Category Archives: President
1980s Are Calling
1980s are calling
In a 2012 presidential debate Romney claimed Russia was the biggest threat to the United States. Obama mocked him saying, “The 1980s are calling and they want their foreign policy back.”
Trump Tweets
Republicans in Congress were frustrating President Obama’s agenda . So, in 2014, he decided to go it alone. He said, “I have a phone and a pen.”
Outlining the strategy, Obama said he plans to use his pen to sign executive actions and his phone to convene outside groups in support of his agenda if Congress proves unable or unwilling to act on his priorities.
Trump Tweets
Speaking of phones, President-elect Trump has been taking phone calls without China’s approval. And if you don’t like it you’ll get Trump tweets about it.
Trump’s Animal Spirits
James Fallows, in the October Atlantic, says Jane Goodall told him that Donald Trump reminds her of a chimp:
In many ways the performances of Donald Trump remind me of male chimpanzees and their dominance rituals,” Jane Goodall, the anthropologist, told me shortly before Trump won the GOP nomination. “In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays: stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks. The more vigorous and imaginative the display, the faster the individual is likely to rise in the hierarchy, and the longer he is likely to maintain that position.”
Animal Spirits
The elite made a monkey of Trump before the election. But since then he’s released the stock market’s animal spirits. Oil and the dollar dig The Donald too.
Many 401-k investors are bullish because stocks have hit record highs. But Clinton Foundation investors – not so much.
Well, at least one Clinton supporter has done ok. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is up 8% since the election.
Bitter Clingers, Deplorables, and Fox News
On the campaign trail President Obama attempted to transfer his base of support to Hillary Clinton. He pleaded,”I’m not on the ballot but my policies are.” And he warned that he’d take it as a “personal insult” if African Americans failed to turn out for her. Well, Obama Nation didn’t show and Hillary lost. Trump was elected president with majorities in the House and Senate.
Another shellacking.
In a Rolling Stone interview the president analyzed the shellacking. And he concluded his lost legacy was due to a failure to communicate with middle America. That would be the Coal miners he and Hillary promised to put out of work. The Bitter Clingers. The Deplorables.
Fox News
That and Fox News. “Part of it Obama said, “is Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country.” Personally, I hardly noticed Fox in bars and restaurants in my midwest chunk of the country. But maybe that’s just me.
Progressives are also blaming Fake news for Hillary’s upset.
A month ago a federal court ruled that Rolling Stone defamed a University of Virginia administrator with malice. The administrator was awarded $3 million.
The magazine had published a fake news story about rape.
Stand Up Guy
In 2009 President Obama tried a “reset” with Russia.
During a 2012 campaign debate, Mitt Romney called Russia the “biggest threat” to The United States. To which Obama cracked wise, “the 1980s are calling, they want their foreign policy back“. He tutored Romney that the cold war was over.
Stand Up
Also in 2012, Obama whispered to Russian President Medvedev that he could be more flexible after the election. Medvedev promised to transmit the message to Vladimir.
Now, after the 2016 election, he’s lecturing the world that Trump needs to “stand up to Putin.”
“I don’t expect that the President-elect will follow exactly our approach,” Mr Obama said.
“But my hope is he does not simply take a realpolitik approach and suggest that … if we just cut some deals with Russia, even if it hurts people or even if it violates international norms or even if it leaves smaller countries vulnerable, or creates long-term problems in regions like Syria, that we just do whatever’s convenient at the time.”
