Juliajms

Calling that number connected me to his voicemail. I left a message.

^ That did the trick thanks Vee. Wow. I believe it too. Trump must love seeing people riot in the streets. We have millions of children in the system and this SOB wants to make it harder for LGBT people to adopt. I have a friend and former roommate who adopted two siblings out of the foster care system. One a three year old boy and the other a 15 year old girl. Their mother is in jail for life. She totally changed their lives for the better in every way. The oldest is headed off to college in the fall. Also, my friend did two tours overseas and is one of those vets Trump claims to love so much. I have always tried to have a basic respect for the office of the president, but I just cannot. I hate this man so much.

Ugh. I can't get the page to load. There must be too many people trying to see it.

I saw Robert Reich recounted a conversation he had with a Republican friend a couple of weeks ago saying that their was a plan in place by Republicans to replace Trump when he gets out of hand. Until then they are just using him as cover to do the ugly things they want to do, while pretending they are reluctant. We'll see.

^ Makes sense. I'm glad they at least had a cheap option for people.

I've always understood voter apathy. Even though who is in charge matters, it doesn't always feel like it makes a huge difference in your own life. To some extent I think my fellow Americans (including myself) had become both cynical and spoiled. This is the first time in a good long while that we faced a true threat to the republic and I think a lot of people just didn't believe it. Notice how many people were accusing the media of overstating Trump's chances at winning, meanwhile they were wrong in the other direction. They should have had Carl and Q as their pundits. Anyway, at this point, what anyone did or did not do in the last election doesn't matter to me, except to the extent it helps us figure out how to motivate them to do differently next time. One thing that would certainly help is working to make voting easier. When people have to wait four hours to vote after working a long hard day, that's going to discourage almost anyone. It's silly to pat yourself on the back for voting when your polling place is close by and you only have to wait 20 mins. If Starbucks really wants to be helpful maybe they should send baristas out with coffee while they wait to vote. Hmmm I wonder if doing something like that is legal?

I agree with you to a point, but at least we can hope this means he won't get a second term. What's done is done, but I'm happy to hear about people who have changed their minds and people who regret not voting in the first place.

I felt the same, but these protests give me hope. I believe people are waking up.

The shooting at the Mosque in Canada is really sad. Those poor people. I wish I could believe in hell, so that I'd be sure all these people shooting up places of worship would get what's coming to them. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/quebec-mosque-attack-170130031548892.html

^ I don't think much of Republicans on domestic social issues, but this EO goes to the core of American values. I'm not that surprised that some of them are standing against this. I'm glad, but it's only one of the terrible issues coming our way. Every day it's some new nightmare. I guess I'll have to call Sasse tomorrow and thank him for doing something decent though.

I'm sure your right. I'm just so frustrated by the chaos and crazy behavior from the executive office. I guess the bright spot is so many people are taking a stand against it.

I was glad to see that Canada reaffirmed their commitment to taking refugees. I guess I'm cynical, but I don't give any credit to people like the Koch brothers. They have their agenda and it's nothing to do with being magnanimous. Then again, any ally looks good about now, I guess. I wonder if Trump were actively trying to cause chaos with this EO. It just seems like he could have done essentially the same thing in a more discreet way. Not even letting people who were already in transit in was bound to cause an uproar. I feel like he's trying to do so many things at once to cause distraction and confusion. Also, I'm so tired of hearing that it's unchristian to send people away. I guess if it guilts some people in to doing the right thing that's nice, but I don't care what Jesus would do and I feel that's the kind of thinking that gets us in these messes in the first place.

I was a little surprised by Sasse. I've never had much use for him. Obviously he comes from deep pockets, so I'd never count him out. Deb Fischer tends to flirt with opposing Trump, but then backs down. I'll be interested to see if she wimps out this time too.

Well, I think come Monday we'll really see what some of these Republicans are made of. I honestly believe some of them are decent people who will do the right thing (as some are already standing up for refugees tonight), but we are also going to see who stands by this shameful EO. I think there is no question that battle lines are being drawn here.

I think we are very lucky that Trump and Bannon haven't gotten their dirty mitts on the courts yet, but that's coming.

Seriously. The only question here is which country will we be at war with first. China, Russia or some of the Arabic nations. I know people think he's buddy buddy with Russia, but the man is erratic and completely unstable. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he and Putin are at each others throats a year from now.

For sure, because if not, "we" sure as hell aren't the good guys either. Just look at the Dakota Access Pipeline. People talk about how we stole land from Native Americans in the past. No one alive now did that and there is not a damn thing we can do to change it. Meanwhile it's happening again and I'm still not sure it can be stopped. Of course, I know it's not the exact same thing, but it's still a situation where "we" are f*cking "them" over when it should be unthinkable to ever step on their rights again. Same thing with voter suppression. I know so many people who think they would have stood up to slavery or Jim Crow, but it's happening again. I'm not saying individuals are powerless or blameless, but it goes to show how incredibly powerful the system (for lack of a better word) really is.

Sure, but I'm not going to judge countries on their past. If we do that it's going to be mighty hard to find anyone with anything approaching clean hands and there is nothing anyone can do to change the past. I'm a lot more worried about who is violating human rights right now because that can be changed. I'm not suggesting anyone dismiss China. They were going to have a huge impact on world affairs no matter who was elected in the US this year. Trump is just giving them an even bigger opening.

Ha! Yeah, I know about that, but I'm not talking about countries that have more disturbing human rights records than we are about to have. I'm talking about countries stepping up to lead the free world and rendering aid to developing nations.

The Netherlands is stepping up to help fund abortion in developing countries. This is what we need, other countries to step in and take over where the US is now falling down on the job. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/netherlands-trump-global-gag-rule/

Yeah, this is messed up, but I was reading that he doesn't really have the power to do it, so we'll see. In other news, I had no idea that Omaha and Lincoln were sanctuary districts. I'm pretty surprised.

^ All the money for a stupid wall, while Americans struggle with healthcare costs. So frustrating.

So many bad things happening today. Not sure what's worse, the "global gag order" on abortion or the immigration orders. Oh, and the Dakota Access Pipeline is in their somewhere too. I'm probably a bit right of most people on this board when it comes to immigration and I'm still horrified.

Exactly because I think there is at least a small chance he would lose.

Since millions of people voted illegally, I'm thinking we better hold a new election ASAP.