Trump II

[stamper]

Making promises is easy Implementing them - assuming he wants to - is harder?? The promises looks like lies to many and time will tell??

[Alan Klein]

Making promises is easy Implementing them - assuming he wants to - is harder?? The promises looks like lies to many and time will tell??

If he doesn't make good, he won't be re-elected and the Republicans will lose the Congress.  The big concern is another recession.  If that happens, all bets are off. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Making promises is easy Implementing them - assuming he wants to - is harder?? The promises looks like lies to many and time will tell??

Correct, Stamper, I agree (no sarcasm).

[jeremyrh]

I think the site owners should lock this topic for 24 hours as a mark of respect to the victims of the terrorist attack in Sweden yesterday.

[stamper]

I think the site owners should lock this topic for 24 hours as a mark of respect to the victims of the terrorist attack in Sweden yesterday.

For the sake of clarity you should have added....this is sarcasm ??

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I think the site owners should lock this topic for 24 hours as a mark of respect to the victims of the terrorist attack in Sweden yesterday.

Nice (Jeremy's sarcasm)!

From a BBC article:

Some people suggest Donald Trump might have been referring to a clip aired on Fox News on Friday night of a documentary about alleged violence committed by refugees in Sweden.
"There was an absolute surge in both gun violence and rape in Sweden once they began this open-door policy," Ami Horowitz, who made the documentary, told Fox News, referring to Sweden's decision to open its doors to large numbers of refugees in 2013.

Preliminary statistics from the Swedish Crime Survey (in Swedish) show only a marginal increase in 2016 from the year before. Fraud and crimes against individuals were up, but drugs crimes and theft had decreased.
The number of reported rapes increased by 13%, although that is still lower than the number reported in 2014 (6,700), as Sweden's The Local reports.

It should be noted that Sweden doesn't not record (by law) the religion or nationality of perps. So we really don't know if the increase is a result of a decrease by the natives and a shaper increase by the newcomers, or any other combination. It is entirely possible that Swedes suddenly started raping more, and 72-virgins seeking men suddenly less.

Separately, Sweden is believed to have the highest number of Islamic State fighters per capita in Europe. About 140 of the 300 who went to Syria and Iraq have since returned, leaving the authorities to grapple with how best to reintegrate them into society.

The whole article here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39020962

[jeremyrh]

"Separately, Sweden is believed to have the highest number of Islamic State fighters per capita in Europe."

I think Sweden has the highest number of refugees from Syria per capita in Europe, in which case it would be surprising if this were not the case. What that leads you to do is, of course, another matter.

[Rob C]

Trump won because he tapped into a nationalist feeling that America and many Americans feel.  That they have been left behind by the business and political elites who not only weren't hurt by the 2008 recession, but actually made out better.  Trump understood this. He became the champion of these workers who were left behind who normally vote Democrat. 

This seems odd reasoning, from my point of view.

Many people lost a helluva lot when that pack of cards came falling down, and I'm not talking only about people getting hoofed out of houses they couldn't afford to buy in the first place. That a billionaire is suddenly going to become the champion of the dispossessed seems to me to be yet a further descent into fantasy thinking. On the one hand, you perceive them as racketeers, yet at the same time, one is Robin Hood? Maybe that's why he devoted so much time to building casinos: to help folks save their pennies.

I know an Italian lady whose son, working in the market in NY, lost everything (some of hers, too) and took himself out, breaking her heart twice. No doubt some smart asses weathered it all and are still doing well, but don't convert that into a blanket assumption that only those with blue collars felt the pain. Shit, I only wear T-shirts with no effin' collars, and my life has been double-screwed too, both by banks and brexiteers.

Strikes me that the fake news you might seem to think is all aimed at Mr T has been poured over the heads of those worthies in the rust belts that you conclude are the rising armies of the new America, the mighty wronged. Nobody has a monopoly on getting a bum deal, and most of the time we bring it upon ourselves by not paying attention properly. As with much of Britain's since-lost industrial might of the 50s, I suspect the American equivalents just got too comfortable and confident: in a word, complacent. I don't know how the Detroit unions dealt with life in those bounteous days, but in the UK, the equivalents were fuelled and driven by political agendas and the 'workers' were but the pawns used to disrupt government and try to bring about revolution. It's what's still driving the insane arm of UK socialism today, and we disregard and pass it over at our peril. That we could find ourselves with a PM who is willing to scrap our only deterrent is no idle, passing thought; it's a nightmare that we could wake up and find real. As bad, considering how inextricably entwined our security has become with the US, a man such as Mr T could decide, on yet another whim, to leave us hanging out to dry on the Kremlin line.

And some wonder why the rest of the world holds its breath?

Rob C

[Robert Roaldi]

I've always taken "Sweden" to be a short-hand stand-in for godless debauchery. Sort of like saying, "Hades". Jimmy Lee Swaggart used to use the term that way, with a snear, leaving the impression that he needed a shower after speaking the word. So it may be that using the word "Sweden" at that "campaign" rally was to make use of its Pavlovian effect in the minds of those who don't understand (and certainly don't want to understand) that there are billions of humans who are non-american who manage to get through the day and feed themselves and have been doing so for millennia. Wasn't "useful idiots" Lenin's term?

Did anyone else notice the attempt above to describe how crime data is collected in Swedish, as a way to introduce plausible deniability that maybe there might have been some crime committed there in the last couple of days after all, and that maybe it might have been committed by a muslim immigrant because Sweden has so many. So maybe Trump's silly claim was not a lie, but maybe another "alternate fact". I am insulted by this BS. Maybe the flat earth is an alternate reality then, worthy of discussion? Most of this Trumpeteer tripe doesn't meet the minimum acceptable criteria for adult conversation.

Was the American middle class sold out to international bankers? Maybe. Maybe the entire planet was. So let's see Trump's tax returns and business holding details. Until I see them and they're analyzed by somebody competent, I'm going to assume you live in a banana republic where you just sold the rule of law to a snake oil salesman and didn't get much for your money.

The initiation fees  recently doubled to that private club where he had that foreign affairs meeting in public a few days ago. Is that ok with you? Do you think it's ok for the Pres to cash in on his position? Is this what Conservatism represents now? Are you really not disgusted?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

And some wonder why the rest of the world holds its breath?

Holding one's breath will only work for a limited time.

I've heard that European and Azian carmakers(and other producers of consumables) are negotiating with Mexico to fill the void in production capacity that was left by the USA ... And as for the 35% increase in import duties on non-US produced goods, that will only increase prices that have to be paid by US citizens, also like for fresh seasonal crops that are grown in Mexico and other parts of the world, when the climate is not favorable in the USA. Of course, that won't help those who now need to work for 'Mexican' wage levels ...

Trump was rumoured to have been wondering about a strong dollar (which is bad for export), well, everything he seems to be planning only makes it stronger (before it collapses). Some more opinions on the strong dollar:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-top-economic-adviser-doesnt-like-a-strong-dollar-2017-02-13
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-dollar-idUSKBN15G2ZN
https://www.ft.com/content/56558e7e-b257-11e6-9c37-5787335499a0

And then there's that strange (if it had come from anybody else) remark about Sweden:
Sweden asks the U.S. to explain Trump comment. The excuse will probably be: "somebody handed me that information" or "I saw it on Facebook", because "the official media are always withholding such 'Facts' ".
Here are some more comments:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/trumps-last-night-in-sweden-claim-prompts-questions-from-swedes/8284758

Cheers,
Bart

[Schewe]

Trump won because he tapped into a nationalist feeling that America and many Americans feel.

Uh, I'm thinking that the Russian hack of the DNC, Podesta's email's and Comey's bungling of the email server might have played a small roles in Trump winning...and also maybe something else...This Newsweek article HOW DONALD TRUMP’S NATIONALISM WON OVER WHITE AMERICANS (#FAKE NEWS?) has this to say about one of the reasons Trump won:

As exit polls showed, Trump didn’t win among poor Americans, as was expected; the majority of voters (52 percent) with a total family income of less than $50,000 in 2015 actually voted for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Trump voters tended to be older (53 percent of people aged 45 and over voted for him), well-off and white. According to the exit polls, 58 percent of all white voters chose Trump at the voting booth, while just 21 percent of non-white voters cast their ballots for the Republican nominee.

The biggest issue for Trump voters—ahead of foreign policy, the economy or terrorism—was immigration, exit polls showed, with 84 percent of Trump voters saying that the government should deport undocumented migrants rather than give them the chance to apply for legal status.

Analysts say Trump’s success among white voters is partly attributable to his tapping into concerns about immigration and a feeling among many voters that the U.S. should be a white, Christian country. “It’s like everything he said hit the right nationalistic buttons,” says Allyson Shortle, assistant professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma.

Ok, so what about MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN? Well...

But by targeting Muslims and undocumented migrants, Trump also played upon certain desires to view the U.S. as a “white” country that was under threat from non-white immigrants. Many of his supporters, Shortle says, interpreted Trump’s campaign slogan—Make America Great Again—as “Make America White Again.”

So, many voters voted for Trump as a result of a "Whitewash"...that's not my term, that was a term Van Jones, a CNN commentator said on 11/9/2017. 'This was a whitelash': Van Jones' take on the election results.

Yeah he walked that line back a bit on The View (#ANGRY WOMEN). Van said: "Let me tell you what I wasn't saying. I was not saying that all 50 to 60 million people who voted for Donald Trump are racially hateful people who want to be in the alt-right neo Nazi camp. I wasn't saying that. And it would actually be unfair to the Trump voters to say that they're all racist. But to say that the alt-right and the neo Nazis who were celebrating weren't a part, that would be unfair to the rest of America. We've got to be honest about what's going on. Both political parties right now I think have big problems and they don't want to discuss it. If you discuss it you get in trouble."

Ya might wanna walk back that "nationalist feeling that America and many Americans feel". Remember, the main reason Trump won was that the 62,979,879 (27%) of eligible voters who voted for Trump won out over the 92,671,979 (40%) who didn't vote at all. That sounds like a protest non-vote...

But as Maureen Dowd mentioned

"Donald Trump has indeed already made some of America Great Again.

Just not the aspects he intended.

He has breathed new zest into a wide range of things: feminism, liberalism, student activism, newspapers, cable news, protesters, bartenders, shrinks, Twitter, the A.C.L.U., “S.N.L.,” town halls, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Hannah Arendt, Stephen Colbert, Nordstrom, the Federalist Papers, separation of powers, division of church and state, athletes and coaches taking political stands and Frederick Douglass."

Let's see how long Trump hangs in there...at least there wasn't a new episode of SNL last night to have him tweeting about all morning :~)

[Chairman Bill]

A Mainer (and Libertarian) friend of mine, passed this on to me.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but it looks like Trump is actually making America great again. Just look at the progress made since the election:

1. Unprecedented levels of ongoing civic engagement.
2. Millions of Americans now know who their state and federal representatives are without having to google.
3. Millions of Americans are exercising more. They're holding signs and marching every week.
4. Alec Baldwin is great again. Everyone's forgotten he's kind of a jerk.
5. The Postal Service is enjoying the influx cash due to stamps purchased by millions of people for letter and postcard campaigns.
6. Likewise, the pharmaceutical industry is enjoying record growth in sales of anti-depressants.
7. Millions of Americans now know how to call their elected officials and know exactly what to say to be effective.
8. Footage of town hall meetings is now entertaining.
9. Tens of millions of people are now correctly spelling words like emoluments, narcissist, fascist, misogynist, holocaust and cognitive dissonance.
10. Everyone knows more about the rise of Hitler than they did last year.
11. Everyone knows more about legislation, branches of power and how checks and balances work.
12. Marginalized groups are experiencing a surge in white allies.
13. White people in record numbers have just learned that racism is not dead.
14. White people in record numbers also finally understand that Obamacare IS the Affordable Care Act.
15. Stephen Colbert's "Late Night" finally gained the elusive #1 spot in late night talk shows, and Seth Meyers is finding his footing as today's Jon Stewart.
16. "Mike Pence" has donated millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood since Nov. 9th.
17. Melissa FREAKING McCarthy.
18. Travel ban protesters put $24 million into ACLU coffers in just 48 hours, enabling them to hire 200 more attorneys. Lawyers are now heroes.
19. As people seek veracity in their news sources, respected news outlets are happily reporting a substantial increase in subscriptions, a boon to a struggling industry vital to our democracy.
20. Live streaming court cases and congressional sessions are now as popular as the Kardashians.
21. Massive cleanup of facebook friend lists.
22. People are reading classic literature again. Sales of George Orwell's "1984" increased by 10,000% after the inauguration. (Yes, that is true. 10,000%. 9th grade Lit teachers all over the country are now rock stars.)
23. More than ever before, Americans are aware that education is important. Like, super important.
24. Now, more than anytime in history, everyone believes that anyone can be President. Seriously, anyone.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Trump won because he tapped into a nationalist feeling that America and many Americans feel.  That they have been left behind by the business and political elites who not only weren't hurt by the 2008 recession, but actually made out better.  Trump understood this.  He became the champion of these workers who were left behind who normally vote Democrat. 

Even you must concede that Trump's appointment of lots of people who profited off the recent recession to his cabinet is somewhat at odds with the worker who were left behind.  I seem to remember him raking Clinton over the coals for her interactions with Goldman Sachs and now his cabinet is full of Goldman Sachs alumni.  Pretty strange if he is still trying to appeal to the worker bees and not the elites.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Did anyone else notice the attempt above to describe how crime data is collected in Swedish, as a way to introduce plausible deniability that maybe there might have been some crime committed there in the last couple of days after all, and that maybe it might have been committed by a muslim immigrant because Sweden has so many. So maybe Trump's silly claim was not a lie, but maybe another "alternate fact". I am insulted by this BS. Maybe the flat earth is an alternate reality then, worthy of discussion? Most of this Trumpeteer tripe doesn't meet the minimum acceptable criteria for adult conversation.

It's stranger than that.  There was story on Fox cable news about Sweden and historical crime rates.  He totally got the story wrong in his speech.  One really wonders whether any of his assistants go over his remarks in advance.  He just ends up looking foolish like a bad standup comic.

EDIT:  Good Washington Post story on this.  The Swedes have asked the State Department for clarification on this.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

It's stranger than that.  There was story on Fox cable news about Sweden and historical crime rates.

This was the source of the USA President's military/political intel (which he finds more reliable that his secret service's):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSzjfAMk-RI

Cheers,
Bart

[Schewe]

"The People of These United States Are the Rightful Masters of both Congresses and Courts, Not to Overthrow the Constitution, but to Over-throw the Men Who Pervert that Constitution"

–Abraham Lincoln,
[September 16-17, 1859]
From a poster at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Right On Abe!

Edited to adjust the link to the poster

[Alan Klein]

Even you must concede that Trump's appointment of lots of people who profited off the recent recession to his cabinet is somewhat at odds with the worker who were left behind.  I seem to remember him raking Clinton over the coals for her interactions with Goldman Sachs and now his cabinet is full of Goldman Sachs alumni.  Pretty strange if he is still trying to appeal to the worker bees and not the elites.

  Trump didn't win in a vacuum.  There were two candidates.   He ran against Hillary, an elite and multimillionaire who sold political favors, who continued to identify with the elites that had been in power for decades.  Trump, despite his wealth, was an outsider.  He never held any political power.  He spoke brusquely, but in plain English regular people could understand.  Clinton, the anointed one and royalty-in-waiting,  spoke out of both sides of her mouth and she spoke down to people.  Trump was a non-politician who supported "fly over" country voters in key electoral states that carried him to victory. Clinton called those former Democrats "deplorables" and "close the coal mines".  She thought she had these states locked up and not worthy of even campaigning in many of them. So she lost.


Regarding Trump's appointments, you will be right if that's what they wind up doing - feathering their own beds.  But they report to Trump.  If he holds to his promises,  they will support his objectives.  The fact they are rich doesn't both people.  After all they elected a rich guy so why would his rich appointees concern them.  Plus, you want successful people in business who know how it works to make proper changes to effect policy.   Otherwise you wind up with people who just rubber stamp the existing bureaucracy and nothing changes.  Like I said, these voters didn't vote in a vacuum.  They had no confidence that Hillary would change anything.  Sanders supporters were right about his views of Hillary.  We found out just how corrupt she was from the Russians when they revealed how Clinton conspired with the Democratic National Convention to defeat Sanders and how she received the CNN questions to the presidential debate before the debate.  The people who eventually voted for Trump were more concerned about what Hillary did than the fact the Russians revealed it. 

[Alan Klein]

It's stranger than that.  There was story on Fox cable news about Sweden and historical crime rates.  He totally got the story wrong in his speech.  One really wonders whether any of his assistants go over his remarks in advance.  He just ends up looking foolish like a bad standup comic.

EDIT:  Good Washington Post story on this.  The Swedes have asked the State Department for clarification on this.

You totally missed his point, just like the biased media.  You didn't hear, or frankly listen, to the rest of his point which included other countries and cities like Paris, Nice etc where there had been terrorist attacks.  You only heard Sweden where he may have gotten wrong information.  But you didn't hear his complete point that it was Europe letting in these Muslim refugees that allowed the climate for terrorist attacks to occur in Europe.  Trump didn't want to make the same mistake as Europe.  That's the point he was making.  Trump's dumb, "flyover country, knuckle dragging supporters" however, got it!  All the brilliant minds in their desire to hate Trump, refuse to actually listen to what he is saying. They focus on errors in speech and his inaccuracy with some of the facts missing entirely what he is saying and the points he is making.  You're playing "gotcha" politics and his supporters laugh at you.  Your hate of him blinds your thinking so you don't see the forest through the trees.  Your rationality is gone.  The more he repeats, "fake news", the blinder you get.  It's a wonder to view!

[Alan Goldhammer]

You totally missed his point, just like the biased media.  You didn't hear, or frankly listen, to the rest of his point which included other countries and cities like Paris, Nice etc where there had been terrorist attacks.  You only heard Sweden where he may have gotten wrong information. 

If you were going to speak in front of 9000 people with TV cameras recording your every moment would not you want to be sure of your facts?  I've done lots of public speaking during my working career and testified at Congressional Hearings about a dozen times (twice under oath as that was the custom of that committee regardless of the topic of the hearing) an I damn sure wanted to make sure what I was saying was true and accurate.  I expect the same standard as my President.

You're playing "gotcha" politics and his supporters laugh at you.  Your hate of him blinds your thinking so you don't see the forest through the trees.  Your rationality is gone.  The more he repeats, "fake news", the blinder you get.  It's a wonder to view!

No, I just demand the President live up to the same standards that I have set for myself.  I don't hate President Trump, I want every President to succeed as I'm a citizen of the US and their success is my success.  My concern is that President Trump appears to be very insecure.  Why does he keep harping on his election victory?  That was over with the second week in November?  It's time to govern and not hold pep rallies.  It's also time to deal with the press as a grown up and not a spoiled little child.  He can chant "Fake News" all he wants and that's fine for the 30% of the people in this country who supported him.  It won't do for the rest of us and he continues this at his peril.

[Farmer]

Sorry, Alan, but PotUS really doesn't get to keep making mistakes.  His commentary was unclear and without clear intent or meaning.  Its his job to communicate effectively, without the need for constant clarification and apologists.

If this was a rare thing, to misspeak, to forget to say "Last night's documentary on Fox about Sweden", it wouldn't be an issue and a smart guy would have apologised, laughed at his mistake, and played along with some of the silly things people are mentioning about what happened last night in Sweden.  But he does it all the time.  He constantly does it.  He's not used to people checking what he says is actually true and accurate and instead of fixing the problem, he blames the media.  I know, I know, you'll say it's all being twisted.  You know what?  It's his job to make sure that what he says can't be twisted.  He's not getting a harder time than any other leader, he's just not learning very quickly.

Everyone got the point he was making, but they aren't going to let him keep saying things incorrectly.  Again, it's his job to get it right, all the time.