Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Showing posts with label executive orders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label executive orders. Show all posts
This was from a story in Alaska Dispatch published two ago about Senator Dan Sullivan's appearance at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention.
During that appearance Sullivan shared this anecdote:
He described an hour-plus meeting that he and Sen. Lisa Murkowski had a few months back with Trump and Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke in the Oval Office.
"We had maps and we were talking all about Alaska issues. So many issues. Our fisheries. Whaling, the culture of whaling in Alaska. The economy. The military," Sullivan said.
They brought up Obama administration actions that they said hurt Alaska, such as a block on the King Cove-Cold Bay road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, Sullivan said.
On each one, Trump asked Zinke: "Can we change that and help Alaska?"
Trump thought of one on his own. Wasn't the name of a big mountain in Alaska changed by executive order? he asked, referring to Denali, the former Mount McKinley named for the president from Ohio.
"Lisa — Sen. Murkowski — and I jumped over the desk. We said no, no!" said Sullivan, who is originally from Ohio.
Why? Trump asked.
"The Alaska Native people named that mountain over 10,000 years ago," Sullivan said he told him. "Denali, that was the name."
Not that we needed it, but this is just more proof that Trump's presidency is almost exclusively defined by his desire to undo every single thing that President Obama accomplished during his eight years in office.
By the way you can bet big money that if Murkowski and Sullivan had not seen their political future pass before their eyes at the prospect of being blamed for the renaming of Denali, that Trump would already have written that executive order and christened it "Trump Mountain."
President Trump on Friday announced he is "starting that process" of repealing and replacing Obamacare with his executive order to unilaterally change some aspects of health insurance coverage.
Mr. Trump, surrounded by top administration officials, business leaders and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, praised his executive order as step towards repealing and replacing his predecessor's signature health care law.
Mr. Trump, stuck with a Republican-led Congress that hasn't passed a bill to undo Obamacare, announced earlier this week that he is resorting to his "pen" instead. Mr. Trump, who began to walk out of the Oval Office Friday before signing the order until Vice President Mike Pence reminded him to sign it, used that pen on Friday.
Mr. Trump said the order will cost the federal government "virtually nothing," and will force insurance companies to start "fighting" to sign people up for care.
"You'll get such low prices for such great care," he said.
Mr. Trump didn't back down on his desire to repeal Obamacare and fulfill a signature campaign promise, despite the GOP-led Congress' inability to agree on how to do that.
Mr. Trump said he is still committed to working with Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, "once and for all."
The president's executive order is intended to make lower-premium plans more widely available. Mr. Trump has long talked of his desire to make plans available across state lines, something he says this order will do.
The White House views this as an action that will "increase the healthcare choices for millions of Americans, potentially allowing some employers to join together across state lines to offer coverage," according to a background call before the order's signing.
Okay as I think everybody is aware there is nothing about this that is going to increase anybody's health care choices. Those are just the bullshit talking points that Trump is using while he prepares to strip away all of the safeguards and benefits that the Affordable Care Act worked to provide.
Of course this executive order does not really accomplish anything at this point except to allow health insurance companies to sell crappy polices that will be of little use once the policy holder gets very sick or badly injured, and it is sure to be challenged by medical groups, blue states, and even some of his fellow Republicans.
Obamacare had a lofty goal, and that was not only to get more people health insurance, but also to make sure those policies covered them completely, and that they could not be kicked off when they desperately needed to be covered.
This is the first step to handing more power back to the insurance companies, and if past is prologue they will abuse that power until somebody makes them stop.
Now it is more important than ever to start talking seriously about single payer, and to take this power away from these insurance companies permanently.
By the way apparently Trump almost walked away again without signing the executive order, but he was stopped by Mike Pence.
Yeah, fuck Mike Pence.
He needs to be removed from office right along with his orange tinted Fuhrer.
President Donald Trump has already done a lot to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, whether it’s slashing the program’s advertising budget or threatening to cut off some payments that insurers need to cover their costs.
Now Trump is thinking about using his executive authority to do something that could be even more damaging to the law ― and, arguably, more threatening to people who depend on it for coverage.
Sometime in the next few days, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Trump is likely to instruct three key agencies to rewrite a series of regulations that affect health insurance. Some of the details were still in flux as of the weekend, sources familiar with the proposal told HuffPost. But the ultimate goal of these efforts would be to accomplish through executive action what, so far, Trump and the Republican Congress have been unable to pull off through legislation. Specifically, they would undermine the rules that guarantee comprehensive coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
By his own admission Trump was surprised that healthcare was so hard, so how could ANYBODY possibly think that he could make it better with an executive order.
All Trump care about is undoing everything that Obama accomplished, but what he fails to understand is that once he does anything to change health care every problem that arises after that will be blamed on him, and the Republicans party.
It will be terrible for people currently on Obamacare of course, but ultimately this idiot might be handing the Democrats the tools they need to take back the House, Senate, and White House.
A second federal appeals court has ruled against President Trump’s revised travel ban, delivering on Monday the latest in a string of defeats for the administration’s efforts to limit travel from several predominantly Muslim countries.
The administration has already sought a Supreme Court review of a similar decision issued last month by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. Monday’s decision came from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco.
The two courts employed different reasoning to arrive at the same basic conclusion. The Fourth Circuit said the revised executive order violated the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.
The Ninth Circuit, by contrast, rested its conclusions on statutory grounds. It said Mr. Trump had exceeded the authority Congress granted him in making national security judgments in the realm of immigration without adequate justification.
“The order does not offer a sufficient justification to suspend the entry of more than 180 million people on the basis of nationality,” the Ninth Circuit’s opinion said. “National security is not a ‘talismanic incantation’ that, once invoked, can support any and all exercise of executive power.”
This news of course pissed off the Orange Fuhrer.
Well, as predicted, the 9th Circuit did it again - Ruled against the TRAVEL BAN at such a dangerous time in the history of our country. S.C.
"As predicted?" I don't remember Trump ever suggesting that this ban would fail. All I remember is hearing him talk about all of that winning.
I love the fact that not only is Trump under constant fire from the various investigations into his dealings with the Russians, but virtually everything he promised to do during his campaign he is now failing to deliver.
By the way when was the last time anybody even heard any talk about that stupid border wall?
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday launching a commission to review alleged voter fraud and voter suppression, building upon his unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.
The White House said the president's "Advisory Commission on Election Integrity" would examine allegations of improper voting and fraudulent voter registration in states and across the nation. Vice President Mike Pence will chair the panel and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will be vice chair of the commission, which will report back to Trump by 2018.
Trump has alleged, without evidence, that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in his 2016 election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. He has vowed since the start of his administration to investigate voter fraud, a process that has been delayed for months.
This Kris Korbach fellow by the way is one of the few people in the country who actually supports Trump's paranoid delusion that he would have won the popular vote if not for "illegal voters."
In Kobach, Trump also chose someone who supports his claim of massive vote fraud in the 2016 election.
"We do know that there's a very large number," Kobach said on "Cavuto" on Fox News in February. "And it will be impossible to ever know what the exact number of noncitizens who voted."
Kobach added, "I think it's probably in excess of a million. If you take the whole country. I think it's in excess of a million if you take the entire country, for sure."
Kobach said it would be hard to know if the illegal votes changed the election outcome, but said that most would have voted for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
"It's hard to say," Kobach said. "Well, you would have to then assume that the vast majority of them voted for Clinton, not Trump."
What's even more troubling is that Kobach himself is very involved in voter suppression:
To understand why Kobach’s presence on this panel is so alarming, you need to know his background. The architect of draconian anti-immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama—as well as the mind behind Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” rhetoric—Kobach has been a prominent champion for voting restrictions. In the aftermath of 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, in which the Supreme Court struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act, Kobach emerged as a major voice for voter suppression. He has backed strict ID laws and pushed for states to require a birth certificate or passport for registration, measures that primarily burden low-income voters, including many voters of color. From his perch as Kansas’ top election official, Kobach has launched a crusade against “illegal voting,” winning power from state lawmakers to prosecute “voting crime.” In keeping with most studies of voter fraud—which find little to no evidence of its existence—Kobach has found just nine cases of alleged fraud out of 1.8 million registered Kansas voters.
Gee, anybody want to take bets on whether this yahoo will find evidence of voter fraud, whether it exists or not?
Of course the real test will be if he can find that "evidence" before his boss gets impeached?
Surrounded by members of Alaska's congressional delegation, President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that directs the Interior Department to rethink some of President Barack Obama's regulations and decrees that put large swaths of the Arctic Ocean off limits to oil drilling.
The order requires Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review previously issued five-year development plans for offshore oil and natural gas leases and regulations governing oil, gas and renewable energy leasing in waters of the Arctic and Atlantic.
The new move holds potentially big changes for Alaska: reopening the option of future Arctic Ocean drilling, a reversal of the Obama-era approach that sought to limit and eventually ban offshore drilling there.
The executive order only outright rescinds one of Obama's orders, pertaining to the Bering Sea, issued on December 9, 2016. Actions related to the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas from 2015 and 2016 are modified, rather than rescinded, confirming status as a marine sanctuary, but not barring leasing and drilling. In all cases, the Interior Department will have to rework its five-year plan for oil and gas leasing — an effort that will take up to two years. The Interior Department will also review oil and gas regulations for offshore drilling, though the outcome is undetermined.
Oh I think the outcome is clearly determined and that we know the review is just a formality and that the Republicans will start raping the Alaska coastline just as soon as their drill bit Viagra kicks in.
Along with pen recipient Lisa Murkowski you can also see Rep. Don Young skulking in the background.
I am not sure why Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan was not included, because if Alaska Republicans can agree on anything it is that drilling giant holes all over the state is job one.
I swear the more executive orders this tangerine colored shitgibbon signs that more desperately I miss President Obama.
Obama tried so very hard to protect us, this planet, and our future. And it seems with every stroke of the pen this POS brings us that much closer to disaster.
President Trump gathered the press on Friday to sign two new executive orders on trade. He spoke very positively about what he was going to sign. "Thank you everybody," he said from the podium. "You're going to be seeing some very, very strong results very, very quickly. Thank you very much."
The commander in chief immediately sought out the door, and seemingly couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. Never mind that he hadn’t actually signed anything.
Vice President Mike Pence seems to have noticed the president’s mistake and ran after him. Trump appears to gesture that he wants the orders to be brought to him so Pence then goes to the desk and picks up the orders so the commander in chief can sign them in another room. That’s not quite how things usually work, considering Trump likes to have the press take photos of him signing executive orders.
Did you notice Pence trying to get his boss to stay in the room only to be sent to fetch the document like the trained poodle that we know him to be?
What what made Trump cut and run like that?
That becomes clear when you watch this alternative tape of the event.
Did you hear that reporter asking about Michael Flynn?
THAT seems to be what triggered Trump's flight response, and it essentially proves that the whole Flynn debacle has him very on edge.
President Trump is preparing to sign a new executive order Monday that White House officials hope can withstand legal scrutiny that will ban travelers from six majority-Muslim nations seeking new visas from entering the United States for 90 days, according to a fact sheet the administration sent to Congress. (Update: Trump did actually sign this today.)
In addition, the nation’s refugee program will be suspended for 120 days, and it will not accept more than 50,000 refugees in a year, down from the 110,000 accepted last year by the Obama administration.
The order, which is to go into effect March 16, represents an attempt by the Trump administration to tighten security requirements for travelers from nations that officials said represent a terrorism threat. A more sweeping attempt in January provoked mass protests across the country as travelers en route to the United States were detained at airports after the surprise order was announced.
The new guidelines name six of the seven countries included in the first executive order, but it leaves out Iraq. That nation will increase cooperation with the United States on additional security vetting under separate negotiations and its citizens are not subject to the new order, the fact sheet states.
The new order provides other exceptions not contained in previous versions: for travelers from those countries who are legal permanent residents of the United States, dual nationals who use a passport from another country, those attending diplomatic missions, and those who have been granted asylum or refugee status.
“The United States has the world’s most generous immigration system, yet it has been repeatedly exploited by terrorists and other malicious actors who seek to do us harm,” the fact sheet stated.
Actually besides the attack on 9-11 America is still relatively untouched by most of the terrorist attacks that take place around the world.
However I can almost guarantee that actions such as this are likely to result in a significant uptick.
Getting people to murder other people, and likely die themselves, is so much easier if they believe their target is an evil entity bent on the destruction of others like themselves.
And it's not as if the courts are like to allow this new "improved" travel ban to stand.
They rejected the first one, and there is very little doubt they will reject this one as well.
Especially since we know from Rachel Maddow that the Department of Homeland Security itself has determined that terrorists likely to launch attacks in this country are radicalized AFTER living in America for a number of years rather than before they arrive.
This is a waste of time. It is dangerous. And it does NOTHING to actually keep us safe.
Update: Apparently this Muslim travel ban was fast tracked to cheer Trump up after he lost his shit due to the Sessions' recusal.
That night at Mar-a-Lago, Trump had dinner with Sessions, Bannon, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly and White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, among others. They tried to put Trump in a better mood by going over their implementation plans for the travel ban, according to a White House official.
In other words when Cheeto Hitler gets angry it makes him feel better to punish the most vulnerable and defenseless group he can find.
Doesn't that make you feel proud to be an American?
President Donald Trump’s team rejected a course for senior White House staff, Cabinet nominees and other political appointees that would have provided training on leadership, ethics and management, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.
The documents suggest the program could have better prepared officials for working within existing laws and executive orders, and provided guidance on how to navigate Senate confirmation for nominees and political appointees, how to deal with congressional and media scrutiny, and how to work with Congress and collaborate with agencies — some of the same issues that have become major stumbling blocks in the early days of the administration.
But the contract was never awarded because after the election the transition team shifted its priorities, according to a letter the General Services Administration sent to bidders such as the Partnership for Public Service. The program was expected to cost $1 million, the documents show. The contract-based training program was authorized in 2000, and the Obama and Bush transitions both received the training.
“It has been determined that the requirements as defined in the RFQ do not accurately reflect the current needs of the Presidential Transition Team,” the GSA contracting officer, Matthew Gormley, wrote in the Jan. 10 letter.
Well this explains a lot.
I wonder if the course included direction to NOT select cabinet members compromised by a foreign intelligence agency?
Cause that might have been useful.
But to be fair WHY would the Trump transition team care to take a training on ethics when they had no intention of being ethical?
A leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation, reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration to legalize discrimination.
The four-page draft order, a copy of which is currently circulating among federal staff and advocacy organizations, construes religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations,” and protects “religious freedom” in every walk of life: “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.”
The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act.
Language in the draft document specifically protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”
In other words this order would repeal much of the progress made by the Obama administration, and once again allow Christian business owners to discriminate based on sexuality, gender, and lifestyle.
That would mean these fundamentalist Christians, Jews, and even Muslims, could use this order to deny adequate healthcare to women, kick gay students out of their private schools, and refuse to rent to any person, or persons, whose lifestyle they believed conflicted with their faith in some way.
It should be noted that this is still in a draft form, so it is by no means official.
However based on everything that we have seen since Trump took office I have a high level of certainty that a lot of what is in this draft will find its way to the final executive order.
President Donald Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations will be used by ISIS as a recruitment tool, giving the militant group a major propaganda boost, former jihadists have told CNN.
The executive order, which blocks all immigrants and visa holders who are citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia, reinforces ISIS' narrative, according to former jihadi Abu Abdullah.
"It can play into their propaganda, to make it clear for anyone who could be in doubt, that it's a war on Islam and all Muslims," Abdullah told CNN over a messaging service. The names of the now-defected foreign fighters in this story have been changed to protect their identities.
Another former jihadi said the wedge being driven between Muslims living in the West and their governments is exactly what ISIS wants.
"[Trump's] helped ISIS a lot, he's basically being a tool for them in a way," Abu Obaida, a British former Jabhat al-Nusra fighter in Syria, told CNN via direct message. "On social media right now there's a lot of people quoting Anwar al-Awlaki (the late spokesperson for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) and his last speech when he said that America will turn on the Muslims."
It's really a no-brainer.
The entire point of hating America is the deeply ingrained belief that we are anti-Muslim, which is exacerbated by our numerous conflicts with Middle Eastern counties.
However Donald Trump has now ratcheted that up far more than previous presidents by actually banning immigrants based on the Islamic country from which they come.
And of course saying things like this:
I imagine the next terrorist attacks we suffer will be substantially more costly than the ones that occurred during the Obama administration.
There are a number of rumors swirling that Donald Trump is planning to sign yet another discriminatory executive action – this time specifically targeting the LGBTQ community. While only the White House can speak to the veracity of the rumors, given the administration's track record of championing discrimination in just the last week, HRC is preparing to fight this to the fullest.
“The rumors of an anti-LGBTQ executive action by President Trump are deeply troubling. We already know that he is willing to target and marginalize at-risk communities for his perceived political gain. As the President and his team plan their next steps, we want to make one thing clear: we won't give one inch when it comes to defending equality, whether it is a full-on frontal assault or an attack under the guise of religion. Mike Pence should know that better than anyone given his track record in Indiana," said JoDee Winterhof, the Human Rights Campaign's Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs. “The Human Rights Campaign will stand with those who have already been targeted by this Administration and are prepared to fight tooth and nail against every effort to discriminate.”
Nearly two-thirds of LGBTQ people have reported experiencing discrimination, according to HRC polling.
Then-Governor Mike Pence’s support for a bill in Indiana that was intended to allow businesses to discriminate and deny service to LGBTQ people did massive damage not just to the state’s economy, but his own political standing as well.
It should be noted that this is still just a rumor,
However we have already seen Trump throwing out red meat to satisfy his base of support, so going after "the queers" would certainly fit that pattern.
Besides with Pence as his number two you have to know that Trump is being pushed in this direction.
As President Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Friday, shutting the borders to refugees and others from seven largely Muslim countries, the secretary of homeland security was on a White House conference call getting his first full briefing on the global shift in policy.
Gen. John F. Kelly, the secretary of homeland security, had dialed in from a Coast Guard plane as he headed back to Washington from Miami. Along with other top officials, he needed guidance from the White House, which had not asked his department for a legal review of the order.
Halfway into the briefing, someone on the call looked up at a television in his office. “The president is signing the executive order that we’re discussing,” the official said, stunned.
As we know the executive order was drafted by Stephen Bannon and a small group of White House advisers, without any input from career officials at the Homeland Security Department, the State Department or other agencies.
The reason given by James Jay Carafano, a vice president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, and also a member of Trump's transition team, is a fear of leaks.
“Why share it with them?” Mr. Carafano said.
Well part of the reason you "share it with them" is that they actually know the legalities of something like this, and could have shut it down or at least given guidance that would have helped to avoid those incidents at the airports.
“The details of it were not thought through,” said Stephen Heifetz, who served in the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, as well as the C.I.A., under the previous three presidents. “It is not surprising there was mass confusion, and I expect the confusion and chaos will continue for some time.”
Trump's distrust of the intelligence agencies and his reliance on loose cannons like Stephen Bannon will be his downfall.
The only question is will that happen before he irreparably damages this country?
P.S. By the way a number of Trump spokespeople are claiming that this ban is just like the one that President Obama imposed on Iraq for six months.
Former Obama administration official Jon Finer denied that any ban in Iraqi refugee admissions was put in place under Obama. “While the flow of Iraqi refugees slowed significantly during the Obama administration’s review, refugees continued to be admitted to the United States during that time, and there was not a single month in which no Iraqis arrived here,” he wrote in Foreign Policy. “In other words, while there were delays in processing, there was no outright ban.”
Another former official, Eric P. Schwartz, the assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration at the time, also told The Fact Checker that Trump’s statement is false:
“President Obama never imposed a six-month ban on Iraqi processing. For several months in 2011, there was a lower level of Iraqi resettlement, as the government implemented certain security enhancements. Indeed, as we identified new and valuable opportunities to enhance screening, we did so. Nobody should object to a continual effort to identify legitimate enhancements, but it is disreputable to use that as a pretext to effectively shut down a program that is overwhelmingly safe and has enabled the United States to exercise world leadership. In any event, there was never a point during that period in which Iraqi resettlement was stopped, or banned.”
The Post gave those statements by the Trump spokespeople three Pinocchios.
A blanket “immigration ban”? No, it is not. That is a fake news headline. (Tell that to the people stranded in the DFW National airport because they were no longer allowed to enter the country.) Even so-called conservative websites groveling for clicks are making more out of President Trump’s action to fully vet foreigners’ intentions upon U.S. entrance than it obviously is. (Hey, even conservative news outlets get it right once in awhile.) Trump is doing what the majority recognized was necessary to secure our borders. (The majority voted for Hillary Clinton. Let's not forget that.) Voters asked for it, he promised it, and thus he was elected. Now he’s doing it. (And how did that work out?) This isn’t inhumane. It’s exercising common-sense compassion to keep human beings safe. It’s about fully vetting foreigners and merely following the laws the people–through our representative form of government within our republic–agreed upon. (No, no it's not.) The misinformed are ballistically knee-jerking ("Ballistically knee jerking?" IS this some weird Palin sex practice?) because they aren’t used to candidates fulfilling campaign promises. Perhaps it’s shocking because we’re used to swamp dwellers murkying (Not a word.) up the waters once typical politicians get elected, but that’s exactly why a typical politician wasn’t elected. The status quo has got to go.
Many of us have demanded we regroup and get a handle on security issues. What next preventable tragedy must happen before we finally do so? (NOTHING Trump just did would stop the next terrorist attack. NOTHING!) Trump’s executive action is a step in the right direction towards welcoming safe, loving, law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic people into our nation that was built on the backs of safe, loving, law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic people willing to assimilate into America’s exceptional melting pot.
Okay so either Palin cannot take the hint that Trump is just not into her, or somebody is paying her to publicly kiss his ass like this.
But then again maybe this is just another case of a racist applauding the actions of a fellow racist.
There appears to be lots of chaos and confusion in airports around the world after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively bans travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries— Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—from entering the United States for 30 days.(Update at 4:30 p.m. Eastern: Contrary to initial reports, the ban is for 90 days.) It also places a four-month halt to the country’s refugee program. There are now scattered reports that the order is affecting those who already have green cards and visas.
Some travelers are being turned away at airports around the world and not allowed to board flights to the United States despite having valid travel documents. Reuters, for example, hears word from sources at the airport in Cairo that six travelers—five from Iraq and one from Yemen—were forbidden from boarding a flight to the United States even though they had valid visas.
European leaders, the United Nations and international groups have condemned US President Donald Trump's measures against refugees and travellers from several Muslim-majority countries.
Oddly enough Trump's executive order only included countries that he does NOT do business with.
Interesting, don't you think?
Ultimately the ACLU and others filed a class action lawsuit, and this was the result:
The American Civil Liberties Union announced Saturday evening that a federal court in New York had issued an emergency stay on President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The court’s decision, which will affect people who have been detained in airports, came after the ACLU and other activist groups filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of two Iraqis who were held at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as a result of the order.
“I hope Trump enjoys losing. He’s going to lose so much we’re going to get sick and tired of his losing,” ACLU national political director Faiz Shakir told Yahoo News shortly after the decision was announced.
I think I agree with that statement.
The America people are fired up like I have never seen them before, and it seems very likely that they are willing to fight Donald Trump every step of the way on his agenda to destroy our country and undermine its values.
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In the first working week of his last calendar year in office, President Barack Obama defied Congress and pursued long-stalled gun control methods through executive action.
Obama gave a speech on his proposals at the White House on Tuesday, where he was joined by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in the head along with 18 others at a supermarket in Tucson five years ago this week. The president was introduced by Mark Barden, the father of one of the 20 children killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Tearing up during his remarks, Obama emphasized a point he's made after the many mass shootings that have occurred during his presidency, saying that America is "the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency."
"Somehow, we become numb to it and we start thinking, 'This is normal,'" Obama said.
"Instead of thinking about how to solve the problem, this has become one of our most polarized, partisan debates," he added.
You cannot help but hear the pain in the President's voice, or recognize the sadness in his eyes.
You can even see him tear up when he mentions Sandy Hook at the 30 minute mark
And who can blame him?
After all it seems as if every week he is addressing yet another mass shooting. That is the kind of thing that would destroy a lesser man.
So I hope that he not only gets these guidelines in place, but that the next President is willing to not only support them but to strengthen them as well.
By the way some of those on the other side are already using this to fund raise.
President Barack Obama said on Monday his new executive actions to tighten gun rules were "well within" his legal authority and consistent with the U.S. right to bear arms, a warning to opponents who are likely to challenge them in court.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Obama said his administration would unveil the new measures over the next several days.
Obama is igniting a political firestorm by bypassing Congress with the measures, which are likely to redefine what it means to be a gun dealer and spark increased use of background checks. Republicans say Obama is misusing his powers.
"The good news is .. these are not only recommendations that are well within my legal authority and the executive branch, but they're also ones that the overwhelming majority of the American people, including gun owners, support," Obama said during a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other advisers.
As you might imagine this has caused a virtual meltdown among the Right Wing who now feel vindicated for accusing the President of coming after their guns for virtually the entire seven years he has been in office.
GOP presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are claiming that on day one they will reverse this order, while their supporters run to the local gun store to stock up on bullets and add to their arsenal weapons.
Just another reason why we so desperately need to make sure that Hillary Clinton is the next President of the United States:
When I came out with my proposals for common sense gun safety measures, I did say that in the absence of Congressional action, I would use executive authority to go as far as would be possible under the law and I applaud the President for taking a hard look at that and I believe he will take some actions to require more gun sellers to do background checks,” Clinton said of the anticipated proposal.
Clinton warned: “I know that a Republican president would delight in the very first day, reversing executive orders that President Obama has made, including this one that we expect him to make.”
If part of this 2016 campaign season centers around gun control, and I think we already know that it will, then you can bet the farm that we are going to see entirely new levels of ugly.
President Barack Obama’s bid to assert himself in his final year will begin with long-awaited executive actions on gun control, expected to be released next week, shortly after he returns to Washington.
The White House is putting finishing touches on several measures in an effort to make progress on curbing gun violence, an issue the president and close aides have found frustratingly intractable, before the race to replace him enters prime time.
According to gun industry insiders and others familiar with the proposals, the changes include requiring an expanded number of small-scale gun sellers to be licensed — and therefore conduct background checks — whenever selling a weapon. This wouldn’t close the so-called gun show loophole, though it has the potential to narrow it.
The administration is also expected to impose tighter rules for reporting guns that get lost or stolen on their way to a buyer.
Neither comes close to the stronger gun control measures Obama sought in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting of schoolchildren in Sandy Hook and that he has said he still wants. But with Congress unlikely to approve any new gun curbs before the 2016 election, the measures are in line with what gun-control advocates were hoping would be adopted before Obama leaves office.
You know for such an intelligent man it seems that President Obama seriously does not understand the concept of the "lame duck" presidency.
With these guidelines in place, and with Hillary certain to tighten them up and add her own after the election, it looks like the Ammosexuals are finally going to have something to freak out about in 2016.
In other words things are about to get REALLY ugly.
President Barack Obama's advisers are finalizing a proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval.
White House adviser Valerie Jarrett says the president has asked his team to complete a proposal and submit it for his review "in short order." She says the recommendations will include measures to expand background checks.
Jarrett spoke Wednesday night at a vigil for the victims of the Newtown shooting, according to a summary provided by the White House.
After the mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, Obama said his team was looking for ways to tighten gun laws without a vote in Congress. White House officials have said they're exploring closing the so-called "gun show loophole" that allows people to buy weapons at gun shows and online without a background check.
Holy shit is this going to drive the conservatives around the bend.
But hey it's not like Obama did not give Congress plenty of time to pull their heads out of their asses and do this themselves.
Oh man is Christmas dinner going to get entertaining for those of us with conservative relatives.
