President Donald Trump’s sweeping visa and refugee ban is likely only the beginning.
Already he has signed a variation of a “Muslim ban” — and has suggested expanding it. He has pushed forward on the southern border wall, regardless of Mexico’s refusal to pay for it. And he is reportedly considering moves to overhaul the United States’ legal work visa program (H-1B visas) that many technology companies rely on. To many, it would appear that Trump is doing what he said he would do.
But behind these policy reforms, two longtime immigration skeptics are making a name for themselves: Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon and White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, who is a former staffer for Sen. Jeff Sessions and yet another hard-line immigration restrictionist. (Sessions is waiting for his confirmation vote for attorney general).
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Trump’s public stance has seemingly always been to keep the “bad people” out and let the smart people in. But a conversation between Bannon and Miller from March 2016, on a Breitbart News podcast first resurfaced by the Washington Post, shows Bannon and Miller may both hold a more conservative view on immigration.
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Bannon goes on to decry the “oligarchs” of Silicon Valley and Washington and call the number of immigrants in the United States “scary.”
Juan Cole at “Informed Comment” has good dissertation on immigration. Without immigration the US will go the route of Japan - declining population that will eventually lead to a declining economy as the population ages and consumption decreases. If President Bannon and Presidential Puppet Trump get their way, they will do great harm to the very (very) “white” population they claim to be trying to “defend”.
Why does he put Iran on the list if he is concerned with cutting of heads? That’s a Saudi thing.
Neither Persian Christians nor Jews are particularly endangered at this point. Iran even recognizes Zoroastrianism. As far as Islamism goes this early Shia strain is the most tolerant one.
I really hope sales of the writings of Frederick Douglass are on the rise right now. The fact that his words are still needed 150 years later is tragic, but as long as they are available and people read them, there is still hope for us.
Please realize that there is no cure for stupid. The Orange Monster Administration will go down as the most inept in the history of the Republic. Even Karl Rove (!) thinks the OM is out of his league and is really incompetent (see today’s Wall Street Journal - too lazy to add URL).
The raid in Yemen also looks like a botched job (see today’s New York Times front page story).
Things can only get worse, i.e.,more and more incompetence, since the Monster is not one to learn from his mistakes, but, rather, enjoys doubling down on them.
Semantics be damned, this is absolutely a Muslim ban and this is how it starts. It took over 5 years between the day the new German chancellor took office and the night they broke the glass.
Trump at and to his core is a rabble rouser. Without his rabble aroused, Trump has very little support and this is exactly where the comparison with Hitler is relevant. Hitler also had to keep his rabble aroused and so had to keep pushing farther and farther until he was able to gain total control over the state institutions. Along the way Hitler made several deals that got those institutions, from the army to schools to everything else that changed these institutions of state to institutions of Hitler.
The first deal Trump made to turn an institution to his own making is the deal he made with the GOP establishment over the Supreme Court. That is in exchange for the GOP being completely loyal to Trump including Trump’s disloyalty by his support of Putin, Trump for now is giving the GOP its pick for the Supreme Court. By this deal Trump is capturing control of other institutions and appointing people to run those institutions with no experience and no loyalty other than to Trump.
Trump is covering for his takeover of state institutions by keeping his rabble aroused, as Hitler did, by turning the institutions of state and his rabble against the most vulnerable and minorities. So make no mistake about it, we have seen this act before.
One side note to anyone who object to this comparison with Hitler; Trump stated on 2-13-2016 that “George W Bush lied America into the Iraq War.” Over 1,000,000 people are dead because of the Iraq War. So if George W Bush did, as Trump said and lied America into the Iraq War, Bush and all those who helped and supported Bush’s policies are the biggest war criminals since Hitler. Yet almost all of Bush supporters are now supporting Trump. This leaves only two choices in regard to Trump’s supporters, they are either too stupid to realize it or too evil to care that Trump is calling them the biggest war criminals since Hitler. Being too dumb to realize or too evil to care is were also true about the rabble that supported Hitler.
Tierney made the effort to point out where the EO addressed the “problem” claimed by Trump (“If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible”), but didn’t point out that the problem was a lie.
