Hawaii judge continues to block Trump's ill-conceived travel ban

Judge Derrick K. Watson, in Honolulu, is carefully strengthening a legal argument against President trump's unconstitutional efforts to wage war on Islam. That is to state baldly the real purpose of the Trump effort, Along the way, the President has acted atrociously to turn states into police states. Watson's new decision extends the life of his original decision. Arguing for the extension Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin called Trump's blocked ban a “neon sign flashing ‘Muslim ban, Muslim ban.’”

What happened

The effect of yesterday's order will be to strengthen the general pushback against the Trump effort, The government had sought a narrowing of Watson's original block but yesterday the judge made it clear that his order would apply to the entire government effort to block entry to refugees from seven predominately Muslim nations.

According to AP, the extension assures the rights of Muslim citizens after “repeated stops and starts of the last two months.”

Relentless Trump

Meanwhile, Trump is not backing down. In one of the most damaging efforts of an entire damaging presidency, he has asked states to instruct their police to assist ICE agents in detaining the undocumented. This effort harms law enforcement by driving the undocumented into hiding so they cannot help police in their work. It also intensifies the true terror felt by persons the country has implicitly tolerated for years. Trump now says he will withhold federal aid to states that refuse to unleash their police on innocent Americans.

Do we have reason to fear?

We have good reason to be afraid of the actions of President Trump. Every one of them is either retrograde of a threat to the very roots of our governance. Trump's defenders say he is delivering a needed reality check to a sclerotic and elitist Washington establishment. But all he is really doing is ensuring that we will have years of gridlock as shocked legislators seek to reckon with a person increasingly seen as mentally unstable.

The biggest reason for fear

It is ironical that Trump says he is making us safe when there is more danger to us falling a bathtub than from open and fair immigration. The president is like a boy in a candy store moving from issue to issue. There is nothing that says he cannot precipitate a global military crisis that is as thoughtlessly conceived as all his other orders have been.