Kaleem Khan, 20, a migrant from Peshawar, Pakistan, shaves his beard in an abandoned warehouse where he and other migrants took refuge in Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. Hundreds of migrants have been sleeping rough in freezing conditions in central Belgrade looking for ways to cross the heavily guarded EU borders.: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP, 31 January 2017
This @DerSPIEGEL cover on Trump winning the election was just chosen as "cover of the year" in Germany: image via Mathieu von Rohr, 31 January 2017
No idea what I'm doing: image via Bob Bonner @RBonner, 29 January 2017
Actual photo of America: image via Davon Magwood @davonmagwood, 28 January 2017
Syrian memories captured in precious photographs carried by fleeing migrants: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP, 5 January 2017
Syrians stuck in Greece share memories from home: Muhammed Muheisen, AP Photos, 31 January 2017
THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — They fled their homes in war-torn Syria
with only what they could carry on their backs. Then many were forced to
leave even those bags on the shores of Turkey as they embarked on short
but dangerous boat across the Aegean Sea to Greece. The one thing they
managed to keep with them was photographs.
Some bring back happy memories that help cut through the sadness at
leaving everything they knew behind. Nadima Allo couldn't hold back
tears as she talked about the home in Aleppo's northern district of
Sheikh Maqsud where she and her husband, Henef Slu, 37, lived with their
two children, now ages 5 and 6. They're in a shelter at the Ritsona
refugee camp north of Athens.
Her husband showed a photo of their wedding day in 2010, saying, "It
was the most beautiful day of my life the day I got married to my wife,
Nadima. We had a lot of guests, family and friends. This photograph was
the only thing we carried with us from home."
Amineh Hamad and Ali Abdulqader, both 58, carry a photo of them on a
summer day in 2010 that they spent at the Roman site of Busra al-Sham, a
place they dream of returning to. It was one of a few photographs they
brought with them when they left their home in the Eastern Ghouta region
near Damascus. They're also living in the Ritsona camp, but hoping to
settle in a European city and start their life over again.
"We had a barbecue, walked and laughed a lot, a day from life, we
miss these days, we hope one day it will come back," Hamad said.
Others carry reminders of relatives left behind, or those who have
gone on ahead to Europe. More than 62,000 refugees and other migrants
have been stuck in Greece since a series of Balkan border closures and a
European Union-Turkey deal on stemming migration. Almost all hope to be
granted asylum and be resettled in other European countries, so they
are not directly affected in terms of refuge by the recent order halting
the U.S. refugee program.
"When you are in fear of your life and forced to flee your home, what
mattered the most after being safe is these memories, the photographs
of my children," said 40-year-old Sahar Dargzini, who shared pictures of
her two sons and two daughters when they were small. They now range in
age from 15 to 26. One lives in Turkey and two in Sweden. Dargzini, who
fled Damascus and has been living in a tent with her husband in a Greek
camp in the northern city of Thessaloniki for the last seven months,
hopes to join her oldest daughter, Dania, 26, who is living in Norway.
__
Muhammed Muheisen is The Associated Press chief photographer for the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.
Muhammed Muheisen is The Associated Press chief photographer for the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.
NBC has a detailed report on Trump's first approved clandestine strike, in Yemen. "Almost everything went wrong.": image via Samuel Oakford @samueloakford, 30 January 2017
V subtle view out the window here in this new Trump Hotels marketing email...: image via Gabriel Debenedetti @gdebenedetti, 31 January 2017
Protesting Trump's travel ban on the steps of #SCOTUS: image via M Robinson Chavez @chavismophoto, 31 January 2017
Bob Bonner Retweeted Donald J. Trump
"Should I swallow Bannon or spit?" image via Bob Bonner @RBonner, 29 January 2017
Front row seat for Breitbart, right next to Fox, for Trump's SCOTUS unveil tonite in the East Room of the White House – at The White House: image via Michael C. Bender @MichaelCBender, 31 January 2017
@realDonaldTrump walks to the podium in the White House to announce his #SupremeCourtPick: image via Jeff Mason @jeffmason1, 31 January 2017
President Donald Trump and his nominee to fill the vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Judge Neil Gorsuch. #SCOTUSnominee: image via Stephen Crowley @Stcrow, 31 January 2017
@realDonaldTrump, Steve Bannon, et al, meeting at the White House re cyber security: image via Stephen Crowley @Stcrow, 31 January 2017
@realDonaldTrump tells reporters in Oval Office his executive order on refugees is not a Muslim ban: image via Jeff Mason @jeffmason1, 28 January 2017
"We’re going to have a very very strict ban" - @POTUS 1/28/17
"First of all, it's not a travel ban" - @PressSec 1/31/17: tweet via Jonathan Karl @jonkarl, 31 January 2017
Par-tay!: image via Ivanka Trump @IvankaTrump, 28 January 2017
Can Jared and Ivanka Outrun Donald Trump’s Scandals? Less
than a fortnight into his new post, Kushner appears unable to control
his father-in-law -- and is “furious” that his efforts are being
undermined:
On Friday afternoon, Donald Trump descended upon the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes flanked by the expressionless duo of Vice President Mike Pence and recently sworn-in Secretary of Defense General James “Mad Dog” Mattis.
The press conference marked the latest significant announcement in a
week already teeming with them. During the first days of his
administration, the new president had issued a number of executive
orders on topics ranging from the Affordable Care Act to the
Trans-Pacific Partnership. As the work week came to a close, Trump
quietly announced from a wooden desk what would surely be the most
controversial measure of them all: a ban on refugees from around the
globe. Trump would temporarily halt migration, in particular, from seven
predominantly Muslim countries, such as Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and
Sudan. Saudi Arabia, where the plotters behind the 9/11 attacks had
hailed, was notably absent, among other nations. (As others have noted,
Trump has business interests in S aud iu Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.)
The president explained that this measure, which many interpreted as a
betrayal of America’s identity as a refuge for the oppressed, was merely
an enactment of “extreme vetting.” “This is the protection of the
nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States,” Trump read.
“That’s big stuff.” He signed the order, with a gold-tipped pen, at
4:42 p.m., 16 minutes before sundown.
Little more than a week into the Trump presidency, the timing of the Friday sunset seems to be growing increasingly important. Jared Kushner,
Trump’s son-in-law and West Wing adviser, has been positioned as
something of a mollifying presence upon his mercurial boss. “I have a
feeling that Jared’s going to do a great job. He’s going to do a great
job. You’ll work with him,” Trump recently declared at his pre-inaugural gala to assorted well-wishers and friends from the
business community. In a White House split between those seemingly
loyal to the Republican Party (Reince Priebus, the
former chairman of the R.N.C., now Trump’s chief of staff), and its
rabid base (Breitbart chairman turned chief strategist Stephen Bannon), Kushner appeared to be a Valerie Jarrett type—a steady familiar voice who could suss out the signal from the noise.
Kushner, along with his wife, Ivanka Trump,
is also an orthodox Jew who observes Shabbat. From sundown on Friday
until sundown on Saturday, the couple abstains from technology and work.
And early in the incipient Trump administration, that brief period has
been unusually fraught. Last week, the president personally called
the Park Service on the morning after his inauguration to inquire about
the size of the crowds who came to watch him take the oath of office.
He subsequently delivered a widely derided speech at C.I.A. headquarters
that afternoon, during which he blathered on about the media’s
treatment of him and his inaugural crowd size. He then sent his press
secretary, Sean Spicer, into the briefing room to
falsely claim that it was the largest audience for an inauguration in
history. During the tumult, some noticed the conspicuous absence of
Kushner’s allegedly calming presence. “He wasn’t rolling calls on
Saturday when this happened,” one person close to Kushner told me last week. “To me, that’s not a coincidence.”
The
timing of Trump’s executive order on Friday, just moments before
sundown, meant that Kushner would not be in the West Wing to absorb
another cataclysmic Saturday. Indeed, Kushner observed the Sabbath as
thousands of people protested outside airports across the country, children waited for their detained parents, lawyers
rushed to federal court rooms, taxi drivers went on strike, and one
Democratic leader broke down in tears n live television.
Trump’s
first Sunday in office, following a tumultuous Saturday, was a more
delicately managed day. (Among other mollifying maneuvers, Trump tweeted "peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy.")
So many observers were surprised
when Kushner and Ivanka Trump not only emerged from the Sabbath to
attend the annual Alfalfa Club dinner, which Trump himself had skipped,
but also when Ivanka posted a photo of herself in a metallic silver Carolina Herrera
gown, tucked into the tuxedo-ed arm of her husband, who had his hand on
her posterior. Around the world, innocent citizens were decrying the
erosion of human rights. The Trumps, however, seemed delighted and
impervious. Many quickly noted that the photo had been taken while an
octogenarian couple was being detained for hours, and families fleeing
persecution in Syria were turned away. It all felt quite Marie
Antoinette (#letthemeatcake proliferated across Twitter and Instagram). A
meme quickly circulated of Ivanka in her silver gown next to a photo of a young Syrian
refugee—the sort of girl her father’s order will deny entry to—in a
silver emergency blanket. (A source close to the family noted that
Kushner and his wife were aware of the fallout from the executive order
only in an oblique way until after sundown and the photograph was posted
to social media.)
When the Kushners decided to relocate to Washington, on the heels of Trump’s surprise win, they stepped out of a comfortable life in New York and their respective family real-estate empires. The potential for the young couple, ostensibly a gate to the president, appeared enormous. But after a week, it appears that the de facto First Couple may have underestimated the potential pitfalls. Less than a fortnight into his new post, Kushner appears unable to control both his father-in-law and those around him. (On the same day as Trump’s visit to the Pentagon, the White House acknowledged International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a statement that omitted mention of the Jews.) Ivanka, meanwhile, may be impeded in her attempt to lobby on behalf of working women by various measures, from Trump’s executive order to dismiss parts of the A.C.A. to his derision of the Women’s March, that appear to have set them back. The question is whether the couple’s combination of unbridled ambition and inexperience will cause them to influence the president as never before, or whether they will be among the first to go.
Throughout
the campaign, Jared Kushner wore a number of hats. A 36-year-old
political novice who took over his family’s real-estate company at the
age of 25, when his father went to prison on 18 counts of tax evasion
and witness tampering, Kushner has been credited with spearheading the
Trump campaign’s successful digital operations and orchestrating some of
his father-in-law’s most central personnel decisions. But his most
pivotal role within Trumplandia may have been his ability to manage the
more severe messages being pushed out by the likes of Stephen Bannon and
Stephen Miller. As one source put it to me last week, Kushner has been the “secure line” into the White House.
Kushner, after all, reportedly brokered a meeting with Trump and Rupert Murdoch,
once an outspoken critic, and got the nation’s biggest technology
C.E.O.s to show up to a meeting at Trump Tower last month. At an event
at Morgan Stanley headquarters in December, according to New York Magazine,
Kushner told the 400 executives that his father-in-law may have been
“easy to hate from afar,” but he was much more moderate at close range.
He reassured anyone concerned over campaign rhetoric about Muslim bans
and wall-building that a President Trump would find a “rational”
position on immigration.
Trump
has not embarked on a moderate position, of course, regarding either
issue. And, according to a source familiar with the situation, Kushner’s
influence on his boss may be flagging. Last week, Kushner spent 24
hours trying to broker a meeting between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
The source said that Kushner was even considering flying to Mexico in
order to convince Peña Nieto, who had butted heads with Trump over
various issues, to travel to the White House. Ultimately, Peña Nieto
agreed—a feat Kushner presented to his father-in-law on Wednesday night.
It was his first real victory in the West Wing in his role as senior
adviser, and it would be a major step toward turning one of Trump’s main
campaign promises into a reality.
Less than 12 hours later, though, it all fell apart. After Peña Nieto reiterated that Mexico does not plan to pay for Trump’s proposed wall, Trump tweeted that if Mexico is “unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.” Just like that, the meeting was canceled. “Kushner was fucking furious,” the source told me. “I’d never once heard him say he was angry throughout the entire campaign. But he was furious.” (A representative for the Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Kushner
also appears to have already endured the physical toll of the job. He
has become pale, the source noted. His body language and his demeanor
toward Trump had changed, and he had lost a noticeable amount of weight
from his already slight frame in just a week. (Another source who knows
Kushner said that he typically forgets to eat when working long hours.
Nevertheless, Politico’s Playbook on Monday spotted him picking up pizza
in Dupont Circle on Sunday evening.)
Ivanka Trump’s initial foray in D.C. has not been much easier. Upon arrival in the swamp, she herself had mapped out a plan to hold some sort of vague policy role related to women, children, and families. It’s a note she struck repeatedly throughout her father’s campaign—talking about affordable child care and equal pay and earned tax credits from the Republican National Convention stage, on the stump, and in interviews. The fact that she commented on little else—neither his Muslim ban nor Mexican wall nor “nasty women” jabs nor comments about sexual harassment—irritated many who wanted her to be a moderating figure on her father. But she methodically stuck to her strategy with remarkable, almost unbelievable discipline. That discipline led marketing experts to tell me days before the election that her brand would easily recover from her father’s campaign, if he had lost. She had adroitly attached herself to one idea that would resonate with her female customer base.
Trump’s history of self-awareness and discipline merely exacerbated the fallout from her photograph. How could someone so keenly aware not realize that this post seemed tone deaf? Yet, to some, it appeared to be part of a pattern. Ivanka Trump remained publicly silent over the Inauguration weekend when millions of women marched outside her father’s new front door. She was quiet when Trump moved to peel back portions of Obamacare that cover health care benefits for children, and provide a number of provisions that economically impact working mothers—including the cost of contraception, breast pumps, and regulations that require workplaces to provide lactation rooms and allot time for pumping within the work day. “The photo made me feel like maybe she is more like her father than I’d initially thought,” the source who noted Kushner’s role in the Mexican visit negotiations told me. Another source familiar with the couple told me that while the post was “idiotic” and showed her “naiveté in not understanding her surroundings or circumstances,” there is a major difference between the father and daughter. “She can adjust her behavior accordingly, and she’s open to doing that,” the source told me. Another source familiar with the situation noted that Ivanka feels terrible about the post, and does not want something like this to happen again.
Unlike the campaign, Kushner and Trump’s futures are no longer entirely in their own control. Both have hitched themselves to her father’s wagon and, just 10 days in, are starting to see signs that it might not work out well for their own ambitions. Trump, after all, is about Trump. “It’s a very difficult line to straddle here, but the question is whether the Trump strategy might end up strangling her,” the source familiar with the couple told me. “It puts her in a really difficult situation.”
On the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, the flow of migrants remains high despite fences, walls, border patrol agents.: image via Carolyn Cole @CarolynCole, 30 January 2017
On the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, the flow of migrants remains high despite fences, walls, border patrol agents.: image via Carolyn Cole @CarolynCole, 30 January 2017
On the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, the flow of migrants remains high despite fences, walls, border patrol agents.: image via Carolyn Cole @CarolynCole, 30 January 2017
On the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, the flow of migrants remains high despite fences, walls, border patrol agents.: image via Carolyn Cole @CarolynCole, 30 January 2017
The #Borderwall #Nogales, Texas.: image via Carolyn Cole @CarolynCole, 30 January 2017
The #Borderwall #Nogales, Texas.: image via Carolyn Cole @CarolynCole, 30 January 2017
The #Borderwall #Nogales, Texas.: image via Carolyn Cole @CarolynCole, 30 January 2017
Trump
names Neil Gorsuch as Supreme Court nominee. Picture shows Police
standing outside the US Supreme Court yesterday #AFP Paul J.Richards: image via Aurelia BAILLY @Aurelia BAILLY, 1 February 2017
Trump
says will announce Supreme Court pick Tuesday. The National Capitol is
reflected upside down in a puddle of water in Washington #AFP: image via Aurelia BAILLY @Aurelia BAILLY, 1 February 2017
Oy, the wave of horror keeps coming, only days after the Orange Schmuck seizes power.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely has a seizure feeling to it.
ReplyDeleteat montgomery college, a public two-year institution just north of dc, i saw the following sign posted on a bulletin board in the music building - "PURGE PUTIN'S PUPPET" - a passing student, seeing me reading it, helpfully interpreted it for me - "dump trump"
ReplyDeleteelsewhere in our great land different sentiments prevail
it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future