Category: U.S. Congress

Donald Trump – A Sorry Representation of President

I have been silent over the last several months in an attempt to see if the President of the United States would ever act like a President. Sadly, I am to report that the leader of the free world is not the leader of the free world that I know. He is looked down on by many leaders of the free world. He lies continuously.  With just 1 year plus a 2 months in office, Mr. Trump has belittled just about anyone and everyone that has disagreed with him on anything, even his own government. He has the lowest approval rating of ANY president in U.S history. From this point on, I will refer to the 45th President of the United States, as “president”, not “President” or “my president“.   Donald Trump tries to rule with an iron fist and never admits fault, compared to President Obama who admitted fault, and who truly was the leader of the free world whom everyone around the world respected, even Vladimir Putin. The Russian president may not have agreed with him on mostly anything, but at least Putin and Obama knew where they stood with each other and had an awkward respect for one another. This thing between Trump and Putin is almost like a ‘love fest’. How pitiful our president is, someone who couldn’t even properly respect the victims of the Florida shooting. After all the gun violence, he and his Congress refuse to put up any bans on guns and condemn the shooter. Instead he continues to state that the shooter named Cruz must have mental issues

Well, the fact is that Donald Trump, IS unequivocally the most hideous president of ALL-TIME, and continues to live up to his most pitiful representation of a U.S. President. It was proven over the weekend with Bob Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians over the weekend that it proves the conspiracy theory’s and that the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was not “FAKE NEWS”. Donald Trump constantly calls out about the reporting of the news media. It was a “hoax” as he calls it referring to the Russians involvement into the 2016 elections. How biased can a president be? So biased and favored towards Russia, president Trump will never call out the Russians with interference in our general election. Well, as a previously registered Democrat and a supporter of liberals, Donald Trump has only not abandoned ship and the ideals that everyone believed that he lived by, but now represents the Republicans as their president. He is supposed to be the leader of the Republicans? For the most part, the Republican Congress support him and back him in just about everything. They have become co-conspirators to his actions. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, the leaders of the House and Senate, are totally complicit in the actions of this sorry display as president.

The basis of this website from it’s inception is to reflect on president Trump’s decisions made in office. For the last several months, I have been complacent in providing updates. But this president cares for no-one, and only is concerned about himself. I can no longer sit back and just watch him destroy this country day by day without showing how culpable he truly is.

The office of the President of the United states is a place of moral leadership, and Donald J. Trump does not have ANY morals. In other serious news on the president, a second woman came out with allegations of sexual interaction with him while married to the First Lady Melania Trump. How long does the First Lady put up with her cheating husband? In his quest to become the most hated U.S. president in history, ee continuously tries to convey that it is O.K. to govern with fear instead of hope. He is totally unfitting to be the President of the United States. What he does, matters. But in his eyes, what he does is great and he can do no wrong, instead, he is defensive, self-serving, and his incorrect defenses  are most  indefensible. Everyone except the president actually knows that what he does from day to day belittles our country. What an ignorant person he truly is.

How much longer will this country put up with such a sadistic president? How much longer can the U.S. Congress support him.? He surely will take a beating in the mid-term elections along with most Republicans that support him, including Russian evidence with interference in the election that he never wants to put an end to. He has done nothing to prevent further attacks in our mid-term election this year. Mark my words here. Before the end of his third year in office if he lasts that long, he will be impeached, most likely by the House, not necessarily the Senate,  and this body of governing representatives will gain a Democratic majority in 2018. It is unknown if the Senate will swing to become a Democratically controlled body, but if it were ever to happen,  this president WILL be ousted from office. The Republican controlled Congress does not have the guts to disagree with this president now since they are in majority. But in 2018, I can tell you now that the Democratic wave is coming and the U.S. Congress will turn against Trump after the mid-term elections.   

Regarding Russia, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are the only two people that disagree Russia meddled in the 2016 election. But the rest of the world thinks differently, including the U.S. Justice Department, the CIA, the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence, the NSA, the Senate intelligence committee, also including H.R. McMaster and Senator Chuck Grassley, Ben Sass and many more. With the condemnation and indictments of 13 Russians by Bob Mueller, the president still will not admit Russian interference. Both the House and Senate created a bill and sent it to the president to sign for further sanctions against Russia, but he refused to sign it, even though Congress voted mutual consensus that the Russians interfered. Trump continues to protect Russia. The question is WHY?  What does Putin have over Trump?

The Twitter storm over the weekend regarding Mueller’s findings, proves the presidents melt down over the Russian investigation. There is no precedent for his actions, and what we are witnessing today I can predict will in the future never happen again. Trump has singularly destroyed what the office of President of the United States represents.

Thanksgiving Today, Keep Up HOPE.. Better Days Ahead

Today is Thanksgiving. It is a time to reflect on the year we have just witnessed and to share your hopes and dreams for the upcoming year. In a Washington Post opinion article, written by Dana Milbank, an opinion writer for the Washington Post, an article titled

‘Dear Sara Huckabee Sanders: I’m thankful that Trump has failed’

kind of hits the spot for me.

It can be found at the following link.. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/thank-you-george-w-bush-and-sally-yates/2017/11/21/c6ca7504-cf00-11e7-a1a3-0d1e45a6de3d_story.html?utm_term=.8a76f1690c6b

For me and for many Americans, TRUMP HAS FAILED.

What immediately comes to mind is the millions of Americans that he failed in Puerto Rico. Still, after 2 months after the weather disaster that took down their electrical grid, the majority of people living there still are without power, yet Donald Trump is enjoying  his holiday weekend in his Florida luxury resort called Mar-a-Largo. He stated in his campaign as he used to mock everyone, that he would not be golfing as much or if at all, as he was comparing himself to President Obama. Has he kept his promise. The answer is an outright NO. He has already golfed more times that the prior President has done for the entire time of his 2nd term and he’s been in office now for just under a year.

What I’m thankful for, number 1, is my family. Second for my health. Third for the Lord that I worship. Forth, for my job with IBM and soon to retire, Fifth, to be able to profess my ideas and truths within this publication and others that I write, thanks to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. It prevents Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or to petition for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. I’ve never been rich, and never will profess to be. But I am thankful for the life that God has given me. Sure, there has been some ‘ups and downs’, divorces and heartaches. But the saying goes, ‘the third time is the charm’, and I can say without hesitation that being married a third time is ‘a charm’. I feel as if I’m still on my honeymoon.

I don’t think I would ever feel safe until Donald J. Trump is out of office. I pray for our country. Donald J. Trump has taken this country down a road of despair, but now is not the time to give up to oppose everything he does. Mark my words, Donald Trump’s time is coming. I feel sorry for his family, as he is dragging them into the depths of hell with him. I pray for countries like North Korea, as Donald Trump may be responsible for the killing of millions of people if the North Korean leader does react on Donald Trumps threats. I pray for places like Guam, and other places close to North Korea and my wifes home country – the Philippines, with millions of innocent people and of American soldiers who have a good chance of being exterminated if North Korea attacks. Within the boundaries of our own country, I pray for the millions of people who may loose their health insurance because of failed leadership and governance of the 45th President of the United States and the failed U.S. Congress who has yet to pass ANY major legislation to help the people of this country. If Donald Trump does not get his tax bill passed, then he will be forever known as being the first lame duck President after only one year in office. The trouble is that if it is passed the way that it is written now, Obamacare will be pushed into extinction because Senate Republicans have decided to include the repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most people have health insurance into the sprawling tax rewrite, merging the fight over health care with the high-stakes effort to cut taxes. Hopefully the Congress will see the light and Bob Mueller of  the ‘special council’ will be able to enlighten the world all about Donald Trump, starting with displaying his taxes so that the American people can witness what he has been up to within the last 20 years or so. Hopefully the tax bill will fail, thus the beginning of the end of Donald J. Trump.

It’s Time to Visit the 25th Amendment

President Trump seems to have enemies at every turn. He was supposed to build relationships with Congressmen from both the House and Senate which would definitely help him pass his agenda in the governing bodies. But throughout his 274 days in office so far he has criticized and openly spat with members of both the House and Senate. So guess what? There hasn’t been one single piece of legislation passed of any major importance since he has become President, even though his political party owns both Houses of Congress.

But then there are the Twitter statements. Donald Trump continues to make comments on Twitter that takes the air out of what the Congress is trying to do, and that is to pass legislation. Trump seems to want center stage all the time, and he is sacrificing his own party in his desire to continue with his ridicules reteric on Twitter.

For example, Yesterday, Oct 19, at exactly 12:32PM EST, Donald Trump tweeted the following…

” Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?”

He has insulted the FBI and the Democrats with that statement. How can he expect to win over any Democrat to get his legislation passed? The answer is that he cannot and will not, especially if he guts Obamacare as he is openly trying to do. 

Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush had an answer for the President. In his own Twitter response he tweeted the following…

“Conspiracy between Russia, the FBI and Democrats? The response to this is clear: Amendment 25.”

President Trump has control of all the nuclear weapons of this country and is the undisputed “most powerful man of the World” but yet does not show any sympathy or concern for world civilization. We may be going to another war, this time with a country that DOES have nuclear weapons – North Korea, and Trump will ultimately be responsible for the millions of citizens of multiple countries that may die in a possible World War III, just because of his mental incapacity.  The dictator of North Korea may start the conflict, but President Trump will end it, but at the cost of millions of peoples lives.

To further explain what is meant by invoking the 25th Amendment, an article on NBC News titled ” the 25th Amendment proves why Trump’s mental health matters” as is stated by Richard Painter’s article..

“Though remote, we cannot rule out the possibility that a president in a downward mental health spiral could destroy important global partnerships, alter centuries-old alliances and leave the United States vulnerable to terror attacks or war.” Painter then asks..”Is America today in need of such an unprecedented intervention?”

The 25th Amendment was adopted on February 10, 1967.

As it stands as we know it today, Donald Trump is not physically incapacitated and there is no way to know if he is mentally incapacitated because no psychiatrist has treated him.

On MSNBC’s nightly show called “ALL IN”, Painter states on how concerned he was for months now. Donald Trump exerts extreme Narcissism, or self-centeredness. The only land properties that he visits are the ones with his name on them. He is extremely focused on himself and the election he won only by electoral vote and not by popular vote. He campaigns as President as if he were still running for the office at various events. More people voted to have Clinton in office as the 45th President of the United States than Trump, as she claimed 3,000,000 more votes nationally that Trump on election day, November 8th. He appoints family members to the White House staff. He also displays extreme anti-social tendencies. He doesn’t seem to show that he has the ability to see how other people feel. A prime example would be that of his dealings with families of fallen soldiers. The same symptoms appeared last summer after Charlottesville. At that time, there were racists running up and down the streets chanting “Down with the Jews” along with swastikas and Confederate flags. The President refuses to apologize for anything, states that he is right, even if there is mounds of proof that he is not. Trump is considered the ‘ultimate liar’ and is the epitome of what he calls “Fake News”. Most people never heard of such a thing until Trump started the claim in his political career over a year ago, and continues to do so to this day.

So why the 25th Amendment. The 25th amendment allows for the Vice President to become president in the event of death, resignation, removal from office or impairment that prevents the current president from fulfilling his or her duties.

I mentioned the 25th Amendment to my fellow workers almost 3 months ago, and now members of both political parties, Republican and Democrat are talking about this same possibility.

It’s just a matter of time that Vice-President Pence will become acting President. If Pence becomes the 46th President, there will be no election for Vice-President. If for any reason that President Pence is incapacitated for any reason and he is evicted from the White House for any reason, including Amendment 25, the Speaker of the House – Paul Ryan will become the 47th President. Then to follow him would be the Speaker of the Senate – Mitch McConnell who is in line to be the 48th President of the United States. Very scary stuff !!!

Yes, it’s going to be a long 4 years until the election of a newly appointed President by the people. But the fact is that in 2020, there will be another person elected, and he could become the 46, 47, or 48 President depending on what happens before the general election in 2020.

 

Decisions Prior and During Trumps Upcoming Presidency

It’s not even the inauguration yet, and Donald Trump appears to be getting warnings from notable people regarding his actions as President-Elect.

Here is what was just reported in the Washington Post titled….

TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY IS DOOMED

“Whether he knows it or not, the specter of Lyndon Baines Johnson haunts Donald John Trump. There are some jarring similarities – two big fleshy men given to vulgarities and gauche behavior, boastful, thin-skinned, politically amoral, vengeful. unforgiving and, most important, considered illegitimate presidents. For Johnson, that took some time to sink in; Trump is already there. Johnson ascended to the presidency upon the death of John F. Kennedy and then won election in a landslide over  Barry Goldwater. Nevertheless, an air of illegitimacy clung to him like an odor….  But Trump ought to pay attention to [Congressman] Lewis and what he represents. The President-elect will take the oath with a minority of the popular vote – a substantial deficit of almost 3 million votes. He enters the oval office with historically dismal poll numbers, lower now than right after he won the election. He has done nothing to woo the majority of Americans who rejected his candidacy…. Lyndon Johnson would no doubt warn Trump that he is already on thin ice and he will plunge through it the moment Congress takes the measure of his unpopularity.”

RICHARD COHEN…

It is a valid statement. Donald Trump still doesn’t get that fact that he will become the most powerful person in the world. Everything he says and does, on Twitter, with the news media, speeches, and personal comments made without serious thought all count and will effect everyone who has the slightest involvement in the topic at hand. But to this point even with his growing power, Donald Trump does not know how to keep quiet when he needs to.. He seems to take pride in taking fights with people. He’s made various comments about his intelligence community, and other leaders of other countries. One notable famous leader – Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, a traditional ally,  has been attacked with his words when he says….

“And nobody even knows where they come from. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake,” adding that he always had “great respect” for Merkel and that he still viewed her as one of the most important world leaders.

So what’s his motive now, to rule the world with what he believes is right and everyone else may be wrong?

He is going head on with people that will be supporting him, protecting him and the citizens of this country. He behaves in a way that is seemingly non-Presidential. The result is that he is loosing support from a majority of people from the time of the election up to his inauguration. Who does this kind of thing?  Actually, no-one except Donald Trump has ever done this. His popularity is plummeting now to around 40%, while his unfavorable rating has risen to 54%. In EVERY election in the past, the nominee received rising popularity.  He is digging a hole around him that he may not be able to climb out of.

Everyone accepts that Trump won the election, even if he didn’t do it with the popular vote. He did it by the electoral vote, but the majority of voters voted for the other candidate. If Donald Trump continues in this fashion, he will eventually run head-on with his own Congress and if this happens, he will then ‘fall through the ice’ in a sense to loose complete control of his Executive branch and then after that there will be calls for his impeachment.

My last comment, turnaround is fair play. Donald Trump called President Obama an Illegitimate president as he stated he was not born in the United States. All proof has it that President Obama was born in Hawaii, and Obama himself produced his own birth certificate. That was done in hopes that Trump and Obama’s critics would stop spreading the false allegations. Now when civil rights leader John Lewis, now a member in the U.S. Congress as the Representative for Georgia’s 5th Congressional district, has now called Trump an illegitimate president, Donald Trump is the first to use his favorite media ‘Twitter’ to tweet against the civil rights icon, a person who is respected by almost all on the planet who believe in the thought of a democracy and personal freedom.

This is what he has done so far as president-elect, but what does he promise to do when he becomes president? In another column quoted from ‘The Washington Post’, columnist Michael Gerson mention this in his piece….

TRUMP HAS STACKED THE DECK AGAINST HIMSELF

“[Trump] has promised a tax cut that will, by one estimate, reduce Federal revenue by $7 trillion over 10 years. He has promised an infrastructure initiative that may cost an additional trillion. He has promised to rebuild the military. He has effectively promised not to make changes in Social Security and Medicare. And he has promised to move swiftly toward a balanced Federal budget. Taken together, these things can’t be taken together. Trump has made a series of pledges hat can’t be reconciled.”

Michael Gerson

So with the intention to bring down the national debt, he will succeed by doing the opposite, which means that his plans as stated above will never get approval through  even the Republican led Congress, as led by Paul Ryan want to do things to decrease the national debt. He still has yet to realize that he needs all the support he can get from Paul Ryan.  It appears that only the self appraised businessman does not have a solid grasp of the outcome if his policies around spending are implemented.

In just a few short days now, President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. My hopes are that with knowledgeable people around him, he will govern without giving the American people all these false hopes that he plans to fix everything. He’s even stated that he now has his own medical insurance replacement, something that even Republicans can tell you that they do not know anything about.

The disarray in Washington has already started, even before Donald Trump has been sworn in, and it’s being felt around the world.

Mexico to pay for ‘The Wall’ — A Confirmed EMPTY Promise

Two weeks before the swearing in of the 45th President of the United States – Donald Trump, a promise made by the President-Elect is destined to be broken. Trump now has changed his stance on who will pay for the wall. Now he plans to get the U.S. Congress to approve of a bill to pay for the wall, or let me say in a another way, the U.S. taxpayers will pay for it. He also indicated that it would be much quicker for the U.S. to build the wall with funds approved by Congress now, then get Mexico to pay for it later.  When?   Maybe when he turns 100 on June 14 2046. Really? !!!

What happened to one of his very original campaign promises that Mexico will pay for the wall? Even with this new revelation, Donald Trump will certainly find out how difficult it will be to get Congress to approve of the funds needed to pay for the wall.

How much will the wall cost? The actual cost for the rest of the border wall (roughly 1,300 miles) could be as high as $16 million per mile, with a total price tag of $15 billion to $25 billion.  How does the U.S. Congress plan to reduce the Federal Budget if they must tack on up to another $25 billion? That will NEVER happen. Nice try Donald…..

This will certainly be one of the many failed promises of Donald Trump. People who have voted for  him for making such a promise will feel let-down.

But there are also reports saying that the Republicans in congress will be willing to pay for the wall. In a chance that a bill gets approved to pay for it, the promise by Donald Trump will still have been broken, as Mexico did not pay for it, the U.S. taxpayers did.

 

The 115th U.S. Congress Sworn In – Donald Trump to become POTUS on January 20th

The 115th U.S. Congress now led by Republicans were sworn in on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2016. The new U.S. Senators were sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden, along with the House members lead by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. This is now the beginning of a total Republican takeover of Washington D.C. to now include the Executive Branch, soon to be run by the new 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, along with a solid majority of Republicans in both the House and Senate.
You would think that now it’s clear sailing for the Republicans as far as legislation powers go. In a sense, they do have the upper hand with a 52-48 advantage in the Senate and a 241-194 advantage in the House. The fact is that the U.S. Senate only needs 60 votes to approve bills, and you would think that the new Congress will have an easy time repealing Obamacare. Actually that is the furthest from the truth. In order to fully repeal the ‘Affordable Care Act’ known as Obamacare, the Republicans will have to acquire bipartisan support to get their major tasks fulfilled such as replacing Obamacare, or reforming of the immigration system. Even passing spending bills or raising the federal borrowing limit will require help from the Democrats to get things moving forward.
Nevertheless, the Republican agenda for January and February is to accomplish more in under 90 days then the Congress even attempted to handle the entire year of 2016. Their efforts will be bogged down at first, with the Democrats promising a fight with Senate confirmations, especially during the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, picked by President-Elect Donald Trump as his Secretary of State, and Senator Jeff Sessions as his Attorney General. With Tillerson’s ties with Russia, both the Republicans and Democrats will vet Tillerson in his confirmation hearings, which may not turn out well. How will Tillerson handle Russia after receiving that countries ‘Order of Friendship’ award’ in 2013, now that he is supposed to represent the values of the United States in the political arena, not as a CEO of an oil business?

Why did Tillerson receive the reward? As reported in the Washington Post in an article by David Filipov on December 13, 2016,

“Tillerson won the award after signing deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft, whose chief, Igor Sechin, is seen as Putin’s loyal lieutenant. The partnership had begun a drilling program in the Arctic’s Kara Sea, where Exxon made a find, and had agreed to explore shale oil areas of West Siberia and the deep waters of the Black Sea. But then U.S. sanctions against Russia over the annexation of Crimea kicked in, and the partnership was put on hold.”

If Tillerson is not confirmed, then who may be Donald Trump’s second choice? Maybe Donald Trump may call on Mitt Romney for his second choice as Secretary of State after Trump finally figures out how difficult it will be for him to get what he wants all the time in the  Congress.
In Donald Trumps world of today, he gets everything he wants. When he becomes the President of the United States (POTUS) on January 20th, he will not have a total say on everything that he wants. He will highly depend on the U.S. Congress to pass all the bills, led by newly elected Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who does not agree with everything the new President will want, along with Mitch McConnell, who also believes that Trump is already stepping over the line when it comes about speaking in favor of Russian President Putin. He will also be sidetracked many times, beginning with the onslaught by Democrats with all of the  ‘conflicts of interest’ charges that he will face.

The question is not only how will Trump handle the U.S. Congress and issues regarding the national front, but how he and his newly confirmed Secretary of State can handle problems throughout the world, beginning with issues from Syria, North Korea, China and Iran, not to mention ISIS.

There are even more questions. Where will Donald Trump get the money or the support from the new Congress to build the wall on the Mexican border? Does anyone actually believe he will be able to get the money from Mexico? What does he plan to replace ObamaCare with, how does he pay for it? What Executive orders does he plan to reverse on day one? Will he commit U.S. Troups to wars in the Mideast? Will he attack North Korea? Will he become good friends with Russia, On the home front, will he kill Medicare or Medicade? So many questions, and so far, no answers.

On day one, January 20th, President Trump will inherit ALL of the problems of this country. He will have to make decisions every day on national and foreign fronts. I will support him publically on this blog when he does the right thing, and I will flog him with my comments when he does the wrong thing.  His first 100 days in office will be the telling tale of his presidency, and I’m wishing him well, but I truly don’t expect him to survive the onslaught of problems he will inherit. He’s chosen many people in his cabinet with no experience and expects them to help him make decisions of great importance to our security and future as a free country.