STIGMERGY: The C4SS Blog
Daily Molotov: January 27, 2017

Welcome back to the Daily Molotov, all the news that’s fit to make you hate the state. We took a couple days off because honestly, the news has been overwhelming for the last week and sometimes you just need to decompress. But we’re back now. Here’s today’s top news.

From the New York Times

After signing an executive order demanding the construction of a wall along the United States’ southern border, the Trump Administration has proven that it doesn’t know what the hell it’s even doing. First it called for a 20-percent tax on all imports from Mexico, then it said it didn’t – that the tariff was only part of a “buffet of options.”

Also from the New York Times: Of course, even the act of demanding the border wall has already strained the US’s ties with Mexico. President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a planned meeting with Trump after the order was signed, and former president Vicente Fox has taken to Trump’s online home turf – Twitter – to forcefully and repeatedly let the US president know that Mexico will not build the #fuckingwall.

One major issue Mexico is facing, if Trump is able to get everything he wants on the immigration front, is increased unemployment, poverty and crime. On top of the threatened millions of deportees from the US, just within the last few months Mexico’s population of refugees and migrants has swelled – first with Haitian refugees and then with Cuban migrants stuck in the country after former president Barack Obama stopped the “Wet Feet, Dry Feet” program. The Mexican government is currently trying to find ways to integrate everyone, but the system is already strained.

Republicans have already gladly thrown off their “small-government conservative” t-shirts in support of Trump’s proposals. The border wall is expected to cost anywhere from $15 billion to $25 billion, and that’s chill with conservatives in Congress. Trump has called for an increase in Border Patrol and military agencies, and nobody has raised the minarchist alarm. Senate Democrats attempted to bluff everybody by pushing forward a $1 trillion infrastructure program, and everyone – including Trump – is going along with it.

Trump is looking for a plan from the Pentagon to hit ISIS harder. He also called up the National Parks administrator demanding photos of his inauguration that prove he had the biggest inauguration of all time. Stephen Bannon, one of Trump’s chief strategists, told the media it should “keep its mouth shut” in an interview Thursday. Most of the Sanctuary Cities’ mayors flipped Trump the bird after Wednesday’s executive orders. Trump uses an old Android phone. For some reason the media is framing the upcoming meeting between Theresa May and Donald Trump as a “Reagan-Thatcher” relationship and I don’t much care for it.


From the Washington Post

Six cities tried making it harder for “illegals” to exist, and it didn’t work.

Also, Miami is proving to be the snitch among all the other Sanctuary Cities, which is super disappointing. The media is, as both Trump and his flunkies have made clear, “the opposition party” now. A white nationalist and student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison turns out to also be an arsonist, so that’s neat. The Doomsday Clock is now chilling out at two minutes and 30 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s been since the detonation of the hydrogen bomb in 1953. We now live in an era of “perpetual protest,” and I like that. A student in California who was forced to pee in a bucket by a teacher sued and won. Scientists aren’t able to talk to Trump. The chief of the Border Patrol was canned. Sean Spicer probably tweeted his Twitter password twice. And that’s probably enough major media news for one day.


From Infoshop NewsSyrian Kurds are rebuilding the city of Kobane.

From It’s Going DownWater protectors protesting the DAPL are resisting a grand jury and asking for solidarity.

From CrimethInc.The anarchists meet Trump in Philadelphia.

From JacobinJeremy Scahill: “No Quarter for Trump.”

From The NationFolks in Kensington are forming a grassroots anti-anti-immigration squad.

From The InterceptScientists from the government who are at the US Climate Conference are terrified to speak to the press.


Thanks for reading the Daily Molotov, curated for C4SS by Trevor Hultner. You can submit news tips to trevor@c4ss.org, tweet at us either at @c4ssdotorg or @trevor_c4ss, or leave a comment below. Your continued support of the Center for a Stateless Society means we can continue to roll out new features like this.

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