What to expect in the first 100 days

[Dill]

(12-21-2016, 05:24 PM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: From posts I've seen on Facebook I think the first 100 days will look like this...

Day 1: Law passed stating all immigrants to be rounded up. Both legal and illegal.

Day 2: every man woman and child of Hispanic origin will be executed by a bullet to the back of the head and their families will be sent a bill for the bullet and cremation.

Day 3: All African Americans will be rounded up and shipped back to Africa.

Day 4: The poor in the country will be euthanized and baried in a pit.

Day 5: The crippled or any person with any defect will be euthanized and burned in ovens.

Day 6: The United States will nuke Iran, North Korea and Russia...yes Russia.

...

...

Day 100: The entire United States will look and feel like Aleppo.

Seriously, I've seen people actually post stuff like this.

Facebook posters generally don't know a lot about foreign policy. I'm pretty sure the nukes will come on the first day.

[GMDino]

http://usuncut.com/politics/trump-wants-approval-foreign-workers/

Quote:Trump wants the Labor Department to approve foreign workers for his vineyard
Tom Cahill | December 23, 2016

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President-elect Trump is embroiled in another conflict of interest scandal, as he attempts to obtain special visas for foreign workers at his vineyard.

On January 20, the “America First” candidate will officially become president, and oversee a United States Department of Labor which he will then ask to grant six special H2 visas for foreign workers at the Trump Vineyard in Charlottesville, Virginia. The official request was filed on December 2, nearly a month after Trump was elected, and six days before Trump announced his pick to head the Department of Labor. According to the application, the workers would be working seasonally pruning grapes between January and June, and would be paid $10.72 an hour to work 40 hours per week.

Pending his senate confirmation, Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. CEO Andrew Puzder, whom Trump appointed to head the agency, will be the one deciding whether or not to grant those visas. One of President Obama’s first ethics counselors told the Washington Post that the situation is a “classic conflict of interest.”

“This is a powerful example of why Donald Trump needs to make a definitive break, not just with his operational interests but his ownership interests, by appointing an independent trustee to liquidate all that,” said Norm Eisen, who worked in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011.

In addition to Eisen’s assessment of the Trump Winery arrangement, Richard Painter, one of George W. Bush’s ethics attorneys, also told the Post that Trump would be in clear violation of longstanding conflict of interest policy if he hasn’t fully divested from his businesses and liquidated the assets before January 20, when he is officially inaugurated.

“It’s critically important that [requests such as Trump’s] be handled by career employees in federal agencies who have civil service protections,” Painter said. “Anyone appointed by him should be required to recuse themselves. It’s not required by law, but he should do it anyway.”

Who owns and operates the winery is still up for debate, as the President-elect previously said he owned the Charlottesville vineyard “100 percent, no mortgage, no debt” while on the campaign stump earlier this year. However, according to the Trump Winery website, the vineyard is owned by Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing, LLC, and is “not owned, managed or affiliated with Donald J. Trump, the Trump Organization or any of their affiliates.”

 https://lcr-pjr.doleta.gov/index.cfm?event=ehLCJRExternal.dspCert&doc_id=1&visa_class_id=8&id=102903

[GMDino]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fa4d63080800456291a70f294c49923f/trump-repeating-some-behaviors-he-criticized-clinton

Quote:Trump repeating some behaviors he criticized in Clinton


WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump spent the past two years attacking rival Hillary Clinton as crooked, corrupt, and weak.

But some of those attacks seem to have already slipped into the history books.


From installing Wall Street executives in his Cabinet to avoiding news conferences, the president-elect is adopting some of the same behavior for which he criticized Clinton during their fiery presidential campaign.

Here's a look at what Trump said then — and what he's doing now:
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GOLDMAN SACHS


Then: "I know the guys at Goldman Sachs," Trump said at a South Carolina rally in February, when he was locked in a fierce primary battle with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. "They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton."


Now: A number of former employees of the Wall Street bank will pay a key role in crafting Trump's economic policy. He's tapped Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn to lead the White House National Economic Council. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary nominee, spent 17 years working at Goldman Sachs and Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and senior counselor, started his career as an investment banker at the firm.


Trump is following in a long political tradition, though one he derided on the campaign trail: If Cohn accepts the nomination, he'll be the third Goldman executive to run the NEC.
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BIG DONORS
Then: "Crooked Hillary. Look, can you imagine another four years of the Clintons? Seriously. It's time to move on. And she's totally controlled by Wall Street and all these people that gave her millions," Trump said at a May rally in Lynden, Washington.


Now: Trump has stocked his Cabinet with six top donors — far more than any recent White House. "I want people that made a fortune. Because now they're negotiating with you, OK?" Trump said, in a December 9 speech in Des Moines.


The biggest giver? Linda McMahon, incoming small business administrator, gave $7.5 million to a super PAC backing Trump, more than a third of the money collected by the political action committee.
___


NEWS CONFERENCES


Then: "She doesn't do news conferences, because she can't," Trump said at an August rally in Ashburn, Virginia. "She's so dishonest she doesn't want people peppering her with questions."


Now: Trump opened his last news conference on July 27, saying: "You know, I put myself through your news conferences often, not that it's fun."


He hasn't held one since.


Trump skipped the news conference a president-elect typically gives after winning the White House. Instead, he released a YouTube video of under three minutes. 


He also recently abruptly canceled plans to hold his first post-election news conference, opting instead to describe his plans for managing his businesses in tweets. 
"I will hold a press conference in the near future to discuss the business, Cabinet picks and all other topics of interest. Busy times!" he tweeted in mid-December.
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FAMILY TIES:
Then: "It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins. It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons set up a business to profit from public office. They sold access and specific actions by and really for I guess the making of large amounts of money," Trump said at an August rally in Austin.


Now: While Trump has promised to separate himself from his businesses, there is plenty of overlap between his enterprises and his immediate family. His companies will be run by his sons, Donald Jr and Eric. And his daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have joined Trump at a number of meetings with world leaders of countries where the family has financial interests.


In a financial disclosure he was required to file during the campaign, Trump listed stakes in about 500 companies in at least 25 countries.
Ivanka, in particular, has been caught making early efforts to leverage her father's new position into profits. After an interview with the family appeared on "60 Minutes," her jewelry company, Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, blasted out an email promoting the $10,800 gold bangle bracelet that she had worn during the appearance. The company later said they were "proactively discussing new policies and procedures."


Ivanka is also auctioning off a private coffee meeting with her to benefit her brother's foundation. The meeting is valued at $50,000, with the current top bid coming in at $25,000.


"United States Secret Service will be Present for the Duration of the Experience," warns the auction site.


Trump on Saturday said he would dissolve his charitable foundation amid efforts to eliminate any conflicts of interest before he takes office next month.
___


CLINTON INVESTIGATIONS


Then: "If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it, and we're going to have a special prosecutor," Trump said in the October presidential debate, referring to Clinton.


Now: Since winning office, Trump has said he has no intention of pushing for an investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state or the workings of her family foundation. "It's just not something that I feel very strongly about," he told the New York Times.
"She went through a lot. And suffered greatly in many different ways," he said. "I'm not looking to hurt them."

[GMDino]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/donald-trump-donors-rewards-232974

Quote:Trump rewards big donors with jobs and access

Contributors who met with Trump gave about $59 million in support of his campaign and other Republicans, averaging more than $800,000 per donor.


More than a third of the almost 200 people who have met with President-elect Donald Trump since his election last month, including those interviewing for administration jobs, gave large amounts of money to support his campaign and other Republicans this election cycle.


Together the 73 donors contributed $1.7 million to Trump and groups supporting him, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission records, and $57.3 million to the rest of the party, averaging more than $800,000 per donor.



Donors also represent 39 percent of the 119 people Trump reportedly considered for high-level government posts, and 38 percent of those he eventually picked, according to the analysis, which counted candidates named by the transition and in news reports.


While campaign donors are often tapped to fill comfy diplomatic posts across the globe, the extent to which donors are stocking Trump’s administration is unparalleled in modern presidential history, due in part to the Supreme Court decisions that loosened restrictions on campaign contributions, according to three longtime campaign experts.


The access and appointments are especially striking given Trump’s regular boasting during his campaign that his personal fortune and largely self-funded presidential bid meant that he would not be beholden to big donors, as many of his rivals would.



“If the people who are counseling the president-elect are the donor class — who, as Trump told us, give because they want something in return, those are his words — you will not get the policies his voters were hoping for,” said Trevor Potter, an election lawyer who advised John McCain’s 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns and founded the Campaign Legal Center.

“The risk here is disillusionment by the voters who voted for change and are going to end up with a plutocracy,” Potter said.


A Trump transition spokesman said: "President-elect Trump has nominated successful and qualified individuals to serve in his administration to implement a pro-growth, pro-America agenda. Together, they are committed towards ending the corrupt Washington system that have failed the American people for far too long."


In the primaries, Trump called Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio “puppets” for accepting big money. He also attacked Hillary Clinton for meeting with donors to the Clinton Foundation when she was secretary of state, even though he overstated the proportion of such meetings, and those donations went to charity, not toward putting Clinton or other Democrats in office.


“By self-funding my campaign, I am not controlled by my donors, special interests or lobbyists,” Trump declared on Facebook in September 2015. “I am only working for the people of the U.S.!”


At the 2015 Iowa State Fair, Trump said he was rejecting large contributions because he knew they came with strings attached.


“I'm turning down so much money,” Trump said. “But if [someone] put it up, I’d feel obligated, because I’m a loyal person.”


Later, Trump did start fundraising more actively and also taking money from some of the Republican Party’s largest donors. Now several of them are joining his administration.


Trump has stocked his Cabinet with six top donors — far more than any recent White House. “I want people that made a fortune. Because now they’re negotiating with you, OK?” Trump said, during a Dec. 9 speech in Des Moines, Iowa.


“The way this whole transition is going so far, we have as a general matter an unbelievable and shocking disregard for propriety and conflicts, much less the raging hypocrisy,” said Norm Ornstein, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “The bigger issue is the huge conflicts of interest, and the utterly brazen way Trump and the people around him [are] turning this into pay-to-play in a fashion never seen before.”



The biggest donor who has met with Trump since the election is Todd Ricketts, Trump’s pick for deputy secretary of commerce. Ricketts hails from the family that founded TD Ameritrade, owns the Chicago Cubs and is among the Republican Party’s top benefactors. They handed Republicans more than $15.7 million for 2016 and more than $26 million in previous cycles. The family also organized a super PAC called Future45 that became the largest unlimited-money group supporting Trump. Todd Ricketts personally donated $63,835 to Republicans.

Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos, and her family (heirs to auto parts and multi-level marketing fortunes) spent $10.4 million this cycle, including $445,000 to Trump’s joint fundraising committee (known as Trump Victory) and one of the super PACs supporting him. She and her husband, Dick, have contributed to the campaigns of 17 senators who will vote on whether to confirm her.


Linda McMahon, the wrestling magnate whom Trump named to helm the Small Business Administration, gave $6 million to a pro-Trump super PAC. She and her husband, Vince, are also the largest donors to Trump’s foundation.


Labor Secretary-designee Andy Puzder, CEO of the parent company of the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s fast food chains, and his wife gave $160,000 to Trump Victory and more than $600,000 to other Republicans this cycle.


Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, investor Steven Mnuchin, personally chipped in $425,000, but was arguably responsible for almost everything Trump raised as his campaign’s finance chairman.


Beyond the donors joining Trump’s administration, two of his biggest benefactors perhaps wield more influence over the transition than any individual donors in history.

Rebekah Mercer — who with her father, the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, spent more than $22 million backing Republicans this past cycle — is closely aligned with chief strategist Steve Bannon and special counselor Kellyanne Conway, and she has taken a crucial role picking Cabinet nominees. Robert Mercer gave $2 million to a pro-Trump super PAC.


Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist playing an influential role on Trump’s transition team, spent almost $3.3 million this cycle, including $250,000 to Trump Victory and $1 million to a super PAC.


Trump also met with former AIG CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, who gave Republicans more than $10 million this cycle (including through his company, C.V. Starr & Co.), on Dec. 12 and with Cerberus Capital Management CEO Steve Feinberg, who gave $339,400 to Trump Victory and $1.47 million to a pro-Trump super PAC, on Nov. 16. It wasn’t clear whether they were being considered for administration jobs or why they got to sit down with the president-elect.


Trump has reveled in the weeks-long pageant of dignitaries parading through Trump Tower, and his aides say he’s seeking out the counsel of people who are leaders in their fields. Many are not donors, including a number of public officials. Some even donated to Hillary Clinton or other Democrats.



POLITICO compiled the list of meetings from the transition’s daily conference calls and confirmed news reports. Donor tallies include spouses and, in the case of Ricketts and DeVos, other close relatives who participate in the families’ political largess.

The totals also include the roughly $3.3 million that John Bolton, who was in the running for a State Department post, raised for Republicans through his PAC and super PAC, and $100,000 that Ben Carson, Trump’s pick for Housing and Urban Development, transferred to Trump’s campaign from his own defunct presidential fund.


“It’s safe to say this is a departure from what we normally see in terms of Cabinet appointments,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks money in politics. “There will be a lot of debate about whether money played a disproportionate role in their nomination, but the larger question looms of what exactly are their qualifications, political patronage aside.”

[GMDino]

Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2016

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[GMDino]

[JustWinBaby]

I'm a free market guy....but globalization can't create enough jobs to keep up with automation and AI. No politician will acknowledge that, but will policy align? There's an obvious transition that needs to be managed - but that's scary and painful and I haven't seen a politician willing to discuss that reality honestly.

Trump's stance, at face value, is destructive. But I think the concept of "managed trade" makes a lot of sense.

[Bengalzona]

(01-02-2017, 03:43 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: I'm a free market guy....but globalization can't create enough jobs to keep up with automation and AI.  No politician will acknowledge that, but will policy align?  There's an obvious transition that needs to be managed - but that's scary and painful and I haven't seen a politician willing to discuss that reality honestly.

I agree 100%.

[GMDino]

http://fox6now.com/2017/01/05/president-elect-trumps-transition-team-urges-gop-to-use-federal-money-to-pay-for-border-wall/

Quote:President-elect Trump’s transition team urges GOP to use federal money to pay for border wall


President-elect Donald Trump formally introduced his pick to lead the defense department Tuesday, as he brought his "thank you" tour to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Trump appeared disciplined -- much unlike past campaign rallies when he broke from his talking points to makes news -- and stayed mostly on script during his rally.

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has signaled to Congressional Republican leaders that the President-elect’s preference is to fund the border wall through the appropriations process as soon as April, according to House Republican officials.

The move would break a key campaign promise when President-elect Trump repeatedly promised to force Mexico to pay for the construction of the wall along the border.

The President-elect Trump team argues it will have the authority through a Bush-era 2006 law to build the wall, lawmakers say, but it lacks the money to do so.

Transition officials have told House GOP leaders in private meetings they’d like to pay for the wall in the funding bill, a senior House GOP source says.

[GMDino]

https://mic.com/articles/164608/senate-john-hoeven-indian-affairs-committee#.XIo7iTI9M

Quote:The Senate just named a supporter of the Dakota pipeline to head its Indian Affairs committee



In a statement Thursday, United States Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) said he is "honored" to serve as the new chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

Hoeven — a former North Dakota governor and vocal supporter of both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines — was elected to lead the committee on Tuesday. 

"I am honored to serve as the chairman ... and look forward to working with [newly elected] Vice Chairman [Sen. Tom] Udall [D-NM] and members of the Committee to pass legislation that helps improve the lives of people across Indian Country," Hoeven said.

The Indian Affairs committee is tasked with proposing legislation that addresses the concerns of "American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native peoples," including land management and economic development, according to the committee's website.

Sen. Hoeven's new job is ironic because he has repeatedly opposed causes that Native Americans support. The Dakota Access Pipeline is the most recent example. As thousands of protesters from across Indian Country converged on Cannon Ball, North Dakota, over the latter half of 2016 to block the pipeline's completion, Hoeven called the protests "violent" and asked President Barack Obama to deploy federal law enforcement to quell them.
Military veterans and Native American tribal elders stop for a ceremonial prayer during a march to a closed bridge across from the Dakota Access oil pipeline site.Source: David Goldman/AP
"We recommend you provide federal law enforcement resources immediately to state and local agencies in order to maintain public safety, which has been threatened by ongoing — and oftentimes violent — protest activity," Hoeven wrote in a Nov. 23 letter to Obama, which he co-authored with Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), according to the Huffington Post.
The same month, Hoeven criticized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' reluctance to grant an easement that would have let the pipeline's builders burrow under Lake Oahe, a section of the Missouri River. The Corps went on to deny the easement on Dec. 4.

"The solution ... is for the Corps to grant an easement for the project so that life can return to normal for our farmers, ranchers, tribal members and law enforcement officers, who have worked very hard to protect the lives and property of all," Hoeven said in a statement.

Incongruous though it may seem, Hoeven's new position as chairman for the Indian Affairs committee is in keeping with most of the appointments made leading up to Donald Trump's presidency. These include Trump's nomination of an anti-civil rights attorney general in Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and a secretary of Housing and Urban Development who believes poverty "is more of a choice than anything else," in Dr. Ben Carson.