As federal judges write orders blocking Trump cabal's new anti-Muslim, anti-refugee "travel ban" while citing Trump's own words as evidence of the ban's religious intent, the executive branch itself continues to merrily undermine its own case.
At least two sets of internal data that have been available to the Trump administration — but which have never been publicized — appear to undercut the government’s argument for a travel ban that it had hoped would take effect Thursday, according to several officials familiar with the documents.
The two internal reports are analyses of where terrorists come from, and they again show what the experts have been telling us in the newspapers and on the teevees: Most extremists are radicalized either in nations left unmentioned by the travel ban or right here in gun-toting, mental-health-not-caring-about America. As a putative effort to block potential terrorism (as opposed to a white nationalist’s ideological shoe-scrapings), the “travel ban” is simply nonsensical. And Trump's team either had both of these reports or should have had them, if they were not so bunglingly incompetent.
The White House response was, of course, to claim that the real scandal here is that you bastards were allowed to find out about this instead of just settling yourself down with a bucket of their sweet, sweet lies.
White House spokesman Michael Short said the justification for the travel ban is "not in any way diminished by these selective and potentially criminal leaks being carried out by disgruntled government officials. The president is 100 percent committed to keeping this country safe from terrorism and that’s exactly what this order will help achieve."
Is it just me, or are all the White House statements blending together at this point? It goes (1) the public finding out about the embarrassing thing is a criminal act and The Real Outrage Here, followed by (2) bland restatement of the original lie as if nothing has happened and there's nothing more that needs to be discussed. I'm not sure this Michael Short person is real, in fact. He may just be a copy machine stuffed into a suit.