Irish take a stand to back Muslim refugees

Irish activists plan to move St Patrick’s Day beyond drink and craic by holding a pro-immigrant “Irish Stand” rally in New York City later Friday.

Irish senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin and a diverse group of activists, musicians and writers plan to “remind” the Trump administration “that the international community rejects the politics of division and fear”.

Speaking to the Guardian on Wednesday, Ó Ríordáin compared the plight of Muslim refugees to that of Irish immigrants. “We know exactly what it means to leave to seek refuge. We used to leave Ireland on what they call coffin ships – as in you get on this and you may not survive. That’s exactly what the Syrians are doing.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paul Ryan, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and an old windbag. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

He said Irish Americans working with Trump – they include Mike Pence, Sean Spicer and Paul Ryan – should have more empathy with refugees.

Win of the week

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Representatives of the Sami Parliament in Norway for the period 2013-17. President Vibeke Larsen stands in the center of the front row. Photograph: Kenneth Haetta

The Sami – an indigenous people who live in the far north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s Kola peninsula – have persuaded Norway’s second largest pension fund to withdraw money from the Dakota Access pipeline.

The KLP fund said this week it would sell shares worth $58 in companies constructing the pipeline, after lobbying from the Sami parliament. Read more here.

Up next

• More than a thousand activists are planning to protest outside a Paul Ryan fundraiser in Chicago on Friday. Tickets for the event – which is apparently being held in honor of “Team Ryan” – are priced between $1,000 and $50,000.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The invite from ‘Team Ryan’. Photograph: Team Ryan

The focus will be on resisting Ryan’s proposed Obamacare reform – an overhaul which the Congressional Budget Office predicts would see 24 million people lose health coverage over the next decade. Activists are trying to find out the exact location, which is not on the invites.

• People are planning a protest in Austin on 21 March against Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest private prison companies in the US.

In August 2016 the Department of Justice said it would end its use of privately owned prisons, with then deputy attorney general Sally Yates warning that private prisons “compare poorly” to federal facilities. But Jeff Sessions reversed that memo last month.

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 2.2 million adults in detention in 2013, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

What we’re reading

• Membership of the Democratic Socialists of America has tripled over the past year, driven – in different ways – by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, according to the LA Times. “Unabashed socialism hasn’t had this big of a voice in American politics in decades,” writes Matt Pearce.

• Travel Ban Mark II may have been temporarily halted, but people can’t rely on the courts alone, says Rob Hunter. Only a “vigorous exercise in mass democracy”, like the protests over the January ban, can convince judges to act.

The resistance’s villain of the week

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Budget director Mick Mulvaney in front of the universal symbol for scissors. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

“We’re not spending money on that any more. We consider that to be a waste of your money.” That was White House budget director Mick Mulvaney’s take on climate change, as he unveiled Trump’s first budget on Thursday.

The budget – described by Mulvaney as “a hard power budget” – would also eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, legal aid for the poor and low-income heating assistance. Funding for Meals on Wheels would also be slashed.

Republicans and Democrats have criticized the budget, as have evangelical leaders, with more than 100 urging Trump not to cut International Development funding.

Resistance hero of the week

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tracey Tong steps in.

“I had been seeing all these crazy videos online of all these people being so racist, against people’s religion, skin color and all that stuff,” said Tracey Tong, who is being praised after she stepped in to stop racial abuse on the NYC subway.

“I promised myself if I ever witnessed that I would totally freak out.”

She kept her promise.

Key dates to watch

• The presidential campaign ended in November, but try telling that to Donald Trump. The president will continue his greatest hits tour with a rally in Louisville, Kentucky, on Monday.

On Wednesday, Trump popped up in Nashville, Tennessee, where a nostalgic crowd revived the campaign chants of “Build that wall” and “Lock her up” – two promises Trump is yet to fulfil.



• Also on Monday, the Senate confirmation hearing will start for Neil Gorusch, Trump’s supreme court nominee, and the House intelligence committee will hold the first public hearing on the investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.

• Administration appeal against the immigration executive order? Don’t have a date.

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