Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

It's possible the EO was never intended to apply to green card holders. The DHS initially believed that. But according to several reports, someone at the White House overruled DHS Friday night/Saturday morning. Now the White House is saying "you lying media libtards, we never wanted to block the permanent residents".

I suppose it all could've been a setup. Another one of Trump's "look at the NY Times twisting my words!". I'm just more inclined to believe that the White House overreached and actually retreated a little bit when public outcry was louder than they expected. The confusion seemed legit. In their usual way they will declare that everything is working better than any government ever has and that everything went exactly as Trump predicted. Trump's entire business life has been run this way.

[hack]

Well I don't know how many people thought Obama's foreign policy was the right one in the Middle East, but POTUS himself was one of the loudest voices against it. Apart from asking the obvious question about shitting on Obama and then taking cues from him, and even if you leave Saudi out, because hypocrisy or no we're not gonna pick on them, it just makes no fucking sense. if you assume the security situation in 2011 is the same as the security situation now, which it of course isn't. The only way to call this rational is to work from an assumption of an ulterior motive.

[Jeff Buchanan]

DSL

I have consistently sided with idiocy over strategic genius. However it always seems to work out for him. I'm now stuck between the obvious explanation for any single event and inexplicable success of the collective acts. No one is that lucky. So, eh...I still lean toward idiocy, but I know damn well not to judge until it's settled a bit.

This is what I keep trying to explain to my wife. She falls heavily on the idiocy side of things but you are stunningly and inexplicably correct about the "success of collective acts" ..... and "to not judge until it's settled a bit."

The one thing going for the idiocy crowd this week is DJT's penchant for shitting on himself with his tweets or pronouncements, including those by his surrogates, to the press.

With regard to those I know that voted for him, there is some stepping back a bit. The veneer of Make America Great Again is showing signs of wearing off as it becomes clear to these voters that the authoritarian nature of this administration is rather off-putting.

[iam416]

I'll call it politically rational and feel entirely comfortable in that assessment.

I also think that at the end of the day, it's good issue for DJT. Politics isn't about nuance. That's why the Dsare calling it a "muslim ban." DJT's broad argument is the obvious terrorism angle. And when it comes to countering the other's broad argument, IMO it's a shit-ton easier to say "doesn't affect 90% of muslims; countries targeted based on history of terror" than it is to say "those countries aren't terrorist countries!" or, even sillier, "your list is garbage because you didn't go FAR enough...what about Egypt??? what about Saudi????"

The counter to DJT's argument -- the one REINCE!!!!! was making on Sunday -- is, IMO, politically terrible. First, you can't sell the American people on the likes of Yemen and Iran NOT being terrorist. Every time the Ds refuse to acknowledge Islamic terrorism or, even worse, make some equivalency point re christian terrorism, I can feel the votes slipping away. Second, complaints from DEMOCRATS that the policy doesn't go FAR ENOUGH won't resonate in the least.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Well this is interesting...while the Administration blusters about how its EO ws great, good, and perfect, people are throwing Stephen Miller under the bus in private off-the-record conversations with reporters

[ame]https://twitter.com/dorseyshaw/status/826036446444285953[/ame]

[ame]https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/826039274877415425[/ame]

[ame]https://twitter.com/evanperez/status/826041419747962882[/ame]

[ame]https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/826046898956095488[/ame]

Sounds like MIller's the one who f'd up or he has few friends among his coworkers.

[Jeff Buchanan]

.........The counter to DJT's argument -- the one REINCE!!!!! was making on Sunday -- is, IMO, politically terrible. First, you can't sell the American people on the likes of Yemen and Iran NOT being terrorist. Every time the Ds refuse to acknowledge Islamic terrorism or, even worse, make some equivalency point re christian terrorism, I can feel the votes slipping away. Second, complaints from DEMOCRATS that the policy doesn't go FAR ENOUGH won't resonate in the least.

Politics aside for the moment, one would think the administration has to deal with the international fall-out from this, or at least the perceptions involving comments by world leaders about this particular EO...... or maybe not.

I could argue that, like Putin f'ing around in The Crimea, knowing no one was going to do anything serious about it, Trump could be playing the same sort of game with the whining coming from world leaders about walls, the children, the starving refugees and so on. Nothing will come of it ..... so what, the Ayatollahs have banned US Citizens from entering Iran. BFD.

It's confrontational in a sense.

On the international scene and speaking in broad terms, since 1920 and the establishment of the League of Nations, progressives have championed maintenance of the international order (avoidance of war) through dialogue and cooperation as well as building economic ties that make the notion of going to war as an extension of diplomacy very much less appealing than it was before WWI.

I'm pretty sure, Trump doesn't embrace this notion or, maybe more likely, he doesn't understand it in the terms under which the notion has existed since it became an international norm.

There's risk in taking a more confrontational approach that places American interests at the forefront backing away from dialogue, international trade agreements and the inter-dependency these create.

I'm watching ..... have not heard any intelligent, more precisely defined articulation of a new approach for America ..... and that's troubling. I can see the argument for it in the 21st century but I'm wary of it.

[iam416]

I'm mostly with you foreign policy. I don't happen to think this will be a particularly big deal. But overall I'm of the opinion that the US ought to engage in as many places it can and with as many bodies as it can so that the US can have a say in shaping international policy.

I think pulling out of the TPP is preposterously fucking stupid. I don't really care about a temporary refuge ban from 7 countries. Obama did the same thing with Iraq in 2011. he also revoked the long-standing US policy re Cuban refugees that make it to American soil. It happens. I disagree with Trump on it, but it's a nothing-burger, IMO, in the grand scheme of foreign policy things. Moving the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem -- now, that would be a something-burger.

TPP, however, matters. We have ceded the bulk of our influence in that region. It's moronic. HRC's naked, political calculation to flip on the TPP was the one thing that made it very hard for me to vote for her.

When Trump AND Sanders agree wholeheartedly on something, I think it prudent to run screaming in the other direction.

[hack]

It's clearly politically rational. There are Trump supporters out there justifying the selection of countries because it was made under Obama, despite the majority of them hating him and his policies and stating that they were sending Trump to shake things up. If people are suddenly using ``Obama did it too'' as a rationale, then it's clear that people want what they want regardless of what makes sense, and Trump is gonna give it to them. It is also clear that it's about shitting on a minority, and not about security. If it were about security somebody would think to ask ``Hey has the security situation in the world's most volatile region changed in the six years since this list of seven was introduced?''

But instead we now have a president ordering subordinates to ignore the legal process and enforce a policy that makes the country less secure.

One thing clear, re talent's comments about how to argue it, is that there's no point in making the conflict-of-interest case. It may be incidental or it may actually be on purpose, but people don't care if the president is using the office to enrich himself. Every liberal will have something more outrageous to care about, and ever conservative only cares if it's the Clintons doing it. It's probably time to shuffle that down lower on the list of publicly-stated objections.

[iam416]

After reading the EO, I'm not clear at all how green cards were ever an issue. It seems clear they aren't. But, whatever.

Also, the 7 countries aren't identified specifically but rather referenced specifically to US Code. (8 USC 1187(a)(12) (visa waiver program). We have actually codified specific provision dealing with Iraq and Syria and permitted to the Secretary of State to add other names to that list. As I understand it, the other 5 were added to that list by the Obama Administration.

So the EO incorporates by reference 7 countries either specifically identified by US Code or in US Regulations pursuant to the Code as exceptions to the Visa Waiver Program and temporarily suspends immigration from those countries.

It's a very useful way to proceed without the necessity of making additional findings (or any findings).

I'm still unclear why they didn't roll this out in a clear, rational way. I mean, I think it was mostly incompetence as is my default with DJT.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Like I said, DHS initially interpreted the Order to not apply to GC holders but someone at the White House directed them otherwise. If this morning's leaks are an indication it was probably Stephen Miller.

[iam416]

The bigger news of the weekend, IMO, was Bannon getting on the fucking NSC. That has somehow skirted under the radar whilst people get hysterical over an order will affect MAYBE 25,000 people (I mean, Obama took in 13,000 Syrian refugees in a year).

[Dr. Strangelove]

The bigger news of the weekend, IMO, was Bannon getting on the fucking NSC. That has somehow skirted under the radar whilst people get hysterical over an order will affect MAYBE 25,000 people (I mean, Obama took in 13,000 Syrian refugees in a year).

Agreed that's a very ominous move. Even more so that Trump's decided Bannon should be in every meeting but not Pompeio (Intelligence) or the Joint Chiefs (Military). A political operative will have more influence over national security...

[hack]

That's SOP -- create the chaos and act quietly behind it. I think people aren't reacting necessarily reacting to the volume of Muslims this will impact. They can react based on values, based on that the president may have ordered an agency to ignore the orders of judges, based on the reasonable presumption that it makes us less secure, etc. etc. But people and media are learning to stop and wonder if there's a bigger thing going on that is obscured by the story/distraction of the day. Which is a good thing and hopefully the adjustment period isn't too long. It would be bad if the broadly-termed civil society we have did not change and adjust to the huge difference in governing.

[Wild Hoss]

He was going to be listening to Bannon (and Kirschner) whether they are in the room with the NSC, or talking up the issues over brandy in the OO after dinner. He is probably not going to listen to the JCS or CIA, even if they are sitting right next to him, unless they are saying what he wants to hear.

This move does advertise this approach as fact, but otherwise probably doesn't change the reality much. Remember; he is smarter than the generals and all that.

[Dr. Strangelove]

LOL

[ame]https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/826089090969907201[/ame]