So now the world learns

[Suff]

Now the Mexicans are in the "unbelieving" mode. Trump is going to rip up NAFTA and slap a 20% tax on all goods to pay for the wall. This is predictable, I was talking about this to colleagues at work. I was of the opinion that Trump would either terminate all state aid to Mexico or tax their produce. Or both.

So the learning process goes on. First the Democrats as Trump started tearing down the Obama executive orders. Then the climate lobby when Trump immediately ripped into all the information online and pushed it out of the limelight, cut funding, muzzled staff. Then the Foreign office (yep cowards but what did we expect of them?).

Now we have the Mexicans. They thought they could determine their fate by simply saying NO and that would do the job. None of them are prepared for what they are dealing with. That will change, but slowly.

I hope May has her wits about her. She's going to need them.

We’ve had all sorts of presidents. Soldiers, Actors, Farmers, Oil Barons. However they have all had one thing in common. They became politicians and then won the nomination on a wave of favours and corporate funding. Every one of them was beholden and fundamentally compromised before they ever reached the office. Also each of them was a, relatively, known quantity.

Then we get Trump. First, he’s no politician. Second, he tore the Republican nomination from the arms of the “Elite” kicking and screaming blue murder and threatening to try and derail him. Third, his campaign broke all the rules. He outraged the LGBT lobby, the disabled lobby, middle class women, Latin Americans and a whole raft of other minorities including Moslems. In the end the silent majority of Americans woke up and realised that there was a choice For something rather than a choice between tired retreat also ran’s who would just carry on with the same ole… Effectively muzzling the minority lobbies.

The world hasn’t even begun to learn what has happened.

Then add the dynamic of US elections into the picture. Essentially the US is having elections about every 2 years. They don’t elect either their House or their Senate in one go, it is split into mid term elections and term elections. So the Republicans will be looking at Trump’s approval rating and then deciding what to do. If, in 3 months, Trump’s approval rating is high, the Republicans won’t rock the boat because it will mean losing control of the house and, potentially, the senate.

This is an ongoing story. One of the most interesting times in the political world in my lifetime and, essentially, since the end of WWII.

Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow……

[AliasAggers]

Scientists world-wide are not very happy.

Mr. Trump had only been in office a matter of hours when he said that Global warming
was a hoax, and that, among other things, he has plans to revive the US coal industry.

What else is he going to say?

What have the American voters let us all in for?

[Workingman]

Trump's latest EO regarding the entry to the US of Muslims from seven named countries has already come under two legal challenges.

This is the kind of thing I predicted the other day. Trump fires off and EO then some vested interest group or person challenges it. The US Supreme Court could become overloaded with cases, especially those where it is obvious that Trump is attempting to circumvent the democratic process.

Even if the legal challenges fail they will have the effect of bogging down the workings of government. I suspect that the 50% of Americans who did not vote for Trump, as well as businesses and other organisations, already know this and are willing to take action. What they will be waiting for is Trump offering them a 'knock-out blow' with some EO that is so far off the scale that it could bring his Presidency down. I would not bet against it happening.

[cromwell]

The established order are desperate to stop Trump, because he presents an alternative. They don't want that. They want the politics of TINA, There Is No Alternative. There are plenty of people in other countries who would like a ban on people coming in from those countries as well; and if Trump manages to ban them those people will start to ask "Well why can't our politicians do that?"

Keep out people from violent countries infested by extremists? Establish solid border controls? Deport illegal immigrants? Bring back manufacturing jobs?

The globalists of the world are desperate to stop this.

[medsec222]

He seems to be doing what he said he would. Those who voted him in can't argue with that.

[Workingman]

Cromwell, I do not disagree. It is what I was hinting at.

Trump is not going to get away with his scatter-gun approach to EOs. Eventually he is going to have to be more thoughtful and pick and choose which to run with and learn how to word them in an acceptable way. If he doesn't the forces you mention will attempt to bind him.

[Suff]

Aggers, things are already so bad with the stored energy in the planet that 8 years of Trump will be no more than a small blip. So on Climate Change all he will do is remind people that denying it is not an option any more than sticking your head in the sand.

There is an interesting point in US law that the executive branch can carry on operating until the Supreme court actually rule. It's the opposite of being convicted of a crime. Also I read somewhere that there are some Supreme Court judges who will step down in Trump's tenure and that he will replace them with judges who think the way he does.

It will be interesting to see what Trump does because no President actually uses the full power of the office due to the potential backlash at the next election. Also the party often try to water down the president's actions because of those 2 yearly elections going on and their possibility of losing control of the house or the senate.

It's quite interesting that Trump could care less. He got there despite the republican "elite". They tried to stop him and tried to deselect him and failed.

The other way of controlling a president in office is to "hint" that if he becomes too unpopular he won't get speaking engagements and will lose "millions". But, of course, Trump could care less about that.

So it's going to be a wild ride and as medsec says, he is doing what he promised. All those things everyone said "you can't do that", well he's doing it. We shall see where that leads.

[cromwell]

The BBC are really making me ache with this. Their coverage is as partial and biased as ever, prbably even more so. Their news programs are pushing one side of the argument and ignoring the other. They are just so biased.

[Suff]

When something steps on their prejudices, the BBC is the absolute _last_ place I go for news. I actively avoid it. It helps that I don't watch TV too or TV news.

Of much more interest to me, right now, is Penelope-gate. That has more impact on the UK and much further reaching implications for our negotiations on Brexit.

Because if Fillon is seen as a political elite with tarnished reputation and the Left candidate is seen as "deeply poisoned", it leaves voters in a quandary. Normally the French would vote against their wishes to block FN, but now they are looking at the FN candidate being the "cleanest" candidate, saying the things they want to hear and toning down the strident neo Nazism the party has worked very hard to remove.

So whilst the world focuses on Trump and his EO’s, France moves one step closer to a referendum on leaving the EU.

Rather amusing that if ANY other country had decided to leave the EU it would have done significantly less damage than the UK leaving. Even Germany would not have received the same welcome that the UK did in Trump’s administration. Also the baggage Germany carries around with them doesn’t allow them such latitude to lead. Even the French would not be followed as they are, all too often, seen as belligerents.

Almost every other “significant country” in the EU is more invested in intra EU trade than trade outside the EU.



Above all we need to take a pragmatic approach to what Trump is doing (May is doing that), where we support what needs to be supported, declaim what should not support and, where necessary, support the right to take action we would not take ourselves.

This outpouring of condemnation because “we” don’t like who “they” let into their country is disingenuous in the extreme. The world lambasted us for not taking the Jungle denizens. Did we bend? Should we have bent on that issue? I see no difference here, it is about the legality of letting people from “at risk” countries into the US.

Trump campaigned on this. Trump was voted in on this. Trump is delivering. Of course the BBC doesn’t like it. They didn’t want Trump. Then again they didn’t want Clarkson either. The BBC is an organisation capable of great self-harm based on “principles” that many of us barely recognise in the real world.