Trump II

[Schewe]

You apparently whipped yourself into a frenzy, giving you enough adrenalin to write multiple loooong and angry posts. I can't keep up with that. I am much cooler with what happened.

Sorry you find my writing too taxing...I'll try to throttle down my enthusiasm–well, no, I won't :~).

As for being whipped into a frenzy, I didn't do that to myself. Trump has done that by being such incredible doofus since taking the oath of office.

You might be "cool" with what Trump has said and done but I'm not. I am not going to lay back and take it, I've been more politically energized since Jan 20th, 2017 than I've ever been. And I harken back to being a anti-Vietnam War protester and walking in marches in the early 1970's. Yeah that was at the end of the war but I learned a little something about standing up for what I believe.

And I'm not alone. Today was Not My President Day.Last Sunday Trump admin policies were protested by scientists in Boston (fun signs BTW), last Thursday thousands of immigrants and their supporter's marched to protest Trump's immigration policies, thousands protested all over the world after the travel ban was announced. Heck the day after Trump's inauguration we saw the largest domestic and international march in support of women that the USA has ever seen.

Look around and smell the roses...Trump is doing poorly. He has no skills at diplomacy nor governing. He thinks that by signing a bunch of executive orders and looking busy meeting with business leaders will somehow magically Make America Great Again. When things get too hot in Washington because of having to fire Flynn and having a tragically weird press conference, he takes off to Florida to have a frigging campaign rally with Airfare One in the background. He calls the media an enemy of the people and forms his foreign policy by watch Fox News.

America is suffering and we all must examine what is transpiring to American society. I don't hate republicans. I don't hate blacks, Muslims, Christians or any minorities. I don't hate right to lifer's nor pro choice proponents. I don't hate immigrants.

I do hate prejudice and injustice. I hate it when people are mean and nasty for the sake of being mean and nasty. I hate white supremacists and xenophobia. I hate seeing suffering or fear or irrational anger. I hate people that hate people.

Sorry you find my writing too taxing...I'll try to throttle down my enthusiasm–well, no, I won't :~).

[Schewe]

Beware of beds, lawnmowers and toddlers!

Link

Actually, beware of White Supremacists.

From a Time essay titled Another Donald Trump Failure: Not Calling White Supremacy 'Terrorism'

"It was recently reported that the Donald Trump Administration plans to limit the focus of the Countering Violent Extremism anti-terror program. Instead of fighting all violent belief systems, the program would instead devote itself solely to combating radicals who are Muslims and list only "Islamic Terrorism" in its name. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the domestic terror threats facing our country."

Time also had an essay Donald Trump Is Spreading Racism — Not Fighting Terrorism

Counterterrorism may seem like a complicated, murky business. But practitioners agree on a few simple rules. Among them:

1. Be clear about who threatens you, and target them. Casting your net too widely creates new enemies.

2. Build strong alliances. Terrorism is a global problem that requires a global solution; you need capable, like-minded partners to collaborate on intelligence, law enforcement and military operations.

3. Counter and undermine your enemies’ narrative. Don’t confirm it.

4. Don’t drive away moderates; winning them over is key to defeating your enemies.

And, 5. Show efficiency and competence. Those qualities bolster deterrence.

In composing and implementing its executive order “Protecting the Nation From Terrorist Entry into the United States,” Donald Trump’s White House has shown a disregard for — or ignorance of — these precepts that is breathtaking. Despite claims by the White House that this is about making Americans safe from terrorism, less than two weeks into the new administration, the United States has:

1. Made the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims uncertain about the global superpower’s fundamental orientation toward them and their faith. This is a dramatic shift after successive Republican and Democratic administrations drew a clear line between a small group of extremists and ordinary believers.

2. Prompted the parliament of Iraq — our partner, whose army is the primary ground force fighting ISIS — to approve a reciprocal ban on Americans coming to Iraq and put Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in an impossible position.

3. Given ISIS propagandists a windfall to work with — which they are exulting about — just at the moment that the group is reeling from a series of major setbacks.

4. Profoundly unsettled patriotic American Muslims — who provide as many as 40% of the tips that domestic counterterrorism authorities receive — and undercut their efforts to work with U.S. law enforcement to prevent radicalization.

And, 5. Displayed perhaps the most shambolic performance of the Executive Branch since Hurricane Katrina. The White House blindsided the leadership of the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State by handing them an order that they had no time to evaluate or refine. Far less sweeping executive orders have historically required weeks or months of interagency consultation.

To put it bluntly: Trump’s Executive Order has nothing to do with counterterrorism.

The executive order was designed by people with no security background but a long history of being anti-immigrant: chief ideologist Steve Bannon, the former CEO of far-right conspiracy-theory mill Breitbart News, and policy adviser Stephen Miller. It aims to signal that Trump is not deviating from his Islamophobic, anti-immigration, pro-white campaign. So far, it’s working. The nation is following along.

So, Trump has announced that he will reissue an executive order, likely the same 7 nations that is supposed to corrected the previously poorly crafted language. We'll see. They got their asses handed to them in court and I suspect this order will be very, VERY well crafted. But even if it passes an anti-muslim stink test, the odds of it actually working to make us safer is unlikely. It will turn muslims through out the world against us.

Sorry...trying to keep the post specific. Trump is not really going to make us safer in the long run. It would be far better to work with muslims to help eliminate terrorists of all types.

[Alan Klein]

But he doesn't do much.  He's not a manufacturer, he doesn't invent.  He's not part of the index (his business isn't nearly large enough).  If he invested in other, better businesses, he'd help to finance them to do more than he has been able to do himself.

It's OK that he's not part of the index or not above average, so long as he's not held out to be some sort of business whiz (because he's not).

Also, please link your debunking - I haven't seen it and would like to review it.

Doesn't do anything?  Isn't a manufacturer or inventor?   Well neither is Walmart that does about $400 billion in sales each year.  Trump? Well, he's basically a real estate developer, like his father.  Trump Tower is an apartment building that he built.  Remember the hotel he created out of the post office everyone's complaining about in Washington DC?   He's got lots more as well as hotels, golf courses, etc.  He's not in an index fund because you have to be a public corporation.  Trump's companies are all privately held by him and his family.   So he can hide his assets from the nosey public and Democrats who want to tear him apart. 

[Alan Klein]

And in a stricter sense Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a naturalized US citizen when his brother and he committed the terrible bombing and subsequent shooting in 2013. (The Tsarnaev family settled in Cambridge and became U.S. permanent residents in March 2007. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012, while in college).

Not that that proves anything, because the thousands of others like them didn't start bombing others. Thousands of others do get killed each year by gun violence though.

Cheers,
Bart

Arguing that more people get killed by gun violence doesn't do it. When you walk around areas like I do in New York City's Times Square, public transportation areas,  or any heavily concentrated area, and see police wearing body armor and carrying machine guns to protect you against terrorism, and see posters that say, "If You See Something, Say Something" advising you to notify the authorities because you see an unattended package that might blow you up, you don't think about gun violence caused by crime.  You think of what happened in the Florida club, Paris, Nice and other areas where parts of bodies went flying and dozens were killed at one time.  People are scared.  It's always in the back of your head especially if you live in targets like NYC Boston Paris etc.   When the statistics show that most of the terrorists support ISIS Al Kaida and are Muslim and come from Muslim countries, you naturally are suspicious of these people.  That makes you a scared person, not prejudiced.  No one is saying that most Muslims are not good people,  They are and I know and have worked with many of them.  But we can chew gum and walk at the same time.  As one Supreme Court justice said about our protected individual freedoms, "The US Constitution is not a suicide pact." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suicide_pact

[Otto Phocus]

People make bad decisions when they are scared or stressed.

Beware of any politician who makes a point of encouraging a sense of fear.

Fear, as history shows, can be a very powerful tool. 

Decisions need to be made on Facts, not Fears; Evidence, not Emotions; Reason, not Reaction.

Time for one of my favourite quotes

These are dangerous times.  When we are afraid, we want to be protected, and since we cannot protect ourselves against such horrors as mass murder by bombers, we are tempted to run to the government, a government that is always willing to trade the promise of protection for our freedom, which left, as always, the question: How much freedom are we willing to relinquish for such a bald promise?

Gerry Spence

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Arguing that more people get killed by gun violence doesn't do it. When you walk around areas like I do in New York City's Times Square, public transportation areas,  or any heavily concentrated area, and see police wearing body armor and carrying machine guns to protect you against terrorism, and see posters that say, "If You See Something, Say Something" advising you to notify the authorities because you see an unattended package that might blow you up, you don't think about gun violence caused by crime.

Besides that there is nothing wrong with being cautious, there is no rational reason to get hysterical about unlikely events. I feel sorry for those who are 'played' by governments or factions to become fearful enough to relinquish their freedoms. Fear mongering is what got the World following the USA into an Iraq war, the effects of which still dominate many lives today, e.g. from the terrorism it created in reaction. One would hope that, at least for a short period, lessons were learned, counterproductive activities not to be repeated.

You think of what happened in the Florida club, Paris, Nice and other areas where parts of bodies went flying and dozens were killed at one time.  People are scared.

They are mostly made scared, not only by terrorism itself. The primary goal of terrorism is not to kill but to instill fear and destabilize society by provoking overreactions which feed more sympathy for terrorism.

Cheers,
Bart

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

People make bad decisions when they are scared or stressed.

Beware of any politician who makes a point of encouraging a sense of fear.

Fear, as history shows, can be a very powerful tool. 

Decisions need to be made on Facts, not Fears; Evidence, not Emotions; Reason, not Reaction.

Time for one of my favourite quotes

These are dangerous times.  When we are afraid, we want to be protected, and since we cannot protect ourselves against such horrors as mass murder by bombers, we are tempted to run to the government, a government that is always willing to trade the promise of protection for our freedom, which left, as always, the question: How much freedom are we willing to relinquish for such a bald promise?

Gerry Spence

+1

Cheers,
Bart

[Manoli]

Manoli ... I proved you wrong.

Slobodan – you've proved nothing. All you've done is try to dodge the double standard you previously espoused (the one that started this exchange), indicated a predisposition to, if not 'ethnic cleansing', certainly racial profiling and played fast & loose with the 'actualité'.

Whose parents were immigrants. Same difference. The new immigrants just have not had their chance...yet.

So, on that basis, that makes you and your daughter .. what ?

Non-Muslim.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Winning via the Supreme Court might take years. He wants results now, hence the revision.

I will re-enter this discussion only to post "factual" comments.  I also apologize for flying off the handle yesterday afternoon for misreading Slobadan's response back to me.  this is absolutely not true.  The Supreme Court can and does accept appeals on an expedited basis.  This particular order was not appealed as it was going to lose in court and it was easier for the Administration to re-draft it so that it would not encounter legal difficulties (this was the statement from a friend who was a clerk to a Supreme Court justice before entering private practice).

[Alan Goldhammer]

But he doesn't do much.  He's not a manufacturer, he doesn't invent.  He's not part of the index (his business isn't nearly large enough). 

Trump's business "was" (I used the past tense as he says he is not involved in running it anymore) real estate development.  This business relies heavily on debt financing and is one reason he almost went bankrupt when his two casinos in Atlantic City and one hotel in NYC failed.  He was able to negotiate some favorable loan conditions so that the main enterprise was not impacted though the hotels did enter bankruptcy.  Real Estate developers do create construction jobs early on (assuming new or refurbished construction; purchasing existing real estate to take advantage of the depreciation tax laws creates very little job employment but is one of the main reasons you see hotel sites shift brands all the time) and may create a small or moderate number of ongoing jobs (maintenance or hotel staff depending on the use of the building).  One can get job numbers from government databases on this industry but it doesn't provide the same economic impact as an industrial manufacturer who has high value added products.

[pegelli]

I will re-enter this discussion only to post "factual" comments.  this is absolutely not true.  The Supreme Court can and does accept appeals on an expedited basis.  This particular order was not appealed as it was going to lose in court and it was easier for the Administration to re-draft it so that it would not encounter legal difficulties (this was the statement from a friend who was a clerk to a Supreme Court justice before entering private practice).

Makes a lot of sense, if there was any chance of being admitted or winning at the supreme court Trump would have gone for it. His main goal is to look good in the eyes of his supporters and he is not interested in losing another one. Hence I don't think there is ever going to be an appeal on this executive order.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Actually, beware of White Supremacists.

There is a report in The Guardian today on an anti-Semitic desecration of a Jewish cemetery in Missouri.  this was the question the young Orthodox Jewish reporter tried to ask about at last Thursday's news conference before he was rudely treated by the President (who has yet to apologize about that incident).  This is factual and I think this goes to the points that Jeff has tried to make.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Remember the hotel he created out of the post office everyone's complaining about in Washington DC?   He's got lots more as well as hotels, golf courses, etc.  He's not in an index fund because you have to be a public corporation.  Trump's companies are all privately held by him and his family.   So he can hide his assets from the nosey public and Democrats who want to tear him apart.

The hotel is subject to a lease held by the Government Services Administration and there is a legal question about whether Trump is violating the terms of the lease as it directly prohibits Federal office holders because of a conflict of interest (this is a fact).  Yes Trump's companies are privately held and that's fine, there are lots of businesses in this country that are privately held.  He is not hiding the assets of the real estate as they are all branded and everyone knows what they are.  What he has not released are some of the debt financing that would be contained in his tax returns.  He has the right to not release them but this will continue the endless conjecture that he is trying to hide something.  We do know that Deutsche Bank (currently subject to a major fine negotiation with US authorities over improper banking practices in this country) hold a significant amount of Trump debt.  Trump is lying when he says he cannot release his tax returns because they are subject to a IRS audit (that's a fact).

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...The Supreme Court can and does accept appeals on an expedited basis...

I will repeat my previous post on the matter:

Last year, Obama's own executive order on immigration waited a whole year to come to the court.

[Alan Goldhammer]

I will repeat my previous post on the matter:

Last year, Obama's own executive order on immigration waited a whole year to come to the court.

That alone does not negate the factual statement that I posted.  Wikipedia entry on Supreme Court review is HERE.  Also remember back in 2000 how fast the Supreme Court acted in Bush v. Gore?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Riots erupt in Sweden’s capital just days after Trump comments:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/21/riots-erupt-in-swedens-capital-just-days-after-trump-comments/?utm_term=.e92a0f883f1e

Over four hours, the crowd burned about half a dozen cars, vandalized several shopfronts and threw rocks at police...A photographer for the newspaper was attacked by more than a dozen men

[pegelli]

Last year, Obama's own executive order on immigration waited a whole year to come to the court.

I think we have to wait a whole lot longer (i.e. infinite) before this one even gets filed. And it's not because it would take too long to get through the system and have a verdict 

[Alan Goldhammer]

I think we have to wait a whole lot longer (i.e. infinite) before this one even gets filed. And it's not because it would take too long to get through the system and have a verdict 

I just updated my early post with a Wikipedia citation and the comment about how fast the court acted on Bush v. Gore.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

That alone does not negate the factual statement that I posted.

Correct. But it doesn't mean that the court will inevitably treat Trump's apeal on expedited bases either. So, why take the risk to submit it to the court and than potentially wait a year?

Note that I am not getting into the debate whether the executive order is poorly written (possibly) and whether it would win or lose if submitted to the court (though I did read expert opinions that it would "easily" win, as I also read other experts that it wouldn't)

[Alan Goldhammer]

Riots erupt in Sweden’s capital just days after Trump comments:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/21/riots-erupt-in-swedens-capital-just-days-after-trump-comments/?utm_term=.e92a0f883f1e

this was no different from what has happened in Afro-American communities as a result of police actions (fact - look at Ferguson MO for recent example; look at several incidents in Los Angeles starting with Watts in 1966).