kpete

kpete's Journal

February 1, 2017

You are a majority of one - You have a duty to do something to preserve democracy.

A majority of one walks away from his keyboard
By ROGER SIMON 02/01/17 05:19 AM EST

........

We live at a pivotal time because Donald Trump and his thugs have done us a favor. They have shown us that democracy is not inevitable. They have shown us it can fail.

In just a matter of days, they have shown us how democracy can be transformed into something evil. And we can imagine a future of jackboots crashing through our doors at 2 a.m., trucks in the streets to take people to the internment camps, bright lights and barking dogs — and worse.

Does this make me sound hysterical? Maybe. But this is my last chance to be. In its first week, the Trump administration demonstrated its contempt for Mexicans, for Muslims and for Jews. I imagine the true list is longer. Much longer.

Should we keep quiet as we watch this? Is this why America was created?

If, for amusement, you wish to pay attention to the opinion polls, do so. (Jimmy Kimmel said: “Hillary underperformed with women, African-Americans, Latinos and young people. The only group she did well with was pollsters.”)

But the most important poll was created by Henry David Thoreau when he wrote, “any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one … ”

You are a majority of one. You have a duty to act like it. You have a duty to do something to preserve democracy. Something nonviolent, I hope, but something.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/simon-says-farewell-column-234450

February 1, 2017

They aren't terrorists. they're kids.

https://twitter.com/nytimesworld/status/826842582944772097
BARCELONA, Spain — President Trump’s travel ban disrupted the plans of hundreds of people around the globe, but perhaps none more vulnerable than Sham Aldaher, an infant Syrian refugee girl, and her family.

Sham was born without an eye and with a seriously disfigured face. Following two complex operations at a Barcelona hospital, Sham is due to receive an eye prosthesis next Wednesday. Her family had then planned to resettle in the United States.

They had already completed the required interviews and cleared all security checks before the plans were blocked by President Trump’s executive order to bar citizens from Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries seen as threatening to America’s safety.

“They were travel-ready, and they are now barred,” said Jayne Fleming, the head of the human rights team at Reed Smith, an American law firm that has been helping Sham and her family. Ms. Fleming and her team are now scrambling to see whether Britain, Germany or another country could instead welcome the family. “They’re distressed over not knowing what the future holds for them.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/world/europe/trump-travel-ban-syria-refugees.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

February 1, 2017

WARNING: Once Gorsuch confirmed at SCOTUS & Sessions at DOJ-Trump planning assault on voting rights

https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/826612002827157504

February 1, 2017

"The Leader Of The Free World..."

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February 1, 2017

"Reserved For Merrick Garland"

https://twitter.com/bernielubell/status/826573722668654594

February 1, 2017

Reuters instructs its reporters to cover Trump as it does other authoritarian regimes

https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/826771491714891777

In a message to staff today, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler wrote about covering President Trump the Reuters way:

The first 12 days of the Trump presidency (yes, that’s all it’s been!) have been memorable for all – and especially challenging for us in the news business. It’s not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth” or that his chief strategist dubs the media “the opposition party.” It’s hardly surprising that the air is thick with questions and theories about how to cover the new Administration.

So what is the Reuters answer? To oppose the administration? To appease it? To boycott its briefings? To use our platform to rally support for the media? All these ideas are out there, and they may be right for some news operations, but they don’t make sense for Reuters. We already know what to do because we do it every day, and we do it all over the world.

To state the obvious, Reuters is a global news organization that reports independently and fairly in more than 100 countries, including many in which the media is unwelcome and frequently under attack. I am perpetually proud of our work in places such as Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia, nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists. We respond to all of these by doing our best to protect our journalists, by recommitting ourselves to reporting fairly and honestly, by doggedly gathering hard-to-get information – and by remaining impartial. We write very rarely about ourselves and our troubles and very often about the issues that will make a difference in the businesses and lives of our readers and viewers.

We don’t know yet how sharp the Trump administration’s attacks will be over time or to what extent those attacks will be accompanied by legal restrictions on our news-gathering. But we do know that we must follow the same rules that govern our work anywhere, namely:

Do’s:

--Cover what matters in people’s lives and provide them the facts they need to make better decisions.

--Become ever-more resourceful: If one door to information closes, open another one.

--Give up on hand-outs and worry less about official access. They were never all that valuable anyway. Our coverage of Iran has been outstanding, and we have virtually no official access. What we have are sources.

--Get out into the country and learn more about how people live, what they think, what helps and hurts them, and how the government and its actions appear to them, not to us.

--Keep the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles close at hand, remembering that “the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved.”

Don’ts:

--Never be intimidated, but:

--Don’t pick unnecessary fights or make the story about us. We may care about the inside baseball but the public generally doesn’t and might not be on our side even if it did.

--Don’t vent publicly about what might be understandable day-to-day frustration. In countless other countries, we keep our own counsel so we can do our reporting without being suspected of personal animus. We need to do that in the U.S., too.

--Don’t take too dark a view of the reporting environment: It’s an opportunity for us to practice the skills we’ve learned in much tougher places around the world and to lead by example – and therefore to provide the freshest, most useful, and most illuminating information and insight of any news organization anywhere.

This is our mission, in the U.S. and everywhere. We make a difference in the world because we practice professional journalism that is both intrepid and unbiased. When we make mistakes, which we do, we correct them quickly and fully. When we don’t know something, we say so. When we hear rumors, we track them down and report them only when we are confident that they are factual. We value speed but not haste: When something needs more checking, we take the time to check it. We try to avoid “permanent exclusives” – first but wrong. We operate with calm integrity not just because it’s in our rulebook but because – over 165 years – it has enabled us to do the best work and the most good.

Media Contact:

Heather dot Carpenter at thomsonreuters dot com

[Reuters PR Blog Post]
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN15F276