Welp, the third day of Donald Trump's refugee moratorium went about as well as the first two. It turns out upwards of 100 State Department employees are considering signing onto a document formally dissenting with Trump's order. That involves a process that's long protected employees from backlash, but—SURPRISE!—maybe that won't count under Trump. White House spokesperson Sean Spicer essentially told reporters yesterday that anyone who disagreed with the new rules could see themselves out.
Monday Hero: Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, who told her justice department attorneys not to bother defending Trump's order in cour.... oh wait he fired her. Now a US attorney from Virginia is acting as AG for the time being, while Trump waits to get his actual pick (Jeff Sessions) confirmed. Well anyway, here's the letter Yates sent before she was ousted.
And here's an interesting play-by-play of Yates' decision to resist Trump. It notes that in 2015, then-Senator Sessions questioned whether Yates "would be willing to stand up to the president," which at the time was Obama. Looks like he got his answer. Now he should be asking the same question of himself.
Portland, meanwhile, held its third day of demonstrations against the executive order. It was peaceful, and hundreds of people flocked to Terry Schrunk Plaza to attend (including city commissioners Amanda Fritz and Nick Fish). But then again...
...there's that guy up there, Sergey Antonov, who decided to roll by the demonstration in an enormous pickup sporting a "Trump" flag, and flash a BB gun at people in attendance. Smart!
Hey! Barack Obama's chiming in on the despised immigration order. So is Intel's CEO, and pretty much everyone else.
In other news, the Ogot ahold of a state investigatory report into an incident where former Police Chief Larry O'Dea shot his friend. It's got loads of interesting details, but—contrary to former Mayor Charlie Hales' insistence O'Dea's name would be cleared—confirms many facts we already knew. O'Dea shot Robert Dempsey by mistake, but denied it at first. And when he'd accepted that he was the unwitting assailant, O'Dea conveniently didn't call Harney County authorities investigating the matter. Everyone denies drinking much, though a deputy that responded to the scene didn't see it that way. The rundown is worth a read.
As to currentPolice Chief Mike Marshman, he's hoping to assure the city's immigrant communities that Portland police aren't having any part of the new president's immigration agenda.
Micah Rhodes, who's been a central organizer behind the group Portland's Resistance, is facing felony charges for allegedly having consensual sex with a 17-year-old.
For fuck's sake:"Trump's voter fraud expert registered in 3 states." Somehow the sheer irony still surprised me. How? How am I possibly still susceptible?!
So this isn't great: The Portland Water Bureau has found small amounts of the potentially dangerous microorganism cryptosporidium in the Bull Run water supply three times this month. Before this, officials hadn't detected it since 2011—before Portland won permission not to treat its water for the organism, as other systems must.
Headline is good enough:"A huge mouth and no anus – this could be our earliest known ancestor."
Heads up: Trump might nominate a conservative appeals court judge from Colorado to the US Supreme Court later today. Here's a rundown of his qualifications.
More snow, they're saying. I hate them.
