President Donald Trump

Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald (author of Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story, Serpent on the Rock, and a few other books) is reporting an interesting story this morning. Here is the short version, as I understand it. Turkey had a coup. The Turkish government, in particular, President Erdogan, blames naturalized US citizen Fethullah Gülen for that coup, and wants him extradited. The US won't do that. President Erdogan and Presumed President Elect Trump had a conversation soon after the election, in which Trump mentioned a key player in the development of the Turkish version of Trump Towers. We…
UPDATE: The Department of Energy has reportedly refused Donald Trump's request for names of DOE employees and contractors who have been engaged in climate change research. That does not mean that Tump will never get those names. Once he is President, he can get the names. But for now, he'll have to sit it out. The Donald Trump transition team circulated an eight page questionnaire to the US Department of Energy. Such questionnaires are not normal. This particular questionnaire is deeply disturbing. There are seventy-four questions. They provide insight into likely Trump administration…
The press helped elect Donald Trump. The mainstream press loved itself that false balance, giving absurdly pseudo-even coverage to whatever tripe might be spewed by willfully ignorant conservatives. So, screw them, and we await their apology. Meanwhile, the tabloid press has made its own contribution to the problem. Part of that is impressing on so many minds such crazy crap that a large percentage of Americans (apparently about one half of the actual voters) will believe anything. Or, perhaps, simply don't care about what is real and what is not. People are looking for things to do to…
They are coming for the Muslims, and they will not stop there. Registries exist and we have no problem with some of them. Sex offenders, known bad guys, that sort of thing. They really aren't even registries, but records governed by due process. Then there are some others that we allow in our post 9/11 world, but that never would have been allowed in a former, less frightened, less ignorant version of our society, such as the "No Fly List." That list may actually be a good idea, but there is no known due process involved, so it ends up constituting one small step in the direction that Germany…
This is not the best possible recourse, but it might be important. The idea here is to bring the Senate within reach as a body to oppose some of Trump's worst moves, by making the 100th Senator, a seat in Louisiana for which the election has not yet been held, a Democrat instead of a Republicans. This is within reach. Democrat Foster Campbell is a good guy. This could save some people from some awful things that may happen to them over the next four years. And, again, it is within reach. The place to go to give Foster Campbell's campaign some money is HERE. Here is some background…
There may be a few individuals who are not in politics who have some ethics who still call themselves Republicans. One such person, a friend of mine for whom I have great respect, sent me an email the other day apologizing. For the whole Trump and Republican thing. But at the professional level, there isn't a single Republican out there that is unwilling to stick his slimy nose right up the ass of whichever other Republican happens to be top dog at the moment, putting their own self interest ahead of the nation, of governing, of the people, even of their own families. As proven by events…
President Elect Donald Trump is tweeting again. See above. Phenomena is plural, phenomenon is singular. Here, the New York Times is being chastised for not covering the "Trump Phenomenon" in a way that the president elect finds acceptable. That is bordering very closely on a violation of the first amendment. Clearly, The Donald somehow managed to get his hands on his twitter account again. His handlers need to tighten up security in that area. Here is a link to the tweet: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/797805407179866112