monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

A Republican legislative aide in Maryland who was behind a fake news site that accused Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton of election-rigging was fired Wednesday.

I don't see how it is relevant to Trump unless every single worldwide incident or situation is somehow relevant to POTUS.

As Donald Trump’s inauguration nears, his longtime Republican critics are planning to throw themselves into outdoor expeditions, news detoxes and day jobs, steeling themselves for the day they have dreaded for months. For them, Friday’s inauguration proceedings will be a capstone to one rough chapter of American political life—and an ominous start to the next one.

“The Trump inauguration is a black day in American history,” said Gabriel Schoenfeld, a former senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign who’s now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “American history is permanently stained by what he has already said and done. And now, with possession of the immense power of the presidency, worse is to come. I see no point in giving voice to false hope that Donald Trump will do the country an iota of good.”

Schoenfeld isn’t alone in finding Inauguration Day intolerable. Fergus Cullen, the former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party and a longtime party activist who was a vocal critic of Trump during the campaign, said that while he has tried to give the Trump transition a chance, he won’t be tuning in to watch the inauguration ceremony. “I think I’ve watched every single one since I was a child,” Cullen said. “But no, I’m not planning to watch this one. I’m planning to specifically not watch it. It’s just not healthy to be in a state of constant outrage.”

...D’Antonio: I think the key thing that you said, Gwenda, was that he expects people to pay attention to his needs, and the job, seems to me, when you’re dealing with him, it should be about focusing on imagining what his ego requires and not contradicting him publicly. Maybe not even contradicting him one-on-one. I wonder if he’ll give orders and they may not be followed and he wouldn’t care if he doesn’t find out about it. He’s not going to be that concerned with the actual competent administration of the government. It’s going to be what he seems to be gaining or losing in public esteem. So almost like a monarch. Like a modern monarch. The figurehead who rallies people and gets credit for things.

It’s just not healthy to be in a state of constant outrage.”

Donald Trump plans on displaying the United States military's strength when he becomes president by having troops march in parades.

“Being a great president has to do with a lot of things, but one of them is being a great cheerleader for the country,” Trump told the Washington Post in an interview published Wednesday morning. “And we’re going to show the people as we build up our military, we’re going to display our military."

"That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we’re going to be showing our military," he continued.

For all the frequency of his communication and his victory, you’d think President-elect Donald Trump would easily make himself understood. “Blunt talk” was his strength, we were told. Since the election, however, never have so many aides, nominees and supporters have had to clarify so frequently, so much of what the president-elect says (either in interviews or tweets).

Both Vice President-elect Mike Pence and U.N. Ambassador nominee Nikki Haley on Wednesday had to assure us that Trump didn’t mean that NATO was obsolete when he said NATO is, well, “obsolete.” Health and Human Service secretary nominee Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) had to explain that health-care insurance for “everybody” doesn’t mean actual coverage; in the Trump administration that means “access” for everybody to some type of coverage. When Trump said he had a health-care plan ready to go, he really meant Price would come up with something. Pick a topic and almost every Trump pronouncement gets reinterpreted or dumped. Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway seem to do nothing but explain what Trump meant to say.

The act, frankly, has gotten old. Trump says what he means; the problem remains that he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

For my ideologically conservative brethren.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/314934-why-im-leaving-the-democratic-party

Identity politics

First is the increasing reliance of the party on identity politics, and the circumvention of earnest debate that results from this strategy....it stifles debate in that it simplifies and seeks to accuse in a way that is alienating as well as condescending and undeniably exclusive. Not since the days of McCarthyism has the demand to conform been greater.

Rhetoric

Second, the Democratic Party’s recent rhetoric...is bothersome to me, and is highly hypocritical coming from those who mocked conservatives for making similar points in 2008....I find it to be far worse among my liberal cohorts, which frankly gives me more hope for the future of the opposing party.

I asked how they are relevant to monitoring Trump.

The Apes have been in decline for some time. Should the Obama administration have done more to come to their aid?

Do you think that unfettered by "climate change deniers" Obama could have engineered the healing of our planet?

A federal appeals court on Thursday let stand former Massey Energy Co Chief Executive Donald Blankenship's conviction for conspiracy and one-year prison sentence related to his role in a 2010 West Virginia coal mine explosion that killed 29 workers.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Blankenship's argument that his conviction should be overturned because the trial judge made several errors, and because prosecutors did not properly allege the specific mine safety regulations he allegedly conspired to violate.

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Treasury Department initially failed to disclose his interests in a Cayman Islands corporation as well as more than $100 million in personal assets, according to a memo by Democratic staffers on the Senate Finance Committee that was obtained by The Washington Post.

The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

The proposed cuts hew closely to a blueprint published last year by the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has helped staff the Trump transition.