Well, it took two days to come up with a blog post sized list of scary things. This is a full time job.
Donald Trump issued an Executive Order commanding the Department of Homeland Security to “make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens” and to report on sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with the Federal Government.
In response to Trump issuing a gag order on department’s use of social media, Badlands National Park’s twitter account went rogue and started posting global warming facts. Also, in response to this insane request, alternative National Park twitter accounts are popping up., as well as NASA and the EPA. Trump’s gag orders are so outrageous they have created the beginnings of a Scientist’s March.
Trump’s very first Executive Order was to rescind a 0.25% rate cut on FHA loans. This cut will affect millions of home buyers and cost then about $500 per year. While not a drastic change, it definitely goes against his “help the middle class” pledge, as this will almost exclusively hurt them.
Citing “carnage” in Chicago, Trump tells the mayor to either clean up or he will send in the Feds. Let’s ignore the fact that there is no mechanism for him to do so short of declaring martial law or Chicago asking for help, which, by the way, Chicago has.
This one is probably the one that baffles me the most. Donald Trump gave a speech at CIA headquarters in front of the wall of stars that represent CIA operatives who have died in the line of duty and used it to complain about how his Inauguration was being misreported and how horrible the media is. Let that sink in. Trump used as background the most sacred space at CIA headquarters to complain about the media. If Obama, or any Democrat, had done anything except profess thanks to the CIA in front of this shrine, there would be frothy screaming. Oh, and Trump brought his own cheering section for the speech, which is becoming a regular thing.
In what must be the weirdest televised interview of a sitting President, and Trump’s first so the weird can continue to climb, Trump continued to spout bald faced lies about voter fraud and his Inauguration turn out and how the CIA loved his speech and how the up coming anti-abortion rally is going to be larger than the kind of large Women’s March that broke all sorts of attendance records. The take away is that people that agree with Trump are the smartest and those that don’t are enemies.
The entire upper management of the State Department was fired en masse today. This is the largest simultaneous State Department firing ever and leaves the most important department of the Federal Government rudderless and will give the inexperienced Rex Tillerson no upper management experience in the department. Terrifying. Clarification: As per usual, upper management sent letters of resignation which the incoming president usually ignores. Trump decided to accept those letters. Still terrifying.
All EPA studies must now be brought to Trump officials before being released. Another in a series of chilling attacks on science when science is what we need most.