Monday, January 30, 2017

Trump’s ”Extreme Vetting” is an Extreme Disaster

President Donald Trump created another mess in his first week in the White House. His campaign promise of “extreme vetting” of immigrants took an ugly turn when he issued an executive order banning the entry into the United States for citizens of seven Muslim nations (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen) without having any process or procedure in place.

Chaos ensued during the execution of the haphazard executive order. There was no advance notice or planning for the airports to enforce the order. Green card holders were blocked entry, some people with valid U.S. passports were threatened with deportations until judges intervened. Large numbers of protesters descended on major airports, as did lawyers there to protect the rights of those detained and to help them through the process.

It was a disaster.

The Trump administration has failed miserably in its first week. It seems that this group of people who have zero experience in running the government are just making things up as they go along. It’s unprofessional and it is frightening. In their desire to keep a campaign promise of “extreme vetting”, they completely forgot to actually come up with a process to vet people coming in to the country. There was no preparation before executing. Trump always touts his business prowess, but no smart business person would ever change their operating process or profile without having a plan in place.

It’s clear to me that Trump is just winging it. Same for his administration. I’m becoming worried that our government is in the hands of a madman, along with a staff ready and willing to enable him.



Check out my blog home page for the latest information, The Frequent Critic, here.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Donald Trump – The Twilight Zone President


After Donald J. Trump was elected president in November, the last few months felt like a never-ending episode of “The Twilight Zone”. I sometimes expected Rod Serling to appear as a ghostly apparition and give an opening monologue to every news cast. Not a day goes by without the press highlighting some of the lies and falsehoods that are coming from Trump and his administration. Not 24 hours passed after the inauguration, President Trump and his Press Secretary Sean Spicer made incorrect statements about the size of the crowd attending the inauguration. Spicer flat out lied, stating incorrectly that “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period”,  after which he didn’t take questions from the press. The full transcript is here:”Washington Post: Sean Spicer held a press conference. He didn’t take questions. Or tell the whole truth. “ .

The next day, on NBC's "Meet The Press", one of Trumps advisors, Kellyanne Conway, attempted to categorize the falsehoods as “alternative facts” (see the clip below). She also said she may have to “rethink our relationship”, a clear threat, in my opinion, to cutting off members of the press when the Trump administration doesn't like when the press calls them out for their lies.

The entire campaign has been full of lies, misstatements, falsehoods, and any other synonym one can think of for not being truthful.

Donald Trump and his support staff seem ill-prepared for the job. Their attitude continues to be hostile. I am embarrassed that these people represent the United Stated of America.

I’ve been silent for all these months;  if I wrote down everything that appalled me about this president’s and his staff’s behavior, I would be writing 24/7. I had to step back in the hopes that once inauguration day came, that I would see Trump and his administration grow up. Clearly, this won’t he happening any time soon.

It’s going to be a long, long 4 years… in The Twilight Zone.







Check out my blog home page for the latest information, The Frequent Critic, here.