shinarambo1:
I have a feeling that Trump is likely going to hit the H1B visa next...

Google CEO's announnced that 187 of its employees have already been affected by the ban on muslim from 7 countries. It affected staffs with green card, students visas and work visas.

Iranians are usually found in engineering firms and studying advanced STEM degrees. Those guys are skilled immigrants when it comes to engineering. I wonder if trump would help find companies find replacements. Since he wants made in America..he could forward the names of his "made in china red cap" wearing dumb supporters to engineering firms for employment...

Meanwhile...inside one of the manny tunnels.......

ValerianSteel:
This is the problem I have with conservatives. You believe the left spends more on entitlements, time and again we've had the argument on welfare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and I'll state again I believe in them and support them but do I think we can have a review without harming the lives of Americans who depend on it, Yes, if properly looked into, cuts can be made and jobs can be created.

That stated, we spend an awful lot on the military that goes to waste or enriches pockets of the big men in the MIC. I don't think you disagree with this internally, you just won't admit it. The same way you want to see something done about entitlements is the same way I support doing something about our 'yuge' Defense spendings.

uniklinkum:


Wow!!!!!! Those guys put the 'I' in illiteracy, they are waiting for the coal industry to be revamped so they can all go back to the mines. Funny enough no more ACA to cover there black lung disease.

ValerianSteel:
Breaking news: Iran to bar US Citizens from entering country in response to Trump's travel ban.

Am gonna say, We need the world, the world needs us.

uniklinkum:


Wow!!!!!! Those guys put the 'I' in illiteracy, they are waiting for the coal industry to be revamped so they can all go back to the mines. Funny enough no more ACA to cover there black lung disease.

Missy89:


So you think people won't be unemployed of you cut military spending? The same excuse you have for not wanting to cut entitlements is the same when it comes to jobs and families that depends on those MIC jobs to survive.

The way you talk about defense contracts, one would think the government just send the money to the CEOs of this companies and the have slaves build onthe weapons.

Now let's do the math. How much percentage of the gdp is spent on the military? Compare it to how much is spent on entitlements

Missy89:


I heard the Muslim ban includes green card holders and citizens with dual nationality. Crazy

ValerianSteel:
Do you cheer or denounce this?

Anyone cheering this is a heartless soul.

1. I'll start first on who is a refugee? A refugee is a person running away from a troubled land where all basic human rights and decency no longer exist while chaos tears through the societal fabric of that country. The unsafe environment prompts these men, women and children to seek a safe haven.

2. We should be glad they've always seen the United States as the beacon of hope where they can come to, be welcomed with open hands and live freely and better than they did in their former countries. The United States has actively led the world in showing kindness to people in distress by welcoming refugees.

3. The lives of refugees are made harder by the waiting and vetting period they undergo before being accepted into the United States after scrutiny from the respective agencies in charge. Sometimes, the process takes a short 6-9 months, others take 2-4 years. They are only accepted after each agencies agree such individual passed the test to come into America freely as there's no evidence they are a threat to the safety of any American should they come in. Let it be known even in the most dire situations, the process is not hastened or vetting gut for anyone, the agencies do their jobs thoroughly determine who can enter or not. In fact, some die during those waiting period.

3. If you are scared by a Muslim refugee coming to blow up America, know this 'no Muslim refugee has launched an act of terrorism on American soil". None ever witnessed, reported or arrested for being a terrorist. Why? Because our agencies do the right thing preventing them from coming in, a proper cross check of an individual's history, ties and past life activities are highly scrutinized to see if they pose an imminent or future threat.

There have been more terrorist attacks from home grown and radicalized Americans ( Muslim or not). America faces a great threat of a 'White Male going on a shooting rampage in schools, churches, theatre'. In the case where a refugee ( Muslim or not) does launch terrorist activity on American soil. You should not be more concerned, does that qualify all refugees as terrorist or bad people coming to do harm to America. If you think it qualifies, I hope we can qualify all White males as violent gun shooters out to attack schools, churches and theatres. There are always bad eggs in every class of the society but the hard fact is the vetting system is 99% safe. The 1% is a risk we can gladly take, we have institutions that protect Americans from potential attacks, who knows maybe among the many attacks the FBI and DHS have stopped ever included one planned by a refugee ( Muslim or not).

4. Do you believe the United States admits more Muslim refugees as our lying President Donald portrays? If you do, you are misinformed. The United States admits just as much Christian refugees as Muslim ones. Also know that Muslim refugees are under threat of existence just as their Christian counterparts from other parts of the world sometimes the Muslim ones are at greater risk in life. In 2016, 37,521 Christian refugees were admitted and 38 ,901 Muslim refugees were admitted in the 2016 fiscal year.

5. The order stops the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely, and bars entry into the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries linked to concerns about terrorism. Those countries are Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Except Trump's ban doesn't Include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, U.A.E, Qatar and Turkey, some of the said financiers of terrorism with Saudi Arabia having a part in some of the terrorist activities in America.

Why were these countries off the list? You may say, there are no refugees here, people leave these countries and apply for refugee status with hopes of running away from the sometimes i humane conditions imposed on them there. The major reason they aren't blacklisted is because our Führer does business with them and avoids putting them on the block.

6. Refugees should not be turned away because they are Muslims or come from places where terrorist come out of. Why? Do you stop milking your cows because one didn't produce milks that day. We shouldn't classify all Muslim refugees as terrorist or evil because of where they come from.

obixcel:
The problem with the Refugee programme is that some of the Radical islamists also are absorbed into d same system. Too bad for the innocent ones who will have to suffer because of the bad eggs.

happney65:
Why did he not Ban Folks from Saudi Arabia the bedrock of Islamic terrorism?I need a cogent answer..I can see Trump and Hypocrisy is like 5 and 6..

shinarambo1:

The same supporters that wants ACA to stay but also wants trump to get rid of obamacare

Missy89:


I heard the Muslim ban includes green card holders and citizens with dual nationality. Crazy

ValerianSteel:
You're asking a gotcha question. I'll answer. It's a little under 14%.

My gotcha question, How are entitlement programs funded?

ValerianSteel:
Have you forgotten why Der Führer ran for President? I'll remind you!

To Make Donald Trump Rich Again!!!!!!!!!!!

He has business with Saudi Arabia, he knows adding Saudi Arabia to the list means his business deals are in trouble. Same way he left out Turkey, U.A.E and Qatar.

Lucasbalo:
How is Trump going to do that ?. With Green card holders, unless a crime is committed or obtaining the PRC is by fraud, I don't think it's revocable but I am not 100% sure. With citizenship, it's a whole different matter. It's not revocable unless it's gotten under fraud. The only citizenship that I know of being revoked are guys that were guilty of crimes against the Jews during the Holocaust. A lot of these cases will end up at the Supreme Court.

Missy89:



He is not canceling it but green card holders from those 7 countries that are currently out of the country cant get back in according to Washington Post

happney65:
Why did he not Ban Folks from Saudi Arabia the bedrock of Islamic terrorism?I need a cogent answer..I can see Trump and Hypocrisy is like 5 and 6..

Lucasbalo:
Even with that, I can safely tell you thousands of lawyers will take that case pro bono and Supreme Court will have to be the final arbiter of that. He is another Hitler in the making or maybe he's following the footstep of his hero Putin. This guy is turning to be a dictator right in our face. America has been scammed big time.

CFCman:

I wish I had the Zuma gif
The Saudis are the main financiers of ISIS, who are hell-bent on overthrowing Assad - which is America's goal in Syria. So, it's not a surprise that Saudi Arabia was exempted from the immigration ban.

ValerianSteel:
Have you forgotten why Der Führer ran for President? I'll remind you!

To Make Donald Trump Rich Again!!!!!!!!!!!

He has business with Saudi Arabia, he knows adding Saudi Arabia to the list means his business deals are in trouble. Same way he left out Turkey, U.A.E and Qatar.

Dear America,

We have been watching the drama of your presidential elections with much interest and curiosity for some time now. It’s hard not to notice the many similarities between our own countries and yours. From fiery inauguration protests and bitter disputes about crowd size, to the intelligence service’s forays into politics and the rise of right-wing extremists, it appears that you are traveling very much in our direction—and at the same time, like us, becoming a curiosity for foreign correspondents trying to explain what’s happening in your region to the world. You might be distraught about where you are headed, but we aren’t! Perhaps this will be an opportunity to put our differences aside and recognize how similar we are.

Let’s start at the beginning. During the campaign we were surprised to learn of the influence that the head of the American mukhabarat (state security, i.e. your FBI) can wield over the election process, simply by choosing to pursue a certain line of investigation. As you may know, this has been a constant feature of our politics since independence. Our surprise turned to astonishment when we started to witness the blossoming feud between the then-president-elect and the American mukhabarat, another important feature of Arab politics.

On top of that, we started to hear reports of foreign meddling in your elections, which some say may have influenced the result. Of course, we are quite familiar with that situation, too, not least because of the efforts of your own administrations over the decades. Yet it came as a surprise to hear talk of “foreign hands” and “secret agendas” in a country like America. We sympathize.

On the bright side, this was also the moment that the conspiracy theories started to spread. You know us; we’re quite fond of conspiracy theories—particularly when they involve plots by external powers—and consider ourselves connoisseurs of the genre. Your plots are a bit rough around the edges, we have to admit, but top marks for creativity. Was the election of Trump a Russian conspiracy? Was talk of the Russian conspiracy a liberal conspiracy to undermine Trump? Did the mukhabarat leak information to help Trump? Did the mukhabarat leak information to hurt Trump? Was media coverage of Trump’s mukhabarat conspiracy theories part of a liberal conspiracy theory to bring him down? They’re all so deliciously complex and open-ended, much like our own.

Things started to get even more interesting when your liberals started to rally around the heroic CIA branch of the mukhabarat in order to fend off the threat of extremists in power and external meddling from Russia. You will recall that we have had similar experiences in recent years in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, and we were disappointed when the world didn’t understand our position. Nonetheless, it was moving to see these public displays of affinity for state security, the enlightened guardians of the nation.

Lately, we have even started to hear rumblings about the American “deep state.” Now that’s also something we’re familiar with, and it raises so many interesting prospects. Will the deep state try to unseat the new president? Will the judiciary try to block his political program? Which side will the Army take? Will foreign correspondents start talking about the “shadow organs of the American state”? How will Hollywood, the entertainment arm of the deep state, use its power to oppose the president? We’re getting dizzy with excitement.

And by the way, speaking of the Army, while we were a little bit disappointed at first that the president doesn’t have a military background, he quickly moved to remedy that by appointing a number of generals to high-level positions within the administration. We are hoping that they will attend Cabinet meetings in their uniforms; there’s something quite reassuring about the leader of the nation being surrounded by military outfits—just consider Saddam Hussein.

Trump is clearly into big military displays. The military marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. The military flying over New York City and Washington D.C. during parades. Here’s someone who really understands how great leaders think. (We can also recommend excellent tailors to make him his own exquisite military uniforms.) Thanks to the new president, we can now use the term “American regime”; your country has fully earned the honor.

Of course, another crucial aspect to this transformation is the president’s contemptuous attitude towards the media. My, the delightful similarities. From blaming the press for engaging in secret conspiracies to undermine him to threatening their access to his White House palace to refusing to take questions from certain reporters, President Trump reminds us of several of our own leaders. In fact, an Arab leader complaining about CNN coverage is pretty much a staple of our political life.

This took an interesting turn on Saturday when the president accused the media of manufacturing his feud with the mukhabarat and his Minister of Information Mr. Sean Spicer castigated the media for reporting the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd. The not-so-veiled threats by the president and Mr. Spicer to the media are very much in the spirit of Arab governance.

We are waiting to see how exactly President Trump plans to deal with the intrusions of the meddling and irksome press. So far, he reminds us of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who perhaps more than any other leader has been leading the movement to put the press back in its place. Will he continue to follow Mr. Erdogan’s example of gradually diluting the freedom of the press or will he choose the Arab approach and replace the entire media with one or two state media organs?

The moment at which we felt real solidarity with the American people, though, was when we started hearing BBC reporters talking to your citizens with the patronizing tone they normally reserve for the Middle East. Correspondents were sent to far-flung corners of the United States to talk to farmers and factory workers to try to understand how they feel and to ask condescending questions. I’m from the British Broadcasting Corporation, are you familiar with the BBC? Where do you get your news from? Do you feel angry? Does religion play a role in how you are voting?. (The only thing missing were pictures of people with blue ink on their thumbs; please consider introducing that practice in the future.)

There was talk, too, of rural strongholds and urban bastions. Deep social and geographic divisions whose origins go back in time. They’re not quite tribal divisions, but there was more than enough religious and political sectarianism to ignite our interest. Who are the liberals and the conservatives and how did their disagreement begin? What’s the difference between alt-right and the Tea Party? What’s the origin of the schism between the neo-conservatives and paleoconservatives? Watching foreign correspondents trying to explain the differences was mesmerizing.

And then there’s the unrest. In the lead up to the inauguration, we started to hear about youth protests against the new regime. Come on! This is bordering on plagiarism now. Please write your own plots and stop borrowing ours. Although, we usually wait for leaders to take power before we start protesting; we like your preemptive revolution approach.

And the inauguration, what a spectacular show: protests, riots, tear gas—it had all the necessary ingredients of an Arab revolution. We saw pictures of broken windows at Bank of America, and a limo engulfed in flames. The Black Block apparently made an appearance. Someone burned an effigy of Mr. Trump and an American flag. (OK that was in Canada, but still). We look forward to more of those moments being captured on camera and turned into photo essays in the foreign press.
A potential new flag for the United States. | Image courtesy of the author

A potential new flag for the United States. | Image courtesy of the author

If you want these protests to be successful spectacles, though, here are a few crucial tips: Use social media and talk about the importance of Twitter and Facebook in spreading the protest movement. Make sure to highlight that your movement is leaderless and organic. Emphasize the fact that you don’t belong to any traditional political parties or have established ideologies. Come up with catchy slogans. And above all, make sure you stress that you are the moderates. Journalists and analysts like to hear this stuff, as we discovered during our own protests.

And be careful about receiving help from external powers. We hear that both Canada and Mexico might try to interfere in your internal politics. With the Russians already involved, this is promising to shape up into an international confrontation. Be prepared for a flood of think-pieces about whether intervention in America is right or wrong, whether regime change can come quickly or whether it will become a protracted conflict, whether a proxy war is in the cards.

A word of warning though, before embarking on this path. We tried the revolution thing ourselves, and it didn’t work out so well. Maybe you should just adapt to living in the new regime. We were always told that having a strongman in charge is the best solution for Arab countries, otherwise there would be chaos. Perhaps the American people are not ready for democracy after all. Let’s face it America, you look like an Arab country now.

Sincerely,

The Arab World

Ps. We have taken the liberty of re-designing your flag; do you like it? Also, we’re attaching an application form to the Arab League, consider joining.

oyb:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/america-you-look-like-an-arab-country-right-now-214678

Lucasbalo:
Very very interesting piece of work. It's a masterpiece. America is totally going to dictatorship under the Regime of Mr Bigot. One thing for certain is that Americans will give him a hell of a fight. He's going to set up a Constitutional crisis if he continues with his stubbornness.

oyb:




i first thought this amazing piece of work was Photoshop.

like you said, the left will not go down without a fight.

obixcel:
Sanctuary Cities, una turn don reach

Modsbuty:
Am I the only one who thinks California should be allowed to go and that Trump should build a giant wall separating California from the rest of the country?