Thoughts on Week 1 of the Trumpocalypse?

[Colonel Thunder]

Pretty self-explanatory.

For once I'm actually moved enough to do activist-y things instead of doing everything else I'd rather do on a Saturday.

 

[Tirin]

When's the sequel to the American Civil War coming?

 

[The Hound]

Besides everyone freaking out and the doomsday clock being so close to midnight, I feel like he's done the things that I expected him to do. I think the overreaction has been more impactful than he has.

 

[Requiem]

A top Chinese military official has stated that war within Trump's presidency is highly likely, so there's that.

 

[Tirin]

How does everyone feel about Antifa? What about Richard Spencer being assaulted, and how many left-leaning folk glorify that violence for being "against a Nazi"?

 

[Steal Thy Kill]

 

[Tirin]

Funnily enough, I haven't had a drink since waking up on January 1st. America's slow, but steady descent into chaos is my anti-drug.

 

[Chickenspleen]

I gotta say, whoever's writing this season of U.S. politics is killing it. Can't miss television.

 

[Firedemon]

I was talking with my research adviser Friday and he was saying a lot of other professors in the department (chemistry) lost funding overnight and without warning because one of Trump's executive orders suspended all outgoing research funds from the EPA. Mind you, he didn't just fuck over a bunch of professors who undoubtedly have other projects to fall back on, he fucked over mainly the grad students who will be potentially changing projects in the middle of working on their PhDs. Some of those grad students are funded by those EPA grants too, not the university, so I hope for their sake that their department picks up the tab so they can continue and finish their degrees.

So yeah, I'm a little pissed. If he pulls this shit with NSF (National Science Foundation) and NIH (National Institutes of Health) too my lab will be thoroughly fucked as well.

 

[The Hound]

Sounds a lot like what my friend is dealing with FD, she's been going to school for Meteorology and she's been livid as it's impacted her work.

 

[Firedemon]

Well, at least she hasn't been banned from entering the country. I hope she gets her funding back; imploding all these research projects is not going to be good for anyone. I don't know what your friend does in particular, but I'd wager that 90-100% of the projects here in our chemistry department that lost funding weren't even related to climate change. They were probably almost all related to not poisoning the soil, air, and water or cleaning up that pollution.

Also, this here Muslim Ban. I was going to say we should hold off on calling it that, since he's banning the non-Muslims from those countries too and not just banning all Muslims, but... There's language in the executive order providing for exceptions and preferential treatment for people who are religious minorities in those countries. In other words, non-Muslims. Which also puts this executive order in violation of the 1st Amendment, but the Constitution only matters when the other party is in power.

 

[The Hound]

Well I don't know the whole story since I haven't seen her since this past summer and this info was from her irate facebook posts, but it sounds like it's extra problematic for her because her work involved climate research and now having an administration that denies climate change it's unlikely that she will get her funding back. Plus on top of that she was working for the government as part of her education, so I think that's also ended now. I'll have to message her and ask more questions.

 

[Firedemon]

Damn. That's pretty terrible.

 

[Shadow]

Oh, say does that star spangled baaaaaannerrr yet waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave
O'er the laaaaaaaaaaaaaaand of the freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
And the hooooooooooooooooooooooome of the braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave?

 

[Firedemon]

In other news, acting Attorney General Sally Yates has ordered the justice department's lawyers not to defend the travel ban.

 

[Firedemon]

That escalated quickly.

 

[The Hound]

I really really really hope he called her up and said

 

[AndyM03]

TC's been spitting fire on Facebook recently, I love it.
The people on your friends list scare me. Really the entire 'fake news' movement scares me, but I digress.

 

[Colonel Thunder]

It takes a proper bad time for me to actually give a damn and call senators and shit, but somehow we got there.

 

[LeMeh]

It is an undeniable shit show with no end in sight, and the only possible positive that could potentially come from it is if progressives get their shit together and put in the work and effort required to challenge the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party and start replacing them with more actual progressives that will actually pursue the kind of progressive platform Bernie Sanders ran on through a grassroots movement willing to fund such a thing the same way we were willing to fund Sanders. The Justice Democrats is the first attempt I've seen so far at actually doing this, and it will be interesting to see if it actually gains any traction.