What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[LaCroix]

well yeah not for the EU (lol checkmate merkel gl hf with china)

but it'd be kinda like USA aligning with germany pre-WW1. a fascinating scenario

[The Brain]

Germany? You mean Russia.

[celedhring]

Spanish media are reporting that the 9th circuit court has turned down the DoJ's appeal on the travel ban halt, but I can't see anything on US media. Strange.

Edit: it's now on CNN. Spanish media jumped the gun, it's just that they turned down an emergency request, without ruling on the matter.

[Richard Hakluyt]

BBC also has the appeal turned down :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38872680

The Constitution passes stage 1 of its stress test 

[garbon]

[garbon]

Spanish media are reporting that the 9th circuit court has turned down the DoJ's appeal on the travel ban halt, but I can't see anything on US media. Strange.

Edit: it's now on CNN. Spanish media jumped the gun, it's just that they turned down an emergency request, without ruling on the matter.

Well there are a lot fewer US consumers at what 1am-4am US time?

[Liep]

What is your country coming to?

Coming to meet you whether you like it or not.

After hearing Trump talk about the many killers there are this sounds a lot more menacing. 

[CountDeMoney]

Whataboutism is a typical defense mechanism for Russiapologists, but I didn't think we'd hear it from a U.S. president.

Teabagger types and America Fisters Firsters have been using this argument for years.

[jimmy olsen]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/report-bannon-had-to-be-reminded-he-wasnt-the-president.html?wpsrc=nymag

Report: Steve Bannon Had to Be Reminded He Wasn't the President Amidst Travel Ban Infighting
By Chas Danner

Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon tried to order Department of Homeland Security secretary John Kelly to not issue a waiver exempting green card holders from President Trump's travel ban executive order, according to a new report in the Washington Post. Per two Trump administration officials who spoke with the Post's Josh Rogin, Kelly ultimately rebuffed the attempt, telling Bannon that he only takes orders from the president. The president never weighed in, and Kelly went ahead and issued the waiver, which was made public on Sunday night. That waiver ended two full days of confusion and chaos around the question of whether or not permanent U.S. residents from the seven predominantly Muslim nations included in the ban would be allowed to reenter the country. The White House itself then confirmed that green card holders were exempt from the order on Tuesday.

According to Rogin's sources, Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and then Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson also banded together during a 2 a.m. phone call among White House staff on Sunday to oppose the haphazard way the president's executive order had been conceived and implemented by the White House's growing Breitbart wing, Bannon and White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller. Then during a larger meeting later on Sunday, Trump reportedly decided to temporarily suspend the issuing of executive orders until a better process — one that included more input from more White House officials — could be implemented.

If Rogin's reporting is accurate, it indicates that Bannon seems have lost an important early power struggle, though not for lack of trying. Last weekend, CNN reported that the DHS had finished a legal analysis of the travel ban order on Friday and concluded that it did not apply to green card holders, but that the White House, and more specifically Bannon and Miller, had overruled that conclusion. On Friday and Saturday, Trump administration officials ended up sending mixed signals as to whether or not permanent residents were to be allowed onto planes to the U.S., as well as whether or not they would face extra screening, or have to apply for a waiver somehow, to gain re-entry to the U.S. As a result, many of these travelers were stranded and detained, ultimately for no reason.


According to the Post report, it was on Saturday that Kelly decided to just issue the waiver exempting all green card holders from the ban, and that's when Bannon — who has previously indicated that he would like to get rid of all legal immigration — attempted to intervene, apparently for the second time, by showing up at Kelly's office and ordering him to not go through with the waiver. Rogin's reporting also ties in with this week's TIME cover story asserting that Bannon's contributions to the tumult of the new administration's first few weeks "has rattled the West Wing and perhaps even dismayed the President," and that the controversy was leading to a slowing of the pace of the new administration's agenda.

(Rogin did not contact the White House prior to publishing this story, and per a series of updates on the original post, press secretary Sean Spicer has since denied major aspects of the story. According to Spicer, there was no confrontation between Bannon and Kelly, Bannon never visited Kelly's office, Tillerson and Bannon did not participate in a 2 a.m. call that night, and it was not President Trump who approved a temporary suspension of the issuing of executive orders, but Chief of Staff Reince Priebus — and it was just new procedures he approved, not a suspension. Rogin appears to be standing by his reporting, regardless.)

Though some in the White House have tried, there is virtually no way to spin the disastrous rollout of the travel ban as a success — unless confusion, mass protests, and inner-circle backstabbing was the desired outcome. Several reports have indicated that the travel ban order was hastily and incompetently written, barely reviewed, and implemented and communicated with next to no planning. So far, the blame seems have landed on the Trump administration's Breitbart wing. And while there doesn't seem to be any evidence of Bannon or Miller's influence diminishing, there are at least some indications that other White House cabinet members are pushing to confront them.

Then again, it's also important to realize that, as The Atlantic's Rosie Gray points out, most of these unnamed Trump officials are leaking negative stories about Miller and Bannon in an attempt to limit their influence in the White House. Understanding that, the fact that they are being widely and specifically scapegoated for the travel ban fallout likely illustrates how powerful they have already become.

This post has been updated to take note of White House press secretary Sean Spicer's denials of major aspects of the story, per updates to the original Washington Post article. Josh Rogin seems to be standing by his reporting, otherwise.

[CountDeMoney]

As far as whether or not what version happened in that article is accurate, ask yourself what is more plausible:  somebody like Kelly telling somebody like Bannon and Miller to shove it, or somebody like Spicer saying it didn't happen that way?

[Barrister]

The Constitution passes stage 1 of its stress test 

I dunno - my understanding was that Trump's travel ban, though odious, appeared to be on pretty firm legal basis in general (the issue of those with greencards notwithstanding).

[CountDeMoney]

The Constitution passes stage 1 of its stress test 

I dunno - my understanding was that Trump's travel ban, though odious, appeared to be on pretty firm legal basis in general (the issue of those with greencards notwithstanding).

But when it is challenged in court, the Administration needs to make the argument that is;  they have not, and it is not the judge's job to do that for them.

This is what happens when people don't think things through with the appropriate legal research and administrative prep work.

[CountDeMoney]

New US Customs video taking the new changes in consideration

https://youtu.be/wbIXmB2ZLmA

[FunkMonk]

He actually deserves it.

Dude, SNL's bit with Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer tonight was on the minute.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/melissa-mccarthy-plays-sean-spicer-going-nuts-on-the-press-in-hilarious-snl-sketch-apologize-to-me/

Holy fuck that was great.

The cold open was good too.

President Bannon sent Donald to his baby desk 

[alfred russel]

He actually deserves it.

Dude, SNL's bit with Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer tonight was on the minute.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/melissa-mccarthy-plays-sean-spicer-going-nuts-on-the-press-in-hilarious-snl-sketch-apologize-to-me/

Holy fuck that was great.

The cold open was good too.

President Bannon sent Donald to his baby desk 

Bannon should be freaking out about those skits. You know Donald Trump is watching, and the perception that he is Bannon's bitch is something Donald won't tolerate.