Juan Cole - How President Bannon’s Whiteboard Sank Trump
Trump’s approval
ratings are in the toilet compared to any other modern president at this stage
of his presidency. At least some of that public disapproval comes from his
repeated attempts to issue overly broad or discriminatory or otherwise
unconstitutional executive orders. These were promptly blocked by federal
courts, although Trump could yet prevail at the Supreme Court. It turns out that
these disastrous EO’s haven’t been The Tangerine One’s ideas at all. He’s just
taking marching orders from President Bannon’s whiteboard checklist. Let us underline that:
Trump’s agenda is Breitbart, alt-Neo-Nazi agenda.
Alt-White-Supremacist
Steve Bannon tried to do a whitewash of his smelly politics by taking a selfie
with Rabbi Shmuly Boteach, but instead Bannon got whiteboarded – his
neo-Fascist to-do list showed up in the background. You know how in movies
about paranoid conspiracy theorists they always show the guy with a bunch of
wild items pinned all over his walls? Our country is being run by one of those. According to WaPo and LA
Times, these are the items on Bannon-‘s to-do list. For his failed policies
I have quoted past Informed Comment articles explaining.
Things President
Bannon wants to do that have been blocked by Federal courts:
Cancel all federal
funding to sanctuary cities
District
Judge William Orrick issued a stay on grounds like that Congress
decides budgetary issues and that: “Further, the Tenth
Amendment requires that conditions on federal funds be unambiguous and timely
made; that they bear some relation to the funds at issue; and that the total
financial incentive not be coercive. Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship
to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction
chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the President
disapproves.”
Suspend Syrian
Refugee Program
This was part of
Trump’s first attempted Executive Order on immigration. It was blocked by
a federal judge in Seattle on grounds of being discriminatory and of
harming the University of Washington:
“Robart wrote,
according to the Seattle Times: “The executive order
adversely affects the state’s residents in areas of employment, education,
business, family relations and freedom to travel,” Robart wrote, adding that
the order also harmed the state’s public universities and tax base. “These
harms are significant and ongoing.”
Suspend immigration
from terror-prone regions
Implement new
extreme immigration vetting techniques
These two also all got
blocked by Federal courts: Derrick
Watson, US District Court judge in Honolulu, has issued a nationwide
Temporary Restraining Order against Trump’s second attempt at an Executive
Order excluding people from Muslim-majority countries from the United States.
Watson found that the state of Hawaii, which brought the suit, was likely to
prevail in its complaint that the president’s order would impose irreparable
harm on the University of Hawaii and on the state’s tourism industry. He also
found that it violates the constitutional rights of American Muslims. (I made
the same argument soon after it was released).
Things he may actually
get through (like, today):
Repeal and Replace
Obamacare
Things pending:
Create a 10%
repatriation tax
Build the border wall
and eventually make Mexico …
Create support program
for victims of illegal immigrants
Expand and revitilize
the popular 287g partners
Issue detainers for
all illegal immigrants who are … for any crime and they will be placed into
…removal proceedings
End
“catch-and-release”
Hire 5,000 more Border
Patrol agents
Restore the Secure
Communities Program
Triple the number of
ICE agents
Sunset our visa laws
so that Congress is forced to periodically revise and revisit them
Finally complete
biometric entry-exit tracking
Propose passage of
Davis-Oliver bill
The immigration bill,
proposed by then Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2015, is named for two California police
officers who were killed by immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
…pass “Kate’s Law”
If Trump tries to push
this Mussolini type agenda on the United States of America, I predict that his
presidency will sink even faster.
