The suzerain Trump

[Tero]

10000 Syrian refugees have settled prior to Trump. They can't leave.

[Brian Peacock]

I see there's some confusion over the figure with some go departments a using c.100,000 visas were suspended.

Meanwhile, a Seatle judge has imposed a restraining order on the executive order, applicable nationwide.

A federal judge in Seattle has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s immigration travel ban on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

US district judge James Robart granted a temporary restraining order Friday at the request of Washington state and Minnesota that’s effective nationwide...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... _clipboard

[L'Emmerdeur]

An examination of the harm a Trump presidency could do to the current balance of power in the world:

"An insurgent in the White House"

Without active American support and participation, the machinery of global co-operation could well fail. The World Trade Organisation would not be worthy of the name. The UN would fall into disuse. Countless treaties and conventions would be undermined. Although each one stands alone, together they form a system that binds America to its allies and projects its power across the world. Because habits of co-operation that were decades in the making cannot easily be put back together again, the harm would be lasting. In the spiral of distrust and recrimination, countries that are dissatisfied with the world will be tempted to change it—if necessary by force.

[. . .]

If Mr Trump truly wants to put America First, his priority should be strengthening ties, not treating allies with contempt.

[. . .]

A web of bilateralism and a jerry-rigged regionalism are palpably worse for America than the world Mr Trump inherited. It is not too late for him to conclude how much worse, to ditch his bomb-throwers and switch course. The world should hope for that outcome. But it must prepare for trouble.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Meanwhile, a Seatle judge has imposed a restraining order on the executive order, applicable nationwide.

The reaction from Trump might tell us a lot about how the next four years are going to go.

[Tero]

Iran fires missile, but Trump goes ballistic!
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/02/04 ... tions.html

[Svartalf]

well, he's the one started getting Iran ried up, let him blame itself.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Colin Kahl (Biden's National Security Advisor) was part of the discussions about the possibility of an increased presence by the US military in Yemen. He's saying that the claim by Trump's White House that the raid in Yemen was already fully planned and approved by the Obama administration is false.

"Former national security official examines the Trump-ordered military raid in Yemen"

Some Yemen facts: 1/DoD worked up GENERAL proposal for OVERALL set of expanded authorities for these types of raids at end of Obama admin

2/The broad package was discussed in the interagency in the closing weeks of the Obama term. This particular raid was NOT discussed.

3/Moreover no recommendation was made other than a recommendation to provide the next Administration with the necessary information.

4/Idea was for next team to run a deliberative process to assess risks.

5/And, critically, Obama made no decisions on this before leaving office, believing it represented escalation of U.S. involvement in Yemen

There are more points at the link.

[Brian Peacock]

Sorry. I don't pay ANY attention to articles written by IDIOTS who TRY to overload their POINT with RANDOM capitalisation.

[L'Emmerdeur]

A somewhat alarmist piece on Bannon's apparent desire for a cataclysmic event that will serve as the end of the current world order and the beginning of a new one, and how he may be pulling Trump's strings to bring it about:

"A key Trump advisor's obsession with this one book should worry everyone"

President Trump’s advisor, media mogul Steve Bannon, is on the cover of this week’s Time Magazine, and in the piece it is revealed that Bannon deeply believes in a theory about America’s future laid out in a book called “The Fourth Turning: What Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny.”

This is a fact that should concern every American.

In the book, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe theorise that the history of a people moves in 80-100 year cycles called “saeculum.” This is an idea going back to the ancient Greeks. They believed that at a given saeculum’s end would come “ekpyrosis,” a cataclysmic event that destroys the old order and brings in a new one in a trial of fire.

This era of change is known as “The Fourth Turning,” and Bannon, like Strauss and Howe, believes we are in the midst of one right now.

[. . .]

[Bannon] believes that, for the new world order to rise, there must be a massive reckoning. That we will soon reach our climax conflict.

In the White House, he has shown that he is willing to advise Donald Trump to enact policies that will disrupt our current order in order to bring about what he perceives as a necessary new one. He encourages breaking down political and economic alliances and turning away from traditional American principles to cause chaos.

In that way, Bannon seems to be trying to bring about The Fourth Turning.

Bannon has never been secretive about his desire to use President Trump to bring about his specific vision of America. He told Vanity Fair last summer that Trump was a “blunt instrument for us… I don’t know whether he really gets it or not.”

[. . .]

“The Fourth Turning” envisioned by Howe and Strauss requires a return to an agreed upon set of values, but millennials and the GOP (or Bannon for that matter) couldn’t be farther away from one another. For one, millennials are the most diverse group in US history — 43% of them are nonwhite. Most do not share Bannon’s vision for ethnic conflict.

“The Fourth Turning” is the story of our country unifying against internal struggles and an outside threat. The authors describe it as the natural course of history, as something that just falls into place. Instead what we are seeing, with Trump’s travel ban and his threats against Mexico and China, is the creation of enemies — enemies many Americans don’t want to have.

Instead of uniting us, Bannon’s belief in “The Fourth Turning” is dividing us. This is dangerous, uncharted territory. What comes next, is as always, yet unwritten.

[Brian Peacock]

Great. Another death-seeking apocalyptian. Just what we need.

Religion has a lot to answer for.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Great. Another death-seeking apocalyptian. Just what we need.

Religion has a lot to answer for.

I don't know whether Bannon is particularly religious, or if he merely sees religion as a tool that will help him (through Trump) to manipulate Trump's followers, and promote Bannon's personal vision and agenda. Vox has an interesting piece about statements he made to a Vatican conference in 2014.

I certainly think secularism has sapped the strength of the Judeo-Christian West to defend its ideals, right?

If you go back to your home countries and your proponent of the defense of the Judeo-Christian West and its tenets, oftentimes, particularly when you deal with the elites, you’re looked at as someone who is quite odd. So it has kind of sapped the strength.

But I strongly believe that whatever the causes of the current drive to the caliphate was — and we can debate them, and people can try to deconstruct them — we have to face a very unpleasant fact. And that unpleasant fact is that there is a major war brewing, a war that’s already global. It’s going global in scale, and today’s technology, today’s media, today’s access to weapons of mass destruction, it’s going to lead to a global conflict that I believe has to be confronted today.

I for one am really glad that the terrible, terrible hawk Clinton didn't get elected. She might have brought some creep into the White House who wanted to immanentize the eschaton.

[Brian Peacock]

You don't have to be religious to be a death-seeker, but it helps.

[Svartalf]

religion is a form of insanity, but it's not the only mental disorder that can lead one to being suicidal, including violently so.

[NineBerry]

[Brian Peacock]

@realDonaldTrump
The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!

Hmm. Does he really think he's an absolute monarch, that he doesn't need to act within the law, or that his decrees and ordinances should be immune from critical insight and legal scrutiny?