AWKWARD ZOMBIE

My grandmother told my brother in law (he's from India) that we would be better off if he had been barred entry to the country by an order like Trump's.

A friend of my eldest sister is, for the time being, essentially a single mother because her husband is trapped in London because he can't fly to the United States. Because he was born in Iraq. Even though he is a legal permanent resident.

this is so fucked, I can't even comprehend this.

since Trump's campaign STARTED in 2015 fucking republicans told us we had nothing to worry about, our fears were greatly over exaggerated.

And here they are, coming true.

Call public officials like representatives, senators, governors, state reps, and local government. Especially if Republican (Democrats and Third Party don't get a free pass though) and make your voice heard. Let then know you're keeping an eye out whether they stick to following Trump or resist him. Look up their backgrounds and tell them why they should resist Trump based on their own past statements, especially if they condemned Trump before his presidency. Reading a script someone else makes works (especially with phone anxiety), but writing a script has more impact. Be polite, but firm. Express disappointment (like a parent) rather than anger (like certain parents). Keep in mind when you call that you will likely speak to a secretary or office worker who will forward the message, rather than speaking directly, so do not get mad at them for doing their job so long as they remain civil with you (and even then be the bigger person). Also do not ever threaten anything, even vaguely. About the worst you can say is "I look forward to casting my vote in the next election". Do not be all "It would be unfortunate if certain things came to pass...". Don't be a twitter rando.

Condemn companies that profit off of Trump's backwards legislation and especially if they come to his defense as devil's advocates "not looking to make political waves". Uber has caught some flak for being non-commital to how they stand days before meeting with Trump that reads to most people as "does not want to get uninvited suddenly". Elon Musk has gotten into trouble after supporting Rex Tillerson and apparently has a pipedream that Trump will support a Carbon Tax even thoughit was dismissed with lukewarm reception at his meeting with Trump earlier this week. Pay attention and while you do not want to boycott everything (including food) determine which boycotts you can fully stand behind without impacting your quality of life any more than Trump is threatening it, and anything you cannot boycott, try to offset by supporting companies that do stand up against Trump (be wary of people paying lipservice to gain brownie points though).

Donate cheddar to the ACLU which has gotten a temporary hold on the Muslim Ban order while the courts sort out how lawful it is. Donate to whichever groups support your interests (but be mindful not to give it to disingenuous groups out to profit from the waves of donators. Give something to Planned Parenthood if you can because they're floating their employees the best they can right now, and as someone with a couple of family members who work for PP I can tell you it's appreciated by them to continue to do important work as long as they can hold out.

And most importantly, stay mad but healthy. Keep track of what Trump says, but pay attention to what he does so you won't be fooled while he's blathering about whatever inane thing. Take breaks when you need to from the stress of it all. A day or two away from constant surfing about the latest news won't hurt you. And be sure to do your best to get some sleep. Sometimes that's hard with stuff going on, but you can't be at you best if you don't take time to rest.

A white supremacist killed six people and gravely injured several others in a Muslim cultural center Quebec City last night. US conservative media and other Twitter nazis were quick to spread misinformation about the identity of the shooter, claiming he was Moroccan, but nope.

We have a new Supreme Court nominee, and at least he has people saying "Who the hell is this guy?" rather than "OH SHIT NO. NO HE CAN'T."

Well, I THOUGHT I was going into education at a good time...

I'm so sorry, Riku. My sister is a teacher (with a special needs child, even) so I 100% feel your pain right now.

One my friends legit JUST got certified to teach in Pennsylvania and suddenly some goblin who knows actually nothing is secretary of education.

No, you 13974% do. People who are the direct supports for kiddos with special needs are going to deal with even more shit than the other specialist teachers. What I'm going to run into (aside from potential industry collapse in general) is "well, why is your subject worth the time/cheddar?"
What they might unfortunately run into is "why are these children worth any resources?"

Mine can usually be backed up by data to some extent.
The second one has to be backed up by ethics, which if someone is even asking that, is going to fall on deaf ears.

Trump had to ask what the nuclear treaty with Russia was.

Who voted for this man again?

The Electoral College.

In happier news, NASA announced today that they found 7 new Earth-sized exoplanets in the habitable zone, meaning they could have water. They're around a star that's about 40 light years away.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... e5a7e9d318

This is Trump's proposed budget for 2018. Just a proposal, it'd be up to Congress to see if anything changes. This article has a lot of handy graphs for getting an idea of just how much spending would increase/decrease, and details on which agencies and sub-agencies would be affected.

TLDR: A lot of budget cuts. A lot. The EPA would get its funding cut by almost a third. A lot of other science agencies are seeing cuts, especially anything that has to do with climate change research, like the Earth Sciences and Education offices of NASA. It would also cut funding to a lot of social programs, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS, NPR), the WIC program, and others.

But hey, more funding for the military....

I'm pretty upset about this for a myriad of reasons. It reminds me vaguely of any RTS game where the objective is to conquer other civilizations, so you pump out more military units and disregard upgrading your actual society, except this is real life. But it does still have to make it through Congress. I hope there will be some resistance to it.

So we are just about done with our WWII unit in U.S. History (slightly extended, since the teacher has an elective class on the two world wars) and this military thing kinda scares me. I mean, our president could be putting funding into business, something he knows very well, but no.

This kind of stuff is basically what North Korea does. They take all their cheddar and throw it into their military to brag about it.