My problem with the ban was making it retroactive. It wasn’t fair to people who already had VISAs and green cards, some of whom were already in the air. Tighten the vetting for applicants, sure, but a person should be guilty of something if we going to take it away.
I think you mean Bannon is the Sith Lord of outrage, since power based on anger is a Dark Side thing.
1 Like
Recently I’ve decided to run back to books.
Yes, I know books take a lot longer than the Internet to disperse news, but I’d rather wait on having a definite opinion on something if it allows me to have a better informed opinion. For example, I’ve just finished reading “Mighty and Almighty,” Madeline Albright’s reflections on religion and foreign policy. She wrote it during the Bush (Jr) Administration but I feel I’ve learned more about Islam reading that book than I ever have on social media or even TV news.
I used to be pretty into arguing about politics on social media, but it’s more stressful than arguing about it in person. An argument that might last ten minutes in real life can be stretched out for days as you post and wait for a counter post and then post again. Meanwhile I spend too time mental energy thinking of my counter counter post. I’ve had to cap my willingness to argue with people, and I outright block people who argue by insult instead of evidence.
1 Like
“Good good, let the hate flow through you.”
We have a book thread going, if you have any good books you’ve recently run into post them there.
1 Like
This is what I mean about CNN. Look at this garbage… This is front page news mind you…
And this:
This is on the front page! What the hell is wrong with these people? How is this journalism?
1 Like
I am indifferent to the ban. Its just not a big deal. A 90 day ban is nothing in the larger scheme of things and clearly it was a political move more so than a protective move. It was a little muscle flexing. Save for 2 countries who I would like to see permanent bans on, Yemen and Somalia. Both are lawless lands, I am not interested in their visitors. The only people rich enough to travel from those regions are full blown warlords and terrorist.
Clearly it wouldn’t stop a determined enemy, but why make it easy?
The botched execution is the only thing I had a problem with. The guidelines needed to be clear. It should not affect green card holders at all, nor anybody else who filed the proper documentation and was approved prior to the ban being put in place. As well as your mentioned notice. Hopefully, lesson learned and they will not make those same mistakes again.[quote=“anon71262119, post:6, topic:226173”]
A Russian immigrant friend of mine posted about this on her FB feed. It was this kind of thing, “Where were all the protestors when our ability to travel was being restricted? There weren’t any.”
[/quote]
Precisely. The media is such a joke. They acted as if this is the first time in U.S. history a travel ban was ever put in place.
These people just hate the guy. They’ll protest anything as an excuse to get a chance to break shit and set fire to police cars.
2 Likes
I think this avoids a lot of the glaring issues with the travel ban. First, it was clearly focused at Muslim countries (not saying right or wrong, it just was) and the Trump admin kept saying time and time again it wasn’t. Second, the list leaves off a lot of countries that very well should have been included. Third, the rollout was complete garbage (I know you noted this, but Trumps first major act being a monumental failure can’t be overstated).
Point 1 and 2 start to shine a light on the “Why?” As in, why is it the countries Trump has businesses in were left off the list. Not saying it’s THE reason, but for the first major act of his presidency, you’d think he’d at least want to attempt looking objective.
Also everyone is so quick to blame the media for hyping this up. Know who hyped this up? Maybe the guy who spent a large percent of his campaign hyping it up. At the end of the day, Trump asked his supporters to trust him while choosing to reveal almost no specific information, and every major thing he’s done has left us with more questions than answers.
1 Like
It can be powerful if you have no place to go. But unlike the Nazis’ or Communists, people are just getting their info from different places and the major outlets are suffering as a result. Subscriptions are down, people do not trust the mainstream media anymore, like they used too.
I mean, Walter Cronkite was a full blown liberal, but he was a journalist first. He reported the news and saved his opinion for editorials where he was given the space to express his take. But he did not conflate it with the news.
Now its all conflated, but I think the sensationalist stripe is what is costing them now. Yeah, it got ratings at first but you can only go so far with sensationalism.
These major outlets are starting to pay the price. They need to publicly recommit themselves to honest journalism. Fire a lot of the current losers who forgot what the notion of fact checking was for and go back to the beginning or they will lose what’s left of the public’s confidence and go under.
And regaining public confidence is going to take a while, even if they started today with recommitments to the truth.
1 Like
No it doesn’t. The glaring issues were addressed. And while it was primarily muslim countries, that happens to be where the problems are and come from, primarily Muslim countries. That’s not a positive or negative statement, it just a plain fact. It also didn’t include the vast majority of Muslim countries so it can hardly be called a ‘muslim ban’. And it was a short ban, shortest I ever heard of. 90 days is nothing. At worst you delay your travel by 3 months. Most travel bans in the past were indefinite. You may not have been affected by those earlier bans, but I was. Most of my family lived in the eastern-block. Getting a visa was extremely expensive, and you could just get a direct flight and most places didn’t fly to the eastern block as part of the travel ban.
Further, there was zero fear about the people traveling, save for spies. It was political strong arming between the USSR and the USA. Which is all this ban is.
1 Like
No Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, etc. Also like I said, the issue wasn’t so much the fact that it was targeted at Muslims as much as it was the WH vehemently DENYING it had anything to do with religion. Want to say you’re not a politician (when he clearly is) then fucking own your reasoning.
Also as I said before, the roll out was disheartening af. As one of the millions of Americans that didn’t vote for Trump, I was genuinely hopeful when he took office (unlike most mainstream libs). Repub POTUS, check. Repub congress, both houses, check. Repub SCOTUS, check. When you control all 3 branches of the govt, you dont get to fuck up the roll out of the very first thing you do. He KNEW this first initiative would be the biggest factor into his public opinion of people who didn’t vote for him.
Millions of people, like myself, were hell bent on giving this guy a chance. MAYBE he’ll “drain the swamp.” MAYBE he’ll stop executive overreach like he claims. MAYBE he’ll end generations of special interest in govt. MAYBE he’s different!
Result, he shit the bed with his first act as POTUS.
Title is slightly misleading (maybe) but the timing is too much of a coincidence.
1 Like
Well, it wasn’t his first act as POTUS and the roll out was a huge blunder. But you also have to look at it from another view as well. The checks and balances of the government are working. The judicial branch over ruled it. So I do not think he can push it through without revision. So it is infusing energy in to dormant government works. It shocking people into action. It is going to result in much needed legislation that revises and hopefully improves our immigration system.
Having dealt with the USCIS recently, it’s a mess. It maybe more like shaking a box or kicking a vending machine then the normal rhetoric, but it may actually work this time versus all the failed attempts of immigration reform in the past.
So if shaking it up brings meaningful change, I am for it. Even if it doesn’t look so hot in practice.
The way I see it, is one way or another, he is forcing congress and USCIS to get somethings done that reform our immigration policy and put in the proper checks for the particular hot spots in the world we have damn good reason to fear, that is a good thing.
He’s not normal and he’s not going to be a normal president. But if shit gets done, that needs to get done its cool with me. And if the government is functioning as designed, that’s a good as well.
Him being a giant rock someone through in to a still puddle is a shake up Washington needed.
The business as usual in Washington just started feeling like being pulled into the event horizon of a black hole. Without even realizing it, your being torn apart and being sucked into a vortex, buy the time you’ve figure it out, you have already been crushed.
1 Like
I don’t understand how anyone sees this as a positive. This, by definition, means Trump tried to EO something and it wasn’t even legal. On top of that, after the fact, we find out he didn’t even consult the DoJ to find out of it WAS legal. How much time and money was wasted with this action alone on behalf of a guy who claims the govt is always wasting time and money and he’s there to change it?
Any time checks and balances has to be used, it means someone fucked up so bad another branch of the govt cracks the whip. My mind can ONLY see this as a glaring failure, but that’s just me.
If it’s not hot in practice doesn’t that mean it’s just a failure? Anything can be hot in theory, the implementation is what matters.
1 Like
Damn man, who’s left? Your granny and Aunt Shiela? I bet they share some bomb ass recipes though 
2 Likes
Let’s just say most of the people on my friends’ list really would be my friends if I met them in real life, or were my friends when I met them in real life when I lived in England or Vietnam.
Of course it’s a positive. Checks and balances are checks on power. It can come from the judicial branch, legislative or executive. It does not mean he did something illegal, the whole order is not illegal and it’s not the first time there has been a travel ban. It’s not the first time the judicial branch has intervened in an executive order. It happened to obama several times just nobody kicked up a big fuss. Checks and balances have saved us from Presidential overreach quite a few times in the obama era. If this bothers you, then that should too, but I am betting it does not.
It means simply order needs to be tweaked if the rulings are upheld. It’s always a good thing when the system works.
I said looks, not ‘is’. The idea of a temporary travel ban in order to review and tweak the Immigration and Customs program is a good thing not a bad thing. The only bad part I saw was the clumsy roll out. I would have liked to have seen more countries included actually. And I want 2 of those countries to remain permanent, which cannot be done with out congress. Somalia and Yemen are basically lawless countries. Anybody traveling and not seeking asylum or refugee status I cannot see being up to any good. So the travel ban on those two should be in place indefinitely. Like the travel bans between the U.S. and the Eastern Bloc \ USSR and Cuba.
Nobody pitched a little fit over those travel bans and those were indefinite bans.
1 Like
That is wasn’t a “Muslim Ban”, not that the countries on the list were primarily Muslim countries. Of course they are. At this time in history, those countries are to source of the problems. But I agree more should have been included.
I am not quite sure this is true first. Second, my argument, if I were him would be that “If I was willing to invest in a place it’s because I vetted it closely.”
I disagree, the media is being patently ridiculous. It’s not the first travel ban, it’s temporary and the noise is ridiculous. Nobody cared that obama carried out 10,000 drone strikes in Muslim countries which some did have collateral damage. Nobody cared about his travel ban on Iraq, etc… It’s silly. This is not a big deal.
Forgive me if I’m wrong. If the judicial branch rules against something, doesn’t that mean by definition, it’s illegal?
Sorry but this seems kinda silly. Does a world exist in which Trump has any ability to vet a country’s terror risk as a businessman…?