U.S. Infrastructure Survey : Instead of building walls ..... maybe we need to focus on bridges

Steve Bannon #OyVeyDonaldTrump's Rasputin'sseizes his agenda. Bannon is now in a position to literally make his dreams of destruction come true.

There was so much going on in President Donald Trump’s first week of presidential decrees that it was hard to keep track of it all. The most acute problem, in that it immediatelyaffected people’s lives, was the executive order issued on Friday that banned entry to the United States for immigrants, refugees or visitors arriving from a list of certain Muslim-majority countries designated as having terrorist activity. On Saturday when it became clear that the ban was taking effect immediately and people were being denied entry or told at their point of origin that they could not board U.S.-bound planes, all hell broke loose.

Nobody understood the rules. Passengers were being held and interrogated. Chaos ensued at international airports all over the country. Protesters gathered en masse at terminals to show their solidarity. Immigration lawyers arrived to help detainees and their families navigate a system that nobody understood — because it was arbitrary and constitutionally dubious. The world reacted with disbelief.

Finally several federal judges issued stays, for a variety of reasons, in response to suits filed by civil liberties and immigration attorneys around the country. Even hawkish constitutional experts were appalled.

It was a shocking moment in American history.

But we shouldn’t have been too surprised. Trump had promised to bar Muslims from entering the country during the campaign, famously making a speech after the San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack, saying it had to be done until the U.S. “could figure out what the hell is going on.” He modified his remarks later, apparently at the urging of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who bragged that he had told Trump he could bar Muslims from gaining admittance only by nationality rather than religion (while offering priority to those practicing a different religion) or he would run afoul of the Constitution. Now the Trump administration has absurdly proclaimed that it was just following former president Barack Obama’s lead (an assertion refuted by The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler.)

On Saturday it soon became apparent that the order did not just apply to refugees or even visa holders but was also being used to deny entry to legal U.S. residents — green card holders who had been out of the country. It wasn’t long before leaks filtered out of the administration that Trump’s senior strategist, former Breitbart chief Steve Bannon, had personally overruled a Department of Homeland Security’s official finding that such legal residents would not be included in the ban. After an uproar, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly finally clarified that legal residency would not be “a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations,” basically meaning that individuals would not be denied entry and deported simply for being legal residents instead of citizens. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, a member of Trump’s supposed party, wryly observed: “You have an extreme vetting proposal that didn’t get the vetting it should have had.”

The situation remains confused and fluid. But the fact that Bannon had the ability to do what he did suggests that he’s going to use his power to advance his white nationalist agenda. And his power is growing substantially. While the Muslim ban got most of the attention over the weekend, it was also revealed that Bannon had been named a permanent member of the National Security Council, even as the administration denied that status to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence.

When asked to explain this, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on ABC’s “This Week” that “the president gets plenty of information from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff” and pointed out that Bannon is a “former naval officer” with a “tremendous understanding of the world and the geopolitical landscape that we have now.” Bannon left the service in 1983.

Indeed, Bannon’s “understanding” of the world is exactly what has people concerned. Bannon has become Trump’s most influential adviser and (along with Stephen Miller, a former aide to attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions) seems to be guiding Trump toward his goals, even if the president is clueless about the details or the ramifications. Bannon is a radical white nationalist whose main objective, as he has openly admitted, is to blow everything up — essentially to destroy the existing social and political order. What that leaves us with after the smoke clears is anyone’s guess, since he is notably vague on the endgame.

Recall that a year before he joined the campaign, Bannon was telling people that he was Trump’s unofficial “campaign manager” and was quoted in an email as saying, “Trump is a nationalist who embraces [Sen. Jeff Sessions’] immigration plan.” Nonetheless, as recently as last summer Bannon told Vanity Fair that Trump is a “blunt instrument for us. I don’t know whether he really gets it or not.”

At this point, it seems obvious that it doesn’t really matter. Trump is a narcissist with a very few simple bedrock beliefs, most of which intersect nicely with Bannon’s propaganda and tactics — which happen to intersect with global right-wing nationalism, manifested in the U.S. as the alt-right. This movement was well described by Vanity Fair’s Henry Porter in an article about Trumpism and Brexit:

They mistrust the political establishment and elites, in general; their rhetoric on immigrants is sometimes openly racist; they have a longing for past glories and the old order of things; they are very, very angry; and they present new levels of immunity to verifiable facts and expert opinion.

That worldview is reflected in far right movements and parties in the U.K. (the UK Independence Party), Germany (the Alliance for Germany), the Netherlands (the Party for Freedom) and France (the National Front), among others, and some of these movements have also been cultivated by the Russian president Vladimir Putin. (There is evidence of his government’s attempts to meddle in European elections, in a similar fashion to what allegedly happened in the U.S. during the recent presidential campaign.) This is the worldview that is likely to inform President Trump on policy.

You can see this perfectly manifested in the first week’s orders on (nonexistent) voter fraud, immigration and deportation policies. The ban on Muslims from certain countries has particular national security implications, in that experts believe it will be a splendid propaganda tool for ISIS and will drive a wedge between the U.S. and many of its allies — something that fits perfectly with Bannon’s overall “blow it up” philosophy.

As Bannon said last summer, Trump is just a “blunt instrument” and at this point it doesn’t matter if he “gets it” or not. In his new role as Trump’s Rasputin, Bannon is now in a position to literally make his dreams of destruction come true.

127 companies file briefs against #OyVeyDonaldTrump's Travel Ban and Immigration Policyincluding titan Giants Apple, Google, Amazon, Linkedin,Intel.Microsoft , Paypal......

President Donald Trump says those against his travel ban are putting the country in danger. About 100 technology giants, including Microsoft , Google , Facebook and Apple , have signed onto a legal action against the ban. Newslook



(Photo: Joe Raedle, Getty Images)


SAN FRANCISCO —Nearly three dozen more tech companies late Monday joined a court brief against President Trump's executive order on immigration, swelling the ranks of those seeking a hold on the refugee ban to 127.

Newcomers included Tesla and SpaceX, joining tech heavyweights Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, and a list of both start-ups and more established Silicon Valley stalwarts.

The amicus brief, filed Sunday evening in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, began with 96 companies, though initial reports were 97, as one company was listed twice.

Monday afternoon those 96 mostly tech companies were joined by 31 more when an addendum was filed.

The brief lauded the drive and creativity of the USA's immigrants and said that while protecting the nation through increased background checks was important, maintaining America's fundamental commitment to welcoming immigrants was also critical.

"The beneficiaries are not just the new immigrants who chose to come to our shores, but American businesses, workers, and consumers, who gain immense advantages from immigrants’ infusion of talents, energy, and opportunity," the case states.

The brief is in support of a lawsuit filed in federal court last Monday by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson that asked that key provisions of the executive order be declared unconstitutional.

Trump's order, signed a week after he took office, halted entry of all refugees for 120 days, banned admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely, and barred entry for three months of citizens from seven predominantly Muslim nations.

In response to that suit, Senior Judge James Robart of U.S. District Court in Seattle on Friday issued a nationwide restraining order on the immigration order. On Sunday, the 9th Circuit appeals court, considered the nation's most liberal, declined to reinstate the restrictions.

Trump has sharply criticized the court decisions, and his Administration says the ban is necessary to weed out immigrants with intentions of terrorism. Late Monday, Justice Department officials urged the appeals court judge to reinstate the ban on grounds that not doing so endangered national security

Eventually, the Supreme Court may decide. Courts do take note of who files friends-of-the-court briefs.

Tech firms have complained that Trump's order has created havoc in an industry that is global and has a large number of foreign-born engineers in others working in the U.S. and abroad. Google has said nearly 200 of its staff would be impacted by the ban, while Microsoft said it would affect more than 75.

The list of companies that signed the amicus brief include mostly West Coast tech companies, including Adobe, Airbnb, Box, Dropbox, Etsy, Github, Glassdoor, HP Inc., Kickstarter, LinkedIn, Medium, Mozilla, Netflix, Pandora, Pinterest, Reddit, Salesforce, Slack, Square, Twilo, Yelp and Zynga.

A few non-tech companies also signed, including yogurt company Chobani, snack maker KIND and Levi Strauss & Co.

Uber, whose CEO Travis Kalanick resigned from a Trump advisory council late last week after the ride-hailing company came under pressure from both customers and drivers, signed the brief.

SpaceX and Teslacompanies run by Elon Musk, were among the second-day additions to the list. Musk stayed on the advisory council, despite some backlash from others in the tech industry, saying it was the best chance to influence the administration to make changes to an order he has conceded treats some immigrants unfairly.

The brief marks one of a few recent moments in which the industry has come together around specific issues.

In 2013, more than 20 tech leaders helped create FWD.us, an organization pushing for immigration reform. In 2014, nearly 150 Internet companies sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission supporting net neutrality. And in 2016, many technology companies issued statements supporting Apple in its struggle with the FBI over breaking the encryption on an iPhone used by a terrorist in San Bernardino.



President Donald Trump used his preferred platform to criticize the judge who blocked his administration's travel ban on immigrants. Video provided by Newsy Newslook

"The Order effects a sudden shift in the rules governing entry into the United States, and is inflicting substantial harm on U.S. companies," the brief states. "It hinders the ability of American companies to attract great talent; increases costs imposed on business; makes it more difficult for American firms to compete in the international marketplace; and gives global enterprises a new, significant incentive to build operations—and hire new employees—outside the United States."

In the filing, the companies note that immigrants or their children founded more than 200 of the Fortune 500 — companies that include Apple, Kraft, Ford, General Electric, AT&T, Google, McDonald’s, Boeing, and Disney. Immigrants also make up 28% of Main Street business owners — and 18% of business owners nationwide — as well as 16% of the U.S. labor force, they say. "Immigrants do not take jobs away from U.S. citizens — they create them," the filing states.

A large group of lawyers from tech companies met last Tuesday to discuss possible actions they might collectively take to fight the executive order. The amicus brief appears to be the fruit of that meeting.

There was no immediate response from the administration. On Saturday, President Trump tweeted, "I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY. The courts are making the job very difficult!"

Friend of the court briefs often influential

Amicus briefs allow interested parties to give the court their own take on the issues involved, without actually being a part of the case. There are few limits on who can submit them and especially contentious or important cases can have dozens arguing of briefs submitted on each side, said Martin Flaherty, a professor of constitutional law at Fordham Law School in New York City.

It’s not uncommon for parties with an interest (called “amici,” or “friends” in Latin) to come together to either divvy up what their briefs will cover or work together to craft a single brief as happened in the tech group’s case, Flaherty said.

While all such briefs are equal before the law, courts often take note of who is filing them.

An example Flaherty gave was a Michigan affirmative action case that went to the Supreme Court in 2003. An influential amicus filing came from a group of retired military leaders who argued that affirmative action was crucial for the nation’s military academies as it would be bad for the schools and the military as a whole were the officer corps not to reflect the diversity of the military as a whole.

“I would think that perhaps for certain justices, the fact that all these tech companies are saying this would be terrible for the country is important,” Flaherty said.The travel ban has been put on hold by a federal appeals court. On Sunday and Monday, 127 companies signed a motion supporting the suit brought by the attorneys general of Minnesota and Washington state. Almost all are tech companies.

Filed on Monday:

Adobe Systems

Affirm

Ampush LLC

Brocade Communications Systems

Bungie

Casper Sleep

Cavium

Chegg

ClassPass

Coursera

EquityZen

Evernote

Gusto

Handy Technologies

HP

IAC/InterActiveCorp

Linden Lab

Managed By Q

MobileIron

New Relic

Pandora Media

Planet Labs

RPX Corporation

Shift Technologies

Slack Technologies

SpaceX

Tesla

TripAdvisor

Udacity

Zendesk

Zenefits

Filed on Sunday:

AdRoll

Aeris Communications

Airbnb

AltSchool, PBC

Ancestry.com

Appboy

Apple

AppNexus

Asana

Atlassian Corp

Autodesk

Automattic

Box

Brightcove

Brit + Co

CareZone

Castlight Health

Checkr

Chobani

Citrix Systems

Cloudera

Cloudflare

Copia Institute

DocuSign

DoorDash

Dropbox

Dynatrace

eBay

Engine Advocacy

Etsy

Facebook

Fastly

Flipboard

Foursquare Labs

Fuze

General Assembly

GitHub

Glassdoor

Google

GoPro

Harmonic

Hipmunk

Indiegogo

Intel

Jand, Inc. doing business as Warby Parker

Kargo Global

Kickstarter, PBC

Kind

Knotel

Levi Strauss & Co.

LinkedIn

Lithium Technologies

Lyft

Mapbox

Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart

Marin Software

Medallia

A Medium Corporation

Meetup

Microsoft

Motivate International

Mozilla

Netflix

Netgear

NewsCred

Patreon

PayPal Holdings

Pinterest

Quora

Reddit

Rocket Fuel

SaaStr

Salesforce.com

Scopely

Shutterstock

Snap

Spokeo

Spotify USA

Square

Squarespace

Strava

Stripe

SurveyMonkey

TaskRabbit

Tech:NYC

Thumbtack

Turn

Twilio

Twitter

Turn

Uber Technologies

Via

Wikimedia Foundation

Workday

Y Combinator Management

Yelp

Zynga

In addition, Amazon and Expedia both filed motions earlier in the case seeking to overturn the travel ban, although they were not named in the motion filed Sunday night.


CNNMoney (New York)

#OyVEyDonaldTrump goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals on his negated unconstitutional Executive Order covering Visas and Immigration .#GodHelpAmerica #AmericaHangsItsHeadInShame

The U.S. Cort of Appeals hears appeals of cases decided by executive branch agencies and federal trial courts in nine western states and two Pacific Island jurisdictions.The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has a reputation for being liberal .

Justice Dept. appeals federal judge's ruling halting immigration order



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The Justice Department on Saturday evening filed a notice that it will formally appeal a federal judge's ruling halting President Trump's immigration order.

Justice Department Attorney Michelle Bennett's filing was made in response to a temporary nationwide restraining order issued Friday that halted Trump's executive order banning citizens of seven countries from entering the United States.

The case now goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

"We'll win. For the safety of the country we'll win," Trump told reporters Saturday evening at his private Mar-a-Lago resort, where he is spending the weekend.

Throughout the day Saturday, Trump criticized Judge James Robart and his ruling Friday in a case involving Washington and Minnesota that stopped Trump's order immediately.

Trump called Robart, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2003, a "so-called judge" while blasting his decision as "ridiculous."

Vice President Pence defended Trump's criticism of the federal judge, telling ABC News that Americans are "very accustomed to this president speaking his mind and speaking very straight with them."

Trump continued to express his annoyance with the ruling throughout the day, doubling down on his view that Robart's decision was flawed.

"What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?" the president asked in a tweet.
"Because the ban was lifted by a judge, many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country. A terrible decision," Trump tweeted an hour later.

The president's flurry of tweets stretched into the evening when he claimed that "bad people are very happy" about the ruling.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Friday praised the decision to halt Trump's order, saying, “No one is above the law — not even the President.”

"It's our president's duty to honor this ruling and I'll make sure he does," Ferguson said.

The White House issued a statement Friday indicating that it would appeal the judge's ruling.

"At the earliest possible time, the Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay of this order and defend the executive order of the President, which we believe is lawful and appropriate," the White House's late Friday statement read.

The White House initially labeled the judge's action an "outrageous order" but within 10 minutes had sent a second, nearly identical statement that stripped out that language.

“The president’s order is intended to protect the homeland and he has the constitutional authority and responsibility to protect the American people," it continued.

In an interview with CNN on Friday evening, Ferguson said he "expected win, lose or draw" that the case would move "fairly quickly through, up to the Ninth Circuit" Court of Appeals -- "just because of the magnitude of the executive order."

"I'm prepared for this case to go all the way to the Supreme Court whichever way the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals goes," he said, anticipating a challenge to Robart's ruling.

"It's a case of that magnitude, it's a case that frankly I think will ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, so that would not surprise me one way or the other."

Trump's action bans people from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia from entering the U.S. for 90 days, and temporarily halts the United States' refugee resettlement program for 120 days, while indefinitely suspending resettlement for refugees from Syria.

The order, issued last Friday, immediately stirred controversy when travelers who were en route to the U.S. when it was signed were detained at airports. Protesters demonstrated at airports across the county last weekend.

CNN reported that Customs and Border Protection held a 9 p.m. call with airlines and said it’s “back to business as usual” in the wake of the judge’s action.

Airports started allowing residents to enter the United States on Saturday, and the Department of Homeland Security reversed the revocation of 60,000 visas all in response to the judge's ruling

God Save America from Donny T.Trump’s mass deportation machine: He’ll create an American police state equal to Nazi Germany Trump’s plan portends great civil strife, economic devastation and the imposition of a police state

Trump’s mass deportation machine: He’ll create an American police state equal to Nazi Germany
Trump’s plan portends great civil strife, economic devastation and the imposition of a police state




Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Xfinity Arena of Everett, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016, in Everett, Wash. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)(Credit: AP)

Donald Trump’s pledge this week to speedily deport “anyone who has entered the United States illegally” would require the creation of a vast police state that harkens back to the early 20th century, with Nazi Germany’s roundups and deportations of millions of Jews and others deemed undesirable.

“Under my administration, anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained until they are removed out of our country and back to the country from which they came,” Trump blared. “And you can call it deported if you want. The press doesn’t like that term. You can call it whatever the hell you want. They’re gone.”

Trump’s plan starts with the immediate roundup and expulsion of “illegal immigrants who are arrested for any crime whatsoever,” but goes far beyond the notion that local police might stop a car whose rear headlight is out, demand visas and green cards, and in their absence throw that person into an American gulag that ends in a foreign airport. Trump has said that “62 percent of households headed by illegal immigrants” receive some welfare or food stamps, a “tremendous cost to our country” and “will be priorities for immediate removal.” That would create not just a climate of great fear, but in tandem with his pledge to push for a new national law withholding federal funds from sanctuary cities, it echoes 1930s Germany’s deliberate stripping of civil rights.

Until Trump’s Arizona speech Wednesday, he had signaled that he still wanted to deport 11 million undocumented migrants — and also ensnare their estimated 5 million children born here and revoke their citizenship — but offered no details beyond saying he would find a “humane and efficient” way to do it. On Wednesday, he offered some numbers to indicate the size of the expanded federal police force needed, saying he would “triple the number of ICE deportation officers” and “hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents.”

But a series of 2016 reports from a right-wing think tank, American Action Forum, which looked at the logistics behind Trump’s pledge to deport migrants in a two-year period reveals a far larger state police force and deportation machinery would be required. The closest historic analogy is not the arrest and deportation of 1.3 million Mexicans in the 1950s derisively known as “Operation Wetback,” nor the roundup and internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans in WWII, nor the arrest of thousands of accused Communists in the Palmer Raids after WWI. It is Nazi Germany, where the Gestapo, or the state police — along with the legal system and the courts, a transportation infrastructure, and transit and concentration camps — were used to arrest and deport millions of Jews and other “undesirables.”

“We examined what it would take to execute Donald Trump’s promise to remove all undocumented immigrants in just two years,” American Action Forum reported. “We detailed current immigration enforcement operations and estimated exactly how large each component of the enforcement process would have to be in order to accomplish this task.”

“We found that to remove all undocumented immigrants in two years, the federal government would need to increase federal immigration apprehension workers from 4,844 to 90,582, immigration detention personnel from 5,203 to 53,381, federal immigration attorneys from 1,430 to 32,445, and immigration courts from 58 to 1,316,” its 2016 analysis continued. “In addition, the number of immigration detention beds would need to increase from 34,000 to 348,831 and to physically transport all undocumented immigrants out of the country the government would need to charter a minimum of 17,296 flights and 30,701 bus trips each year.”

In other words, Trump’s Arizona speech was not just the usual ranting and raving Americans have come to expect from a man whose words cannot be trusted — such as playing nice while standing at the podium with Mexico’s president, and hours later vilifying migrants in his speech promising a new federal police state and gulag. His purportedly substantive speech detailing how he would do it was devoid of the real size and scope of the state police and deportation industry needed.

As for Trump’s illogical and cynical claims that deporting millions of migrants would lift the American economy and help underemployed Americans, the American Action Forum report found deporting 11 million undocumented people — including upwards of 6.8 million workers — would have devastating economic consequences. It would remove 16 percent of the nation’s farm, forestry and fishing workers, 12 percent of construction workers, 9 percent of leisure and hospitality workers, 6 percent of manufacturing workers and so on, cutting national economic growth from between 3 and 5 percent, or upwards of $625 billion.

American Action Forum projects that nearly 135,000 more immigration police and prison guards would be needed to arrest, process and deport 11 million undocumented migrants, as well as several thousands of additional judges, lawyers and workers in the courts and transit systems. They do not include Trump’s new pledge to police state welfare and public assistance agencies, which would increase the police state’s size. Nonetheless, the projection that 135,000-plus deportation police would be needed is on par with Nazi Germany’s police, imprisonment and deportation treadmill.

Here’s how enclycopedia.com summarizes the Gestapo network in WWII:
“At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, there were approximately 40,000 Gestapo agents in Germany. As the war progressed and the Nazis gained territory throughout Europe, the Gestapo swelled to employ over 150,000 informants, agents and accessory personnel. Gestapo agents were charged with rooting out foreign agents and resistance fighters, but they also expanded their role as an internal police force.”

The comparisons continue. American Action Forum anticipates the need for more than 300,000 additional “immigration detention beds.” If you look at the population of Nazi Germany’s biggest transit and concentration camps, you find a matrix of prisons where tens of thousands were held simultaneously in an array of facilities for forced prison labor or before being deported over many months.

Trump’s police state would turn modern America into something that hasn’t been seen in the West for 75 years. And his proposal that new migrants sign loyalty oaths is akin to what the United States required European immigrants to swear as they landed on U.S. shores before WWI.

Considering that the largest number of annual deportations under President Obama has been about 410,000 — causing tremendous grief as families have been broken up — any scenario for exponentially increasing that figure portends great civil strife, economic disruption and the imposition of a police state.

“I can’t even begin to picture how we would deport 11 million people in a few years where we don’t have a police state, where the police can’t break down your door at will and take you away without a warrant,” Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, told The New York Times in May when asked about implementing Trump’s proposal.

It’s easy to dismiss Trump’s deportation pledge as the ravings of a politician who will say anything to rev up his base through grievance and revenge politics. But it’s another to thing to contemplate what it would mean to enact. The historic analogies, where they can be found, are appalling and could transform the country into an unrecognizable police state.