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Donald Trump Is Sworn In As the 45th US President (reuters.com)
Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Friday, succeeding Barack Obama and taking control of a divided country in a transition of power that he has declared will lead to "America First" policies at home and abroad. Reuters reports: As scattered protests erupted elsewhere in Washington, Trump raised his right hand and put his left on a Bible used by Abraham Lincoln and repeated a 35-word oath of office from the U.S. Constitution, with U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts presiding.
That didn't take long. Keep thinking everyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi.
News for Nazis
This. Garbage like this is exactly why Trump won the election. I hope you're pleased with yourself.
Even if one opposes him, one should be hoping for success.
Absolutely. Personally, he frightens me - I feel like he's too impulsive to wield that much power. But if he does poorly, we all lose. I wish him nothing but success (assuming that his definition of success is close enough to my own.)
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
You think there's going to be ~less~ fraud and abuse under a Trump presidency?
He's got a Dept. of Education cabinet pick who blames a clerical error on her being VP of her mother's charity for 17 years, an HHS pick who passed laws to specifically help his stock picks (and I don't mean made it easier to trade stocks - he bought stocks and then helped pass laws that made those company's stock prices go up), and a pick for Sec State who wants to reduce sanctions on Russia so his former company, Exxon (they're tiny, you might not have heard of them), can get billions of dollars worth of investment off the ground there, also helping his stock prices.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
People who want to assassinate trump are absolutely out of their minds on many different levels. If he dies, we get Pence. Anyone who ever objected to Trump about anything at all should be very, very afraid of Pence.
Let the clown reign, he was lawfully elected, whether we like it or not. At least with him he might throw a temper tantrum in your favor.
Im Irish and from what I've seen, there has been an enormous smear campaign against him especially from CNN and all the way back to Jeb Bush who tried to destroy him and fell flat on his face. There's nothing wrong with putting your country first and America's prosperity is good for Europe. My only concern is that he has establishment enemies, liberal extremelist enemies, and radical islamic fundamentalist enemies. The secret service need to be up to the task. I believe he is a good man for the most part.
The U.S. is almost equally divided after every Presidential election. Why is it that this phrase is only trotted out when a Republican is sworn in?
Every VP back to Quayle has been an assassination preventor.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I think my major concern with the next few years is that he's a bit of a loose cannon. You don't want a loose cannon who's obviously quite sensitive when pushed on things negotiating with other countries or making impulsive decisions that are hard to undo. I doubt he'd start a war (intentionally) but I really think he has to lay off the late-night Twitter. Telegraphing exactly what bothers you to your adversaries isn't a smart move. Sure, you can argue it's all a show, but some of the anger he's displayed with the press, his critics, etc. show that it's very hard to hide his feelings and just keep quiet.
Here's what I'm mainly worried about -- now that Trump's President, the gloves come off of every single loud-mouthed, opinionated angry citizen who loves to moan and complain. By providing an example of "acceptable" behavior via his constant personal attacks on people, I think he's going to signal to everyone that they no longer need to be civil to one another. I know a lot of people who just aren't happy unless they're railing loudly against anyone and anything. Having that be the starting point for any discussion or debate for the next 4 or 8 years is going to lead to further retrenchment of people into their respective camps. I for one can't stand engaging with people who come out swinging, looking for a fight on every little thing...it's just not a personality type I'm interested in dealing with. The world's complex enough already and life's short, so why waste processor cycles arguing pointlessly?
One thing I did like about the Obama years was that he was a very approachable President. Even when the political rancor was at its worst, with a few exceptions he took the high road in these arguments. I doubt we're going to see that very much anymore -- it's going to be years of angry press conferences and sound bites.
The few Finns I've talked to seem rattled by Russia's annexation of Ukraine. Like Crimea, Finland was once a territory of Russia. So I expected that Finns would not be happy about having a US president that doesn't support NATO and has almost forgiven Russia for their acts in the Ukraine. Finland has been moving to join NATO for over 10 years.
The republican won't meddle in middle eastern affairs? The guy who thinks the Iran deal was "bad" isn't more likely to lead to nuclear or regional wars? What planet are you living on? Nuclear war (or traditional war in general) with Russia is extremely unlikely no matter who takes office. More importantly though, we're already at cyber war.
So you think Israel should just unilaterally abandon the Two STate Solution and start colonizing Palestinian territory? I'm generally a supporter of Israel, but those illegal settlements are deliberately provocative.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
But he won the game. And that was the point. And had it been about the popular vote. Trump would of campaigned differently, focused only on the large cities. And since he would of got almost all of the rural votes by default, he'd only have to swing a few points in a couple of cities. And he could of easily won the popular vote.
But what point is there in winning a few million more votes in California to be popular if it doesn't help you get elected?
Why would we want to do that? We want all power up at the top, not at the bottom, and invested in one man. We almost got there with Obama, and all the sycophantic supporters who saw no wrong in anything he did, until Trump got elected, promising to do ... the exact same things Obama did.
People like their tyrants, and hate the other guy's tyrants. I hate tyrants, and don't want all powerful government power pushed to one guy. But that seems to be what the Republicrats and Demicans keep pushing for.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
No, he won because the Democratic Party is too busy tripping over their hypocritical statements and actions. You know, the party of inclusion that can't wait to have 60+ sitting congresspersons "boycott" the inauguration of the president that they now have to work with. Their candidate for president was even there, and tweeting about working together. Yet these petty and petulant asshats can't see that the inauguration is a celebration of the institution, and not of the man being sworn in.
The divisiveness only continues to get worse as long as these douchebags can't see that they are the ones perpetuating the problem.
I'm sure that the Democrats will show all the support and understanding to Trump that the Republicans showed to Obama.
The fact that there's a whole shitload of stupid people out there doesn't change the fact that those people are wrong.
I am not mad at people like you because Clinton lost. I am unconcerned that we have different politics. And I don’t think less of people like you because you vote one way and I vote another. I think less of people like you because you watched an adult mock a disabled person in front of a crowd and still supported him. I think less of you because you saw a man spouting clear racism and backed him. I think less of you because you listened to him advocate for war crimes, and still thought he should run this country. I think less of people like you because you watched him equate a woman’s worth to her appearance and got on board. It isn’t your politics that I find repulsive. It is your personal willingness to support racism, sexism, and cruelty. You sided with a bully when it mattered and that is something I will never forget. So, no people like you and I won’t be “coming together” to move forward or whatever. Trump disgusts me, but it is the fact that he doesn’t disgust people like you that will stick with me long after this election.
We did this to ourselves. No matter what it feels like, the fact is our system of government has functioned (and continues to function) exactly as designed. If Mr. President Trump is not likely to make America whole again, the task falls to us, the citizenry of this (long great and still great) nation. We must oppose insanity with calm and deliberate purpose, not with incohate and aimless rage.
You mean like the Tea Party tantrums of 2009? I didn't forget about those. Did you?
Place something witty here
For those that don't know what that is, here is the entirety of the text of that clause
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.
Trump is NOT in violation of this clause. And it is a hillarious claim coming from anyone that voted for Hillary, who would have been actually in violation of this clause, with the Clinton Foundation.
Typically, all "Gifts" from foreign heads of state are property of the US Government and are placed in the public trust.
What this poster is trying to say, is that Trump cannot rent his hotel rooms out to people because that is a "gift".
Here is the definition:
a salary, fee, or profit from employment or office.
I wonder where all these people were when Hillary was SoS and Bill was being paid by all those rich Arab Princes and Kings for giving speeches. Why suddenly they are "horrified" that Trump owns a business that might rent a hotel room to a prince, but said nothing for 4 years while the Clinton's enriched themselves.
Hypocrites.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
There are certainly reasons to dislike, and not favor, Hillary Clinton - but I find that far more often the caricature that people think of her as is nothing remotely like the reality, in part because she's had 24 years of being turned into a target, primarily by the right, but also by the far left.
Take the perception that she's a warmonger, for instance. I mean, sure, she's not a pacifist or a dove by any stretch of the imagination, but there's a large amount of difference between someone that's willing to entertain military solutions to international crises, and someone who actively goes looking to pick a fight. People blame her for supporting the Iraq War, which is fair - but she wasn't one of the ones pushing it, nor can anyone believably argue that she'd have chosen to invade Iraq had she been President instead of Bush-43.
More importantly though, she is first and foremost a -rational- actor in terms of international policy. She is calm, calculated, and deliberate. She's not likely to fly off the handle, overreact, or wind up in over her head in a dispute with her prestige on the line. Consider 2008 - do you think Trump would have conceded gracefully the way she did to Obama, never-mind agreeing to work for him in a role that wasn't even the number 2 spot? I think it far more likely he would have flown off the handle, and threatened to retaliate however he could.
I realize that some people seem to think that Trump will be different now than he has been in the past, but I have yet to see anything in his track record to give me any indication he can be someone other than who he continues to show us that he is - thin-skinned, proud, incapable of taking a slight or backing down from a confrontation. Explain to me again why this is more reassuring than someone who is an old hand at foreign policy and a known commodity?
More people in 49 states. If you take California out of the Popular Vote tally, Trump wins handily in 49 states. So much so, that the ONLY reason she won popular vote was because of the landslide that was California. And given that California Democrats just put Bernie supporters in power, we'll see how that plays out on the national level.
I am pretty sure that most Americans, including national Democrats don't want California Commies running things.
We can also take out Texas and she'd have won the electoral vote. What exactly is your point??? California's the most populous state in the country, they should get a correspondingly larger amount of say in what people are doing. I mean, should we exclude Montana because there are more moose than people?
Also, I think you should take a look at California's politics. There was a Republican senator in power until 2011, a Mr. Schwarzenegger, and California had a weak economy with a broke government that mostly floated on large companies, and he made it like that. Democrats won, now the state has a powerful and emerging economy, is restoring and modernizing its infrastructure, and is at the for front of civil rights. If you compare the record of Indiana and Louisiana vs California or Oregon Ohio and Oklahoma vs Massachusetts or Washington, I think I'm ready to cave in to the "commies". Education, public resources, things to actually spend your money on, and a much higher standard of living... Those are all pretty attractive I think, even though Nigeria's low cost of living and taxes are nice in the short term, I'm pretty sure you'll want Norway's standard of living after the romance.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
It is because Left Wingers keep parroting "Clinton won the Popular Vote" as if that mattered. When liberals offer that up, it opens up every other comparison out there. Hillary lost the election, popular vote doesn't count. If you wanted it to count, the vote totals would change, substantially. A lot of Republicans in California don't vote because what is the point?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
> He probably should have ignored Meryl Streep, for example.
I imagine he fought Meryl Streep because she was given so much prime time. There were many others who said a lot worse about Trump but who were not prominent. In a way he was battling the media, not the actress.
Fighting the media has been working for Trump so far, unbelievable as it may have seemed to us.
No, I think Palestine should have taken the Two State solution offered by Israel a few years ago, but refused and went on a rampage over it.
The problem is, you think that Palestine wants a two state solution, and they don't. It has been offered, repeatedly, and they keep refusing.
And I wonder why you don't mention the Palestinians "Illegally" launching rockets into Israel. Or the time that Israel pulled its settlements out of Gaza, only to have them turned into rocket launching sites. I'm talking functioning industry and farms being walked away from and turning back into desert because ... Palestinians don't want anything the Jews had built.
Palestinians are functionally incapably of peace at this time.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I seem to remember shortly after Obama was inaugurated that Republican members of congress made it their goal to make him a failed president, opposed him in every action, voted against anything he supported and basically did everything in their power to oppose anything and everything he tried to do. It's interesting that those same republicans and their supporters now get their panties in a wad when the shoe is on the other foot.
It's all fine and dandy to want cooperation and working together but that requires that both sides do it. The republican's made it clear that this divided government thing is the way things will run in the future. It's up to them to fix that by going across the aisle and working with democrats not steam rolling them.
Wow -- you actually weren't even aware of that comment? And yet you came to this detailed defense of him here?
See -- here's the problem: it's not any one thing. It's a "preponderance of the evidence" thing. And I am far from a "leftist" -- I hate both major parties with a passion and found both major candidates this election to be some of the worst choices EVER.
But Trump is simply in a "different league" of problems. That's why people assume he made fun of a disabled guy. I've seen the Catholics for Trump propaganda before. Maybe it's true. But there are other details about the specific references Trump made that also make me doubt his claim. Personally, I'd give Trump's story that he wasn't actually intentionally making fun of a disability about 5% chance of being true.
And that's mostly because of Trump's other record. He doesn't get to have "the benefit of the doubt" in a case like this when he's been a bullying boorish jerk the rest of the time. And yes, he DOES behave like a jerk. He DOES behave like a bully to many people IN PUBLIC. (I hear he's nice to people in person. That's great. But it's not the persona on the campaign trail.) I personally don't care much about the disability issue -- the very fact that Trump tends to make fun of people rather than debate their issues is a MUCH bigger problem to me than whether or not he insulted a disabled person. (The latter obviously is still a significant issue if true, but again, it's the larger pattern that's concerning, rather than that one detail.)
It seems like you, like many people who ultimately voted for Trump, just decided that you're going to believe the talking points of his supporters that the rest of the media was lying. I fully believe a lot of the mainstream media also exaggerated a bunch of things too (though, to be fair, Trump frequently egged them into doing so by behaving increasingly outlandish to get attention).
I really am trying to give our new President a chance today. Really. I'll wait and see what he does over the next weeks and months. But it distresses me when someone who comes out so strongly as a Trump defender is then not even familiar with the fact that Trump has advocated war crimes!! To me, it shows how warped the message has gotten to many voters. (And yes, it occurs on both sides, but the disconnect from reality has started to increase significantly much more on one of them.)