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Perhaps legally just nearing that crest ...
Re protests ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/politics/donald-trump-democrats-backlash-executive-orders.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0
(And this very idea was why SF was such a great film. Silva had MI6 afraid to the point that even Q was freaking out: "He had it all planned.")
Here is this. Just ... how graceless and tactless Trump can be.
(Or rather, good for us that it finally is coming to this ... forcing Congress to wake up and take action)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/backlash-grows-against-trump-travel-002244824.html
Dana Boente, U.S. atty for Eastern District of Virginia has been named as her replacement.
This one has the statement from the White House in it; scroll down ...
I am glad she spoke up the way she did, though.
This first link starts out saying, "House Rs have talked non-stop since Nov. 8 about reasserting their 'Article I authority.' Pretty sure this isn't what they had in mind:"
more on this:
Things are moving lightning fast now with Trump and Bannon. Wheels coming up, leaving the runway ...
Note the statement: what a bunch of children running the White House.
Look, as they say on TV Tropes (if you know that site, don't hesitat to ask me if you don't), a "heel realization". Now this guy is trying to atone for creating Trump voters. We've seen it on countless novels and movies, but this is real stuff!
This article says in part:
Sykes, who broadcast for 23 years before ending his radio show, gained national notice in March when an unwitting Trump called into his radio program a week before the Republican primary. “Here in Wisconsin we value things like civility, decency and actual conservative principles,” Sykes said by way of welcome, implying Trump lacked all three.
For the next 16 minutes, a polite but persistent Sykes prodded the GOP front-runner about his history of supporting Democrats, his disparagement of women and “playground” behavior. “Do you ever apologize?" Sykes asked, suggesting it was something “most real men” do.
Trump responded with rare equanimity, and no apologies. Afterward, he derided Sykes as a “low life” and “whack job.”
He lost the primary — a fact Sykes mentions with pride — but the setback barely slowed his march to the nomination. (Trump narrowly carried Wisconsin in November.)
***
“Basically the music score of my last six months was ‘We’re not listening to you again,’ ‘What’s up with you?’ ‘Betrayal,’” Sykes said with a small, mirthless laugh. “Some could have been trolls from Macedonia. Others were prominent Republican women from Waukesha I’ve known for 20 years.”
His last show was Dec. 19, drawing a series of tributes, including Walker’s declaration of “Charlie Sykes Day” in Wisconsin. Ryan was among the luminaries calling in; the House speaker pointedly ignored the host’s jocular plea to prove him wrong about Trump.
Scotland protesting in their own way, Wales, too (if you scroll down a bit) ...
Yes, @TripAces - but dangerous children, truly not knowing how to work within a govt structure and led by somebody who wants to burn everything down (that would be Bannon, not Trump). So Dana Boente saying that he will "defend and enforce the laws of our country..." that may well actually mean defying this Trump administration's directives, orders, and commands. If he puts our Constitution and our country first, before this administration. It sounds like he does not quite realize that it may come to that ...
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-immigration-20170130-story.html
And Trump continues his harsh, negative (and not factual) rhetoric on our country and the world. His core base are happy with this (fulfilling, at least partially, his extreme statements during his campaign, his "promises"), and it is serving his current purposes. He will not change.
Note: This says (towards the end) that Bannon & Miller have "nationalist" ideology. I have not read up on Miller. But Bannon is a white supremist, agitator, and self described Leninist. He pushes that ideology. So does Flynn. Nationalist sounds so much better, though.
*********
In part says: (any bolding is mine, as usual)
Trump’s top advisors on immigration, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller, see themselves as launching a radical experiment to fundamentally transform how the U.S. decides who is allowed into the country and to block a generation of people who, in their view, won’t assimilate into American society.
That project may live or die in the next three months, as the Trump administration reviews whether and how to expand the visa ban and alter vetting procedures. White House aides are considering new, onerous security checks that could effectively limit travel into the U.S. by people from majority-Muslim countries to a trickle.
The administration faced down another torrent of criticism Monday — from fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill, career diplomats, national security experts and world leaders — over the hasty rollout of the order, as well as the message it sent to both friends and adversaries in the war on terrorism. Though Trump’s ban does not affect all Muslims, as he promised during the campaign, many see it as religiously targeted.
***
Spicer had little sympathy for dissenting diplomats, saying their disagreement with the policy calls “into question whether or not they should continue in that post or not.”
***
"It’s self-evident that the coordination of this executive order was bungled, that that has had consequences, and we hope that in the future the White House will more proactively engage Congress and the agencies that are affected,” said one of the Republican leadership aides, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The chief architects of Trump’s order, Bannon, Miller and National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn, forged strong bonds during the presidential campaign.
The trio, who make up part of Trump’s inner circle, have a dark view of refugee and immigration flows from majority-Muslim countries, believing that if large numbers of Muslims are allowed to enter the U.S., parts of American cities will begin to replicate disaffected and disenfranchised immigrant neighborhoods in France, Germany and Belgium that have been home to perpetrators of terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years.
***
Counter-terrorism experts have long noted that Muslim immigrants in the U.S. are better assimilated and less likely to be radicalized than immigrants in many European cities.
But the connection between immigration, security, economics and culture that defines the nationalist ideology of Bannon and Miller has become intertwined in Trump’s own rhetoric.
“Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW,” Trump tweeted over the weekend. “Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world — a horrible mess!”
So I am buying extra popcorn for when Trump lands in the UK. The Scots and Welsh already coming up with some great zingers. ;) Yes, I am hoping for more of this:
(I know it is a serious situation in the U.S., but we have to find humor at times; it helps.)
And everybody ducks. :)
GOP completely blocked Obama's choice.
So here we go ....
There are other fights that are more worth it right now, such as stopping Jeff Sessions from becoming the Attorney General or, as they should be beginning to explore, impeaching the "President".
Women's rights & more would be under greater threat with Gorsuch.
See graph on this front page. https://www.nytimes.com/
" ... would be a reliable conservative, “voting to limit gay rights, uphold restrictions on abortion and invalidate affirmative action programs.”
So I think we should oppose (and yes, esp. because of the GOP not even considering Garland.) Still we are stuck with Trump and must consider each choice.. But I am considering what you've said, @dalton.
Sessions - yes, that is very important to block and not confirm and needs to be on the front burner.
I am truly not in the mind to give the GOP anything, any carrot. They will happily try to kill filabusters anyway at some point. This administration, with GOP still complicit so far, are giving the American people little in the way of moderation. Trump's executive orders are still just beginning of what Trump (Bannon & Miller) want to actually achieve.
I think a good place to start (and apologies if this has been discussed quite a bit before, but I want to add my feelings here) is the immigration debate. No one wants to see innocent people detained, but there is no indication this is a permanent ban. Out of 40 Muslim countries, only 7 have been temporarily banned from allowing people in here. I guess my question has less to do with whether this is right or wrong, but more about how you stop a threat of extremists, no matter how small the number, in a way that makes our country safer. Again, I'm not looking for name calling or degrading people because they may have the same questions I do. I sincerely think there is a threat, and yes we may disagree on the number, but if banning immigration is not the answer, then how do we make the US, and all countries safer?
You can certainly state your opinion here, but I am not going to argue with you or go into detailed explanation just now. Others on this thread may happily do so; that is their choice.
Thanks. I didn't say whether it was right or wrong, just that I believe there is a threat, and if temporarily banning immigration is not the answer, then what would be a more viable solution?
I would be more than happy to look for the links in this thread. It's just at the moment I don't have time to go through 40 pages of posts. But I will look for other sources online in the meantime.
As you say "temporarily banning immigration" sounds like a step that may be helpful. But any ban or restriction would be a complex, multi layered task. I do not think there is a simple way to ban and get the desired results. I do not have answers at my fingertips, but I do think this current move by Trump is wrong and will do more damage than help.
I think it is clear that Trump is hurrying to look like he is fulfilling his extreme campaign promises (the wall, banning muslims ...). What I think many people can agree on (whether you want something similar or not) is that this Executive Order was hastily, clumsily rolled out, poorly executed all the way around. There was unnecessary chaos and no answers given when local authorities tried to get answers from the federal govt this weekend.
Overall, I feel that this Executive Order ("Muslim ban" which is how Guiliani himself says is how it was discussed in planning) simply misses the mark (any mark of being a real deterrant or beneficial) and is far more harmful than helpful. It endangers our allies and our own servicemen and servicewomen. It is unnecessarily separating families. It also feels totally unAmerican and unConstitutional to me.
Here is just one small bit of info. There are links on just the last couple of pages (start on page 38 here) and this one; and other articles easy to find. Other members here can share their take on this order, and I hope they do. But that is how I feel about it.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/president-trumps-first-defeat-214707
For the president, who limited his comments on the ban to his Saturday afternoon remarks, the optics were not good. One of the first people detained, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was an Iraqi interpreter who served the U.S. military for over a decade. (“What I do for this country? They put the cuffs on,” a tearful Darweesh told reporters at JFK after his release.) One Iranian woman barred from the United States, Samira Asgari, was coming to Harvard Medical School to work on a cure for tuberculosis. (“I was pretty excited to join @soumya_boston's lab but denied boarding due to my Iranian nationality,” she tweeted. “Feeling safer?”) The media was flooded all day with tales of shocked families finding themselves locked out of the United States; if any of them were terrorists, they were awfully well-disguised.
It’s too early to say how the politics of all this will play out, but as a sheer matter of governance, it augurs poorly. Other administrations might have carefully briefed reporters on the details of the new policy, prepared the public, put exemptions in place, clarified exactly who would be affected. They might have crafted an outreach strategy to key allies to explain the president’s reasoning and hear out any concerns. The Trump team seems to have done none of that.
White House aides briefing the press on Saturday afternoon claimed they had worked for weeks with key officials in the relevant agencies, but there were few signs of that. The Department of Homeland Security first said the ban applied to green-card holders (i.e., permanent legal residents), then walked it back. Aides later said that green-card holders would have to submit to a consular interview before exiting the United States, but nobody has explained exactly how that works. And the top State Department official in charge of consular affairs, veteran Foreign Service officer Michele Bond, was fired last week.
The Trump administration also seemed surprisingly unprepared to argue its case in court. During her hearing, Donnelly reportedly asked the government’s lawyers whether they considered whether those detained—about 200 people, in the ACLU’s estimation—would suffer harm if they were sent back to their home countries. When they didn’t come up with a convincing answer, she responded, "I think the government hasn't had a full chance to think about this."
And if the ban was aimed at stopping terrorism, it was oddly off target. It curiously excluded the home countries of the 9/11 hijackers: Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Since 1990, of the 182 radical Islamic terrorists who plotted attacks in the United States or on inbound airplanes, just two entered the U.S. as refugees. Little wonder—since refugees are among the most carefully vetted immigrant groups, and the bulk of them are women and children.
Edit: Well I must say what you wrote is certainly eye opening! It sounds like they are detaining the wrong people! And why only 200? I thought they were detaining tens of thousands. No rhyme or reason to who they are singling out. If this Harvard Medical School student is a terrorist, they FBI better have some slam dunk evidence she is! Ditto with one of our military veterans. Something tells me they don't though.
I must leave work now; but thanks for commenting.
(note: Trump called it a "ban")