The ACLU, National Immigration Law Center, International Refugee Assistance Project and other immigrants' rights groups filed a federal lawsuit suit in the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn)seeking declaratory relief and an emergency stay against Donald Trump's executive immigration order. It also asked the Court to certify the case as a class action.

A hearing was held this afternoon before U.S. District Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly, who granted the motion for stay and issued an order banning the U.S. from deporting anyone nation-wide who lawfully entered the country from Trump's executive order targeting Muslims from 7 countries, and anyone whose refugee application has been approved.

The Court's Order is here.
The Complaint is here. All other documents as of now are under seal. [More...]

Donald Trump sure knows how to make a mess of things. Mexican President Enrique Pena-Nieto has canceled his trip to the White House where they were going to have talks about trade.

It's amateur hour at the Trump White House. Earlier they suggested a tax for imports to fund the wall. Now, they are backtracking.

Donald Trump needs a muzzle so he can stop outraging the world with his outlandish, ill-considered comments. He has the temperment and self-discipline of a 5 year old. I have work to do, I can't be checking the news every 10 minutes to see his latest buffoonery.

Donald Trump and his incendiary but essentially meaningless border wall talk and executive order do nothing but push people's buttons.

Mexican President Pena Nieto today posted a video message to the Mexican people today on Twitter, saying "As I've said again and again, Mexico will not pay for any wall." (México no pagará por ningún muro".) (Article here.)[More...]

Donald Trump has been given the green light for son-in-law Jared Kushner to serve as his advisor.

Here's the legal opinion of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

(My opinion: Forget Mike Pence. Apparently, America elected Jared Kushner. Trump, who has no clue how to govern, little inclination to learn and even less of an attention span thinks his son-in-law will figure it all out. If not, he can always seek Ivanka's opinion.)

In addition to bringing peace to the Middle East, Superman Kushner is expected to handle "government partnerships with the private sector and matters involving free trade." [More...]

How lazy or shady are Trump staffers working on his Presidential Inaugural Committee? The organizers of the Salute to Our Armed Services Ball couldn't be bothered to come up with even an idea for Trump's Inaugural cake, so they picked out a local bakery and brought them a photo of Obmama's inaugural cake and asked for an exact replica -- no deviations.

“They came to us a couple of weeks ago, which is pretty last minute, and said ‘We have a photo that we would like to replicate,’ ” MacIsaac told The Washington Post by phone. Her bakery tried to encourage the client to use the photo as “inspiration,” as they do with many others, she said.

“They said, ‘Nope, they want this exact cake. It’s perfect.’ And we said, great,” MacIsaac said. Neither she nor her spokeswoman revealed who placed the order.

Duff Goldman (one of the judges on Food Network's kids baking show) who owns a bakery in Baltimore made Obama's cake. He noticed the similarity and tweeted photos of both cakes with a statement he made Obama's cake but didn't make Trumps.

What kind of bakery copies another baker's design and doesn't give credit until after being confronted with the copying? Duff, however, is
now cool with it and congratulated the copycat bakers on their efforts.

The copycat bakers, having been exposed, are now crediting Duff's great design and trying to make amends by donating their profits to Human Rights Campaign.

The copycat bakers' amends do not excuse the laziness or shadiness of the Trump Inaugural employee who placed the order.

The ACLU is ready on Day One. It's filed its first lawsuit demanding documents on Donald Trump.

The public deserves to know if the new president bases any of his decisions on personal gain. So we've taken legal action, demanding Trump documents related to actual or potential conflicts of interest.

[More...]

Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker writes on the Music Donald Trump Can't Hear. He has a point.

There is no song to describe UnPresident Elect Donald Trump because he has no music in his soul. The emotional state he triggers in so many of us, other than his under-informed, radical right supporters, ranges from sickening to terrifying. As the caption to the graphic accompanying the New Yorker article says,

There is an abyss between the man about to assume power and the best shared traditions of the country he represents.

This is not a time to reach out or accept him or the incoming Administration. Kudos to those bailing on Washington this week for other parts of the country. Tens of millions of us will blocking him out at home, with a firm hand on the remote control at all times to ensure he doesn't slip into our consciousness. [More...]

Toronto's Trump Tower, another mega property Trump sold his name to and managed ended up in the hands of a receiver in November. The receiver has just offered it for sale and bids start at $298 million.

A group of owners in the property, who claim to be the victims of misleading marketing, are suing the property’s developer, Talon International and the business organization owned by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, which manages it and licensed the use of its name on the property.

There have been three court actions on the property -- including one trying to remove Trump's name and cancel his management contract.

On Tuesday, an Ontario court placed the Trump International Hotel and Tower into receivership after the owners failed to make debt payments for more than a year. That came after a three-judge panel on the Court of Appeal for Ontario found last month that the project’s investors had been deceived. And in a third legal action, the hotel’s owners tried to remove the Trump name from the building and cancel his company’s contract to manage the hotel.

Shortly after it opened in 2012, the building began "shedding glass."

For the first of many times, the police had to close the surrounding streets because of falling debris.

[More...]

Donald Trump says as a conflict avoidance measure, he will put his assets in a trust, to be run by his sons Donald and Eric, and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.

He will even hire a "conflict adviser" to determine if new deals pose a conflict. (Will this be an independent contractor or a Trump employee?)

Trump will place the majority of his assets—including cash, real estate and licensing entities—into a trust controlled by his sons by January 20th, she said. The trust agreement includes the hiring of an ethics adviser who must evaluate all new deals the Trump Organization makes that could pose possible conflicts of interest. The company will make no new foreign deals, but can work domestically.

“He will only know of a deal if he reads it in the paper or sees it on TV,” Dillon said.

What if one of his sons or someone else tweets about it? Donald will refrain from picking up the phone to tell them what he thinks? Right.

I hope some government agency will be monitoring every communication device accessible to Trump (and his wife when they are in the same city.) Sounds like a perfect job for the DEA since the FBI under Comey seems paralyzed by partisanship.

Jared Kushner will do something similar -- he will sell some assets, turn some over to his brother, and put others in a trust run by his mother.

Ivanka will no longer work for Trump and she will give up control of her company (that sells shoes made in China and Ethopia. Probably a good idea.)

Here's the dossier compiled by a British operative on Donald Trump, for the benefit of Russia. courtesy of Buzzfeed, which says the material is unconfirmed and there are some errors (although the ones they cite are very minor, like misspelling Alpha as Alfa.)

The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump.

1,100 law professors have signed a letter to Congress urging that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) not be confirmed as Attorney General. The letter is here.

In my view, Jeff Sessions has always been a disaster for criminal justice. (The NY Times declared him an "insult to justice" after Trump picked him.)

On a related note, UnPresident-Elect Donald Trump, who has no say in the matter yet, yesterday opposed the release of more detainees from Guantanamo. President Obama, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with plans to release another 19 detainees.

“There is one commander in chief at a time, and the secretary of defense will continue to carry out his responsibilities as he sees appropriate,” said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook.

I'm out tonight, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.