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Stew.. you did not support Trump but you vehemently roared against people supporting Clinton. That effectively meant you helped support Trump's election, so do not hide behind your timorous neutrality for the election of the "liberal"of your preference.

Rick Perry for Energy Dept. it seems.

He once promised to close it down.

Is the main qualification to lead a government department or agency under Trump complete and utter hostility towards and contempt for the mission of that agency or department?

Was the Walter White spoof that far off the mark?

No need to worry... he couldn't remember he wanted to close it down

Some interesting reading here on sexual orientation:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/authors/lawrence-mayer

The Journal is a well-known journal of science, technology and ethics based in Washington D.C.  This article analysed the scientific evidence of LGBT issues published to date in scientific journals.

The report was authored by two eminent scholars. Dr. Lawrence Mayer, a professor of psychiatry and statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University, stated in the preface to the study that he has testified in dozens of federal and state legal proceedings strongly supporting equality and opposing discrimination for the LGBT Community. However, Dr. Mayer stated he supports every sentence in this report without reservation since it is about science and medicine.  He also stated he was alarmed to learn during his review of over 500 scientific articles that the LGBT community bears a disproportionate rate of mental health problems compared to the population as a whole.

The other author is Dr. Paul McHugh, one of the leading psychiatrists in the world. He was psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore from 1975 to 2001.  These scientists reviewed hundreds of peer reviewed studies on sexual orientation and gender identity from the biological, psychological and social sciences. 
Their conclusions were as follows:

- The belief that sexual orientation is an innate, biologically fixed human property – that people are "born that way" – is not supported by scientific evidence.
- The belief that gender identity is an innate, fixed human property independent of biological sex – so that a person might be a 'man trapped in a woman's body' or 'a woman trapped in a man's body' – is not supported by scientific evidence.
- Only a minority of children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behaviour will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood. There is no evidence that all such children should be encouraged to become transgender, much less subjected to hormone treatments or surgery.
- Non-heterosexual and transgender people have higher rates of mental health problems (anxiety, depression, suicide), as well as behavioral and social problems (substance abuse, intimate partner violence), than the general population. Discrimination alone does not account for the entire disparity.

Bollocks or should I say Bollix.

De nada

Stew, I don't know what happened to you over the last couple of years, but whatever it was, it has had a very bad effect on your personality.  You were once gregarious, cheerful and generous, but now you are perpetually angry.  I am concerned about your welfare and hope things improve for you and that someone is helping you.

I can't project what Trump will do, but potentially he is very dangerous.  His xenophobic rants are alarming.  He has spoken of rounding up millions of people, essentially interning them first before deporting them, a campaign promise that has prompted his sidekick, Newt Gingrich, to suggest opening internment camps like the ones used to corral the Japanese-Americans in WWII.  You'll recall, I imagine, that prior to exterminating 6 million Jews, Hitler built concentration camps and created ghettoes. I don't believe that Trump will exterminate people, but he is a loose cannon with a hair-trigger temper, so anything's possible.  He has spoken, too, of creating a registry of Muslims.  Hitler kept a registry of Jews.

You have noticed, I'm sure, that hate crimes have increased since his election and that white supremacists feel emboldened to recruit, assemble and intimidate. Swastikas are appearing on mosques, and churches that welcome LGBT worshipers have been daubed with offensive language. You'll remember that these are the sort of things that preceded Kristallnacht in 1938.
I am alarmed, too, that Trump appears not to read, is geo-politically illiterate, and gleans his "information" from discredited websites like Breitbart and Drudge, and I am further distressed that he holds the serious press (e.g. NYT, Washington Post) in such low regard and wishes to loosen libel laws so that they will feel coerced not to write anything derogatory about him.  You have seen how irate he is at the SNL sketches that poke fun at him. He cannot abide satire.  I am seriously worried about freedom of the press and am concerned for the welfare of journalists, hatred for whom he perpetually stirs up at his rallies.  You remember that under Hitler all media—books, newspapers, films, public events—were censored if they were thought to present opposing viewpoints.

I am alarmed, too, that Donald Trump is an advocate of torture and wishes to expand its use, not to mention the fact that he has openly expressed support for war crimes, e.g. bombing civilians.  You'll recollect the Nuremberg Trials, designed to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.

You ask if he will kill millions, Stew.  I don't know, but I am alarmed that, like a kid at Christmas, he is fascinated by weapons, only in this case nuclear ones, and he wonders why, if we have them, we don't use them.  And I'm afraid that he seems intent on nuclear proliferation, e.g. that Japan and Saudi Arabia should have them.  You remember, I've no doubt, that Hitler was fascinated by weapons and expanded Germany's military power. Just as Trump wishes to do.

And he is a compulsive liar.  I am alarmed that people can't tell that he's lying or, worse yet, don't care.  Think back to Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, who said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."  Trump has succeeded in doing just that.

Stew, I could expound at length on this topic, but it wouldn't matter.  You have your mind made up, and in this post-fact society that we inhabit, you won't let evidence get in the way of passion.

Seriously, though, take care of yourself.  And if you happen to be on Facebook, check out 1970s ARMAGH MEMORIES. You'll undoubtedly know some of the people.  And if you ever do go home to Armagh, when you stop in to Devlin's for a pint, think of me because I can't ever go home again.

Well said Oraisteach.
I hope that circumstances change and you can buy yourself a pint in Devlin's soon. if you let me know when you get home I will buy the second one.

So Trump kept a few hundred jobs in Indiana by threatening to tax Carrier when they try to sell their Air Conditioning units back into the US. . .

No wait. Instead of playing tough with these CEO's he actually bent over to offer them tax incentives to keep "some" of the workforce in the US while 1300 US Jobs are going to Mexico anyway!!

I wonder if any of the big US CEO's will try and do the same??!!

The tax incentives is the fundamental issue for job creation.
Democrats want to tax corporations at a higher rate than republicans to fund fed. / state programs and benefits. foreign nations which funds fed. Republicans believe that if you create favorable conditions by lowering corp tax, companies will be incentivized to locate / remain in the US, thus creating jobs, and taking a burden off the benefits programs ,

For example, US 'v' Mexico manufacturing. Us has a higher tax and Mexico can supply a cheaper fork force, all supported by trade deals endorced by Washington. This leads to the draining of US jobs to low cost countries to maintain or improve gross profits.

The republican strategy of countering this is lowering corp tax for companies who keep jobs in the US, or impose increases in import tax. Once it becomes financial beneficial to remain in the US, business will make that decision.

This is a sign of where the Trump presidency is heading, which might be a big issue for Ireland

The Republican's have pushing lower taxes as a job creator for over 30 years. It has only worked to create income disparity. When rich people get more money they either save it or spend it on trips to Monte Carlo. Neither does anything to create jobs in the US. Demand creates jobs and transferring wealth to poor and middle income families will increase spending power here in the US which will increase demand. So a massive Infrastructure spend in the US paid for by a tax increase on the wealthy would get the economy galloping. Obama waned to do both but was blocked at every turn by Senate and House republicans.

But it does rather destroy the notion of the white working class valuing "straight talk".

As has been noted though they don't see the part where he doesn't mean it. All they see is him talking out his ass but then don't read the paper/watch CNN the next day to realise it was a complete load of horsehit!

"Straight talk" in politics is a euphemism for complex problems being explained in simplistic ways. Simplistic explanations cannot explain complex things and distort reality by telling people what they want to hear, so they aren't straight talk at all.

Complex, nuanced explanations, which involve an investment of some time to understand, but are often not what people want to hear, are derided as "phoniness".

But complex, nuanced explanations and arguments can also be dressed up to cloak absolute bullshit.

So:
"Straight talk" = phoniness
Complex, nuanced explanations can = real straight talk
but
"Complex, nuanced explanations" can also = barefaced lies

Profits as a % of GDP are now 20%. Labour share of GDP has been flat for years.

And now Trump has a Goldman person as Treasury sec who will kill Dodd Frank.

But obviously the problem is Muslims.

Muslims are only interested in prophets which means the ordinary blue collar white guy loses his job. Therefore Muslims are the problem.

Good post Sid. Helping the masses strive for the "American dream" a la Joe the plumber has been one of the great con jobs of all time and it's beauty is the simplicity of the message.

Maybe the main stream media should be calling for Hillary to publicly disavow and disown her supporters who are issuing death threats to members of the Electoral College


http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/11/17/elector-threats/94003176/

And maybe these people should be getting the police involved?

Are you suggesting she might hesitate on condemning people making death threats, like Trump with the David Duke stuff back in the summer?

Exactly....shocking double standards by the MSM...every fringe group automatically became surrogates for Trump during his the election campaign


Why aren't the Hillary supporters who are issuing death threats surrogates for her campaign

As I said before, if they keep it up they're only digging the hole deeper for themselves and the Democrats

Whitey: I had a dog when I was a child called Blackie. He was a great dog😇

Let's be realistic. Odds on the recount overturning are virtually nil. However there is a significant voting issue in the US of gerrymandering by both parties. Minorities are indeed marginalized.
I do believe Trump won the electoral college and I would be shocked if two of the three states returned a different result. If there is an expose of just how open the system is to rigging then all well and good, be it cyber attack be Russia or otherwise.


The real issue on the current system should be obvious at this point. It has become acceptable to the US public for trump to be president.

That has happened because the complete and utter sense of helplessness and frustration with the current system has been expressed in the only way it could. The election of the dumbest least qualified candidate in the race since the start and probably in history. For someone so obviously self interested to be elected taps into the American dream complex, where the deference that the British show the royals is given to the so called self made man. It trumps common sense self interest and the interests of the country at large.
What would have been the reaction to president elect Clintons foundation admitting fraud. What would be the reaction to Chelsea Clinton attending a meeting with a head of state advertising her goods. What would be the, oh what's the point? The old white rich guys are at it again with a mandate to do whatever is in their self interest. Same as it ever was.
The genius is finding a new way to do it every time. The poorest 20% are worse of than the servants in a country house ever were. At least their masters took responsibility for their health and well being. You work 3 jobs just to pay taxes and rent. You feed your children crap and don't educate them and then can't afford to help them when they get sick.  Your vote is worthless and you believe whatever crock of shit you are being fed at the time. But don't worry, there is still the American dream. You could be the next Steve Jobs!
Happy Thanksgiving! Go watch some NFL on a TV you can't afford in a $200 authentic Redskins shirt, and go to bed early so you can go increase your debt to the banks at 5am tomorrow on falsely advertised "sale prices"
I'm thankful for the good quality free education I received and that I retained the bullshit detector and healthy sense of scepticism that is my natural birth right as an Irish citizen.

So, will there be a recount in 3 states?

Doubt it.

Given the amount of foreign interference in the run up to the election and the obsession that the Trump camp had with Hillary's email server security carelessness; surely, a wee audit of the voting machines in Wisconsin is not too much to ask.

Trump just settled the "Trump University" law suit. The plaintiffs settled for $25million. Trump is not admitting guilt off course! Goddamn those biased Mexican judges!

[scandal after scandal]

Non-college educated means that the people within that demographic did not go to college- it does not mean that they are not educated in any other sense. It was also used mainly by pollsters as it is one of their main ways of differentiating voters for measurement.

But if being called non-college educated, when you are, in fact, non-college educated, is your reason for voting for a vicious, bigoted, sexual predator, then I believe the term "snowflake" applies. Whitey, would you not be giving those people a boot up the hole for their sensitivity?

The transition is falling apart, it's hilarious. Trump is too incompetent to be a dictator.

Lol.....keep ignoring and issues and keep up the name calling.

Sticks and stones Whitey, or have the snowflakes on the right forgotten that? And if you believe that being called "non-college educated" even compares to some of the labels applied to the left and minorities by Pravda (sorry, Breitbart...) and other alt right sources, then you truly have drank the Kool-Aid. But of course, you voted Jill Stein...didn't you? For a Green voter, you're awfully worried about the sensibilities of the right.

I'd have a lot more respect for Trump voters if they owned what they voted for, instead of whining on about being forgotten.

And the MSM also need to stop colluding in the post election consensus that Trump will pivot to rationality. Nothing he has done since the election gives any indication that he will rule in any fashion other than how he campaigned.

Which means ICE will be trawling Dorchester, Worcester and the suburbs of New York for Irish illegals to deport as well as the barrios of LA.

The Republic is in free fall, because Trump voters cut the parachute cords.

So in essence the man has spent nit one minute in office and the 'republic is in free fall because Trump supporters cut the parachute chords'

If the republic is in free fall it is because of Obama and Clinton's failure on virtually every political policy they touched, don't put this on people who voted for Trump, that is wrong and cowardly, and typical of the left.

Trump got elected because the eight years under the democrats sickened the electorate, scandal after scandal, the lies added up and then your champion Hillary throws a world class wobbker at the news she was going to lose and starts hitting people with objects she uses as projectiles, who would vote for a nasty bitch like that?

Scandal after scandal?

Would that be real scandals (like say, Watergate, Irangate, Enron, misleading the UN over WMDs, the financial crash of 2008) or ones where there is, despite repeated partisan investigation, no case to answer (Benghazi and emails)?

Poor stew - now that you have no one to blame, who will you blame?

Bush, Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Reid, Pelosi, that will do for a start, morons all.

Stew, you are starting to sound like Father Jack😇

I feel like a response to this deserves a thread of its own:

One thing came up in conversation today that I hadn't even thought of before

Remember during the election we heard that Trump had all of his support coming from "non college educated white people".

How fvcking condescending can you get.....I know plenty of trades people over here.....electricians, diesel mechanics, HVAC guys .....who spend years at trade schools, learning trades and doing apprenticeships . They are just as smart and equally, if not more informed as many of the smarmy fvcks looking down their noses at them

I agree 100%

You know what I heard my teachers tell me in my day? "We want youse to go out and get good jobs. Not working outside in the rain as builders or labourers." Another one said "We want you to have a respectable job when you grow up. Not working out in the back yard lifting bricks." I always bristled when I heard that since my dad was a navvy in England when he met my mother, and later he was a breadman when I was growing up. My mother was a housewife until I was old enough to be left alone and she went back to work, first as a store detective and later going into factory work. When I heard teachers talking down to working class people like that I always felt that my own background was being insulted.

I have a handful of siblings, some of us went into professional work and others did not. All of us did well in life, IMHO. The ones that do manual work are as happy as any, and some of them are doing better financially than myself in a lot of ways, and fair play to them.

I have one friend who went to uni and ended up working in banking, but he says he feels out of place in it and he didn't really feel that university was for him. I have another friend who had no notion of going on to higher education, I think he did a HND and was happy to stop at that. Am I supposed to think any less of him?

University isn't for everybody. Software engineering, science, economics and the like are not for everybody, and the sooner we get that into our heads the better off we're going to be. Exposing all children to coding is all well and good, but we shouldn't expect everybody to want to go on to be a programmer. We still need people to build our houses, fix our cars, stack the shelves in the store, and serve us at the bar or cafe.  I work in a tech company in Silicon Valley, and some of the people in there that I have the most respect for are the ones that work in the cafeteria. They get up early and work their asses off, and they do good work. You can tell they take pride in it.

I once had a boss who bragged about taking his son with him in the car one day. He parked across the street from a mechanic's garage and forced the young fella to watch these men at work all day. The lesson he was trying to teach his son was that that kind of work was beneath him, and he had to stick in at college if he was going to avoid lowering himself to that level. Bit harsh in my opinion. I once worked in a machine shop one summer and enjoyed the work. (The ones I had to work with, not so much, but the work itself had its own job satisfaction.) My old boss' son turned out to be a bit of an asshole, and I'd say that little mechanic lesson was probably a factor.

Now there's a whole generation of people brought up to believe that they're so special that manual work is beneath them. Hence you can't get an American to pick fruit out of the fields, only desperate immigrants will do it. How many films have you watched where the good guy prevails by escaping the drudgery of being an ordinary working man? An entire culture has developed where we don't value everybody's job, hence low-wage jobs are treated like a punishment for not being good enough at school. An American conservative once tried to argue with me that minimum-wage jobs "are not designed for people who want to have families." He thought that if you work 40+hours a week, you still don't deserve to earn enough money to get by on if the kind of work you're doing does not measure up in the prestige stakes.

What the hell's the matter with people now? What happened to a bit of respect for the ordinary working man and the dignity of the job?

Sad but true. Your value is measured in many quarters by the size of your bank account, not your contribution to the betterment of your community.

All I can say (IMHO) is that the Dems have started catering to the opinions/values of the elite of the party and are intolerant of any dissenting opinions....people are fed up having their vote taken for granted and being told to sit down and shut up.

Do Trumps cabinet appointments respresent your opinions .. Whitey?

I stopped into my local coffee shop this morning on my way home from the gym

Had a nice chat with the owner about the election (he's a conservative like me)

Seeming quite a few  of the teenagers from the local prep school (14-18 yr olds) were crying their eyes out and consoling each other on Wednesday morning. 

Their parents pay $50k a year to send them there and this is what theyre turning out....fvckin nanny pambies......I'd be looking point for a refund if I was them.

God bless them the poor crathurs, their feelings have been hurt.  There's want a good week in a he bog to harden them up....and a good kick up the hole too

Were you so dismissive of right wingers who were similarly upset and forecasting the end of America four and eight years ago?

People get upset about sports FFS. Presidential politics is something that actually matters and affects real lives.

They weren't happy 4 years ago, but they weren't curled in in the foetal position or crying into
their skinny one pump chai lattes

Rove was. Romney wrote a paper on how the GOP needed to reconnect with voters after 2012. He never thought about emulating George Wallace, pussy baiting or using antisemitism to get in extremists.

Nobody does sneering, crying, moaning, taking offence, invoking free speech and then trying to shut it down, or general throwing toys out of the pram quite like conservatives.

Except those liberal lowlife scumbags in Portland that hate the constitution, the country they were born and live in.

You liberals are masters of hypocrisy, I have to hand it to you.

Sanctuary cities gone, Megyns Law is a coming and when Trump gets in the liberal knackers that are rioting will be charged with hate crimes the c***ts!

So the rioters are not throwing the toys out of the pram? Catch yourself on FFS!

Can you please enlighten me how protesting against a voice that espoused misogyny, racism and wants to muzzle a free press translates into hating the constitution and the country they were born in to.