monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Who’s the Illegitimate President Now, Mr. Birtherism?
Trump spent five years trying to delegitimize Obama. Now he's taking office under a cloud of suspicion, and only has himself to blame.

...All of these issues will dog Trump endlessly, if only because Trump rejects even the slightest affronts to his ego and bottom line. He could liquidate his assets and he could support a full inquiry into the Russian government’s actions and contacts over the course of the election. But he never will.

These decisions, and the pall they cast over his administration-in-waiting, likely explain why he will enter the White House with the lowest favorability rating of any incoming president in modern history, and why he’ll likely have a harder time capitalizing on good political and economic fortunes than presidents normally do. His antic campaign to bully manufacturers into keeping jobs in the U.S. was widely heralded as a public-relations coup, and yet, “voters disapprove 51 - 37 percent of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president-elect.”

In the Middle of the Night, the Senate Voted Against Keeping Health-Care Coverage for Contraceptives

...Voting on the amendments lasted almost seven hours. One of the many amendments Republicans struck down was one in support of requiring insurance companies to cover the cost of contraceptives. If that measure is reflected in the bill that eventually repeals Obamacare (we are still some distance from that), it would leave 55 million women without no-co-pay birth control.

Bigly.

I read it, PPP or whatever it was, is an outlier. Qiuinnipaic and just about everybody else see him slipping. Bigly.

By STEVEN SHEPARD 01/10/17 01:08 PM EST Updated 01/10/17 02:17 PM EST

52 percent of voters say they are “generally optimistic about the next four years” with Trump in the White House, while 43 percent are pessimistic. Forty-five percent say Trump will take the nation in right direction — slightly fewer than the 49 percent who expect the Republican to lead the nation in the wrong direction....

71 percent describe Trump as “a strong person,” 68 percent call him intelligent and a 49-percent plurality say Trump has good leadership skills.

We take all kinds of pills that give us all kind of thrills
But the thrill we've never known
Is the thrill that'll getcha when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone
...Wanna see our pictures on the cover
Wanna buy five copies for our mothers

Trump’s impulse is to cavalierly disregard ethical and democratic norms that he views as inconvenient. Going forward, government officials like Shaub, who risked a great deal by standing up to his incoming boss, will be more necessary than ever.

They will also have to be ready to pay a price. The day after Shaub’s press conference, he received a letter from Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah and the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. He was not writing to praise Shaub for pressing Trump to abide by the same standards as his nominees. Instead, Chaffetz issued a veiled threat to cut off funding for Shaub’s agency.

But Gingrich’s recommendations went far beyond chastising Acosta. He urged Trump to stop prioritizing questions from major news outlets due to their tough coverage and confrontational attitude. Instead, he suggested that he “extend the privileges to reporters from out of town, folks that fly in from all over the country to be allowed to be at a briefing.” Those reporters, Gingrich suggested, would be “a lot more courteous” and “responsible” rather than being “adversarial.”

Gingrich went on to explain his theory of the press under the Trump administration. “You don't have to think of The New York Times or CNN or any of these people as news organizations,” he explained. “They're mostly propaganda organizations. And they're going to be after Trump every single day of his presidency.”

“And he needs to understand that that's the case, and so does Sean Spicer in speaking for him. And they simply need to go out there and understand they have it in their power to set the terms of this dialogue.” He added, “They can close down the elite press.”

David Axelrod Retweeted Donald J. Trump
I disagree with what @repjohnlewis said, but I honor the man he is. Honesty; integrity; courage-these are qualities you just can't buy.

A well-known Greenwich Republican called a town worker "nothing but a bloodsucking lazy union employee" and later reached in from behind to place his hand between her legs and pinch her in the groin area, according to the police arrest warrant.

...He allegedly replied: "I love this new world, I no longer have to be politically correct," according to the warrant.

Veteran newsman Dan Rather says President-elect Donald Trump has "real intelligence" and "shrewdness" when it comes to handling the press.

“This I know about Donald Trump: He is not a dumb person. I know a lot of people who say, ‘Dan, if he’s not a dumb person, why does he do these dumb things?’ In his own way, he has a real intelligence," the former “CBS Evening News” anchor told Vanity Fair.

"It’s a shrewdness. Cunning, if you will," he added.

Rather, who said after Election Day in November that the press "must stand up" to Trump, said the president-elect's performance at his Wednesday press conference was ultimately a positive for him..."there’s a certain intelligence about Donald Trump and we saw it in the news conference. It was a smart performance politically on his part."