Reasons for optimism

“The relentless campaign that Trump unleashed on me and Fox News to try to get coverage the way he liked it was unprecedented and potentially very dangerous,” she said, casual but animated behind her translucent desk. If he were to repeat the same behavior from the White House, she said, “it would be quite chilling for many reporters.”

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
I have recieved and taken calls from many foreign leaders despite what the failing @nytimes said. Russia, U.K., China, Saudi Arabia, Japan,
4:17 AM - 16 Nov 2016

Donald J. TrumpVerified account
‏@realDonaldTrump
Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!
6:19 PM - 10 Nov 2016

Things are even worse than I expected

Trump was not a normal candidate, the transition is not a normal transition, and this will probably not be a normal administration. The president-elect is surrounding himself with mediocrities whose chief qualification seems to be unquestioning loyalty. He gets credit for becoming a statesman when he says something any newly elected president might say (“I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future”) — and then reverts to tweeting against demonstrators and the New York Times. By all accounts, his ignorance, and that of his entourage, about the executive branch is fathomless. It’s not even clear that he accepts that he should live in the White House rather than in his gilt-smeared penthouse in New York.

Eliot Asher Cohen[1] (born April 3, 1956 in Boston, Massachusetts) is the Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Carey Business School, both at the Johns Hopkins University. Cohen is the Director of the Strategic Studies Program at SAIS and has specialized in the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Iraq, arms control, and NATO. He "is one of the few teachers in the American academy to treat military history as a serious field" according to International Law scholar Ruth Wedgwood.[2] He served as Counselor to the United States Department of State under Secretary Condoleezza Rice from 2007 to 2009.

I wonder now that Clinton is over, who is next on the conservative news list to go after in a continuing narrative? Bernie as he is the only one that I know of still around making news?

Russia appeared on course Wednesday to become the latest nation to snub the International Criminal Court, sending a signal of defiance after a U.N. panel cited rights abuses and other complaints linked to Russia’s annexation of Crimea more than two years ago.

After Donald Trump’s election as president, Pamela Ramsey Taylor, who was director of the Clay County Development Corp., took to social media to comment on the upcoming shift from Obama to Melania Trump, writing: “It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House.”

She added: “I’m tired of seeing a Ape in heels.”

NBC affiliate WSAZ reported that Whaling, the mayor, then replied, “Just made my day Pam.”

george. I've tried to be helpful for you on this stuff. Ignore everything in the so-called mainstream media. They call themselves that to give the impression of being fair and balanced. You know where to turn to get to the real truth.

Another reason for optimism, she got fired.

The ouster of former congressman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) from Donald Trump’s transition team is a worrisome sign of continuing internecine battles in the GOP and the ascendancy of Trump’s personal political allies in shaping the president-elect’s agenda.

Rogers, a widely respected former FBI agent who headed the House Intelligence Committee, had been seen as a figure of stability and continuity in intelligence matters. He was mentioned as a possible next director of the CIA or director of national intelligence. But Rogers was told last weekend by Rick Dearborn, executive director of the transition team, that he was being removed from his role in the national-security group advising Trump. He was replaced by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who took over as the committee’s chairman after Rogers left Congress in 2014 and has been a far more partisan chairman.

Rogers had angered House GOP hard-liners when his committee issued a bipartisan report in 2014 clearing Hillary Clinton of personal wrongdoing in the 2012 Benghazi incident. That report was characteristic of the way Rogers chaired the committee, in a working partnership with then-ranking Democrat, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.). (Rogers added “additional views” that criticized “senior State Department officials” for dismissing threat warnings, denying requests for extra security in eastern Libya and other errors.)

But this consensual approach clearly didn’t suit Trump’s inner circle. Rogers had been brought into the transition by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), another official with bipartisan credentials, who was ousted himself a week ago and replaced by Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Some GOP insiders see the real power behind Trump as his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and they argue that there has been bad blood between Kushner and Christie for more than a decade. In 2005, when he was U.S. attorney, Christie obtained a guilty plea from Charles Kushner, Jared’s father, on charges of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions.