Today’s Travel Ban News (Updated)

If you’re confused about what’s going on with the travel ban, here is the latest — As you no doubt heard, on Friday a federal judge issued a nationwide temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s executive action. The Justice Department appealed, but early Sunday an appeals court refused to reinstate the ban.

However, ABC News says, “the court still has to rule on the department’s request to place an emergency stay on the judge’s order to allow the government to resume enforcing the ban.” The Sunday ruling was a temporary thing. The appeals court, which sits in San Francisco, asked for additional briefs, which are supposed to be filed this afternoon.

CNN reports,

The judges who will hear the case — most likely conferring by telephone — are expected to issue a ruling as early as Tuesday. The three-judge panel includes Judge William C. Canby Jr, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, Judge Michelle T. Friedland, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, and Judge Richard R. Clifton, an appointee of President George W. Bush. It is likely that they will make their decisions based on the legal briefs they receive and not ask for a hearing.

Among the many persons and entities filing briefs with the court are two former secretaries of state, John Kerry and Madeleine Albright. Their brief was joined by two Obama Administration officials, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Leon E. Panetta, who served as secretary of defense and head of the C.I.A. The New York Times says of the brief,

With President Trump’s executive order, “we risk placing our military efforts at risk by sending an insulting message” to Iraqis working with American forces battling the Islamic State there, the legal filing to the court said. “The order will likely feed the recruitment narrative of ISIL and other extremists that portray the United States as at war with Islam,” it said, using another name for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

However the three-judge panel rules, the case will probably end up being decided by the Supreme Court, just about everybody says. This could be drawn out for weeks.

If the Trumpettes had any sense they’d let this one go; several polls say the public is against the travel ban. This is a war they would lose by winning.

However, I think we’re all clear by now that the Trumpettes have no sense. Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman report for the New York Times that this administration is not exactly a well-oiled machine:

Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.

Trump is working with “a surprisingly small crew of no more than a half-dozen empowered aides with virtually no familiarity with the workings of the White House or federal government,” Thrush and Haberman say.

We also learn from the article that Trump likes the Oval Office:

He will linger on the opulence of the newly hung golden drapes, which he told a recent visitor were once used by Franklin D. Roosevelt but in fact were patterned for Bill Clinton. For a man who sometimes has trouble concentrating on policy memos, Mr. Trump was delighted to page through a book that offered him 17 window covering options.

Really, it’s a weird but interesting article. Worth reading.

Update: Two states and about 100 tech companies also have filed briefs against the ban.

Update: The appeals court decided to hear oral arguments tomorrow evening.