The title line of this post is from a Paul Newman movie. It certainly describes the current political climate. It appears that the majority party and it’s associated agents will say what ever they want with impunity and hope they can get away with it. The cue is taken from their leader President Trump. Mr Trump has told the truth probably, how many times? The Majority party has taken up that method of dealing with their constituents. There have been several town halls where the firmly entrenched Congress members faces hostile crowds but they continue to follow the Nazi method of communication: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”-Joseph Goebbels. The citizens of America while certainly seeking good government have been and still are bombarded by a steady stream of unabashed and from the hip falsehoods that the speakers hope we are not smart enough to see through. It does not take a wizard to know that the majority party does not have the interest of the public in mind as they continue the process of rolling back protections put in place by the previous administration. The mid year elections is the opportunity for all of us to shift the political landscape to our advantage. The current politicians are all less than trustworthy in one way or another. There are at least a dozen ways to say: “you can tell if a politician is lying because his mouth is moving”!
Ted Cruz is attempting to get a bill passed that will repeal or neuter the protections from predatory lending in banks. This is the same Ted Cruz who was running to be President. This appears to show that we have some real issues coming from existing members of Congress. This is the same Congress that blocked many of President Obama’s initiatives’ and is now saddled with Donald Trump whom they are not quite sure what to do with. In the background of this the Congress of themselves (instead of the people) are busily making disastrous changes in laws that protect us all while attempting to tell us that they are working for us. It is important that we the people pay close attention to these folks who have no good intentions for us but like most bunco artists try to persuade us that what they are doing is good for us as we choke on what we are being fed. The proposed bill below is just one example.MA
As of 02/20/2017 text has not been received for S.370 – A bill to eliminate the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection by repealing title X of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly known as the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010.
Bills are generally sent to the Library of Congress from GPO, the Government Publishing Office, a day or two after they are introduced on the floor of the House or Senate. Delays can occur when there are a large number of bills to prepare or when a very large bill has to be printed.
S.370 – A bill to eliminate the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection by repealing title X of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly known as the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010.
In the weeks since taking the oath of office, the oaf of office has governed on Twitter. It is apparent to most that we have a petulant child as leader. The GOP with its tacit ok on his actions so far seems to think they can do what they want with his help however they have forgotten about “draining the swamp”. They have approved and installed his cabinet as a way to make to make the “child” happy but to the detriment of the United States (this includes ALL of us). The 2018 elections will see more changes than the Dupublicans can imagine since many crossover voters will cross over again. There will be no fake, ghost or illegal votes as alleged , just citizens who realize the error of re electing the same Congress time after time and getting nothing for it. The big issue will be the Trumps taxes if they ever become public but even without them his actions will put the US in serious and dangerous situations worldwide. One cannot govern via tweet or by using superlatives, there has to meetings with longtime government workers including the “cabinet?”. The GOP seems to have the hope of a “Mike Pence” Presidency if the current child is impeached, should that occur will the damage will already have been done and will affect the GOP for years to came as well as setting the United States back for many years with its allies.
Many of us know or have heard the theme to a cartoon show called “The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour” but as a reminder the Lyrics are listed below:
ARTIST: Jerry Livingston and Mack David TITLE: Bugs Bunny Overture (This Is It) Lyrics
[From Television Theme Song]
Overture, curtain, lights This is it, the night o’ nights No more rehearsing and nursing our parts We know every part by heart
Overture, curtain, lights This is it, to hit the heights And, oh what heights we’ll hit On with the show, this is it
Tonight what heights we’ll hit On with the show, this is it.
This is just an introduction what the next 4 years will bring. The current flap is over how many people were in the National mall, this was contested on air by the Trump talking heads in spite of photographic proof to the contrary. It appears that we will now have a wave of superlatives instead of facts on what the administration is doing, will do or has done. Looking at what is happening right now and what has gone before we need to prepare for talking points instead of facts. I fully understand that Trumps’ rise is due to his “telling it like it is” but the reality is that “telling it like it is” can come back to haunt you as it seems to be doing even now. The true reason for Mr. Trump’s ascension is the dissatisfaction with the Government over the past 10-20 years. The “Government “as a lot of folks see it is the President, wrong, the Government is the Congress ,those people we vote for election after election who do very little on our behalf no matter what they tell us. Our elected officials for the most part take the idea of ” when we want your opinion. we will give it to you” to a new level and continue to offer obfuscated information that strokes the public ego while continuing their poor governing ways. No matter what party you associate with , it is wise to push your representative to do what is correct but first you must decide what you want as opposed to what is needed for us all and what is possible. Remember that what you ask for can bring unseen issues that will adversely affect you later with the blessing of your representative. Keep in mind that the people who represent us in Government do not have job issues (save our vote),medical coverage issues or retirement (pension) issues thus it is in our (voter’s) best interest to research the person who represents you now before the next election cycle, you may be surprised what you’ll learn.
Who attends or doesn’t the inaugural and subsequent after party matter? The coverage on attendees has taken precedent over the hearings on cabinet appointees. The potential good or harm that can be done by these appointees is more important than the celebrants of a party. For instance : there is much talk of spending and taxing. It is a fact that no matter what is said about deficits and surpluses, you cannot spend money on infrastructure without revenue to back it. The revenue is and always has been gained through taxes. The taxes that many of us do not like paying or want to pay. It appears to be the general consensus that we pay too much in taxes but we still want what we want. Understand how America (and most of the modern world) works, every government has to be funded some how. This funding is usually taxes obtained by levies on payrolls, purchases or property. The current administration as well as the new one will have to address the issues of presenting proposals to use existing or creating new ways to finance the country’s needs. The barrier to this is and always will be the United States Congress. The political fighting has always been the biggest sticking point except for the few times where we had real legislators who understood how stuff should be done. You can be dissatisfied and unhappy about paying taxes but without them we would have no functioning government and possibly a worse method of financing the Government such as confiscation of funds, goods and services. To address the question: “What’s really important?”, elect representatives who will do the job beginning with local, state and federal elections. Ignore the soaring rhetoric and so called “telling it like it is “because it is not “how it is”!
The Trump effect has begun. It is unfortunate that our long serving Congress has been so poor in its representation of the voters. With this new President it will certainly get no better in spite of the soaring rhetoric to the contrary. The congress has attempted 60 plus times to repeal Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) over the past several years. This is time wasted when they (Congress) could have addressed the issues at its original presentation as it is normally done. Now they intend to spend more money and time on repealing it and replacing it with an unknown. They call this Conservatism. It is past time for the voters to stop acquiring labels on their political views as these are labels propagated by the media and politicians to further their Own Ends. If you assume the label by the party of your choice you are operating under a false premise as the politicians of this country have one goal and that goal does not include you! Politispeak is what is used to get your vote and many time these words sound good but mean nothing, by this method their words are the same as when you train your dog with a treat or “good boy”. Now we have a self-absorbed “commander In Tweet” who as I see it really did not expect to win the office and is not so interested in it but does like the adoration as this has been his stock in trade for most of his life. The Dupublican Congress has decided for you what you want no matter what You want! This is not say the Scamocrats are any better however over the years we have fared better under them than the Dupublicans. It is time we as voters shuck labels and become impartial to all parties in order to vote correctly for better government. The road to better government is in the hands of informed voters. As a side note: not one Congressional member is suffering from lack of salary or healthcare since the ACA (Obamacare if you will) does not cover them, isn’t the American voter worthy of the same level care?
It quite apparent that Illinois has deep woes. The Governor and the Leader Madigan are waging a head to head fight using the citizens as fodder. The reality is that these two have failed to understand that no one suffers more than the people. Take the State of Illinois as a precursor to a “businessman” leading the country. Too many people are drawn in by the “running the state (or country) as a business”. This does not work as the “business man” has the mindset of “I’m the boss”. That does not work in government where you have a body of legislators that enact or veto laws. The obvious rift between the Governor and Mr. Madigan will never be healed until it is, meanwhile the State has no budget and I blame the Governor since previous Opposing party Governors were able to get things done (not like a business). My opinion is: we need to get a Governor in place who “gets it” and a speaker who can make a better effort to show him how to “get it”. The past elections have shown how much the Governor can spend to get his way, I would posit the idea of using those millions as tax-deductible donations to the State. We (the citizens of Illinois) need to wake up and pay close attention to who we elect beginning NOW! All election mistakes can be corrected with the next elections. We are the people in charge.
Comments Off on We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here’s What We Learned
I am hoping enough people read this to understand how they are manipulated into poor choices and opinions, I have mentioned many times the way we are “advertised” into saying, thinking and acting in a certain way. MA
“The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right.”
A lot of fake and misleading news stories were shared across social media during the election. One that got a lot of traffic had this headline: “FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide.” The story is completely false, but it was shared on Facebook over half a million times.
We wondered who was behind that story and why it was written. It appeared on a site that had the look and feel of a local newspaper. Denverguardian.com even had the local weather. But it had only one news story — the fake one.
We tried to look up who owned it and hit a wall. The site was registered anonymously. So we brought in some professional help.
By day, John Jansen is head of engineering at Master-McNeil Inc., a tech company in Berkeley, Calif. In the interest of real news he helped us track down the owner of Denverguardian.com.
Jansen started by looking at the site’s history. “Commonly that’s called scraping or crawling websites,” he says.
Jansen is kind of like an archaeologist. He says that nothing you do on the Web disappears — it just gets buried — like a fossil. But if you do some digging you’ll find those fossils and learn a lot of history.
The “Denver Guardian” was built and designed using a pretty common platform — WordPress. It’s used by bloggers and people who want to create their own websites. Jansen found that the first entry ever for the site was done by someone with the handle LetTexasSecede.
“That was sort of the thread that started to unravel everything,” Jansen says. “I was able to track that through to a bunch of other sites which are where that handle is also present.”
The sites include NationalReport.net, USAToday.com.co, WashingtonPost.com.co. All the addresses linked to a single rented server inside Amazon Web Services. That meant they were all very likely owned by the same company. Jansen found an email address on one of those sites and was able to link that address to a name: Jestin Coler.
Online, Coler was listed as the founder and CEO of a company called Disinfomedia. Coler’s LinkedIn profile said he once sold magazine subscriptions, worked as a database administrator and as a freelance writer for among others, International Yachtsman magazine. And, using his name, we found a home address.
On a warm, sunny afternoon I set out with a producer for a suburb of Los Angeles. Coler lived in a middle-class neighborhood of pastel-colored one-story beach bungalows. His home had an unwatered lawn — probably the result of California’s ongoing drought. There was a black minivan in the driveway and a large prominent American flag.
We rang the front doorbell and a man answered, his face obscured by a heavy mesh steel screen. I asked for Jestin Coler. The man indicated that’s who he was. But when I asked about Disinfomedia, he said, “I don’t know what to tell you guys. Have a good day.”
We left Coler our contact information thinking he wasn’t likely to talk. But a couple of hours later he had a change of heart. He sent us an email and we set up an interview.
Coler is a soft-spoken 40-year-old with a wife and two kids. He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right.
“The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction,” Coler says.
He was amazed at how quickly fake news could spread and how easily people believe it. He wrote one fake story for NationalReport.net about how customers in Colorado marijuana shops were using food stamps to buy pot.
“What that turned into was a state representative in the House in Colorado proposing actual legislation to prevent people from using their food stamps to buy marijuana based on something that had just never happened,” Coler says
During the run-up to the presidential election, fake news really took off. “It was just anybody with a blog can get on there and find a big, huge Facebook group of kind of rabid Trump supporters just waiting to eat up this red meat that they’re about to get served,” Coler says. “It caused an explosion in the number of sites. I mean, my gosh, the number of just fake accounts on Facebook exploded during the Trump election.”
Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait.
Coler’s company, Disinfomedia, owns many faux news sites — he won’t say how many. But he says his is one of the biggest fake-news businesses out there, which makes him a sort of godfather of the industry.
At any given time, Coler says, he has between 20 and 25 writers. And it was one of them who wrote the story in the “Denver Guardian” that an FBI agent who leaked Clinton emails was killed. Coler says that over 10 days the site got 1.6 million views. He says stories like this work because they fit into existing right-wing conspiracy theories.
“The people wanted to hear this,” he says. “So all it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional: the town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. And then … our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums and boy it spread like wildfire.”
And as the stories spread, Coler makes money from the ads on his websites. He wouldn’t give exact figures, but he says stories about other fake-news proprietors making between $10,000 and $30,000 a month apply to him. Coler fits into a pattern of other faux news sites that make good money, especially by targeting Trump supporters.
However, Coler insists this is not about money. It’s about showing how easily fake news spreads. And fake news spread wide and far before the election. When I pointed out to Coler that the money gave him a lot of incentive to keep doing it regardless of the impact, he admitted that was “correct.”
Coler says he has tried to shine a light on the problem of fake news. He has spoken to the media about it. But those organizations didn’t know who he actually was. He gave them a fake name: Allen Montgomery.
Coler, a registered Democrat, says he has no regrets about his fake news empire. He doesn’t think fake news swayed the election.
“There are many factors as to why Trump won that don’t involve fake news,” he says. “As much as I like Hillary, she was a poor candidate. She brought in a lot of baggage.
Coler doesn’t think fake news is going away. One of his sites — NationalReport.net — was flagged as fake news under a new Google policy, and Google stopped running ads on it. But Coler had other options.
“There are literally hundreds of ad networks,” he says. “Early last week, my inbox was just filled every day with people because they knew that Google was cracking down — hundreds of people wanting to work with my sites.”
Coler says he has been talking it over with his wife and may be getting out of the fake-news racket. But, he says, dozens, maybe hundreds of entrepreneurs will be ready to take his place. And he thinks it will only get harder to tell their websites from real news sites. They know now that fake news sells and they will only be in it for the money.
Below are highlights of NPR’s interview with Coler.
Interview Highlights
Tell me a little about why you started Disinfomedia?
Late 2012, early 2013 I was spending a lot of time researching what is now being referred to as the alt-right. I identified a problem with the news that they were spreading and created Disinfomedia as a response to that. The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.
What got you engaged in this?
My educational background is in political science. I’ve always enjoyed the ideas of propaganda and misinformation. Then I coupled that with an interest in what makes things go viral. So that led me to finding those groups and ultimately to finding contributors. But it was just something I had an interest in that I wanted to pursue.
When did you notice that fake news does best with Trump supporters?
Well, this isn’t just a Trump-supporter problem. This is a right-wing issue. Sarah Palin’s famous blasting of the lamestream media is kind of record and testament to the rise of these kinds of people. The post-fact era is what I would refer to it as. This isn’t something that started with Trump. This is something that’s been in the works for a while. His whole campaign was this thing of discrediting mainstream media sources, which is one of those dog whistles to his supporters. When we were coming up with headlines it’s always kind of about the red meat. Trump really got into the red meat. He knew who his base was. He knew how to feed them a constant diet of this red meat.
We’ve tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You’ll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.
How many domains do you own and run?
Well, I would say there’s somewhere around 25 domains that I am currently managing. National Report has been my bread and butter, where I’ve spent most of my time. I have people who work with me and for me in developing and maintaining the other sites and social media kind of stuff. [Coler later said not all his sites are fake news.] So I, for the most part, focus on National Report, and a lot of the other stuff is run by other folks on the team.
So, you’re the publisher of an empire.
Well I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an empire but, yes, its several sites [chuckle].
How many people do you have writing for you?
It comes and goes, and as for actual employed writers, again these guys sort of make their own money through ad code. So I don’t say, ‘Hey, you have to write 10 stories this week’ and this and that. Really, we have a more free-form idea where people, when their creativity strikes them then they can write something. And if they’re in a slump then they just go dormant for a while. With that said, at any given time there’s probably 20, 25 contributors all over the country. …
Talk about the “Denver Guardian.”
Well, it’s kind of a side project. We have some people working on next steps in the fake-news industry, and that came from that whole discussion. We had purchased several domain names that sounded legitimate. … More local news sort of stories. The idea was to make the sites look as legit as possible so the home page is going to be local news and local forecast, local sports, some obituaries and things of that nature, and then the actual fake news stories were going to be buried off the home page.
We’ve tried lots of things in the past. The dot-com-dot-co domains were something I toyed in for a while. Those I quickly got away from because you don’t get away long with borrowing someone’s copyright or trademark. That was something that worked very well from a fake-news perspective. People were fooled into the domain name, but that wasn’t so much what we were after. So again, the next step was to go after more city-type sites. And the “Denver Guardian” was one of those sites.
You’re talking about the future of this (fake-news business) which looks more insidious because it’s more real?
That’s the way that it’s going to be. Not just from where I am. I mean, this is probably going to be my last run in the fake-news biz, but I can promise you that it’s not going to go away. It’s even going to grow bigger and it’s going to be harder to identify as it kind of evolves through these steps. …
Do you know who wrote the actual FBI Clinton story?
I do know who wrote the story, but only through an anonymous pen name. Privacy is something that we take very seriously in our writers group. The actual reasonings behind that story … it’s one of hundreds that have been written about mysterious deaths of Clinton associates or political foes. This one kind of took off more than others, I believe, just because of the nature of the story. The people wanted to hear this. So all it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional. The town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. Then, we had our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums and boy it spread like wildfire.
Why hide your identity?
This isn’t the safest business to be in, to be honest. Just the number of death threats I’ve received. I have a beautiful family, a beautiful life.
Some of these people that we … bait is probably the right word — are often — let’s call them the deplorables, right? They’re not the safest crowd. Some of them I would consider domestic terrorists. So they’re just not people that I want to be knocking on my door.
It seems like National Report is getting spoofier.
If you went to National Report today, it’s specifically satire. “Chris Christie nominated to Supreme Food Court.” “Sarah Palin Banning Muslims from Entering Bristol Palin.” They’re a little bit more offensive than some people care for their satire. I mean fat-shaming and slut-shaming isn’t something that is normally met with applause. But again, it’s a lot more fun in nature.
Do you make serious money?
It depends on what you would call serious money. I think I do pretty well.
Can you say how well?
I would rather not. There have been some people who have been reported on recently. The folks in Long Beach that were doing just all right stuff. They were reporting $10,000 to $30,000 a month; I think that’s probably a relative ballpark.
So you’re doing as well as those?
Yes.
You’re making money through the ads?
Yes.
Who do you work with?
We have several advertisers. Google was one, although they shut down my account last week. We’ve replaced them with other advertisers.
Can I ask who?
There are literally hundreds of ad networks. Literally hundreds. Last week my inbox was just filled everyday with people, because they knew that Google was cracking down — hundreds of people wanting to work with my sites. I kind of applaud Google for their steps, although I think what they’re doing is kind of random. They don’t really have a process in place for identifying these things. I happen to know a very successful site that, as of today, of this morning is still serving Google ads. So it seems to be a kind of arbitrary step that they’re taking either based on, I don’t know if it was my reputation within the industry or specifically the “Denver Guardian” site that angered them, or I don’t know what it is, but back to your question, there’s hundreds of people that will work with me.
What can be done about fake news?
Some of this has to fall on the readers themselves. The consumers of content have to be better at identifying this stuff. We have a whole nation of media-illiterate people. Really, there needs to be something done.
Do you consider yourself an entrepreneur?
Sure.
Are you one of the biggest in the fake-news biz?
If you look at someone who has specifically sometimes peddled in fictional news then I think that I would probably be considered one of the larger sites.
As a liberal, do you have any regrets?
I don’t. Again, this is something that I’ve been crying about for a while. But outside of that, there are many factors as to why Trump won that don’t involve fake news, right? As much as I like Hillary, she was a poor candidate. She brought in a lot of baggage.
You don’t feel responsible.
I do not.
Do you think you would have kept doing it if it wasn’t so lucrative?
Really, the financial part of it isn’t the only motivator for me. I do enjoy making a mess of the people that share the content that comes out of our site. It’s not just the financial incentive for me. I still enjoy the game I guess.
Would you do this all over again?
Well, I guess it came to a head here and we’re talking about it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens moving forward. If I had to, if I knew specifically the “Denver Guardian” situation, that would have been handled differently. But everything else, as far as the work I’ve done with National Report, I’m very proud of, and I’m going to continue doing it.
Comments Off on What will Donald Trump’s Presidency be like? Here are 5 scenarios.
Scott GalupoNovember 21, 2016
1. The Northeastern moderate
Before he discovered birtherism, Trump gave every indication that he was a finger-wetting, wind-direction-checking, big-city Northeastern moderate. In 1999, he described himself as “very pro-choice.” As recently as December 2012, he had urged the Republican Party, still licking its wounds over the re-election of President Obama, to get ahead of the immigration issue and win over Hispanic voters with comprehensive reform. Even during the 2016 GOP primaries, he signaled a break from the Republican mainstream by vowing to protect Medicare and Social Security.
Maybe President Trump will govern like his old self.
Throughout his public life, Trump has maintained a hard-line posture on law-and-order issues. But that’s a posture common to New York/New Jersey moderates like Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, who, not surprisingly, were among Trump’s earliest boosters.
Trump has also been a persistent critic of small-l liberal trade orthodoxy. In this 1988 appearance on Late Night With David Letterman, in which he presaged every major theme of his successful presidential campaign (“Do you want to see the United States become a winner, David?”), he complained about trade deficits with Japan (“They dump the cars and the VCRs and everything else”) as well as the U.S. guarantee of the island nation’s security (“We defend Japan for virtually nothing, which is hard to believe”).
In light of this, it’s possible that all the race-baiting of the 2016 campaign, all the bluster about Mexicans and Muslims, was a crude but necessary ploy to dislodge the Republican base from its fealty to the economic libertarianism of the party establishment in Washington. To get downscale Republican voters to finally vote in their material self-interest, he had to appeal to their basest cultural instincts.
As president, Trump might well prove to be a pragmatic dealmaker. He owes nothing to the Republican congressional leadership. If anything, they owe him for their astonishing good fortune. Consequently, Trump could be as willing to cut deals with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi as he is with GOP leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
In this scenario, a clear truth will materialize: It took a brazen figure like Donald Trump to break the partisan logjam in Washington.
2. The president of pomp
Judging from the incoherent, often downright juvenile way in which Trump spoke about policy, it’s safe to say he knows virtually nothing about virtually everything. The Trump campaign reportedly tried to entice Ohio Gov. John Kasich to join the ticket by promising that he’d be in charge of both domestic and foreign policy — leaving the vaguely momentous job of “making America great again” to the president.
What if Trump does not want to be bothered with the details of day-to-day governance and international relations? As long as he gets the credit for the legislation he signs into law; as long as it’s known that he is vested with final authority; as long as he is the “decider,” he will not sweat the details of public policy or diplomacy.
Under this scenario, the Trump administration’s policy agenda will be farmed out to Vice President Mike Pence (a right-wing conservative in good standing with the movement) and congressional leaders McConnell and Ryan. President Trump will essentially rubber-stamp into law a massive tax cut for the wealthy, the partial privatization of Medicare, the block-granting of Medicaid, plus the repeal of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank financial-industry regulations.
3. The people pleaser
Donald Trump has a deeply felt need for people to like him, to be “nice” to him. As a result, during the campaign he found himself on every side of every issue, often inside the same sentence. It was difficult to keep track of the evolution of his policy positions. (You can peruse an attempt to do so here.)
Trump may well try to govern every which way, in the same way he campaigned every which way. We will get a border wall. Or a fence. Or an “electronic fence.” It will be big and beautiful … and porous … and virtual. And he will countenance a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented “terrific people,” after having made a show of deporting criminals in no greater number than the Obama administration.
He will repeal Obama Care. But not really. Or not immediately. Maybe never. Those with preexisting conditions will still have insurance and the 26-and-under cohort will be able to stay on their parents’ plans. No one will lose coverage and he will maintain the consumer protections of the Affordable Care Act. He’ll call the whole thing “TrumpCare” and declare victory for freedom.
He will cut taxes and make up for the shortfall in revenue by … making American revenue great again. That is, he will deficit-finance his tax cuts in the same fashion as Presidents Reagan and Bush 43.
When faced with a tough choice or politically painful trade-off, he will not choose at all. He will be all things to all people.
4. The pernicious president
The premise of Trump’s campaign was that pluralism has failed. Pluralism has made us less safe. Political correctness has made it impossible to utter the truth. And the law-abiding white Christian majority in this country is under siege from multiculturalists, Islamists, and globalists.
With the installment of Steve Bannon as a top White House strategist and the appointment of Gen. Michael Flynn and Sen. Jeff Sessions as national security adviser and attorney general, respectively, Trump may well intend to run an administration every bit as uncompromising as his most vitriolic campaign rhetoric. We will get a border wall and a ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries. The Trump administration will further gut the Voting Rights Act and make it yet harder for minorities to cast a ballot. Otherwise law-abiding undocumented workers and their families will live in a climate of fear, always looking over their shoulder.
Further, it will become clear that Trump wasn’t bluffing when he threatened to “open up” libel law to combat unfair attacks in the press and initiate antitrust action against Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. He will persecute unfriendly media and opponents in the business world via the vast regulatory power of the executive branch of government.
5. The agent of chaos
What if none of these scenarios entirely comes to pass — but instead, all of them do to one extent or another? Maybe we’ll see a partial realization of and a bleeding between each scenario. It will all depend on who has the president’s ear at any given moment — on who was the last operative to stroke his ego and seduce his narcissism. The incoherent nonsense that issues from his mouth will result in “red line”-like international confusion on a monthly basis, or worse. Our allies will never be sure if Trump can be trusted, if the intelligence we share with them isn’t already known to geopolitical rivals like Russia.
And all the while, Trump and his family will enrich themselves. The line between the Trump Organization and the Trump administration will be blurry at best, nonexistent at worst. The Trumps will co-opt the federal bureaucracy to ensure favorable regulation of their business interests. Authoritarian governments around the world will curry favor with Trump by laundering money through his network of international business contacts.
Terrifying, right? Well, I’m sorry to tell you that it’s all too possible. And this is why America urgently needs to formalize an Independents Against Trump movement — the subject of my next column. Stay tuned.
Running Wild in the streets with wild abandon are the Trump supporters who have the likes of Former Mayor Giuliani , Gov. Christie and the unflapped Benny Carson as point men. Aside from the obvious lies this campaign has all of the makings of a bad reality show. The establishment has spawned a genii from the bottle and can not put him back in. Now in the graceless form that they have used so many times before, they have disavowed him. The reality is that he does not care and the Dupes will get the worst of it. Voters are angry and now they should focus on the real problems their long time elected officials whose lies they believed for so long. Da Turnip has given them a voice through him and they love it. It is of no importance that they are being duped but he just speaks gutter to them with no substance to back it up and they love it. These are not conservatives, liberals or any of the other “mainstream labels” , they are just angry voters who fail to (it appears) to get a full grip on the workings of government and the effects of those workings on everyday life. The things they want are expensive and no one wants to pay for them. There is no free ride anywhere on anything. Everything has a cost of some sort. The cost of a Trump Presidency is possibly war with the world, anarchy in some states and a breakdown of the political process. Reality is not a political platform but it is the theme of a number of TV shows. It is unfortunate that too many of us fail to remember the lessons of previous wars since they were not fought here (exception: the War between the States). This election has shown the worst of us and the best of us yet we have a task to handle and that is to vote. The choice is simple: vote or don’t vote, the best choice is to vote no matter what. There are 3 parties: Scamocrats, Dupublican and Independent (Green)- Vote for one. Lastly the 2 party system many of us have known (forever it seems) is not working anymore, our focus should be independence from party rhetoric and remember the real party tenets (whatever they happen to at the present time). The primary goal of all voters is to elect someone they like and trust however we have not seen those two attributes together in a long time. What we have had is a Black President who a lot of these same Trump supporters did not vote for and hate because he’s Black. It’s remarkable that this manifestation of hatred has surfaced with such vehemence and it is spread over the Congress, the military and in some foreign countries. Folks fail to realize that the tone of the country sends a message to other countries that Americans and their government are in disarray. Mr. Trump doesn’t care at all about perception unless it is about him. It is time all Americans become woke as to the real issues facing all of us collectively. If you are tired of being lied to during and after elections then you need to read more about what is really going on in this country and the Governments-local, state and federal. Consider this, because a “Plotician ” (new word) looks like you does not mean that he is going to be honest and truthful with you. It has been said that a “con artist will slap you on the back with one hand and pick your pocket with the other”. So with that statement , wouldn’t it be smart to pay attention or better read up on the folks who are seeking office for yourself and not rely on news reports which could be erroneous or incomplete. Think about this, would you trust this candidate with your wallet? Remember there is no one (1) single issue in any election and if you allow yourself to be stuck on one issue you will miss the issues that will cause us the most harm sooner rather than later.
Michael1942's Blog 
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