As I write this, protests have gone on and are being planned all over the country (including one scheduled by CAIR at Bradley International Airport here in Connecticut) over an executive order signed by the Republican president on Friday night. (This is an old hat trick used by despots everywhere — do your dirty work when newsrooms already decimated by corporate ownership are even more sparsely inhabited.)
The order banned immigrants from seven countries, none of which have any business ties with the Republican president. Here are some of the countries with whom the Republican president does have business ties — and studies show, says the New York Daily News:
…that nearly 3,000 Americans were killed by citizens from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in the same time period — with the bulk of those killed being victims of the 9/11 attacks. Yet, people from those three countries are still welcome to apply for U.S. visas and travel permits.
Even more interestingly, people from the seven countries — Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — according to the Cato Institute — yes, the conservative Cato Institute:
…have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and the end of 2015.
Late on Saturday, federal Judge Ann M. Donnelly issued a temporary stay. And so the fight begins. ‘Murica!
Oh, and because this is a snarky blog masquerading as a religion blog, here’s your scriptural reference:
Dating Jesus 
Noticeably absent from “liberal outrage” is any recognition that it was Obama who laid the groundwork for all this in 2011 when he stopped processing Iraqi refugee requests for 6 months, and in 2015 and 2016, when he implemented § 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12) of the U.S. code, commonly referred to as the Visa Waiver Program.
Also noticeably absent was any media props for embattled Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who pointed all this out to the press. The Washington Press Corpse should be, at least, as quick to respond when he gets his facts right as they are when he gets them wrong. How else will the poor boy learn?
I think Boy Spice has pretty much cooked his own goose with the press corps. He’s already lied so often that few have the stomach to cull through and find the truth. And Obama, if he laid the ground work, didn’t go nearly as far as this damn thing.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/29/trumps-facile-claim-that-his-refugee-policy-is-similar-to-obama-in-2011/?utm_term=.61a3439c2f4b
Spicer’s approach, like most Presidential Press Secretaries before him, is a reflection of his boss’s agenda and tactics.
I’m not a big fan of corporatist WaPo spin since they published a blacklist that accused independent websites of being tools, if unwitting, of the Putin regime.
And considering that WaPo Pinocchio rating ignores Obama’s Visa Waiver Program and is based almost exclusively on the testimony and statements of former Obama operatives, who have a vested interest in sustaining the perceived legacy of that corporatist neoliberal Administration, rather than independent observers, (many of whom WaPo thinks should be blacklisted), my understanding of the precedence inspiring that particular Trump EO remains unchanged.
Trump’s malevolence may be tempered by incompetence rather than PC rhetoric, but it is a malevolence that is rooted in law…and in history.
OK. How do you feel about FactCheck’s analysis: http://www.factcheck.org/2017/01/trumps-faulty-refugee-policy-comparison/
I agree that Trump’s approach is faulty. (The preference given to Christians will, in my opinion, will be self-defeating if allowed by the Trumptini to stand.)
It’s obvious that the Factcheck article goes into more detail about Obama’s 2011 action on Iraqis. But it similarly ignores the Visa Waiver Program. And our history of limiting migrant admission in times of war or conflict.
And who gets to define what means a war or a conflict? We have a reflexive contraction of civil rights during times of either. But who’s to say how far we contract? This is just a really ignorant policy.
Who gets to define? The President or the President and Congress.
During WWII, (1944?), Franklin D Roosevelt argued that refugees posed a serious threat to our national security. Drawing on fears that Nazi spies could be hiding among them, the country limited the number of German Jews who could be admitted. How many died at the hands of the Nazis as a result. Nobody really knows.
The Internal Security Act of 1950, (the McCarran Act), made it legal to deport any immigrants believed to be members of the Communist Party. Members of communist organisations, which were required to register, were also not allowed to become citizens. In 1993, SCOTUS ruled certain sections of the Act were unconstitutional. Remaining sections are still on the books today.
The Trump EO marks the second time Iranians have been banned from entering the country. The first time was by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 during the Iran Hostage Crisis.
And it hasn’t taken war or conflict to ban immigrants. Anarchists, (along with epileptics, beggars and pimps) were banned by Teddy Roosevelt. HIV positive immigrants were banned in 1987 by Reagan and Congress. That lasted until 2009.
We? don’t decide. As usual.
This is an exciting time to be alive, yes?
Interesting times.