Donald Trump issued a surprise executive order banning the entry of Muslims from seven nations into the United States, creating chaos at airports around the world. The order may be unconstitutional – but the road to justice is long, clumsy and uncertain.
Checks and Balances Will Protect You Against Trump
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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«Donald Trump issued a surprise executive order banning the entry of Muslims from seven nations into the United States, …» Not quite, Ted – there was nothing «surpris[ing]» about that order. Nor that, for example, such Moslem-majority countries as Saudi Arabia and Qatar were not included in the ban….
Mr Trump is hardly as «unpredictable» as current mythology would have it….
Henri
PS : I note that Robert Parry has published an interesting article on this matter over at Consortiumnews….
It’s worse than just Israel and Saudi Arabia. The UK and EU agree that the secular Syrian government must go. A spokesperson for the UK government said the UK was very proud that they managed to prevent the deaths of millions of innocents in Libya, and they very much want to do the same favour for Syria, but they cannot do it alone, the US must help.
There seems to be a lot of money in Syria that the evil regime would like to go to Syrians, who are squatters when the money all belongs to the US/UK/EU, and the land belongs to Salafi Muslims who will kick out the evil Russians and hand all those military bases over to their rightful owner: NATO.
There are two free-lance journalists who write the truth about Syria, Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett. Theo Padnos got his article about the Free Syrian Army into the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Most journalists publish US/UK/EU government handouts, plus tweets from those brave documentary makers who were arrested in Port Said by the evil dictator al-Sisi for filming atrocities in Aleppo from Port Said.
«A spokesperson for the UK government said the UK was very proud that they managed to prevent the deaths of millions of innocents in Libya, and they very much want to do the same favour for Syria, but they cannot do it alone, the US must help.» As we know, Michael, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice….
Henri
People are protesting, churches are denouncing, and judges are blocking. We always seem to have trouble supporting what we’re for – but we damn well react to what we’re against.
Mein Land, richtig oder falsch!
A patriot loves his country, even when it does wrong; a nationalist follows his country, even when it does wrong.
I am a patriot, not a nationalist. Although I am sad, angry, and disgusted one.
The difference is between loving one’s country and loving one’s government.
I will always love my country and my native state of Texas, but I abhor what has become of their governments because of evil people.
🙁
Reliance on a large balance in one’s checking account is more fruitful in the maintenance of freedom than dependence on the checks and balances, these commonly assumed to be a right provided under the rule of law.
The Trump=Threat to People. I’m gonna beat a dead horse here; I’ve said this at least 100 times already. But: On Sept. 11, some people hijacked passenger jets and a lot of people died. Pres. Cheney declared war. Multiples of those several thousand who died that day have been killed since. Hundreds of thousands of people have had their entire lives ruined. Almost all of the people who have been on the receiving end of Pres. Cheney’s wrath were innocent of any actual aggression against the United States.
Herman Goring said it quite bluntly: “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
So we went to war and opened up Camp Guantanamo. And to fill it up, we offered rewards for those people who would point fingers over in Afghanistan/Iraq. We offered the equivalent of something like five years worth of earnings. And all the person had to do was point a finger and say, “Yeah, he said some stuff. I heard him.” And away you went, into a secret prison.
Then Barack Obama got elected … and not one damned thing changed. People continued to rot in that little prison. Sure, a few got released, after years of sitting there waiting for a day in court that would never come.
Let me be quite clear on this, I heard about a thousand times that “We didn’t elect a king. Obama has to work within the system.” And I would say, “He is the commander-in-chief. He has the power to issue unconditional pardons. Obama can pardon every single person in Guantanamo, right now. He can order the military to release the prisoners.”
So now Trump’s in charge. And he’s issued a diktat that has inconvenienced a lot of people and even put some people’s lives in jeopardy.
JESUS CHRIST AND ALL THE SAINTS! That’s what governments do. Cigarettes? Ever heard of them? The government fights tooth and nail to get subsidies to the people who grow cancer but then lectures us about too much soda. Take a look at the ground water in Flint. Government doesn’t care about people, government is there to maintain the civilization and improve it. When government does this well, we have libraries, hospitals, museums, schools and so forth. When they don’t, we have something like those other hellholes in the world where there isn’t enough clean water, food or safety.
Trump is running the country, not rescuing every kitten in every storm drain. Bill Clinton, Cheney, Obama, ALL of them made decisions that killed people. And the libral left couldn’t spin its head around fast enough to cheer Clinton, hiss at Cheney and cheer Obama.
If the Democrats had actually stood for something in the eight years of Obama’s presidency, possibly there would be a cohesive national party that could start working toward the more humane aspects of civilization. But that’s not what happened.
«If the [US] Democrats had actually stood for something in the eight years of Obama’s presidency, …» Had they stood for something other than obeisance to Wall Street and the neocon/neoliberal establishment, it is unlikely that Mr Trump would no be US president. On the other hand, neither would Ms Clinton….
Henri