There is no such filter
Trump’s fun game for today is pretending that Saipov’s slaughter and maiming yesterday are the fault of Chuck Schumer because IMMIGRATION.
As details emerged about the incident, prominent right-wing commentators and news outlets seized on an ABC7 story reporting that alleged attacker Sayfullo Saipov had come to the United States from Uzbekistan under a State Department program known as the Diversity Visa Lottery.
That story is unconfirmed, but Trump appeared off base in his criticism of Schumer. The program originated in part in a bill introduced by the New York Democrat in 1990; but Schumer was also among a group of lawmakers who later sought to drop the visa protocols assailed by Trump.
Still, Schumer was singled out as the brains behind the program and therefore, critics said, bears responsibility for the attack.
In news interviews, blog posts and tweets, critics tried to pin blame on the leading Democrat, saying he was “responsible” for allowing the 29-year-old suspect’s entry into the country.
Who was responsible for Stephen Paddock’s entry into Las Vegas then? Who was responsible for his presence in The Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino? Who was responsible for his possession of all those guns and his ability to take them to his room and his ability to fire them out his window? Who was responsible for his ability to add a bump stock to one of the 17 assault rifles he had in the room?
The terrorist came into our country through what is called the "Diversity Visa Lottery Program," a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2017
Trump wants “merit based.” Because what? That would filter out anyone who might want to kill a bunch of people while yelling “Allahu akbar”?
Yes, no doubt that’s exactly what he’s thinking, because he’s just that dumb. But it wouldn’t. Reminder for Trump: most of the bangers behind 9/11 had high levels of technical education. They were engineers and similar. They were full of Merit.
There isn’t any kind of immigration filter that can prevent people from deciding they like ISIS and want to give it a helping hand, just as there isn’t any kind of hotel guest filter that can screen out guys who long to shoot into a concert crowd from a high window.
What, no “good people on both sides”? I thought that was the appropriate response to people plowing other people down with cars. Oh, wait, this guy wasn’t a white right-winger? Never mind.
Just as there isn’t any kind of political filter that can prevent excrement like the current incumbent from landing in the White House.
I don’t know, this guy was a white right-winger really. Is Uzbekistan considered brown? Brownish? I dunno. Anyway ISIS and Islamism are about as right-wing as it’s possible to be. Violent theocracy, like Franco’s Falange.
Yes, I guess I worded that wrong. He is Muslim, not American, and by Trump’s standards, there are no good people on the other side if the other side is Muslim.
Muslim and foreign: BAD. Trump is an equal-opportunity hater, he’ll even hate right-wingers if they’re Muslim and foreign.
Religious identity right-wing activists feel a need to consider their ideology consistent: proper conservatism has to be Christian/Islamic/Jewish/Hindu/etc. And of course it is the One True Faith. So members of enemy religions get to be “left”, regardless of their politics apart from religion. It’s probably how we get “atheist Muslims” too.
We can joke about Christian Texans being utterly at home as hypothetical immigrants to Saudi Arabia. They don’t get it.
Funny how when things go wrong with Republican programs, the great memory eraser kicks in and the Democrats take the blame. A “Chuck Schumer beauty” my eye:
But wait, there’s more. Here’s Jeff Flake on the Twitter machine today:
“Bringing multiple guns” would be a hotel guest filter that might just work. But I guess that’s against the constitution, or something.
Sam Day, there is probably not one thing about the Reagan administration they ever get right. As awful as it was, it was not nearly as bad (though they think good) as they think it was.
My husband was watching Trump talk about taxes on TV last night (not a good idea when I’m already feeling a bit sick). We started talking about the myth of Reagan and taxes, and we decided Trump would eventually learn what Reagan had to learn – cutting taxes usually doesn’t work how they expect it to. Then Reagan (and Congress) ended up raising taxes several years running.
But we were wrong about one thing: Trump will not learn. Trump cannot learn. Trump does not learn. Learn is not part of his psyche. And besides, Bush 43 never figured that out, even though his tax cuts proved to be a bit less than economic stimuli.
Because Bush didn’t care, and Trump doesn’t care. Economic stimulus is the diaper they wear to hide the poo coming out their mouth when they talk about cutting taxes. All they really want is not to pay taxes. They cannot process facts, and they see nothing wrong with shifting nearly the entire tax burden to the working poor. They talk constantly about the rich paying a disproportionate amount of taxes, and ignore the fact that they have a disproportionate amount of money.
When everything in the administration fails, they will blame it on Democrats. That is a constant.
If only the presidency was merit based…
Frankly, given the alignment in personal values between ISIS and the Republicans, I’m surprised they’re not allies. Or maybe they are? It seems like some days pretty much the only thing of substance they disagree on is the prophet that acts as a conduit to the myth in the sky.