American Election Discussion

MrsGrey

So.

1. The travel ban will only apply to British dual nationality citizens if they areflying directly from the listed countries to the States. (Official FO statement last night, after Bozzer had a chat with Jared Kushner)

2. If you are British dual nationality citizen currently in Germany, you are banned from flying to the States if you need a visa. (US Embassy in Berlin has announced no visas will be issued to anyone with dual nationality citizenship of a listed country.)

Those two statements can't both be true.

OutcastLondoner

They're making it up as they go along.
If you're interested, I've collected a lot of the writing on it here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/convivencia/talking-points-trumps-muslim-ban/814153462058771

MrsGrey

outcast

They are indeed.

Part of the issue seems to me to be that Trump and his 'inner circle' are forging ahead, without sufficient input from qualified and experienced advisers. Whether that is arrogance or ignorance, who can say. But the results speak for themselves.

The problems arising from the haste/lack of care have been exacerbated by inadequate (ie no) information given to frontline staff (airports, airlines, customs and security etc) who have to try to implement it. So there is massive inconsistency about how people are being dealt with.

Then there were some successful legal challenges to deportations and detentions which were ignored.

Yet officials can describe it as a 'massive success'. (Presumably using an 'alternative dictionary.')

ASLEFshrugged

Has anyone pointed out that people from the four countries where the 9/11 bombers came from - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Lebanon - are not on the banned list?

MrsGrey

MrsGrey said:

Those two statements can't both be true.

Oh, I hadn't realised when I posted that comment that the US Embassies had all posted the same advice, not just the one in Berlin.

So, are they stringing Bozzer along? Or did he not understanding what they were telling him?

Interested to hear his statement in the Commons later.

MrsGrey

ASLEFshrugged said:

Has anyone pointed out that people from the four countries where the 9/11 bombers came from - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Lebanon - are not on the banned list?

Lots of people, yes ;ok

Some of those have also pointed out that Trump has financial interests in some of those countries.

IronHerb

Have you ever understood anything Boris has said? ;hmm

OutcastLondoner

ASLEFshrugged said:

Has anyone pointed out that people from the four countries where the 9/11 bombers came from - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Lebanon - are not on the banned list?

Plenty but don't think it's a good argument against it, as it kind of suggests in some cases the ban is ok.

The countries were actual taken from some restrictions under the Obama administration, they're not actually Trump's choices.

MrsGrey

More on the impact on UK citizens, and the apparent contradiction in what Bozzer announced and what the US Embassies are actually doing:

from the PMs spokesperson...

Britons are not getting special treatment in relation to the travel ban, the spokesman said. He said the Foreign Office statement last night about how the new US rules affected dual nationals was not intended to mean that British dual nationals were getting preferential treatment. It was meant to be a clarification of how the rules affected dual nationals generally.

A clarification? How's that working out then?

simonc

I have waited to comment on this thread until some of the dust had settled & the facts became clear. Although i disagree & do not see the benefit in this action especially since a # of obvious countries are missing from the list, this was a campaign promise so should not come as such a surprise. Obviously the implementation could have been far better.

SuzanneClaret

I have an o'level in social and economic History of the English industrial revolution.


Whilst we are sharing.

PrestonHammer

I have a bricklaying City and Guilds but I'm not letting on to Trump... ;whistle

IronHerb

I'm thick. I look up to you lot..... ;biggrin

Hammerwombat

25 yards swimming certificate, and knot tying badge in the cubs ;ok

NEoldiron

Herb, I'll tell you who I look up to -



















astonomers
;yercoat

IronHerb

Why? Are they particularly tall where you are? ;lol

grey_til_I_dye

MrsGrey

I got my life-saving certificate in swimming, for which I had to pick up a shot-put from the bottom of the pool, and swim 25m while 'rescuing' another kid in my class who was pretending to be unconscious.

grey_til_I_dye

simon

Surely, aside from the odious nature of the order, and it's frankly dubious necessity, everyone should be concerned by the amateurish way this was rushed out?

Why didn't he have advisers around him capable of telling him the inevitable consequences of such an ill-thought out and ill-prepared order?

Why have an adviser who dismisses the sufferings of many thousands as not significant?

You have a president who is clearly prepared to act first, and then not even really think much later.

That should, imo, be of grave concern not just to US citizens, but to people everywhere.

Swissiron

this is because it's a smokescreen, while all this was going on he sacked key people from the national security council and brought in Steve bannon, who can now decide on matters such as state determined assassinations, which have been possible in the US already for a while, but not as decided by a white supremacist fascist

MrsGrey

He tweeted today that it had to be done so precipitately because otherwise, if they announced it with a week's notice before it came into effect, the bad dudes would have rushed in before the deadline.

1. The 'immediate effect' aspect is really not the one that's causing the most consternation, Donald. ;doh

2. Even if it were that easy to get a visa within a week (which it often isn't), who said it had to be a week's notice?

3. And even if that rationale is valid, why where you not capable of anticipating the problems that would occur, and have put in place some plan or guidance to minimise the effects?

alderz

I would be embarrassed to be represented by him. The people who voted for him must realise how this is making them look too. Supporting him is tantamount to supporting facism, racism, sexism. A lot of my friends have told me that their family members voted for him, and they are good people. But IMO it gets to a point where, if you are still supporting him, your status as a "good person" has to be questioned.

MrsGrey

Is that Steve Bannon who said the press are 'the opposition' and that they should keep their mouth shut?

MrsGrey

Although in some good news, he has given his guys 30 days to come up with a plan to defeat Isis. (I'm not sure if they'll than have a 'Plan Off' between this new one and his old 'foolproof plan' that he said he had during the campaign.


But we should put on our happy faces, because Trump says, “I think it’s going to be very successful.That’s big stuff.”

chicagohammer

I do not profess to be an expert but on the campaign trail when he was coming out with this stuff, many people around me said that it is all very well saying it on the stump but he is going to struggle to deliver as he will have to go through congress.

Apparently not!

OutcastLondoner

So this is a very good read on a lot of the practicalities behind this and explains why they might not have cared about it being so haphazard.

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5#.qbbsr4ywq

This also goes into more detail about the legal side.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/malevolence-tempered-incompetence-trumps-horrifying-executive-order-refugees-and-visas

simonc

Alderz, I don't appreciate the insinuation, yes i am still supporting him, I may not agree with everything he is doing but he is still by far the better candidate.
I strongly resent the moral high ground that the left appears to want to occupy, those in glass houses.... Let those without sin...

alderz

Appreciate what you like, or don't.

If a person wants to stand behind that sort of policy and defend it by suggesting that someone else would have been worse, then frankly I don't care if they like the insinuation or not.

ASLEFshrugged

Now this is going to be interesting, Theresa Maybe has invited Drumph to the UK for a state visit. Brenda will plead off sick, they won't let Brian near him as apparently they've already got into a spat over climate change, the boys hate Drumph because he once boasted he could have ''nailed'' Diana and that he'd publish nude photos of Kate.

Basically he's going to meet Phil the Greek and I would love to see that.

alderz

This isn't about taking the moral high ground, it's about seeing something disgusting happening and talking against it. If someone voted for him came out and said "this is not acceptable it's not what I voted for" then I could respect that. But suggesting that it's ok because someone else would be worse is just wrong.