It's impossible to mention all of the terrible things the president has done so for in his first year. He hasn't accomplished much. His only claim to fame so far is ripping apart Obama's legacy. He hasn't filled one campaign promise yet. The tax bill may be his first real break.
OF CONCERN
Hollywood access:
This one is really concerning. Who really believes that was not Trump's voice on the tape? Trump has basically said as much. Trump lies so much, he can't tell the truth from a lie. He issued that defiant apology for those lewd remarks caught on that tape. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize". Then Trump said he tried to "f**k" a married woman and bragged about being able to grope women because of his "star" status. "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful (women)" and just start "kissing them." Who really does not believe his accusers? Nice behavior for a president of the United States. The guy should be in jail, yet he chastizes Matt Lauer at NBC News. Same with Conyers. Trump called for Al Franken's resignation yet endorses Moore. Takes one to know one I guess. If I were Al Franken, I'd challenge Trump to a "Let's Make a Deal" challenge. I'll resign if you resign. I'd make the challenge if I were Franken.
"NEWSWEEK
TRUMP IS NOMINATING UNQUALIFIED JUDGES AT AN UNPRECEDENTED RATE
President Donald Trump has nominated more unqualified judicial appointees than any other president so quickly into his first term, a whopping four out of 58, according to the nation's preeminent legal group. The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee of the Federal Judiciary, which has been evaluating judicial appointments since the 1950s, has assessed 53 of Trump's 58 nominees and found four "not qualified." Experts worry that if Trump succeeds in getting his unqualified nominees to the bench, the core of the federal judicial process will be hollowed out.
'Unqualified Judges'
The last time the ABA's Standing Committee doled out its lowest ranking before Trump was in 2006 when the Bush administration put forth Michael Wallace for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Wallace was Bush’s seventh and last judicial nominee deemed unqualified by the group. In the next 10 years, the committee reviewed more than 600 candidates for federal judicial posts, all of whom were deemed qualified for the bench.
But that streak was broken in October when the ABA ranked Trump nominee Charles Goodwin unqualified. A month later, three more of Trump’s nominees—Leonard Grasz, Holly Teeter, and Brett Talley—received the same ranking.
Talley's nominations was particularly striking. Better known as a right-wing blogger, Talley is just 10 years out of law school and has never tried a case. It's also been reported that Talley "has a fervent interest in investigating and writing about paranormal activities" and appears to have defended the Ku Klux Klan in online forum. It has also been recently revealed that Talley is married to the White House council's chief of staff, a potential conflict of interest he did not disclose during his Senate Judiciary hearing. Brett Talley said gun control was 'the greatest attack on our constitutional freedoms in our lifetime' after the Sandy Hook massacre.
Note: This is a lifetime seat if approved
Grasz, senior counsel at Husch Blackwell LLP, was nominated to become a judge in the Eighth Circuit in August. Two months later, the ABA Standing Committee unanimously ranked Grasz as unqualified, with one abstention.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-nominatin ... ght-710263
"NPR POLITICS"
Trump's Nominee To Be USDA's Chief Scientist Is Not A Scientist
The chief scientist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is typically a low-profile job in any presidential administration. But President Trump's nomination of his former Iowa campaign manager for the post is raising concern in the scientific community and beyond about the politicization of science policy in the Trump administration.
If confirmed, Clovis would oversee the agency's $3 billion research budget, which funds, among other things, research to help farmers and ranchers adapt to climate change. Clovis is currently the White House liaison to USDA.
"I have looked at the science," Clovis said, "and I have enough of a science background to know when I'm being boofed. And a lot of what we see is junk science."
Note: We all know how Donald Trump feels about climate change and environmental issues
https://www.npr.org/2017/09/04/54793401 ... -scientist
"THE ATLANTIC"
The Dismal Future of Trump's Least Favorite Agency
Mick Mulvaney, the controversial head of the OMB, might soon direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency he once called “a sick, sad joke.”
The strangest thing about the man who's expected to be named the next leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is that he has long opposed the agency's work.
This is the agency established in the wake of the 2008 market crash, whose regulatory reach touches countless financial products that Americans use every day—student loans, payday loans, credit cards, mortgages, and so on.
The brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Bureau was founded in 2010 as a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act, as a financial watchdog acting in the interest of American consumers. Since its founding, the agency has created new mechanisms for citizens to bring complaints and concerns about financial institutions and products, provided educational resources, and weighed in with rules and regulations regarding payday loans, prepaid cards, and fiduciary responsibility, among other issues.
These are areas for which consumers voices weren’t represented in any regulatory agency prior to the financial crisis.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... mp/546131/
"CNN POLITICS
At a Navajo veterans' event, Trump makes 'Pocahontas' crack
"I just want to thank you because you are very, very special people. You were here long before any of us were here," Trump said. "Although, we have a representative in Congress who has been here a long time ... longer than you -- they call her Pocahontas!"
The comment, met with silence from event attendees, revives an insult the President has long thrust upon Warren but restated during a high-profile meeting with the Native American war heroes.
"It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur. Donald Trump does this over and over thinking somehow he is going to shut me up with it. It hasn't worked out in the past, it isn't going to work out in the future," Warren told MSNBC shortly after Trump's remark.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/27/politics/ ... index.html
"The White House Patch
Nepotism In The White House: How Trump's Family Is A Bigger Liability Than His Twitter Feed
Sometimes, a president's best move is to fire staff members who generate bad press. That's much harder when they're family.
The president's children took on major roles at the Trump Organization.
Now that he sits in the Oval Office and controversy envelops his administration, though, the president's eldest daughter is being lambasted for manufacturing her business's products abroad. Democrats are demanding his son-in-law Jared Kushner lose his top-level security clearance. And Donald Trump Jr. has lawyered up after the all-consuming Russia investigation has centered on him.
Under normal circumstances, the president's choice to work so closely with his children — his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Kushner at the White House, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump at the Trump Organization — is enough to inflame his opponents. Critics say it's wildly inappropriate for Trump's kids to run a business he said he would distance himself from as president. And the inclusion of his daughter and son-in-law at the highest levels of government without the usual qualifications, on the other hand, is seen by some as political malpractice.
https://patch.com/us/white-house/nepoti ... itter-feed
"CNN"
Trump slams CNN International — and journalists fire back
President Trump's latest broadside against CNN is drawing ire from journalists who say he misunderstands the very purpose of news coverage.
A day earlier, Trump took aim at a new target: the network's international programming. His evening tweet tarred CNN International while also boosting Fox News, the president's favored organization.
"Fox News is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly," the president said. "The outside world does not see the truth from them!"
(Dangerous Precedent Being Set Here. The outside world depends on CNN International)
A few minutes later, CNN's public relations department fired back:
"It's not CNN's job to represent the U.S to the world. That's yours. Our job is to report the news."
http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/26/media/p ... index.html
"The Hill"
Trump's tax returns are missing from tax reform debate
President Trump has repeatedly refused to release his tax returns despite earlier promises to do so and the fact that every presidential candidate has released their returns for the past four decades.
So Mr. President if you want to talk tax reform and use your own taxes as proof of how fair and great your bill will be, lay your cards on the table and show us your tax returns; otherwise, we have every right to suspect that you have a card (or perhaps a Russian ties) hidden up your sleeve.
http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3597 ... orm-debate
"The Guardian
How Trump is dismantling a pillar of the American state
Donald Trump is presiding over the most withering, devastating, and trenchant attack on the American administrative state this nation has ever known
There is no shortage of adjectives to describe the Trump presidency. Venal. Shameless. Bigoted. Impulsive. Feckless.
Amid the never-ending stream of scandals and outrages, it is easy to lose sight of just what this administration is doing well – and where it is proving to be spectacularly disciplined, calculating and effective.
Donald Trump is presiding over the most withering, devastating, and trenchant attack on the American administrative state this nation has ever known.
Cast largely as liberty enhancing, these deregulatory efforts endanger the safety, health, and welfare of all Americans, not to mention a good deal of the rest of the world who depend on the United States to do its part to combat global warming, banking and securities fraud, and worker exploitation.
Consider the Trump administration in action. While all eyes are drawn to the three-ring circus of White House saber-rattling, indictments, and Twitter wars, Trump and his cabinet secretaries have been quietly at work on this project of regulatory deconstruction.
For now, it is best to remember (and remind others) that bureaucracy was never a swamp but rather a deep reservoir of talented, loyal, and devoted experts, whose effectiveness turned in considerable part on their political independence.
This independence enabled them to serve across presidential administrations; to develop technical proficiency uncorrupted by political fads; and to speak truth to power to Democrats and Republicans alike.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... tive-state
"The New York Times"
DISMANTLING THE FOREIGN SERVICES
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opin ... udget.html
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CALL IT WHINING.....CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT.....AS AN AMERICAN.....I'M DEEPLY CONCERNED....
LATE NIGHT TV BALDWIN, MYERS, AND COLBERT A WELCOME COMEDY RELIEF FROM THE DEPRESSING NEWS THESE DAYS.....
I'M PROUD OF THE WOMEN COMING OUT AGAINST SEXUAL IMPROPRIETIES AND ASSAULTS, THEY ARE TAKING DOWN A LOT OF HIGH PROFILE INDIVIDUALS......
TWO MORE TO GO ?!?!?!