Evil and incompetence in equal measure drags out Trump's Muslim ban plans

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Seattle ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority in the latest iteration of his administration’s travel ban, which mostly targets Muslim–majority countries.

The ruling follows an earlier decision by a federal judge in Hawaii who called Trump’s modified travel ban unlawful, according to The New York Times.

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The ban currently is in its third version since Trump took office.

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But this doesn’t signal the end of the travel ban, however, as the appeals court put its decision on hold pending the outcome of a similar appeal in the federal Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in in Richmond, VA, and ultimately, the Supreme Court.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s travel ban can be fully implemented while legal challenges against it move forward. And whatever the outcomes of both the 9th and 4th courts, it will be the Supreme Court that will determine its final fate.

  Splinter

Which sounds to me like it's a done deal, just not right this moment.

[Only a few weeks into his term] Mr. Trump had dispatched federal officers to the nation’s airports to stop travelers from several Muslim countries from entering the United States in a dramatic demonstration of how he would deliver on his campaign promise to fortify the nation’s borders.

But so many foreigners had flooded into the country since January, he vented to his national security team, that it was making a mockery of his pledge. Friends were calling to say he looked like a fool, Mr. Trump said.

  NYT

Maybe they just meant his hair.

Late to his own meeting and waving a sheet of numbers, President Trump stormed into the Oval Office one day in June, plainly enraged.

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The document listed how many immigrants had received visas to enter the United States in 2017.

More than 2,500 were from Afghanistan, a terrorist haven, the president complained.

Haiti had sent 15,000 people. They “all have AIDS,” he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.

Forty thousand had come from Nigeria, Mr. Trump added. Once they had seen the United States, they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa.

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As the meeting continued, John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security, and Rex W. Tillerson, the secretary of state, tried to interject, explaining that many were short-term travelers making one-time visits. But as the president continued, Mr. Kelly and Mr. Miller turned their ire on Mr. Tillerson, blaming him for the influx of foreigners and prompting the secretary of state to throw up his arms in frustration. If he was so bad at his job, maybe he should stop issuing visas altogether, Mr. Tillerson fired back.

They're emotional infants. The lot of them. There IS no adult in the room.

Tempers flared and Mr. Kelly asked that the room be cleared of staff members.

Like they're the ones who aren't adult? Or maybe just to keep them from witnessing any further evidence that their bosses are lunatics.

But even after the door to the Oval Office was closed, aides could still hear the president berating his most senior advisers.

Haha. They stood outside the door and listened.

“General Kelly, General McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Nielsen and all other senior staff actually in the meeting deny these outrageous claims,” she said, referring to the current White House chief of staff, the national security adviser and the secretaries of state and homeland security. “It’s both sad and telling The New York Times would print the lies of their anonymous ‘sources’ anyway.”

Just because the claims were outrageous doesn't mean they weren't true.

While the White House did not deny the overall description of the meeting, officials strenuously insisted that Mr. Trump never used the words “AIDS” or “huts” to describe people from any country.

Because that would be sooooo out of character.

“He’s always been fearful where other cultures are concerned and always had anxiety about food and safety when he travels,” said Michael D’Antonio, who interviewed him for the biography “The Truth About Trump.” “His objectification and demonization of people who are different has festered for decades.”

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Democrats and some Republicans recoiled, calling Mr. Trump’s messaging damaging and divisive. But for the candidate, the idea of securing the country against outsiders with a wall had intoxicating appeal, though privately, he acknowledged that it was a rhetorical device to whip up crowds when they became listless.

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[Trump's first] travel ban [failure in the courts was] a lesson for Mr. Trump and his aides on the dangers of dictating a major policy change without involving the people who enforce it. This time, instead of shutting out those officials, they worked to tightly control the process.

In previous years, State Department officials had recommended a refugee level to the president. Now, Mr. Miller told officials the number would be determined by the Department of Homeland Security under a new policy that treated the issue as a security matter, not a diplomatic one.

When he got word that the Office of Refugee Resettlement had drafted a 55-page report showing that refugees were a net positive to the economy, Mr. Miller swiftly intervened, requesting a meeting to discuss it. The study never made it to the White House; it was shelved in favor of a three-page list of all the federal assistance programs that refugees used.

Stephen Miller is simply evil. He's Trump's wannabe Dick Cheney, but only because Trump is not smart enough to be his own Dick Cheney.

In September, a third version of the president’s travel ban was issued with little fanfare and new legal justifications. Then, Mr. Trump overruled objections from diplomats, capping refugee admissions at 45,000 for 2018, the lowest since 1986. In November, the president ended a humanitarian program that granted residency to 59,000 Haitians to since a 2010 earthquake ravaged their country.

As the new year approached, officials began considering a plan to separate parents from their children when families are caught entering the country illegally, a move that immigrant groups called draconian.

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During a fall dinner with Democratic leaders, Mr. Trump explored the possibility of a bargain to legalize Dreamers in exchange for border security.

Mr. Trump even told Republicans recently that he wanted to think bigger, envisioning a deal early next year that would include a wall, protection for Dreamers, work permits for their parents, a shift to merit-based immigration with tougher work site enforcement, and ultimately, legal status for some undocumented immigrants.

The idea would prevent Dreamers from sponsoring the parents who brought them illegally for citizenship, limiting what Mr. Trump refers to as “chain migration.”

“He wants to make a deal,” said Mr. Graham.

Ah, the artful deal maker.

Yet publicly, Mr. Trump has only employed the absolutist language that defined his campaign and has dominated his presidency.

If you're gonna be the boss, you gotta act like a boss.

“We’re so politically correct,” he complained to reporters in the cabinet room, “that we’re afraid to do anything.”

I'm not sure when the term "politically correct" came to mean something that's incorrect. But I know a lot of people are tired of not being able to be publicly racist. Obviously, The Most Notable Loser is one of them.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.