Obama's inability to get much done can be, objectively, attributed largely to an obstructionist Congress. While not wholly to blame, it certainly both slowed his agenda, and often caused him to gut key provisions from legislation in order to get it ultimately passed. Looking at initial drafts of the Affordable Care Act early in its history versus what ultimately passed Congress is a depressing reminder of how willing Democratic partisans are willing to compromise their values in terms of playing ball with an enemy team whose explicit, stated, and recorded goal was paraphrased to "Take the other side's ball and go home."

While many bills have unintended consequences and side effects, these are often not recognized at the time. Pointing out the negative consequences for people who have already passed American vetting procedures, preventing access to persons already in flight when it passed, detaining persons in airports immediately, and the failure of the bill to provide any tangible benefits as far as anti-terrorism measures are concerned were hardly unforeseen. These were immediately pointed out by security professionals.

I am still of the hopeful and optimistic opinion that Trump does not use his "very lean and agile approach" to unilaterally void NAFTA and impose a 20% fee on Mexican imports, as just the foreseeable consequences of that action are far reaching, negative, and highly deleterious to the United States' reputation internationally. The unforeseen consequences? The economic fallout that we cannot immediately predict? If they are mere extensions of what we already can see, I am afraid.

"Looking at initial drafts of the Affordable Care Act early in its history versus what ultimately passed Congress is a depressing reminder of how willing Democratic partisans are willing to compromise their values in terms of playing ball with an enemy team..."

They made no attempt to compromise on the ACA. They didn't need to -- they passed it with zero GOP votes in the House and almost zero in the Senate. They didn't even let Reps or Senators see the bill before the vote!

The ACA itself was just one big compromise, since it was basically the Republicans' own plan from the 90s.

>Obama didn't accomplishing this much in his 8 years, as Trump has in 2 weeks

This may be an accomplishment for people who wants immigrants out, but not for America or everyone. Also, what i hated most about that particular EO is that, it also bans people with Green cards and student visa's. There are numerous students who were stopped and detained which doesn't make any sense, but again this is what you get when you want to act fast without thinking through.

I say time will tell how this step affects things in general.

I would point out, 9/11 hijackers were all here on legal visas[0] - so using that thinking is faulty. Our visa process seems to have faults, and I think this EO is a stop-gap to try to amend the issue. I don't particularly agree with ever choosing "religion" or "race" as a litmus test (which, as I have seen seems to be the underlying motivation, right from the horses mouth), but you have to agree there is justification at closer scrutiny of some sort for visitors coming from known hot-bed countries.

I think from certain angles, you could argue Trumps response hasn't been strong enough (why wasn't SA included in that list; everybody tends to agree that is completely absurd)?

[0] http://www.factcheck.org/2013/05/911-hijackers-and-student-v...

I'm reminded of the old proverb: "Do not remove a fly from your friend's head with a hatchet". Banning thousands of people who haven't done anything and may actually help our cause, just to prevent a few dozen people who may be able to find other means to get in the country if they had to anyways, is not a smart policy.

There hasn't been anything like another 9/11 attack since and we've had 16 years, so maybe two Presidents and all of our allied governments with the same policy know more about what to do to keep the country safe than a two week old presidency.

No, at least three were in the USA illegally on 9/11.[0] It's another example of Factcheck.org's unreliability.

[0] http://www.fairus.org/issue/identity-and-immigration-status-...

I don't think that contradicts the other comment. They said that the hijackers all entered legally. You're saying that some didn't have legal status on the day of the attack. Both are true. That some of them overstayed or didn't meet the terms of their visas after arrival is interesting, but not very actionable unless you want to set up an internal passport system or something.

  I don't think that contradicts the other comment.

Sure it does; "were all here on legal visas" is false.

  That some of them overstayed or didn't meet the terms of their visas

Even those that did have legal paperwork all obtained it via fraudulent means by lying on their applications as to purpose of visit; technically speaking, none was here legally.

The point was that ignoring people with visas would not be compatible with a goal of keeping terrorists out. I (and I think the other commenter) don't think it's a good idea or worthwhile, but it does fit the stated goal.

Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, who are not subject to the travel ban.

>Obama didn't accomplishing this much in his 8 years, as Trump has in 2 weeks

Err, no.

He has put out some Executive Orders, and done some hiring and firing. Even that has been enough to massively damage his Administration, such is the level of decision-making that we've seen so far.

I seem to recall Obama passing a rather major health care reform. Trump hasn't done anything nearly that big yet.

What you describe as a "lean and agile approach to legislation" appears to be not bothering with legislation at all. Has there been any legislation passed during the Trump administration yet? I certainly haven't heard of anything big.

The waiver for Secretary Mattis, a couple of bills that appear to be quite minor (I only skimmed them for a second):

https://www.congress.gov/public-laws/115th-congress

Thanks. I didn't realize it was so easy to look up. Obvious in retrospect.

My secret agenda was a PSA that they do a pretty good job publishing that stuff.

It worked!