Immigration

Trump’s Muslim Ban Executive Order Reveals an Administration Ready to Lie About Absolutely Everything

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By Michael Bryan

Many have identified the reasons why Trump’s Executive Order (EO) suspending travel from seven Muslim majority counties is ineffective, illegal, and just plain stupid: it is clearly discriminatory toward Muslims, it harms our counter-terror efforts made in conjunction with those nations’s governments, it is a propaganda win for the terrorists, and there haven’t actually been any terror attacks in America by visitors from the targeted countries since 1975, among many other reasons.

But what I find most disquieting about the EO is something that I have not seen a lot of commentary on, thus far: it demonstrates that this Administration is ready and willing to take ill-considered and deleterious actions regarding national security for purely political reasons, and then blatantly lie about classified intelligence to justify it.

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BREAKING: 9th Circuit Court panel unanimously upholds injunction of Trump’s Muslim travel ban executive order

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The Washington Post reports this breaking news, Federal appeals court maintains suspension of Trump’s immigration order: A federal appeals court has maintained the freeze on President Trump’s controversial immigration order, meaning previously barred refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries can continue entering the U.S. Read the Per Curiam order HERE. A panel with the U.S. … Read more

Hold Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III accountable as the new Attorney General

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Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) — Geezus! You can almost hear the Confederate flags snapping in the breeze, can’t you? — was approved on a near party-line vote with only one Democratic defection, to become the next Attorney General of the United States after a contentious Senate vote. Jeff Sessions Confirmed as Attorney General, Capping Bitter Battle:

Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, an Alabama Republican, survived a near-party-line vote, 52 to 47, in the latest sign of the extreme partisanship at play as Mr. Trump strains to install his cabinet. No Republicans broke ranks in their support of a colleague who will become the nation’s top law enforcement official after two decades in the Senate. [Joe Manchin (D-WV) broke ranks with Democrats.]

But the confirmation process — ferocious even by the standards of moldering decorum that have defined the body’s recent years — laid bare the Senate’s deep divisions at the outset of the Trump presidency. At the same time, the treatment of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who was forced to stop speaking late Tuesday after criticizing Sen. Sessions from the Senate floor, rekindled the gender-infused politics that animated the presidential election and the women’s march protesting Mr. Trump the day after his inauguration last month.

Sen. Sessions cast his final vote as a senator to note that he was present for Wednesday’s tally. His confirmation was met by applause from his colleagues, including a few Democrats, on the Senate floor.

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Judge Gorsuch ‘disheartened’ and ‘demoralized’ by Trump’s attacks on the independence of the judiciary

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“Asked on Tuesday about President Donald Trump’s attacks on the ‘so-called judge’ who blocked his immigration executive order nationwide, House Speaker Paul Ryan defended the President. Despite the insults, Trump was respecting the appeals process, Ryan said at his weekly press conference.” Ryan Defends Trump’s Attacks On Judge: ‘He’s Respecting The Process’.

The “zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin” and Ayn Rand fanboy spoke too soon. On Wednesday, Trump was on the attack against the independence of the appellate court as well. Trump suggests only politics could lead court to rule against his immigration order:

President Trump denounced arguments against his immigration order as “disgraceful” on Wednesday — a day after three federal appellate judges lobbed critical inquiries at those challenging and defending the plan — and suggested a ruling against his administration would be based on politics and not a fair reading of the law.

In a speech to law enforcement officials in Washington, Trump argued his executive action is clearly legal and read aloud the relevant part of the law, which he called “so simple and so beautifully written and so perfectly written.”

“I watched last night, in amazement, and I heard things that I couldn’t believe, things that really had nothing to do with what I just read,” he said. “And I don’t ever want to call a court biased, so I won’t call it biased. And we haven’t had a decision yet. But courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what’s right.”

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A president ‘divorced from reality’

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CBS Evening News aired an extraordinary report last night on a president “divorced from reality.” Here is a link to the video. ‘It Has Been a Busy Day for Presidential Statements Divorced from Reality’.

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Here is a rush transcript of Scott Pelley’s introduction:

President Donald Trump told a U.S. military audience that there have been terrorist attacks that no one knows about because the media choose not to report them.

It has been a busy day for presidential statements divorced from reality.

Mr. Trump said this morning that any polls that show disapproval of his immigration ban are “fake.”

He singled out a federal judge for ridicule after the judge suspended his ban, and Mr. Trump said that the ruling now means that “anyone can enter the country.”

The president’s claims, whether fabricated or imaginary, are now worrying even his backers, particularly after he insisted that millions of people voted illegally giving Hillary Clinton her popular vote victory. There’s not one state election official, Democrat or Republican, who supports that claim.

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