President Trump's chaotic, leaky, feud-filled past 24 hours, explained

[DonViejo]

There’s so much going on that it’s almost impossible to keep up.

Updated by Andrew [e-mail] Feb 10, 2017, 10:20am EST

Even for President Donald Trump, the past 24 hours have been tumultuous.

There was the court ruling that kept his most sweeping policy initiative (thus far) frozen. There was the ethical breach by a top aide who promoted Trump’s daughter’s products. There was a report that another top aide mischaracterized his contacts with the Russian ambassador. There was a reversal on Trump’s stated plans for Taiwan policy aimed at pleasing China. There was a report that Trump paused a call with Vladimir Putin because he didn’t know what a major nuclear arms treaty was. And there were Twitter attacks on two senators, including one Republican.

Whew.

Trump’s own top-billed event of the day was a photo op in which he signed three basically toothless executive orders on crime. As German Lopez explains, all these orders do is create various “task forces” or demand plans be written to address various issues. That’s a classic politician trick to create the impression of bold action when what’s actually happening is not-so-bold punting. Still, better for the administration to take its time with major policy changes then to roll them out haphazardly.

The actual biggest policy news out of Thursday, then, was the ruling from a Ninth Circuit panel that kept President Trump’s refugee and visa ban — his most sweeping policy move yet — temporarily frozen.

The Ninth Circuit panel’s ruling used strikingly strong language to swat down the Trump administration’s claims that the judiciary had no authority to review his order. “There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy,” the three-judge panel — which included one Republican appointee — wrote.

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http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/10/14573144/trump-court-russia-china