Constitutional Law, Courts, Politics

Trump Says Administration Will Issue New Immigration Order Next Week

donald_trump_president-elect_portrait_cropped200px-US-CourtOfAppeals-9thCircuit-Seal.svgPresident Trump said today that  he will sign a new immigration executive order next week and that he  would appeal the 9th Circuit Court’s ruling against his travel ban.  He further called the Ninth Circuit a court “in chaos” and “turmoil.”  I do not see the chaos or the turmoil on the Ninth Circuit, which is the largest circuit in the country.  One can certainly disagree with the decision on the executive order, but the panel decision was a good-faith decision of three judges who unanimously ruled against the order on the effort to stay the lower court’s temporary restraining order (TRO). Update: there appears another disconnect between the White House and the DOJ. In today’s filing the DOJ requested that the Nunth Circuit vacate the prior order because the new order will rescind and replace the old order.


President Trump stated that “That circuit is in chaos… that circuit is in turmoil.” There is a move to divide the Ninth Circuit, which has been long discussed. Under one plan, the new Ninth Circuit would be largely California — something unique in the nation where circuits cover multiple states.  Under the Senate proposal, Oregon, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Marianas would join California.  That means that the circuit would be composed almost exclusively of judges from one state.  Indeed, California alone produces as many or more appeals than the entire Fifth Circuit (the second largest circuit).

It is important to acknowledge that the Administration, while prevailing in Boston, suffered a second defeat in Virginia recently.  Virginia is part of the Fourth Circuit.
President Trump insisted that the Executive Order or its rollout were not a problem and that the Administration is a “finely tuned machine.”  He insisted that the problem is a “bad court.”  I obviously do not agree on the drafting or the rollout.  Moreover, while I disagree with basis for the opinion, I do not attribute the result to the Ninth Circuit being an outlier among the circuits.
The dual track approach on the appeal makes sense.  The original executive order was poorly drafted, poorly executed, and poorly defended.  The Administration would greatly improve the order by taking obvious steps like an express exemption for green card holders. This is not to say that the law does not favor the Administration. In my view, it does.  I thought that the Ninth Circuit opinion was quite weak and impressionistic.
The Administration could effectively moot aspects of the earlier appeal while continuing to appeal other aspects.

169 thoughts on “Trump Says Administration Will Issue New Immigration Order Next Week”

  1. Mexican lawmakers threaten retaliation against Trump

    Feb. 16, 2017 – 4:55 – Strategy Room: Sarah Badawi and Charmaine Yoest discuss Mexican lawmakers retaliation to Trump’s border plans by attempting to target American corn farmers.

    First they didn’t say which Mexican politician and how many etc. There are at least seven parties and the most vocal are the least effective. So let’s follow the bouncing ball.

    Mexico was the USA Corn Farmers largest costumer after a few others.

    1. Megacorps like Midland, Daniel, Archer who make most of the food stock additives for livestock and people and much of what you buy on the grocery shelves for home consumption. The first part of that really does feed the world with a few MDA bribes as we’ve found out.

    2. Foreign Aid shipments

    3. Ethanol or corn liquor which has no practical useful purpose

    Mexico relies on the US Corn Farmers to produce much of the meat for human consumption via turkeys. turkey ham turkey this turkey that it turns carbohydrates into a useful source of protein.

    So the worst that could happen and some say the best is corn production from one of those users gets split up among the other three consumers.

    Not a credible threat so it can’t be the leading party(s) in power just their version of Democrats.

    People in the news really out to do a little fact checking once in a while.

    1. Took a break and had coffee with my friends down here and asked their opinion of the big boycott of US Corn? Basically as translated “Where did you hear that – Are you crazy?” What would we eat.” Then they repeated the same thing I posted above. There guess was the same as mine. The lawmakers in Mexico translated into a very few belonging to a party who is a lefter shade of pale and not well regarded. Even the local socialiist group wasn’t that estupido.

  2. The 9th circuit court is viewed by half the country as a joke. It’s not how a fellow attorney views them but how the public that votes view them. The immediate response fron Anon should tell you that and that’s from the other now less than half of the country.

    Anon like the rest of the fascist left is serving a useful purpose in targeting themselves. We have no idea what the 9th circuit is doing since they failed to address the issues involved but focused on the issues that served only to let themselves be led around by their tweets

    Not a stellar performance at all. Duck, run, hide, pass the buck and quack like a duck but ….it served the purpose, exposed the hate and war mongers and got the ball rolling to get something done. Doing something is something they haven’t managed to accomplish in how long – or something? Pace is picking up so the stupids are I read going on vacation. Wow it’s been not quite a month and they are throwing in the towel all ready?

    This is going much better than I envisioned? So… let’s see what the white ID extremist left has to say, have a good laugh and then a good weekend?

    1. So Trump is viewed by the more than half the country as a joke… a very very bad one. I doubt half the country even knows where or what the ninth circuit is.

      1. True. The (less than) half of the country that views Trump as a joke also doesn’t know basic facts such as what part of the country over which the 9th Circuit has jurisdiction.

        Thanks for stating the obvious. Your fellow travelers are a bunch of idiots.

  3. Wonder what kind of a toxic brew he is going to cook up this time. ICE is getting really nasty.

    1. How nasty is ICE compared to Mexico? Mexican law provides for two years prison for the first offense of illegal border crossing, ten years prison for the second conviction?

      Mexico’s top earners pay the lowest taxes of all OECD countries. Rather than Mexico’s top earners financing a safety net for their fellow poor citizens, Mexico’s top earners export their poverty to the USA, to the tune of between 10-15M illegal Mexican immigrants. (I don’t blame the immigrants. I blame the US government. Generally, the strongest and bravest come here illegally over the border. If the USA prevents the bravest, strongest, and most able males from coming here illegally, they are stuck in Mexico’s poverty, and would otherwise do whatever is needed to improve their lot in Mexico. If they have to burn Mexico City to the ground to get their slave master owners to improve life for them, so be it. Illegals working in the US lowers wages for US citizens.)

      If it’s OK for Mexico to export financing of its poor to the USA, let’s eliminate the US safety net and export our poverty stricken to Canada.

      1. Or Tierra Del Fuego and let them start over again. We can call it the Nine Country Circuit. last sentence of the next to last para. When will the unions stop supporting the illegals and artificially depressing wages? When? When Davis Bacon is repealed and there is no more tax dollar laundering.

  4. To make a claim, one should present evidence. What is Trump’s evidence that, “That circuit is in chaos… that circuit is in turmoil.”? Making a ruling he doesn’t like is not evidence of chaos and turmoil.

    His administration did a very poor job with their order and their argument. He should stop taking the Hillary approach to his presidency (everything that went wrong was someone else’s fault). Man up, recognize reality and do a better job. It’s really that simple.

    This is an interesting article on the cult of personality surrounding Trump:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-16/trumps-sheeple

    It is unhealthy not to recognize when Trump isn’t doing the things he should. He needs to pull things together. Although I do not see how anon’s presentation of Greenwald’s statement about the deep state applies in this situation, it most certainly does in others. Trump needs to adopt a no excuse administration. He needs to pull it together, right now. He isn’t dealing with pikers in the deep state.

    In the meantime, those of us who oppose the deep state and Trump’s policies should peacefully oppose both.

    1. Jill – when you have lived in the Ninth Circuit as long as I have (52 years) you know that Trump speaks truth to power. The Ninth is choatic, their decisions are like watching the balls on a pin ball machine set off lights. They are all over the place. And they are usually overturned. The Western States have wanted their own district for a long time. Maybe now we will get it.

      1. I don’t know if this happens now but one fix would be to make the justices on the circuit courts rotate to other districts. Then require them to have sat on a of minimum 3 different district courts to be eligible for US Supreme Court.

        1. Olly – check the Constitution for requirements to be a justice. Congress cannot add to the requirements. They can only change the size and number of courts.

          2. Paul how many times have we posted the requirements to be a Supreme?

            Let me be blunt. You can be a 12 year old Martian triple gendered with an equivalent first grade education Gender, education, age, literacy level none of that matters one jot.

            Nomination
            Confirmation

            Those are the only two.

            Prez nominates whomever

            Any other requirements for ‘vetting’ are set by the Senate and the Senate only and if they decide a 12 year old Martian triple gendered with an equivalent first grade education is OK then meet your new Supreme Court Justice.

          3. Only the Supreme Court has no qualifications. The rest of the Article III Courts are statutory. Yes, they have minimal qualifications.

            1. OMG it’s the fricking left wing fascists again. Is that supposed to be Pelosi, Shumer, Soros, Adolf, Lenin, or one of the Clintons? The resemblence is amazing!

              Seig me no heils comrade we don’t serve the party but we laugh at fools!

      2. Amen to that idea. What did the rest of us do to get saddled with those numbnu…skulls.

    2. Very difficult to oppose both, since we may well agree with some of what Trump is trying to do particularly regarding the CIA neocon faction of the deep state. The EO is now a small(ish) part of a bigger issue; namely that the CIA and many in the DNC want to take Trump out and are willing to have Pence as a replacement. One might like to be rid of Trump, but think what that will do to our Democracy. It won’t end with Trump.

      Trump is what he is, but it’s equally noteworthy that none of the last 6 presidents could easily handle the same level of directed animosity from the deep state that Trump is being subjected to. I suspect Trump, if only by being part of the elite, has a pretty good idea that Russia did not “invade” Crimea, not to mention that he has knowledge of who was responsible for the Coup in Ukraine. But to go up against the Deep State and it’s efforts to tie his hands with the stigma of being in bed with Russia, he would have to make this information public along with the whole fake story of Russian hacking, or continually dance atop a framework of lies (which is what they are -probably correctly- counting on), and establishing the truth to the public would be a very difficult giant leap, even conceptually, given the amount of propaganda we have been force fed on the subject for the last four years. This ties in to Syria and the rest of the Middle East as well.

      This Deep State assault on Trump’s very fitness to be president explains at least in part why Trump keeps harping back on Hillary and and tries to imply (without coming out and saying so directly that) the Russian Hacking is a bogus story and she is involved. But it also delineates what Trump feels his boundaries are; that is, the limits to which he can be open, and that may be his biggest Achilles heel going forward. I suspect Trump does actually realize just how precarious our current situation with Russia is, but he also looks like a weak individual who is cruising on a self inflated image and -assuming he isn’t replaced with Pence – will likely cave under the continued pressure and dirty tricks. Ultimately, he will toe the neoconservative line of insanely ratcheting up tensions with Russia rather than winding them down. His “deals” will have less to do with restoring sanity to foreign affairs and become more and more related to what ever personal gain he can get from being president as long as he plays along.

      As Greenwald points out in the above video, many of the items high on Trump’s agenda are truly horrible to many, such as the direct attack on the social safety net and the poor, the deregulation of the few paltry residual rules that managed to survive in Dodd Frank, or the head on assault against global warming. But for the Democrats to applaud any effort by the deep state to render his presidency impotent or get rid of him all together is even greater insanity going forward.

      1. Hard choice between what many view as an unstable vindictive dictator and the deep state for some…….Pence, a hard core right wing republican would become president. Many dems fear him more. The FBI’s inappropriate disclosures about the democratic nominee so close to the election were mainly applauded on this blog and elsewhere so there is that. Trump,himself, applauded the interference and the leaks. Hard to see how any of this turns out well.

        1. There are none so blind
          As he who will not see

          AND THEN some never wake up and keep on playing stupid. It’s a disease curable ony by coughin-ing

      2. Trump also looks as though he has realized the implications of throwing him under the bus. Pence looks stronger, Trump weaker. Also, everyone in Trump’s team, not to mention those who might otherwise have considered it, is now on notice just how expendable they are. Not good for morale. Defending Flynn now is weak tea indeed.

        2. B BRIDGE…
          -I’m wondering if Trump opponents view him as expendable.
          From a political view, I think there’s something of a dilema for those opponents.
          Your mention of Pence got me thinking about the calls for impeachment, which started on Jan. 20.
          If there is….or if it develops….that the House support for impeachment reach a “critical mass”, where impeachment becomes a real possibility.
          A.Do Trump opponents gain more from a Trump administration under siege and crippled?
          Or B. do they remove Trump, and “risk” a Pence presidency that may be much tougher to undermine?
          I think that the former is more likely than the latter; I don’t see a serious push to actually try to remove Trump from office.
          Too many of his opponents may well conclude that “A” will better serve their political purposes.

          1. Aren’t you forgetting it isn’t Demo vs Repo or DINO vs Rino anymore. Denial of the true source of demonstrated power will win us more votes and more support but do little to support worn out fallacies and false premises.

            There is NO Democratic Party any more other than what the media denier fabricate. There are the left wing extremists mostly white ID, National and International Socialists and secular regressives, a group of viable if theywould get their heads out of their asses and do something afro americans, latino americans etc. who should have taken the DNC over already – what’s left of it. The greens and the steadily building Independent Democrat Council break aways looking for a coalition deal with the Constitutional Republic faction.

            The Rinos did a commendable job down ballot but abandoned their party at the federal level AND go tthe crap kicked out them. By virtue of already being in office they like the same group of Dinos are trying to hold on to the past. Not going to fly.

            We also kicked the crap out of the RINOS and they lost a huge amount of support. So what you had on Nov 8th was a big mother counter revolution with three goals. Beat the Clinton Faction into the ground and stomp them into the mud, Destroy the Democrat Socialists, destroy the Republican Socialists. Didn’t do a half bad job for first time at bat in 100 plus years.

            From out perspective it’s still a building year and it’s still open season on RInos to Dinos with McCain emerging as the principle target and the Alaskan and Hawaiian group. About 20-30 running scared DINOs who are jumping ship and the formation of the Constitutional Republic Party firmly based on a foundation of representative democratic principles.

            As for those that want to waste their money ….be my guest. Starting with the left wing press and including left wing extremists the racists, sexists and bigots who can’t spell much less understand Constitution and Bill of Rights.

            Deguello! The fat lady hasn’t chosen her music much less began to sing.

          2. What really suffers is the Democracy. Whatever one thinks of Trump, Taking out (meaning impeaching and convicting) a duly elected President for cooked up reasons would do unrecoverable damage to our Democracy.

            So my answer to your question is that neither side would benefit in any real terms. Once the precedent is established, hello Banana Republic. Democrats are still smarting from their defeat. They are acting downright insane.

            1. Democrats have no power as is often pointed out here. They chair no committees nor do they head any agencies. Should Trump be impeached it will be because Paul Ryan has had enough and thinks the Republican Party would be better served by his bff, Pence.

              1. Democrats have much more power behind the scenes than you may realize and particularly individuals within the party who have strong ideological, financial and personal ties to members of the deep state and to giant transnational financial institutions. What you may also be unaware of is just how closely their interests align with those of Republicans such as McCain and Lindsey Graham.

                1. Glenn Greenwald ‏@ggreenwald Feb 15

                  1) Trump presidency is dangerous.
                  2) CIA/DeepState abuse of spy powers to subvert elected Govt is dangerous.

                  “One can cogently believe both.” Ii do. Greenwald has something up about a report on Trump using the National Guard to deport people.The White house has denied it. Scary man……

                  1. The Associated Press Verified account
                    ‏@AP

                    “BREAKING: Trump administration considers mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants.” Though we could at least go a year before the camps started.

                    1. What should our immigration policy be regarding the length of time someone should be allowed in our country illegally?

            2. B. Bridge…
              – Political Genius and Overrated Slob Michael Moore just called for Trump to step down.
              Trump is an easier target than Pence…
              I don’t think Trump opponents want a Pence presidency, since a weakened Trump administration is ( politically) a greater benefit.

              1. You have a devious mind 🙂 and you may well be spot on with that observation. But then again, maybe not. The Dems are still in disarray and they are having a hissey fit about not getting their way. So I suspect that those deep in the Dem party are going full tilt (get rid of Trump if possible) whether or not it makes functional (or strategic) sense. And, they are beholden to the deep state, and the deep state, I think, is truly uncomfortable with Trump (too much of a loose cannon from their POV) and have been eyeing Pence for some time. Trump may avoid the worst, but he will be either weakened or removed. Pence is waiting in the wings and I suspect is fully or at least partially aware of what’s going on. He will play Cheney’s part (the real President in the background) if Trump is rendered more or less ineffectual or he will actually become president if Trump doesn’t get it right in his mind.

                I confess, I don’t see where Michael Moore has any part in this.

            3. BB,

              I’m very glad to see you are commenting again! Yes, Democrats are acting insane, dangerously insane.

              Have you read Jeff Sharlot on “The Family”? Hillary is a member and so is Pence. The ties between those two are much deeper than the superficial position of Pence being Trump’s VP.

              In response to another article I wrote in agreement with you about our Democracy. I can’t stand Trump but I will stand by a civilian govt. any day over the deep state dictatorship.

              1. Jill, thanks for such a kind remark and for the Sharlot reference. I’ll put “The Family” on my reading list (I’ll likely skim since these things get me down). I do remember hearing about this “fellowship” but didn’t realize it included Pence and Hillary. Not surprised. This is the sort of thing that helps when you think you have the puzzle solved and then the players do something totally out of character. The business model and relentless corporate profits only go so far; these elite are also humans with human idiosyncrasies and such groups will both satisfy a human need as well as amplify human quirks.

                All political systems seem vulnerable and and our particular version of Democracy, with all it’s strengths, is no exception. It has been unable to deal effectively with repeated and relentless efforts to superimpose (bolt on) monopoly Capitalism on top of it, not to mention such groups as these.

                  1. 🙂 🙂 Great pick me up! BTW, I did read enough to know we are talking about an insane, violent, apocalyptic cult. I find the apocalyptic cult part hard to fit Hillary into though, toxic as she is.

        3. You are about six hours and twenty five cents behind the times. President Trump is still leading you around by the tweetsies. None of the news or the left wing programmers have caught up to what was common knowledge two weeks to two months ago. Quack Quack.

          1. Michael A.
            – Two weeks ago, I don’t think there was hard evidence publicized that Gen. Flynn had discussed sanction removal with the Russians.
            Announcing that recording/ transcripts of the calls sealed Flynn’s fate, but I don’t think that was revealed two weeks ago.
            Another recent ( I think within the past 3-4 days) allegation is that Trump campaign aides were in contact with Russian intelligence agents during the campaign.
            These two recent developments were “game changers” as far as the seriousness of the allegations.

  5. Most legal experts agree that the President’s best course of action on this issue is for the President to issue a new and better crafted EO. JT has said this before as well as here, and Alan Dershowitz has said the same as well.

    Here is what JT previously said in an interview, and as described in an article from Prison Planet about JT’s commentary on the original EO (see link below):

    “Well, it was a poorly crafted executive order, and it was a terrible rollout,” Jonathan Turley said. “But I still think that the law favors the administration once you get to the merits. I don’t agree with many of those, some of those cases. But the courts have been highly deferential to the president, and they generally don’t second-guess. I think the people also have to acknowledge that the Trump administration here is making virtually the identical argument to the Obama administration.”

    See text and video: http://www.prisonplanet.com/turley-trump-making-same-arguments-as-obama-in-defense-of-immigration-executive-order.html.

  6. I live in the Ninth Circuit and it is the most overturned circuit by far. It is almost as if the SC takes a special joy in knocking over one of their decisions. They have been talking about breaking up the Ninth since I moved to Arizona in the early 60s. It is still there and it is still chaos. Everything the President says about the Ninth Circuit is true.

    1. Paul, I think the time is more than ripe to break up what many conservatives have called the “Nutty Ninth” (and they weren’t talking about Beethoven’s Symphony).

      See, for example: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/02/want-to-take-back-our-sovereignty-start-by-breaking-up-the-ninth-circuit

      And I think that the rationale for a breakup goes far beyond ideology. There are many sound logistical reasons for breaking up the Ninth Circuit.

      1. It depends on one’s worldview whether the 9th Circuit Court is chaotic or congruent. If you measure it by constitutional standards, they are Black Bloc in robes.

  8. It is interesting to read the New York Times followed by the Washington Times or the Washington Post followed by Fox News. The NYT and the Wapo are left leaning and the WTimes and Fox are right leaning. Lately the Washington Times and Fox News have been going neutral regarding our Buffoon in the White House. It is almost that they are embarrassed to have to print that in response to Flynn getting sacked, the Buffoon says that the real issue is the leaks, or that Flynn got caught. DDT is tripping over his tongue. Even his side of the media coin can’t help him. He is an idiot that is learning on our nickel. A liar and a hypocrite, DDT is continuing to appoint billionaire pals to the most important posts, as this stockbroker to analyze our security systems, or to make sure DDT only gets to hear what he wants to hear, what he agrees with at the moment; at the moment as he changes with the wind.

    There is a point where a leader can be effective because he or she is unpredictable. Then there is a point where being unpredictable illustrates incompetence. DDT has been incompetent all his life. He, like Bush, would never have made it without family money and like Bush, DDT failed many times. This Buffoon caters to the mega rich, is next to illiterate, and is a pathological liar. DDT has got to go. Like the pesticide, it seemed like a good idea but turned out to be cancerous.

    2. STILL butt hurt your candidate lost? It warms my heart to see you so upset and unable to cope w/losing.

        1. There you go looking in the miirror seig heiling yourself again. Are all leftists so imibecilic?

    3. HEY the left wing fascist warmongering racist sexist bigots of the extreme left are back with new programming. Ok that’s enough back to serious conversation.

  9. The FBi did not want Clinton. The CIA does not want Trump. Maybe both agencies will be comfortable with Prez Pence.

    1. And Trump’s billionare pals won’t care because they will still get their tax cuts with Pence.

      1. Effectively, the sum total net difference between Trump’s tax cuts and Obama’s $10T debt increase (doubled by the lying hypocrite who cursed Bush’s Congress raising the debt ceiling) is who gets to spend the money.

        Obama’s method is defined by POTUS picking and choosing financial winners and losers. Trump’s method allows the citizens and corporations to pick and chose their own winners and losers.

        Both practices increase the debt, but Trump’s method moves spending “choice” away from Congress and POTUS to the hands of those who originally paid the taxes.

        It’s interesting that Progressives are only “Pro Choice” when it comes to taxpayer paid unborn baby murder (allowed by Roe v. Wade as long as no baby body part has exited the vagina).

    1. “Greenwald: Empowering the “Deep State” to Undermine Trump is Prescription for Destroying Democracy”

      GLENN GREENWALD: The deep state, although there’s no precise or scientific definition, generally refers to the agencies in Washington that are permanent power factions. They stay and exercise power even as presidents who are elected come and go. They typically exercise their power in secret, in the dark, and so they’re barely subject to democratic accountability, if they’re subject to it at all. It’s agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world’s worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads. This is who not just people like Bill Kristol, but lots of Democrats are placing their faith in, are trying to empower, are cheering for as they exert power separate and apart from—in fact, in opposition to—the political officials to whom they’re supposed to be subordinate.

      And you go—this is not just about Russia. You go all the way back to the campaign, and what you saw was that leading members of the intelligence community, including Mike Morell, who was the acting CIA chief under President Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and the NSA under George W. Bush, were very outspoken supporters of Hillary Clinton. In fact, Michael Morell went to The New York Times, and Michael Hayden went to The Washington Post, during the campaign to praise Hillary Clinton and to say that Donald Trump had become a recruit of Russia. The CIA and the intelligence community were vehemently in support of Clinton and vehemently opposed to Trump, from the beginning. And the reason was, was because they liked Hillary Clinton’s policies better than they liked Donald Trump’s. One of the main priorities of the CIA for the last five years has been a proxy war in Syria, designed to achieve regime change with the Assad regime. Hillary Clinton was not only for that, she was critical of Obama for not allowing it to go further, and wanted to impose a no-fly zone in Syria and confront the Russians. Donald Trump took exactly the opposite view. He said we shouldn’t care who rules Syria; we should allow the Russians, and even help the Russians, kill ISIS and al-Qaeda and other people in Syria. So, Trump’s agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted. Clinton’s was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they’ve been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him. There’s claims that they’re withholding information from him, on the grounds that they don’t think he should have it and can be trusted with it. They are empowering themselves to enact policy.

      Now, I happen to think that the Trump presidency is extremely dangerous. You just listed off in your news—in your newscast that led the show, many reasons. They want to dismantle the environment. They want to eliminate the safety net. They want to empower billionaires. They want to enact bigoted policies against Muslims and immigrants and so many others. And it is important to resist them. And there are lots of really great ways to resist them, such as getting courts to restrain them, citizen activism and, most important of all, having the Democratic Party engage in self-critique to ask itself how it can be a more effective political force in the United States after it has collapsed on all levels. That isn’t what this resistance is now doing. What they’re doing instead is trying to take maybe the only faction worse than Donald Trump, which is the deep state, the CIA, with its histories of atrocities, and say they ought to almost engage in like a soft coup, where they take the elected president and prevent him from enacting his policies. And I think it is extremely dangerous to do that. Even if you’re somebody who believes that both the CIA and the deep state, on the one hand, and the Trump presidency, on the other, are extremely dangerous, as I do, there’s a huge difference between the two, which is that Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They’re barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it. And yet that’s what so many, not just neocons, but the neocons’ allies in the Democratic Party, are now urging and cheering. And it’s incredibly warped and dangerous to watch them do that.

      AMY GOODMAN: And The Wall Street Journal’s report that says now intelligence officials are not giving President Trump all the information because they’re concerned about what he’ll do with it, not to mention intelligence agencies of other countries deeply concerned about what Trump will do with it, and particularly concerned about what he might share with Russia?

      GLENN GREENWALD: Well, so, first of all, there’s a media issue here, which is that if you look at The Wall Street Journal report, it’s pretty much exactly the same as every other significant report about Russia over the last six months, many of which have proven to be completely false. It’s based on anonymous officials making extremely vague claims. Even The Wall Street Journal says, “We don’t know who’s doing this, withholding information. We don’t know how much information is being withheld.”

      Secondly, the idea that Donald Trump is some kind of an agent or a spy of Russia, or that he is being blackmailed by Russia and is going to pass secret information to the Kremlin and endanger American agents on purpose, is an incredibly crazy claim that has been nowhere proven to be true. It reminds me of the kind of things Glenn Beck used to say about Obama while he stood at his chalkboard and drew those—those unstable charts that he drew, these wild conspiracy theories that are without evidence.

      We ought to have a serious, sober, structured investigation of the claims that Russia hacked the DNC and John Podesta’s emails and that there were improper ties between Donald Trump and the Russians, and that ought to be made public so that we can see the information. But this constant media obsession of leaking whatever someone whispers to them about Donald Trump and Russia, because they know it will get their reporters huge numbers of retweets on Twitter and tons of traffic by people who are being fed what they want to hear, is really feeding into the worst kind of hysteria and even fake news that the media says they’re trying to combat. These are really serious claims that merit serious investigation, and that’s exactly what we’re not getting.

      NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, in a recent piece in The Intercept by one of your colleagues, they write, “If in fact all of this is ‘non-sense,’ Trump has the power as president to make that clear immediately—by declassifying all government intercepts of communications between Russian nationals and anyone in his orbit.” So, do you think, Glenn, that Trump ought to be doing that?

      GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, it’s an interesting point, because, for example, there have been lots of claims made about the communications that General Flynn had with Russian diplomats and what these transcripts supposedly reflect, and yet nobody has seen the transcripts. We’ve seen little bits and pieces of them. We haven’t seen the whole transcript. We ought to see that whole transcript. And my colleague, Jon Schwarz, who wrote that piece, is absolutely right that it’s within President Trump’s power to order it instantly declassified. There’s no review of that decision, and then it could be made public.

      On the other hand, it is really bizarre, just as a reporter who has been in the middle of a controversy for the last four years about the leaking of classified information, to hear people suggest that the president now ought to take the most sensitive intercepts that the government is capable of obtaining, which is how they eavesdrop on Russian officials inside the Kremlin, and just toss them to the public like there’s no problem at all with doing that. I think that what you’re seeing here is this really disturbing double standard, that all we’ve heard since the war on terror is that classified information is sacred and anybody who leaks it is treasonous and satanic and belongs in jail for a really long time, and now classified information seems to be something that’s just a plaything, like something that we just toss around for fun if it serves a certain agenda. And I think that that’s one of the issues that’s bothering me about the way this discourse is unfolding.

      1. “Deep State” is just a rehash of what has been previously called the “Invisible Government.” The latter term is a more accurate one because you don’t see who the behind-the-scenes operators are. See the classic book by David Wise that first addressed it in detail: https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Government-David-Wise/dp/0394430778.

        As for Glenn Greenwald, I don’t believe he’s a trustworthy person, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were merely an agent of the “Deep State” that he refers to. Of course, by pretending to be against the “Deep State,” that simple trick alone convinces the naive that he’s independent of the “Deep State.” Certainly, nothing he says or does is threatening in any way to the Elite Establishment (another name for the Invisible Government).

        1. Fourth Branch of Government FDR’s scientific slave masters? Deep but also very very dark side. 100% eradication works for me.

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  12. Mr Trump has stated that we have a constitutional crisis, yes, Mr Trump we do and you and your administration are responsible.

  13. Issuing a New EXECUTIVE ORDER makes sense. Appealing the Decision of The Ninth Circuit and A New Executive Order is like wearing Belts and Suspenders duplicitous and a waste of taxpayers money. Mr Trump, ADMIT your Executive Order issued on January 27, 2017 is defective and invidiously discriminatory. Your Reasons expressed by the former mayor prove your intent.

    1. Your post is a perfect example of just how upside/down this entire system has become.

      Modern liberalism: Intent > Constitutional = Utilitarian Democracy
      Conservatism: Constitutional > Intent = Constitutional Republic

      1. You are giving modern liberalism aka left wing extremeis tfascist secular regressives too much Mr. Nice Guy. The short word for them is targets of opportunity. The second one is literate and perfectly written!

  14. “but the panel decision was a good-faith decision of three judges…”

    Good faith? Good faith toward what cause? Obstructionism, yes. Rule of law, no? I’m still not clear why the 9th never mentioned the statute that gives the President the authority to issue this EO. Is it not relevant?

  15. It’s time for the country to take a breath, count to 10 and let President Trump govern for awhile. This guy has not had a moment of peace from the left and the press since January 20th. I don’t pretend to know about the law, and don’t think many of the voices in protest, know either. Such as, how in the world can our constitution provide “rights” to people of other countries, especially if they have never been here? My thoughts are that the founding fathers wrote the constitution of the US, for citizens of the US, not for every person on earth. Please correct me, if I’m wrong.

      1. Yep.

        http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-rejection-of-andy-puzder

        “The rejection of Andy Puzder gives President Trump a chance to immediately reconsider his plutocratic impulses on labor relations. He says that he wants to make the Republican Party the workers’ party, the people’s party. Trump met with leaders of the building-trade unions shortly after his Inauguration—carpenters, plumbers, sheet-metal workers. He wooed them with talk of big infrastructure projects. These are among the most conservative unions in the country. They are still predominantly white and male, and within the broader union movement their numbers are small compared to service workers, teachers, women, and people of color. But the hard-hat unions are still significant, and many of their members voted for Trump. Organized labor as a whole, while much diminished from its heyday, is still important, particularly to the Democratic Party. Andy Puzder represented predatory, unbridled capitalism, a zero-sum game. If Trump is even a tiny bit serious about helping the forgotten worker, he needs to do better with his next nominee. Even Republicans seem to have realized that.”

      2. More lies. His ex-wife says she was counseled to claim he had abused her when she filed for divorce. She lied, and she acknowledged she lied when she retracted those claims over three decades ago, and regrets it.

        False claims of abuse during a divorce proceeding are so common that police officers who take the report, when they find out the woman is in the middle of a divorce, automatically assume the woman is lying. And they’re usually right. But they have to take the report anyway.

        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-e-cordell/false-allegations-of-abus_b_8578086.html

        “Dvorce is almost never a simple process, and the introduction of protection orders or allegations of abuse instantly increase the complexity of the case, particularly for the purported offender.

        While meant to act as a safety mechanism in cases where domestic violence is present, the ease of obtaining an order of protection and the instant benefits it provides the alleging party has created a system ripe for abuse. In fact, up to 70 percent of cases involving allegations of abuse during custody disputes are deemed unnecessary or false.

        Clearly, protection orders that are meant to offer protection for those in serious situations are now being used as a weapon to turn the tide in divorce; a weapon that overwhelming targets men.”

        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-mandarano/the-worst-thing-a-woman-c_b_837636.html

        “…However, it is also an unfortunate truth that because they are incredibly easy to obtain, orders of protection are misused, often against men. And this false practice clogs the system unnecessarily, preventing true victims from having their cases thoroughly examined and depleting victim-assistance resources.

        In matrimonial practice, men are drastically more likely to be the spouse who has an order enforced against them at the beginning of a separation or divorce. When a man has had an order of protection issued against him, many automatically think that he must have done something horribly threatening or dangerous to his partner or family in order to have a judge feel compelled to issue an order.

        Orders of protection can be “stay away” or “refrain from” in topic. “Refrain from” orders direct a person to behave in a certain way. For example, a refrain from order may direct a person not to threaten another person.

        “Stay away” orders are weightier. They force the accused to leave the marital residence and stay away from his partner, home, workplace, and family lest they face prosecution. Notably, stay away orders can remove a person from his home even if his name is on the lease or deed.

        There are between 2 and 3 million temporary restraining orders issued in the United States annually*. Despite their huge impact on a person’s emotional and financial well-being, in order to receive a temporary “stay away” order of protection, one needs only to allege that he or she “feels” threatened by their partner. There does not need to be any history of domestic violence whatsoever. There does not have to be an actual verbal threat of domestic violence either. Likewise, there does not need to be evidence of a major overt act, such as stalking or purchasing a weapon.

        …It is a well-known fact within the matrimonial legal community that many lawyers and their clients use these orders of protection to gain a strategic advantage over their spouse from which it is difficult to recover. And since no judge wants to be the one who “gets it wrong” leading to a tragic result, these orders are easily obtained.

        …In 2005, The Family Law News, California State Bar’s official publication in the field, noted
        that the state issued on average 250,000 orders of protection annually. It acknowledged that the issuance of such orders were “routine” and conceded that they were misused by parties seeking to “jockey” for an advantage in custody matters and as retaliation***. Similarly, the Illinois Bar Journal called orders of protection “part of the gamesmanship of divorce****.” ”

        Facts do matter, as you said on another comment thread. Right in the middle of demonstrating that the only thing that matters to you are politically expedient lies. Easily refuted lies, as demonstrated by the fact Ms. Fierstein, the ex-wife in question, publicly retracted the allegation of abuse in the early ’90s.

        Please keep it up. I enjoy exposing lying, hateful, intolerant leftists for who they truly are.

    2. Trump is talking about putting troops on the ground in Syria. Do you support that? I don’t.

    3. No kidding, beakie. Why do these jerks want him to fail? Isn’t this their country, too?
      FFS.

      1. “Isn’t this their country, too?”

        FFS,
        Had you eliminated the word “too” then I believe you would get to the truth of what is the root of their cause.

      2. FFS, Their country, in their minds, should be PC and socialistic. Imagine if the stock market rallied like it has under Hillary. She would be given an even more ornate, jeweled, crown.

        The establishment, MSM, career bureaucrats, Dem AND Rep, are going all in on making this country fail, just to prove their point. But, that stock market is a problem. They may not report on it, but all our portfolios speak loudly. But watch, as soon as there is a correction in the market, banner headlines. The establishment are hatin’ on this country. There will be blood.

        1. Probably would have not rallied as much if Clinton had won. She never promised corporate tax cuts and massive cuts for billionaires. The fourth quarter earnings were decent so that helped but the billionaire class will probably sell before Main St does. Main St. will be left holding the bag like the last time. Trump and Mnuchin will fleece the little guy as they have many times before.

        2. You know Nick, that in all my years in the Navy during the Cold War, I never felt our country was in as much danger as it is right now…from WITHIN! This is not about people having a difficult time adjusting to a Trump presidency. This is not a grassroots effort of civil disobedience. This is a coordinated effort to delegitimize a constitutionally elected President and it began before he took office. I believe we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg threatening this President. This is our nation’s 2nd “house divided” moment and this is not going to end well.

          1. Olly, Yes sir! I think this is the tip of the iceberg. And while many in the intelligence community[Ivy League cabal] are undermining, Trump has the support of the military. Who would you rather have your back?

              1. And what, we should destroy the country as his punishment? Well that’s reasonable and rational.

                Any other gems stored in that head of yours to justify a coup?

            2. Those who have proven themselves by upholding their oath of office and have all the fireower too! Support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against ALL enemies foreign and domestic. RINOs to DINOs your next.

            3. Those who have proven themselves by upholding their oath of office and have all the firepower too! Support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against ALL enemies foreign and domestic. RINOs to DINOs your next.

          2. Students of history recognize signs eerily similar to those that culminated in the 11/22/63 Coup d’etat.

            Our citizens are largely uninformed and lack critical thinking skills to see the tangled web they weave.
            Jesse Watters is rightly ridiculed for his comedic unveiling of just how dumb most people are. It’s funny but frightening. The public will readily go along with whatever the whores for the 1% tells them and accuse the rest of being unpatriotic.

            Trump is well versed in the ways of evil doers in the business world, so hopefully he’ll outmaneuver those who are working overtime to destroy him

              1. No one is saying Trump committed treason. That is a bridge to far at this point in time.

          3. Personally, I think this radical blood letting is the best thing to ever happen. The public finally sees the true authoritarian face of the radicalized Left. Poll after poll show people being repulsed by the hate and violence. The uber liberals have lost the public. And that’s the only court that really matters in a democracy. Trump is the right guy for the job. He doesn’t care what the press apparatchicks think or write and they have no idea how to handle that.

        3. Poor babies, Olly and Nick!

          Own the House, the Senate, the White House, Faux News, Comey AND you STILL can’t govern!

          What a couple of snowflakes!

          1. You are rather new to this reframing and redefining are you not Comrad-ess. Back to the Lykoff manual cor members of the collective. Number one. EXACTLY as we program you no thinking for yourself.

        4. Uh oh. Here’s another one to add to the list of people who are all-in on making this country fail: Harward just turned down national security advisor.

          Everybody tired of winning yet?

  16. Me thinks he is projecting both his chaotic mind and chaotic administration onto others.

  17. Glad he is going to rewrite the EO. It’s an opportunity to do better. No matter what, it will likely still end up in court.

  18. Well reasoned opinion from the ninth circuit? Doesn’t the ninth circuit have one of the highest rates of overturned cases seen before the Supreme Court?

  19. Why waste taxpayer time and money appealing a hopelessly flawed executive order? If the President has a rational and supportable executive order to issue that has been properly vetted internally, then proceed with it and drop the appeal.

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