Misadventures of a minority-elect President 12

The out-of-control Trump saga, our liar-in-chief loves torture, White House Press Secretary Spicer still spreading lies, Trump’s unethical conflicts of interest, expanding the U.S nuclear arsenal, Trump’s moral panic tactics, Trump’s man-baby antics, Trump’s economic nationalist Agenda, a global counter-Trump movement is rising, a new low of attacking children, the potential for another illegal ground war and more.

Where does the Trump saga end? article from Yahoo! News. –
https://www.yahoo.com/news/how-trump-might-redefine-the-presidency-100007834.html

“Where is all this headed, and how does it end?

These are the questions you hear all over Washington right now. Which is strange, because normally you wouldn’t be idly speculating about the end of a presidency barely a month after the inauguration. Certainly, in parts of the country that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, the sense is he’s just getting started.

But the pervasive view in the capital is that President Trump at this point is like a guy behind the wheel who hasn’t slept in a week, surrounded by a small mountain of empty Red Bull cans as he weaves his way across four lanes at night, squinting to read the signs and ignoring the angry blasts of horns.

Sure, it’s a straight drive home on a sparsely populated highway. But at this rate, what are the odds he makes it very far without hurting himself … or someone else?

Some of this is just the lingering shock of the election. A lot of people in Washington are still waking up every morning with a feeling of “this cannot be happening,” and from there it’s a short jump to “this cannot go on for very long.”

But it’s also the sense that Trump himself has skipped right over the opening and middle stages of a normal presidency — honeymoon, legislative push, midterms and reelection — and leaped straight into the self-pitying, paranoid, scandal-shadowed slog of year seven…”

Trump’s Watergate All About Drowning Out Russia article from the Strategic Culture Foundation. –
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/02/20/trump-watergate-all-about-drowning-out-russia.html

Donald Trump’s Alarming Views on Torture article from Information Clearing House. –
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46512.htm

“President Donald Trump repeatedly stated belief in the usefulness of torture and waterboarding raise concern among human rights advocates. When asked if the U.S. should use waterboarding to extract confessions from prisoners, Trump said, “I like it a lot. I don’t think it’s tough enough.” It was a worrisome statement by the U.S. new president.

Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of a person, causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning. It causes not only extreme pain, but also damages the lungs and the brain due to oxygen deprivation. In addition, it may cause lasting psychological damage and death. It is among the cruelest forms of torture…”

Trump voters are still feeling sad and attacked, and we really don’t give a damn article from the Daily Kos. –
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/02/21/1636260/-Trump-voters-are-still-feeling-sad-and-attacked-and-we-really-don-t-give-a-damn

Sean Spicer’s comment about Trump’s travel ban runs contrary to what Trump said was the original premise of the proposal article from Yahoo! News. –
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/sean-spicers-trumps-travel-ban-200354125.html

Spicer is still spreading pure bullshit.

Americans think President Trump’s conflicts of interest are unethical: poll article from Salon. –
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/23/americans-think-president-trumps-conflicts-of-interest-are-unethical-poll/

Majority of American’s think minority-elect President Trump’s conflicts of interest are unethical.

Has Truth Itself Gone Extinct in the Trump Era? article from AlterNet. –
http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/searching-truth-age-trump

Trump and his minions constantly distort the truth for their own benefit.

Why Did People on Medicaid Vote for Trump? article from Yahoo! News. –
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-did-people-medicaid-vote-144700570.html

“Here’s a question that’s baffled health reporters in the months since the election: Why would people who benefit from Obamacare in general—and its Medicaid expansion specifically—vote for a man who vowed to destroy it?

Some anecdotal reports have suggested that people simply didn’t understand that the benefits they received were a result of the Affordable Care Act. That was the case for one Indiana family The New York Times described in December:…”

The elevation of Steve Bannon to the National Security Council was reportedly amplified by a copy-paste error article from Yahoo! News. –
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trumps-elevation-steve-bannon-national-155204217.html

Trump’s Strategic Vision of Chaos: Inventing a Nonexistent Crisis So He Can ‘Solve’ It article from AlterNet. –
http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/trump-creates-crisis-he-can-pretend-solve

Exclusive – Trump wants to expand U.S. nuclear arsenal, make it ‘top of the pack’ article from Yahoo! News. –
https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-trump-wants-expand-u-nuclear-arsenal-top-202805912.html

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the “top of the pack,” saying the United States has fallen behind in its atomic weapons capacity.

In a Reuters interview, Trump also said China could solve the national security challenge posed by North Korea “very easily if they want to,” ratcheting up pressure on Beijing to exert more influence to rein in Pyongyang’s increasingly bellicose actions.

In his first comments about the U.S. nuclear arsenal since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump said the United States has “fallen behind on nuclear weapon capacity.”

“I am the first one that would like to see everybody – nobody have nukes, but we’re never going to fall behind any country even if it’s a friendly country, we’re never going to fall behind on nuclear power…”

Disgusted By Trump, A CIA Officer Quits. How Many More Could Follow? article from NPR. –
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/23/516850237/disgusted-by-trump-a-cia-officer-quits-how-many-more-could-follow

‘Leaving Him Alone Can Prove Damaging’: Staffers Warn Trump Needs Constant Praise and Limit on TV article from AlterNet. –
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-needs-constant-praise

Rebellion Brews in Washington—But American ‘Deep State’ Is Only a Myth article from the Observer. –
http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-trump-administration-cia-deep-state/

Trump, Moral Panics and Resistance article from Counter Punch. –
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/23/trump-moral-panics-and-resistance/

“From the outset of Donald Trump’s campaign for the Presidency the infamous New York billionaire made it clear that the tactic of moral panic would be his chosen route to making it all the way to the White House. Like many politicians of the wealthy classes before him, threatening images of the “dangerous classes” were used wantonly to illustrate the common sense behind his ultra-conservative solutions to social and economic problems caused by fundamental disenfranchisement, inequality and poverty. Thus, the Trump campaign have treated us incessantly to scabrous descriptions of human beings who are supposedly arrayed against our innocent American sensibilities. They came thick and fast in the form of immigrant Mexican rapists, black urban gang bangers, Latino drug dealers and Muslim terrorists, among others. In each case, of course, it was always Donald the righteous who would save us from ourselves and thereby from these modern day “folk devils.”

Trump would not be the first Republican Presidential candidate to employ such tried and tested racialized “others” to reach the desired levels of fear and loathing among his supporters. Nixon in 1968 invoked the image of the “silent majority” encircled by rioting urban blacks and rampaging students, Reagan in 1976 used the specter of the black “welfare queen” to symbolize the “waste” of the entitlement system, George H. W. Bush in 1988 conjured the black rapist in the guise of Willie Horton to highlight the misplaced liberalism of his challenger Michael Dukakis, while George W. Bush appealed to the ongoing enemy of post-9/11 Islamic terrorism to shore up his inept time in office. But no one other than Trump has so brazenly, single-mindedly and arguably successfully used the moral panic strategy to advance his ambitions for public office.

Why then has this tactic of systematic lies, distortion and hyperbole gone from being so effective in the earlier stages of his presidential run now to be in tatters such that a journalist at Trump’s first solo press conference after just over three weeks in the job asked him, “Why should America trust you?” Meanwhile, as of writing, the renowned Pew Research Center announces that Trump’s approval ratings are once more at “historic lows” and hitting the 39 percent mark, in stark contrast to Obama who was getting 64 percent during the same time in his first presidency and even George W. Bush who was at 53 percent during his initial go at playing commander-in-chief…”

Even for a Bully Like Trump, Attacking Children Is a New Low article from Common Dreams. –
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/02/23/even-bully-trump-attacking-children-new-low

“Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education rescinded the Obama administration’s 2016 Title IX guidance clarifying the rights of transgender students.

We all know that Donald Trump is a bully, but this attack on transgender children is a new low. Yesterday’s move could endanger the well-being and safety of children across the country.

Trump’s actions do not change the law itself — transgender students remain protected by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 — but abandoning the guidance intentionally creates confusion about what federal law requires. The law bars discrimination — the new administration invites it.

Betsy DeVos became Education Secretary just one week ago. At her brief confirmation hearing, she publicly committed to protecting LGBT students — this harms them…”

Steve Bannon Touts Trump’s ‘Economic Nationalist Agenda’ article from NBC News. –
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/bannon-touts-trump-s-economic-nationalist-agenda-n724851

Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC} just love Trump’s Economic Nationalist Agenda and new political order in Washington’s land of delusion.

Watch these videos of furious voters holding Republicans accountable at town halls across America article from Fusion. –
http://fusion.net/story/388429/tom-cotton-town-hall-protests/

Steve Bannon Says Feud With ‘Corporatist, Globalist’ Media Will Only Get Worse article from the Huffington Post. –
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-media-cpac_us_58af38f3e4b0780bac2761e3

With all the dirt available on Bannon, one would think he might want to quell his dystopian feud with the press…

A Global Counter-Trump Movement Is Taking Shape article from Common Dreams. –
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/02/23/global-counter-trump-movement-taking-shape

Waking the sleeping dragon…took long enough:

“Let’s hope that Donald Trump is the political version of syrup of ipecac.

The American system has been sick to its stomach for some time. Then along comes Donald Trump, America swallows him (hook, line, and sinker), and the system experiences gut-churning convulsions ever since. According to the most hopeful medical prognosis, America will eventually expel Trump from its system and feel so much better afterwards.

Reminder: The whole world is watching. How we deal with this president’s fundamentally anti-American policies will have tremendous international ramifications. In fact, the rest of the world is already dealing with the “Trump effect…”

Will Trump and Bannon Drag Us Into Another Big Ground War? It Could Happen Sooner Than We Think article from AlterNet. –
http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/will-trump-and-bannon-drag-us-war

Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of dumb and dumber.

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