Wiretap: A border wall, golfing and voter fraud, black sites, and Trump is just getting started

So, we should have taken Donald Trump both seriously and literally during the presidential campaign. He just signed executive orders to block Syrian refugees from coming to America and to build a wall along the Mexican border. And then there are the so-called sanctuary cities. Via The New York Times.

Here’s the shocking truth, via Vox: The wall is the least aggressive part of what will be Trump’s series of executive orders on immigration.

That other time when Americans, born to the “nation of immigrants,” turned their backs on desperate refugees in need. Via The Washington Post.

Trump’s voter fraud explanation? It starts with German golfing great Bernhard Langer and ends, well, you can’t guess where. Via The New York Times.

Trump cites two studies in saying there was massive voting fraud in 2016. The author of one says he’s being misquoted by the Trump administration and that, in any case, Trump has it all wrong. (The other study’s author says the same.) Via The Virginian-Pilot.

Is Trump going to revive “black sites” and water boarding? If he signs a draft executive order, that’s apparently what he will do. That draft order, according to congressional sources, has taken the new CIA director and the new secretary of defense completely by surprise. Via Politico.

Trump’s tough-guy, fantasy talk on torture risks real lives. George Washington understood that. Maybe if Trump read a book — or just the Geneva Conventions. Via The New Yorker.

E.J. Dionne: Is Trumpism just a scam? And if it is, who exactly is Trump scamming? Via The Washington Post.

How to turn a decentralized, social-media-driven march into a movement. Via The American Prospect.

Christo walks away from his “Over the River” Colorado art project in order to walk away from Trump, who he said would have been his new landlord. Christo leaves behind $15 million, the Arkansas River, a stunning artistic vision and years upon years of controversy. Via The New York Times.

Mary Tyler Moore did much more than turn the world on with her smile, although, in her case, that was plenty. Via The Atlantic.

 

Photo by Mobilus in Mobili via Flickr: Creative Commons