90 days for spite
Trump’s thrown the new version of the Pointlessly Spiteful Travel Ban Targeting Muslims Just for the Fun of It out there. Now it’s no new visa applications from an assortment of random majority-Muslim countries, as opposed to hahaha you have to get right back on the plane and go away from here.
President Trump signed a new travel ban Monday that administration officials said they hope will end legal challenges over the matter by imposing a 90-day ban on the issuance of new visas for citizens of six majority-Muslim nations.
In addition, the nation’s refugee program will be suspended for 120 days, and the United States will not accept more than 50,000 refugees in a year, down from the 110,000 cap set by the Obama administration.
What’s the actual point of all this?
Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, sent out an email asking people to sign a petition in support of the new order.
“As your President, I made a solemn promise to keep America safe,” the email signed by Trump said. “And I will NEVER stop fighting until we implement the policies you — and millions of Americans like you — voted for.”
But guess what – immigrants from majority-Muslim countries are a barely detectable risk factor for Safe America. They’re stringently vetted before they get here, and in any case terror attacks just don’t make up a significant fraction of causes of death here. Meanwhile, Trump is working on taking health insurance away from millions of people – that right there is a much more of a blow against Safe America than immigration is. Trump is also working to undo what few gun control regulations there are. He’s also working on gutting or shutting down the EPA. He moved to make our water much more toxic. Yes that’s right: he wants us to have water that is more toxic. What was that about a a solemn promise to keep America safe again?
President Donald Trump just signed an executive order to roll back President Barack Obama’s clean water rule. That environmental regulation was issued in 2015 to give the federal government authority to limit pollution in major bodies of water, rivers, streams, and wetlands.
Death by polluted water is not as dramatic as death by gunfire or bomb, but it kills a lot more people.
So, yeah. His “solemn promise” was just more of his bullshit. He’s working to kill more of us.
Perhaps we need to start piling up the bodies of “death by polluted water” until they reach critical mass and everyone can actually SEE the carnage.
I have actually put my online Environmental Science class on hiatus for the fall because I have no idea what is going to happen, and trying to keep up with this chaos in an online class is totally impossible. And I do want students to know what is happening if the EPA goes away, or if the ESA is repealed (another favorite target of conservatives). Do I like trees more than people? You betcha. Trees don’t vote for Trump.
Of relevance: http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/steve-bannon-camp-of-the-saints-immigration_us_58b75206e4b0284854b3dc03
The point is to throw racist red meat to his base (and keep Bannon happy) while not pissing off the Muslim countries that Trump has business dealings in… the remaining six are pretty weak overall and thus have no leverage (Iran is an exception, but it’s been an adversary for so long that it doesn’t matter).
It’s transparent as fuck and makes me wonder why the white supremacists/Christofascists aren’t crying for a full-on Muslim ban in very loud voices…
So at the same time as trying to make it harder for ‘terrorists’ to enter the country he’s making it easier for the BAD GUYS who do get in – or who already in – to obtain weapons?
Makes sense!
I want to see a ban on white male Christians from the US – if he really wants to protect us from terrorists, that would seem like a more effective means.
If only those Muslim majority countries could ban Americans from invading them or bombing the crap out of them, making a desolation and calling it ‘democracy’.
If it wouldn’t make decent Americans (ie. the majority) suffer I would love to see every other nation on Earth close their borders to Americans, citing as cause the high rate of violent lawlessness within the US with special focus on civilian gun crime, a form of domestic terror unequalled in the developed (and, I suspect, developing) nations.
Acolyte of Sagan,
Actually, given its recent history of warmongering the US should be subjected to international sanctions. In comparison, Russia is a small scale offender. I’d say that America’s domestic problems are America’s business, however the country’s morally bankrupt foreign policy is an international disaster. For example Israel can arm itself with nuclear weapons and steal more Palestinian land, the US does nothing, what monumental hypocrisy.