Day 6: I cannot believe the things I am writing here

So much to unpack today. Slate has a good overview of the day, including deconstructions of the heinous language used by the administration. I'll try to keep these brief...

• House Science Committee Chairman: Get your news from Trump, not media. Trump is a demonstrably sociopathic liar and narcissist. I'll throw my lot in with the media every time, thanks.
• USDA and EPA forbidden from communicating with public. Because taxpayer-funded science is apparently dangerous and shouldn't be discussed with the taxpayer. Because warnings about climate change and food safety are not for public consumption, of course. This is horrific. Some followup here on making sure that the work of these agencies is consistent with the viewpoints of the administration. I just want to throw it out there that censoring science is WRONG. More: they want political appointees to censor data and studies. EDIT: It appears to be even worse than this. All EPA grants, new and old, are apparently suspended. Multiple agencies are under this gag order (with no confirmation/statement/anything from the administration), and resistance from various National Parks twitter accounts is being squashed. DNC statement: this is NOT business as usual.
• Trump believes in torture. The use of torture in the Bush years was a blight on this country. And now he wants to go back there???! Also: Trump poised to reinstate CIA "black site" prisons. These were utterly, utterly vile a decade ago. And yet here we are.
• Trump calls for investigation into voter fraud. Told you it was coming. Fomented by Trump's own lies, this is the first steps along the path to voter suppression. Also, this is a massive waste of money.
• More on police brutality in DC. Meanwhile, nationwide, individual states are clamping down on protestor's rights...
• Global gag rule got a massive expansion. It used to apply only to family planning funding ($600 million). Now it applies to ALL health funding ($9.5 billion). This is devastating!

There were two executive actions from today, insofar as I can tell. Most articles lump them together, so I've linked the raw texts below.

• Build that wall. Ugh. Also calls for 5,000 additional border patrolmen, and construction of new detention facilities (because the ones that we presently have won't deal with the onslaught, apparently?)
• Declare war on sanctuary cities. These are cities who do not actively seek out a person's immigration status, helping to shield them from deportation. I actively support cities standing up to Trump over this! (The order also calls for another 10,000 immigration officers to be hired, so that illegal immigrants can be ferreted out or something heinous like that.)

Remember that Obama was already the deporter-in-Chief. This sounds like it's going to get ugly.

There's also plenty of coverage discussing a proposed ban on muslims, suspension of refugee programs, shuttering visa programs for certain countries, and other horrific things. I guess we'll find out exact details tomorrow.

Some state news:

• Indiana wants to allow police to shut down protests by any means necessary, including taking lives.
• Arkansas wants to limit access to abortion, with the house passing legislation that courts have already struck down. Sound like a waste of taxpayer money? You bet it is. But - also a waste of Planned Parenthood's money. And that's the point.

A lot of the crap that's happened or been proposed in the past couple of days would typically be enough to get a country that implemented it sanctioned by the US. I honestly hope that other countries are contemplating sanctions against the US for some of this vile shit.

Are you ready to laugh? Senior Trump administration figures using private email server. The double standards are mind-boggling.

I've added links to a couple of other blogs/sites trying to perform the same purpose as I am here. You can find those links over to the right. I thank these sites wholeheartedly for their work, as they are finding a lot of stuff that doesn't hit my daily reading list.