Trump's Dumb Travel Ban EO Blocked Again - As It SHOULD BE

BWAAAAHAHA! Dat Bad Judge stop me order to pertekt the country! WAAAAAAHHH!"

Once again, the splenetic infant Donald Trump has been slapped down by a judge (this time in Hawaii) and has been pitching a hissy fit. "WAHHHAAA! We're gonna take our case as far as it needs to go, including all the way up to the Supreme Court! This is an unprecedented judicial overreach!  This ruling makes us look weak!"

The squawking brat posing as a leader was referring to yet another stinging blow to his pseudo-administration’s contentious ambitions.  The fourth judicial knockdown now in the last 50 days. In this case, Judge Derrick Watson  last night imposed a nationwide temporary stay on the travel ban that he found to be in violation of the establishment clause of the US constitution that prohibits discrimination against any religion.

As a result of the action, the midnight deadline for the implementation of the travel ban came and went without any visible impact at US airports.  This was followed early today, by a district judge in a similar case in Maryland also issuing a nationwide preliminary injunction against the ban. (The ruling is not as sweeping as the Hawaii order, and only applies to visa applicants from the six Muslim majority countries.)

Contrary to Trump's claim the Hawaii ruling "makes us look weak", the ruling actually makes us look at least relatively sane, unlike the psychotic wannabe dictator Trump. He doesn't seem to grasp now that his own earlier words are going to be used against him in assessing judicial standards and as one observer pointed out last night "A proper lawyer of his would have rushed onstage and told him to shut up!"  Indeed. But what do you expect of a half-cocked,  psychotic asshole who bandies about paranoid wiretapping claims he dredges up from pseudo-conspiracy sites? 

So no, Trump deserves no quarter and the judicial branch will give him none. Some legitimate branch, some governmental entity - needs to stop this asshole cold and his delusions to absolute power.  The dumb shit also doesn't appear to know that simply by removing one nation (Iraq) from his Muslim ban doesn't make his order legit. Indeed, it makes it less legit because it now discloses the whole thing was an artifice, contrived from the outset.

As Judge Derrick Watson wrote:

"These plainly worded statements ...betray the executive order's stated secular purpose"

The judge rightly discounted the specious reasons given by the Trumpies, i.e. that the six countries were in the grip of terrorists. Indeed, a Dept. of Homeland Security paper from four weeks ago stated emphatically there was no evidence ANY of the 6 nations sponsored terror, nada, none.

Astounded Jan Brewer on CBS this a.m.. babbled:

"This is highly unusual. Typically courts give presidents great deference on matters of national security. So this could suggest that because of his past comments courts are going to hold Trump to a different standard."

Indeed they will, because the man himself is unbalanced and was unable in the first instance to even write a proper, coherent EO faithful to the Constitution. His subsequent outbursts, never mind his EO redo, merely confirm his unbalanced, unhinged nature and bias which requires some branch of government be the adult in the room. That has to be the judiciary.

Never mind, Hitler wannabe Trump doesn't get it. Making even more unforced errors last night - after the ruling- the psycho actually floated the idea of breaking up the California-based ninth appeals circuit.  (Evoking Hitler's vows to replace the Weimar Courts with his own, back in 1933)  This was a provocative remark given that the same ninth circuit is likely to adjudicate any appeal to the Hawaii ruling.  So this asshole has once again shot himself in the foot while putting it in his mouth.

Revealing ever greater psychosis last night, Trump told the Nashville crowd that the revised travel ban was merely “a watered down version of the order that was blocked by another judge and should never have been blocked to start with”. He even suggested that he might “go back to the first one and go all the way”, indicating that he was minded to revert to the original executive order. How fucking dumb and unhinged is that, given the original "EO' provided the template to now cost him 5 straight judicial defeats (including the MD ruling this a.m.)  Clearly, this guy needs to be dispatched to a rubber room and administered electro-convulsive therapy. (Dr. Pat Bannister swears by it, especially for confirmed psychotics like Trump.)

True, this could further intensify the conflict with the courts, as Brewer suggests, but my bet is that it never gets that far. Every court will now see Trump for the deranged nitwit he is and slap him down in consecutive rulings. It will never get to the Supreme Court.

Why? Because now - as Brewer intimated- any Trump remarks will  play directly into the hands of the teams of human rights lawyers  lining up to oppose the latest incarnation of the travel ban. As such, the comments will certainly be turned against him to provide further evidence that Trump remains attached to the idea of a “Muslim ban” – a promise that he made repeatedly during the 2016 presidential campaign and which a succession of federal courts have now found to be in breach of the US constitution.

Indeed, the much higher standard is now front and center.  Judge Watson, for example,  leaned heavily on the subject of intent in issuing his ruling. He referenced inflammatory statements made by Trump throughout the presidential race that singled out Muslims and the Islamic faith as a broad national security threat.  He also referred to comments by close associates of  Trump after he entered the White House. A day after the first executive order was issued, Watson noted, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told a television show that “When [Mr. Trump] first announced it, he said, ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.’”

The judge described these remarks as “significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus” driving both the first and second order.

If Trump has any sense or sanity left in that febrile brain, he will drop this nonsensical fight as opposed to further embarrassing himself. As if his wiretap  accusations against Obama don't already disclose this nut belongs in restraints and  administered ECT. As Jim Hightower noted in his latest column, there's no more issue of doubt: Trump is deranged and the sooner we all agree on that the sooner the nation can return to some semblance of general sanity itself.

If any readers are looking for me to emulate the media and "define deviancy down" or be "beyond outrage"  in the case of Trump,  forget it. If any think I will  just smirk and laugh off his nutso exhibitions, you've come to the wrong site. I will beat on this maggot until he's driven from office, and call him out for what he is: a deranged psychotic Hitler wannabe.  Those who think this too extreme are best advised to frequent a more "moderate" site.

"If we lose our outrage, if we get used to President Trump's deviancy, then deviancy wins. In outrage at least there is hope"  - Lawrence O'Donnell last night.

Props To Aussie Jim Jefferies For Exposing Piers Morgan As Trump Toady On 'Real Time'

Aussie comic Jim Jefferies unloads on the Brit hack Piers Morgan in an exchange at the end of 'Real Time'

As the hostility between Right and Left continues to mount by orders of magnitude, largely because Trump groupies live in another world of unreality, the efforts continue by assorted media personae to try to normalize the Donald. But he can't be normalized because he isn't normal. He's a fucking brat - a three year old - in a 70 year old's body, e.g.

He's  also a loser at his new job, and even bawled that the presidency has turned out to be too much for him to deal with. Too many details, too much stuff to master for an extensive government bureaucracy.  See e.g.

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/donald-trump-stunned-to-learn-presidency-is-an-actual-j-1792215349

Excerpt:

“Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought,” begins the article, neatly capturing the blithe, criminal ignorance that characterizes both Trump himself and the many dozens of millions of morons who thought he should be the leader of the free world. Yes, being the president is a harder job than Donald Trump would expect, because Donald Trump had never previously held an actual job, because actually, spending your inheritance on a succession of failed cons is not an actual job."


 But hey, if the job is too much maybe he ought to resign. It beats wasting time tweeting and watching TV for nine hours a day when you're supposed to be doing the People's business (and that doesn't include pumping wares for Ivanka)

But never mind. Trumpie hacks continue to press the bogus case that the rest of us are "hysterical" in making the analogy of Trump to Hitler. But in a previous post I already showed the extensive personality disorder parallels, in terms of the authoritarian narcissist personality. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/10/narcissism-pre-moral-mind-and-donald-j.html


As I observed:

"The classic example is the genesis of Adolf Hitler, for example,  as documented by Robert Payne in his 'The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler'.     Therein we learn how mercilessly the young Adolf was beaten by his father Alois.  See also:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/04/research.secondworldwar

Alois, himself a narcissist at heart, vented his power  on his boy because he deemed him too needy and dependent on his mother. (A "muttersohnchen" or "mama's boy")

In the case of Trump, we've learned he was making special  "all purpose"  switchblades as a young lad that appalled his parents.  According to one site, "By the age of 13, he became a bit more than his parents could handle. They determined the best avenue for the young Donald was to send him to military school, New York Military Academy".  Without a doubt the young kid felt abandoned and probably unloved.

The effect of such treatments has been spelled out by Harvey Hornstein in his book 'Cruelty & Kindness: A New Look At Altruism and Aggression' (p. 41):

"The baggage of their youth is filled with inescapable hates and fears. Mistrusting their own impulses, they are wary of others and the impulses they might possess. Their world becomes a jungle which must be carefully scrutinized because it is filled with human beings who harbor the 'evil' that they painfully learned to deny in themselves."

Even more germane comparisons can be deduced on reading: "Hitler: The Psychiatric Files"- about which I will have more to write in a forthcoming blog post.

Thus, it was heartening last night to see near the end of Real Time (before 'New Rules')  when Australian Jim Jefferies metaphorically slapped the shit out of Piers Morgan for saying "there was no Muslim Ban".  The two had been relatively civil to each other until then - and after Jefferies first arrived on set- but Piers had been continually saying the Left and rational side needed to "take a chill pill". Maher tried is best to get Morgan to see reality, but we already know when a guy is captured in the Donald's orbit (in this case "The Apprentice") he is unlikely to come out against him.

So it was left to Jim Jefferies to dish out "licks like peas" starting with FUCK OFF!   To see the exchange in full readers can go here and draw their own conclusion. 

http://www.liberalmountain.com/us-politics/fck-off-comedian-jim-jefferies-blasts-piers-morgan-defending-trump

The choicest response to Morgan's claim Trump was no Hitler, was Jefferies' rejoinder:

"Oh, fuck off. This is what you do, Piers. You say ‘He hasn’t done this, he hasn’t done that, he’s not going to do all these things’. Give him a fucking chance mate – Hitler didn’t kill the Jews on the first day, he worked up to it.”

When Morgan called the analogy “ridiculous, hysterical over-the-top nonsense,” Jefferies got personal.

“You just like that you won The Apprentice and you have a famous friend, mate.”
Said Morgan, noting the crowd’s surprise, “You’re losing your audience because you’re sounding unpleasant…”

“Am I losing you?” Jefferies asked the crowd – he wasn’t – then flipped off Morgan.

Good on Jefferies for keeping things real and not letting Trump PR lackey Morgan get away with trying to make Trump's critics into hysterical banshees. In fact, the takeaway from history is that had the Jews in Germany become more alarmed by Hitler's antics early on, perhaps far fewer might have perished in the gas chambers. Who knows? Our task now is not to let history repeat even with assorted minor permutations, i.e. to enable an Amerikkan Fascist state.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/karin-kamp/71133/how-the-indivisible-movement-is-fueling-resistance-to-trump

Bloomberg's McArdle Makes Perfect Case To Terminate Electoral College

"In whatever spider hole in hell they've placed bin Laden, along with all the other petty tyrants of history, all of them must now be laughing. For in the days following 9/11 we grew to despise a thug terrorist who wished to destroy what it meant to be an American.

Now, in the days after Inauguration Day, 2017, we find ourselves led by a thug president bent on finishing the job."  - Chuck Plunkett, Editor of The Denver Post, Feb. 5, p. 1D

"I don’t know the best response for Americans to make to this chaos, but I do know that no action is the worst response. Americans, make some act of resistance!" - Letter writer Elizabeth Goebel, in Denver Post, Feb. 5, p. 2 D

The Electoral College had one chance, and one  only, to prove once and for all it wasn't an archaic, useless anachronism and it blew it. That chance occurred in December last year when it had the ability to specifically prevent a totally unqualified nitwit and looneytune from occupying the highest office in the land. And it fucked it up big time, let's not mince words.

Let's remind ourselves of what we already knew about Trump two months ago, in the words of blogger William Rivers Pitt:

"A man with the temperament of an earthquake, utterly devoid of self-control, with no one around him apparently capable of reining him in, a man who admittedly lives for revenge and retribution, who is completely incapable of absorbing criticism without having a very public meltdown, who knows little of the world, and who thinks nothing of throwing people who commit minor acts of dissent in prison … this man is about to be invested with astonishing legal powers."

Alexander Hamilton himself-  in Federalist #68 -  saw the need to stop such an autocratic demagogue from becoming President,  so why not an ordinary citizen elector? Especially when, as Kathleen Parker noted in a column days before the Electoral College met:

"Without consulting advisers or “sleeping on it,” for which he is not known, Trump can authorize a nuke upon the slightest provocation — or none. All previous presidents have had the same authority, of course, but all have also been experienced statesmen, nary a reality-show celebrity (nor snake-oil salesman) among them."

Hamilton for his own part was blunt and to the point and his words in The Federalist  #68  bear directly on Trump's entanglements with foreign businesses and diplomats:

"Nothing is more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to a cabal, intrigue or corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.

How could they better gratify this than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?"

Hamilton was particularly emphatic when he wrote:

"the office of President shall never fall to the lot of any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications"

"Shall never fall to any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications". The words could not be any clearer! What has also been manifested since Trump's inauguration is that he not only lacks the requisite qualifications but poses a mortal danger to the Republic. This is something that my Revolutionary War ancestor Conrad Brumbaugh would see in a heartbeat, and why he'd also agree Trump needs to be removed from the seat of power. (See my previous post).

Thus, the Electoral College failed in the one major job with which it was charged and allowed an unqualified, unstable nincompoop to become President. It became instead merely a rubber stamp for the electoral vote count and showed that because it couldn't fulfill it's prime purpose it needs to be retired to the dumpster of history.

Enter now Bloomberg News' writer Megan McArdle ('Democrats Rise Is Far From Inevitable', Denver Post, Jan. 27,  p. 1D) who actually claimed "the left's demonstrations were more impressive than its voter turnout".  Clearly missing the memo that the Dems actually turned out 2.9 million MORE voters than Trump for this past election, in favor of Hillary Clinton.  Hence, the shabby voter turnout claim is another alternative fact. But it plays into McArdle's narrative - and other pundits - that we need to preserve this anachronism. No, we do not.

This is reinforced later when she writes:

"The Democratic Coalition has self-gerrymandered into a small number of places where it can turn out an impressive number of feet on the ground but not enough votes to win the House....or the Electoral College".

But in fact it is the peculiar anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College (as well as outlandish Republican gerrymandering, to hold onto House seats) that has led to an aberration where the popular vote winner loses an election.  (As Al Gore did in the 2000 election). An aberration, by the way, present in no other Western democracy - where the popular vote is the decisive marker for winning an election.  Hence, the U.S. system is antiquated and diluted by comparison to the proper election systems of the UK, Germany, France etc. We are out of synch with those election systems, in other words, and now ours has been shown to invite demagoguery.

The only saving grace or reason for preserving it was basically snuffed out when the electors met on December 19th and punted, allowing a mentally unstable populist poltroon to ascend to power. This is exactly what the Founders feared! With that misfire, the Electoral College's only utility vanished and it effectively signed its own epitaph, though most of the nation's pundits still haven't figured that out.

The only reason to preserve an anachronism like the Electoral College was for it to act as the final fail safe to an unwise electorate committing the crime of "mischief of faction"  noted by James Madison in The Federalist #10. As Madison described it:

"Mischief of faction is when citizens - whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole - are united and actuated by a common impulse of passion to cast their votes adverse to the rights of other citizens or the permanent and aggregate interests of the community". 

This is exactly what the Trump voters did, motivated by inflamed passions and moral recklessness via Trump's often violent rallies to give a middle finger to the rest of the country - thereby militating against the majority's interests.   While most citizens' fears were speculative before Trump's inauguration, the last two weeks have shown that all were justified in spades. He has pissed on every value of the majority of voters, as well as on the Constitution with his Muslim Ban - which some Trumpies still fail to grasp by definition. They ridicule the rest of us for asserting it's a real ban-because the largest Muslim nations, e.g. Indonesia, had been excluded.  Missing the point that the ban was not about banning ALL Muslim nations but a subjectively targeted set suspected of having terrorists. In fact it targeted seven predominantly Muslim nations for punishment when none of their citizens have been guilty of any terror acts. (The Saudis were excluded from the ban, but of course, they were A-ok because The Donald has business interests there).

Also exposing the ban for the fascist imperative it is, is the 2015 study that showed "since 9/11 white, right wing terrorists have killed almost twice as many Americans in homegrown attacks than radical Islamists have..."  But, of course, this diverges from the Trumpie narrative that all the bad guys are Muslim.  But issues like this are what cause me to believe the 9th Circuit Appeals Court will find for the opponents of the specious Muslim ban concocted by Steve Bannon.

Trump went even further in pursuing the mischief of faction mandate by appointing a White nationalist to his National Security Council, as well as seven- odd "alligators" to fill the "swamp" he promised to drain. In other words, their job will be to destroy the agencies they've been hired to lead. And from the last email I've received from the Sierra Club,  e.g.

Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz just introduced a bill to ENTIRELY DISMANTLE the agency responsible for defending air, water, and human health from pollution and climate change.

that starts with the EPA.

So yes, the Electoral College and its useless, spineless electors fucked us all to a far thee well. They showed the Electoral College deserves to be disbanded and left to rot in the annals of history where it belongs.  In the process they also showed McArdle's arguments are specious on their face.

McArdle is correct that large swaths of the country are "turning redder"  but  all that means in the light of recent events, is there is more potential for mischief of faction in the future - unless the Electoral College (now a mere rubber stamp)  is abolished. It certainly doesn't mean the Democrats are becoming obsolete - given they took the popular vote by such a huge margin. (Which has prompted the unhinged Trump to protest it and actually mount a phony investigation, so bruised is his ego.)  What it means is we are allowing an anachronistic appendage to pervert democracy and the voice of the majority of voters in favor of an unelected clique who can't even fulfill their basic mandate: to protect the nation from a phony populist and demagogue. 

The Founders would be turning over in their graves now, as well as my ancestor, Conrad - who fought in the Pennsylvania Regiment against the Redcoats to prevent this very situation from happening.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/henry-giroux/71087/combating-trumps-neo-fascism-and-the-ghost-of-1984
 

Yes, There ARE More Political Posts - Because The Times Demand It

Yes, it is true that there are many more political posts on this blog than usual, for anyone keeping a tally. But I make no apologies for that because while science and math are running themes, the tumultuous times we're in demand attention to what's going on in the political world. Nearly all of this centers on the ascension of Trump and his extremist administration to power- including now making a Supreme Court  pick that could have ramifications for decades.  (See next post).

There is also the ongoing danger too many Americans may not perceive how our nation is seen from outside, and they may not read foreign news to process that - if they read at all. Thus, many may have missed the thousands protesting in the streets of London (even as many thousands protests here) to demand Trump not be allowed to visit the UK. 

Nor may they have seen that the European Council President has now - since Trump-Bannon's Muslim Ban - compared the U.S. to the likes of China, Russia and even radical Islam. According to one headline from the WSJ:  "EU Council Chief Says Trump A Threat To Europe's Future"

The EU leader Mr. Tusk said the Trumpian actions "call into questions the past 70 years of American foreign policy".  The Europeans, even more than Americans, are appalled at what has transpired and what it bodes for not only their future, but civilizations. Especially if Trump's Muslim ban triggers the "clash of civilizations" that Benjamin Barber wrote about in his book by the same name.

From day one, everything about the Trump Imperium has been in terms of 'spit in your face' arrogance as they released pseudo order after order upending the political equilibrium around the world - and now (in the words of one commentator) risking not only economic recession, but political (constitutional) crises as well and even potential war with China and North Korea. Too many still aren't processing these events, perhaps because as Alvin Toffler once put it ("Future Shock") when the pace of events exceeds a certain threshold many minds blot them out and become less aware, even responding in a kind of PTSD mode. Meanwhile, for many millions of others, interpretations of events are needed - because the vanilla, allegedly "objective" mainstream media is too often in the "see both sides" mode.

So make no mistake we are living amidst momentous events and these merit being recorded, including in a blog.  Those who might yearn for more of the math or science content can easily Google: "brane space, mathematics" or "brane space, physics" - or any permutations of these, e.g. "brane space, astronomy" and bring up previous posts devoted to those subjects. That is especially if you are tired of the focus on politics. But for others, this is where it's at right now, literally.

And as long as impacting political events are occurring I will be posting about them. When the tumult dies down a bit, well, then we will get back to the more eclectic mix of topics.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/70971/trump-crashes-on-take-off