monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Betsy DeVos and God’s Plan for Schools
At the rightmost edge of the Christian conservative movement, there are those who dream of turning the United States into a Christian republic subject to “biblical laws.” In the unlikely figure of Donald J. Trump, they hope to have found their greatest champion yet. He wasn’t “our preferred candidate,” the Christian nationalist David Barton said in June, but he could be “God’s candidate.”

Consider the president-elect’s first move on public education. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, the largest Christian university in the nation, says that he was Mr. Trump’s first pick for secretary of education. Liberty University teaches creationism alongside evolution.

When Mr. Falwell declined, President-elect Trump offered the cabinet position to Betsy DeVos. In most news coverage, Ms. DeVos is depicted as a member of the Republican donor class and a leading advocate of school vouchers programs.

That is true enough, but it doesn’t begin to describe the broader conservative agenda she’s been associated with.

Betsy DeVos stands at the intersection of two family fortunes that helped to build the Christian right.

...At a 2001 gathering of conservative Christian philanthropists, she singled out education reform as a way to “advance God’s kingdom.” In an interview, she and her husband, Richard DeVos Jr., said that school choice would lead to “greater kingdom gain.”

Now that President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, to be the next secretary of state, the giant oil company stands to make some major gains as well: It has billions of dollars in deals that can go forward only if the United States lifts sanctions against Russia.

As head of America’s largest oil company, Mr. Tillerson has earned a friendship award from Russia and voiced skepticism about American sanctions that have halted some of Exxon Mobil’s biggest projects in the country.

But Mr. Tillerson’s stake in Russia’s energy industry could create a very blurry line between his interests as an oilman and his role as America’s leading diplomat.

But it, along with those other similar appointments, might make it and with little awareness of protest from the suckers who thought this con man would have even the slightest interest in forwarding the common good or even giving a damn about the nation's citizens.

Donald Trump has a problem that comes not from the cast of “Hamilton,” but from Hamilton himself.

In Federalist 68, Alexander Hamilton deals with that odd, anti-democratic feature of our constitutional order, the electoral college, which has dictated a different outcome from the popular vote in two of the past five presidential elections. The ultimate goal, he says, is to provide a check on “cabal, intrigue, and corruption” — a threat he specifies as coming “chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”

Of a sudden, this fear does not seem quite so paranoid. A cumulative case for concern has been building for months. Trump has repeatedly expressed a soft spot for an oppressive dictator, Vladimir Putin, who is challenging American interests at every turn. As a candidate, Trump publicly invited Russia to hack his opponent’s emails. Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, resigned amid reports that he had represented pro-Russian interests as a lobbyist. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, seems to be a Russophile and has appeared on Russia’s propaganda network.

In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. admitted that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” President-elect Trump has consistently refused to be fully transparent about his finances.

The president-elect appears to be assembling not a government but an anti-government. He said Sunday that “nobody really knows” whether climate change is real, though 97 percent of climate scientists say it is, and he intends to appoint a fervid skeptic as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. He seeks to install a labor secretary who does not believe there should be a minimum-wage increase, an education secretary who shows little or no commitment to public education, and a housing secretary whose only relevant experience is having lived in houses. Is this a recipe for American greatness? Or for incompetence and failure?

Now we have the CIA’s conclusion of Russian meddling on Trump’s behalf. “I think it’s ridiculous,” Trump said in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.” But what about this weird and disturbing transition has not bee
n ridiculous?

I believe the obvious answer lies in the complexity of the events themselves and the political contentiousness of the matter itself.

President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign manager once worked closely with a group of anti-immigrant extremists and conspiracy theorists, creating polls aimed at generating ill feeling towards Muslim Americans.

Kellyanne Conway, who now acts as a senior aide to Mr Trump, ran a polling firm which has worked with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) - an organisation described as an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center - for 20 years.

Social conservative leader Tony Perkins is sounding the alarm over the possibility that Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, will become secretary of state, after previously criticizing the notion that Mitt Romney might be the nation’s top diplomat.

“Trump calls Rex a 'world class player and deal-maker,' but if these are the kinds of deals Tillerson makes — sending dollars to an abortion business that's just been referred for criminal prosecution and risking the well-being of young boys under his charge in an attempt to placate radical homosexual activists — then who knows what sort of 'diplomacy' he would champion at DOS?” Perkins wrote on the Family Research Council’s website, where he serves as president.

Perkins was referring to Planned Parenthood, whose health services for women include abortion. Religious activists have accused ExxonMobil of donating to the organization, but the company has said it merely matched employees' charitable gifts as part of a corporationwide policy.

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It appears the United States of America will now be protecting and defending Exxon Mobile's oil interests throughout the world.

Trump picks ExxonMobil CEO Tillerson as choice for secretary of state

As I and many others have noted, nothing says "populist" like that appointment. Particularly given all the other billionaires around and in this administration. It may not get through because of how blatant it is as an admission of big money taking over citizen governance.

But it, along with those other similar appointments, might make it and with little awareness of protest from the suckers who thought this con man would have even the slightest interest in forwarding the common good or even giving a damn about the nation's citizens. The reason is found here:

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A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

wikipedia

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes says his committee wasn't told about the CIA's assessment that Russia sought to tilt the presidential election toward Donald Trump, suggesting key lawmakers were kept in the dark about the major development.

The California Republican said in a letter Monday to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper he was "dismayed that we did not learn earlier, from you directly, about the reported conflicting assessments and the CIA's reported revision of information previously conveyed to this committee."

He also expressed some skepticism about the CIA assessment, noting it appears "to conflict with recent [intelligence community] statements to the public and to this committee characterizing Russian activities."

In the letter, Nunes asks Clapper to look into whether classified information was leaked to the news media. Nunes asks for briefings on the issue this week and an assessment on any leaks by Jan. 13.

..."I am deeply concerned that these press reports may contain unauthorized disclosures of both classified [intelligence community] information and the contents of closed intelligence committee proceedings," said Nunes, a member of the Trump transition team.

...Nunes issued a statement earlier Monday saying his panel was "conducting vigorous oversight" of the issue and that "at this time I do not see any benefit in opening further investigations, which would duplicate current committee oversight efforts and Intelligence Community inquiries."

You say that when what you really mean is that he is not forwarding the Liberal agenda

many of the writers I read and the people I talk to all seem to think that Trump is doing great things for the country

Trump ran on many things, the Economy being a main focus. Who do you think knows more about the economy?

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many of the writers I read and the people I talk to all seem to think that Trump is doing great things for the country

Then bring them into the conversation. Quote them. Link them.