US Election & Presidency

Quick marchers do a whip round

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical...li=BBoPWjQ

(01-02-2017 14:00 )wackawoo Wrote:  What is the truth of this?

Quote:In 1986, Congress established the Visa Waiver Program. It allows citizens from approved countries to travel to the United States without a visa, for business or pleasure, for as long as ninety days. Britain was the first country to join. Today, there are thirty-eight participants, mainly in Europe, but also including Asian allies such as Japan and Australia. No Muslim-majority country is a participant. Neither is Israel.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush Administration tightened scrutiny of Visa Waiver travellers, mainly by deploying technology. It required Visa Waiver travellers to have machine-readable or biometric passports. Later, the Bush Administration set up an online registry system that allowed for screening of such travellers before they flew to America.

In December, 2015, after the Paris attacks, President Obama signed into law the Visa Waiver Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act. The law sought to address the problem of Belgian, French, and other European-passport holders, who had volunteered by the hundreds to fight for ISIS, and who might be able to fly into the United States, under Visa Waiver, without being noticed.

The new law said that if a traveller from a Visa Waiver nation had, at any time since March, 2011, visited a country compromised by terrorism he or she would have to attend an American consulate to apply for a regular visa and submit to an interview, as many other travellers to America from the around the world do routinely, rather than simply entering visa-free. Early in 2016, the Obama Administration named seven countries as destinations that would disallow subsequent use of the Visa Waiver program. They were Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, and Yemen—the same seven named in President Trump’s order, as Trump’s spokespeople have often pointed out this week.

The Obama list, though, was not a ban but a chance to ask more questions. Syria, Iraq, and Libya host significant numbers of Islamic State volunteers from Europe. If a Belgian kid travelled to those places, it would be prudent to ask why he had done so before he turned up in New York. Somalia is the home of Al-Shabaab, a regional terrorist group that has attracted international volunteers. Yemen hosts an Al Qaeda branch that has attempted attacks on U.S. soil. The inclusion of Iran and Sudan was less persuasive, yet both countries, along with Syria, are on the State Department’s official list of state sponsors of terrorism, so that provided a rationale for including them. The most notable omission was perhaps Pakistan, the locus of a number of terrorist groups with records of cross-border attacks, including a fizzled attempt to set off a car bomb in Times Square, in 2010.

Donald Trump and his advisers received this inheritance not as counterterrorism technocrats but as political opportunists. Trump’s order on Friday went far beyond the policy set last year. First, Trump’s order was not limited to Visa Waiver travellers from Europe or Asia who might have visited the flagged countries. In its initial formulation, the order apparently covered everyone born in those seven countries who was not a U.S. citizen. Nor did it merely require the designated travellers to attend a consulate to apply for a regular visa. It banned all travel to the U.S. for at least ninety days, while the Trump Administration worked out its plans for “extreme vetting.”

^ Very interesting, so for all the excuses by the anti Trump who wrote that article, Trumps policey is just an extreme version of an already existing one singling out the same countries.

I never knew that, I thought it was something he did off his own back.

Guessing when all the dust has settled down what will be left will be somehitng not a million miles away from what was already there, probably more strick and difficult to get a visa to get in the US.

Not unlike the Mexican wall, parts of which was perfectly ok under Bush and Obama, but finnishing the job off is not.

there are moves to impeach him apparently but it does seem that it is unlikely to win votes in Congress since Republicans control both Senate & Congressional House

Kellyann Conway sounds dangerous anytime o hear her speak she is power mad.

^ She also sounds like a complete muppet, she comes out with utter nonsense, "alternative facts" being the prime example

Who would her UK equivalent be? Nicola Sturgeon?

They're not remotely the same, people may not agree with everything Sturgeon says, but she is an intelligent women, Conway is a moron.
An equivalent would be whoever is the most ridiculous spin doctor.

She wants to media to stay quiet and has refused to cooperate with CNN so she wants to turn the white house against the people.

Changing the rules now so they don't need agreement for suitable appointments to government. This is no longer a democracy