Yep. Reprimanding Western European leaders while sucking up to the worst tyrants an dictators is eroding much of what remains of the goodwill to the US in a large portion of the rest of the world. Sad!

Leaving out 'survey' (I don't know where you pulled that one from), that is pure spin, spin, spin.

It's based on comments by Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer in late January 2017. Reince Priebus is the source for the 'those countries the worst of a bad bunch' idea. The actual quote is-

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/...ps-travel-ban/

They were never identified by the Obama administration as 'the seven most dangerous countries in the world in regard to harbouring terrorists'. Or congress as far as I know. More information in the link above if you want detail.

In that one statement there is one at best twisted fact ('seven most dangerous countries') and one outright lie ('subjected temporarily with more questioning')

A Republican president (with Republicans controlling both Congress and Senate) can write whatever bills with no input from the Democrats or previous administrations. So if there is a correlation between trump trvael ban 1 or 2 and the Obama suspension of the Visa Wavier Program its more about similar geopolitical realities and concerns about possible fallout.

The trump administration is trying to blame Obama even though he had nothing to do with trumps travel ban.

When you're your own branch of government, have lifetime appointments and are accountable to no one, you get to choose your own hours.

But, in any case, they do have to be able to be contacted all the time because although they are not hearing oral arguments or deliberating on cases, emergency appeals come to them all the time and they have to be able to issue things like emergency stays on executions and other important "time is of the essence" matters.

Like I said, the thing that is common between these six countries is that they have no working government with which to get official information about the people from that country. The country with the largest population of Muslims in the world is Indonesia, which is totally unaffected by the ban. So it is not a ban against Muslims. And this would be the first time ever that courts looked at statements made by a Presidential candidate to influence or at least back-up their rulings. They should look only to what's within the four corners of the paper the President signed.

When ISIS took over Raqqa they became possessors of a Syrian Passport Machine and all the blanks they ever needed.

I'd say any "Country" label is superfluous, IMO.

I'm sure that you meant to say, "a State Department survey, coincidentally prepared while Barak Obama happened to have been the President ..."

Wow so many things but just a few:

1) Complaining about stability and invalid passports of certain countries might be valid IF THERE HAD BEEN NO EXCLUSION FOR CHRISTIANS from those same countries. Who is validating those passports?

2) This was not "legislation". It was an executive order.

3) The purpose of the courts is to insure that matters that come before them are both LEGAL and CONSTITUTIONAL. Many times courts have overturned "legislation" because it wasn't CONSTITUTIONAL. The Congress (and state and local governments) do NOT get to override the Constitution. Many times the courts have overturned "executive orders" or just plain policies because they are NOT Legal or are not Constitutional. The President and the rest of the Executive Branch can not just ignore the laws passed by Congress.

Conservatives love it when the Supreme Court does something like overturning hand gun laws as "unconstitutional" but then decry "Judicial meddling" when they do something like Brown vs Board of Education. You can't have it both ways. Either they make decisions about laws and Constitutional protections or they don't.

It is quite chilling to see how many people are willing to elect a dictator around the world. Even if YOU like the current dictator NOW the chances he'll get worse over time are high and the chances you'll like the guy that follows him who gets the same autocratic powers are extremely low. History is rife with people that gave up power to dictators and found themselves in even worse straits within 10 years than they were in when they thought that person would solve all their problems. I for one am quite happy we have separation of powers in our government so that there is a constant vetting of laws and policies rather than just one man saying "I decree...".

It wasn't just for Christians it was for Yazidis too because they are definitely being persecuted. The majority of the Court would have upheld the original executive order that included that anyway.

There is legislation, as I posted above, that clearly gives the President the power to do this by executive order. (it uses the term "by proclamation").

The President has the constitutional power anyway, the legislation just backs it up. The Court has always upheld that power. The President's power is at its zenith at the border where he alone has the power to admit someone or deny their admittance.

How do you know what the court would have done on the original order?

In my first post I acknowledged the President has the authority to exclude (based on law and Constitution) but noted that the challenge to his order was based on a separate Constitutional provision in that he clearly made the distinction based on religion in both his campaign rhetoric and his initial order. Court decisions are often based on competing Constitutional provisions and/or interpretations of those provisions. President is NOT the same thing as Dictator no matter how much some people want it to be.

About a hundred years into the history of our country, the Supreme Court – entirely on its own initiative – decided to declare something to be "unconstitutional." (Actually, the President had done it first.) In so doing, they ventured into an uncharted territory that the actual text of the Constitution says absolutely nothing about. "And, since then, they have never left."

In your comment, Mensa, you simply drink the same juice: "The Congress, State and Local Governments do not get to override the Constitution!" Which is to say that, in fact, "the Courts, and only the Courts," are the only true Source of Law, and that they have the sovereign prerogative to declare those laws "by utterance."

"The Supreme Council of the Nine Monarchs," declaring the Law of the Land, both the Congress and the President Notwithstanding!" Forsooth, by "the Divine Right of Kings," minus the "Divine."

- - -

In the actual case here, the Executive was exercising a prerogative and a power that had been expressly granted to him by Congress. The second version of the Executive Order explicitly mentions the enabling legislation.

However, this is the actual interpretation, as seen by the Courts:

"Either the Congress has the power to grant Powers and Prerogatives to the Executive, or it does not." And, if it does not, then we are left with ... a Monarchy, where the Monarch is not a single individual but rather a Supreme Court, anchoring its Supreme Powers upon its own(!) Sovereign Interpretation of a document that "means whatever Their Majesties decree that it shall mean."

Almost before the ink was dry on the US Constitution, several of its framers knew that they had left "unfinished business." They very accurately predicted that the Judiciary would "stealthily" seek to expand its power, and in precisely the way that it is now doing.

Ever heard of concurring opinions?

From: The Economist

Thanks for information

It always helps when countries like Saudi Arabia are some of the biggest arms buyers of the US... you can even murder and dismember your "critics" like Jamal Khashoggi, in your consulates, in a foreign country and you're still golden. Even the US's own intelligence agencies say Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was very likely behind it/ordered it. Even a UN report about it found that he likely ordered it. Has he faced any consequences for it? Nope. What did Trump or any spineless "western governments" do about it? Nothing. Trump even said something to the effect of "well, they buy a lot of arms from us, so I've decided not to take any action". Absolute and total hypocrites.

I don't think Iran for one is a buyer of US arms, funny that...

Indeed, sad, but very true. This world is so f**king corrupt, it's not even funny...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48689137

There used to be an American saying about South American dictators: "He may be a son of a bitch but he's our son of a bitch!"

"Thank God..."

Whose God, god, gods are we supposed to be thanking here??