Donald Trump and his Coterie of the Craven (part 16)

[Cartmann99]

7 hours ago, 47of74 said:

The Republican war on free speech is now policing late-night talk show jokes about the President. Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has announced that the agency will be investigating whether a joke made by Stephen Colbert on the Late Show will be considered “obscene” and has sworn to take “appropriate action” after being flooded with complaints from Trump fans about Colbert’s remarks.

Rumor has it, that the original idea for this segment had Colbert wearing one of those "Fuck your feelings" t-shirts from the Trump campaign, while reading the transcript from Trump's "grab them by the pussy" tape. Trump voters are not accustomed to such vulgarities, so the shock might have sent some of them to an early grave! 

I'm sure the offended Trump voters would covet your prayers for a speedy recovery. Since so many Trump supporters are currently slumped over their fainting couches, Democrats have been forced to tell each other to go fuck themselves on social media, because there's simply not enough Trump voters left to meet the demand. It's just so disheartening! 

Remember, Trump supporters are delicate flowers who might faint at the slightest hint of profane language, so I'm begging you not to tell them to grow the fuck up over this extremely offensive attack on traditional American values. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump says Obamacare is broken. He’s the one who broke it."

Quote

The primary rallying cry for this week’s passage of the American Health Care Act was the claim that the Affordable Care Act was “imploding.” Republicans argued the rapidity and lack of clarity with which this radical bill passed the House was necessary given how quickly the ACA was “falling apart.” They cited as evidence the recent large premium increases and the growing number of counties with no insurers.

What supporters of the AHCA are not admitting, however, is that the ACA’s current failings are due to the misguided policies of Republicans and particularly the Trump administration. Before Donald Trump was elected, there were no places in the country where individuals could not buy insurance on the exchanges. The large premium increases announced last year were a one-time correction to make up for insurers’ dramatic underpricing in the first years of the ACA. The problems we are seeing now are due to the uncertainties injected into the market by the Trump administration’s actions to undermine the ACA’s success.

...

And then Trump took office. Since his first days as president, the new administration has undertaken repeated actions to undermine the ACA. During the crucial final days of open enrollment, he cut off advertising for HealthCare.gov. Research has shown repeatedly that it is the healthiest enrollees who wait until the end of open enrollment to sign up. He signed an executive order that suggested his administration will not enforce the individual-mandate penalty, which is crucial to ensure that young and healthy “free riders” (as Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney called them) sign up. These two actions are estimated to have resulted in about 500,000 people not enrolling, worsening the health mix and raising premiums.

Most significantly, the administration has continuously waffled on whether it will honor the roughly $8 billion of payments for “cost- sharing reduction ” subsidies, payments to insurers to protect our lowest-income citizens. Estimates from the Kaiser Foundation suggest that without these payments, premiums will have to rise by 19 percent.

Insurers don’t like uncertainty. As the recently ousted head of Molina Healthcare stated, “The Trump administration is destabilizing [the marketplaces]. Health plans need to plan ahead. He can pull the rug out from the health plans at any minute.” As a result of these uncertainties, there have been a large number of insurer exits throughout the country, and for the first time we face a large number of counties with no insurers. Premiums may once again rise rapidly this year as the remaining insurers protect themselves from further uncertainties created by the White House.

To be clear, things were far from perfect on the exchanges before Trump took office. Many areas in the nation had limited choices, and premiums were often unaffordable for middle-class families not eligible for subsidies. But we know how to fix this: First, honor the reinsurance and cost-sharing reduction payments owed to insurers and expand Medicaid in states that did not do so. The government could then increase reinsurance to insurers — perhaps lifting the language from the AHCA that does exactly that — to bring premiums down further.

But in the meantime, let’s be clear that any problems with exchanges in 2018 are on the Trump administration. It inherited an improving exchange market and had at its disposal the tools to make the market work even better. Instead, the administration undercut enrollment and sowed uncertainty that has insurers panicked and leaving the market. Trump broke it — so now he owns it.

One of many things he's broken...

[fraurosena]

Joe Kennedy's eloquent take down of the DOH:

 

[fraurosena]

Aaaaand... it's time for our daily "Wut" again.

 

‘Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care,’ GOP lawmaker says.

Quote

A conservative Republican congressman from Idaho is drawing criticism for his response to a town-hall attendee’s concerns about how his party’s health-care bill would affect Medicaid recipients.

“You are mandating people on Medicaid to accept dying,” the woman said.

“That line is so indefensible,” said Rep. Raúl Labrador, a member of the influential House Freedom Caucus. “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

The boos instantly drowned him out.

The town hall meeting occurred at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho a day after Labrador and 216 other Republicans in the House narrowly passed the American Health Care Act, which would overhaul the country’s health-care system.[...]

After the town hall Friday, Labrador said on his Facebook page, “It was my privilege to spend two hours today in Lewiston fielding questions from my constituents, many of them about our efforts to provide quality health care to all Americans to an affordable and sustainable cost.”

But many of the comments to his post were in response to his earlier statement.

“My brother died because he was poor and could not go to a doctor because he couldn’t afford the bills. He is dead. People die because they don’t have access to healthcare,” one Facebook user wrote.

“Quite a few middle-aged people sitting in your audience that you just aced out of health coverage,” another one said.[...]

In a statement after the bill was passed, Labrador said, “We have negotiated legislation that keeps our promise to the American people to lower health costs while also protecting those with preexisting conditions. Furthermore, unlike the first version of the AHCA, our bill showed it had enough support to actually pass the House.”

Labrador is not the first Republican lawmaker to face a hostile crowd during a town hall meeting. Republicans who’ve hosted town halls in the past several months have been met with protests, boos and sharp rebukes from attendees. Some have opted against holding town halls, while President Trump has dismissed the “so-called crowds” as “liberal activists.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I bet the residents near Mar-a-Loco are happy: "After the ‘Winter White House’ in Fla., Trump shifts to ‘Camp David North’ in N.J."

Quote

BEDMINSTER, N.J. — With winter over and Palm Beach’s tanned snowbirds departing for the season, President Trump decamped for a long weekend here at another of his favorite properties: a secluded golf club in New Jersey’s fox-hunt and horse country.

In his young presidency, Trump has already spent seven weekends at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which his staff — and some taxpayer-paid employees at the State Department — have dubbed the “Winter White House.”

In a shift in travel habits, Trump is now expected to head for getaways to this 8,200-person township about 45 miles west of New York City where his daughter, Ivanka, got married and which some here are already calling “Camp David North.”

On a dreary, rainy Friday not at all conducive to playing golf, Trump stayed out of the public eye. Even plans to release a photo of him signing a bill to keep the government open through September didn’t materialize.

But the low-key day — which a staffer said included “meetings and calls” — didn’t quell the brewing controversy over the cost of the president’s weekend travel habits.

The Democratic National Committee was among those to ding Trump on Friday for the added expenses of travel and Secret Service protection, claiming that “while Trump wastes taxpayer dollars to promote his brand, millions of Americans sit in fear of losing their coverage from his disastrous health-care bill.”

That was a reference to Thursday’s House passage, after multiple fits and starts, of a Trump-backed bill. Trump celebrated with GOP lawmakers in the Rose Garden and then headed to a dinner gala in New York with the Australian prime minister before traveling to Trump National Golf Club here with his entourage, which included the first lady, Melania Trump.

“Rather than causing a big disruption in N.Y.C., I will be working out of my home in Bedminster, N.J. this weekend,” President Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday morning, adding: “Also saves country money!”

Asked by a reporter back in Washington if it wouldn’t save more money to work out of the White House, principal deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump was “trying to save the taxpayers money the best way he can.”

“The bottom line is the president’s the president, no matter where he goes, and he doesn’t get to control the level of cost and security that may come along with that,” she said.

As with the Palm Beach trips, the cost of local security associated with Trump’s visits have become an issue. Bedminster Township calculated that an anticipated seven visits this season by Trump would cost about $300,000 — the equivalent of 3.5 percent of its entire budget, according to Mayor Steven Parker (R). He said that he has been assured there is money for reimbursement in the spending bill Trump signed Friday, which also includes more than $60 million for reimbursing localities in Florida and New York.

On the whole, Trump’s travel here could prove less disruptive than in more densely populated South Florida.

“We’re very rural, we’ve got not a lot of people per square mile, at least where the golf club is,” Parker said.

Only a few “well-behaved” protesters greeted Trump upon his arrival Thursday night, Parker said, explaining that part of that has to do with geography: Trump’s golf club sits off a two-lane road without a shoulder and it, like many of the township’s sprawling farms and estates, can’t be seen by motorists.

“It’s not really conducive for protests,” Parker said.

Trump’s club sits on the former estate of failed automaker John DeLorean. Trump bought it out of bankruptcy in 2002 and developed the property and neighboring parcels.

...

In recent weeks, The Washington Post spoke to people who had inquired about membership in the club. They were quoted initiation fees between $75,000 and $100,000, in addition to $22,100 in annual dues, according to written correspondence between the club and prospective members.

That’s less than the entrance fee at Mar-a-Lago, which recently doubled to $200,000, according to media reports. But it still makes Bedminster one of the most expensive clubs in Trump’s chain of branded resorts.

One club with a higher initiation fee, according to interviews with those who have inquired recently, is Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. At that club, which is near Mar-a-Lago, officials have quoted a price of $150,000, according to correspondence with a prospective member.

The roughly 425 members of the Bedminster club seem to be drawn largely from the New Jersey suburbs of New York City, including a number of people from the financial-services sector.

Media reports have indicated that the brother of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) — Todd, a financial executive — is a member. A recent club brochure listed former New York Jets football player Nick Mangold as one. In 2010, the New York Post reported that Mark Sanchez — another former Jet — was actually living in a home on the property.

...

Um, no Donnie Dumbfuck, you don't save us money by advertising your gold-plated shitty golf palaces. You would save us money if you stayed at the WH and had your family do the same.

 

"‘Spend Your Free Time In A Red State’: A motorcade of protesters rolls by Trump’s N.J. property"

Quote

BEDMINSTER, N.J. — While President Trump spent a second day out of public view at his golf club, there was a different kind of motorcade taking to the streets here Saturday in New Jersey’s fox-hunt and horse country.

About three dozen cars passed by Trump National Golf Club in the morning, most displaying not-so-welcoming signs. Among them: “Spend Your Free Time In A Red State.” “Least Popular President. Sad!” “You Are Not Royalty. Go to Camp David.”

The caravan was part of what is being billed as a “summer of resistance” here, with organizers pledging to hold a similar “people’s motorcade” every Saturday this summer, whether Trump is in town or not.

“We don’t have to go to Washington to express how we feel,” said Jim Girvan, a local retiree who was among the organizers. “He’s here.”

...

 

[47of74]

And Francis is making sure the Giant Orange Tape Worm of Destruction is feeling the heat...

newcenturytimes.com/2017/05/06/trumps-pride-crumbles-as-pope-francis-gives-him-a-scolding-hell-never-forget-details/

Quote

As the MOAB is the most dangerous non-nuclear weapon our country possesses, it should never have been used this recklessly – and Pope Francis nailed Trump for it. On Friday, Pope Francis spoke to a group of children and criticized America’s president for ordering the “Mother Of All Bombs”, the nickname given to the MOAB. Pope Francis said:

“I was ashamed when I heard the name. A mother gives life and this one gives death, and we call this device a mother. What is happening?”

It’s not hard to see that Pope Francis is aiming his words directly at Trump – and this isn’t the first time. He’s previously bashed Trump’s disgusting border wall, stating in February 2016:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump: Hazardous to Our Health"

Quote

WASHINGTON — Will Donald Trump’s presidency get rotted out?

Steve Jobs might have said so.

Back in 1995, when the tech god was between gigs at Apple, when he had learned a thing or three about leadership by being snaked out of his own company by John Sculley, he gave an interview positing that empires could crash and burn if the emphasis was on sales rather than product.

“The companies forget what it means to make great products,” Jobs said. “The product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product versus a bad product. They have no conception of the craftsmanship that’s required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product. And they really have no feeling in their hearts usually about wanting to really help the customers.”

In “The Art of the Deal,” Trump said that playing to people’s fantasies and promising the greatest product was “an innocent form of exaggeration.”

But it’s one thing when you do that for condos and cologne and mattresses and steaks. It’s another for life-or-death health care policy.

Trump has twice pushed to pass disgraceful health care bills without even trying to grasp what’s in them — or more important, what’s not in them. He couldn’t care less that the dog’s breakfast served up by the House on Thursday wounds the struggling Americans he had promised to lift up.

It is “something terrific,” as he vowed, but only for the superrich who are getting a Marie Antoinette wealth transfer at the expense of health care for the poor.

The president feted his fake-news “win” in the Rose Garden, sprinkling flimflam dust to deflect from his ludicrous legislation. Paul Ryan slobbered over Trump’s leadership even as the Senate made plans to shred the House bill and start over.

“Hey, I’m president,” Trump told his sycophants, or in this case, sickophants. “Can you believe it, right?”

No, I can’t.

...

Presidents have to be good salesmen. Barack Obama faltered because he hated selling and simply lectured. He even outsourced the job of selling his re-election bid at the 2012 convention to a former antagonist, Bill Clinton.

Hillary was not good at salesmanship either. The new book “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign,” reports that at one point, her 2016 team got so flummoxed at her inability to explain why she wanted to be president that they actually considered the slogan “Because It’s Her Turn.”

Trump did care about his product when he built Trump Tower. He obsessed over every detail of a building that was the flashy emblem of New York bursting out of the dark ’70s and into the booming ’80s.

“But the success of that went to his head and he never cared again,” his biographer Tim O’Brien told me. “He’s fundamentally lazy. He free-rides so many processes he doesn’t know anything about. He used to do it in the business world, and now he does it in the political world.

“He’s not a student of anything other than protecting his image. What he cares about is how he’s perceived, not the nuts and bolts of things. He is essentially a performance artist.”

When Trump talked to John Dickerson for “Face the Nation” last Sunday, he said the big difference between business and politics was that in Washington, “you really need heart, because you’re talking about a lot of people. Whereas in business, you don’t need so much heart. You want to make a good deal.”

But with health care, Trump wanted to make a deal so badly he was heartless. One Republican senator, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, said that he would not vote for a health care bill that does not pass “the Jimmy Kimmel test”: “Would the child born with a congenital heart disease be able to get everything he or she would need in that first year of life?”

The House Republicans just wanted Trump off their backs. They had never pulled a real bill together because they thought Hillary would win and they could just snipe at her. The Irish undertaker and his crew were so desperate to prove they had not totally forgotten how to pass anything that they were willing to go with garbage. And Ryan wanted to save the bacon — or bratwurst — of his fellow Wisconsin buddy Reince Priebus, blamed by Trump for the first health care defeat. After that debacle, The Times reported, Trump started merging the two names into one mocking “Ryan-ce.”

But in delivering this win for Trump, they may well have delivered a way for Democrats to take the president down. The Democrats could win the House back and get their investigative machinery cranking. The Cook Political Report has now downgraded the 2018 re-election chances of 20 House Republicans.

Trump cares only about optics, and yet he and Ivanka, his glossy shield on women’s issues, do not seem to realize the bad optics of a viral photo of a crowd of guys applauding themselves for gutting health care protections for women.

The Republicans now have a pre-existing condition: They voted for something that will cause them a lot of pain in the future.

"Sickophants" -- perfect description. 

[JMarie]

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/05/06/trump-questions-constitutionality-of-federal-funding-to-hbcus/22073021/

Nevermind that he just met with HBCU leaders -- we all remember that pic of Kellyanne Conway with her feet on the sofa, right?

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=0h72RYIR&id=8F96556CB7A36606F0DECBB805A624E200D9E9F6&thid=OIP.0h72RYIRNabnh7g7zzggwQEsDX&q=kellyanne+conway+hbcu+picture&simid=608009753853628191&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0

 

[47of74]

I just came across this on FB. 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

I just came across this on FB. 

Clearly, this is fake!

It's totally missing the right adjectives (or rather superlatives) such as BAD! SAD! and above all 'bigly'...  

[laPapessaGiovanna]

I got it: thre Repuglicans fulfilled the wet dreams of obliterating Obamacare and in exchange they close both eyes and pinch their nose in front of the Trumps-Kushners profiting and money grabbing everywhere. 

I don't like Clinton and I think concerns about her tendencies to ass kissing the powerful ones and wall street was problematic. BUT whoever thought that Trump was a better choice fully deserves to be fucked. I'm just sorry that all the rest will get fucked too.

I am really curious to see how they'll spin this.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/07/jared-kushners-family-criticised-for-touting-cash-for-visas-scheme-in-china

Spoiler

Jared Kushner’s family staged events in China to woo wealthy investors into luxury developments, with the prospect of receiving US green cards in return. 

On Saturday, Kushner’s sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer, took to the stage at an event at Beijing’s Ritz-Carlton hotel to urge Chinese investors to back One Journal Square, two skyscraperscurrently being built in New Jersey. 

Members of the audience of 100 were reportedly told that if they stumped up at least half a million dollars for the project they could become US residents under a controversial cash-for-residency program that is known in China as the “golden visa”. 

CNN reported that Meyer touted Jared Kushner’s position in the White House. “In 2008, my brother Jared Kushner joined the family company as CEO, and recently moved to Washington to join the administration,” she said.

According to the New York Times, which was subsequently ejected from the seminar along with the Washington Post, Meyer told investors: “[This project] means a lot to me and my entire family”.

A slide shown during the pitchidentified Trump as a “key decision maker” in the controversial EB-5 immigrant investor program, for which there has been an explosion of Chinese applications in recent years.

“Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States,” the event’s brochure claimed, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the story.

[...]

Noah Bookbinder, the head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the New York Timesthe sales offensive was “highly problematic” and could be interpreted as selling access to Jared Kushner.

Organisers of this week’s events in China appeared uncomfortable with media scrutiny. A man accompanying Meyer shouted “Please leave us alone!” when a reporter from the New York Times asked her to comment on Saturday.

[fraurosena]

Ha, you go girl! She's not taking any bullshit.

 

 

[apple1]

(This post may be unpopular, but...)

Re: Colbert.

What happened to, "When they go low, we go high."  ?

[Flossie]

49 minutes ago, apple1 said:

(This post may be unpopular, but...)

Re: Colbert.

What happened to, "When they go low, we go high."  ?

He snapped and made a crude joke that he later apologized for.  And it happened on national TV.  I don't know how much of his apology was to calm things down with CBS, and how much might have been him being embarrassed over his lack of control that night.

Thank God I don't have a daily show, I'd have been bankrupted by the FCC by now over some of the things I've spouted off about our fake president.

[apple1]

11 minutes ago, Flossie said:

He snapped and made a crude joke that he later apologized for.  And it happened on national TV.  I don't know how much of his apology was to calm things down with CBS, and how much might have been him being embarrassed over his lack of control that night.

Thank God I don't have a daily show, I'd have been bankrupted by the FCC by now over some of the things I've spouted off about our fake president.

I understand all of that. And of course, it is inconsequential in the overall scheme.

It still has given the right wing a talking point, a focus, when IMHO they should be held to account for all the important things.

JMO.

[Flossie]

44 minutes ago, apple1 said:

I understand all of that. And of course, it is inconsequential in the overall scheme.

It still has given the right wing a talking point, a focus, when IMHO they should be held to account for all the important things.

Yes, it's given them something to point to.  A late night talk show host made a bad joke about Chump.  It was unfortunate, but it's not a game changer.  He's apologized, I think he'll be more careful in the future, and it's time to move on.  We all know that Trump, or one of his minions, will do something monumentally stupid very soon and the Stephen Colbert thing will be old news.  

I fully agree that the politicians who are hell-bent on destroying our nation should be held accountable, but when it's over, I don't think that Stephen Colbert's comment will even warrent a footnote.  It's just another distraction, like a swarm of mosquitoes that keep us occupied so we don't see the bomber flying towards us ready to drop a nuke.

[47of74]

Up your Donnie. Your friend Le Pen didn't win.

[candygirl200413]

So are we just becoming a dictatorship? First, there was the woman who laughed during Session's testimony before he became DOJ (even though he lied under oath) who is looking at a year if it doesn't go her way. Then, Colbert makes a crude joke, but apologizes?

[GreyhoundFan]

"The many metaphors for Donald Trump"

Quote

President Trump is a man containing multitudes. As such, the go-to method of explaining who he is and what makes him tick often involves metaphors.

Lots of metaphors.

One particular metaphor caught my eye this week. It was from a woman in Michigan who had voted for Barack Obama for president and then for Trump, and she offered it in a focus group conducted by GOP pollster Glen Bolger.

“Obama is more like your best friend who has parties and has Beyoncé over,” she said. “And then Trump is like your dad. He's going to come whoop your ass because you didn't do what you were supposed to do and get it done.”

So there you go.

...

Some of the metaphors in the article are a hoot. I especially like the grilled cheese metaphor.

 

 

[47of74]

I see Agent Orange got his ass handed to him on Twitter.

us.blastingnews.com/news/2017/05/donald-trump-tweets-support-for-french-election-instantly-destroyed-on-twitter-001681535.html

Quote

The results of the French presidential election are in an it was a hard blow to those on the far right. After #Donald Trump offered his thoughts on Twitter, he was met with fierce backlash from his fellow social media users.

Taking to Twitter on Sunday, Donald Trump gave his support to Emmanuel Macron, wishing him well in the process. "Congratulations to Emmanuel Macron on his big win today as the next President of France," Trump tweeted out, before adding, "I look very much forward to working with him!"

Following Donald Trump's remarks on Twitter, many social media users decided to chime in and push back at the former host of "The Apprentice." "Dear France, Congratulations! Would you like to trade? Your Friend, America," Rob Szczerba tweeted out.

I especially liked these...

Again, up yours Donald.

[47of74]

Just saw this tweet this evening of Donnie's latest round of golf...

 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Just saw this tweet this evening of Donnie's latest round of golf...

 

Well of course it's a given that I'd like that pic!

But I love that description. Mar-a-Lardo. Bwahaha! 

[fraurosena]

Appeals Court to Take Up Revised Trump Travel Restrictions

Quote

Candidate Donald Trump's calls for a ban on Muslim immigration are at the heart of a challenge to his revised executive order restricting travel, to be considered Monday by a federal appeals court.

To those who successfully sued to stop enforcement, his statements are clear proof that the order was based on religious discrimination. But to the Trump administration, they are irrelevant, because all that counts is what the president said and did after he took the oath of office.

The government is urging the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, to lift a stay imposed by a federal judge in Maryland on March 16 blocking the administration from carrying out the executive order. The full 15-member court will consider the appeal, bypassing the normal first step of a hearing before a three-judge panel.

Justice Department lawyers say the court should evaluate the words of the executive order and the administration's explanation for its purpose, avoiding "judicial psychoanalysis" of what Trump may have meant during the campaign.

"Statements of what candidates might attempt to achieve if elected, which are often simplified and imprecise, are not official acts," the government says. Courts must judge the constitutionality of the executive order by what it says, "not by what supposedly lies at the heart of its drafters."

But the American Civil Liberties Union, representing a group of refugee aid organizations and Muslim residents whose overseas relatives are seeking visas, says Trump never disavowed his plan to target Muslim immigration.

"President Trump publicly committed himself to an indefensible goal: banning Muslims from coming to the United States," and the court should consider those statements in deciding whether the executive order is based on anti-Muslim animus, the ACLU says.

Under the government's approach, the ACLU says, if a politician campaigned on a promise to make Christianity the national religion, the courts would be forbidden to consider the candidate's speeches, literature and websites, no matter how specific and consistent the promises, how quickly they were carried out after the election and how much they affected non-Christians.

The administration's lawyers say the revised order — imposing a 90-day ban on travel from Iran, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — was intended to enhance national security by allowing the government to study its ability to properly vet visa applications from those countries.

The goal was not to restrict travel by Muslims, the Justice Department says in its legal brief submitted ahead of Monday's courtroom showdown. "Those countries represent a small fraction of the world's 50 Muslim-majority nations and approximately ten percent of the global Muslim population."

What's more, the government says, any claim of discrimination now is premature, because visa applicants from those countries can seek waivers from the executive order. The Iranian wife of one of the challengers was granted an immigrant visa May 1, the government says.

But the ACLU counters that the executive order was aimed at countries whose populations are overwhelmingly Muslim. The harm to Muslims in the United States is immediate, the ACLU says, because the Trump order creates feelings of marginalization and exclusion.

The challengers "invoke their rights to be free from government condemnation of their religion within the United States," the ACLU says.

Trump's original travel order, issued seven days after his inauguration on Jan. 20, was blocked by court rulings. Enforcement of the revised order, which was to have taken effect on March 16, was also barred by a federal judge in Hawaii. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear an appeal of that ruling later in the month.

Both appeals courts would have to rule in the administration's favor to allow enforcement of the revised executive order. But if either court rules against the government, an appeal to the Supreme Court seems certain.

It all boils down to one simple question: should what a presidential candidate says and promises during his campaign be taken into account or not when they become president and seemingly do what they said and promised (and what they have in their hearts when they do it!), or not? 

But all of this seems not to matter in any case. There are only two scenario's here, as far as I can make out from this article.

1) One or both of the appeals courts rule(s) in favor of the revised executive order. In which case, the order will be enforced. Or

2) Neither appeals courts rules in favor, and an appeal will be made to the Supreme Court. In which case, with Gorsuch now appointed , the executive order will probably be enforced.

Damn!

[fraurosena]

Loooong sigh.

Don't you miss him?

 

[AnywhereButHere]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Appeals Court to Take Up Revised Trump Travel Restrictions

It all boils down to one simple question: should what a presidential candidate says and promises during his campaign be taken into account or not when they become president and seemingly do what they said and promised (and what they have in their hearts when they do it!), or not? 

But all of this seems not to matter in any case. There are only two scenario's here, as far as I can make out from this article.

1) One or both of the appeals courts rule(s) in favor of the revised executive order. In which case, the order will be enforced. Or

2) Neither appeals courts rules in favor, and an appeal will be made to the Supreme Court. In which case, with Gorsuch now appointed , the executive order will probably be enforced.

Damn!

There is an outside chance in scenario 2 that the Supreme Court would not uphold the order. Once on the court, judges have ruled contrary to how people thought (and the presidents who put them there might have wished) they would. Not that I'm holding my breath, but it could happen.