a sentimental — and satirical — bunch.

That’s why it was no surprise that an impromptu vigil was held Friday honoring the Bowling Green massacre victims that never were.

“We’re commemorating the victims of Bowling Green,” said Chris Bauer as he stifled a smile. “It never happened so they were never commemorated.”

Bauer and a handful of others stood near the Lower Manhattan park, holding signs and shouting, “We all are Bowling Green, never remember never forget.”

The protests against Donald Trump’s Muslim ban included the cover of The New Yorker, showing “Liberty’s Flameout.”

The protest was international, including this cover of Der Spiegel:

Fortunately the ban has been temporarily lifted by a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush, promoting Donald Trump to make his own protests on Twitter. While he might not like it, Donald Trump is slowly being forced to learn that there are limitations on his power. In addition, there are reports that he is backing away from the idea floated last week of reopening black site prisons.

Protests against Trump are likely to be commonplace over the next four years (unless impeachment or 25th Amendment solutions make this unnecessary). The Washington Post reports on How protesters plan to get under Trump’s skin wherever he goes:

This is the reality of Trump’s honeymoon-free presidency.

Having sought to create unprecedented disruption in Washington, his critics will now seek to bring unprecedented disruption to his life as president — including demonstrations that follow him when he travels, and protests that will dog his businesses even when he doesn’t.

Already this week, Trump — the most unpopular new president in modern times — canceled a trip to visit Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee, where local groups had planned to protest his appearance; the White House said the protests were not the reason for the cancellation.

And, around the business empire that Trump still owns, his critics treat each location as an avatar for the president.

 

The Muslim ban is not the only reason for protests this weekend. Others are protesting the appointment of Betsy DeVos as Education secretary. Comedian Mike Birbiglia tweeted, “Betsy DeVos teaches us that if you’re born rich, never go to public schools, and hate public schools, someday you can run public schools.” With two Republican Senators saying they will vote against DeVos, supporters of public education are hoping to obtain a third Republican to flip, but the odds do not look good.