Donald trump. what is your take on him?

Today in the nutso Trump news: he wants to make flag burning illegal. He doesn't realize that the very values the flag represents (freedom of speech, freedom to protest) make it a protected act (well established by SCOTUS). 
He doesn't seem to realize what the President can and cannot do. 
After his tough talk about creating libel laws, he recently said an advisor pointed out he might be sued a lot more if he did that. He said HE HADN'T THOUGHT OF THAT.
Hold on for the ride - it's going to be interesting.

As this thread as gotten a little heated lately, remember: you shouldn't argue with your drunk uncle-in-law at the holiday table.

As the current state of politics is a dumpster fire... here's an interesting article on a new center:

https://www.nolabels.org/values/

And, Trump picked a Secretary of Education for the cabinet.
This comes after just agreeing to pay a $25 million penalty for starting a fraudulent, for profit university.

Well I have given up. To me it's a farce. They do what they want.

I did vote. So perhaps a small part of me still has hope for some kind of democracy. But in the US I think it's just wishful thinking.

Fair comments Mattias, and Dave, thanks.

dmp said:

Today in the nutso Trump news: he wants to make flag burning illegal. He doesn't realize that the very values the flag represents (freedom of speech, freedom to protest) make it a protected act (well established by SCOTUS). 
He doesn't seem to realize what the President can and cannot do. 
After his tough talk about creating libel laws, he recently said an advisor pointed out he might be sued a lot more if he did that. He said HE HADN'T THOUGHT OF THAT.

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I know there were similar comments after he said he most likely wouldn't get Hillary sued and put in jail. Basically he phrased it as if the justice department was his own little plaything, as opposed to it being able to decide for itself whether or not charges could and should be filed.

All this just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Do we really want a president that considered using the DOJ to go after political opponents, and get laws on the books to curb freedom of speech? Ironic that someone says the preservation of the constitution was a reason to have voted for Trump.

Of course, the alternative is that he's just talking. He's essentially a grade-A bullshitter. That's suitable as a president? Apparently. Isn't it peculiar however that he's still going on as he did during the campaign? At what point can we expect him to act like a president and at least do away with the irrational comments and the lying? After the actual electoral vote? At inauguration? A month after? Never?

I shouldn't have to explain this but Trump is just saying what many people think...  The problem with that is many people are uninformed. Burning flags is protected speech that has been confirmed by SCOTUS. I am hopeful he will become more thoughtful as his words gain more gravity with each passing day. He has people around him that realize this and hopefully someone can persuade him to not parade around without clothes on ("The emperors new suit" fable).

Words have consequences and we have seen a lot of deviation already from the "predicted" Trump behavior, lets hope he moderates his twitter activity too. With any luck, pretty soon he will be too busy (probably never too busy for 140 character rants).  I see a looming conflict between his administration and media about information flows. Trump likes to go around media and communicate directly with the public, not unlike FDR's fireside radio chats, but using 140 characters at a time and a much less thoughtful presentation. Media likes to be the keeper of the information pipeline, with so much important news leaked thru them in the past. Now it can get leaked directly to the public without filters.

Active tweets from POTUS is taking the bully pulpit concept up a notch. This too will probably evolve, I hope for the better (i.e. less blather, and mostly just less of it).

JR

What a waste of time American politics is...

Goldman Sachs for President 2020

Banzai said:

What a waste of time American politics is...

Goldman Sachs for President 2020

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^Like

Phrazemaster said:

^Like

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x2

JohnRoberts said:

I shouldn't have to explain this but Trump is just saying what many people think...  The problem with that is many people are uninformed.

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{cough}

So Trump and Pence already "saved" jobs by giving Carrier a huge tax break to not move some facilities to Mexico.

When  government puts its finger on the free market scale it's OK now? Are they going to give any tax breaks to the small companies? Or only to the big companies with clout that are all going to be lining up now?

dmp said:

So Trump and Pence already "saved" jobs by giving Carrier a huge tax break to not move some facilities to Mexico.

When  government puts its finger on the free market scale it's OK now? Are they going to give any tax breaks to the small companies? Or only to the big companies with clout that are all going to be lining up now?

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No not OK... 

Discussion is to reform tax system so all companies will benefit similarly.  In fact rate reform should help small-middle sized business more because the big businesses already avoid taxes with special tax breaks. Offshore earnings repatriation will help big companies  more. They have done one-time repatriations before, but hopefully in connection with tax reform they will  remove the incentives to make such business decisions purely on tax policy.  Making business decisions purely for business reasons should be better for everybody.

Trump is not even in office yet,  Pence as governor did what governors often try to do, but he was unsuccessful in his previous negotiations with carrier.  This is mostly symbolic, but not symbolic to those several hundred families whose jobs were preserved, or to the several hundred jobs that were still moved to Mexico (Carrier had already built the new plant down there).

I do not see a new round of crony capitalism forming, but a fair criticism is that appointments are heavily loaded with ex CEOs and wall street types.  I suspect they are also the smarted people in their fields.  If they are already wealthy, hopefully they will not abuse office to get even wealthier.

This is worth watching, but too early to pass judgement (too early for me at least).

JR

Time will tell.
The 8.8 million Americans who lost jobs due to the great recession would have appreciated it too but how do you decide whose job should be saved with gov handouts? Republicans are for corporate welfare now? With a Democratic President, Republicans opposed any action. Funny. Hypocrisy?  It's almost like they valued a return to power more than the failure of the country.
We will see if any true reform goes in the right direction. At this point, it's just looking like it will be giveaways to big business and high earners. Following a strategy GW Bush used to great effect - put the fox in charge of guarding the hen house.  Steven Mnuchin is an absolute disgrace as Treasury Secretary. The millions he made and others like him in 2008 cost how many people their jobs?
You don't see the direction taking shape already? Ending public schools, entitlements (medicare, possibly privative SS), further deregulation and handouts to wall street, irresponsible deficit spending. Make America Great Again (sarcasm).

  appointments are heavily loaded with ex CEOs and wall street types.  I suspect they are also the smarted people in their fields. If they are already wealthy, hopefully they will not abuse office to get even wealthier.

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How many times do people need to be fooled, before they say enough?  Those wealthy people had no problem destroying middle America in 2008 to add to their net worth (i.e. Mnuchin).
Hopefully the "uninformed" are paying attention as Trump appoints millionaires and billionaires to fill the swamp up. I swear if he appoints Petraeus to his cabinet the hypocrisy will absolutely blow up my mind.

dmp said:

Time will tell.
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I swear if he appoints Petraeus to his cabinet the hypocrisy will absolutely blow up my mind.

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I really like Gen Petraeus for secretary of state but don't want your head to explode.  ;D He is the military genius who came up with the surge and made it work, the first time we took Mosul. I don't see him getting approved by congress because he was banging his biographer and mishandled confidential information, a crime he pled guilty to and tried to put behind him. Surely would be an ugly approval circus.

I continue to be impressed by the crowd getting interviewed but some ( a lot?) of that is pure theater. I notice that Condoleezza Rice met with Pence but she is probably more interested in being the  NFL commissioner than another government gig.

JR

PS: I and many others have been wondering why Romney is being very publicly considered for Secretary of State. About the only thing that makes any sense to me (pure speculation) is that this is a behind the scenes negotiation with Putin. Because Romney has been very vocal about opposing Russia, he probably wouldn't play nice with them in the State department. So he may be a chip Trump is using in a negotiation (or not) as a sacrifice for something else, or maybe a just a good choice to keep Putin in check..  I didn't watch apprentice, but this seems like unscripted reality TV . 

a crime he pled guilty to and tried to put behind him

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Hard to put something behind you when you are still on parole. His original charge included lying to the FBI and violating a section of the Espionage Act. I can only imagine what would be said about him in conservative circles if he were a Democrat running for office.  This would be a good example to think about hypocrisy and a biased point of view. It's ok for Republicans but the devil incarnate for Democrats?

"As part of the agreement, Pet­raeus admitted that he improperly removed and retained highly sensitive information in eight personal notebooks that he gave to Broadwell. The Justice Department said the information, if disclosed, could have caused “exceptionally grave damage.” Officials said the notebooks contained code words for secret intelligence programs, the identities of covert officers, and information about war strategy and deliberative discussions with the National Security Council."

Petraeus may be a genius, but he is no more above the law than Hillary.  no government should employ a man or woman who has tried to deceive.  If he is the only smart general then the US and Nato is in trouble, another candidate please.

DaveP

dmp said:

Hard to put something behind you when you are still on parole. His original charge included lying to the FBI and violating a section of the Espionage Act. I can only imagine what would be said about him in conservative circles if he were a Democrat running for office. 

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We know full well what would have been said about her if she was a Democrat! And she wasn't even guilty of anything. Other than being a female Democrat, that is.

dmp said:

How many times do people need to be fooled, before they say enough?  Those wealthy people had no problem destroying middle America in 2008 to add to their net worth (i.e. Mnuchin).
Hopefully the "uninformed" are paying attention as Trump appoints millionaires and billionaires to fill the swamp up. I swear if he appoints Petraeus to his cabinet the hypocrisy will absolutely blow up my mind.

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They don't care. The amount of times people can be fooled appears to be roughly

I mean, seriously: Why would you expect anything from people who don't care about politician A lying them unequivocally and straight in the face while they're bothered by politician B misleading people? People who don't care about the obvious multiple business connections that are troublesome to candidate A, not to mention A's stated intent to not completely disconnect those interests, yet the same people are deeply troubled by the connections candidate B had while not even being able to clearly explain how they're troublesome.....

You're absolutely right: Budget deficits and national debt and infusing government with people from special-interest groups in the private sector is awful when 'they' do it, and just gravy when 'we' do it. When 'they' lie it's awful, when 'we' lie it's ok because everyone does it. Globalization proves how capitalism works, but we don't want competition from abroad because that makes our lives worse.

Hypocrisy is alive and well because truth, logic and reasoning are all dead. On the suggestion of BBC I watched the movie "Network" from the 70's, and it's really nail-on-the-head of what part of the problem is. Add to that apparently awful education and the US election was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Sad to say I failed to predict it. I just had higher hopes for Americans. Won't make that mistake again.

RECOUNT.

More hypocrisy. Obviously non-thinking Trump supporters agreed with Trump that the election was rigged. Then he won and the issue was no longer an issue. Now, when a recount has been requested, Trump supporters file lawsuits to stop the recount!!!

In the industrialized developed west I can only think of the USA where the voting system is so crappy to begin with, and where so many people don't want all votes to be counted, and counted properly....... yet they refer to their nation as a "democracy"....

it's not a democracy.... It's a constitutional republic...

pucho812 said:

it's not a democracy.... It's a constitutional republic...

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"The Greatest Democracy in the World" is not  a democracy?!

Next you'll tell us Israel isn't "The Only Democracy in the Middle East"... Not sure I can handle all that in the same day.