Google CEO Sundar Pichai has issued a memo to Google staff members currently overseas, ordering them to return to the US immediately if affected by an executive order from President Donald Trump that banned travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. Bloomberg Technology obtained a copy of the memo, in which Pichai commented that “painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues.”
[…] The Wall Street Journal also noted that Pichai indicated that at least 187 employees came from countries that were impacted by the ban, and that employees working overseas who needed help should “reach out to our global security team.”
Zuckerberg – who will rot in some hell or other for the role Facebook played in electing Trump – is also pushing back.
The IT business runs on immigrant labor. The best and brightest from around the world fight each other for the precious few H1-B visas that allow them to stay in the country and work. Most of these employees travel overseas regularly to see family, and often to work with offshore IT contractors in their home country. (One of our contractors has a trip planned next week to go back to his home country and work with an offshore team – I wonder if he’s still going.)
Insofar as Trump and his band of shitheads thought this through, I’m sure they assumed money would be OK, and his order would just affect refugees and leisure travelers. Nope- money’s on the wrong end of this one. I wonder how much more shit money will take from Trump before it turns on Republicans in Congress.
Southern Beale
Donald Trump is a monster.
There simply is no other way to put it. Remember when they told us to “judge him by what’s in his heart”? Yeah. Fuck you.
Ohio Mom
It’s been said before but if this was all a work of fiction, it would be panned as too preposterous.
elm
Is there any precedent for such a travel ban affecting even green card holders? This seems like a major shift.
RepubAnon
If nothing else, I do hope this ends the apathetic “why bother voting” attitude of some folks. Next up, we need to make sure that national-level voter disenfranchisement rules are fought. Perhaps it’s finally time for a national ID card. Creepy, but it’d stop the vote suppression folks… and in these days of big data, the government doesn’t need a national ID card to track your every move (they just monitor your use of your cell phone, Facebook, Twitter…)
matryoshka
So does the grocery business.
Peale
@matryoshka: and hotels and gas stations
Corner Stone
@Ohio Mom:
It’s like they threw some of the worst examples of every fiction genre into a meme generator and the mashup it spit out is our new reality.
Mnemosyne
@matryoshka:
@Peale:
Yes, but the IT business has the money and the will to fight this. The hotel, grocery, and gas station businesses will just shrug and look for immigrants from less controversial countries.
Corner Stone
Holy shit.
“War with the US under Donald Trump is “not just a slogan” and becoming a “practical reality”, a senior Chinese military official has said.”
Mnemosyne
The Giant Evil (entertainment) Corporation I work for is probably already marshaling its phalanx of really nasty lawyers to fight this. Of course, their internal stance since the election has been “Fuck Trump,” so I’m sure they’re already prepared.
Kristin D
They aren’t even free market Republicans anymore. Just full on white supremacists.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, an interesting thought experiment: classical fascism depends on corporations cooperating with and assisting the fascist government. What happens when corporations are part of the resistance?
We are going to be seeing a lot of strange bedfellows in the days to come.
matryoshka
@Corner Stone: Just read an article at Quartz about how shitgibbon and Putin are aligning in hope of using nukes on mutual enemies. China was the first thing that came to my mind.
PsiFighter37
This is just insane. Trump’s only going to have the 27% left the next time they poll his approval ratings.
The Democratic Party must tar the entire GOP for aiding and abetting this. Stop playing fucking nice and start bringing a fucking gun to a gun fight, and don’t wait for Obama to fucking do it for you (because he won’t).
Davis X. Machina
@RepubAnon:
The last election was so close that you don’t even need to get them to the polls — just the ‘Too cool for school’/’Don’t vote — it just encourages them’ non-voters who are so woke that they’ve seen through the shuck, and refuse to participate in it. They’d be enough.
And, why yes, Jon Stewart, I am looking at you.
Davis X. Machina
@PsiFighter37:
Motivated minorities roll detached or apathetic minorities all the time. F=MA isn’t valid just in physichs.
Villago Delenda Est
“He’s destroying the future of my business, but on the other hand, man, I would like some tax cuts!”
SFAW
@Davis X. Machina:
And considering it’s actually Fu (meaning “unbalanced force”), it certainly applies to Shitgibbon’s base.
Comrade Scrutinizer
I liked this bit:
So, does this signal the start of the war of the multinationals against the states, like in KSR’s Mars trilogy?
I read too much.
laura
@Mnemosyne: it’s likely to be a divided response.
Koch Industries, Oil & Gas, REITs will back Trump. Agriculture, Auto, entertaunment, and Tech will resist/oppose. Health Care a bit of both.
oldster
Trump just shut the door on the interpreters in Iraq who saved American lives,
and kept the door wide open to the Saudi 9/11 attackers who killed 3000 Americans.
Now if I could only figure out how to fit that on a poster before I go downtown for the 2p march.
Mnemosyne
@PsiFighter37:
Note my “strange bedfellows” remark above. We’re going to need to accept (some) corporations as our allies in this and not automatically reject their support, or we aren’t going to get anywhere. Ugly but true.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@SFAW: Well, Fnet = ma always. If Fnet=0, that just means a=0.
SFAW
@RepubAnon:
Yeah, and I hope the Jets win Super Bowl LI.
Gin & Tonic
@oldster: The track record of the local interpreters in Iraq and Afghanistan is decidedly mixed. Cash buys you services, not always loyalty.
Mnemosyne
@laura:
Yeah, it’s definitely going to be a mixed bag about which corporations swing to Trump and which ones try to resist. But the left-libertarian tech bros are going to need to swallow their pride and accept alliances with folks like Google or we’ll all go down in flames.
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
@RepubAnon: re IDIf it’s administered through the states & requires supporting documents provided by the individual (like obtaining a birth certificate) & has a fee then I will never support this. Every step of our current process, the process of obtaining a passport (for example), is problematic because it includes multiple veto points & multiple points where fees act just like poll taxes.
Example- There are plenty of our fellow citizens who were born in the 60’s (& maybe later) who don’t even have birth certificates because they were born at home, & it’s not exactly like some states cared about proper record keeping for some of their citizenry.
Radiumgirl
@Southern Beale: Looks like we’ve seen what’s in his heart. And it is ugly.
A Ghost to Most
@Mnemosyne:
I have already seen which side my evil company is on.
Started my job search yesterday.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
If anyone is counting on Google to save us then we are already beyond fucked. Because they ain’t agonna.
schrodingers_cat
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Thank You.
dr. luba
@Southern Beale: Thanks for that. I’ve shared it on FB. You’ve put into words what I’ve been trying to.
Citizen_X
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Maybe, but without the eco-anarcho-socialist counterexample on Mars.
Mnemosyne
@A Ghost to Most:
A very top person at mine said in my presence, “Well, I guess we all get to find out what it’s like to live in a psychopathocracy.” Between that and what I’ve heard from other departments about the messaging they’re getting from the top, I feel pretty good about the GEC.
We have a lot of money invested in mainland China right now, so our economic interests as a company are diametrically opposed to those of Trump, which will help stiffen the corporate spines.
StringOnAStick
I know someone coming back from overseas today. Since they were going to vote for Stein once Wilmer flamed out, I wonder if any airport scenes of great angst will get their attention. If today’s EO actions don’t make you look at your middle class white privilege, what will?
fuckwit
@Peale: and daycare and gardening and domestic help and nursing and…. basically out whole economy.
want to know what made america great? immigrants did.
oldster
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m sure that there were some interpreters who did not care about saving American lives.
But some did, and some developed very close ties with our troops. Some did it because our troops promised to help them and their families. They are shut out, too.
Of course they had a mixed record–we’re dealing with homo sapiens, after all.
But a blanket policy is exactly the wrong way to respond to a mixed record.
Nick
Money, and the money-people, forgot that true nationalism doesn’t care about them . . . they say the ‘R’ next to Trump’s name, and figured he was part of the same con they’ve been running for decades. Now they’re starting to realize that suddenly their tender low-tax, pro-profit fee-fees aren’t the priority.
PhoenixRising
@Mnemosyne:
Good point–fascism also classically incorporates ‘the church’. As we are a secular nation, despite the integration of the GOP with two major strands of Christianity, how religious leaders react to this is also going to be important.
Since our national government has just vacated moral authority and the right to tell us what ‘American’ is…there’s a void.
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
@RepubAnon:
& as you pointed out a National ID card is definitely “Creepy.” There are even citizens who refuse to get drivers licenses, I can’t imagine how they’d react to a National ID. And last but not least, particularly in this moment of yesterday’s National Holocaust Memorial Day & the EO,
it smacks even more pointedly of “show me your papers” than usual.
IMHO I’d love to think that a bureaucratic blanket solution would solve the voter suppression laws and acts, but even proffering this as a solution would definitely disenfranchise our own voters.
ETA “our” = the resistance to this bull-sh
Iowa Old Lady
@Citizen_X: OT, but I heard Robinson speak at WisCon a couple of years back. Fascinating guy. He did a reading but he also gave a slide talk about the Sierra Nevadas, just because he was interested.
PIGL
@Mnemosyne: It depends which corporations. The coastal elite megacorps vs the Real American Heartland Corporations, who bought the political system a long time ago.
Has any one given any though to just how many battalions would be required to arrest the Koch Brothers?
dr. bloor
@StringOnAStick: I’m sure he or she reported back to Dr. Stein that it was time for her to get fitted for her Utopian Phoenix costume, because it’s all falling apart just the way she foretold.
WereBear
My greatest personal fear is that Trump and his ilk will be enabled in their goal to plunge as many people as possible into misery.
I guess my global fear is that he will crash the global economy as W almost succeeded in doing.
Mnemosyne
@PhoenixRising:
IIRC, Roman Catholics are still the most numerous single denomination, and Pope Francis is super-anti-Trump. I’m assuming most of the mainstream denominations are against Trump.
Unfortunately, you also have all of those weirdo evangelical fundie churches who are all in for Trump and don’t care what he does as long as he outlaws abortion.
Doug R
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): These same people who find an id creepy carry cell phones that are signed in with location services turned on and with their credit card info.
StringOnAStick
The small but exclusive engineering uni in our little town has a huge number of international students; I bet there are some deans and others in the budget process realizing that a big reduction in international students = a big reduction in tuition (international students pay full freight, so they are a cash cow). I suspect every higher ed campus in the country is having some budget-shaking realizations right about now. Since most higher ed institutions had classes resume well before this week, there probably aren’t many students left stranded outside the US, but I expect the next step is expelling all of them from the countries on that list unless the legal challenges can tie this up in court for awhile.
Up until this presidency, when the party’s swapped out control of the WH there was fairly good relations between the WH crew and the Congressional types since there was a general direction that each group wanted to go, and at least some Good Ole Boy networks where they could get together and plan the distribution of favors and who owed who what. Now that the WH is being run by a manbaby and his Leninist white supremacist buddy, the crazy is flying fast and I suspect the Congresspukes on the right are growing more nervous by the day since this is going to stick to them too.
Dolt 45 was smart to get the ICE agents and general LEO groups on his side; it worked so well in Germany about 7 decades ago, so why mess with a winning strategy? In terms of law, there should have been no action on this EO until the department heads vetted it, but since he had people willing to enforce it, the law never even entered into their thinking.
WereBear
That gives me hope: Trump isn’t good for anyone who isn’t a white supremacist religious nut theocratic dominionist.
No, I didn’t forget my “/”‘s. They have all become one thing.
Tokyokie
@Radiumgirl: Although to be fair, the rest of him isn’t much to look at either.
japa21
Last Fall, Chris Hayes did some town halls in Wisconsin with Trump voters. Most of them stated that Trump would never follow through with his threats to limit Muslim immigration because that would be unconstitutional. Instead, the only reason he even brought it up was to open a dialogue. So basically they admitted they voted for a person they considered a liar, but EMAILS.
It would be interesting to have Hayes reach out to them now. If they still support Trump, nd they probably do, then he should point out they were lying back then.
Cacti
OT, but this is why there need to be women’s marches and lots of them:
Russian parliament votes 380-3 to make it legal to beat your wife or girlfriend once per year.
oldster
@StringOnAStick:
“The small but exclusive engineering uni in our little town”
Is your little town, by any chance, named after a town mentioned in Homer’s Iliad?
ruemara
I’m a green card holder. The legal repercussions of this EO affect me. I was planning on renewing my green card before this monster took office, but I legally could not do that. I cannot renew until 2018. I feel trapped here. Like it’s unsafe to travel around this country without a lawyer. I cannot fully explain the anxiety & fear constricting around the souls of POC right now. I don’t really cry since I learned a long time ago to hide those feelings for survival’s sake but I nearly broke down in tears here in public reading up on the details and fallout. This hasn’t even been 14 days of total dominionist control of our government.
Chip Daniels
I’m left thinking of the Red Scare, and the Salem Witch trials, other episodes of collective madness and hysteria.
These periods started with persecution of the outcasts and marginalized, and didn’t break until the evil touched the ingroup or powerful.
I’m thinking of how the GOP policies have always affected Those People- the minorities, the weak and powerless.
But now they are touching the middle class, the professionals, the people connected and who have a voice.
Seanly
Trainwrecks, dumpster fires, and hurricanes are all pretty indiscriminate in what they affect. Don’t have a lot of compassion for billionaires whose employees may now be stuck at the wrong end of a flight. It is perfectly well known how horribly retrograde not just Trump but the entire Republican caucus would be. When the economy crashes and people can’t afford to buy their soon-to-be-unregulated crappy products, maybe these dipshit rich assholes will get their heads out of their own asses.
I do have compassion for the people affected by thesestupid EO’s.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: {{{ }}}.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Cacti:
Is it reciprocal? Can wives/girlfriends beat their husbands once a year? My first wife could swing a mean baseball bat (one of the reasons she’s my ex).
Peale
@ruemara: yep. If the president is allowed to invalidate the green cards of everyone from 7 countries who are out of the country, he certainly will take that win to start to invalidate the green cards of those who are in the country
mb
I bet they figure out how to let in the “good” Muslims quickly enough and the freeze on the folk who really need to come here — or anywhere other than where they are — will continue apace. I wouldn’t worry too much about “money” in the age of Trump. Somehow, weirdly, money always finds a way.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Peale: He already promised us a Deportation Force.
JPL
@ruemara: How terrifying.
JPL
This is from the Guardian
sharl
Eh, whatever. Peter Thiel needs to talk down these folks, billionaire-to-billionaire, with a reminder of the value of disruption:
…
Damn ruemara, I’m sorry to hear that. Hopefully this big orange shitheel and his spite-filled fanclub will get their fill of ego satisfaction shortly (even if only temporarily), and this crap can be reeled back. Hang in there!
schrodingers_cat
Has the GOP Congressional leadership commented?
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@StringOnAStick: I am pretty optimistic that the habeas petition filed in the Eastern District of NY this morning will be granted, at least for the two named petitioners being held at JFK. Our District Court judges here are not RWNJs and they know the law, unlike the white supremacist s**ts in the white house right now. But I am not a criminal attorney or a habeas wonk, so I have no idea what happens after that.
Seanly
@StringOnAStick:
I just heard that Idaho State University is looking at a big tuition shortfall, mostly due to 35% reduction in MENA students. Most of the reduction was due to MENA countries reducing their own programs for citizens to study abroad. I would guess that this started with the oil market dropping, but won’t rebound with our asshat president’s ill-conceived EO’s.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
(((((ruemara)))))
You may have to help me clear out the room it’s in, but I have a nice IKEA pull-out couch you can sleep on in a pinch.
Peale
@Mnemosyne: yes and no. I’m sure we will have many trade threads but for all that investment in China, our corps also compete internationally with some chinese companies. Mexico and China are two different monsters. If US companies are losing international markets to china and are finding the rules that they need to take on chinese partners in order to get permission to sell and manufacture in the country, the feelings are more nuanced than protecting investments and supply chains.
Mnemosyne
@Peale:
I will briefly uncloak — this is the pricey investment that the Giant Evil Corporation I work for recently built in China. This is real estate, not manufacturing, and all those hundreds of millions of the company’s dollars go straight down the toilet if Trump starts a war with China, even if it’s “only” a trade war.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve said before that I see nothing angelic about evangelicals.
CarolDuhart2
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Of course, one beating can kill, but to people who can authorize this, that’s just a mere detail. Also, who could verify that this is a second beating or later, anyway. To a abused person, the abuser could say to always tell them (the police) that this is the first one of the year. And of course, a person could just be beaten on New Years Eve, and New Years day as well (the year would be the reset)
villiageidiocy
@fuckwit:
And construction . . .
Why do Texans think their houses are so cheap, anyway?
Brachiator
@elm:
From the Guardian, and others:
The lawsuits are flying, even though this is happening over a weekend.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
Very sorry. Can I do anything?
Momentary
@Corner Stone:
Sergey Brin is a Russian Jewish refugee immigrant. Larry Page was born in the USA but is from a Russian Jewish immigrant family. Google might be interesting in the days ahead.
villiageidiocy
@StringOnAStick:
And graduate students/postdocs from foreign countries do a astounding amount of scientific research at extremely low wages for the benefit of the US and its companies. They are also a source of highly educated and motivated potential new citizens for the US.
Brachiator
Shit is getting real.
This executive order is gross and so overly broad that it will hurt the country, not protect it.
But the shitgibbon in chief is happy with himself.
Villago Delenda Est
@WereBear:
The fundigelicals have their roots in the “Christians” who split from what are now known as the “mainstream” denominations at the time of the Civil War. White supremacism has always been part of their creed. Falwell got his start as a segregationist. Jimmy Carter left the SBC because the stink of white supremacism became more than anyone serious about following the core teachings of Jesus was intolerable. That and they are at heart authoritarians, totally in opposition to the central creed of the Baptist movement.
Aleta
NY Rep.Nydia Velazquez and others just got Hameed Khalid Darweesh released at JFK. I think the NYT publishing his story this morning must have helped. (He worked for the US in Iraq (from 2003-2013 I think), finally got papers to enter the US from Sweden on Jan 20, and arrived last night. He was held at JFK and told he would have to return to Iraq.)
SiubhanDuinne
@La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes):
One of them has been released, according to a CNN breaking news text I just received.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: Speaker ZEGS is all on board with it.
“President Trump is right to make sure we are doing everything possible to know exactly who is entering our country.”
Brachiator
It’s interesting that some of the big tech companies previously shunned politicans, viewing them as too dumb to understand tech and innovation. But that is changing as the tech world understands that you have to drop bags of money on Congress to, you know, grease the wheels. And so this recent news story.
We will see if this has any impact on things such as the visa issue.
raven
How’d to be one of the 155 dudes embedded with the Iraqi’s at Mosul about right now?
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@SiubhanDuinne: Ah. Homeland Security blinked. Too bad for Cheeto Benito the ACLU et al already moved for class certification. The lawsuits are indeed flying. And I noticed on CNN that a couple of Dem House members showed up the airport too.
Corner Stone
I hope to Christ that history will be written about this shameful episode in our country. And all the GOP will be tarred with the disgust and disdain decent people have for McCarthy-ism and Japanese internment and a number of other repugnant acts we are guilty of.
? Martin
My city has a large Persian community – large enough that the city puts up Happy Nowruz banners across the whole city. Needless to say, the community is in a complete panic. While many are citizens, a LOT of them only have green cards.
About 15% of international students in the US studying computer science/engineering are from Iran. Current students can’t leave the country – they have to stay until they graduate. Many persian faculty are here either on H1-B visas or with green cards (even some tenured faculty), in the process for citizenship. They can’t leave, go to conferences, etc. Fortunately, University of California told all DACA students and students on visas to be back in the country by 1/20. We cancelled study abroad for these students to get them home in time.
Universities will still admit students for Fall 2017 from Iran, but I would bet none of them will be able/willing to come. We’ll still fill those seats – they’ll almost all come from China. Given the current worries about manufacturing and job losses to China, do you think they will be more competitive or less competitive with even more computer scientists and engineers? This is a huge gift to China’s efforts to compete with the US on manufacturing.
Mike in NC
Bannon did promise to break government(s). What’s next up his sleeve? More chaos in Europe to benefit Putin?
Peale
@JPL: yep. So if you’re a crewmember on an airplane, do you sleep in the cabin overnight since you are no longer afforded the visa to check into a hotel for the night?
Corner Stone
@Momentary: I think we’re going to see a complete collapse and obsequiousness from Google.
bystander
Our NY reps Jerry Nadler and Nydia Velazquez just went to JFK to negotiate freeing 11 immigrants being held up at JFK. Very proud of them for taking action.
Iowa Old Lady
CNN says Iran is banning all Americans from entering the country.
Aleta
@StringOnAStick: From NBC
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady: How surprising!
JPL
@Corner Stone: I think they fight back, but I thought Hillary would win also.
Wapiti
@La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes): Maybe they need to include the Border Control Agents and/or their union in the case. Executive Orders are fine, but individual agents should be waiting for the regulations and other documents that ICE implements after legal review of the EO.
Brachiator
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Unfortunately, the odds are not even for women. From a recent BBC story.
SiubhanDuinne
@La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes):
Good for them! We need to call their offices to thank them and encourage them (and their colleagues) to keep standing up for justice and morality and simple humanity.
aimai
@ruemara: I am so, so, sorry ruemara! I hope and pray that this is the beginning of the massive overreach that will lead, ultimately, to the GOP defenestrating Trump because he’s just too erratic. Hopefully, even under the abominable Pence, establishment desire for certainty and order will re-establish itself for green card holders.
WereBear
@japa21: The people who voted for Trump are just like him: emotional infants with a streak of cruelty.
chris
This just arrived in my inbox. I’m not sure what to make of it yet.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
They’re probably hoping to influence Republican legislators to change the laws in their favor. It’s not going to work, but that’s probably what the purpose was.
JPL
@Aleta: Oh great!
“Essentially all valid visas are irrelevant now,” the official said. “And they have been before the order.”
Elaine Benis
I used to work for a MS recruiting shop…I agree, shit hit the fan. Bigly.
What an utter fuck up.
Christopher H Green
There are over 10,000 students from Iran in american universities who now can’t go home, and are going to be in a lot of trouble when their visas run out :-(
Doug R
@ruemara: If you are from Syria, you may be able to settle in Canada.
WereBear
They threw away Rule One: divide and conquer.
They are going after everybody, and now everybody has a reason to resist them.
Corner Stone
@JPL: Some number of years ago they changed their official company motto from “Don’t Be Evil” to “Eh, Fuck It”.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Did you see this little tidbit in the NYTimes article?
Chilling, whichever way you interpret it.
Taylor
@? Martin:
One shooting match in the South China Sea, and universities around the country will start folding like tenpins as they lose the graduate tuition that keeps their doors open.
Aleta
@? Martin: Yes, we too have many from Iran in engineering and computer-spatial, both grad and undergrad. Of course they have student jobs, rental leases and their household possessions all here, and children in schools. Often their spouses and children travel home and return to the US on different schedules than the students.
Corner Stone
@WereBear: I commented on the previous thread that I wondered how many fronts they could fight at once? I guess we will see.
jenn
@ruemara: Sending you hugs, tears, strength, support, for whatever may be a help!
For all my good intentions re staying strong and focused, I’ve just been sitting here shaking with rage against this wanton cruelty and stupidity. Extra rage-filled that this EO went down on a Friday, when I am unable to effectively scream at my Rep and Senators. They all received messages from me last night; went back this morning, and every mailbox is full. THIS. WILL. NOT. STAND. Even fucking Darth Cheney disagrees with this. When something is too evil even for him….
Best wishes to you!
Corner Stone
@Taylor: See my #9 in this thread.
? Martin
Nice, so Iran now bans US citizens from visiting Iran. So, those persian families here with some US citizens and some green card holders are now fully divided. The citizens can’t go to Iran to visit/take care of family, and the non-citizens can’t return if they leave. Good job, everyone.
aimai
I’ve just decided to order 1000 postcards to send to 538 congresspeople and Senators. For the Republicans it says, more or less
You Own Trump
We will Never Forget that You Let Him Trash The Constitution, Attack Women, and Destroy Lives.
Impeach Him Now, Oppose Him Now
Or Your Whole Party Goes Down With Him
As the Most Corrupt and Incompetent Administration of All Time
I’m working on a different text for the Dems. Ordering a few thousand of each. I figure I will have lots of chances to use them up.
Ohio Mom
@Corner Stone: Can somebody please do an expose on Ryan’s district? I want to see the faces of the people who keep voting for him and imposing him on the rest of us. What is the matter with them?
SiubhanDuinne
@chris:
My Canadian friends on FB are going nuts. Most of them are traditional “founding nations” Canadians — British and French, not Middle Eastern — but many of them who are green card holders are genuinely worried.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
“Money” (most of it, anyway) is not turning on Republicans in Congress, no matter what shit Trump does (short of nuclear war, in which case…).
The coming gutting of labor, environmental, healthcare, and financial regulations — along with even-more favorable tax treatment of the wealthiest and the installation of a generation-spanning federal judiciary that’ll be the most rightwing in a century — is exactly what “money” wants. I have no doubt that most of these people fully expect a bumpy ride with this buffoonish asshole as president, but they’re more than ok with that as the price of getting their hearts’-desire fascist agenda implemented.
And implemented it shall be, from A to fucking Z, primarily (of course) via Republicans in Congress. “Our side” can’t stop that, the best we’ll be able to do is try to fix some of the broken pieces after it’s all been blown up.
That’s how bad this is, and expecting moneyed-interests to turn against Republicans in Congress (and thus de facto ally with the left) is delusional. “Money” is going to ride this all the way down like Slim Pickens out the bomb bay door of that B-52.
Mnemosyne
@jenn:
If you have access to a fax machine, fax them. It’s almost as good as a mailed letter.
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes! This week I sent Kirsten Gilibrand a snail mail thank you note (on real fancy paper!) for voting no on Deadbeat Donnie’s nominees. I will do the same for reps Velasquez and Nadler. I thanked Yvette Clarke in person for boycotting the inauguration.
Mart
Took a train to Scotland and assigned seats were facing a young Muslim couple. Nice kids. Taking a weekend off from university studies. When I asked where they were from, and they said Iraq, I blushed. Assumed they were not happy to be sitting facing an American couple. Turned out they were Kurds, and seemed OK with us. Talk turned geopolitical when a former Brit soldier in the first Gulf War joined the conversation. Assume blanket country bans mean even those nice Kurds fighting ISIS for us are banned as well. Good times.
Calouste
@Momentary: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is an immigrant from India. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish and his parents-in-law are refugees from Vietnam. Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Expedia, is born in Iran.
It’s personal for a lot of these people.
Aleta
@Mike in NC: I think Bannon described himself (not a quote) as something like an anarchist Leninist or something.
? Martin
The big damage here to the GOP is that I can’t find a single Republican standing up to this. It was one thing for a Republican controlled Congress to point to Obama as some kind of dictator and say they were powerless to stop (whether they were actually interested in doing so or not), but the GOP won’t be able to later say ‘that was Trump’s idea, we had nothing to do with it’. They all own it.
I’ve never been a reflexively anti-GOP voter. I don’t do it often, but I do vote for Republicans now and then, mostly in local races where job competency far outweighs partisanship, but I’m now done with that. They can say that Trump isn’t a true conservative, but he’s the head of their party, he defines conservatism whether they like it or not, and they either need to speak out loudly against it or they own it completely. Ryan’s statement suggests that they want to own it completely. So be it.
WereBear
See, normally there would be an expectation of deal brokering, but in this case, The Joker is Wild. And also, insane.
And I cannot begin to express my pleasure that health care concerns will be faced with some stark decisions that involve money. So they know what their “customers” have been dealing with for decades.
WereBear
@ruemara: OMG, what a nightmare of a situation. The stress must be incredible.
Another Scott
@matryoshka: Don’t help push nonsense like that. It’s too stupid to be taken seriously, and distracts from real issues.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: There are millions of GC holders in this country.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: It’s actually better: isn’t mail to our Reps held up indefinitely because of anthrax scares?
Write the letter, then fax it.
Corner Stone
Why do I keep picturing Jodie Foster in a light gray pantsuit ordering kill edicts from near space?
A Ghost to Most
@StringOnAStick: my wife works there, and we just talking about that.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
To the contrary, I can show you in the tax code places where bags of money resulted in a provision that helped a specific company. Sometimes it can be a small thing, such as the date a law becomes effective.
And Google has lots of money.
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
@Doug R: Oh yeah, absolutely yes. & if the private corporation’s services & hardware are widely distributed enough it likely “knows” more about what a majority of us might do & where we might be in realtime than the government. (Which is why the government wants to have backdoors into that data & IIRC ended up creating a market for zero day exploits).
(my main points really are that there are many reasons a national ID card would probably not be successfully accepted, adding in your point that that’s now due to mistaken assumptions about the leashes in our pockets, & would actually not resolve the voter suppression it was suggested it might resolve).
Peale
@Aleta: at some point we are going to have to get control over the police corrections and border control unions.
Lyrebird
@A Ghost to Most: Just got a call for an in-person interview…. trying to send the good vibes along…
and forget you Tr__p for making a lie outta this, but I’m going with USA-made wool for the suit (Pendleton)
chris
@SiubhanDuinne: The piece is written by a Canadian for Canadians but I think it’s actually much worse than that. On second reading this jumped out:
I’d really like someone who knows more about this to weigh in.
Corner Stone
@Another Scott: Are you still so certain about that?
debbie
@Calouste:
Not everyone in other industries are WASPs. Wouldn’t you think that there would be a similar outcry from them?
Thursday I heard a Democratic Congressman interviewed on NPR about immigration, and he pointed out that 40+% of undocumented immigrants haven’t snuck in from Mexico; they entered on visas and didn’t leave when they expired.
So this whole immigration thing is bogus, whether it’s banning only Arab refugees from Arab countries which aren’t doing business with Trump, or it’s banning a bit more than half of the individuals who are undocumented.
This won’t end any better than the GOP’s “improvement” of the healthcare system. If there are any GOPers thinking about rebelling, they need to get a move on.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@? Martin: forget the brain-drain, persian women are really hawt. If this stands we face a serious babe-drain. From my cold dead hand! (photo)
Brachiator
@? Martin:
The GOP base is happy with this. How many of these goobers are thinking, “we really don’t need any Muslims here. We got along fine without them before.”
I know there is much intelligent outrage here. But how many conservative sites are popping champagne corks over this?
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: Speaking of money in China, I’ve been seeing a lot of ads on TV for The Great Wall. It’s clear that China is a big audience for it (released there first), and I understand they were behind the production company, etc.
I wonder how much of it applies to Trump’s Yooge Wall… :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
JanieM
@Iowa Old Lady:
What if a lot of other countries followed suit? Big business would have fits, but Trump would probably take it as a sign that he was doing the right thing. Hey, we don’t need no friends, except Russia. And Saudia Arabia…..
I really can’t find the words at this point.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I don’t think bags of money are going to help the Republicans grow big enough balls to stand up to Trump. YMMV.
CarolDuhart2
Airport Protest
amygdala
Evidently protestors are gathering at JFK’s Terminal 4, with signs saying “Refugees Welcome.”
There are still good people out there.
debbie
@Southern Beale:
You’re right. Trump has always been an asshole, but he’s allowed others to mold him into a monster — anything to gain the power he’s always wanted.
Comparisons to the lower points of the 20th century are no longer hyperbolic.
Raven
What they really want is to push some of the folks who are close to the edge into doing something really destructive, the they’ll really lower the boom.
Corner Stone
@Ohio Mom:
Haven’t you heard? Wisconsin is the new Texas.
SiubhanDuinne
@Aleta:
According to a Daily Beast piece from last summer, yes, at a party in 2013:
Aleta
@oldster: And made it less likely that citizens in those countries will continue to risk their lives working to help US troops, reporters and contractors.
Mnemosyne
@JanieM:
It is a fucking ginormous pain in the ass to do business with Russia. Even sending a package there is circuitous and difficult, because you don’t know from week to week what delivery companies are allowed (turned out that FedEx was not on the “approved” list and they sent our package back). China is a cakewalk by comparison.
Villago Delenda Est
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: “Money” needs some tumbrel rides to adjust some attitudes.
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
Corner Stone
@JanieM:
Iran has relatively little to lose by doing so. Other members of the 7 country ban are probably not on a lot of people’s “to visit” list at the moment. There is no way a Western Democracy govt at this point would ban Americans from visiting. And it would be only then that it would matter to anyone.
Mnemosyne
@Raven:
I agree. My worry is that there are also a whole lot of Trump Deplorables who are very close to the edge right now, and it’s anyone’s guess who will be the first to snap. Tim McVeigh was as American as apple pie and was hoping to trigger a race war.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: correct me if I’m wrong, but ‘Tech 2.0’ (for lack of a better term)–Facebook & google type companies, as opposed to like Oracle–began their political careers lobbying for H1-B changes in the most recent senate immigration bill, and pushing for net neutrality.
Mike G
@SiubhanDuinne:
ICE agents are almost universally assholes.
Comrade Scrutinizer
To make this more interesting, this order also includes citizens with dual nationalities, so an UK citizen who is also an Iranian would be barred from entering the US.
SiubhanDuinne
@chris:
I took the liberty of sending the article to one of my more concerned Canadian friends who has lived in the US for years. Will be interested to see his response, and if he notes anything especially insightful I’ll share here.
Am also looking forward to seeing what Adam Silverman has to say later about all this, adding his unique expertise to the many very intelligent and thoughtful comments from the amazing BJ community.
devore
I assume others have mentioned this – but won’t these executive actions negatively affect tourists coming the the USA? And not just from the 7 countries listed, but from everywhere.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
Yup. I think that is entirely in line with Bannon’s stated governing philosophy.
Comrade Scrutinizer
The Chinese aren’t happy.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, but what is it he wants to replace it with? I don’t believe he’s a Leninist.
A Ghost to Most
@Lyrebird:
Good luck for the interview.
My skill set and experience, and demand make my searches far easier than most folks.
Good thing for a crazy old asshole.
Iowa Old Lady
@Corner Stone: What about business people? Iran may not be an issue, given the sanctions, but how about the others?
Trentrunner
@Corner Stone: Because everyone has their own kink?
Another Scott
@Corner Stone: Yes.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
chris
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s good, share away.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike G: I think it’s telling that he referred to the Shitgibbon-in-Chief as “Mr. Trump.”
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Yep. And the companies who are thinking, We’ll be fine, all our products are made in Vietnam and Bangladesh! haven’t looked at a map lately.
rikyrah
@Southern Beale:
With every action of Dolt45, I am growing with my disgust and hatred of his voters. They did this, and PHUCK anybody who tells me that I need to understand them.????
sigaba
@RepubAnon:
How about just purple fingers? Frankly I’d be happy with national voter photo ID if, in exchange, we got national voting holiday.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
I know that. And my point, which I didn’t state well, was that it’s not only a worry for GC holders from the seven named countries. It’s a worry as well for GC holders who are Canadians. The majority of Canadians I know who hold GC visas are not people of colour or of Middle East/South Asia heritage; they are white, mostly either English-Scottish-Irish or French descent. They understand how vulnerable they may be under this administration.
Major Major Major Major
@Villago Delenda Est: the same people who insisted on calling our previous president “B. HUSSEIN Obama.”
sharl
@Major Major Major Major:
To the extent they deign to communicate with us lesser beings, I think we’re gonna see some uncomfortable tap-dancing by those Wall Street and Silicon Valley gazillionaires who predicted that a Trump win was nothing to worry about.
In keeping with my current obsession with Peter Thiel, here’s something from late October (italics are mine):
LOL, joke’s on
himus. Fortunately for Mr. Thiel and his fellow moneybags, they live and work in comfortable and highly secure environments, and some – like Thiel – have dual citizenship elsewhere if worse comes to worst.Major Major Major Major
@sigaba: I don’t quite grok the opposition to national ID, can somebody give me an executive summary?
rikyrah
@japa21:
Somebody tweet Hayes and tell him to do a Townhall with those phuckers. Let’s see how things look for them.
rikyrah
@ruemara:
I am so sorry that you are going through this.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
The visa lobbying was relatively mild. And companies with any tech component, e.g., Disney also benefitted from the visa issue.
But if you read any tech sites in the past, you come across a lot of arrogance, especially among tech libertarians. Even in the court case of Apple vs Samsung about copying their iPhone design, there was a lot of stuff about how judges and juries were incapable of understanding the tech industry. It didn’t matter that in the real world, judicial decisions would have real impact on these companies.
In the net neutrality struggle, there has been little in the way of attempts to get important congress people to understand the issues involved.
Even in issues of identity theft and cyber security, there has been only fitful efforts by tech companies to recognize the extent of the problem and be proactive in proposing solutions. And this issue only intensifies as you get to the internet of things and potential security problems.
Lastly, look at Uber. Rather than try to deal with California legislators and regulators with proposals related to self driving vehicles, they simply shipped their operations to Arizona. This is doubly stupid since California in built around automobiles and has always been a center of change and innovation.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I can’t give the opposition from the techbro side, but the objection from our side is that there is a whole cohort of African-Americans born prior to about 1964 who don’t have birth certificates because the segregated hospitals wouldn’t let them be born there. It’s also a problem for Latin@s born in Texas in the same period since Latin@s were included under Texas’s Jim Crow laws.
Democratic voters who don’t have proper birth certificates + requiring a proper birth certificate in order to get the ID that allows you to vote = a fucking disaster for democracy.
Major Major Major Major
@sharl: Thiel is a fucking idiot. All of the tech people I know are horrified, including those at the C-level, but those are actual tech people and not finance folks who end up “in tech.”
Edit: and I’m including the libertarians, who while glib-horrified are still horrified.
sdhays
I accidentally caught the tail-end of the Snooze-Hour on the radio last night and was subjected to their “Brooks and Shields” segment. To my surprise, I wasn’t prompted to scream obscenities more than a handful of times. Brooks was less stupid than usual, and Shields corrected him on a very important point: the Republican Party is the Trump Party.
Brooks was saying that he keeps hearing from Republican officials how nervous they are and how Trump doesn’t represent “their” party. Shields finally pointed out that Trump won the primary and election with the support of Republican voters and endorsement of Republican office holders. He’s the leader of their party – the Republican Party is the Party of Trump, and pretending otherwise is being delusional and disingenuous (of course, he didn’t say it so rudely – we must be civilized, after all).
Under no circumstances can we allow Trump to be seen as anything other than the leader of the Republican Party. In fact, I may just start referring to Trump as “the Republican President” – everything he’s doing is exactly what any one of the other morons he defeated in the primary would do, just in a more ham-fisted and incompetent way (well, beyond being obsessed with the “size” of certain things…).
Brachiator
@sharl:
YES! Yes! Yes!
All the wise pundits have insisted that Trump should not be taken literally. But every executive order has been related to his wildest promises to his supporters.
He is doing exactly what he said he would do. Even when he walks shit back, it is not always a full disavowal.
People best pay attention.
He is indeed running the country like a business, issuing orders like a boss, treating the government like his employees, to be fired or stifled as he sees fit. And citizens are rube customers to be wooed or shit on as required.
scottinnj
@devore: yes I had some friends in Australia who were thinking of coming in the summmer, now they are not so sure. You’re talking about dropping severeal $ just on the plane tix and you then have your full trip wrecked by a DHS officer.
according to the US office of trade more than 1m jobs are tied to international tourism in the US. Also think of al the sales taxes they pay on their food/clothes/hotels while there are here.
Tourism is one of our biggest export industries, seems illogical for a jobs President to attack it. I mean, he operates hotels you would think he knows this
aimai
@scottinnj: Kind of wondering how Disney World handles the crash in receipts as foreigners stop coming.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: Lots of reasons:
Some/Most/All of this may actually be false, but it’s part of the arguments:
1) Commies require internal passports for travel. We’re not Commies, so we don’t need national ID cards.
2) National ID cards means that The Government can come and arrest you in your bed and take you to a FEMA camp.
3) National ID cards means that they’ll Come and Get My Guns
4) National ID cards are the Mark of the Beast
5) The 10th Amendment says that Everything Else is Unconstitutional, therefore National IDs are Unconstitutional.
Stuff like that.
Somehow, I never hear about people who have US passports being sent to Re-education Camps….
Basically, anything that puts the exercise of our rights under national protection (universal health care, voting rights, housing rights, education rights, working rights, etc.) will be fought by state and local authorities that want to be able to twist the government to their benefit.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Adam has been pointed out that many of these EO’s aren’t actually enforceable, like the wall, without appropriations etc. So they’re red meat and little else. Not all of them obviously. But without congressional action (and I’m not discounting that, I’ve always thought congress would give him whatever he wants) they’re still rhetoric.
I realized last night though that this is how he operates his businesses. He got the contract (elected), now he’s saying, I owe you $300,000? No, you owe ME for this shoddy workmanship–what are you going to do, sue me? I’m Donald fuckin’ Trump!
In this case people are actually suing him, but this is his negotiating strategy.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
This is a meaningless distinction. Who were the people who helped Apple and Google avoid taxes by putting their profits into offshore entities, tech people or finance people?
This ain’t the home brew computer club of nerds meeting in their parents’ garages. The technical industrial complex is about venture capitalists and tech heads, always has been.
raven
@aimai: And the Masters. The lines at the post office next to the Golf Shops were unreal hundreds of people shipping huge packages of gear home.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: please do let me know at which level in the organization we stop being evil oligarchs and you deign to let us be nerds with our own opinions and actions in all these companies I’m referring to that you’ve never even heard of.
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
@Mnemosyne:
Mnem, I completely understand and agree with your argument. But — and forgive me if I’m misreading M4’s question — I think it’s a matter of “Why is a national photo ID requirement any more onerous than a state ID? Why does being ‘national’ make it worse?” Because, yes, that cohort of African-Americans and Texas Latin@s would be locked out of getting a national ID, but they’re already locked out of getting state IDs in many states.
M4, if that’s not what you meant, feel free to say so ?
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Last time I checked, Muslim travelers have been turned away. Instructions have been issued that new visas will not be issued in affected countries.
Real people in the real world are being hurt.
What Adam should have said was that some of these EOs have not yet been fully implemented. How many Republican Congress people have said that they will oppose funding a wall?
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
It’s not going to be pretty. And if Trump manages to start a war with China — even “just” a trade war — the shiny new Disney park in Shanghai is going to be in big trouble, along with the one in Hong Kong.
scottinnj
@aimai: It’s about 20 ish % of their visitors. Inbound tourism into the US has been hit the past couple years mainly because the USD is rising against the Euro/Pound/Yen. Macy’s for example has called out that lower sales to tourists (think in their big stores in NY/San Fran/Miami) has had a material impact on their sales. But yeah I’d think Disney/Marriott etc can get onto Trump to ask him to chill.
Doug R
@scottinnj: I’m a dual US/Canadian and my Canadian family ain’t going to the US anytime in at least the next two years.
A Ghost to Most
@sdhays:
This. Our republican president, and Trump’s Folly for the wall.
JPL
@Brachiator: According to Paul Ryan, Congress will fund the wall because of National Security reasons. Of course, he didn’t mention anything about funding for the Zika virus, that will actually kill or harm newborns.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: I said ‘many’. I probably even said ‘some’. I even literally said congress would be easily cowed.
Adam wrote an entire post about it. Take it up with him.
chris
A little comic relief: The front page of Urban Dictionary
Gin & Tonic
Haven’t erad all the comments, but here’s a wrinkle – the way the EO is reportedly written, it bars entry to people *born* in those countries. So say you were born in Iran but moved to Toronto and gained Canadian citizenship. Too bad, you’re still not allowed.
Peale
@oldster: I guess the question I have is why weren’t more of these visas issued in the past 8 years? That issue has been around since W.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@sharl: The joke is most definitely on us.
Few (if any) “moneybags” will be harmed by the coming full-flowering of the Neo-Gilded Age. Just the opposite, actually. That’s why any expectation of them “turning” on the Republicans in Congress is ludicrous.
And if “money” is actually harmed by the implementation of the fascist agenda, can you imagine what that would mean for the other 99% of us? It would mean not just the shredding of the safety net and the gutting of labor, environmental, and financial protections (which are coming, there’s no stopping that now) but the world would be a smoking ruin. Nothing less than that will reach “money”, living and working (as you put it) in their “comfortable and highly secure environments”.
Shell
Hillary couldn’t have said it enough times (quoting) “When somebody first shows you who they are, believe them.”
Mnemosyne
@chris:
Looks like we gotta freep us some polls over there. The Trumpistas are voting everything down.
Xenos
@Momentary: if google does not like this, they ought to spend some time looking in a mirror. People are ieft behind in this economy, and the winners like google go to ridiculous lengths to avoid paying taxes or to support programs to support their fellow citizens.
The “anxious” are not the majority of Trump voters, but it looks like they were the margin of victory. I doubt they are bothered much by some google employees stuck in some airports.
Doug R
Disney owns ABC, Marvel and Lucasfilm. They could be a powerful force for good.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Nonsense. Your opinion is your own. But I am free to disagree with your conclusions.
And I note that you are here sounding like some of the people I criticize. You want to invoke a special world that is understandable only by nerds and refer to companies that I’ve never heard of in order to defend tech land. This is exactly what tech leaders and journalists have been doing for years, insisting that there should be some magical tech libertarian universe immune from any input or regulation from ordinary people, who simply cannot fathom this realm of tech delights.
? Martin
@Brachiator:
The vocal GOP base may be happy with this, but the majority of conservatives won’t be happy with the state of things soon. I think they are seriously misreading where the public is on this. The evangelical community is pretty supportive of refugees. They see a distinction between broad immigration and refugees, something that Trump doesn’t acknowledge. They also know that the dogwhistling is necessary, and Trump not just saying outright but even codifying that this is about protecting Christians will alarm them. They may like that policy, but they know that danger will follow from it.
SFAW
@chris:
That front page would be more amusing if the Shitgibbon-related words had more up-votes than down-votes, instead of the other way around.
Xenos
@Gin & Tonic: Christiane Amenpour, obviously not-a-muslim, will be blocked by this. And weren’t some Israeli politicians born in Syria, Iran, and so on?
Gin & Tonic
Looking at the Kremlin’s readout of the Trump-Putin convo, it looks as if our master negotiator rolled over like a puppy and gave his master everything he wants.
I wonder if he will give Poroshenko the courtesy of a phone call before his country is dismembered.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Don’t read the comments at The Hill.
Straight outta Stormfront.
Feathers
@Another Scott: As someone wise once told me “No one ever talks about state’s rights unless they are trying to take away human rights.”
? Martin
@Gin & Tonic: That is baldly unconstitutional then.
The Pale Scot
Speaking of the swells, I’m sure that Santelli guy will get right on to ranting about this.
Doug R
I’ve heard of some friction with the free Google buses not appreciated by folks waiting for the regular bus. Google could perhaps pay for a few regular buses to help transit lower prices and improve service.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
In a rational world run by non-assholes, I think there could be a good argument made for a national ID, particularly if it was one that was able to build in some identity protection.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world, so the idea of a national ID is dead in the water except for the assholes who want to use it to disenfranchise our fellow American citizens.
Iowa Old Lady
@? Martin: Trump has given no indication that he differentiates between immigrants (documented or not) and refugees. He keeps saying we don’t even know who these people are. Someone needs to show him the page on the State Dept website where the refugee vetting process is described. Maybe they could tweet it at him.
Another Scott
@chris: Excellent. Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
I have and will again. But you brought him up and I responded.
And obviously, this situation is mutating quickly, and subject to all kinds of changes. There is no need for us to squabble over this because I think that we might agree far more than we disagree.
But Trump has a method to his madness. The EOs, even if subsequently modified, show him taking decisive action and dazzling his supporters. This is where he most acts like a Big Boss.
What we next should watch for is how his cabinet nominees implement his decisions, and then the legislation that comes out of the Congress.
There are still pundits insisting that the Republican Congress will rein him in. As far as I can see, this is wishful thinking based on nothing.
SFAW
@? Martin:
Sounds great, but the Rethug supporters — Shitgibbon psychos or not — will not revolt. In a rational country/world, perhaps, but I think the election has proved we’re not. (And I’m not ignoring that Hillary won the popular vote.)
Of course, we could always count on the integrity of Ryan and McConnell, that should prevent things from getting too bad. (No, not grouping you in with those who think Ryan or Turtle would ever intentionally do the right thing.)
ETA: “Intentionally” = doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, as opposed to “because it gets me something I want”
HeleninEire
Lots of stories in the Irish papers today with immigration lawyers advising they immigrants in America to keep their heads down, STFU, and maybe lose the brogue. Interestingly I had a lovely dinner last night with a man from Belfast who spent 20 yes in Woodside, NY. Right down the street from me in Forest Hillz
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@? Martin:
Sorry to be all snarky’n’shit to someone who claims to have only voted occasionally for some local fascists (cuz “competency”) but what color is the sky in your world?
scottinnj
@Doug R: I recall that in the post Iraq war days there were concerns that anti-american sentiment would imperil sales of American identified brands eg Coke, McDonalds, Levi’s, Apple. Didn’t really happen. Too soon IMHO if that will happen this time.If Europeans stopped buying Nike or Levis and starting buying more Addidas or Hugo Boss it would give US CEO’s some leverage to get Trump to chill.
Brachiator
@? Martin:
I will take that bet. Sadly, I think you are wrong about this. The vocal base is what matters unless the rest of the GOP protests or otherwise actually does something.
Perhaps. But it doesn’t mean anything unless they do something. Has there been any public opposition from evangelical leaders?
Some Balloon Juicers and others have an obsession with dogwhistles even when actions are plain and overt.
Trump has laid down his religious test. Let’s see which conservatives, and others, step up to oppose him.
Quinerly
@Iowa Old Lady:
Pretty sure I read yesterday that that page on the SOS site has been scrubbed.
Aleta
@Brachiator: And even when this particular EO goes down in court, the message from the administration and the nuts on the street remains. Deterring poor immigrants and Muslims from coming, or getting them to leave, will be somewhat achieved. They don’t have to bother with legally airtight orders right now. They’re going for the special effects.
Brachiator
@Aleta:
Yes. Well said.
Trump is using dazzle, shock and awe, to create an impact, even if he loses ground in the long term.
And the other point is that the Republican leadership stands behind them. Has anyone broken ranks?
schrodingers_cat
FYI:
Immigration lawyers are answering the EO related questions
Villago Delenda Est
@Aleta:
That’s what their entire “faith” is about. Miracles, angels, thunder and lightning, special effects. They all have the collective attention span of a golden retriever who hears “squirrel”.
Jeffro
@Major Major Major Major:
I think this is mostly true…and that beating on Congress (not just our own MoCs, but starting to really pressure Republican MoCs in various ways) is probably the next step. Something like “What are you willing to embrace, Mr. Speaker, in order to get more tax cuts for your rich benefactors?” (showing pictures of Putin, smokestacks, a foreclosure sign being put up, etc). Run them in every district that isn’t glowing red + every GOP leader’s home district/state.
There’s that, and there’s also this hustle to undo everything as quickly as possible – not just the Obama years but everything since FDR. All of which Trump promised he would do during the campaign. He’ll be able to turn to his base and say he delivered, right? So many people thought he would never do the things he said he’d do…I remember how often Michelle Obama repeated Maya Angelou’s words about “when people show you who they are, believe them”.
Doug R
In The Grandest Metaphor Of The Week, An Actual GOP Ghost Train Left 30th Street Station This Morning
Gelfling 545
@Aleta: Pretty fancy words to say bigot.
Brachiator
The Department of State home page leads with this:
Commercial Diplomacy? Did it say this before Trump?
And this is what it says about the current EO:
NW Phil
@The Pale Scot:
Run down malls used to be an economic drag on the local community for years. Now they can be re-purposed in a much faster time frame.
Aleta
@debbie: I don’t think Bannon-Trump know how to build programs or communities. Could be their perspective is there’s money to be made in demolition.
Yarrow
@sharl:
I hope New Zealand revokes Thiel’s citizenship and soon.
debit
@ruemara: I have a guest room, two dogs and three cats who will all try to sleep with you if you let them. You are welcome anytime you are in Minnesota.
Brachiator
Local news stories about longtime legal residents from Southern California, out of the country on business, not being allowed entry to the US, because of their religion and country of origin.
Ruckus
@Mike G:
I believe it’s part or the first interview, you have to at least be able to act like a total asshole if you aren’t actually one, upon need, which is defined as every encounter with any non ICE personnel.
All other procedures can be taught without problem.
Suffragete City elftx
So trump releases a statement on Holocaust Memorial Day which does not mention Jews. Then signs an EO banning Muslims.
Seems to me these two acts were done with a specific audience in mind. And I’d love to know who wrote his statement.
Ruckus
@devore:
You expect tourists in this country at any time in the next 4 yrs? Why would anyone desire to travel to this country now who doesn’t have family or work here? We’ve just been turned into a pariah nation.
Which seems to be just fine with several members of the current administration.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suffragete City elftx
My guess would be Flynn.
debbie
@ruemara:
It being only one week in, I can’t believe a lot of this will still be in effect in 2018. There will be lawsuits challenging not only the constitutionality of the bans and restrictions of Trump’s orders, but also the ethics of Trump’s favoring countries with whom he’s done business. I can’t believe all of this will stand. There’s just too much and it’s all just too blatant.
Gelfling 545
It seems to me that Trump would not be too concerned about his edicts causing problems for businesses that are not his. Fewer competitors to be the greatest, richest, most billiony billionaire of all time.
Kay
It looks like a chaotic, mismanaged mess, like everything else the Trump Administration does.
IMO, the biggest vulnerability in the Trump Administration is that they are incompetent. They don’t know what they’re doing.
They seem to know they’re vulnerable on competence so are defensive and insular. That will make it worse because they’re arrogant- they won’t accept help from anyone who DOES know. No one who knows anything is even reviewing these executive orders. They’re just throwing shit out and hoping nothing bad happens.
The only people who can rein them in are Republicans in Congress, and they’re useless. We’re at the mercy of Donald Trump and the morons he hired.
japa21
GWBush did a lot of harm to this country, but a lot of it either has been or was on its way to being repaired. Not sure if the harm done in just one week can ever be repaired.
O. Felix Culpa
@ruemara: Santa Fe is a sanctuary city. You’re welcome here as well. Our house is small but cozy.
Suffragete City elftx
@SiubhanDuinne:
As Bannon seeks approval from D.Duke.
Aleta
@Major Major Major Major: Another business practice I’m reminded of is the type of developer or polluter who prefers to forge ahead, maybe have to pay a fine, rather than follow a small town law.
I think this administration’s lawyers expect to go to court and have some things struck down, but perhaps they see that as part of the process.
And then there’s that way of power negotiating where you demand more than you want at the start, to get others to settle for less. It happens in small towns without money for lengthy legal fights.
Brachiator
@Suffragete City elftx:
Local news report about a small increase in hate crimes against Chinese Americans in Los Angeles.
Oh, yes, there is a specific audience in mind.
StringOnAStick
@oldster: Well, the uni in question is just west of Denver
O. Felix Culpa
This EO has hit me hardest of all so far, especially banning refugees on National Holocaust Day. Just evil.
I’ve written both my senators since their offices are closed and will call on Monday. Any recommendations for good immigration & refugee organizations with legal chops to donate to? ACLU? International Rescue Committee? Other?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I know you are not an immigration attorney, but how is this legal. How can the terms of your visa change overnight and you be punished without even being given a chance to comply.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suffragete City elftx:
Bannon had his hands full telling the media to siddownanshuddup. Not sure he had time to draft a Holocaust Statement and a Muslim-banning EO too.
Iowa Old Lady
This is all staggering to anyone who thought US law protected them. The constitution forbids religious discrimination. Congress passed a law forbidding discrimination based on national origin. Reality feels dislocated.
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: AILA, or Association of Immigration Lawyers of America are on the front lines of this issue.
Brachiator
@efgoldman: RE: Russian parliament votes 380-3 to make it legal to beat your wife or girlfriend once per year
The BBC news report on this was sad. Russians defend this as in part rejecting Western values that allow big government to interfere in the life of families.
Arresting abusive husbands prevents couples from working out their own problems. If women and children are hurt or killed, well….
BlueDWarrior
@Iowa Old Lady: To me, this should be read as nothing more than a revolt by the revolting who want this nation to be what they think it should be, a populist mob that promotes the needs of white conservative men and those who are smart enough to kneel before them for ‘protection’.
Anything that does not support this worldview is to be destroyed and the earth upon which it stood salted, if not having radioactive waste poured upon it.
SiubhanDuinne
@ruemara:
I have tried all afternoon to come up with the right words for you. Plenty of others here have said them better. Just please keep this group in your communications and please let us know if we (any of us, all of us) can do anything to help.
Lots of {{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}} in the meantime.
Redshift
@Aleta:
Chicago School economists specifically teach that if the cost for breaking a law is less then the cost of complying with it, the correct thing for a business to do is to break it.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
The thought is that with a national ID we will all be able to be found in an instant. But your SSN was never intended to be an ID and it’s used that way constantly. To me we already have a national ID and that is the SSN. Now it doesn’t have a picture and even if mine did, I’ve had the same one for 55 yrs so that picture would be useless. Kids today get them much younger as I understand it. The IRS requires all dependents have a SSN to be clamed.
Add a picture, maybe a chip and you’ve got an ID card. All the rest of the info is already captured.
debbie
Trump’s tweeted four times today, three about NYT and WaPo’s fake news and one about the Challenger. I think his distraction trick is becoming less effective each day.
sharl
@Yarrow:
That could happen, but it’s far from clear. The opposition Labour Party is asking sharp questions, and what little public opinion I’ve seen suggests most Kiwis are opposed to Thiel’s citizenship. On the other hand, it seems clear that several highly placed government officials from the majority National Party quietly green-lighted this in 2011, contrary to standard NZ law on citizenship; exceptions can be granted to the usual law, and that was clearly done here, but it was definitely done on the q.t.
One or two of those officials who were in charge in 2011 seem to be afflicted with amnesia on the matter, and one or two current officials are all “Peter Thiel? Never heard of him!”
The journalist who broke this story (Matt Nippert) was expecting a document dump yesterday or the day before, but that has been delayed. In so many words, Nippert speculates that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is now trying to figure out how to defuse this potential PR bomb.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks! I checked their website and they seem to do good work and they don’t seem to take donations. Perhaps they’re funded via dues. I’ll look at other immigrant and refugee organizations. This edict is intolerable and inhumane. Makes me want to cry and smash stuff at the same time.
I saw there are demonstrations at JFK and possibly other major airports, but I’m too far away to join them. Will look for other constructive outlets for my rage.
nelle
@ruemara: I’m so sorry that you are going through this. You are welcome in Kansas (as soon as I get back – I’m going to test the waters and leave the country for about five weeks. I’m almost hoping that they won’t let me back in because I’m a dual citizen. But then my other country is the little country that wants to be at the cool kids table, so they might let me back).
Redshift
@debbie:
If like to think so, too, because apparently none of these executive orders have been run by the people who determine whether they’re legal, but I can’t help wondering who is going to enforce the court rulings against them. The executive branch complying with court orders of another norm that isn’t supposed to need an enforcement mechanism.
I particularly worry because he was arguably elected because GOP governors effectively ignored court rulings against their voter suppression laws.
Peale
@Kay: yep. On the plus side for you, you may be able to build an immigration law practice.
Ryan appears to have punted on taking up the issue for the sake of national security. Which I believe means we’ve got another issue that’s going to be decided by the courts for years. Wait until he starts making good on his promise to strip citizens of their citizenship and send them to Guantanamo…
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Redshift: Yeah, I fully expect this admin to take the Andrew Jackson approach to SCOTUS rulings they don’t like.
Ruckus
@scottinnj:
He doesn’t operate hotels, he owns them. Or as better thought of his name is on the documents stating he is the owner. The real owners are all those foreign banks that loaned him money, not to mention a few US banks that he still owes money to
Also he is such a fucking idiot that it is almost impossible to know what he actually does know, although the list of known has got to be far, far shorter the list of unknowns.
I’m still going with he has Alzheimer’s or some other neurological issues and that many of his closest family and advisers know this. It’s not an administration as much as it is a coup disguised as one.
A Ghost to Most
@debbie:
I’m sure a lot of Germans said the same thing in 1933.
Another Scott
@O. Felix Culpa: I did some searching a few days ago and found The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. They seem very good, but I don’t know anythings else about them.
Press Release:
I don’t know how aggressive they are, nor whether they fight things in court, or mainly concentrate on working in the trenches. But they may be worth checking out.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:
Pitchforks worked the last time.
scottinnj
@Ruckus: Mostly, I think, Trump licenses his name to most of the properties so he gets a % of the sales, and leaves the capital intensive ownership to others. Not actually unusual, most of the major hotel operators like Marriott and Hilton work that way as do most of the large restaurant chains like Wendy’s/Applebees/Dunkin Donuts. His clothing deals, for example, worked exactly that way as well.
I’m less convinced on Alzheimers but more convinced as well that he has some level on the ADHD scale. No attention span, can’t focus, agrees with last person he sees.
chris
@SFAW: That’s why I put it there :-)
Villago Delenda Est
@Aleta: Bannon wants to burn it all down, and doesn’t care how many lives are destroyed in the process.
Which is why the options on stopping him are so limited. He’s immune to reason, compassion, or humanity.
Villago Delenda Est
@scottinnj: Cocaine use since the 70’s. He’s a cokehead.
Villago Delenda Est
One of the most chilling lines from the very flawed The Phantom Menace is Darth Sidious’ reply to Nute Gunray’s question: “My lord, is that legal?”
“I will make it legal.”
debbie
@A Ghost to Most:
They didn’t have our justice system and they didn’t have social media.
MomSense
@ruemara:
Oh rue I’m so sorry. I’m in tears thinking about you having to worry. This is madness. It’s cruel. I would offer you stay with me but I don’t trust our governor at all.
Ruckus
Want to know how to beat this? Boycott. Monetary Boycott. Any company, anyone who doesn’t oppose our Republican president? Boycott.
After that a national strike.
You want the power, you have to hit them where it hurts and hitting them in the pocket book will hurt. Those congress people who will just reflexively approve of anything he wants? Boycott every company in their districts. Yes we will suffer. Aren’t we already?
We have no other means to stop this madness, that’s the way our government is set up. We can’t call for a vote of no confidence in our system we have to change the way our representatives act.
We want real change, we have to get real. Marching with no consequences other than opinion really isn’t long term thinking. Now having said that the women’s march was a great and grand idea as a first step. But we need to take it farther if we want to be successful.
Ruckus
@scottinnj:
You are correct, a lot of his power is just that big T on the building. I’d bet that big T is getting to be pretty fucking worthless these days, no reason we shouldn’t help that along to becoming a major fucking liability.
Aleta
@Ruckus: Divestment too I guess.
Citizen Scientist
@Doug R: Tell your friends. That story hasn’t gotten a ton of coverage yet here in PA outside of Philly, alone the rest of the country.
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
There seems to be questions about how he obtained said citizenship and I’d bet that the government is looking into it. They take this seriously there and I’d bet that even his money won’t help in Wellington if someone screwed up the process.
A Ghost to Most
Travel ban to be extended to dual nationality travelers
sharl
@efgoldman:
This is a good question, but even if such legal specialists are in place, initial word is that Trump bypassed the usual vetting process for Executive Orders that would “normally” be done by the appropriate lawyers (OLC = Office of Legal Counsel):
Ruckus
@sharl:
They aren’t completely daft. They know that if they run these by the legal office, they stand zero chance of the majority of them being approved by the lawyers. And of course he’s smarter than all the lawyers, he’s smarter than all of us, just ask him. IOW he doesn’t need any stinking lawyers, he’s the
head dictatorpresident.Hellbastard
@StringOnAStick: I work in the international programs office at a large Texas Uni. Obviously we’re concerned about the safety of our students and their ability to continues their studies. We’re also worried about budget cuts and staff reductions should there be a decline in our international student numbers. If there’s any justice, my co-workers who voted for these policies will have their heads on the chopping block first. Fuck ’em.
Juju
@ruemara: I have a spare room if you need it, and I am not kidding. I welcome you with open arms.
Tehanu
@Kay:
Correction: they hope a lot of really bad stuff happens — as long as it doesn’t happen to them, it’ll be big grins all over their faces.
Annamal
@Ruckus: I wouldn’t necessarily count on this, money has been a factor in allowing a number of dodgy people into NZ (see Kim Dot Com and some seriously shady Chinese business men).
Having said that, it is going to be interesting to see what the OIA turns up (I do feel somewhat for the DIA, it’s the height of summer plus school holidays here and most government departments are running on skeleton staff so I imagine pulling all the information together is proving challenging).
sharl
@Annamal: I was hoping a real live, genuine Kiwi would show up to comment on this. Your input is much appreciated.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
A national ID is the first step to government control over everything, where you work, what car you can drive, where you can live, where your kids go to school, what they get taught, everything.
Without a national ID, you can’t vote unless you’re a dog for the man… wait. Somewhere there I lost track. Let me try that again….
I dunno…
Seth Owen
@Mnemosyne: Many of those businesses are owned by immigrants, so it’s not so easy for them to shrug it off.
SWMBO
@SiubhanDuinne: Is this a call to call EVERY t***p property? How about Kushner’s paper? How about Ryan? McConnell? The rest of the Tangerine Taint’s posse? We can’t stop him but maybe we can tie up the phone/fax lines until they back down.
Ruckus
@Annamal:
Oh I know, you can purchase your way into NZ. But there is a process and some basic requirements and he seems to have just paid someone to ignore those. They aren’t even very tough if you have money. He has more than enough so at least meeting the basics should have been no problem. But nobody seems like they know anything. That isn’t right in a bureaucracy like immigration.
SWMBO
@Villago Delenda Est: So long as they jump in the flames, I can get behind that.
Annamal
@Ruckus: as I said, it might just be that this is hitting right at the tail end of the silly season and there are likely some key people on holiday (I don’t work for the dia but I know the organisation I work for has had similar trouble, compounded by post earthquake problems).