(Because I live in a later time zone than many readers here.)
Hopium PM – Court Blocks Trump’s Dangerous Power Grab, New Reuters Poll Shows Trump Taking A Hit, Keep Making Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! by Simon Rosenberg
Kennedy and Gabbard Hearings Tomorrow, Patel ThursdayRead on Substack
Good evening peeps. A federal judge has blocked Trump’s outrageous suspension/cancelling of Congressionally mandated funding for programs of all kinds across all 50 states. From the Washington Post:
A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from imposing a sweeping pause on trillions of dollars in federal spending, capping a frenetic day of disruption to government programs that fund schools, provide housing and ensure low-income Americans have access to healthcare.
The order prevented thenew restrictions from taking effect until at least Feb. 3, buying time for a coalition of public-health advocates, nonprofits and businesses — represented by the left-leaning group Democracy Forward — to proceed with a case that may test Trump’sclaims of expansive power over the nation’s fiscal trajectory.
The decision arrived amid a wave of chaos and confusion in Washington, where few appeared to understand the scope and intention of a White House memo that had directed agencies to “temporarily pause” the disbursement of key federal funds. Even before it could officially take effect at 5 p.m., thousands of government services — many dedicated primarily to Americans’ health, safety and well-being — appeared to be at risk of interruption or shutdown, at least temporarily.
The NYTimes has a good backgrounder on “impoundment” – Trump’s attempt just to cancel government programs he doesn’t care for and “impound” the money (gift article). I also found this article by Russell Berman in the Atlantic helpful in understanding where we are.
Yes, in the first few weeks of Trump’s Presidency we are already facing one of the gravest Constitutional crises in America history as Trump is attempting to seize a level of control over our government no President has ever had.
If there was an upside to this dark day Democrats across the country at all levels of government loudly rose up against the latest acts of our Mad Orange Wannabe King. It appeared to have woken us from our collective slumber, as the threat Trump clearly represents became impossible to ignore. Can we compete with Trump, contest his out of control Administration, score some wins in the coming days?
First, a new Reuters poll suggests Trump has already overreached, as his approval rating has already taken a 9 point hit:
Jan 21 – 47% approve, 39% disapprove (+8)
Jan 28 – 45% approve, 46% disapprove (-1)
We will see if these results are replicated in other polls but this one sure shows that Trump is struggling out of the gate. Note below how unpopular many of his early actions/proposals are (but also note the broad public support for “downsizing the federal government”): (snip-MORE; go see it! It’s free and you don’t have to log in.)
After Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez rejected his immigration proposals earlier in the day and put forward one of their own, DeSantis slammed their plan as “weak” and claimed they were “gutting” his proposal to require all law enforcement officials in the state to work with federal immigration enforcement officials. (snip-this was the newest update at 8 PM when I set this up. There could be more by now!)
I think we need a category for “Resources.” Anyway, our friend and fellow blogger Annie Asks You gave a couple of resources for us to pass along and use to help our neighbors, earlier in a comment on another blog. I put together a Substack about it, so here it is. It’s short.
These sites have information people need so they are prepared in case authorities believe they have reason to question or detain you. The sites are run by experts, with clear advice for preparation and dealing with authorities. -A.
ICE and CBP might not respect our rights, but they cannot take away our POWER. Use these resources to learn about your rights and express them in case you have an encounter with an immigration official. (snip)
Jan 15, 2025 This Know Your Rights resource provides general information on what to do if you are stopped, arrested, or detained by immigration or other law enforcement. Originally published in December 2015. (snip)
Rare because I rarely post such. Pastor Bolz-Weber says all this so well, and it is what I learned when I was young and growing up; what I work to apply in my own (and in no one else’s) life. I’m not proselytizing or trying to “draw anyone in.” This helps to explain why and how I feel as I do about justice and peace, and love and understanding and all that, including hope and light. Enjoy with a mind that can absorb without feeling there’s gonna be a “come forward” moment, because there’s not one. (Other than to Christians who feel as we do, but wonder about Zionism and Nationalism being as bad as they are.)
This morning I had a quick breakfast with another Lutheran pastor. This of course is not terribly remarkable in the scheme of things, except for the fact that the breakfast took place in the Kingdom of Jordan, a few feet away from the Dead Sea and my colleague had to cut the breakfast short so he could return home to his family, but he was anxious about all the military check point between here and there.
“How far of a drive is it” I asked.
“If I had a car and could drive straight there, about an hour. But my hope is that it will only take 8 hours.” He accepted that he may in fact not even make it home at all tonight.
Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Lutheran Pastor who lives and serves a church in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Christians have been here since the day the Spirit blew through them on the day of Pentecost, so Munther and my other Palestinian Christian friends can get slightly annoyed when well meaning Christians from the West ask “when did your family convert?”.
Um, over 2,000 years ago?
Munther and I are in Jordan right now for a conference – 60 academics and church leaders from 17 countries gathered over the last several days for a consultation on Christian Zionism (belief that Jewish people have a “divine right” to the land here – using a few verses in a 4,000 year old text to have authority over foreign policy and global political realities of today), and the impact of that on Christians in the Middle East; a few days together in a majority Muslim country, across the Dead Sea from the State of Israel to talk about Christian folks’ business: how do the theological beliefs of one group of Christians impact the lives of another group of Christians halfway across the planet?
Many of us grew up with some form of Christian Zionism, I know I did. Perhaps it stemmed from a desire to be faithful to what we have been told, or a desire to help usher in the second coming of Christ (ala The Late Great Planet Earth) so he can come back and destroy the world and take us up to heaven (described this week as science fiction theology), or a desire to assuage the guilt left over from the unspeakable atrocities and genocide of the holocaust.
It will take me time to metabolize what I heard over the last few days. Christian Zionism is widespread, and far reaching in it’s impact, and I am committed to try and maintain the humility it takes as a US citizen and a Christian to consider people like Munther and my friend Mitri Raheb as reliable narrators of the impact on the ground in Palestine.
Palestinian Christians should be listened to by us, their siblings in Christ.
Munther Isaac appeared in ‘Til Kingdom Come (2020), an Israeli documentary about American Christian support for Israel.[20] In the film he explains his view to pastor William Bingham that Christian Zionism contributes to the oppression of Palestinians. After their conversation, Bingham calls Isaac an anti-semite and says that Palestinians do not exist. – Wikipedia
This morning before Munther left to make his way home, he told me a story of a family in his church. For over 150 years they have rightfully owned and inhabited their land outside Bethlehem – a beautiful parcel dotted with olive trees, often hundreds of years old themselves.
Israeli settlers (whose actions are deemed illegal by the UN Security Council) who for years have been attempting to take this family’s land, confronted them at their gate recently, demanding the family leave. The family showed them their ownership documents – dating back from Ottoman rule, then Jordanian rule through to Israeli rule. The settlers angrily lifted up their Bible and said “We have documents too. God gave us this land!”
As I mentioned, I am overwhelmed by all I heard this week and will try and write more later for those who are interested, but for now I wanted to report how one word stood out for me in a particular way during the conference, and that word is: heresy.
19th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher defined heresy as, “that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence“
So perhaps that is the correct word for when, with all the trappings of Christianity behind us, we who seek to justify or maintain our dominance over another group of people use the Bible to prove that our domination`is not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but is, indeed, part of “God’s plan”. Because there you have the appearance of Christianity (Bible verses and God-talk) contradicting its essence (love God, and love your neighbor, blessed are the meek, etc…).
Is it not heresy when slavery is established as “God’s will”; when the subordination of women is established as “God’s will”; when discrimination against queer folks is established as “God’s will”, when the taking of one people’s land by another people is established as “God’s will” (hello, manifest destiny), when the executive VP of the National Rifle Association claims that the right to buy an assault rifle is “not bestowed by man, but granted by God”? When a self-justifying message is heretically delivered in God’s name it brings with it a poison that infects the deepest parts of us and when the poison spreads, so does the violence.
When you can say that God Almighty is co-signing on your dominance over another group of God’s children, then every means is justified, right to the end. Every inch of land stolen, every suicide bombing enacted, every act of violence committed, every weapon used, every checkpoint and illegal detention, every child who dies, every tower that falls to the ground – all of it covered under some sort of bullshit spiritual umbrella policy. There are no means that need justifying if we claim God as our patron and guide.
And I imagine God is just about sick to death of it.
As I claimed in my book about sexual shame and religion, we should never be more loyal to a doctrine or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. If the teachings of the church are harming people we re-think those teachings. Amen?
Speaking up for Palestinians often comes at a cost. Those of you who have done it know. I also know, but am frankly too tired to care right now. So, if based on my recounting of the stories of my friends and colleagues, anyone is moved to called me anti-semitic, please open up the notes app on your phone and feel free to write it there but I will delete your unfounded accusations if you leave them here.
My apologies for the edge in my writing voice. We are all exhausted and as my friend Jodi just texted me, “this month has been two years long already.”
Thank you for reading. I am genuinely sending my love. Please pray this ceasefire holds. And for those waiting on the side of a road right now to return to the rubble of their homes. And for the hostages and prisoners who were released yesterday. I cannot imagine the trauma.
January 27, 1847 Several hundred citizens of Marshall, Michigan, helped former slaves escape to Canada rather than be returned to their “owner” by bounty hunters. Adam Crosswhite and his family, escaped Kentucky slaves, were tracked to the abolitionist town of Marshall by Francis Troutman and others. Both black and white residents detained the bounty hunters and threatened them with tar and feathers. While Troutman was being charged with assault and fined $100, the Crosswhites fled to Canada. Back in Kentucky, the slaveowner stirred up intense excitement about “abolitionist mobs” in Michigan. Since 1832, Michigan had had an active antislavery society. Quakers in Cass County, Laura Haviland in Adrian and former slave Sojourner Truth in Battle Creek were only a few of the many Michiganians who worked on the Underground Railroad—an informal network that assisted escaping slaves. Southern concern over the Underground Railroad led Congress to pass a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. In 1854 opposition to the extension of slavery prompted Michigan citizens to meet in nearby Jackson to organize the Republican Party. Laura Haviland with some artifacts of slavery Sojourner Truth– this should be a link to Ohio History Connection’s entry on Sojourner Truth. That page is no longer available. I don’t see a date or a reason, just that it’s gone. So, here is a link to the National Women’s History Museum’s entry on Sojourner Truth! -A
January 27, 1945 The Red Army of the Soviet Union liberated the German Nazis’ largest concentration camps: the Auschwitz main camp, the Birkenau death camp and the Monowitz labor camp in southwestern Poland. Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
January 27, 1951 The first atomic test was conducted at the Nevada Proving Ground as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats. The Proving Ground was created by President Harry Truman on January 11, 1951. The final nuclear test, Divider, was conducted on September 23, 1992. There were 99 above ground tests and over 800 below ground tests there. read more
January 27, 1969 In Detroit, African-American auto workers, known as the Eldon Avenue Axle Plant Revolutionary Union Movement, led a wildcat strike against racist practices and poor working conditions at the Chrysler plant.Since the 1967 Detroit riots, black workers had organized groups in several Detroit auto plants critical of both the auto companies and the United Auto Workers union leadership. These groups combined Black-Power nationalism and workplace militancy, and temporarily shut down more than a dozen inner-city plants. The most well-known of these groups was the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, or DRUM. They criticized both the seniority system and grievance procedures as racist. Veterans of this movement went on to lead many of the same local unions. Detroit: I Do Mind Dying A Study in Urban Revolution (pdf)
January 27, 1973 The United States and North Vietnam signed “An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” in Paris and all U.S. troops were to leave Vietnam within 90 days. The United States, South Vietnam, Viet Cong, and North Vietnam formally sign but because South Vietnam was unwilling to recognize the Viet Cong’s Provisional Revolutionary Government, all references to it were confined to the document signed by North Vietnam and the United States. The same day, the United States announced an end to the military draft.The Vietnam War resulted in between three and four million Vietnamese deaths with a countless number of Vietnamese casualties. It cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties. The financial cost to the United States came to something over $150 billion dollars. Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Thos initial the agreement.
January 27, 1973 The Pentagon announced a “zero draft,” putting the Selective Service System on standby after five years of continuous operation. 1,728,344 men had been drafted in the previous eight years (principally for the war in Vietnam), 25% of all the armed forces.
January 27, 1988 CISPIS demo May, 1981 Wash DC The Center for Constitutional Rights revealed the FBI had spied on numerous organizations critical of Reagan administration policies in Central America. The principal target was the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). 100 other groups were also investigated, including the Roman Catholic Maryknoll Sisters, the United Auto Workers, the United Steel Workers, and the National Education Association. FBI Director William Sessions said the investigations were an outgrowth of the belief that CISPES was aiding a “terrorist organization.” CISPES today How domestic surveillance multiplied under the label or preventing terrorist attacks
January 27, 1996 France performed its final nuclear weapons test. France exploded the last in a series of six underground nuclear devices in the South Pacific. The tests, ordered by President Jacques Chirac, ended a moratorium imposed by the former president, François Mitterand, but Chirac said France would accept the terms of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Last night I had gone to bed earlier than Ron, my husband as is normal. I slept on my side of the bed and Tupac slept on Ron’s side against Ron’s pillows. We have two small car type pillows and we normally put one down against Ron’s pillows with a towel over them for Tupac to lay on. He sometimes has incontinence of his bladder and at the end of the time length of his drops he tends to get drips from his anus. We are not sure if he just gets into something outside that causes it or it is his drops preventing it as Ron is not great at keeping track of the drops or his spotting.
So when Ron came to bed he started to pull back his blanket and sheets only to realize Tupac had urinated a lot. Again not his fault, he does this when deep asleep sometimes. He is old and badly injured on his lower back end. We think he got hit by a golf cart because he is terrified by them. So Ron and I changed the bed at 10 pm last night.
Ron has gone out to visit with a nurse he worked with and I started washing the sheet and blankets from last night. As I lifted the bedding up to put it in the washer the smell and sight of a pee soaked circle right in my face triggered first one and then more memories. I lost track of time, I was that boy having been peed on while on my mat in the hallway, I was the boy so proud of his first bed to be forced to beg to drink a teen male’s urine rather than have it on my first bed at age 8 … only to have them do it to me anyway. To have to kneel or stand as the males peed on my pants or in them knowing I would be given public punishment by the adopting parents for peeing myself. Forced to accept them doing to me something I had no way to stop, too small and too weak to stop to do anything, and then suffering the public punishment in front of them as they laughed and mocked me with the approval of the adopting parents.
I went to the bathroom next to the washer / dryer and threw up in the toilet. Once done with that I just sat there on the floor and cried. A damned 62 year old man, once a decorated enlisted military man who served in two branches of the service, sitting on the bathroom floor with my back to the sink cabinet sobbing for remembered past pains, hurts, and emotions I can never seem to make stay away but resurface again and again and again into eternity. They tear at me, destroy me it seems like every time.
Finally I was able to calm down. Ron was gone so I had to deal with no support. Yes I could have called Randy but I did not have my phone and even the thought to find it was something I couldn’t manage. Damn even as I try to type this I keep breaking out in tears. I sometimes wonder if the living abusers ever feel bad over what they did to me? But I know not, they were too well schooled and inducted into hate by their parents. So I finished putting stuff in the laundry, kept drying my eyes and blowing my nose.
When I got back to my Pink Palace office … which I will be leaving soon for a grand better brighter room, I took the dry up nasal spray and sat down to write this. I struggled as always … should I burden my friends with it … Well they did not do this it is not their fault. Hey they are really good people I shouldn’t throw this dirt on them and soil them with my own past it is not their fault!
These people don’t deserve to have these thoughts in their head like you do, give them a fuck break from your whining you piece of damaged shit the voice of my adoptive father screams in my head! It rings so loud along with the other names called me. The worst were when he was angry or during the abuse. But his general feeling about me he beat into me. Now I am so tired. I want to quit. I want it all to end. I want to give up.
But there is joy in my life I force myself to remember. I have my wonderful husband of nearly 35 year. I have a home, and enough income to survive. I have good things in my life. But they only cover the screams of the abused child I was, even raped after I came home from the military by them until I was able to escape to my own home and then to the safety of Ron’s protection from them.
Thank you for letting me write this. As always it is a horrible fight to do it, it is like being abused all over again to describe it. But the process of doing that, of voicing the hurt makes is so much less, drives it back into the holes it hides into. I need to write to get it out of me. I am so grateful there are people who understand this and willing to listen as I do, taking unto themselves their own memories my writing may trigger. I am so sorry I might do that to others, to hurt them. But it is the only way I know to get some relief myself. So I thank you all greatly. Hugs.
January 25, 1930 Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders of the anti-colonial movement in India pledged to achieve complete independence, or Purna Swaraj, from Great Britain. Nehru said: “The British Government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually . . . We hold it to be a crime against men and God to submit any longer to a rule that has caused this fourfold disaster to our country.”
January 25, 2002 Israeli Refuseniks A group of Israeli reservists issued a declaration saying they would not serve the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) if assigned to the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip. It was called the Combatants’ Letter, and the organization Courage to Refuse grew out of their resistance. Captain David Zonshein and Lieutenant Yaniv Itzkovits, officers in an elite unit, realized the missions assigned to them as commanders in the IDF had in fact nothing to do with the defense of the State of Israel, but were rather intended to maintain control of the occupied territories at the price of oppressing the local Palestinian population. Within three months, 69 such refuseniks had been jailed. 629 Israeli soldiers ultimately signed the pledge. Over 280 members of Courage to Refuse were court-martialed and jailed for periods of up to 35 days as a result of their refusal. The Israeli refusnik movement today
but the reason I’m posting it is so we can be aware, and be better able to help our own neighbors locally. It may not be ours to start writing letters and calling on ACLU or any of those things, but maybe simply keeping our eyes open for the regular people we know or interact with. So here is this, which came to me from Death Penalty Action. It’s the first 10 EO’s issued today, plus some policy info.
For updates, context and analysis of Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, check out NPR’s live blog throughout the day Monday.
President Trump is expected to sign a flurry of executive orders, memorandums and proclamations after his inauguration on Monday, reversing many of his predecessors’ policies and reinstating actions from his first term in office.
The actions are expected to address a range of issues, including campaign priorities like border security and culture war issues like DEI policies.
Here’s what we know so far:
Immigration
Trump is expected to declare a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, designate criminal cartels as terror groups and end birthright citizenship for children born to immigrant parents without legal status, according to incoming White House officials who spoke to reporters on a call on condition of background.
Trump will also reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which would require some asylum seekers at the southern border to wait in Mexico for their hearings in U.S. immigration court, the officials said.
The moves are some of 10 sweeping executive actions on border security that incoming officials say Trump plans to sign on Monday:
Declare a national emergency at the border: The officials on the call said this action will allow U.S. armed forces to finish the border wall and allow the secretary of defense to deploy members of the armed forces and National Guard to the border.
“Clarify” the military’s role in border security: This action “directs the military to prioritize our borders” and protect territorial integrity “by repelling forms of invasion, including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking and other criminal activities,” the officials said.
End “catch and release,” continue building the wall, and end “Remain in Mexico”
Designate criminal cartels as terrorists: This will allow the U.S. to more easily remove members of groups like Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela, and MS-13.
Suspend refugee resettlement: The official said the U.S. would suspend refugee resettlement for at least four months.
End asylum and close the border to those without legal status via proclamation: Officials said they are planning to end asylum entirely and close the border to those without legal status via proclamation, “which creates an immediate removal process without possibility of asylum.”
End birthright citizenship: The officials said the White House plans to end birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th Amendment. They argued the amendment does not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents without legal status. This action is likely to see immediate legal challenges.
Enhance vetting and screening: The officials said they are going to “enhance vetting and screening of illegal aliens.”
“Protect American citizens against invasion”: Officials said this “equips agents and officers of ICE and CBP with the authorities” they need to deport people from the U.S.
Restore the death penalty: “This action in particular, directs the Attorney General to seek capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement officers and capital crimes committed by illegal aliens. It encourages state agencies and district attorneys to bring capital state charges for these crimes,” the officials said.
Trump will sign an executive action on Monday that says it’s the policy of the United States to recognize two biologically distinct sexes — male and female — an incoming White House official speaking on background told reporters Monday.
“These are sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the official said.
The change will require government agencies to use the definitions on documents like passports, visas and employee records the official said. Taxpayer funds will not be allowed to be used for “transition services,” the official said.
A second action will end diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, the official said, giving as examples environmental justice programs in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as diversity training.
National energy emergency and “electric vehicle mandate”
Trump intends to declare a national energy emergency on Monday, aiming to cut red tape and regulations for the energy industry, and a second one specific to Alaskan resources, an incoming White House official told reporters on a background conference call.
“That national energy emergency will unlock a variety of different authorities that will enable our nation to quickly build again, to produce coal and natural resources, to create jobs, to create prosperity and to strengthen our nation’s national security,” the official said. The official said energy prices are too high, but declined on the call to name a lower target price.
The action will end what incoming Trump officials call the “electric vehicle mandate” and will end “efforts to curtail consumer choice on the things that consumers use every single day, whether it be showerheads, whether it be gas stoves, whether it be dishwashers and the like,” the official said.
Trump has long railed against energy efficiency standards on the campaign trail, and specifically taken aim at “electric vehicle mandates,” a term he uses to encompass all policies designed to encourage a transition to battery-powered cars. Rules actually requiring 100% of vehicles to be electric do not exist on the federal level.
Inflation
Trump will sign a presidential memorandum on inflation Monday, an official from the incoming administration said. The official did not provide additional details.
NPR correspondents Tamara Keith, Ximena Bustillo and Camila Domonoske contributed to this report.
January 14, 1601 Roman Catholic church authorities burned sacred Hebrew books in Rome during the papacy of Clement VIII. He had forbidden Jews from reading the Talmud (a collection of centuries of interpretation of Jewish law). He had confirmed Pope Paul III’s relegation of Jews to a Roman ghetto (a walled-in portion of the city), and their banning from residence in papal-controlled states by Pope Pius V. Other papal enemies of Jewish books included Innocent IV (1243-1254), Clement IV (1256-1268), John XXII (1316-1334), Paul IV (1555-1559), and Pius V (1566-1572).
January 14, 1784 The Confederation Congress, meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, ratified the Treaty of Paris with England, ending the Revolutionary War . Signing the Treaty of Paris By its terms, “His Britannic Majesty” was bound to withdraw his armies without “carrying away any Negroes or other property of American inhabitants.” The treaty was negotiated by John Adams, John Jay and Benjamin Franklin for the colonies, and David Hartley representing the King of England, George III.
January 14, 1918 The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the selective service law, affirming all criminal charges arising from non-compliance with the draft during World War I. In Arver v. United States, the Court found that a draft does not violate the 13th Amendment’s prohibition of involuntary servitude.
January 14, 1941 A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, and widely considered de facto chief spokesperson for the African-American working class, called for a march on Washington, demanding racial integration of the military and equal access to defense-industry jobs. Detail from painting by Betsy G. Reyneau, Asa Philip Randolph “On to Washington, ten thousand black Americans!” Randolph urged. He said in the fight to “stop discrimination in National Defense . . . While conferences have merit, they won’t get desired results by themselves.”
January 14, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation No. 2537, which required aliens from World War II enemy countries – Italy, Germany and Japan – to register with the United States Department of Justice. Registered persons received a “Certificate of Identification for Aliens of Enemy Nationality.” This proclamation facilitated the beginning of large-scale internment of Japanese Americans the following month.
January 14, 1963 George Wallace was sworn in as Governor of Alabama. In his inaugural address he called for “segregation now; segregation tomorrow; segregation forever!” “The true brotherhood of America, of respecting the separateness of others — and uniting in effort — has been so twisted and distorted from its original concept that there is a small wonder that communism is winning the world. We invite the negro citizens of Alabama to work with us from his separate racial station — as we will work with him — to develop, to grow in individual freedom and enrichment. We want jobs and a good future for BOTH races — the tubercular and the infirm. This is the basic heritage of my religion, of which I make full practice — for we are all the handiwork of God.” The entire speech:
January 14, 1966 A march in Atlanta was held to protest the ouster of Julian Bond, an African American, from the Georgia House of Representatives. Members of the General Assembly considered him unfit to serve after he endorsed a statement critical of U.S. involvement in Vietnam issued by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
January 14, 1994 An agreement was signed for Russia and the U.S. to assist newly independent Ukraine in ridding itself of nuclear weapons.Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s leader Leonid Kravchuk found his country with the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, including multiple-warhead long-range missiles and bombers, and 3000 tactical (battlefield or short-range) nuclear weapons. former Ukranian missile silo Leonid Kravchuk Kravchuk and his government had decided to eliminate all nuclear weapons from Ukrainian territory. Ukraine was the first country to go non-nuclear.
January 14, 1996 Sixteen protesters were arrested in a winter blockade of the rural Wisconsin site (in the Chequamegon National Forest) of the U.S. Navy’s ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) transmitter, which communicated (one-way) with deeply submerged U.S. submarines. Nearly 400 were arrested in 24 actions opposing ELF between 1991 and 1996.
January 11, 1952 The Peace Pledge Union organized “Operation Gandhi,” which became the first British protest against nuclear weapons. Ten members staged a “sit-down” at the War Office in London. =================================== January 11, 1998 Twenty-five thousand occupied the site of one of 30 dams to be built on the Narmada River in India. They objected to a World Bank-funded project to build 30 large, 135 medium and 3000 small dams to harness the waters of the Narmada and its tributaries to provide electrical power and irrigation to Gujarat and Rajasthan provinces.Local residents known as Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada movement), organized as they became concerned about their livelihoods, the dams’ environmental impact and a host of other issues. The largest proposed dam, Sardar Sarovar, would submerge 61 villages and displace more than 320,000 people. A Brief Introduction to the Narmada Issue International Rivers project ===================================== January 11, 2002 The first of the detainees/enemy combatants arrived at Guantánamo Bay, the U.S. military base on the southeastern coast of Cuba. Detainees in a plane on their way to Guantanamo Detailed report of the status of Guantánamo detainees
Scottie's Playtime 