Donald Trump Picks Scott Pruitt, Ally of Fossil Fuel Industry, to Lead E.P.A.

The fox guarding the chicken coup! Up is down and down is up in rightwing world. Why is it if one can think of a cruel, unscientific and inhumane policy the right wingnuts love it? Follow the money? You bet. Just what Jesus would love -- NOT Sick!

Photo

Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Wednesday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general and a close ally of the fossil fuel industry, to run the Environmental Protection Agency, a transition official said, signaling Mr. Trump’s determination to dismantle President Obama’s efforts to counter climate change.

Mr. Pruitt, a Republican, has been a key architect of the legal battle against Mr. Obama’s climate change policies, actions that fit with the president-elect’s comments during the campaign. Mr. Trump has criticized the established science of human-caused global warming as a hoax, vowed to “cancel” the Paris accord committing nearly every nation to taking action to fight climate change, and attacked Mr. Obama’s signature global warming policy, the Clean Power Plan, as a “war on coal.”  [See link]

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/158dabc414af9d89?compose=158dad0ca3f27a5d

LADY GAGA A GEM -- A video worth viewing

Tears stream down my face as Lady Gaga shows again her humanity and kindness while revealing something about herself most do not know. Sometimes all it takes is one person to make one realize there is, indeed, hope for mankind.

Lady Gaga is a gem and a role model for all of us. I urge you to watch the video linked below !

http://www.today.com/video/lady-gaga-talks-about-rape-and-ptsd-encourages-young-people-to-share-kindness-825006147827

Why I Will Not Cast My Electoral Vote for Donald Trump

Christopher Suprun who wrote the New York Times article entitled above and linked below is a Republican. He stated succinctly and in well-written form exactly what I would say making the case against voting for Donald Trump if one were an elector. His thoughts are bipartisan. I will not reiterate those reasons as one can read them in his opinion.

It has been clear to me since Trump's staged ride down the escalator in Trump Tower announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, and in the days promoting his campaign that this man Donald J. Trump is as far away from possessing the qualifications necessary to run a nation of 350 million people as would be a Barnum and Bailey clown. As president he will pose a clear and present danger to not only our nation but, indeed, the world by his lack of intellect and curiosity about it. If one cannot see that one is truly myopic as his behavior has made those facts crystal clear for all to see. 

Franklin Roosevelt In his 1941 "Four Freedoms" State of the Union address stated the fourth freedom was the freedom from fear. I have never in my many years observing the political scene felt a sense of dread and fear at a man this unqualified who will assume arguably the most powerful office in the world. There is a sense of incredulity and terror at what this nation has done. If one does not care about one's life and the lives of succeeding generations placed at risk by the eternally confounding Trump as president then there is nothing more I could say to change one's mind. Read Mr. Suprun's article and then ask God to help us, the only world and the only planet in which we live.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/opinion/why-i-will-not-cast-my-electoral-vote-for-donald-trump.html?_r=0

Donald Trump Speaks To Taiwan’s President, Reversing Decades Of U.S. Policy--HUGE BLUNDER!

This is a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE, HUGE foreign policy blunder and he is not even sworn in yet! The Department of State must be having heart attacks.

This chutzpah has not happened in 37 years. The US treads CAREFULLY where Taiwan is concerned so as not to vex the BIGGEST nuclear power beside the US, China. China does not even admit Taiwan exists. See link below.
It is possible this lummox is SO stupid and SO unqualified that he got someone like John Bolton to suggest he call Taiwan without him knowing this was SICKENINGLY awful -- lead to nuclear war type awful.

This is the idiot you bought, America, the world's GREATEST CON just like Romney said except now Romney got conned. Romney got played and will never be secretary of state! What a joke except the joke is on us!

Anyone know where can I get a good bomb shelter?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-calls-taiwan_us_5841f96be4b017f37fe4bcae

SUPPORT COVENANT HOUSE PROTECTING LGBT YOUTH -- MY COMMENT

Quoting the president of Covenant House:  "What we've learned during out 45 years of caring for homeless kids is that nearly 40% of these young people identify as LGBTQ. That's because "coming out" often means getting kicked out." - Kevin Ryan, President of Covenant House

Support us in protecting our LGBTQ youth.

Covenant House is a nonprofit charity serving homeless youth with a network of shelters across the Americas.

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covenanthouse.org

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My Comment:

Parents who kick their own child out for something that is biologically predetermined possibly hormonal in the first few weeks of pregnancy is just plain ugly. I have to believe it is out of parental ignorance and religious dogma not out of intrinsic evil of the parents who do that.

I am Jewish. I turned my back on it and religion in general after thinking, in part, about the devastating passages in Leviticus from the Old Testament which my own people crafted 5000 years ago. It haunts, devastates and crushes LGBT youth even to this day. Fundamentalists have chosen the OT over the NT to justify their hate of LGBT people even if it is their own children and even though Jesus, whom they call god's son, said absolutely nothing about homosexuality. This Levitical OT Biblical passage and code has ruined lives, caused suicides and even murders. I was just plain angry.

Judaism, however, and some sects of Protestant (Unitarian, Congregationalist and others) change as the culture changes and advancements in science show in this case a biological link to one's sexual orientation perhaps even a genetic chromosomal link at conception.

It is sad that these passages in Leviticus have caused so much pain to LGBT youth but the progressive change in some religious sects such as Reform and even some Conservative Judaism is testament to man's ability to adapt as science and LGBT's own youth clarifies that they felt homosexual for as long as their memory clarifies it.

I would say it gets better BUT then there is Trump who marries his campaign to the Bible, which I suspect he does not read nor believe, appealing to Fundamentalists to get their votes. Trump has encouraged regressive hate yet again as hate crimes against gays and other minorities are, of course, up.

We must resist, we must persevere and work hard to electorally overthrow a mean, cruel and regressive Republican controlled Congress led by its mean, cruel, and regressive president who not only had three marriages (something Jesus would not have sanctioned) but has been unfaithful to all those to whom he was married! Can you spell hypocrite? My motto: onward!

Democracy Now

Listen to education experts talk about Trump's nomination of "Public Enemy No. 1" as Education Secretary Betty deVos the most unqualified person to occupy this seat. She is a wingnut religious fanatic whose sole purpose is to eradicate the public school system as we know it and replace it with for profit charter schools and vouchers, a direct threat to public education supporting her own world wingnut religious view.

She is yet another billionaire whose husband is the founder of Amway and whose brother is Eric Prince the founder of the mercenary army Blackwater accused of many war crimes in Iraq.

If you want REAL news go to Democracy Now online (see link below) where you will get unfiltered views which is a far cry from our corporate news universally skewed to the right broadcasts!

https://www.democracynow.org/

Bribery at Carrier Swamp -- It's a Brave New World

Trump's so called jobs saving effort convincing Carrier Air Conditioning not to ship its American jobs to Mexico is a sham. Yes, jobs were saved as Carrier says it will not move BUT at what expense? Trump achieved the agreement at the expense of the Indiana taxpayer when Vice-President Elect Pence remaining as governor of Indiana until the January swear-in saw to it that "Indiana taxpayers will pay $700,000 a year and Pence will approve the expenditure on the 13th. It does not need to go through any review or voting process." [citation unknown.] It is essentially a bribe using state taxpayer money so Carrier would not relocate from the US to Mexico. Where is Trump's fabulous business negotiating skill and promise NOT to use taxpayer money but rather to make the corporation pay? It's shocking -- NOT!

Trump said he was going to drain the swamp but, as I have said repeatedly, he IS the swamp. He said he was going to make companies that take their jobs overseas pay a hefty tax when they want to sell their goods back into the US and screamed against the DC legislators' swamp when it uses taxpayer money written into one bill or another as a bribe for corporations to get what they want but that is EXACTLY what he did this time at Indiana taxpayer expense. If a Democrat did that the uproar would be cacophonous! Can you spell LIAR? So what else is new? Trump and his minions lie by the carload.

Will Nancy Pelosi, the newly re-elected Speaker of the House and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer do something so that we in the progressive majority of the nation are not crushed by the Republican national minority which has sought power and gotten it through the gerrymandering of state districts and suppression of minority votes especially black and Hispanic votes? Persons of color should vote no matter what obstacles unethical Republicans put in their path. That is easy for me to say but it must be done, in truth, to save what remains of a democratic middle and working class nation. Democratic leadership should ensure it be done. Democrats loudly and unbowed must hold Republican feet to the fire!

The Democratic National Committee and others who care about justice should help minorities vote if the hardship is too great for one to bear and bring all the power Leader Pelosi's and Senate Minority Leader Schumer's Democrats may have to bear (1) to elect Democrats to both federal and state offices (2) to scream loudly and clearly for investigation of soon-to-be President Trump's Constitutional Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8) violation that his massive foreign business holdings incur (3) implore the Democratic National Committee to do what it can to help Democrats vote upending Republican vile, nefarious and unethical voter suppression of persons of color in both state and federal elections.

Trump is doing what he said he never would and that is placing in high cabinet positions the lap dogs of Wall Street most especially the oft hated by Trump, Goldman Sachs. I am SO surprised -- NOT! If Democrats held even one tier of Congressional power Republicans and Trump would NEVER be allowed to do what they are starting now to do even before Trump is sworn in. The House under the contemptible Republican say one thing but do another Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, refuses to allow investigations into Trump's massive conflicts of interest his national and most especially problematic his international holdings present. Chafetz held House hearings galore into everything Hillary which went nowhere but cost the taxpayer MILLIONS! Surely, the obviousness of Trump's flouting Constitutional law demands scrupulous investigation. If this doesn't then nothing does.

Where is the public outrage at Carrier Swamp? Welcome to Brave New World!

Democrats Demand Trump’s Tax Returns And An Investigation Into His Conflicts Of Interest

RepubliCONS do not start your celebration quite yet!
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/28/democrats-demand-trumps-tax-returns-investigation-conflicts-interest.html

The Power of Fear

https://www.facebook.com/Mediamatters/videos/10154084955956167/


Antidote:  RESIST

Spinning

Has the entire nation gone insane? I feel like I've been having a nightmare and when I wake up the reality I wake up to will NOT have a President Elect Trump in it. This nation is in deep trouble as our nation's adversary, the Republican Party as it has now morphed, is poised to take it all and they are trying to and have done it already through gerrymandering and voter suppression. They will have the Presidency, the House and Senate majority.  Worse they soon, when Trump is in office, will have the courts and by the way they control much of the media's message.  Another justice such as Scalia will tip over the civil libertarian progress honed over decades and place power into the hands of mostly white oligarchs returning this nation to the 1950's and earlier robber baron eras. Trump will be nominating Jeff Sessions for attorney general who will go after the rest of the Voting Rights Act. All the human rights legislation created under Lyndon Johnson such as the Civil Rights Act which saw a new day for those who were, for 200 years, kept out of this nation's bounty is at risk of falling halting our nation's human rights progression and returning it to those previous eras. 

We will and are now beginning to know what the face of fascism looks like. America, you have just sold out your nation because you just simply do not like the color of a person's skin!  This is the most horrific historical time I have ever experienced bar none. I now realize what my parents saw as the rise of Adolph Hitler stood imminent for them.  At least during WWII the Democratic president fought for the values of the founding of this nation as the nation put Roosevelt in office four terms to save it.
When the media is controlled the news is controlled and there is no bulwark Fifth Estate to stop the Trumpian madness. I now can understand how those Germans who loved democracy must have felt before it fell as fascism and the Nazis came to power through the ballot. They thought Herr Hitler would never do what he said. We now know he did and 70 or more million dead throughout the world was his legacy and proof of it.  President Roosevelt and a Winston Churchill fought for the democratic values that founded this nation. The nation in our time progressed. It is now poised to regress. What happened to us that we let this Republican Party run amok and those of us who love democracy were asleep at the switch?  What happened that a corrupt minority in this nation could gain such immense power to rule over the majority negating every positive civil libertarian legislation so many have given their lives to craft? 

Trump's conflicts of interest are legion and stagger the mind.  He claims the president is immune from requirement to divest himself of those businesses which could and will conflict with national policy so he will not do that and his children are NOT blind trusts.  The nation will be his personal cash cow using taxpayer money to enrich him and his family beyond their wildest dreams.  Will Democrats meekly shrink as they often do from their responsibility to stop this madness? One hopes not!  I am buoyed that those beings with some humanity still exist in the majority of this nation as it faces through nefarious means rule by the minority. Trump said he was going to drain the swamp but he IS the swamp and claims the president is immune from the requirement to divest himself of those businesses which could and will conflict with national policy. 

We have never faced a democracy obliterating president such as Trump.  Will Democrats meekly shrink as they often do from their responsibility to stop this madness? One hopes not!   Democrats, progressives, persons of color, Hispanics, Jews and yes, American Muslims, the disabled and others who amount to the majority of this nation should not let the minority create the impending doom of our democracy. Keith Olbermann in his last opinion in GQ on the Internet mandates the nation RESIST; Resist non violently but resist and do NOT let up. Our Founders now are beginning to spin in their graves!

Castro Dead

That was one of Trump's brilliant tweets when he first heard of Castro's death -- "Fidel Castro is Dead"  Oh, Trump, one of your more heart stopping tweeting perceptions!

 
One hopes, as man usually does, this will not be screwed up with violence breaking out between Castro's brother Raul into whose leadership Cuba has been entrusted and those who want to overthrow him on the right. Will the US help them along? Who knows?  It would NOT surprise me if the CIA sends in the drones to lend an assist. Stay tuned! Think Bay of Pigs II.

A bit of irony Trump writing uncomplimentary words, of course, about Castro when he went against the law to develop businesses in Cuba which was illegal at the time. According to the September 28, 2016 Daily News: "The "Castro Connection" story claims Trump spent at least $68,000 in 1998 for a business foray into Cuba — even though any corporate activity in the Caribbean country was completely illegal without government approval at the time."

How about the DOZENS of right wing dictatorships the US supported for which often the US was behind a coup -- Example Allende in Chile much loved leader duly elected in Chile but replaced by CIA nefarious activity installing Pinochet a brutal military dictatorship and killer of anyone who opposed him.

Oh yes,  there was the Iran Contra affair where Oliver North tried to overthrow the Nicaraguan Sandanistas sanctioned by Reagan going against the Boland Amendment prohibiting such acts. No problem, just pardon them all!

Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Donald Trump where are your words of condemnation for the many right wing military dictatorships the US supported if not singularly tried to create through coups and overthrows. I remember US history. Please do not forget the United Fruit Co. Per Wiki:

"The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution. Code-named Operation PBSUCCESS, it installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed dictators who ruled Guatemala."

Multiply that by dozens more!  Fidel Dead?  Yes, and so is American Democracy.  Benjamin Franklin's words:  You have a Republic if you can keep it. Obviously we can't.  When Trump takes the oath (assuming he does) I will be wearing a black armband for the death of a nation whose democracy was once the envy of the world.  Trump was right on one thing.  The 2016 election was rigged.  It was rigged NOT by Hillary Clinton but by him!  He will NEVER be my president!

Do we have a deal?

He says things one minute and reverses them the next. One can never believe what he says. Okay my mind wanders. What if this is the biggest con ever sold to Republicrats? What if he does truly help this nation by not doing all those sickening things he said he would?  Well, I would rethink my anger and hostility toward him BUT he also MUST not go after immigrants or Muslims then we may have a deal!

Good going America -- Here is what you bought!

NOT TO MENTION A PRESIDENT WITH AD INFINITUM WORLD WIDE BUSINESS CONFLICTS WHICH HE SAYS A PRESIDENT CAN HAVE.  I BEG TO DIFFER -- "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.  Article I, Section 9, Clause 8" Emoulement's Clause - US Constitution

The Gap and the Glory

The task of scrupulously monitoring the presidency soon to be before us is daunting and depends much upon Republicans many of whom if not most in Congress seemingly have lined up like good soldiers behind the authoritarian Trump.  The motivation behind the two thousand opinions I have written since 2004 has crashed. I feel like Sisyphus pushing that massive rock up the mountain only to be smacked down by its weight making him begin all over again. 

As President Obama's term winds down I have wanted to write two opinions: one about the massive gap between the right and left and what makes us so entirely different.  What makes one group want to embrace the variety of human beings on the planet, care about them and help them but the other on the right wants to obliterate them as they seek world domination of their own singular (white) tribal group?  What make one loathe war and the other love the fight's killing?  What makes these groups so opposite and their fight for power between them so verbally and sometimes physically so bloody? How did we get an Alt Right sympathetic president paying homage to American Nazis or Nationalists putting Steve Bannon, the champion of the right wing extremist sometime conspiratorial Brietbart.com just 5 feet from the president's ear.  Why is the media of sensationalist origin paying homage to a right wing nationalist Nazi-like Party that shows outstretched Heil Trump Nazi-like saluting arms?  This is an America I do not recognize and worse this cancer is globally spreading courtesy of Trump.

The subject is vast requiring, perhaps, a well researched book.  My question is not only about the extremes but everywhere in between them.  It encompasses psychology, sociology, economic philosophy and more.  It is the difference between the extremes of Karl Marx on the left and Ayn Rand on the right. In short, why is the right's philosophical base characterized by giving an inhumane uncaring cold shoulder to the poor but possessing a feverish heat for world dominion and the left is noted for its compassion toward those who have less and are dogged by fortune's flight.  The right of center George W. Bush, who made war on a people who did nothing to us and eternally fractured the entire Middle East, called himself a "compassionate conservative."  I always thought if one had to put that adjective in front of "conservative" then conservative must be noted for its lack of compassion and cruelty without conscience.  Who would say compassionate liberalism?  Liberalism by it very definition is inherently compassionate.

The other opinion I wanted to write is a thank you note to President Obama whom I wish could occupy a Rooseveltian presidency for more years than 8!  He seems to me now so wonderful despite those within the Democratic Party who decried some policy.  President Obama is a giant intellect arguably made for the highest most powerful office in the world.  We get now, compared to him, a deranged narcissist, anti-intellectual, ignorant, incompetent and unfit-to-occupy-the presidency, Trump, lining up to take President Obama's place.  I shudder at the thought.  Yes, I am indescribably scared.  What on god's earth will Trump do with his legion conflicts of interest?  He has over 500 businesses in all parts of the globe.  He sometimes says he will put it in the protection of a blind trust within the Trump family.  That is NOT I repeat NOT a blind trust.  The con Trump will use the presidency as his cash cow with taxpayer money and there is no one to blame but 1/2 of this vast nation who put him in office. You will get the president for whom you voted.  The gap between left and right and between Obama and Trump is as wide as the oceans. 

I saw the president, yesterday, bestow 21 Medals of Freedom on a most diverse array of humanity who have contributed so much to this nation and the world.  The president said that the Medal of Freedom was “a tribute to the idea that all of us, no matter where we come from, have the opportunity to change this country for the better.” Those who received the medal from Michael Jordan and Karem Abul Jabar to Ellen DeGeneres, whose tears receiving the medal welled up in her eyes, are what excellence looks like and is composed of what America is or has been.  Ellen made me cry too.  All those wonderful artists from all walks of life received this nation's tribute of the Medal of Freedom from a president whose academic brilliance shines like a star in the heavens.  Those who received it were a rainbow flag of color as Obama tried to project his presidential legacy in the little time he has left to occupy the office.  The subjects about which I am thinking require a Herculean effort.  My mantra is always onward.  I hope I and all of us can now live up to the glory of its calling. 

The Generation of Hate

"Killing Obama administration rules, dismantling Obamacare and pushing through tax reform are on the early to-do list."  See link below.

If one reads the link below one will see how much -- the middle class, minorities, the poor and many others who are among the unlucky ones to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune -- have to lose. The Trump presidency with their Congressional Republican majorities is poised to pass devastating legislation obliterating decades of hard-fought-for-programs and enacting massive tax cuts for the 1% unless the usually spineless Democrats in the minority can muster unusual-for-them explosive opposition. This time, however, President Obama will not be there to veto but a Trump presidency will be there to sign it.

Ultimately, over years, the national debt will balloon to trillions more as the fantasy of trickle down economics lives up to the progressive indictments of it. It will fail but the richest 1%, of course, as the last 2007 Great Recession proved, will not suffer. In fact, they will gain. The middle class will be devastated the most as it shoulders yet again the burden of another Great Recession to come or even a revisit to the 1929 Great Depression. Regressive time travel is Trump and his Republicans' recipe for progress but it will not be progress for the middle class and the worker. It will be a Mar-a-Lao table of opulence set for the top 1% and we will be their servants or we will be dead and who will care?

I fear the protests against Trump's hateful policies we saw after his election will stop or significantly slow just as Occupy Wall Street did because it is hard to keep momentum of that especially in the cold winter months. Legislation will pass that is devastating to the middle class and the poor but euphoria to the top 1% richest. This nation, at least part of it, has elected the single most ugly and the single most destructive elements to power who will devastate those who have little and will fall like a ton of bricks on the immigrant, persons of color, the poor and anyone else who is considered a minority or the other.

Brace yourself even though the other is truly the majority who voted for Hillary Clinton by a projection of 2 MILLION popular votes. We are the mandate but lost our power to the machinations of the outdated and archaic electoral college.

Internationally, this nation is now and will be the feared among nations as The Greatest Generation fades into history and a new era -- The Generation of Hate -- emerges.


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/house-republicans-donald-trump-231636

Donald Trump Agrees to Pay $25 Million in Trump University Settlement

What a LYING son of a ****. So much for he NEVER settles anything and that he would win this suit. YEAH RIGHT that mendacious piece of tripe.!! What fraud Trump University is just like the fraud he is! Only 85 more suits to go. What about the alleged rape of a minor case? I suspect that settled too.


NYT: November 18, 2016 by Steve Eder


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/politics/trump-university.html?emc=edit_na_20161118&nlid=75028030&ref=headline&_r=0


Donald J. Trump has reversed course and agreed to pay $25 million to settle a series of lawsuits stemming from his defunct for-profit education venture, Trump University, finally putting to rest fraud allegations by former students, which have dogged him for years and hampered his presidential campaign.

The settlement was announced by the New York attorney general on Friday, just 10 days before one of the cases, a federal class-action lawsuit in San Diego, was set to be heard by a jury. The deal, if approved, averts a potentially embarrassing and highly unusual predicament: a president-elect on trial, and possibly even taking the stand in his own defense, while scrambling to build his incoming administration.

It was a remarkable concession from a real estate mogul who derides legal settlements and has mocked fellow businessmen who agree to them.

But the allegations in the case were highly unpleasant for Mr. Trump: Students paid up to $35,000 in tuition for a programs that, according to the testimony of former Trump University employees, used high-pressure sales tactics and employed unqualified instructors.

The agreement wraps together the outstanding Trump University litigation, including two federal class-action cases in San Diego, and a separate lawsuit by Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general. The complaints alleged that students were cheated out of thousands of dollars in tuition through deceptive claims about what they would learn and high-pressure sales tactics.

“I am pleased that under the terms of this settlement, every victim will receive restitution and that Donald Trump will pay up to $1 million in penalties to the State of New York for violating state education laws,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement. “The victims of Trump University have waited years for today’s result, and I am pleased that their patience — and persistence — will be rewarded by this $25 million settlement.”

The settlement marks a significant reversal from Mr. Trump, who had steadfastly rejected the allegations and vowed to fight the lawsuits, asserting that students filled out evaluations showing they were mostly happy with what they had learned in seminars. When political opponents pressed him on the claims during the campaign, Mr. Trump doubled down, saying he would eventually reopen Trump University.

“It’s something I could have settled many times,” Mr. Trump said during a debate in February. “I could settle it right now for very little money, but I don’t want to do it out of principle.”

He added: “The people that took the course all signed — most — many — many signed report cards saying it was fantastic, it was wonderful, it was beautiful.”

But the position of Mr. Trump and his legal team appeared to soften soon after his election on Nov. 8. At a hearing last week, Daniel Petrocelli, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, expressed interest in moving toward a settlement. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s lawyers were seeking to delay the trial in one of the California cases until after his inauguration on Jan. 20, while also requesting that he be allowed to testify on video.

“The time and attention to prepare and testify will take him away from imperative transition work at a critical time,” Mr. Petrocelli wrote in the request to the judge, Gonzalo Curiel, last week, noting the “thousands” of appointments that President-elect Trump needed to make in the weeks ahead.

Mr. Curiel, the federal district court judge who is hearing the two California cases, was thrust into the limelight of the campaign in May when Mr. Trump spent several minutes at a rally denouncing the judge’s decisions in the case, calling him a “hater” and questioning his impartiality because of his Mexican heritage.

“I’m building the wall, I’m building the wall,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Times in June. “I have a Mexican judge. He’s of Mexican heritage. He should have recused himself, not only for that, for other things.”

After he faced days of criticism for his remarks on the judge, Mr. Trump released a statement saying his words had been “misconstrued as a categorical attack against people of Mexican heritage.” He also asserted that he was justified in questioning the fairness of his trial, given various rulings in the case that went against him. Still, he concluded, “we will win this case!”

Even before he was in the throes of his presidential bid, Mr. Trump began mounting a vigorous public defense of himself and Trump University. A website, 98perentapproval.com, touted high marks it received from students. A New York Times report in March, though, showed how some students recalled being pressured to give positive reviews.

Trump University, which operated from 2004 to 2010, included free introductory seminars across the country, focusing largely on real estate investing and learning Mr. Trump’s secrets. Students could then purchase more expensive packages costing up to $35,000.

Documents made public through the litigation revealed that some former Trump University managers had given testimony about its unscrupulous and exploitative business practices. One sales executive testified that the operation was, “a façade, a total lie.” Another manager called it a “fraudulent scheme.”

Other records showed how Mr. Trump had overstated the depth of his involvement in the programs. Despite claims that Mr. Trump had hand-picked instructors, he acknowledged in testimony that he had not.

Protests Continue around the Country

Join a protest... do NOT let up. That is what this maniac hopes is that the protestors will tire.....don't. Do shifts, take a protestors place, bring food if you can and, if you can, offer what you bring...DON'T GIVE UP or it will make me think I have to just give up and forget about the humane things that have been a part of me all my politically aware life and that would be the end of my life. Trump's "victory" makes me think like it is because the media do not tell our side especially now that Drumpf will be president. Trump is transitioning to a team of horrors. True racist Sessions of Alabama for Attorney General? Bolton who wants war with Iran???? Find protests where you can but find them and don't give up! Pass this around to anyone you want. See story below.

And btw: Pelosi needs to be defeated in her position of Democratic leadership in the House. We have lost a ton under her leadership. A Rep interviewed by Rachel Maddow last night was WONDERFUL. His name is Tim Ryan and he's from the rust belt Ohio. He speaks to what SHOULD be OUR constituency of blue collar workers. Check him out and write to Democratic congressmen to support him. He is articulate, handsome and very very smart!!

It's been more than a week since Donald Trump became president elect and protests haven't let up. Some involved say they are challenging things bigger than Trump — such as the electoral college.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We're more than a week past the moment when Trump became the president-elect, and the news is still bringing people out into the streets. NPR's Sam Sanders has been asking protesters what drives them.

SAM SANDERS, BYLINE: The protests continue more than a week since Donald Trump's win. At Temple University in Philadelphia last night, dozens of students chanted...

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting) Not my president.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Not my president, not my president.

SANDERS: ...Over and over and over. Lady Torres was one of several students behind the megaphone near the bell tower at Temple. When I asked her exactly what she was protesting about Trump, she told me it was a feeling.

LADY TORRES: A lot of us are in fear for our own lives. And I don't think it's an exaggeration at all.

SANDERS: You fear for your life?

TORRES: I do.

SANDERS: How so?

TORRES: I just think that it is very obvious because of the color of my skin that...

SANDERS: Torres says Trump and his campaign have lots of Americans believe it's OK to harass people like her. Torres is Latina, a permanent resident of the U.S., originally from the Dominican Republic, so she couldn't even vote, but she says that doesn't diminish her right to protest.

TORRES: We will watch him very closely. And we are not going to just simply sit back.

SANDERS: Others involved in what people are calling the Trump resistance, they're challenging things bigger than Trump, like the Electoral College itself.

DANIEL BREZENOFF: My name's Daniel Brezenoff, and I live here in Southern California. I'm a social worker and a longtime political activist.

SANDERS: Brezenoff started a petition on the liberal website change.org.

BREZENOFF: Well, this is a petition asking the Electoral College to cast its ballots for the popular vote winner, Secretary Hillary Clinton.

SANDERS: It's got over 4 million signatures, and it got Brezenoff some threats on social media.

BREZENOFF: This guy should be dragged out and shot. Let him try this in this state. Let him - you know, if this works, we're going to have a war - things like that.

SANDERS: To be clear, it is highly unlikely that Brezenoff's petition will work. Even Brezenoff admits that. So there are other ways people are mobilizing. Since the election, the American Civil Liberties Union has raised a lot of money.

ANTHONY DAVID ROMERO: More than 7 - 7.2 - even higher now - million dollars from folks.

SANDERS: That's Anthony David Romero. He is the executive director of the ACLU. He says the outpouring of support his group has received this past week, it rivals the support they got in the direct aftermath of 9/11. That's when the group challenged many anti-terrorism policies. Romero says he expects the ACLU to be challenging the Trump administration as well.

ROMERO: Revocation of the protections for the DREAMers, creation of a deportation force, the banning of Muslims, the defunding of Planned Parenthood, the stop and frisk as a national policy.

SANDERS: They've got a long list. In Philadelphia last night, there were actually at least two protests. People also gathered outside of Philly's police department headquarters. Many there said the tone of Trump's campaign and his language about law and order, they said all that encouraged bad police officers to be even worse. But Megan Malachi (ph) also pointed out that black people like her have been protesting the police for a while.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

MEGAN MALACHI: For years before Trump was elected into office, many of the people that you see standing here have been fighting. We've been getting arrested. We've been getting brutalized. We've been getting targeted. You should have been out here before.

SANDERS: Then she stopped and smiled and told the newcomers, quote, "we are happy you're here now."

Sam Sanders, NPR News.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

A Letter to the Editor Response

The Metrowest News featured a letter yesterday entitled: "Election shouldn't have been a surprise" By Paul Landry
It stated:

For the record, Donald Trump was not my choice as the next occupant of the White House and, like so many millions, I was shocked to learn of his victory. After some reflection, however, I now believe that we should not have been so surprised by it, and that we would not have been so surprised had we not put so much trust in our liberal media. It seems that virtually every poll, every prediction, every forecast published by this self-appointed elite group assured us that Hillary Clinton had the election virtually nailed down, the only question being how much of a rout it was going to be.
In its nearly obsessive desire to see a Democrat in the White House, a woman in the White House and a continuation of the policies of the current occupant, this group completely failed to read the actual mood of our electorate. They failed to recognize that people were fed up with being ignored and forgotten by the administration of the last eight years. They failed to see the Democratic Party's loss of control of the House and then of the Senate during the latter part of the Obama presidency as a repudiation of the direction in which he tried to go. They failed to understand that even with a candidate as flawed as Donald Trump, it was time for a seismic change. These failures may have very well, in fact, contributed heavily to Clinton's defeat.

If the media is truly going to provide a valuable service to its reading or listening public, it must find a way to provide honest and complete information - information based on reality rather than prejudice. It must put its own preferences aside (except in designated opinion pieces) and refrain from making predictions, especially those which may actually influence voter decisions.

My response: Another explanation

In response to Mr. Landry's November 15 Letter entitled "Election shouldn't have been a surprise" while I agree with the substance of some of it, the so called "liberal" media he sites is often not that liberal. One cannot paint them, I think, with a huge brush. Even some more conservative media touted her victory and conservative commentators were predicting the need for a massive Republican reformation after her win. Moreover, our nation is flush with conservative airwaves featuring often the angry and mean rhetoric of its commentators.  Many if not most of the pollsters used scientific statistical analysis as the yardstick of prediction. I aver most were not "biased" but let the mathematics of their polls be their guide.  Statistics, however, no matter how mathematically precise, do not always give a clear and correct picture of the results. Romney's defeat in 2012, I think, is proof of that.  Most, including the conservative Karl Rove and the which-way-the-wind-is-blowing Fox News commentator Dick Morris, could not believe their eyes when they went on a tour of the Fox News election department and saw that Obama had, indeed, won defying predictions.
Trump waged a volcanic campaign, complete with much profanity and vituperative derogatory comments against even members of his own Party. This was unheard of in prior campaigns. The vile commentary disparaging minorities the Republican Party said it needed to win and even disparaging the military heroics of the "captured" John McCain as well as a much discussed (and disgusting) indictment of small hands tantamount to sexual penile prowess seemed unthinkable that the American electorate would actually vote for the mendacious and profanity-laced rudeness of Trump.
The crudity of the Trump campaign sadly mirrors that into which our nation has morphed. How it got that way, it seems to me, would better explain the Trumpian anger turned into votes. Our language, our sometimes unfathomable crimes we commit against each other, the violence we see in media and the loosening of cultural mores allowed Trump's campaign conduct to occur and it served as a conduit to capture a plethora of votes. I am sad that this is so and, admittedly, I am inclined and fall prey to anger invective as well.
The goodness of a nation should be measured by how well we treat one another not by how loud screams of anger and hate emerge from our voice.  Trump's talent, if he has any, was that he knew how to unleash a violent charisma no one else neither in the primaries nor in the general election knew how to ape.  That this nation fell for this huge con is a sadness with which the entire nation will have to live or die and that this unfit-for-the-presidency-carnival-barker snowed such a large part of the electoral college electorate (but failed to get what will be a Hillary Clinton 2 million popular vote Trumpain trounce) is academically staggering and it is sad very mind numbingly sad!

A Russian Dissident Ought to Know

[Excerpted from Masha Gessen, A Russian Dissident linked below] --  

"Donald Trump has promised to ban Muslims from entering the country and deport millions of people. He has threatened to loosen protections for freedom of speech and punish the press for criticism. He has boasted of committing sexual assault and said women who obtain abortions must be punished. He wishes to revive torture as an acceptable tactic, force the military to commit war crimes, and imprison his political opponents. The Trump we have seen so far is a vicious, vindictive, unhinged autocrat with no respect for the rule of law. He is a Putinesque strongman whose party controls Congress and, soon, the judiciary.

We live in dangerous times. Already we have seen a huge surge in the persecution of the very minorities whom Trump and his supporters target. Thousands of people—gay, trans, female, Hispanic, Muslim, Jewish—have been subjected to violence and harassment based on their identity in the wake of Trump’s victory. Angry, hateful people have been emboldened and empowered. This moment is unlike anything most Americans have experienced before. No, there will not be gas chambers. There will probably not be internment camps. But death squads? What else to call the work of police forces who, freed from Justice Department and judicial oversight, increasingly militarized and unconstrained by constitutional limits, can make the killing of Freddie Gray look like a practice run?

Clinton owed it to her supporters to warn them of this impending collapse of the norms fundamental to a liberal democracy. Instead, she acted as though the election of Trump was business as usual. It wasn’t, and it’s perilous to pretend otherwise. Yes, Trump is “our president,” in the sense that he won the election. But recognizing that fact does not require us to buy into the fantasy that his inevitable lawlessness will be legitimate. We should steel ourselves for a ghastly new era of violence and repression, ushered in by the consolidation of power around an autocratic maniac and his pathetic enablers. As Gessen admits, this may sound hysterical. Maybe it is. I’d like to think I’m wrong. I do not think I am."
 

My Comment: She is 100% correct and as a Russian dissident she ought to know. Trump is a maniac demagogue in whose hands we placed the life of our democracy if not the life of the nation. To say that we must resist is an understatement but I will say it anyway. WE MUST RESIST by any non-violent means necessary!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/11/11/masha_gessen_explains_why_clinton_s_concession_speech_was_so_dangerous.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_fb_bot

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