George Conway a clever Cancer windmill survivor and Twitter Trumpzi troll expert

I can't help but respect the way George Conway is able to draw attention to the dangerous character flaws exhibited by @realdonaldtrump, using sharp humor and searing wit.  

Donald Trump's expert Twitter Troll - George Conway: Is this duo a modern political spin on the vaudevillian Laurel and Hardy lunacy?

Yet, I can't imagine how he and his wife Kellyanne can carry on a civil conversation at home, based on their divergent Trumponian views. Obviously, Kellyanne is a Trumpzi surrogate and creator of the bizarre concept about "alterative facts". Their strange duet is far more confounding than whatever attraction drew James Carville, a high level adviser for President Clinton. to fall in love with and eventually marry his Repubican wife Mary Matalin.

But, that's their inside family business.

Nevertheless, the following article published in Newsweek, by James Crowley, describes the classic Conway style. 

By the way, Conway's Twitter page boasts about him being a Cancer windmill survivor....he sure knows how to troll Trump.

George Conway @gtconway3d:

"The problem you have with foreign leaders, @realDonaldTrump, is that they think you are a deranged idiot. They see it in your tweets, and they see it on TV. And their ambassadors give them an earful about the fact you’re inept, like the British one you got to resign. #IMPOTUS https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1210207810291671045 …"

George Conway, a lawyer and the husband of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, said that foreign leaders think President Donald Trump is a "deranged idiot," in a tweet Thursday.

The frequent presidential critic responded to a tweet by the president in which he complained about challenges he's faced in dealing with foreign leaders. Trump claimed it is "difficult to deal with foreign leaders (and others) when I am having to constantly defend myself against the Do Nothing Democrats & their bogus Impeachment Scam."

Conway replied directly to the president, writing that Trump himself was the only one to blame for his struggles with foreign leaders. "The problem you have with foreign leaders, @realDonaldTrump, is that they think you are a deranged idiot," he wrote. "They see it in your tweets, and they see it on TV."

Conway also wrote that foreign ambassadors to the United States report back to their home offices about the issues they face working with Trump. "And their ambassadors give them an earful about the fact you're inept, like the British one you got to resign," he wrote, referring to former U.K. Ambassador Kim Darroch's July resignation. Darroch resigned after diplomatic cables in which he called Trump "insecure" and "incompetent" leaked to the public.

George Conway, the White House and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Conway has been relentless in his criticism of his wife's employer. In another Thursday tweet, he humorously urged the Senate to remove Trump from office ahead of the upcoming impeachment trial. Sharing a tweet about Trump's cameo in the 1992 film Home Alone 2 being cut in a Canadian broadcast, Conway pointed out how easy it had been to remove Trump. "You see, Senators? It's not that hard," he wrote.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Conway warned Senate Republicans that if they cut Trump's impeachment trial short, they would be "shamed on the pages of history."

He also likened lies that Republicans told to support Trump to "merit badges" that a boy or girl scout would earn. "You see, it's like merit badges in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, except that instead of earning them by doing good deeds, with IMPOTUS @realDonaldTrump you earn them by telling lies to the public for his benefit, the bigger the better," he tweeted.

Conway responded to one of Trump's all-caps tweets on Wednesday December 18, as impeachment drama unfolded. "SUCH ATROCIOUS LIES BY THE RADICAL LEFT, DO NOTHING DEMOCRATS," the president tweeted, calling the vote to impeach him, "AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA, AND AN ASSAULT ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY," on Twitter. Conway trolled the president "You seem unhappy," the lawyer responded. 

The Art of the Lie - Donald Trump and "prejudice de jour"

Echo opinion from Richmond Indiana, published in the Palladiam-Item

Donald Trump has a continuing history of many illegal behaviors and has been the target of numerous lawsuits. 

He has perfected The Art of the Lie. 

Trump has bragged about how to grab women; he has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy the silence of his mistresses.

Being too clueless to debate critics, he mocks them. Trump’s prejudices toward anyone “different” is legion; his prejudice de jour is racism. Trump meekly defers to — and admires and envies — ruthless dictators. And, most recently: Mueller, in his Congressional testimony, was bound by Trump-inspired DOJ orders to “not elaborate,” thus some say the Mueller testimony was not “exciting,” but it did establish the truth of Trump’s commission of “high crimes” of obstruction of justice. And details were presented about Trump’s cooperation with Russia to get himself elected. But at the end of Mueller’s testimony, unbelievably, DJT still bellows, “Fake News!”

Also amazing: During Trump’s campaign, he often loudly proclaimed: “America (under a black president) is a MESS!! A total MESS!!” Back then, HE hated and trashed America. But now, in his mind, he has made U.S.A. a Disneyland, and HE champions deportation of critics.

What happened to the Republican voters who once valued morality, fiscal responsibility, honesty and intelligence but now sport MAGA hats? And what happened to Republican lawmakers’ spines as they obediently cower, fearing Trump’s lethal Twitter machine

Donald Trump is like a Superfund site: he is damaged beyond reclamation. Urgent: It’s time for Congress to act to save our democracy.

Les McClain, Richmond Indiana

Christchurch New Zealand - social media echo opinion from Ireland

The Irish Times view on the New Zealand mosque murders: the world after Christchurch

Mourners at a makeshift memorial near Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Photograph: Cornell Tukiri/The New York Times

The extreme right has long used the internet to organize and exchange ideas, but the Christchurch murders marked a shocking low in the choreography of terror.  Fast, unmediated, unfiltered communication tools are being used to promote some of the worst atrocities of our age.

As New Zealand prepares for the burials of the 50 people murdered last Friday at two Christchurch mosques, the country is grappling with the questions raised by the worst mass shooting in its modern history. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern has responded to the terrorist attack by a right-wing conspiracy theorist by ordering an inquiry into whether government agencies could have prevented it. She has also initiated an overhaul of New Zealand’s relatively lax gun laws and has pledged to announce reforms within 10 days. It’s essential that happens. But any meaningful reflection on the horrific slaughter in Christchurch must include two far broader questions.

(1) The first concerns the political climate. Populist far-right politicians across the world have lined up to offer the standard “thoughts and prayers” in the wake of the massacre, but it’s plain to see that white supremacists feel empowered by the violence, intolerance and hatred that those same politicians have injected into mainstream western political discourse.

An EU member state, Hungary, is led by a man whose brand of “illiberal democracy” is characterized chiefly by its demonization of Muslims and other minorities. In the White House is a (racist) president who lauded the “fine people” among white supremacists who gathered in Charlottesville in 2017. Islamophobia and bigotry have real consequences. Politicians who trade in violent, hateful rhetoric cannot get a free pass by offering their condolences after every murder committed by someone acting in the name of those same vile ideas.

(2) The second question is for the tech giants . The extreme right has long used the internet to organize and exchange ideas, but the Christchurch murders marked a shocking low in the choreography of terror. Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the 28-year-old suspect in the mosque for maximum virality.

A 17-minute hideous live-stream via Facebook was viewed in real time by thousands of people, and although Facebook and other platforms like YouTube and Twitter scrambled to take down the recording, copies sped around the globe too quickly for their spread to be halted. Having long denied responsibility for user content, social media platforms have slowly started to take more seriously the need to filter and moderate extreme and illegal material. 

Yet, the instantaneous widespread dissemination of the Christchurch footage shows the limits of their methods.

Ultimately, Big Tech will have to confront the glaringly obvious: the technologies that have made them so successful – fast, unmediated and unfiltered communication tools – are also being used to promote some of the worst atrocities of our age. Adapting those technologies will inevitably hurt the bottom line. But the ethical case for doing so is inarguable.

Secretary James Mattis - Donald Trump finally heard from you

James Norman Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is the 26th United States Secretaryof Defense and a former United States Marine Corps general. ... Mattis was nominated as Secretary of Defense by President-elect Trump and confirmed by the Senate on January 20, 2017.

In an "unprecendented" resignation on December 21, after substantial disagreement with the foreign policy of the Trump administration, Mattis openly criticized Trump's foreign policy views. In his letter of resignation, Mattis warned that Trump's worldview was leading to an immense decline in the United States' standing, undercutting "the global order the United States helped build over the past seven decades." In response, Trump personally insulted Mattis on Twitter and ordered him fired by January 1, two months before the date that Mattis planned to leave.

Dear Mr. President,

I have been privileged to serve as our country's 26th Secretary of Defense which has allowed me to serve alongside our men and women of the Department in defense of our citizens and our ideals.

I am proud of the progress that has been made over the past two years on some of the key goals articulated in our National Defense Strategy: putting the Department on a more sound budgetary footing, improving readiness and lethality in our forces, and reforming the Department's business practices for greater performance. 

Our troops continue to provide the capabilities needed to prevail in conflict and sustain strong U.S. global influence.

One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies. Like you, I have said from the beginning that the armed forces of the United States should not be the policeman of the world. Instead, we must use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense, including providing effective leadership to our alliances. 

NATO's 29 democracies demonstrated that strength in their commitment to fighting alongside us following the 9-11 attack on America. The Defeat-ISIS coalition of 74 nations is further proof.

Similarly, I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model - gaining veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions - to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies. That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense.

My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.
Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position. The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed as well as to make sure the Department's interests are properly articulated and protected at upcoming events to include Congressional posture hearings and the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting in February. 

Further, that a full transition to a new Secretary of Defense occurs well in advance of the transition of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September in order to ensure stability Within the Department.

I pledge my full effort to a smooth transition that ensures the needs and interests of the 2.15 million Service Members and 732,079 DoD civilians receive undistracted attention of the Department at all times so that they can fulfill their critical, round-the-clock mission to protect the American people.

I very much appreciate this opportunity to serve the nation and our men and women in uniform.

MaineWriter- Donald Trump is an idiot and this letter proves he is what has been previously said by Tillerson: he's a "moron". 

What's in a name for Stephen King? Terrible Iowan confusion!

Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post • November 5, 2018
(This column was re-published in the Bangor Daily News)

It's certainly understandable why the author Stephen King wants to see the right wing political Republican Steve King to be defeated in Iowa. The two men, the novelist and the zealous politician, are polar opposites in every conceivable way. First of all, Stephen King  the author is intelligent....that's just for starters....

Author Stephen King posted to Twitter: "Iowans, for personal reasons I hope you’ll vote Steve King out. I’m tired of being confused with this racist dumbbell."

The horror writer Stephen King probably didn’t intend his story “Graveyard Shift,” first published in 1970, to be a metaphor for political depravity. It’s about a man who toils in a textile mill, where rats have turned the forbidding basement into their own corrupt kingdom.

But this is 2018, the year that everything — even Barbra Streisand ballads — became about politics in the age of President Donald Trump. And King, like everyone else, is coming out swinging on social media. So it’s not hard to envision how he would apply his sickening story to the queasy state of the nation.

On Sunday, King let slip (?ahhh MaineWriter edit- I'd hardly say Mr. King "let slip". Rather, his Tweet was candid and overt!) who, in his portrayal, the reviled queen rat might be — someone who, in the writer’s words, he has “personal reasons” for disliking.

The short story is set in Maine, but King briefly turned his attention to Iowa, where one of the president’s congressional acolytes is facing his first credible challenger in years. The best-selling author and deep-pocketed Democratic donor asked Iowa residents to vote against Republican Rep. Steve King because, the King of fright tweeted, “I’m tired of being confused with this racist dumbbell.”

The King of Congress might well relish the author’s disparagement. On Saturday, the Republican responded to an onslaught of criticism fueling a fundraising blitz by his Democratic opponent — first-time candidate J.D. Scholten — by taking aim at “Left Coast billionaires.” The portmanteau of sorts blended two of King’s most common slights, left wing and East Coast.

A wave of criticism has buffeted the eight-term congressman in recent days.

Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Republican campaign arm, last week assailed King on Twitter for “white supremacy and hate.” 

Another Republican, Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, said on MSNBC that he would never vote for “someone like Steve King,” even if it meant forfeiting control of the House, calling his colleague’s statements and actions “disgusting.”

Intel, AT&T, Purina and Land O’Lakes pulled financial support. Meanwhile, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, called on House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wisconsin, to censure King for statements and affiliations “that are anti-Semitic and offensive not just to the Jewish community, but to all Americans.” The Republican leader has not done so.

The backlash stems from Congressman King’s record of racially incendiary rhetoric and his association with figures, in the United States and abroad, with Nazi ties. 

In fact, he took to Twitter last year to declare his support for ethnic nationalism, writing, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” His party didn’t rebuke him in June when he retweeted a message from a self-described “Nazi sympathizer.” Last month, he voiced support for Faith Goldy, an unsuccessful Toronto mayoral candidate who has promoted the baseless notion that a “white genocide” is underway. And last week, reports surfaced that the Iowan King had met in August with members of an Austrian political party founded by former Nazis, during a trip funded by a group that promotes awareness of the Holocaust.

At an Iowa town hall last week, King erupted when an attendee asked him whether his hard-line views on race and identity bore resemblance to those of Robert Bowers, the man accused of gunning down 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

“You’re done. You crossed the line. It’s not tolerable to accuse me to be associated with a guy that shot 11 people in Pittsburgh,” King said. “This is over, if you don’t stop talking.”

It remains to be seen whether the controversy that has engulfed the right-wing congressman will alter his fate on Tuesday. Despite one poll last week, by a Democratic firm, finding that King had only a one-point lead over his opponent, most surveys show a more comfortable gap between him and Scholten, a former minor league pitcher and paralegal.

The two sparred on Twitter.

IA - Steve King tweeted “My opponent is the antithesis (the opposite) of Iowa values. My record proves I embody them. Don’t let the million$ from Left Coast billionaires pay in advance and buy your Congressman.”

J.D. Scholten tweeted “.@SteveKingIA, you’ve had a lot to say about me lately, and seem to have some misconceptions about my campaign. How about we give the people what they want and deserve, and meet somewhere in the district tonight to hold a live impromptu debate? #IA04 Anyone else want to see that?”

J.D. Scholten tweeted “If you look up ‘desperate’ right now you will see an image of @SteveKingIA…”

Scholten retweeted the novelist’s appeal to Iowa voters. But the name-calling was hardly reserved for the Hawkeye State Republican. King, the author, reached back into his 1982 short story “The Raft” — or perhaps another tale of horror at sea — to find an insult for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. “Crawdad,” he called him.

Eugene Robinson ~ echo on Trump delusional conspiracies

Donald Trump conspiracy theorist and fake news developer in chief

Eugene Robinson echo opinion from Washington — Stop waiting for the constitutional crisis that President Trump is sure to provoke. It’s here.  (Opinion column, an "editor's pick" published in the Albany Herald, in Georgia)

On Sunday, via Twitter (ugh!), Trump demanded that the Justice Department concoct a transparently political investigation, with the aim of smearing veteran professionals at Justice and the FBI and also throwing mud at the previous administration. 

Trump’s only rational goal is casting doubt on the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller, which appears to be closing in.

Trump’s power play is a gross misuse of his presidential authority and a dangerous departure from long-standing norms. Strongmen such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin use their justice systems to punish enemies and deflect attention from their own crimes. Presidents of the United States do not — or did not, until Sunday’s tweet:

“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes — and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Rather than push back and defend the rule of law, Justice tried to mollify the president by at least appearing to give him what he wants. The Republican leadership in Congress has been silent as a mouse. This is how uncrossable lines are crossed.

The pretext Trump seized on is the revelation that a longtime FBI and CIA informant, described as a retired college professor, made contact with three Trump campaign associates before the election as part of the FBI’s initial investigation into Russian meddling.

With the full-throated (wrong minded) backing of right-wing media, Trump has described this person as a “spy” who was “implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president.” This claim is completely unsupported by the facts as we know them. Trump wants you to believe a lie.
The informant was not embedded or implanted or otherwise inserted into the campaign. He was asked to contact several campaign figures whose names had already surfaced in the FBI’s counterintelligence probe. It would have been an appalling dereliction of duty not to take a look at Trump advisers with Russia ties, such as Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, at a time when the outlines of a Russian campaign to influence the election were emerging.

Trump claims this is the nation’s “all time biggest political scandal” because, he alleges, Justice Department officials and the FBI used a “spy” to try to “frame” him and his campaign, in an effort to boost his opponent Hillary Clinton’s chance of winning the election. This conspiracy theory has so many holes that it’s hard to know where to begin, but let’s start with the glaringly obvious: If the aim was to make Trump lose, why wasn’t all the known information about the Trump campaign’s Russia connections leaked before the election, when it might have had some impact?

The truth appears to be precisely the opposite of what Trump says, which is not uncommon. The record suggests that Justice and the FBI were so uncomfortable investigating a presidential campaign in the weeks and months before an election that they tiptoed around promising lines of inquiry rather than appear to be taking a side. The FBI director at the time was James Comey, and while we heard plenty about Clinton’s emails before the vote, we had no idea that such a mature investigation of the Trump campaign was underway.

Now that the Mueller probe has bored into Trump’s inner circle — and federal authorities have raided the homes and office of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen — the president appears to be in a panic. The question is whether he sees this “spy” nonsense as a way to discredit Mueller’s eventual findings, or as a pretext for trying to end the investigation with a bloody purge akin to Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”

The Justice Department answered Trump’s tweeted demand by announcing that an existing investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general will now “include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation” by the FBI. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein may hope that is enough to avoid a showdown. I fear he is wrong.

None of this is normal or acceptable. One of the bedrock principles of our system of government is that no one is above the law, not even the president. But a gutless Congress has refused, so far, to protect this sacred inheritance.

Trump is determined to use the Justice Department and the FBI to punish those he sees as political enemies. This is a crisis, and it will get worse.

Eugene Robinson’s email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

DACA ~ Young immigrants deserve compassionate leadership

"...immigrants make the U.S. a better place..." Echo editorial published in The Baltimore Sun. 

(As usual.....!).....Tweets by Donald Trump shared some thoughts on immigration that strongly suggest he either isn’t paying much attention to current events or he’s just trying to stir up his core supporters again in the face of Congressional inaction and negative attention in the media. Either is a possibility; a combination of both is a probability. If he can denounce dark-skinned immigrants, the Mexican government and Democrats in one fell tweet, this is a president who is willing to put in the effort during his morning “executive time” in front of the television or before he hits the links at Mar-a-Lago.

“NO MORE DACA DEAL,” was the thrust of one of a series of Twitter pronouncements President Trump made Sunday in Florida shortly after sending out the more traditional (and good-natured) Easter greetings. Mr. Trump not only pronounced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals dead, but he blamed Democrats and the Mexican government for allegedly lax border enforcement that has supposedly caused an influx of crime and drugs. He suggested that Republicans needed to change the rules of the Senate — a reference to the so-called “nuclear option” to end filibusters — to correct the situation and pointed to “caravans” of immigrants (most likely the group of Central American protesters in Mexico headed to the U.S. border to seek asylum) as motivated by an opportunity to take advantage of DACA. “The big Caravan of People from Honduras, now coming across Mexico and heading to our ‘Weak Laws’ Border, had better be stopped before it gets there,” the president tweeted early Tuesday. “Cash cow NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] is in play, as is foreign aid to Honduras and the countries that allow this to happen.”

(Here is the *ugh* another Trumpzi Tweet: DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon... No longer works. Must build Wall and secure our borders with proper Border legislation. Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!)

Now, that’s a lot of disinformation and tantrum-throwing for one man, but let’s review. First is the notion that Democrats are the impediment to DACA. They are not. Mr. Trump could make this problem go away tomorrow if he chose. He created the dilemma in the first place by signing an executive action to end the program last year. He he has declined multiple opportunities to address its expiration since then. The Supreme Court ruled more than one month ago that the program could stay in place under terms of a lower court decision that has temporarily continued the program. And so 800,000 people who came to this country as children and have met the strict standards of DACA protections are now in limbo.

President Trump has at times expressed compassion for DACA recipients (“You know, I love these kids”) and at times treated them as bargaining chips for various immigration-related wish-list items, the first being a border wall, but when Democrats actually gave ground on border security funding, it morphed into demands for stricter limits on legal immigration including family reunification. After rejecting a bipartisan compromise, the president’s proposal failed not only to muster Democratic support in the Senate, it fell well below a 51-vote majority let alone the 60-vote margin to overcome a filibuster. Meanwhile, the notion that immigrants, particularly DACA recipients (who had to arrive in the U.S. by 2007 to even be eligible and include U.S. military veterans, teachers and students), are responsible for worsening U.S. crime rates is just wrong. Study after study shows that there’s less crime in immigrant communities, documented or undocumented, than in the U.S. overall. 

Moreover, DACA participants, in particular, are not an issue when it comes to crime because they are only eligible if they “have not been convicted of a felony, a significant misdemeanor, three or more other misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.”

Some people have theorized that Trumpzi's immigration tweets were a reaction to a particular segment about the Mexico caravan that ran on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” program, a presidential favorite, and shaped by the views of hard-liners like adviser Stephen Miller (aka the resident "Bela Lugosi"). 

Was he being serious or just tossing a little red meat to the xenophobes? That he would throw NAFTA into the equation ignores the economic hardship the U.S. would suffer, as walking away from the agreement would result in new tariffs, higher consumer costs and new inroads for Asian producers into North American markets.

If there’s anything productive to be found in the latest Trump Twitter-storm, it’s a reminder that the best long-term solution for “Dreamers” is for Congress to extend protections, and a path to citizenship, for the DACA eligible — and, if possible, other productive members of U.S. society who merit such an opportunity. 

Generally speaking, immigrants make the U.S. a better place, not worse, and it’s time we stopped vilifying them. No wall is going to stop the flow of drugs into the country, but reducing demand for narcotics and addressing the nation’s opioid crisis (with better funding for treatment, for instance) would do wonders. 

Better to do the right thing and ignore the presidential Twitter account.

Innocent and hard working Dreamers ~ Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals ~ deserve compassionate executive leadership.

Donald Trump is incapable of doing anything to help these deserving young people. Congress must act.

Republicans are irresponsible to create their own extremist agenda

Filmmaker, actor, producer, husband, and father.

Rob Reiner is an active Twitterzin and this particilar Tweet sums up the Republican point of view ~ for reasons unknown to humankind, the Grand Old Party has decided to ignore the will of the people:

"90% of Americans are in favor of extending the CHIP program. 90% of Americans are in favor of DACA. 90% of Americans are in favor of universal background checks. Here’s a novel idea: Congress, try representing Americans."

It's irresponsible for Republicans to go against the will of the American people just because they prefer greed over democracy, they support gun rights over Free Speech, they want to deport all immigrants even though they are all (to a person) descendants of immigrants, they are "pro-life", oppose abortions but don't want to provide health care for children.

As Republicans are responsible for closing down the US government because they prefer extremism over compromise, the American people are the ones who are paying the bills for their their political incompetence.

It's time to throw out all the Republicans in Congress and hire, instead, leaders who care about Americans first and put their extremist opinions aside for the benefit of improving our human condition. Republicans are irresponsibly supporting an extremist agenda and their political platform is void of inspired leadership.

Horror of the unspeakable - big nuclear buttons

Donald Trump says his ‘Nuclear Button’ is bigger than Kim Jong Un’s

This isn't funny ~ but the Bill Kristol Twitter survey question gets to the core of Donald Trump as being unfit for leadership.

In a Tweet on Tuesday, Donald Trump warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that his nuclear button "is a much bigger & more powerful."

Conservative pundit Bill Kristol created the surreal response to this very real news:

@BillKristol

In light of Donald Trump's Nuclear Button tweet, should we conclude we're living (survey):

13%in a Mel Brooks movie?

13%in a Monty Python skit?

74%only a short while longer

To which one Twitterzin responded:

@EdSkipper

Seriously Bill - this is beyond any joke. Do you have ANY influence to help the GOP come to its senses and remove this existential threat? (Better to be in the political wilderness - and a decent person - for a decade than be party to the end of our world and this insanity.)

And, in another Twitter thread, @DavidFrum wrote:

"Not in a mood for Twitter jokes. This is dark & dangerous. I shudder for every parent of a son or daughter in uniform - and for us all"

Trump warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Twitter on Tuesday that he’s always prepared for the nuclear option.

“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,’” he wrote on Twitter.

“Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

Dear God, Donald Trump is crazy. Republicans must remove him from office.

Every day, Americans wake up asking the same question: "Is Donald Trump still the president?" 

 We'll be spared asking ourselves that question if this crazy Trump incompetent leadership sets off a nuclear war. In fact, the rhetorical question "is he or isn't he?", will be irrelevant.

Planning Donald Trump's covfefe legacy

Undoubtedly, the only memorable relic to remember Donald Trump in history will be the Tweets he has posted throughout his pursuit of and eventual election to the office of President. Since then, he has also sent out nonsensical communications. Like when he talked about the invisible airplane.

An F35 aircraft- does this airplane look like it's invisible? Donald Trump says it's "invisible".

Donald Trump's Twitter legacy will outlast him, like the Egyptian's hieroglyphics survived the reign of the Pharaohs.  Of course, even ancient Egyptian scribes knew what kind of legacy to write in praise of the Pharaohs. Practically all the messages were accolades. Donald Trump should take lessons from ancient Egyptian scribes, because they "got it".  In other words, every word the scribes carved into a manuscript were about something noteworthy.  On the other hand, what Donald Trump posts on Twitter would get him failing grades, if Egyptian scribes were his teachers.

For some strange reason, Donald Trump doesn't understand how Twitter is his only lasting legacy. By his continuous Tweeting, Trump diminishes the office he holds, especially when he posts nonsense. 

Remember the craziness in the one word Tweet "covfefe?" There's never been an explanation about that particularly incoherent Tweet, but now the neologism, created by Trump, has a place in the Urban Dictionary.  

Then, there was the recent Tweets of condolence, that Trump sent to the wrong town, following yet another mass murder gun violence incident.  

Trump tweets condolences to wrong town after mass shooting

In fact, Trump tweeted condolences for a mass shooting to the incorrect town.

Tuesday's tragedy happened when a gunman with a semi-automatic rifle and two handguns opened fire on four victims at multiple locations in the small Northern California town of Rancho Tehama. The suspect wounded more victims at an elementary school before law enforcement shot and killed him.

Trump's Twitter response, which has since been deleted from his account but is timestamped at 11:34 p.m. on November 14, mentioned another mass shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which occurred on November 5, killing 26 people and injuring 20 more.

"May God be with the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI and Law Enforcement has arrived," Mr. Trump wrote in the tweet, offering thoughts and prayers to the wrong town.

It appears the response Mr. Trump intended for the victims of the violent incident in California was mis-directed by his initial tweet, regarding the Sutherland Springs shooting. In other words, Donald Trump appears to be easily confused.

"May God be w/ the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas," the November 5 tweet reads. "The FBI & law enforcement are on the scene. I am monitoring the situation from Japan."

MaineWriter- sadly, there are too many American mass shootings to keep track of.

Most recently, Donald Trump even made up a situation about the stealth characteristics of the F35 aircraft. During Thanksgiving Day remarks presented to the US Coast Guard in Florida, Trump said the airplane being used by the Air Force is invisible to radar and even, apparantly, to the human eyes.

Trump told a US coast guard audience that the air force was ordering a new plane that was “almost like an invisible fighter”.

The plane in question, the F-35, is not invisible, though it is unusually small and designed to be less visible to radar than conventional aircraft. Its development, however, has proved all too visibly costly and riddled with problems.

The Guardian Reports: Trump first startled reporters with talk of an invisible plane in October, when he discussed the F-35 at a military briefing in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico.

“Amazing job,” Trump said then. “So amazing we are ordering hundreds of millions of dollars of new airplanes for the air force, especially the F-35. You like the F-35? ... You can’t see it. You literally can’t see it. It’s hard to fight a plane you can’t see.”

Trump also said: “That’s an expensive plane you can’t see. As you heard, we cut the price very substantially. Something that other administrations would never have done – that I can tell you.”

According to the pool report of the president’s Thanksgiving Day visit to Coast Guard Station Lake Worth Inlet, in Florida, Trump told his audience he had discussed the “invisible” plane with “some air force guys”. 

He asked them, he said, if it would perform in a dogfight like similar planes he had seen in movies.

“They said: ‘Well, it wins every time because the enemy cannot see it, even if it’s right next to it, it can’t see it,’” Trump said.

The coast guard members laughed, some perhaps aware that the president speaking to them about the air force was a reversal of his remarks in Puerto Rico in October, when he spoke to an air force audience about the coast guard.

Contra to his earlier expressions of pride about being responsible for a cut in the cost of the F-35 – a claim that experts have said is at best contestable – Trump also told coast guard members of his pride in having increased military spending.

MaineWriter- unfortunately, Donald Trump's nonsensical Twitter and randomly delivered extemporaneous remarks will be his unbalanced legacy.

Donald Trump - speeches are regressive exercises

"...first (Trump) address to the United Nations General Assembly...called both 'terrifying' and 'delusional' by experts."

Obviously, Donald Trump speaks in abrupt 140 character Tweets. Regardless of how much he's advised against his use of Twitter, Donald Trump continues to provoke the media and to malign people with whom he disagrees, via "Tweets".  

For whatever period of time his misuse of power is allowed to continue, the legacy he leaves will forever be tainted by immaturely constructed Tweets.

Donald Trump's  incendiary speeches are failures

Yet, Trump's ineffective attempts to give statesman quality speeches are even more regressive than his tirades of juvenile Tweets.  Although Trump's campaign rallies ramble to his right wing extremist base, by using repetitive headline grabbing slogans, he is unable to rise to the challenge of giving a major leadership address. Indeed, Donald Trump's failed leadership is painfully evident when he vainly tries to communicate lofty concepts or to summon visionary ideals. 

Rather than advance his leadership goals, Donald Trump's speeches are regressive statements, whereby he painfully reveals how unprepared he is to unify allies or to inspire the human condition.

For example, following his speech to the United Nations, the headline "take-away" was this: "Trump says many portions of the world are going to hell".  This stupid statement is a waste of human energy.  It's something like a drunkard would say at 1 AM, while holding on to the closing bar.

Donald Trump gave his first address to the United Nations General Assembly, pushing for “sovereignty” in what has been called both “terrifying” and “delusional” by experts.

The President, sticking to prepared remarks as he spoke in front of the signature green marble of the UN Headquarters in New York, spoke primarily on his “America First” doctrine, North Korea, and Iran.

He said this emphasis of “sovereignty” was the basis for the international cooperation upon which the UN was founded and what made former President Woodrow Wilson and Truman's Marshall Plan - that aided reconstruction of Western Europe in the wake of World War II - a success.

Although all the experts The Independent spoke with agreed that it was a consistently Trump-esque speech - “it was more rhetorically repetitious than intellectually coherent” according to UN expert at the European Council of Foreign Relations Richard Gowan.

The words “sovereign” or “sovereignty” were mentioned at least 18 times in the nearly 40 minute speech as delivered.

His main message to member countries gathered also addressed his core base: “I will always put America first, just like you as the leaders of your countries will always - and should always - put your countries first.”

Mr Gowan said the speech was more catered toward appeasing the President’s base of supporters who have stuck to Mr Trump’s repeated campaign and early term remarks that the UN is full of elitists and “just a good time “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time”.

TJ Pempel, a political science professor at the University of California-Berkeley, echoed that statement, adding that the speech was “good for headlines” but not much else in terms of reducing global threats.

Anjali Dayal, an international security professor at Fordham University, said the speech was "terrifying" since it was such a drastic break from past US presidents, despite the fact that sovereignty is still a “cornerstone” of the UN.

She said the main difference is interpreting what respecting that sovereignty means.

“I don't think it was a standard hawkish Republican foreign policy speech, even though much of what Trump said called back to the John Bolton era at the UN,” referring to the controversial US representative under George W. Bush’s administration.
Mr Trump spoke extensively on two particular countries: North Korea and Iran, calling them a “depraved regime” and a “murderous regime,” respectively.

Ms Dayal said: “it's hard to square the idea of sovereignty as non-interference with his language on North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.”

After North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear weapons test recently, developed a hydrogen bomb, and fired test missiles over Hokkaido, Japan - the Security Council unanimously voted to place the strictest-ever sanctions on the hermit kingdom.

Today Mr Trump said that should Pyongyang not cease with developing its nuclear arsenal or attacks a US territory or ally the US would have “no choice but to destroy North Korea”.

He said, referring to the mercurial Kim Jong-un, that “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission”.

This is not much of a change in policy as Dr Stephen Saideman, an expert at Canada’s Carleton University, pointed out.

However, what worried Human Rights Watch’s UN Deputy Director Akshaya Kumar was that he said it at the UN.

War with North Korea would be an “incredibly disproportionate response to punish innocent civilians for the [North Korean regime’s] actions,” Ms Kumar told The Independent.

Neil Bhatiya, a researcher at the Center for a New American Security, told The Independent that Mr Trump’s rhetoric today ignored the “necessity of cooperating with Beijing on sanctions against Pyongyang”.

Mr Trump’s comments do not appear to take into the account the ripple effect of his apparently fatalistic view towards military action, according to Mr Pempel.

“The new sanctions authorities granted to the President have to potential to incur significant financial costs for China-based firms, which could have wider effects for the global economy if, for example, U.S. sanctions target certain large Chinese banks,” noted Mr Bhatiya.

Any implementation will have to be done in coordination with major players like China.

At the same time, Mr Pempel said this speech was “good for headlines” but not really serving the grander purpose of actually reducing a North Korea threat.

He argued that Mr Trump’s language does not do anything to help encourage more cooperation from Russia and China - who joined the world to vote in the Security Council for the strictest-ever sanctions on Pyongyang.

“This is the time for…encouraging China...and sending quiet messages to North Korea about a willingness to talk.”

Instead, Mr Pempel said the speech helped Japan, who worries that the US will abandon them and get “too close” to China, but also puts ally South Korea in a “tough” position of wanting more dialogue along the lines of President Moon Jae-in’s “sunshine policy” and realizing the real need for a militarized Seoul.

Despite what seems like a fatalistic attitude towards using military action to quell the threat of the isolated and mercurial North Korean leadership, Mr Pempel thinks Defence Secretary James Mattis had very little to do with the speech.

“He is usually reluctant to start with, and stay with, comments about military action. He keeps it quietly in the background but emphasizes diplomacy,” Mr Pempel said of the President’s trusted military adviser.

Trump says the US will "totally destroy" North Korea, if necessary, in UN speech

Mr Gowan argued that despite the threat of using American military might against Pyongyang, he appeared to still want to talk it through with China and Russia, as evidenced by US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley’s continued work.

The most “disturbing” part of Mr Trump’s speech for Mr Gowan was about Iran.

Mr Trump said that the Iran nuclear deal, signed in 2015 to redesign and reduce the country’s nuclear framework, was an “embarrassment” for the US.

Elizabeth Rosenberg, a Senior Fellow at the Center for New American Security, said that, at the very least, Trump’s words on Iran were “consistent” because it “reinforced the impression that he plans to take action to undermine the deal.” (MaineWriter: Another regressive statement, because Donald Trump has yet to deliver on his bellicose threats. Even his wasted bombing of the Syrian air field, to retaliate against Assad's assault on his own people, was merely a waste of time. Rather, it was a discharge of expensive old Tomahawk missiles.)

Ahead of the speech, a senior White House official said the goal was to separate the suffering of the Iranian people from the regime of Iran.

Mr Gowan said that “the idea that the Iranian people are going to rise up against their government because Trump gave a hectoring speech at the UN is delusional.”

Mr Trump “mixing the accusations towards the "murderous regime", its behaviour in the region, with what should be deemed a technical agreement the international community negotiated over more than 12 years” shows that this administration does not really separate the two, Dr Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, a Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, told The Independent.Trump's America First doctrine will destroy the United Nations
North Korea diplomacy ‘exhausted’, says top US official

In Mr Trump also calling it "one of the worst" international pacts ever made, Ms Tabrizi said the administration undermines all the partners who worked on the deal during both the Bush and Obama administrations as well as “ignor[ing] the wishes of the Iranian people, who elected the current president twice because they believed a nuclear deal...was the best way to improve their living standards” since it lifted sanctions.

His rhetoric about the “rogue state” that has a “false guise of democracy” may be welcomed by his base, but ultimately does not aid in getting a better deal according to Ms Rosenberg.

It is “tremendously unhelpful with expanding arms controls of Iran” since there is less ally consensus on Iran’s non-nuclear activities.

Overall, several world leaders (except for Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu who was full of praise), agreed with Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom who said to the BBC: 

"It was the wrong speech, at the wrong time, to the wrong audience.”

(MaineWriter- Donald Trump's "failed leadership" is painfully exposed in his failed speeches.)

Trolls in social media and Trump's MPD

It's my opinion, only my own, that Donald J. Trump can possibly be representing himself as multiple personalities on Twitter. He's capable of it.

Too many evil "Trump trolls" parrot what he says and the way he forms half phrases. In fact, I've blocked several Trump trolls who I suspect might really be him, or else they're talented impersonators.  

Trump trolls could be surrogates representing Donald Trump or even be himself!

How will the Presidential social media security stop Donald Trump from creating alter egos, and aliases on Twitter and other social media platforms? This wasn't a concern for President Obama, who always Tweeted uplifting or intelligent messages. I haven't seen any Donald Trump Tweets (DTTs) where he hasn't obliquely insulted someone, even by omission. Talk about on line bullying?
Paleeeeze! He seems to begin each day with a Twitter insult.

Hopefully, Donald Trump is receiving psychiatric counseling for his multiple mental health issues, including brushes with "multiple personality disorder" or MPD. Jimmy Fallon sure captured the essence of this disorder in the skit where he played Donald Trump as he interviewed himself, in this video clip.

In fact, here's yet another clip on this site where the subject of Donald Trump's mental health is the displayed.

Here are some of my personal observations about Twitter trolls, in general:

1.  They never "ever" form an original opinion to post.
2.  Trolls attack the messenger with slanderous words. They never attack a concept, because they can only understand concrete phrases like "you are ugly" and very much worse stuff.
3.  Trolls reduce their posts to the lowest use of language and typically insert vulgarity.
4.  Trolls hate being blocked, because it takes away their only orgasmic return for creating vitriolic messaging, i.e., they have lost your attention!

In fact, Donald Trump even admitted to calling at least one television show while misrepresenting himself, so there's no telling how many others he's contacted, as a multiple personality.

It's possible, in my opinion, that Donald Trump may have even camouflaged himself as a "right wing black man" on Twitter. Otherwise, if it wasn't Donald Trump, maybe it was "Breitbart-barfcart" Steve Bannon; but it was a misrepresentation, that's for sure. It was in the form of one person who posted racist comments about Dr. Martin Luther King and Congressman John Lewis; but he gave himself the cover of being a Black Man, while doing so. That troll was lying.

Honestly, given the general nature of the weird "Trolls" who post on Twitter, I just don't find that the representation of a Black man denigrating Civil Rights leaders as being possible. Trump trolls just aren't capable of creating even this low level of obtuse thinking. 

Obviously, I can't prove if the multiple personality "Black person",who misrepresented, was Donald Trump or a surrogate like Bannon. Nevertheless, the fact is, when I accused this person of lying, he just raised his ire even more against me and, of course, I blocked him. No way was he a Black man but, of course, I can't say for sure who he was, really. If he was a Black man, his Twitter icon would've helped to prove it; but his photo block was an algebraic figure for "pi"- go figure. No, he wasn't a Black man on Twitter, a man who used a racist cover to hide his bigotry; but surely, he was a white racist bigot.

In fact, Donald Trump's "Twitter trolls" simply don't know how to use Twitter. Typically, the trolls who attack on his behalf never use full sentences or include Twitter types of lingo in their posts. Most telling, they hardly ever have more than a few dozen followers.  Apparently, they just follow one another.

Frankly, Donald Trump's cult following can't read beyond what they hear their leader say, which is then parroted in vulgar rhetoric. 

Regardless of who is trolling for Donald Trump on Twitter, or if he is trolling for himself, there is one universal rule to follow when they reveal their snarly and short sentences rhetoric: "Block them". To those trolls, it's like Coitus interruptus.

Donald Trump missed his lessons on leadership etiquette

On the Memorial of Martin Luther King's legacy as America's Civil Rights leader, Donald Trump decided to pick a Twitter fued with icon Congressman John Lewis. As the President Elect, shame on him! John Lewis deserves respect from Donald Trump, regardless of how the revered Congressman feels about the outcome of the 2016 election. Lots of people believe, with good cause, that Donald Trump is an illegitimate leader of the free world. Rather than whine about the problems with his election, he should be proving his competence.
Twitter is no place to air or resolve differences, particularly about political issues. Rather, Donald Trump's Twitter storms create anxiety and drives up Americans' fears about his ability to lead.

"Some political observers say Dr. Ben Carson’s appointment is an indication that Trump is not serious about improving the lives of people in struggling communities."- The Boston Globe

William Linthicum collage (c) displayed at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center in Cincinnati Ohio during Martin Luther King memorial holiday

The Boston Globe article by Janell Ross and Vanessa Williams

The eruption of hostilities between President-elect Donald Trump and civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., may be recorded as just one more example of what has become standard Twitter retaliation for Trump.

But coming on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend, it also reignited the passions around Trump’s difficult history with African-Americans, the group of voters from whom he might be most alienated as he prepares to move into  Washington DC this week.

Congressman John Lewis D-Ga, in Washington DC at the Capitol

In an interview with NBC’s ‘‘Meet the Press’’ on Friday, Lewis said he did not regard Trump to be ‘‘a legitimate president’’ because of allegations that high-level Russian operatives interfered in the election on Trump’s behalf. Trump lobbed back with a tweet in the early hours of Saturday morning that disparaged both the congressman and his district, which includes some of Atlanta’s most affluent neighborhoods.

‘‘Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart,’’ Trump wrote. ‘‘(Not to ...’’ - he needed two tweets to finish the thought - ‘‘mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!’’ (Meanwhile, it was quickly pointed out that Donald Trump had no idea where Congressman Lewis served his constituents, in fact, in one of the most affluent sections of Georgia!)

Trump continued his taunts in a separate tweet Saturday evening, saying Lewis should ‘‘finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!’’

Trump’s attack on Lewis drew widespread condemnation across party lines, particularly given Lewis’ role in the fight for black voting rights.

‘‘John Lewis is beyond a doubt the conscience of the country and that’s why his people (constituents) send him to Congress,’’ said Kwame Lillard, an activist who helped to organize the civil-rights-era Freedom Rides and has known Lewis for more than 60 years.

Lewis was one of the leaders of the legendary Selma to Montgomery voting rights march in 1965, in which Alabama state troopers clashed with marchers, leaving many of them, including Lewis, badly injured. The march entered the American lexicon as ‘‘Bloody Sunday’’ and the stark images of the police beatings helped build support for the civil right movement.

Shamed Dogan, a Republican member of Missouri House of Representatives, said the state’s new Republican governor, Eric Greitens, attended the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration two days after taking office. ‘‘I would like to see Donald Trump take the same approach to the Congressional Black Caucus and find common ground with them instead of feuding with heroes like Congressman Lewis,’’ Dogan said.

Trump’s harsh rhetoric about Hispanics, Muslims and women was one of the hallmarks of his campaign, and while he emerged from the election with a solid majority of electoral college votes, he trailed Democrat Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million popular votes. In the national exit poll, 91 percent of black voters had an unfavorable toward Trump, while 83 percent had a favorable view of Clinton. In their vote preference, the exit poll found black voters favored Clinton 89 to 8 percent over Trump.

Since Election Day, he has said he would reach out to voters who did not support him in an effort to bring the country together.

During the transition, Trump has been frequently photographed with black celebrities at his New York headquarters, including the rapper Kanye West, retired football great Ray Lewis and boxing promoter Don King. On Friday, he was visited by Steve Harvey, a comedian, game-show host and dating-advice guru. Harvey supported Clinton and had been critical of Trump during the campaign, but after their meeting he said the president-elect was ‘‘congenial and sincere.’’

The attack on Lewis, however, underscores Trump’s tense relationship with black voters and seemed to echo some of his past confrontations with African-Americans.

Trump started his presidential campaign with huge disadvantages among African-Americans, in part because of his years-long questioning of whether President Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen. Trump also drew criticism for taking out a full-page ad in New York newspapers urging the death penalty for five black and Hispanic teenagers accused of raping a woman in Central Park. Even after the young men were exonerated, Trump criticized the city for awarding them damages for the years they had spent in prison and continued to argue that they were ‘‘guilty of something.’’

In the closing weeks of the campaign, Trump began appealing to black voters to give him a chance. Speaking at rallies, to overwhelmingly white audiences, Trump described black people as living ‘‘in hell,’’ stuck in crumbling, crime-ridden neighborhoods and failing schools: ‘‘What do you have to lose?’’ he asked.

For some people, Trump’s attack on Lewis - as well as his inaccurate description of Atlanta, a longtime haven for middle- and upper-middle-class African-Americans - brought it all back.

Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, said if Trump was serious about reaching out to the black community, he would have to take responsibility for a campaign whose tone was ‘‘divisive at best, seriously offensive at worst’’ and ‘‘dangerous’’ with reports of an increase in racist behavior and actions directed at minorities by some whites. She said he will have to meet with and apologize to the civil rights community and young activists in the Black Lives Matter movement.

‘‘The burden of proof is on you. It’s not on everybody else to warm up to you because you’re the president,’’ she said of Trump. ‘‘Because the rhetoric came out of his mouth, the burden of proof is on him to show that he’s changed, he’s sensitive and he cares about those issues.’’

D.L. Hughley, a comedian and political commentator, put it more bluntly in a Facebook video in which he blasted Trump for ‘‘having a comedian and a rapper and a football player out to talk about the concerns of the community.’’

‘‘If Donald Trump cared about black people, he wouldn’t have denigrated the president with those claims of birtherism ,’’ he said. Hughley, who in the late 1990s toured with Harvey as part of the popular ‘‘Kings of Comedy,’’ said Trump was more comfortable with black entertainers. ‘‘You’d rather see us run the football than run the country.’’

So far Trump has nominated one African-American for a Cabinet position: retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Harvey told reporters that Trump asked him to work with Carson on inner-city issues.

Some political observers say Carson’s appointment is an indication that Trump is not serious about improving the lives of people in struggling communities.

Michael Eric Dyson, a sociology professor at Georgetown University, said that in touting Carson and Harvey as his urban policy team, Trump is practicing ‘‘affirmative action in the worst sense of that term.’’

‘‘Steve Harvey is a talented comedian but he is not a politician, a policy maker. He nor Carson have any expertise in the issues they will oversee,’’ Dyson said. ‘‘This is really nothing more than an attempted end run around serious engagement and an example of the kind of visionary bankruptcy of President-elect Trump.’’

Obviously, Donald Trump has no interest in learning leadership etiquette. Therefore, he will politically crash and burn. his energy level can't sustain this turmoil, resulting from his unhinged behaviors.