President Trump has issued temporary immigration orders that ban citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. This is a good opportunity to test the Persuasion Filter against what you might call the Hitler Filter.

For new readers of this blog, my starting point is the understanding that human brains did not evolve to show us reality. We aren't that smart. Instead, our brains create little movies in our heads, and yours can be completely different from mine. We see that situation now. Half the country thinks President Trump is well on his way to becoming a Hitler-like dictator. But many other Americans think Trump is an effective business person with good intentions. They can't both be right.

I use the word "filter" to describe an optional way of looking at the world. A good filter is one that makes you happy and does a good job of predicting what happens next. Let's use that standard to compare the Hitler Filter to what I call the Persuasion Filter.

The Hitler filter clearly isn't making people happy. The people watching that movie are protesting in the streets. Meanwhile, the people who see Trump as a good negotiator looking out for the country are quite happy with the job he has done so far. The Persuasion Filter says Trump opens with a big first offer and negotiates back to something reasonable. If you don't recognize the method, it looks crazy, random, and racist.

But what about predictions?

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has accused the US of building a "permanent" arms depot in his country, warning President Donald Trump that such moves jeopardizes the security treaty between them.

Duterte alleged that the Trump administration was moving arsenal into three provinces of the Philippines intending to store it there permanently.

During an impassioned televised news conference Sunday, Duterte said, "They're unloading arms in the Philippines now ... I'm serving notice to the armed forces of the United States. Do not do it, I will not allow it," as reported by Reuters.

Duterte went on to warn Washington that permanent facilities are against the terms of the US-Philippine security agreement and threatened to review the deal "and maybe ultimately abrogate, since it is an executive order".

The single most important fact known for certain about US President Trump's and Russian President Putin's first telephone conversation, with took place yesterday Saturday 28th January 2017, is that it lasted for a whole hour.

That is an unusually long time for two busy leaders such Trump and Putin to spend talking to each other. It shows that they not only took the call seriously but that they used it to discuss the full range of US-Russia relations, and - perhaps most important of all - to become acquainted with each other.

The last is important because both Trump and Putin are known to be individuals to whom trust and personal contact matter highly.

Yesterday I wrote about the political, military and security antecedents to Trump's seven state temporary ban, yet another of Trump's moves which is being grossly distorted by the fake stream media.

Predictably, many non-US, western politicians have chimed in on the policy in a manner that is thoroughly unstatesmanlike. To give an example of a dignified and diplomatic response of a statesman to an event in a foreign land, when President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov were being bombarded with questions over Brexit during the run-up to the vote, both men would repeatedly say that it is an internal matter for the British people and that the Russian Federation does not comment on the internal workings of other states.

Rumours sweep media of connection to Clinton leaks as Moscow arrests another alleged cyber spy on treason charges and a former KGB general is found dead in his car.

The dragnet in Moscow of cyber experts caught up in what is increasingly looking like a spy inquiry continues to widen with news that a third individual - named as Dmitry Dokuchaev, whom The London Times calls "a cyber-spy and former hacker" (whatever that means) - has also been arrested on treason charges.

This follows earlier news of the arrest on treason charges of an FSB officer, now named by The London Times as Sergei Mikhailov, who was apparently deputy head of information security at the FSB, and Ruslan Stoyanov, who is now being called a senior researcher at the Kaspersky Lab.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's appearance at last week's World Economic Forum shows global leadership is shifting, not drifting, toward Beijing. The most vigorous defense of globalization and multilateral cooperation was mounted not by an American statesman, but by the president of the People's Republic of China.

"The problems troubling the world are not caused by globalization," Xi declared. "Countries should view their own interest in the broader context and refrain from pursuing their own interests at the expense of others."

Speculation is mounting that the United States, with Donald Trump cast in the role of president, will ignore international challenges, renounce global responsibilities and abandon friends and allies.

The Iraq parliament want measures to be taken in response to President Trump's executive order banning entry to the US to citizens of seven Muslim countries. Iraqis consider the measure "unfair," and a panel has asked the government to "reciprocate."

The suggestion came from Iraq's Foreign Affairs Committee, which met in Baghdad before announcing the decision to seek punishment for the new administration for its actions. "We ask the Iraqi government to reciprocate to the decision taken by the US administration," a statement from the panel read. One of the representatives told Reuters, "Iraq is in the frontline of the war of terrorism... and it is unfair that the Iraqis are treated in this way."

Iraq's influential religious cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has urged the government to expel all Americans. "It would be arrogance for you to freely enter Iraq and other countries while barring them entrance to your own country... and therefore you should get your nationals out," the cleric said on his website.

Yet another scathing rebuke came from the Iraqi Popular Mobilization, a grouping of Shiite paramilitary groups trained by Iran as part of a wider Shia effort to fight Islamic State [formerly ISIL/ISIL]. On Sunday, the alliance, which gained legitimacy with the Iraq government last year, called for US nationals to be barred entry to Iraq, and for those already in the country to be expelled, according to Reuters.

No official response to President Trump's order has been issued by the government of Iraq thus far.

The December 9, 2016 Kremlin celebration of the Fatherland Heroes' Day brought attention to one of obscure components of Russian clandestine paramilitary capabilities, when a photo featuring President Vladimir Putin and the leadership of the so-called Vagner Private Military Company surfaced on social media.

Vagner is the pseudonym of Dmitriy Utkin, a retired member of the Russian Armed Forces who at the time of his discharge commanded the 700th Special Operations Detachment of the 2nd Separate Special Operations Brigade of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. He has gained experience in PMC operations while employed by the Moran Security Group where he participated in Somalia counter-pirate operations. Vagner's deputy commander is also a Russian military veteran, Vadim Troshev.

Congratulations, America! The Dow Jones Industrial Average has just rolled past 20,000 for the first time ever! Let the fireworks fly, because the ticker tape parade is about to begin!

The Trump administration, wasting no time in chalking this up to "the Trump effect," celebrated.

Asian markets, which lifted as much as 1.8% on the news, celebrated.

European markets, which edged up across the board on the news, celebrated.

Global markets in general, which hit a 19-month high on the news, celebrated.

And why not? Such a momentous event must indicate that the global economic recovery is right on track, right? Surely we can now rest easy in the knowledge that the coming years will bring prosperity and security for all, right?

Except...

If the crossing of a nice big round number on the DJIA doesn't fill your heart with joy or make your pocketbook feel any heavier, then good for you. You're right to be wary.

It's not just that we live in a different world now, one where stock markets have become completely meaningless to the majority of Americans who now own precisely $0 worth of stocks. The problem is even more fundamental than that.

Remember Dow 10,000 back in 1999?
Of course you do. It was right before the bottom fell out of the dot-com bubble, and Greenspan inflated the housing bubble, which popped in 2007 and led to this current asset bubble, which led to Dow 20,000.

I was outraged by the ban on refugees from war-torn countries in the Middle East. I've covered refugees fleeing war in Iraq and Syria over the last two years, meeting families on the road in Greece, Serbia and Macedonia, speaking to poor people in Turkey and Jordan and discussing the hopes and fears of people displaced in Iraq. If you want to ban "terrorists," these are the last people to hit with a refugee ban. Instead the government should be using the best intelligence possible to find people being radicalized, some of whom have lived in the US their whole lives or who come from countries not affected by the ban, such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

So I was outraged, and then I read the executive order. There are many full texts of the order online, such as at CNN, the NYT, the WSJ or Independent. According to most reports Trump was banning "nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for at least the next 90 days." This bars people from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. US Senator Elizabeth Warren said "Let's be clear: A Muslim ban by any other name is still a Muslim ban," and Senator Chris Murphy claimed "Trump has now handed ISIS a path to rebirth." Media, such as Vox and the Independent, compared the ban to banning Jews from entry during the Holocaust and bashed Trump for signing the order on Holocaust memorial day. World leaders are "condemning Trump's Muslim ban," according to headlines.

I had to see for myself, so I read the executive order. The order does seek "to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States." It says that it seeks "Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern." It also says "I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order." And it targets Syrians specifically. "I hereby proclaim that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the USRAP to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest."