I knew it was going to be bad. I didn’t know it would be this bad this soon. I knew Comrade Trump had no real grasp on the concept of governance, but I didn’t know he was entirely ignorant of how government worked. I knew he wasn’t prepared for the job, but I didn’t know he’d make no effort to learn.
Trump apparently believes issuing a presidential executive order works the same basic way as ordering a taco bowl. You say “I want a taco bowl” and somebody gives you a taco bowl. You say “I want a ban on Muslims” and somebody gives you a ban on Muslims. Easy peasy. Right?
Easy as ordering a taco bowl.
Nope. Ordering a taco bowl is easy; getting a taco bowl that’s safe to eat is complex. Somebody has to grow the lettuce and the tomatoes and the beans, somebody has to pick those vegetables and legumes, and somebody has get them to market. Somebody has to make the tortilla shell, somebody has to make the cheese. Somebody has to gather all those makings together, and somebody has to put it all together so somebody can bring it to your table. And throughout that whole process, there’s somebody monitoring it all to make sure that all the ingredients are healthy, and that they’re properly handled and prepared so that you don’t end up in the bathroom puking your guts out. It’s a massive, complex process, making a taco bowl.
Trump said “I want a ban on Muslims” and somebody gave him a ban on Muslims. In this case, it was two somebodies: Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller. These guys wrote the executive order, and served it to Comrade Trump, who signed it.
Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon — should not be allowed in the kitchen.
You know, when you make your first taco bowl to be served to the public, you have to let your supervisor look at it before it makes its way to the customer’s table. The same is true when crafting an executive order. You’re supposed to let other folks look at it and make sure it’s correct before you foist it on the unsuspecting public. For example, if you write an executive order pertaining to homeland security, you’re supposed to let the folks at the Department of Homeland Security get a peek at it before it’s released. It’s not just a matter of good manners to do that; it’s also how you insure the customer doesn’t end up in the bathroom puking his guts out.
Trump, Bannon, and Miller didn’t bother. The Secretary of Homeland Security learned about the executive order when he saw it announced on television. Seriously. On television.
Not only did they fail to ask for the advice of the Department of Homeland Security, they also failed to check with the Justice Department,. And the State Department, and the Department of Defense, and the National Security Counsel. They didn’t even show the order to the Office of Legal Counsel, which has always reviewed executive orders before they were released. Hell, these people didn’t even prepare the two agencies that would be implementing the order — the heads of the Customs and Border Protection agency and the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services were given a telephone briefing while Comrade Trump was signing the order.
Let me just recap this. These three bozos — Trump, Bannon, and Miller — put together and issued a presidential order having global implications with less care and supervision than the guy working part-time in the kitchen of your local Taco Bell. It’s no wonder a big chunk of the world has found itself in the bathroom, puking its guts out.
gregfallis.com 
I believe he is smarter than we think. He literally told us all that he was going to do, and is now doing it. Did he ever tweet or mention Congress or any methods of governance besides himself.? People heard each word and “litigated them by voter box”. I cringed every time I heard him speak of the “generals” which could be next. I hope that this comment is only my overactive imagination.
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I think you give Trump too much credit. I think he said all that stuff about what he was going to do because he doesn’t understand how government works. Yes, he can issue executive orders, but the reasons presidents have their executive orders vetted is to make sure they’ll 1) do what the president intends without violating the law, and 2) will be drafted in such a way that Congress will fund them.
President Obama, you may remember, issued an executive order to close the POW camp in Guantanamo — but Congress refused to include the money for that in their budgets. Comrade Trump has issued an executive order to build a wall on the Mexican border, but it won’t get built unless Congress decides to fund the construction.
I truly believe Trump never bothered to learn how any of this stuff works. I don’t think he understands the implications of being POTUS. I don’t think he is aware that simply by issuing the immigration order, he’s given ISIL and al Qaeda a handy recruitment tool. I don’t think he realized by repeatedly stating Mexico will pay for the wall that he put the entire Mexican government in a position in which they have to oppose the wall.
I don’t think think there’s a lot of critical thinking going on inside Trump’s skull.
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I think it’s immaterial whether he knows these things or not, because even if he knows, he doesn’t care. That’s what is terrifying to me. What does it matter whether he does things the way he’s supposed to if he gets the results he wants? His ban went through; when the judiciary system acted as it’s supposed to, border control simply ignored the court order and did what trump wanted. He’s shaping up to be a dictator for life, so he doesn’t really need to learn to be president.
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I don’t think Comrade Trump got the result he wanted. Yes. CPB went ahead with the detentions in violation of the court orders — and that sparked what could have been a serious Constitutional crisis. The various federal judges who issued the stays could have ordered the U.S. Marshall’s office to go to the airports and enforce the orders of the court, which would have pitted an armed branch of the judiciary against an armed branch of the executive. That would have been…well, tragic, regardless of what took place.
The judiciary decline to force the issue, presumably because the executive order is likely to be found unconstitutional. What’ll happen at that point might be a pivot point.
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Reblogged this on Pearlie Mae, Mermaid.
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Related thoughts worth pondering: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5#.7t08578ju
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I read that earlier, and as I’ve said elsewhere, I think it’s a good plot for a movie. I don’t, however, see it as being very plausible in real life. First off, it presumes a level of planning and forethought that Comrade Trump hasn’t yet demonstrated. Secondly, that sort of thing would require a great deal of trust between the upper echelons of the ‘conspiracy’, and Trump isn’t known for putting his faith in other people — and he’s not the sort of guy who inspires trust in himself.
I just don’t see it happening.
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Of course, as most of us know, this isn’t about security but is just a big middle finger to the Muslims and the Middle East. This is Brietbart.com comments section in the White House.
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Sadly, most of ‘us’ don’t know that — if by ‘us’ you mean the citizenry. There are an astonishing number of people who’ve never heard of Andrew Breitbart or Breitbart.com. I sort of wish, at times, that I’d never heard of them too.
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HAHAHA. Yeah, I’ve looked through the comments section a few times. It made me feel unclean.
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Rump’s use of the word “betrayed” in his statement firing Yates clearly demonstrates that we are delaing with a dangerously immature and insecure tyrant.
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That term was, I think, more alarming than the actual firing. I expected her to get fired, but to accuse her of betrayal? Jeebus on a pretzel, that’s disturbing.
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I enjoy the way you write. The word “comrade” is used to show friendship to another person. Most often we hear it used in Russia as in “a great comrade of mine”. I wouldn’t and from what you write consider Trump a comrade. Maybe an “evil comrade” would do :)
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The term ‘Comrade’ is closely tied to the Russian revolution. It was meant to demonstrate that even leaders were just ‘common’ people. But of course, it’s also a way of referring to the Soviet system, and since Putin is a product of that system, it seems appropriate for Trump.
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I thought you were being sarcastic when you wrote Comrade Trump. My mistake.
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Well, I AM being sarcastic — but I’m also being serious. A former Soviet KGB officer (Vlad Putin) led the effort to influence the US election in favor of Donald Trump. I think it’s appropriate to keep reminding folks of that.
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Greg I worked for four decades as an independent reporter on the ground in many countries. What I did not see during the entire campaign were public service announcements telling the voters to get out and vote. It is a fact the person least likely to win, will win, with a low voter turnout. When Trump entered the Presidential race he was not taken seriously by the US media and he won. Here is what the New York Times had to say https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/the-worst-voter-turnout-in-72-years.html?_r=0
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Certainly voter turnout was an issue. So was organized voter suppression. And gerrymandered Congressional districts. And the head of the FBI resurrecting a fake scandal during the final days of the campaign. And a news media that was more interested in ratings than in reporting facts. And Russian interference.
All those things shaped the election result. They also made the result illegitimate.
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Muslims love goats!
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I suspect you’re trying to make a political point. Or maybe a religious point. Or maybe a point about the mammal family of caprinae. I don’t know…some sort of point.
In any event, you apparently aren’t willing to make your point clearly, whatever it is.
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Nah! My point is that Muslims just love goats!
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