politics

There are 113 posts filed in politics (this is page 6 of 15).

How Syrian refugees are vetted

In The Washington Post, A Syrian refugees tells the story of how her family was rigorously vetted before coming to the US:

President Trump says that it is not safe to accept certain kinds of refugees without “extreme vetting” that he has yet to detail. So he has now banned people from seven countries, including Syria, which I fled with my family in 2014. But we were thoroughly vetted before we came here, just like other refugees — exhaustively, endlessly vetted. We are not terrorists. And if we’d been stopped from coming here, we would be suffering horribly right now.

Trump’s border wall will be horrible for the planet

A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates the environmental destruction Trump’s proposed border wall will wreak upon the planet:

A 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) wall would require an estimated 275 million cubic feet of concrete. It would release as much as 1.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to Christoph Meinrenken, an associate research scientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. That’s more than the annual emissions from every home in Pittsburgh.

That’s just for the raw materials alone. This is to say nothing of all the machinery that will be required to put it there, as well as the displacement of indigenous creatures and associated damage.

For a great visualization of the madness, check out this short film from The Intercept that shows just how much ground there is to cover.

The case for conservatives realizing that Trump has issues

Over at Pajiba, Dustin Rowles has compiled in which conservatives have expressed concern about the way that the new Trump regime is distorting the truth and eroding the country’s credibility:

The media is pushing back, at least. So much so that Bannon called them the opposition, rather than the Democrats, and from what we have seen from Dems in Congress, he’s not wrong. Congressional Democrats have not been nearly as vocal as they should be (with some exception). Ultimately, however, because they have the numbers, it’s important that Republicans push back, as well, because that’s when things will start to unravel.

For the most part, however, Congressional Republicans have been ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. They seem to be looking on with a kind of bemusement, as Trump quietly destroys their party. However, there are signs of life.

 

American Christianity has failed at its core mission

I was raised in a conservative Christian church in Massachusetts. The more time I spent in a conventional evangelical environment, the more it seemed to me that the things the church prioritized weren’t very aligned with the teachings of Jesus.

Over at Sojourners, Stephen Mattson agrees. He’s penned a scathing indictment of “American Christianity”:

Because while the gospels instruct followers of Christ to help the poor, oppressed, maligned, mistreated, sick, and those most in need of help, Christians in America have largely supported measures that have rejected refugees, refused aid to immigrants, cut social services to the poor, diminished help for the sick, fueled xenophobia, reinforced misogyny, ignored racism, stoked hatred, reinforced corruption, and largely increased inequality, prejudice, and fear.

I wish Mattson was more clear about his definition of “Christianity” here, but the article otherwise captures exactly how I feel. The fact that the American Right has supported policies and candidates that neglect the most needy in our society has been a heartbreaking development for me.

I hope the message of peace, hope, and love becomes an idea embraced by all political parties, and soon.

Seattle will not back down

Heidi Grover, covering today’s speech by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray for The Stranger:

Today, as President Donald Trump issued plans build a border wall with Mexico and crack down on cities that offer refuge to undocumented immigrants, vows to fight back were issued by city, county, and federal officials from Seattle.

“I am willing to lose every single penny to protect those people,” Murray said of immigrants, refugees, and Muslims, groups that have been the targets of Trump’s onslaught of executive orders in recent days. One of Trump’s executive orders, issued today, takes aim at “sanctuary cities,” like Seattle, that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Trump has said he plans to cut federal funding to such cities as a way of coercing them to cooperate with deportations or punishing them if they refuse. Another order will restrict immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries.

Seattle stands to lose over $80 million in federal funding if Trump successfully makes good on his threat to revoke federal funding to sanctuary cities.

Trump’s inauguration cake symbolizes his approach to the presidency

Masha Gessen, writing for The New York Review of Books:

Better yet, take the cake. On Saturday it emerged that the inaugural-ball cake that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence cut with a sword was a knock-off of President Obama’s 2013 inaugural-ball cake. Obama’s was created by celebrity chef Duff Goldman. Trump’s was commissioned from a decidedly more modest Washington bakery than Goldman’s, and the transition-team representative who put in the order explicitly asked for an exact copy of Goldman’s design—even when the baker suggested creating a variation on the theme of Goldman’s cake. Only a small portion of Trump’s cake was edible; the rest was Styrofoam (Obama’s was cake all the way through). The cake may be the best symbol yet of the incoming administration: much of what little it brings is plagiarized, and most of it is unusable for the purpose for which presidential administrations are usually intended. Not only does it not achieve excellence: it does not even see the point of excellence.

10 letters a day

Incredible story from The New York Times on how Obama’s “10 letters a day” policy was instituted:

President Obama was the first to come up with a deliberate and explicit practice of 10 letters every day. If the president was home at the White House (he did not tend to mail when he traveled), he would be reading constituent mail, and everyone knew it, and systems were put in place to make sure it happened. The mail had currency. Some staff members called it “the letter underground.” Starting in 2010, all hard mail would be scanned and preserved. Starting in 2011, every email every day would be used to create a word cloud, its image distributed around the White House so policy makers and staff members alike could get a glimpse at what everyday Americans were writing in to say.

The breadth of the emails is breathtaking to consider: love letters, suicide notes, desperate please, harsh criticism. Obama read them all. And in the end, he was grateful for how they impacted him:

“I tell you, one of the things I’m proud of about having been in this office is that I don’t feel like I’ve … lost myself,” he said…“I feel as if — even if my skin is thicker from, you know, public criticism,” he said, “and I’m wiser about the workings of government, I haven’t become … cynical, and I haven’t become callused. And I would like to think that these letters have something to do with that.”

There are no words

Yesterday was the Seattle Womxn’s March, an event intended to signal solidarity with all the people who might be marginalized under a Trump administration. An estimated 130K people (more than 2x the 50,000 that was estimated) marched the 3.5 miles from Judkins Park to the Seattle Center. I was part of that group.

According to the site’s press release, this was one of more than 200 events planned in 46 states and 30 countries (The New York Times has a rundown of all the events).

Seattle’s event was “a grassroots response to the 2016 election, according to Paula Goelzer, a Seattle-based birth doula, who started the Facebook event for the Womxn’s March on Seattle after she and her colleagues heard about the march in Washington D.C.” (FYI: This is one of the most Seattle sentences that has ever been written)

As I headed downtown to join the March from its 4th and Pike entrance, I noticed the city was eerily quiet – probably because most people were already at the March’s opening rallying point in Judkins.

This was supposed to be a silent march, and as I got into the crowd, I did notice things were much more quiet and less raucous than I would’ve expected. Occasional cheers did erupt throughout the marching line, but there was an eerie, magical feeling as we all headed down the street.

One thing the event definitely affirmed to me was the creativity and spirit of my fellow Seattle residents. Lots of creative signs were out in force.

I’m going to have a more detailed post with my favorite signs from the event later this week.

As the march reached its endpoint, we did notice a few crazies. A man standing off to the side of the street. One Chinese woman with a thick accent and a Pepe shirt started screaming “BUILD THAT WALL” at a lot of the marchers (don’t get me started on why this makes no sense). Fortunately, there was a woman following her around with a sign that said “Ignore the troll.”

Throughout the day, there were wonderful moments that confirmed, yes, we still live in a country (or at least a city) that values equality and goodness. And maybe together, we can figure out how to get through this.

The thing that hit me the most were kids. Sure there were some that were clearly dragged there by their parents and had no idea WTF was going on. But others were there to take a step into political activism, to affirm that values like peace, love, and kindness were still worth fighting for in this world. I was deeply moved by them.

The future belongs to these kids. We let them down in a big way with this election. But these children remind me, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

***

P.S. Also, why spell it the “Womxn’s March”? From the website:

The spelling of “Womxn’s March” has been adapted to highlight and promote intersectionality in the movement for civil right and equality. Intersectionality acknowledges that different forms of discrimination intersect, overlap, and reinforce each other, and recognizes the impact of discrimination based not only on gender, but also race, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, faith, class, disability, and other backgrounds.