Kentucky Senator Rand Paul blocked John Bolton’s naming to be Number 2 at State. Now he’s going after Elliott Abrams, and the neocons. They believe in “perpetual war” and they will “scurry in by the hundreds” if Abrams gets the job, he says. Bill Kristol says that’s anti-Semitic.

So who got neoconservative Elliott Abrams a meeting with Trump, and likely appointment as number two at State? The obvious answer is there is a segment of opinion that Trump wants to mollify. The Israel lobby, which even US nationalist Steve Bannon has made peace with.

The response to Donald Trump’s travel ban within the Arab community of east Dearborn, Michigan, has been one of urgent fear and confusion, as evidenced by the overwhelming turnout of town halls and community panels. Abed Ayoub, legal policy director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest grassroots Arab American advocacy organization, reported receiving over 1500 calls to the organization in 48 hours. “The impact it had on the community’s psyche was worse than 9/11,” the attorney said.

Trump will govern as a centrist. With all its substantial faults, America has never been a fascist state– or a revolutionary state either.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, slams “Mr. Obama” as weak and unable to appreciate “capacity for evil” by Russia and Syria. Haass’s harsh comments show there is no difference between Clintonite liberal interventionism and neoconservatism in the US establishment.

Here in Israel we’re experts in Muslim bans. We’ve banned Palestinians, who we said didn’t even exist, from returning to their homes, for 7 decades. We just had to. Jewish State, you know. We’ve banned Palestinians from reunifying families. We’ve banned them from being full citizens. And liberal Zionists hold the bag for us.

Some 10,000 protesters gathered in Battery Square Park in lower Manhattan, to listen to an array of speakers; from grassroots organizers Linda Sarsour of Mpower Change and Steven Choi of the New York Immigration Coalition to New York State Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Donald Trump’s desire to wash his hands of the Middle East resonated with an American public and helped him win the election, says Philip Gordon, a former Middle East adviser to President Obama. British PM Theresa May echoed that point this week; but the US press is diminishing the story.

Just a day after newly-sworn President Donald Trump vowed to make good on his campaign promises to build a US-Mexico border wall and ban Muslim immigrants, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of New York organized an “emergency rally for Muslim and Immigrant Rights.” Chanting ‘No ban, no wall!’ more than 3,000 people gathered in Washington Square Park in New York last night in a show of solidarity with Muslim and immigrant American communities.

“I think you have to worry for Israel and Israel’s interests” if Donald Trump cuts a deal with Russia in Syria, says Michele Flournoy, the liberal interventionist who was thought to be Hillary Clinton’s choice for Defense Secretary.