monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Who the **** is Kathy Griffin anyway? I'd never heard of her until now, she's not exactly a megastar. It just shows how paper skinned and paranoid Trump and his supporters are if they're going to get so upset by a joke from a minor celebrity.

Part fight club, part Western-pride fraternity, the Alt-Knights and similar groups recruit battalions of mainly young white men for one-off confrontations with their ideological enemies — the black-clad left-wing militants who disrupted President Trump’s inauguration and have protested against the appearances of conservative speakers on college campuses.

Along with like-minded groups like the Proud Boys, a clan of young conservative nationalists, and the Oath Keepers, an organization of current and former law-enforcement officers and military veterans, they mobilized on social media to fight in New Orleans over the removal of Confederate monuments; on the streets of Berkeley, Calif., where clashes between the left and right have increasingly become a threat for law enforcement; and at a raucous May Day rally in Los Angeles.

Both sides have issued a call to arms this weekend for an event being billed as a “Trump Free Speech Rally” in Portland, Ore., which is already on edge after a man was charged in the murder of two people who tried to intercede last week as he hurled anti-Islamic insults at two women on a train. “This is a war,” declared the Proud Boys’ founder, Gavin McInnes, in a column this week.

(...)

Some groups like the Proud Boys have initiation rituals that include violent hazing and require an oath of fealty to Western culture. Their followers thrive on hyper-masculinity and celebrate when one of their brethren hits a leftist agitator. They mock Islam and purport to be soldiers against a “war on Whites,” while being mindful not to embrace overt white supremacy. Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime associate of Mr. Trump’s, has taken the Proud Boy oath.

No, I can't see mass transit working very well in the USA. That's why fuel efficiency and non-polluting automobiles are important goals to pursue.

Too bad Mr. Trump chose Pittsburgh to complete his alliteration as the city voted heavily for Clinton who won Allegheny County by 16 percentage points..

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Sez you, but by now you should know how I feel about what you sez.

I can't speak for Snood, but personally I yearn for your incisive and common sense comments. I'm honored to be in the presence of such a lamp of knowledge and wisdom......the only thing that makes me sad is that there are so many people in the world who do not have access to you.

izzythepush wrote:

Who the **** is Kathy Griffin anyway? I'd never heard of her until now, she's not exactly a megastar. It just shows how paper skinned and paranoid Trump and his supporters are if they're going to get so upset by a joke from a minor celebrity.

None of them knew who she was either. They're grasping at straws now. Kinda funny, if it weren't so sad.

US secretary of defense James Mattis has urged allies to “bear with us”, noting it would be a “crummy world” if Americans retreated into isolationism.
[...]
“As far as the rules-based order, you know, obviously we have a new president in Washington DC,” Mattis said at the event organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “We’re all aware of that. And there is going to be fresh approaches taken.”

He defended Trump, pointing out that the president had just made his first foreign trip, “straight into the heart of one of the most bewildering and difficult challenges” in the Middle East. However, the defense secretary did acknowledge a historical “reluctance” among Americans to engage with the world.

“The 20th century took us out of that,” he said. “What a crummy world if we all retreat inside our own borders. How many people deprived of good lives during the Depression? How many tens of millions of people killed in WWII? Like it or not, we’re part of the world.”

Mattis said that though there was a sense among some Americans that the country was bearing “an inordinate burden”, global engagement was still “very deeply rooted in the American psyche”.

“Bear with us,” he said before going to paraphrase a quote from Winston Churchill: “Once we’ve exhausted all possible alternatives, the Americans will do the right thing.”
[...]
A former senior official in the national security council, Loren DeJonge Schulman, said the White House debate did not seem to have been carried out in a very organised way, with no representations from the Pentagon and not much science.

“No one appeared to be in charge of running the debate,” Schulman, now at the Centre for a New American Security, said on Twitter.

“That matters for a few reasons: no one was ensuring that all perspectives were included. Mattis called this not his job jar, but [the defense department] and [intelligence community] have each commented, across admins, on costly and risky impacts of climate change ...

“But most importantly: we had no scientists with a real voice in the room.”

What does the US being in or out of the Paris Accord have to do with what you've stated above?

When Trump is gone, the next President can change EPA laws and such.

Research This People ! And Challenge All Democrats You Know And Ask Them Why They Defend This B.S. What Is The Perverted Reason "GEORGE SOROS" And The DEMOCRATS: Support's Radical Islamist " LINDA SARSOUR"...The Democratic Party's New Heroine?....She Is The Poster Child For Sharia Law. What Person In Their Right Mind Would Be A Democrat Today? This Woman Has Documented Ties To Terrorists That Have Murdered Americans. Are Liberal Leftwing Marxist's Really That Stupid? I See People Who Are Paid To Gather Protestors All Paid For By George Soros Who Has Publicly Stated His Goal Is To Destroy The United States. Anyone Protesting Against The President Today Are Nothing More Than The Living Dead; A Nation Of Mindless Zombies !

Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who worked for Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. “But the entire climate change debate has now been caught up in the broader polarization of American politics.”

“In some ways,” he added, “it’s become yet another of the long list of litmus test issues that determine whether or not you’re a good Republican.”

[... ... ... ... ... ...]

Outside of Congress, a small number of establishment conservatives, including a handful of leaders from the Reagan administration, have begun pushing Washington to act on climate change. Earlier this year, James A. Baker III, one of the Republican Party’s more eminent senior figures, met with senior White House officials to urge them to consider incorporating a carbon tax as part of a broader tax overhaul package — a way to both pay for proposed cuts to corporate tax rates and help save the planet. A Reagan White House senior economist, Art Laffer; a former secretary of state, George P. Shultz; and Henry M. Paulson Jr., George W. Bush’s final Treasury secretary, have also pushed the idea.

“There are members from deep-red districts who have approached me about figuring out how to become part of this effort,” Mr. Curbelo said. “I know we have the truth on our side. So I’m confident that we’ll win — eventually.”