Fact Checker: Trump’s Refugee Policy Isn’t Really Like Obama’s Or Something

By William Teach January 30, 2017 – 7:34 am

Glenn Kessler attempts to “fact check” a Trump statement, and highlights his partisanship and Trump Derangement Syndrome

Trump’s facile claim that his refugee policy is similar to Obama’s in 2011
There are several important differences between the two refugee policies.

“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.”
—President Trump, statement on executive order, Jan. 29, 2017

In justifying his controversial executive order halting travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries, President Trump claimed that President Barack Obama did the same thing in 2011. But the comparison is a bit facile.

Here’s what happened in 2011.

Here’s what really happened. The Credentialed Media didn’t bother to investigate the issue for years. There were no unhinged and apoplectic opinion pieces and editorials. They were good little lapdogs. But, the idea here is to try and paint the orders as totally different, and that the Iraqi one was totally different.

The only news report that we could find that referred to a six-month ban was a 2013 ABC News article that included this line: “As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News — even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets.”

And that right there should put the Credentialed Media into a disgrace timeout. Before Kessler trotted out this “fact check,” he gave it a whirl on Twitter, and was beaten like a rented mule.

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/825399784638971908

Boom.

Anyway, Kessler goes through his “argument”, leading up to

So what’s the difference with Trump’s action?

First, Obama responded to an actual threat — the discovery that two Iraqi refugees had been implicated in bomb-making in Iraq that had targeted U.S. troops. (Iraq, after all, had been a war zone.) Under congressional pressure, officials decided to reexamine all previous refugees and also impose new screening procedures, which led to a slowdown in processing new applications. Trump, by contrast, issued his executive order without any known triggering threat. (His staff has pointed to attacks unrelated to the countries named in his order.)

Apparently, Glenn is not familiar with all the goings on in Europe. All the rapes, sexual assaults, crimes, the spread of hardcore extremist Islam, etc and so on, along with several attacks and stopped attacks by the “refugees.”

Second, Obama did not announce there was a ban on visa applications. In fact, as seen in Napolitano’s answer to Collins, administration officials danced around that question. There was certainly a lot of news reporting that visa applications had been slowed to a trickle. But the Obama administration never said it was their policy to halt all applications. Even so, the delays did not go unnoticed, so there was a lot of critical news reporting at the time about the angst of Iraqis waiting for approval.

So, media incompetence is now a rationale to give Trump…..2 Pinocchios.

Third, Obama’s policy did not prevent all citizens of that country, including green-card holders, from traveling to the United States. Trump’s policy is much more sweeping, though officials have appeared to pull back from barring permanent U.S. residents.

That’s because it didn’t. Glenn should read the actual Executive Order.

And the media wonders why Trump won the election.

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Washington Post: Say, We Should Treat Trump With Professionalism, Not Partisanship

By William Teach January 30, 2017 – 7:10 am

Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post editorial page editor, has an idea, but, that boat has already sailed, and may not ever make it back to port

Trump considers the media his enemy. We shouldn’t treat him as ours.
Our answer must be professionalism, not partisanship.

It is not unprecedented for a White House to view the media as the enemy — the “opposition party,” as presidential adviser Stephen K. Bannon labeled us last week.

But it is vital that we not become that party.

Hiatt goes on to mention that people (meaning other Democrats and media folks) were saying that the media needed to fight back, stop covering his tweets, label everything Trump says a lie, stop interviewing him, don’t be part of the “propaganda.”

The answer to dishonest or partisan journalism cannot be more partisan journalism, which would only harm our credibility and make civil discourse even less possible. The response to administration insults cannot be to remake ourselves in the mold of their accusations.

Our answer must be professionalism: to do our jobs according to the highest standards, as always.

Really, they’re decades too late for that. You could charitably go back to the broadcast where Walter Cronkite said the Vietnam War was lost. Certainly, the media was pretty partisan during the Reagan administration. For the more modern era, we could look at when the media sat on revelations about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. We saw how they treated George W. Bush, and then became lapdogs for the Obama administration. We know that, had Hillary been a Republican, the media coverage would have been much, much different. There would have be constant articles about the relevant laws, and calls for a special prosecutor.

Can the Credentialed Media even see professionalism without the Hubble telescope anymore? Sure, there are some who are good. Jake Tapper and Mark Knoller come to mind, along with Jamie Dupree. Most act more as Democratic Party activists than professional journalists, and we must remember the constant freakouts from the opinion pages, which were mostly quiet during the Obama years.

We on The Post’s editorial page spent the better part of the past two years warning the country not to elect Donald Trump. We said he was unfit by temperament and experience, misguided on many issues and a potential danger to democratic norms.

Now we find ourselves in the unusual position of hoping to be proved wrong.

In other words, they spent the last two years in perpetual freakout, and Hiatt is excusing this behavior. He only wants the news side to be professional.

I am not complacent. There is nothing normal or healthy about a White House counselor telling the media it should “keep its mouth shut” for a while, nor about a president obsessing over his ratings, taunting those he calls his “enemies” and branding journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” Such attitudes should be frightening to all Americans, not just those of us who work in the business.

Aaaaaand Hiatt has his own hissy fit.

Now, look, I’m personally still leery of Trump. I’m willing to give him time to see what he will do. But, as I keep arguing on Twitter and in comments at other sites, if you think Trump is winging it, if you think he doesn’t know what he’s doing, if you’re, to use a George Bush word, missunderestimating him, then you’ve already lost. We saw this during the primaries, the general election, and since Trump won. You can bet that Trump, as a long time businessman, has action plans out the wazoo. You know the old saying about the Pentagon having plans to attack Canada? You can bet that Trump has deep plans.

And one of the action plans is probably entitled “How To F*ck With The Media.” When Trumpites said that “the media was on the ballot”, I argued that they weren’t, that Trump needed to focus more on Hillary and Democrats. I was wrong.

We all know that the Media Industrial Complex treats Republicans different from Democrats. We all knew that they would treat Trump in a certain way. Most of us on the Right have been calling for elected Republicans and their people to fight back against the news media and the Democrats. They rarely did. Under Bush 43, they decided not to discuss the constant personal attacks, and, forgot to defend their own policies.

Well, under Trump, he’s set the tone to be combative. He and his people are free to attack back. There are times that they might go too far, but, what they end up doing is making the media look ultra-partisan. The media brings up the inauguration attendance in an attempt to weaken Trump. Team Trump fights back. Then the media starts whining about this issue, which they created, and wonders why we’re still talking about it (as they continue talking about it.)

As Glenn Reynolds noted, he’s playing them. He’s gaslighting them. GOP figures are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. So, rather than be cowed, they should fight back. Trump is fighting back. He has the Credentialed Media spinning in circles, acting like ankle biters.

As far as what Fred Hiatt wants, it won’t happen. Partisanship and activism is too embedded in the Credentialed Media, especially those in positions of power.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Posted in Donald Trump, Wonky Media | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 29, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is an area flooding from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Legal Insurrection, with a post debunking most of the media claims on Trump’s “Muslim ban.”

It’s dark haired girls week!

Read: If All You See… »

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Two Questions: Popup Comments And Threaded Comments

By William Teach January 29, 2017 – 11:32 am

With the upgrade to WordPress 4.7.2, a few things went wacky. The mobile theme wasn’t working, nor was Jetpack, nor popup comments.

Jetpack, which you wouldn’t have really noticed, is fixed. I turned the plugin off then on.

For the mobile theme, I cleared the cache, should work now.

But, plugin comments do not work. Not in the theme you’re seeing now, not in any that have the proper files in the themes. The file is still in the backend for overall. I like the popup comments, but, y’all comment more. Do you use them? Is it worth attempting to figure it out?

Also, would you like properly working threaded comments? The only person I’ve seen who got them to work consistently was John, and I could not figure out how. Maybe the browser he used? Would you like them?

Read: Two Questions: Popup Comments And Threaded Comments »

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Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach January 29, 2017 – 9:41 am

Happy Sunday! It’s another gorgeous day in the America. The Sun is shining, the birds are singing, the liberals are melting down. This pinup is by Gil Elvgren, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. Climate Scepticism covers 10 steps for calming climate craziness
  2. JoNova has a bit of fake news from the NY Times on climate skeptics
  3. Wizbang wonders if there is a method to Trump’s madness
  4. Watcher Of Weasels covers no refills for you in Statist France
  5. Vlad Tepes runs across a horrifying story about a Women’s March spokesperson
  6. This ain’t Hell… features some feel good stories
  7. The Right Scoop notes Trump signing three more executive orders
  8. The People’s Cube covers the Union Of Concerned Intellectual Class being happy
  9. The Other McCain discusses things losers say
  10. The Last Tradition wonders if it’s a bad thing that Iranians can’t come to the US
  11. The Geller Report covers police storming mosques and flats in Austria
  12. The Daley Gator says congrats to the Marxist Moron winner
  13. Raised On Hoecakes discusses “you might be a Democrat if…”
  14. Powerline has an under-reported fact about Trump’s presidency
  15. And last, but not least, Patterico’s Pontifications notes what the media is blaming for selective reporting

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. (BTW, since someone asked, the reason I leave links for the previous week up (or you might see a *) is because they are place holders for later in the day or for next weeks. Easier than rewriting all the time. Also, the listing order has to do with how they are added over time, not how good a post is. I just copy and paste from the previous week, then edit. If you see one of the *’s, go ahead and check out the blog anyhow, see if there is an update. I cannot update with my Android during the day.

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DHS To Continue Enforcing Trump’s Ban On Travel From Several Countries

By William Teach January 29, 2017 – 8:27 am

Trump passed his so-called ban on Muslims, and a judge jumped in

(The Hill) A federal judge in New York has issued an emergency stay temporarily halting the removal of individuals detained after President Trump issued an order to ban immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.

The move appears to mark the first successful legal challenge to the Trump administration and affects those who have arrived in the U.S. with previously approved refugee applications or were in transit with valid visas. Similar rulings were later issued in Virginia, Massachusetts and Washington state.

U.S. District Court Judge Ann Donnelly ruled in favor of a habeas corpus petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of two Iraqi men who were detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday after Trump signed his order.

Obviously, a judge put in office by Barack Obama, who appears to have totally taken her time in looking at the order, the facts, and so forth. The political Left is thrilled by this, and is utterly misreading it. This only affects a tiny number, as explained in the first two paragraphs. Funny how liberals suddenly love when a judge stops a president’s orders, eh? What the order doesn’t do is stop the Executive Order overall, which DHS will continue

(Fox News) The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement early Sunday saying that they plan on continuing to “enforce all of the president’s executive orders in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the American people.”

The DHS said the court order would not affect the overall implementation of the White House order and the court order affected a small number of travelers who were inconvenienced by security procedures upon their return.

“The president’s executive orders remain in place—prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety,” the statement said.

You can have your minor victory, Leftists. Would you be willing to host the “refugees” in their homes and neighborhoods? Obviously, they must have no problem with the rape, denigration of women, pooping in pools, and telling women to cover up so that they don’t incent men to rape them.

Under Trump’s order, it had appeared that an untold number of foreign-born U.S. residents now traveling outside the U.S. could be stuck overseas for at least 90 days even though they held permanent residency “green cards” or other visas. However, an official with the DHS said Saturday night that no green-card holders from the seven countries cited in Trump’s order had been prevented from entering the U.S.

So, the fearmongering is simply in the heads of the pro-rapeugees. Seriously, what is this all about?

https://twitter.com/scrowder/status/825357327901609986

Sure, many of the refugees are good people. But, how do we know? We see the crime and rape increases in Europe. We see them destroying villages in Europe. We see people being kicked out of their homes. We see them refusing to assimilate. We see them bringing hardcore Islamic extremism. Apparently, this is what Progressives/Democrats want. Women’s rights? Meh. They fall way below that of Muslim extremists on the Hierarchy Of Things Leftists Care About.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Is Trump Poised To Sack A Goodly Chunk Of EPA Warmists?

By William Teach January 28, 2017 – 2:37 pm

There’s fear in Climatology Land. We’ve seen reports that EPA employees have been crying themselves silly, and, perhaps they have a reason to, as Team Trump may start holding them accountable, just like in the private sector

Donald Trump to sack climate change scientists and slash Environmental Protection Agency budgets, says official

Donald Trump could sack many of the climate change staff at the Environmental Protection Agency and cut large parts of its funding, according to an official.

Myron Ebell, who led Mr Trump’s transition team at the agency, said that he expects the new President to sack at least half of the staff there. He also hopes that the organisation will have its budget cut significantly, he said. (snip)

Mr Ebell said that he wouldn’t speculate on exact numbers of staff who might be sacked. But he said that he personally would start by sacking at least half of them.

Trump is thinking like a businessman. What happens at times in acquisitions is that one company takes over, and lots of staff are let go. Especially those with redundant jobs, poor performance, and unnecessary positions. The EPA is a valuable federal agency, in my opinion, but, unfortunately, they have gone light years beyond their mandate, and are now as much an activist group as Greenpeace and the National Resources Defense Council. And they do this on the taxpayer dime.

“President Trump said during the campaign that he would like to abolish the EPA, or ‘leave a little bit,”‘ Ebell said. “I think the administration is likely to start proposing cuts to the 15,000 staff, because the fact is that a huge amount of the work of the EPA is actually done by state agencies. It’s not clear why so many employees are needed at the federal level.”

People think of FEMA as this vast, gigantic organization. In fact, it’s rather tiny, and simply meant to coordinate disaster responses using other federal, state, and local agencies. It’s high time to roll back the uber-activist EPA, and let those people go work for a state organization or in the private sector.

Read: Is Trump Poised To Sack A Goodly Chunk Of EPA Warmists? »

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If All You See…

By William Teach January 28, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is a carbon pollution created cold world, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Joshuapundit, with a post on Trump freezing Obama’s Palestinian giveaway.

Read: If All You See… »

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Good Grief: We Need To Keep Obamacare Because Of ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach January 28, 2017 – 7:40 am

Yesterday, I featured a post (on my site and on Right Wing News) about members of the Cult Of Climastrology complaining that Trump’s wall would be Bad for Hotcoldwetdry. Dave Blount of Moonbattery had an interesting comment on the whole subject

You know the race card has finally run out of juice when desperate Dems are reduced to playing the climate card instead. Problem is, that is running out of juice too.

It looks like all the pro-Obamacare arguments are running out of juice, too

Climate change raises the stakes for affordable health care coverage

Today, more than 100 million Americans depend on healthcare safety-net programs: Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But that safety net could be shredded if Dr. Tom Price—Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services—has his way. Dr. Price has already introduced plans to dismantle the ACA and roll back Medicaid, which would take health insurance coverage away from 22 million Americans, 14 million of whom are low income.

There are many reasons to oppose these plans, but one of the most important is also the most overlooked: climate change.

As physicians, we see our patients suffering as the planet warms. A 2014 survey by the National Medical Association found that a majority of African-American physicians—who often serve low-income communities and communities of color—report that their patients are already impacted by climate change. Those impacts include injury from severe weather, respiratory issues from heat-related ozone air pollution, longer and stronger allergy seasons, insect-borne diseases such as the Zika virus, and mental health problems associated with dislocation and property loss from extreme weather events.

Hispanics are especially likely to experience the negative health effects of climate change. Many of the country’s 56 million Hispanics live in coastal areas where sea-level rise and hurricane-driven floods threaten wellbeing through injury, property loss, and waterborne illness. Both African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to live in neighborhoods with higher air pollution levels, which are made worse by climate change. As a result, those communities endure higher rates of asthma, lung cancer and premature death.

The global temperature has literally gone up just a mere 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1850. It’s barely budged since 1998. Can you really feel hundreds of a degree?

You can guess how the rest goes. Which caused many in the comments at The Hill to wonder if this was a joke, satire, or how they could publish this rubbish. It’s pure propaganda in attempting to protect Ocare, which is actually bad for minorities.

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Trump’s Immigration Orders Make America Less Safe Or Something

By William Teach January 28, 2017 – 7:16 am

What Mr. Trump should have done was sign an order resettling all of the Muslim “refugees” in rich liberal run areas and near Democratic Party lawmakers homes. Not just liberal cities, but near the posh areas. It would have been interesting to see how Democrats would have objected. Instead, we end up with this bit by former Obama flunky David Benjamin

The Disastrous Consequences of Trump’s New Immigration Rules
With the stroke of a pen, the president has seriously jeopardized America’s safety and standing.

With his executive action suspending the admission of refugees to the United States and temporarily halting the entry of citizens from a variety of Muslim countries, President Donald Trump made a quick down payment on a key campaign promise. He also set the U.S. on a disastrous course—one that threatens to weaken our national security and diminish American global leadership.

The order signed on Friday calls for a temporary ban on visas for individuals from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia; a 120-day suspension of the resettlement of all refugees; and an indefinite ban on the resettlement of Syrian refugees.

The NY Times features the full order here, which includes

In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Obviously, that’s just too much for Liberals. It should have included those from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. What the whole order essentially does is take a pause for refugees from countries that tend to have a lot of hardcore extremist Muslims, to give the whole apparatus a chance to make sure their vetting programs work. It is an America First program. What’s more important to us? Protecting Americans from being raped by the “refugees”, or the rapey refugees?

Back to Politico

It is hard to find any real basis for this action. During the campaign, Trump made frequent, unfounded claims that we have a “dysfunctional immigration system” and that unknown people are pouring through our borders. But over the past decade and a half, U.S. immigration enforcement has improved vastly to the point where it bears scant resemblance to the system whose vulnerabilities were exposed on 9/11. Travelers from all over the world are screened three or more times, with their names run through databases that draw on staggering amounts of intelligence and law enforcement information. The process flags all manner of misdeeds or suspicious information.

Interesting. Democrats have been telling us for decades that the “immigration system is broken”, of course, in an attempt to provide amnesty for illegals. As far as the system flagging issues, it helps when they actually check. And it’s hard to check on people coming from backwards 3rd world hellholes. What do see is that a goodly chunk refuse to assimilate. Are the Europeans checking? Look at the vast number of issues occurring in the EU from all these “refugees.”

In fact, Trump’s action has the potential to trigger violence by individuals who are already leaning toward extremism, including some with mental illness. There are more than a few people who experienced personal setbacks, including ones in which officialdom was involved, who interpreted their experience through the prism of the jihadist narrative and took violent action.

So, to prove that Trump is wrong, those Muslims who already hold extremist views will move from words to getting violent? This is the argument? Really?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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