You've Been Trumped!

[hippifried]

There's all kinds of stupid shit happening right now. As entertaining as it is, it's just a smoke screen. While you're fixated on the White House antics, Paul Ryan is in a big hurry to hand Social Security & Medicare over to the same Wall Street geniuses who brought us the panic of 2008. Gotta set priorities.

[Stavros]

There's all kinds of stupid shit happening right now. As entertaining as it is, it's just a smoke screen. While you're fixated on the White House antics, Paul Ryan is in a big hurry to hand Social Security & Medicare over to the same Wall Street geniuses who brought us the panic of 2008. Gotta set priorities.

I understand your point, and agree with it, but I also think it is wrong for people to dismiss what Trump says because it is all for show, and that the real deal is the way in which Congress and the Supreme Court will examine and filter his policy proposals. Indeed, the New York Times today argues that a legal judgement by Justice Scalia may prevent Trump from building the wall he wants. The article is here-
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/o...ft-region&_r=0

However, words do matter, for two reasons. The first is the practical one, such as Trump trashing the reputation of a company whose value on the stock market plummets, while vultures eagerly buy up valuable stock at bargain prices.

The second is a matter of tone, for Trump is not just Chief Executive with all that implies with regard to policy making, he is the Head of State and represents the USA in the world. For years we have had Presidents who had a degree of gravitas and poise, but never a man who was so rude and indifferent to the world around him. For all the ridicule he received when he entered office, Ronald Reagan had experience of public office and knew how to deliver a stinging speech that made its points, but also had a sense of humour, something Trump lacks. George W. Bush was similarly mocked for his mangled English when he entered office, but was visibly crushed by 9/11 and deserved the sympathy of the world, whatever happened after that in Iraq. One thinks of the way other Presidents have held themselves, for example both Mary Robinson and Michael Higgins have presented Ireland on the world stage with a balance of humility and grace unthinkable in a man like Trump, and in Robinson's case when Ireland's reputation was sullied by outrageous acts of violence committed in the cause of a 'United Ireland'.

So yes, let us wait and see how the deals pan out, but we cannot ignore the man with a mission, urged on by some seriously nasty people who are unaccountable to the public.

[hippifried]

I never said "dismiss" anything. But the President's unilateral actions are reversible. Congress has the ability to cause real & permanent damage. Paul Ryan is an Ayn Rand crazy. Let that sink in for a few minutes or years. He's the second most powerful person in the US.
He's working his way through the circus crowd, picking pockets, while everyone laughs at the clown car.

[martin48]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc

The Netherlands welcomes Trump

[martin48]

My contribution

[Stavros]

A century ago the Ottoman provinces of Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus took in Christian Armenian refugees from the genocidal massacres that were taking place in Anatolia; they gave them food and shelter, they gave them a new chance in life. Today Syria is creating refugees in their millions, but the USA has decided only some Christians will be allowed entry into the US. And, as has been pointed out, Trump signed the order on Holocaust Memorial Day:

In 1939, the German oceanliner St Louis and its 937 passengers, almost all Jewish refugees, were turned away from the port of Miami and sent back to Europe. Of those passengers, 254 were murdered in the Holocaust. The US government turned away those refugees, so heartbreakingly close to safety – and also restricted Jewish immigration and instituted new vetting procedures – because of rampant overblown fears that the Nazis might smuggle spies and saboteurs in among the Jewish refugees.

On Friday, which was Holocaust Remembrance Day, The White House put out a statement that failed to mention the 6 million Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis. Hours later, President Trump signed an executive order suspending all refugee resettlement for 120 days and indefinitely suspending the resettlement of refugees from Syria.

Full article is here-
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...emembrance-day

[Laphroaig]

The executive order is already having an effect.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38781420

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38783512

[hippifried]

The executive order has been enjoined.

[flabbybody]

The executive order has been enjoined.

.....by some Brooklyn Federal judge. They can't be deported but they're still being detained. very confusing.
Guess this is how it will be for the next 4 years. POTUS signs an order and a court overturnes it.

[Stavros]

Having said nothing on the issue, and facing damnation by association, Mrs May yesterday declared the government 'does not agree' with the Executive Order imposing the ban, and instructed Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to clarify the issue with their US counterparts (Homeland Security and State respectively), which in practice, as the counterparts do not yet exist, meant Johnson talking to Steven Bannon and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner -and appear to have proved the 'Special Relationship' exists as UK citizens with dual citizenship will not be banned from entering the US unless they arrive directly from one of the countries on the list.
The Foreign Office has issued the clarification in the link below via the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38789821