AMERICA THE MINUTE: AS WORLD REFUGEE CRISIS DEEPENS & IN THE FACE OF CLEAR EVIDENCE THAT REFUGEES ARE GOOD FOR AMERICA, OUR WHITE NATIONALIST REGIME TURNS ITS BACK ON REFUGEES – Fabricated Statistics & Bogus Attempt To Blame Asylum Seekers Highlight Disgraceful Actions – Sec. Mike Pompeo Joins White House “Racist Cult!” – Advice Of Experts Spurned!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/pompeo-trump-refugee-asylum-levels/index.html

Refugee levels are surging worldwide. Trump is slashing the number the US will let in

By Zachery Cohen and Elise Labott, CNN:

White House slashes refugee cap to new low 02:16

Washington (CNN)As the number of people displaced by war and famine surges, the Trump administration is capping refugee admissions at the lowest level since 1980, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday. It’s the second year in a row the administration has set the cap at a record low.

The US will cap refugee admissions at 30,000 in 2019, a 33% drop from 2018’s record-low ceiling of 45,000.
Pompeo said the number should not be considered as “the sole barometer” of the United States’ commitment to humanitarian efforts around the world, adding that the US would “focus on the humanitarian protection cases of those already in the country.”
As evidence, Pompeo cited the number of asylum applications expected next year, saying the US will process up to 280,000 such applications in 2019.
“The ultimate goal is the best possible care and safety of these people in need, and our approach is designed to achieve this noble objective,” Pompeo said. “We are and continue to be the most generous nation in the world.”
Refugee resettlement agencies, immigrant rights groups and religious leaders had been pushing for the administration to increase the cap, noting that the number of refugees who need help around the world is larger than ever.
But Monday’s announcement isn’t a surprise. Administration officials have been moving to scale back refugee resettlement in the US since President Donald Trump took office.
Last year, officials lowered the cap to 45,000, a dramatic decrease from the ceiling of 110,000 that President Barack Obama’s administration had set for the 2017 fiscal year.
And the US isn’t even going to admit that many. CNN reported in June that the US is on track to admit the fewest number of refugees since its resettlement program began in 1980, tens of thousands below the cap amount.
Monday’s announcement was met with swift condemnation from refugee resettlement organizations.
“The United States is not only abdicating humanitarian leadership and responsibility-sharing in response to the worst global displacement and refugee crisis since World War II, but compromising critical strategic interests and reneging on commitments to allies and vulnerable populations,” the International Rescue Committee said.
Pompeo’s assertion that the US will process up to 310,000 refugees and asylum seekers also makes a false equivalence between the two issues.
Asylum and refugee protections are designed on similar grounds to protect immigrants who are being persecuted. Refugee protections are granted to immigrants who are still abroad, whereas asylum is reserved for immigrants who have already arrived on US soil.
There is no cap on asylum numbers, and in recent years, roughly 20,000 to 25,000 asylum seekers have been granted protections annually, according to the latest available government statistics.
BY THE NUMBERS: HOW BATULO AND HER FAMILY FIT IN

Total refugees:

22.5 million around the world

3 million living in the US

Refugees recently admitted to the US:

96,874 in 2016

33,368 in 2017

4,978 so far this year

Somali refugees recently admitted to the US:

10,786 in 2016

2,770 in 2017

73 so far this year

Sources: Pew Research Center, International Rescue Committee, US State Department, United Nations

There are two resource and funding streams each for refugees and asylum cases.
They also apply differently — with the State Department handling refugee admissions and the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice handling asylum claims. The interviewers who conduct screenings, however, can be deployed to handle either kind of interview.
But immigration hardliners and the administration have sought to curtail to the growing number of asylum claims each year, driven in large part by immigrants arriving at the southern border.
The number announced Monday reflects a compromise between hardliners in the Trump administration, such as Stephen Miller, who favored capping the ceiling at 20,000, and Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton and US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who argued to keep it at 45,000, according to several senior administration officials.
Miller personally has lobbied Cabinet officials to support the President’s desires to focus on border security, officials told CNN, and the issue was discussed at a secret Principals Committee meeting on Friday.
Hundreds of thousands of asylum applications are pending between the immigration courts, run by the Department of Justice, and applications to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, run by the Department of Homeland Security.
Depending on how a person is applying for asylum, and where in the process the application is, the case could be pending before either body.

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“A Horrible Day For The Future Of America” [You Betcha!]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/18/its-great-day-restricting-access-america-horrible-day-future-america/?utm_term=.3c8a5b9bce55

Here’s what Professor Daniel W. Drezner of Tufts University had to say about the latest racist scam from the White Nationalist Administration:

There was never much coherence to Donald Trump’s foreign policy statements as a candidate, but there was a theme: The rest of the world is dangerous, and the United States needs to be walled off from it. In some cases, that meant Trump preferred a literal wall. In other instances, the walls have been more figurative but with real consequences, in the form of visa restrictions and trade barriers and whatnot.

On Monday, the Trump administration raised those walls higher.

The first move came on trade. Trump made his beliefs on this subject well-known early in the morning, tweeting: “Tariffs have put the U.S. in a very strong bargaining position, with Billions of Dollars, and Jobs, flowing into our Country – and yet cost increases have thus far been almost unnoticeable. If countries will not make fair deals with us, they will be ‘Tariffed!’” In the real world, the effects of tariffs have hurt some American sectors very badly, there have been no appreciable concessions from other countries, and it is far from obvious that this administration knows what it is doing in this area.

. . . .

What is truly impressive, however, is that this was not the dumbest and most embarrassing move made by the Trump administration on Monday. No, that honor must go to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose announcement demonstrated exactly how little swagger he possessed within the administration:

The United States will admit no more than 30,000 refugees in the coming fiscal year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday, the lowest number in decades and a steep cut from the 45,000 allowed in this year.

The new number is a small fraction of one percentage point of the almost 69 million displaced people in the world today. But Pompeo said the United States remains the most generous nation when other U.S. aid to refugees is taken into account, including funds to shelter and feed refugees in camps closer to their home countries.

Pompeo said the lower cap should not be the “sole barometer” of American humanitarian measures, but “must be considered in the context of the many other forms of protection and assistance offered by the United States.”

You know what’s a sign that you know you are announcing a dumb move? Explaining that it is not the “sole barometer” of something and then leaving the podium without taking any questions. There is no way in which the optics of reducing refugee acceptance (except if you’re European) makes the United States look like the leader of the free world.

This announcement accomplishes nothing beyond making Stephen Miller happy. The time to cut back on refugee admissions is not the moment when the number of refugees is hitting an all-time high. There is zero swagger in this play. All it will do is continue to eviscerate the last remaining tendrils of U.S. soft power.

Donald Trump is the president, and as currently constituted, neither Congress nor the courts are able or willing to constrain his moves in this area. Heck, Trump is so unconcerned about legislative constraints that Pompeo announced the refugee restrictions without consulting Congress at all, as he is obligated to do by law. It is worth pointing out, however, that these moves are unpopular with the American people, rest on bad economics, and will foster anger and backlash across the rest of the world.

So, in other words, yesterday was a normal day in the life of the Trump administration.

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Cruelty, stupidity, inhumanity, ignorance, bigotry, lies, false narratives, White Nationalism, overt racism — ah, it’s just another “day at the office” for the Trumpsters.

If you’re tired of these noxious fools ruining our country and destroying our position in the world, get out the vote to throw the GOP out this Fall. Otherwise, we might all be living in the “Third World” of a “Banana Republic” pretty soon!

PWS

09-18-18

 

🤡🤡”Isn’t it rich? Isn’t it queer? Losing my timing this late in my career And where are the clowns? Quick, send in the clowns Don’t bother They’re here”

“Send In The Clowns” written by Stephen Sondberg, sung by Barbara Streisand, check it out here:

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl=en-us&q=send+in+the+clowns+barbra+streisand&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgqq2n6_XTAhUF2IMKHa5aBDUQ1QIIvAEoAg&biw=1024&bih=729&dpr=2

Daniel W. Drezner writes in the Washington Post:

“Trump’s alleged screw-up with the Russians reveals yet again what we have learned many times in the last four months: The successful operation of our government assumes a minimally competent Chief Executive that we now lack. Everyone else in the executive branch can be disciplined or fired or worse when they screw up by, say, revealing classified information or lying about some important public policy issue. But the President cannot be fired; we are stuck with him for 3 1/2 more years unless he is impeached, which remains a long-shot.

The president is a vainglorious clown trying to act like a world-historical figure and revealing himself to be a bad salesman. His staff lacks both the competence and the ability to rein him in. And now he has gone from puzzling allied nations to alienating them.

After nearly four months as president, there is little evidence of growth or change from the president. There is only the beclowning. For the United States, the next few years will be nothing better than an exercise in damage control.”

Read Drezner’s complete op-ed here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/16/the-continued-beclowning-of-the-trump-administraton/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-posteverything%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.4021906e46fa

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

And, the show hardly ends with the White House. One of my soon to be retired former colleagues referred to the situation in the local Immigration Court as “the circus!”🤡🎪🤹‍♂️

PWS

05-16-17

POLITICS/ENTERTAINMENT: Even With The Demise Of Ringling Bros. Opportunities For Clowns Abound — Daniel W. Drezner On “The Beclowning Of The Executive Branch!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/31/the-beclowning-of-the-executive-branch/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-posteverything%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.0c04325e77c7

Daniel W. Drezner writes in the Washington Post:

“Fewer than a hundred days into the Trump administration, there are two, actually three, competing narratives about how the government is being run. The first narrative is the Trump administration’s claim that things are running so, so smoothly. A brief glance at the poll numbers suggests that not many people are buying this, so we can discard it quickly.

The second narrative, made by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board among many others, is that America’s system of checks and balances turns out to be working pretty well. President Trump’s more egregious moves have been checked by federal courts and even by the court of public opinion at times. A historically unpopular and costly health-care bill did not pass the House of Representatives, which seems like the right outcome. Irresponsible foreign policy statements made by the president during the transition have been walked back. Efforts by the Trump White House to deny or scuttle investigations into foreign meddling into the election have resulted in congressional investigations, pushback by the intelligence community and recusals by Trump appointees. The administration successfully managed to pick a Supreme Court nominee who is not a laughingstock.

There’s a lot to this argument. But if I may, I’d like to proffer just a sampling of the news stories that have broken in the past 24 hours to suggest a third and more troubling narrative: the president and his acolytes are beclowning the American state.

Think I’m exaggerating? Consider the following: . . . .”

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Read Drezner’s complete article at the above link.

In a “normal” Administration, any one of the items described by Drezner would be a jaw-dropper. But, in Trump’s Washington, it’s just another day under the Big Top. After all, “the show must go on.”

PWS

04/02/17