109, 720 it’s the same. Essentially.
Four Pinocchios
Anyone taking odds on whether Spicer is the next Mrs. Trump? He certainly seems to be assuming the position for his boss.
No surprise there. But there are way more people who are affected than just those who were detained. If I’m here as a legal resident but my passport is from one of the 7 countries, I’m promptly cancelling any trips I had planned. No way would I risk being unable to return to the U.S. to make a family trip, business trip, vacation, etc. And that’s just one example.
“Kevin McAleenan, the acting commissioner of the CBP said on Tuesday that the U.S. denied entry to 721 travelers and granted waivers to more than 1,000 people letting them into the U.S. as of Monday. These numbers differ greatly from those Spicer told reporters on Monday.”
“Kevin McAleenan, soon-to-be FORMER acting commissioner of the CBP…”
FIFY
One of my carers has a green card and has applied for US citizenship. She’s from another country entirely, but has been advised not to travel abroad until she has a US passport.
'Cause liars are gonna lie?
Yes, and my scenario was quite realistic. I have an Iraqi friend here permanently on a green card (should have gotten citizenship before the current administration, but that’s another story) and she’s getting married later this year. Maybe they’ll have this settled by then, but if her wedding date were next week there’s no way I could imagine her taking a honeymoon to Jamaica or Cancun or wherever. Even if she’d already bought airfare, there’s no way she’d risk not being able to return to her parents, brothers, home, life, etc. here.
Yeah? Color me shocked.
Everybody knew that the 109 number was made up out of thin air, and nobody could verify it because of that.
This from Kevin Drum today, the exasperatingly sensible, sober calming tamper-downer of left of center hyperbole:
Friday’s immigration order is merely the opening salvo in Bannon’s war, designed to stir up the troops and begin the process of targeting Muslims as the enemy. Think of it as Lend-Lease. To truly get the United States—and the West—dedicated to the unconditional surrender of Islam, he needs a mammoth provocation. Even 9/11 wasn’t enough. He’s going to need something bigger.
Would he be willing to engineer such a provocation? Probably. Could he actually do it? That’s a lot harder to answer. But I don’t doubt that, one way or another, this is his ultimate goal. That’s why he’s now a principal on the National Security Council. That’s why he’s an illegal immigration hawk: not because he cares much about Mexico, but because it gains him the right kind of allies for a war he does care about. And it’s why he appeals to white nationalists and far-right European parties: not because he believes their racial nonsense (probably), but because they’re exactly the kind of people who are most likely to support a war against Islam. Bannon is a smart guy, and it’s the logical place to start.
As Josh Harkinson has reported, Bannon is deadly serious about this war, and there’s no way he’ll get it just by jawboning. It will only happen if there are a lot of dead bodies somewhere in America, and that means we have to do something to provoke a massive response from Osama bin Laden 2.0, whoever that turns out to be. The immigration order is a pinprick, just something to test the waters. Think of it as market research. More will be coming.
Might be better to be almost anywhere else than what is fast becoming a Banana Republic ruled by a con man who calls fiats “Executive Orders”.
hahahahahaha that is the most perfect description of Kevin Drum I’ve ever seen.
And for him of all people to say this is terrifying. I go to him to make me stop hyperventilating, not induce it.
I hear ya.
I don’t suppose though that many of us haven’t thought the same thing. It’s just scarier to see it in print from someone like Kevin.
I don’t like being scared. It’s not a good place for me to try to fight from - I get paralyzed if I’m scared enough. I need to stay angry.
Well, that was a bone-chilling read. If that’s truly what Bannon has in mind, and provocations directed toward the Muslim world don’t get him the response he’s looking for, I wouldn’t put it past him to try an Operation Northwoods type plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
For what it’s worth, Josh Whedon via the final episode of BVS.
Anya: There was this other apocalypse this one time. And, well, I took off. But this time, I don’t… I don’t know.
Andrew: Well, what’s different?
Anya: Well, I guess I was kinda new to being around humans before. And now I’ve seen a lot more, gotten to know people, seen what they’re capable of and I guess I just realize how amazingly… screwed up they all are. I mean, really, really screwed up in a monumental fashion.
Andrew: Oh.
Anya: And they have no purpose that unites them, so they just drift around, blundering through life until they die. Which they-they know is coming, yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them. They’re incapable of thinking about what they want beyond the moment. They kill each other, which is clearly insane, and yet, here’s the thing. When it’s something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they’re lame morons for fighting. But they do. They never… They never quit. And so I guess I will keep fighting, too.
Damn that Joss - he can be so prophetic because he always rides the very edge of the cultural wave.
I love him so much and that just nails it - they have no purpose.
I finally finished The Black Lamb and The Grey Falcon, Rebecca West’s monumental 2 volume work on the Balkans that she wrote at the edge of WWII.
She ends it in an explanation for the rise of fascism that is almost exactly what we keep being told went wrong here - urban working class people with no purpose and a permanent grudge because they have no purpose.
That may well be what has happened here, in part. I refuse to believe that any occurrence in history can be so exactly the same - I think we’re told that so that we will be afraid of what is going to happen and also to try to shame liberals.
We have no choice - we have to fight. BUT - listen up tutto il mondo - WE HAVE PURPOSE.
I was thinking more in terms of the the false flag operation Heydrich engineered to manufacture a causus belli for the invasion of Poland, but yeah. That was the very first thing that occurred to me when I found out he’d gotten himself put onto the NSC. And then, again, as I read reports he’s been operating a kind of shadow NSC with no written minutes or paper trail since the transition began.
These people are perfectly capable of letting a nuke slip through the border given the opportunity. I don’t think it’s possible for them to do it themselves. At least, not with one of our warheads–we have pretty tight inventory control–though they may have some contacts in Russia who’d lend them one.