Saturday Night Live took on Donald Trump’s Twitter account activities on Saturday and Alec Baldwin did a very skilful job as Russia’s President-elect, Donald Trump. The play was based on Trump’s apparent addictive use of Twitter, and before the show was over, Trump jumped on Twitter to tweet his disapproval.
“Just tried watching Saturday Night Live” Trump said, “- unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse. Sad”
I think I’ve decided that the best way to incorporate the reality of Donald Trump being president is to just assume that what he’s saying at the time is undergirded by willful ignorance, lack of knowledge, boasts, and the idea that he’s a huckster showman who has little working knowledge of the United States Constitution, the country’s history, and his responsibilities as the head of its executive branch. In fact, I have begun to sleep better at night assuming that he’s going to make a shockingly terrible decision on a weekly (daily?) basis, and at some point will provoke both domestic and foreign crises simply to keep himself in the news.
Perverse? Yes, but such is the state of our politics.
The litany of Trump’s ignorance of diplomatic and presidential protocol is concerning, especially for a 70 year old man who has some impressive educational accomplishments. I certainly understand that he believes that he was elected to shake up the system and to drain the political swamp in DC. The problem is that there is a right way and a wrong way to make great change. The right way is to have a comprehensive plan as to how you’re going to do it and to tell your friends first how your approach might affect them. Gushing over the dictators in Pakistan, the Philippines and Kazakhstan is not the way to do that, especially when British PM Theresa May only gets a “come by if you’re in the US” invitation. Trump is playing the businessman who doesn’t want to upset any potential customers, but this is reason one why electing business people with no political experience is a terrible idea.
And then there’s Taiwan and China. Somebody needs to tell the know-nothing who will occupy the Oval Office come January, that the Chinese have a great deal of power and that they are not afraid to use it. He can’t treat the Chinese as some backwater nation that can be cowed with 45% tariffs or threats about undercutting American companies with cheap materials and labor. Might Trump be the one who ultimately tames China and revives US trade? Possibly, but he’s not going to do that by wading into the one issue that China cannot abide, which is recognition of Taiwan. Perhaps Obama can save this bit of face before he leaves, but he and his team need to pointedly remind Trump that there are still some rules he needs to respect.
But what do you expect from a man who is surrounding himself with generals. Talk about sending a message. The problem, again, is that Trump is sending the message that he doesn’t really understand the constitution. The military is supposed to be under civilian control, not making major decisions about the country’s policies. And the bigger problem is that because Trump doesn’t have a clear plan and is ignorant of both policy and world events, he’s going to have to rely on those generals for advice, and there are going to be a lot of them in the room during cabinet meetings. If he appoints a Secretary of States that he doesn’t really respect, like Mitt Romney, Trump will more likely minimize his advice and turn to his military men. Not that Mitt Romney knows how to be Secretary of State. On-the-job training is going to be a hallmark of this administration. The will make unnecessary mistakes. I hope they learn from them.
If we could only have General Tso. But, alas, his creator is gone.
As for domestic affairs, the deal with United Technologies and Carrier was a public relations win for Trump, but at the expense of the taxpayers in Indiana who will pay more and get less because Trump and Mike Pence did the Republican thing and gave the company a tax break. Bribery? Yes. Smart? No. Because Trump will not be able to replicate what he did with Carrier with other companies. If he had thought about a long-term strategy, maybe he would have a template to work with., but he’s making it up as he goes along and the people who voted for him based on his jobs promise will be terrifically disappointed with the trade-off.
And my bet is that those 1,000 saved jobs will ultimately go to Mexico. After all, as Trump has said, it’s just good business.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
If the man lied about almost everything he ran on during his campaign for the presidency, why do they expect him to keep any of the promises he made while campaigning? Although “building a wall” along the southern border to “keep the Mexicans out” was high on his priority list, it seems that Trump’s priorities have changed..
On Thursday, during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity in Cincinnati, Ohio, Trump said that “vicious rivers” and “mountains” would mean that it was not necessary to build the border wall in parts of the border.
“Now, there are certain places you don’t need a wall, because you have, you know, you have mountains, you have other things. You have large and rather vicious rivers,” he said during the interview, though he declined to specify where those natural barriers were.
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Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
For the 74th consecutive month, the U.S economy has added considerably to the job market. The November jobs report shows the economy adding 178,000 jobs, making this the 74th consecutive month of Jobs creation under President Obama.
It’s the lowest rate since August 2007.
Unemployment has been at or below 5% for nearly a year as more people have returned to the job market and hiring has maintained momentum.
November was the 74th consecutive month America added jobs.
“The positive momentum we’ve seen in the labor market is continuing as 2016 comes to a close,” says Sam Bullard, senior economist at Wells Fargo.
Wages rose 2.5% in November from a year ago, though that marked a slight slowdown from October.
Donald Trump will have the ability to send unblockable texts to every mobile number in the United States after his inauguration in January. Something that scares the sh*t out of Americans concerned about their personal space, their privacy and they unwanted invasion of it. The fact that citizens cannot block unwelcomed texts from anyone, including the next president is, to say the least, a violation of our Fourth Amendment Constitutional right to privacy.
Stephen Colbert understands this fear.
“You can unfollow Trump, delete Twitter, go into the world, live your life, but the bad news is, starting Jan. 20, Donald Trump can send unblockable mass text messages to the entire nation,” Colbert said.
“The only person I would trust less with that technology is Anthony Weiner. Yes, feel free to block alerts about floods and missing persons, but if Trump wants you to know how he feels about the cast of ‘Hamilton,’ you will listen.”
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Esquire Reports: Is there such a thing as truth? The past 18 months posed this seemingly absurd question. It’s not whether something Donald Trump says is true, but about whether anyone even cares. Trump’s campaign made a bet that enough voters didn’t (or couldn’t) tell the difference in a deluge of information, and that bet paid off. Trump won the most important election in decades. His surrogate Scott Nell Hughes explicitly confirmed that whole strategy yesterday.
Hughes joined The Diane Rehm Show to discuss the media’s role in covering the Trump administration. If the campaign and transition are anything to go on, Trump’s White House will not overly concern itself with reality. The whole segment is here, but another member of the panel, The Atlantic‘s James Fallows, flagged one particular moment of the conversation. Around the 14-minute mark, Hughes illustrated a defining principle of Trumpism: There’s no longer such thing as fact, because anything is true if enough people believe it.
“Well, I think it’s also an idea of an opinion. And that’s—on one hand, I hear half the media saying that these are lies. But on the other half, there are many people that go, ‘No, it’s true.’ And so one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch, is that people that say facts are facts—they’re not really facts. Everybody has a way—it’s kind of like looking at ratings, or looking at a glass of half-full water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth, or not truth. There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.
Once again, New York leads the way!
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed legislation enacting a statewide $15 minimum wage plan and a 12-week paid family leave policy. The legislation was passed as part of the 2016-17 state budget, and marks a major accomplishment in the Governor’s efforts to restore economic justice and fairness to working families in New York State. The Governor signed these two pieces of legislation immediately prior to attending a 1,000-person victory rally, which included workers, advocates, labor leaders, and elected officials. That rally was held at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City.
“By moving to a $15 statewide minimum wage and enacting the strongest paid family leave policy in the nation, New York is showing the way forward on economic justice,”said Governor Cuomo. “These policies will not only lift up the current generation of low-wage workers and their families, but ensure fairness for future generations and enable them to climb the ladder of opportunity. I am proud to sign these programs into law, because they will ensure a stronger, fairer and brighter future for all New Yorkers.”
I get the feeling that Donald Trump is willfully instituting people who will dismantle the very organizations they’ll be sworn to uphold. I get the feeling he is trying to systematically break down every pillar this nation was founded on. He is, of course, the candidate Russia worked hard to elect. It feels as if Trump is getting his marching orders from Putin and if he is, then Russia must be happy!
ABC News is reporting that Sarah Palin is “under consideration for Secretary of Veterans Affairs.” Hopefully, she will stay the full term!
@ABCPolitics @ABC @shushwalshe this has to be a joke… pic.twitter.com/0JuygIOjr9
— Josh Sánchez (@jnsanchez) November 30, 2016
I’m amazed that Trump’s game is not seen by more people, especially those people who call themselves “pundits” which is essentially the art studying politicians. I am clearly a novice compared to the professionals we see on TV every second of every day. But so far, the professionals are still perplexed by Donald Trump.
Here’s my simple observation. If you want to know what Donald Trump is up to, just listen to the way he attacks his opponents. It’s a classic case of blame your opponent for the very thing you’re guilty of. This method – something Trump has done over and over again – is also known as Karl Rove Strategy #3 – a primitive psychological process of Projection, better known as ‘Blame-Shifting.’
Take Trump’s latest dust-up for example. On Monday, Trump dabbled in Rove’s playbook once again when he claimed, “millions of people…voted illegally” and without any proof to substantiate his claims, Trump went further, saying that “serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California.” This frantic blame-shifting game came into play after news broke that Hillary Clinton appeared willing to join efforts requesting election result recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin.
It is well documented that Russia played a pivotal role in Trump’s election “win.” Federal agencies have investigated and concluded that Russia hacked into computers and databases of a number of Democratic officials, including the Democratic National Committee, and information deemed harmful to Hillary Clinton was revealed.
Others have taken this even further. Some say that Russia’s influence on the 2016 election did not stop at hacking databases for Democrats, they claim that Russia also hacked into the voting machines as well. There have been numerous polling stations reporting that the amount of votes cast for Trump were greater than the amount of registered voters on record. Clearly, something is amiss and you don’t have to be a math genius to figure it out. Trump trailed the entire way in the general election process, then blew-out Clinton on election night. Many say that was only possible with the help of Russia’s hack-job.
So now that recount requests are made in Michigan and Wisconsin – two states that Trump “won”, Trump is projecting blame again, blaming the other side for things his side did during the 2016 election. With no proof whatsoever, Donald Trump is now claiming that voting irregularities happened in Democratic won states like California, Virginia and New Hampshire.
Karl Rove Strategy #3 is strong and at play. And the professionals are still wondering what is up Trump’s sleeve!
When Donald Trump stood in front of an audience and proclaimed, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and not lose a vote,” he was talking about people like this Chicago woman!
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He is one of the Electors from Texas and from the looks of things, this Elector takes his job very seriously. Art Sisneros can easily be classified as one of the sane electors in the group of crazies already pledging their support for Donald Trump.
Sisneros wrote in his personal blog that based on his belief that Donald Trump is not equip for the Presidency, he is quitting his role as an Elector in the state of Texas.
If Trump is not qualified and my role, both morally and historically, as an elected official is to vote my conscience, then I can not and will not vote for Donald Trump for President. I believe voting for Trump would bring dishonor to God. The reality is Trump will be our President, no matter what my decision is. Many are furious that I am willing to have this discussion publicly. Personally, I wish more civil officers would be honest about their convictions. Assuming a Trump Presidency is their ultimate goal, they will get that. The problem is, that isn’t what they want. They want a democracy. They will threaten to kill anyone who challenges their power to vote for Skittles for dinner. That is evidence alone to prove that our republic is lost. The shell may remain, but in the hearts of the people and functionality of the system our republic is gone. I also believe that a pledge is a man’s word that he will follow through on something he committed to. God’s Word is clear we should all “let our ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and our ‘no,’s ‘no.”[20] I believe to resign is to honor the intent of the pledge as it relates to the people of my district. Since I can’t in good conscience vote for Donald Trump, and yet have sinfully made a pledge that I would, the best option I see at this time is to resign my position as an Elector.
It was quite understandable – ‘no politics at the Thanksgiving Dinner table’. So when Rebecca Malstorm wore a Black Lives Matter T-Shirt to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner, her family asked her to change into something else. She did… She changed into another Black Lives Matter T-Shirt.
“We had a strict ‘no politics’ rule, so when one family member asked me to change, I followed the command and changed… into another BLM shirt,” the 19-year-old University of Maryland student told Mashable. She posted photographs of the two shirts on Twitter and the internet loved it.
After changing into her second Black Lives Matter shirt and returning to the dinner table, Malstrom said the reaction from her family members “wasn’t as exciting as it could’ve been.”
She decided to cover the shirt with a sweater to avoid conflict, but the following night at “friendsgiving” with some of her additional family members in attendance, Malstrom proudly wore the same shirt without the words covered. “That’s when I told everyone that my tweet had blown up. Their reactions were priceless!” she said.
“I love my entire family to Pluto and back, but we don’t see eye to eye on politics. However, they have all shown their support and are so proud of me for standing for what I believe in,” Malstrom told Mashable. “Even though not all of my family agrees with my political views, everyone was ecstatic to see how much of an impact I had on the internet.”
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When you’re told to change ur shirt before Thanksgiving Dinner so you happily oblige 🙂 pic.twitter.com/T8pabtK7D8
— jingle becca🎄 (@rebamals) November 24, 2016
