Anyone home in Trumpville?

The following commentary from the Editorial Board at the Washington Post was posted February 20, 2017:

IN NORMAL times, the State Department holds a daily briefing, like the White House, to respond to urgent developments around the globe. But there hasn’t been one in weeks. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is now on his first trip abroad, but no permanent deputy has been nominated. Hard-working government officials are holding down posts in an acting capacity, but hundreds of vital sub-Cabinet appointments have not been made. President Trump boasts of a “fine-tuned machine,” but his government halls are more echo than beehive.

The president is correct that his Cabinet nominees have run into flak from Democrats in the Senate; nine of 15 department secretaries have been confirmed. The situation is much worse when you include those below Cabinet level. Of 549 key appointments, the White House has yet to name 515, according to a tracker by The Post and Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. Only 14 have been confirmed, and 20 are waiting. These key positions are among the roughly 1,200 total that require Senate confirmation and about 4,100 overall that the new administration must fill. Continue reading “Anyone home in Trumpville?”

The Trump presidency exists in a bubble

The following e-newsletter by Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post was mailed February 21, 2017:

THE TAKEAWAY

President Trump’s speech over the weekend along Florida’s Space Coast — effectively a campaign rally staged just one month into his term — served, more than anything else, as an illustration of the extent of the political polarization now gripping the United States.

Trump had already declared open war on his country’s media, describing the mainstream press as the “enemy” of the American people. The 9,000-strong crowd of supporters seemed to agree. Continue reading “The Trump presidency exists in a bubble”

Trump’s Approval Ratings Are Down. How Much Does It Mean?

The following article by Nate Cohn was posted on the New York Times website February 17, 2017:

Donald J. Trump won the presidential election as the least popular candidate in the polling era. He assumed the presidency with the lowest approval rating of any incoming president.

And his ratings have continued to fall. The question isn’t whether it’s bad for Mr. Trump and the Republicans, but how bad.

Usually, presidents ride high at the start of their terms. After one month, presidents average around a 60 percent approval rating. Even re-elected presidents with considerable baggage, like Barack Obama or George W. Bush, still had approval ratings around or over 50 percent.

The worst data for Mr. Trump comes from live interview telephone surveys like Pew Research and Gallup, which pin his approval rating among adults around 40 percent.

The most recent Gallup survey, the first conducted entirely after the resignation of Michael Flynn as national security adviser, has Mr. Trump’s approval rating down to 38 percent, with 56 percent disapproving (a differential of minus 18).

Mr. Trump’s ratings aren’t just bad for an incoming president. They’re bad for a president at any point in a term.

Here’s what it took for past presidents to reach an approval rating differential of minus 15 or worse: Continue reading “Trump’s Approval Ratings Are Down. How Much Does It Mean?”

Trump asked people to ‘look at what’s happening … in Sweden.’ Here’s what’s happening there.

The following article by Rick Noack was posted on the Washington Post website February 20, 2017:

President Trump caused confusion during a Saturday rally in Florida when he said: “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” Trump then mentioned the French cities of Nice and Paris and the Belgian capital, Brussels. The three European cities were attacked by terrorists over the past two years.

Although Trump did not explicitly say it, his remarks were widely perceived in the United States and abroad as suggesting that an attack had occurred Friday night in Sweden. Continue reading “Trump asked people to ‘look at what’s happening … in Sweden.’ Here’s what’s happening there.”

5 Republican Disgraces You Missed This Week

The following article by Jacob Sugarman was posted on the AlterNet website Feburary 18, 2017:

Jason Chaffetz isn’t even masking his villainy anymore.

(Credit: AP/Rick Bowmer)

Each day in Donald Trump’s America is seemingly dumber, crueler and more exhausting than the one that preceded it. This week alone saw the president’s pick for labor secretary withdraw his name from consideration, a story that was all but eclipsed by the greater scandal of Michael Flynn’s resignation from the National Security Council amid charges of collusion with the Russian government.

While it’s tempting to believe the centrifugal force of Trump’s cracked brand of authoritarianism will pull his presidency apart, the reality is that he remains enormously popular with Republican voters, and the party’s craven politicians are unlikely to take any kind of action that could alienate them. Even if he were miraculously impeached or removed from office through the 25th Amendment, America would be left with Mike Pence, arguably an even darker fate than our present dystopia. Continue reading “5 Republican Disgraces You Missed This Week”

Trump’s first month of travel expenses cost taxpayers just less than what Obama spent in a year

The following post by Aaron Rupar was posted on the ThinkProgress website February 20, 2017:

Meanwhile, his budget proposal cuts programs for poor people.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

On Monday, President Trump will return to Washington, D.C. from his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he’s spent the last three weekends.

The Washington Post reports that those three trips “probably cost the federal treasury about $10 million, based on figures used in an October government report analyzing White House travel, including money for Coast Guard units to patrol the exposed shoreline and other military, security and staffing expenses associated with moving the apparatus of the presidency.”

So far, the highlight of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago trips has been him and his aides struggling to deal with an international crisis in full view of diners and staff during the evening of February 11. Continue reading “Trump’s first month of travel expenses cost taxpayers just less than what Obama spent in a year”

@LOLGOP We Need A Simple Way To Remind Everyone That Trump Is Ripping Us Off

The following article by @LOLGOP was posted on the National Memo website February 20, 2017:

President Trump at a news conference in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 16, 2017.

Theodore Roosevelt called the robber barons of his era “malefactors of great wealth.” Franklin Roosevelt inveighed against “economic royalists.” Bernie Sanders takes on “the millionaire and billionaire class.”

Hillary Clinton spoke about “an economy that works for everyone.” Hmmm.

Sure, it’s a tidy reminder that for generations Democratic presidents’ economic polices have not just been more more effective, but that growth is also broadly shared. Yet the soapiness of the phrase reveals reveals two of the larger problems Democrats face in this new era of Trumpian treachery. Continue reading “@LOLGOP We Need A Simple Way To Remind Everyone That Trump Is Ripping Us Off”

Environmental Disaster Coming: The Stream Buffer Zone Rule

The following article was posted on the trumpaccountable.com website February 20, 2017:

Congress and President Trump began unraveling environmental protections put in place by the Obama administration last week. At issue is the Stream Buffer Zone Rule that requires mining companies to create a buffer of at least 100 feet around streams and waters. Since many mining companies practice “mountaintop removal” where they simply remove the top of a mountain to get at the coal beneath, the debris and runoff inevitably fills stream-beds and destroys habitat for fish and other animals.

Trout Unlimited, in a post on their website, outlined the following reason to support the Stream Buffer Zone Rule: Over 2,000 miles of streams have already been destroyed or degraded by coal mining. Over the past ten years Trout Unlimited has only been able to restore 60 miles of damaged streams. Repealing the Stream Buffer Zone Rule means that Trout Unlimited will likely never be able to keep up with the destruction. Continue reading “Environmental Disaster Coming: The Stream Buffer Zone Rule”