monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

What made the Emperor Nero tick, Suetonius writes in “Lives of the Caesars,” was “a longing for immortality and undying fame, though it was ill-regulated.” Many Romans were convinced that Nero was mentally unbalanced and that he had burned much of the imperial capital to the ground just to make room for the construction of the Domus Aurea, a gold-leaf-and-marble palace that stretched from the Palatine to the Esquiline Hill. At enormous venues around the city, he is said to have sung, danced, and played the water organ for many hours—but not before ordering the gates locked to insure that the house would remain full until after the final encore. Driven half mad by Nero’s antics, Romans feigned death or shimmied over the walls with ropes to escape.
Chaotic, corrupt, incurious, infantile, grandiose, and obsessed with gaudy real estate, Donald Trump is of a Neronic temperament. He has always craved attention. Now the whole world is his audience.

Who was it that said that a genius would always be opposed by a confederacy of stupid people?

Cue the Benny Hill theme..

Trump's political abilities are far beyond the political abilities of most people.

It's called Yakety Sax.

By the great Boots Randolph, probably the only tenorman to achieve prominence in country music. His inspiration came from King Curtis's work on Yakety Yak from a few years earlier.

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A post-Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and U.S. could be in danger if Donald Trump doesn’t get invited to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, according to the author of a controversial new book about the U.S. president.

Trump's political abilities are far beyond the political abilities of most people.

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As an EPA intern, I was barred from mentioning climate change

...Combing through the old tweets, I noticed that some had links to the EPA’s information on climate change, but the links were now dead. I had to leave the links out of my draft tweets, erasing paths that citizens had once been able to follow to learn about the science. I understood that policies change from administration to administration, but could science, based on years of research, really become outdated, too?

I was also asked to look at the EPA’s Instagram account to get a sense of what the agency wanted to focus on in its social media. Under the Obama administration, many images on the account featured EPA employees from across the country, as well as Superfund sites turned into parks — and even scientist Bill Nye . Under the new administration, EPA chief Scott Pruitt appeared in every picture or video through the first months — often with one of his quotes, such as “We as a nation can be both pro energy and jobs and pro environment. . . . We don’t have to choose between the two.” (Since then, the images have been more varied, though many still show Pruitt.)

WP

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Who was it that said that a genius would always be opposed by a confederacy of stupid people?

I have much admiration for Dean Swift, as do many others here I'm sure. So I'm sure others realize that this statement does not mean that anyone who faces a chorus of public opprobrium is automatically raised to the rank of a genius. It's one thing to point to misunderstood people like Galileo, Semmelweis, or Tesla — what's conspicuously lacking here is any demonstration of "genius" on the part of Mr. Trump himself. I think an equally true, but not nearly as witty, is that while true genius may be opposed by a confederacy of dunces, the corollary is that a demagogue will always find support from legions of stupid people.

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Trump's political abilities are far beyond the political abilities of most people.

You might be right. Conducting statecraft with the vocabulary and demeanor of a sixth-grader, repeatedly being called out for stating outright falsehoods, and consistently maintaining his sub 40% approval rating demonstrates a high degree of political acumen. Who knew?

Bannon expresses 'regret' for comments

"Donald Trump Jr. is both a patriot and a good man,” Bannon also said in the statement. “He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around. Bannon said his description of the meeting was aimed at former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, not Trump's son.

"My support is also unwavering for the president and his agenda— as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama," Bannon said in a statement to Axios.