Learning on the job? & 100 days of congress

[jimnyc]

Some things have changed, as far as what Trump said on the trail, and what he's doing as president. I don't mean flip flopping necessarily.

But things he didn't fully know about, and yup, not fully understand as a citizen, not have access to intel.... and he's a president learning things on the job as he goes. Is that a good or a bad thing? I suppose that depends on his decision making process as he gets the access, and what team he has behind him assisting.

just some thoughts to get started...

...

And another thought, as I saw the headline somewhere a few minutes ago...

If the media wants to go crazy judging Trump on his first 100 days - why not also judge Congress on their first 100 days? That would be interesting!

[Black Diamond]

Why was he supposed to have accomplished everything he promised in 100 days?

Should trump care more about keeping his campaign promises than about American security? FDR's major promise for the 1940 compaign was keeping us out of the war. After Pearl Harbor should he have said "Well I promised to keep us out of the war so I can't do anything" ?

[jimnyc]

Why was he supposed to have accomplished everything he promised in 100 days?

Because he's Trump, because he beat Hillary... But that is funny. Some in the Dem camp have already labeled him a failure. Dang! :laugh: I think he's accomplished an awful lot. I'd be curious to see how it would look if congress and a few activist judges weren't in the way. But every Prez sees that, to an extent I suppose.


Should trump care more about keeping his campaign promises than about American security? FDR's major promise for the 1940 compaign was keeping us out of the war. After Pearl Harbor should he have said "Well I promised to keep us out of the war so I can't do anything" ?

I sure as fu&^ hope nothing happens - but IF it did, you just know the entire left would come down on him for not doing enough, and for allowing just anyone to come across our borders or come in as a refugee. :rolleyes:

[Elessar]

Some things have changed, as far as what Trump said on the trail, and what he's doing as president. I don't mean flip flopping necessarily.



That, to me, is an overused and stupid phrase.

What intelligent, mature adult does not change their mind when given new data
and facts on a subject if the condition warrants?

I'll tell you who will not. Those unwilling to learn, improve, and listen - much like the
majority of liberals constantly whining and protesting anything non-liberal led.

[pete311]

Slow start
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/business/economy/economy-gross-domestic-product-first-quarter.html

[Gunny]

Slow start
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/business/economy/economy-gross-domestic-product-first-quarter.htmlCompared to Obama trying to destroy the Constitution in 90 days? Yeah, probably slow for you.

[Kathianne]

It looks like this column by Peggy Noonan is getting a lot of attention, you'll notice FOX has posted most of it, so avoid WSJ paywall.

I personally think he's had some good moves, but there are real problems with his understanding of how to get things done, like he needs some legislation or he's going to find that all that 'he's done' is undone with the next changing of hands holding the pen.

He's also been very lucky, as the article says, regarding the Democrats nearly acting as ineffectually as Republicans:

http://nation.foxnews.com/2017/04/28/trump-has-been-lucky-his-enemies-cursing-pols-screeching-students-and-intolerance-have


Trump Has Been Lucky in His Enemies: Cursing Pols, Screeching Students and Intolerance Have Become the Face of the Left

Published April 28, 2017

By Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal

Donald Trump’s tax-reform plan strikes me as daring. Whether it’s the daring of bright children or the daring of shrewd professionals who’ve gamed it out with the Hill remains to be seen. The simplification part is good and will be received as a balm by the taxpayers. Ronald Reagan once said even Einstein was driven to distraction by his tax forms, which explained his hair. The proposed cuts themselves are certainly big and blunt; economic and social thinkers will weigh in soon on whether they’re wise or just.

Refusing to eliminate the deductions for mortgage interest and charity was a dodging of bullets. I’m not convinced the former is fair: It’s hard to see the higher justice in treating homeowners better than renters. Maybe a real-estate lobbyist will explain. The latter was I suspect the work of the New Yorkers in the White House. Opera, ballet and theater all come out of New York, home too of the greatest museums and libraries. If the charitable deduction goes away, their contributions go down. If the greatest opera goes down in New York, that art form no longer exists in America. And a great nation must have opera. Apart from that, wealthy New Yorkers, such as people at Goldman Sachs , enjoy being on the great arts boards, and cutting the deduction is no way to accomplish that. God bless social ambition as a force for good.

The whole thing looks like something that had to be hurriedly slapped together to put a cap on the president’s first hundred days. I wrote a highly sophisticated acquaintance who’s also a big Trump supporter to ask if she liked the plan. The response: “I am getting tired of biggest wall, biggest bomb, biggest tax cut. How about something that can actually happen.”

Now to a hundred-day summation—three thoughts after observing the past three months.

​If this thing works—if the Trump administration is judged by history as having enjoyed some degree of success—it will definitively open up the U.S. political system in a wholly new way. Before Mr. Trump it was generally agreed you had to be a professional politician or a general to win the presidency. Mr. Trump changed that. If he succeeds in office it will stay changed. Candidates for president will be able to be . . . anything. You can be a great historian or a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. You can be a Silicon Valley billionaire. You can be Oprah, The Rock, or Kellyanne. The system will attract a lot of fresh, needed, surprising talent, and also a lot of nuts and poseurs.But again, only if Mr. Trump succeeds. If he doesn’t, if he’s a spectacular failure, America will probably never go outside the system like this again, or not in our lifetimes.

If the Trump administration ends in failure or disaster, we will realize in retrospect that 2016 handed us a perfect historical irony. Donald Trump was the only Republican who could have won the GOP nomination. He was the shock the base wanted, the strange, magical Wonder Pony who could break through a broken system. He was also the only Republican who could have won the general election.

But he could also prove to be the only Republican who could not succeed in office. The others—John Kasich, Jeb Bush—actually knew how to govern, knew all the systems and traditions, knew what was required by high office and what was not allowed.

So the only one who could win was the only one who couldn’t do the job. If that happens, it will be some kind of irony, if irony’s the word.
I end with a lyric from the old show “Pippin”: “A simple rule that every good man knows by heart / It’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.”

Mr. Trump has struggled so colorfully the past three months, we’ve barely noticed his great good luck—that in that time the Democratic Party and the progressive left have been having a very public nervous breakdown. The new head of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, performs unhinged diatribes. He told an audience in Las Vegas that “Trump doesn’t give a sh— about health care.” In a Maine speech, “They call it a skinny budget. I call it a sh—y budget.” In Newark, he said Republicans “don’t give a sh— about people.”

This is said to be an attempt to get down with millennials. I know a lot of millennials and they’re not idiots, so that won’t work.

The perennially sunny Rep. Maxine Waters of California called Mr. Trump’s cabinet “a bunch of scumbags.” New York’s junior Democratic senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, has taken to using the F-word in interviews.

I thought Mr. Trump was supposed to be the loudmouth vulgarian who swears in public. They are aping what they profess to hate. They excoriated him for lowering the bar. Now look at them.