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I have been searching (although it may be a bit early) for some kind of support for the speech, but so far there is nothing. There are plenty of comments saying "he said this or that" - straight news reporting, with no commentary.There's definitely an elephant in the room right now.

REUTERS POLITICS | Fri Jan 20, 2017 |6:47pm EST

'It's made in Vietnam!' At inauguration, origin of red Trump hats shocks many

By Melissa Fares and Dustin Volz

| WASHINGTON One of the biggest cheers President Donald Trump received from supporters watching his inaugural address on Friday was his call to "buy American and hire American." It was a moment rich in irony. Many of those supporters were sporting Trump's trademark red "Make America Great Again" baseball caps that were made in China, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Some were horrified when they discovered their Trump hats were foreign made. Rob Walker, 44, who had driven to Washington from Georgia with his wife Abby, 36, had stopped at a truck stop on the way to buy a "Make America Great Again" cap.

"Oh God, I hope it's not made in China," Abby said, flipping the cap over to check. She looked at its label. "China! Don't tell anyone!"

The Trump hats available for purchase on Trump's official campaign website are made in the United States and cost between $25 and $30, according to the label inside those caps. But they are also more expensive than the $20 versions sold by street vendors in Washington on Friday.

Joshua Rojas, 25 and Alyssa Young, 28, had traveled from Texas to watch the inauguration. Young was wearing a pink "Make America Great Again" hat. "I loved it as soon as I saw it. I bought it right over there from one of the vendors for $20," she said. So was it made in America? "I don't know where it was made actually," Young said. "Let me check." She took off the hat to check the label. "Oh no," she cried. "It's made in Vietnam!"

Austin Araco, 22, from Arkansas, was attending his first inauguration and wearing a Trump hat. "I bought this hat the day he won the election," said Araco. "From his website, of course. I wanted to make sure I supported his fund. I don't want to buy a knock-off. I bought the hat for $30, shipping included."

Victoria Scott, 13 and her brother Andrew Scott, 12, each bought a "Make America Great Again" hat before the inauguration. Victoria's hat cost $25 - and was made in China. She did not seem to mind.

Andrew then checked his hat. "Banglakesh?" he said after checking the tag. His father corrected him. "You mean Bangladesh."

Robert Morrison from Queens, New York, was carrying his "Make America Great Again" hat - bought from a street vendor for $20 - and wearing a New York Yankees cap. Both were made in China.

In his speech, Trump struck a fiery, protectionist tone. "From this moment on, it's going to be America First," he said. "We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American."

(Reporting by Melissa Fares and Dustin Volz, writing by Tim Reid, Editing by Jason Szep and Ross Colvin)

Not sure what the big deal is. McRonald has been making his apparel lines overseas for years.

"Not sure what the big deal is. McRonald has been making his apparel lines overseas for years."

Now, now, Bmichael!  That is an alternate fact!

Whew! Thanks, Carol....I had a momentary reality attack. I...I'm ok now. :)

Breaking News From NPR

Ethics Experts To File Lawsuit Saying Trump's Overseas Interests Violate Constitution

January 23, 20179:19 AM ET

Jim Zarroli

 

A team of ethics experts and legal scholars is filing a lawsuit in federal court this morning that says President Trump's overseas businesses violate the Constitution's emoluments clause, which bars presidents from taking money from foreign governments.

The group filing the suit says it will ask the court "to stop President Trump from violating the Constitution by illegally receiving payments from foreign governments" with ties to Trump interests.

"When Trump the president sits down to negotiate trade deals with these countries, the American people will have no way of knowing whether he will also be thinking about the profits of Trump the businessman," according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is part of the suit.

The legal scholars and former White House ethics officials filing the lawsuit include Richard Painter, ethics adviser to President George W. Bush; Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe; Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine; and Supreme Court litigator Deepak Gupta.

Former Obama administration ethics adviser Norman Eisen told Morning Edition recently that Trump's business ties violate the emoluments clause in numerous ways:

"We need travel no further than a few blocks from the White House, the Trump Hotel. There's been controversy now about whether or not they're pressuring governments to leave other hotels in Washington and come to their hotel.

"Whether those allegations are proven or not, there can be no question that the Trump Hotel in D.C. is aggressively seeking business from foreign governments. Once Mr. Trump takes the oath of office, that will be a violation of the Constitution."

Article continues after sponsorship

The emoluments clause hasn't been tested in court, and it remains to be seen how the lawsuit will be received. Trump's lawyers have already indicated they will oppose the suit.

As The New York Times noted:

"The president's lawyers have argued that the constitutional provision does not apply to fair-market payments, such as a standard hotel room bill, and is intended only to prevent federal officials from accepting a special consideration or gift from a foreign power."

"No one would have thought when the Constitution was written that paying your hotel bill was an emolument," Trump lawyer Sheri A. Dillon told a news conference earlier this month.

"This is purely harassment for political gain, and, frankly, I find it very, very sad," Trump's son Eric told the Times.

 

Let's see how far this gets, He'll dare anyone to do something about it. He'll brazen it out to the end. And who will stop  him?

Yep…but this time he’s not defending himself against small contractors that he didn’t pay, or “University” students he attempted to rip off.

These are heavy hitters – not suing for money…but instead, for integrity.

If he had simply kept his word, this would have never happened. Now, of course, he has another golden opportunity to be a victim…and continue his adolescent whining about how unfair everyone is being to him.

And, according  to John McCain, the more McRonald pisses and moans, the more his approval numbers drop.

It only serves to strengthen the image that he is not qualified…nor is he to be trusted.

 

 

 

Your assignment for today is to read, understand, and discuss intelligently the information and opinions contained in the following article (If you can):

From The National Review…

How to ‘Resist’ Trump
And, just as important, how not to

by Kevin D. Williamson January 25, 2017 1:55 PM

 

We need to talk about the “Resistance.” Many conservatives, and a few of the more intellectually honest progressives, had a good long gander at these very silly people running around in vagina costumes and their even sillier — but less funny — associates engaged in violence and rioting, and thought: “You know, this doesn’t seem to have an awful lot to do with President Donald J. Trump.”

 

 Trump is, in many ways, exactly the sort of politician Democrats keep telling Republicans they need to support: urban rather than rural, socially moderate to liberal (a Clintonian personal life, to the left of Senator Obama on gay marriage, and, whatever he’s been saying for the past five minutes, possessing the most robustly pro-abortion rhetorical record of any Republican president in the past 40 years), and a pragmatist rather than an ideologue.

 

 If the archetypal Republican is a small-town family man whose intellectual poles are the Apostle Paul and Milton Friedman, then Trump is about as far away from that as it is possible to be.

 

What is he?

 

 There are basically two kinds of politician. The first is the Salesman, the transactional politician, a type that is more common historically and remains more common outside of the United States. The Salesman’s appeal is relatively straightforward: “I want to do x, y, and z, and here is what I’m willing to trade to get that done.” Examples of the type include Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson, and George H. W. Bush — as well as crooks like Chakah Fattah and careerists like Hillary Rodham Clinton. Transactional politicians dominate at the lower levels of government, particularly at the municipal level. Indeed, one of the reasons that the Republican party fails to connect with black and Hispanic voters in the cities is that its leading figures hold the transactional politics with which these Americans are most familiar in contempt.

That is not only because Republicans are more ideological than Democrats but also because they have, since the rise of the conservative movement, understood themselves as a party of opposition: The GOP is the organ of the counter-counterculture, smiting the 1960s-style liberationist ethic with its left hand and the Wilson-Roosevelt-Johnson welfare state with its right. Republicans have a great enthusiasm for the second major type of politician — the Avatar — especially when it comes to presidents. Republicans want their leaders, especially the one in the White House, to be expressions of certain ideals, and that is what the Avatar is.

 Ronald Reagan was the expression of one such set of values, and Donald Trump is another — one that is appealing to those on the right in search of uncompromising national confidence and a willingness to violate the norms of polite progressive society.

 Given a choice between a Salesman and an Avatar, the Democrats chose the transactional Hillary Rodham Clinton over the would-be revolutionary Bernie Sanders. Republicans went the opposite direction, spurning the deal-making Jeb Bushes and Marco Rubios of the world for a man who advertises himself as a deal-maker but feels to them like something else.

 If you opposed (and oppose) Donald Trump, then you have a couple of options. One is to make an ass of yourself by dressing as a set of genitals and vandalizing a Starbucks in Oakland. (The Keynesians may thank you, but Bastiat will not.)

But we really shouldn’t pretend that that is politics — it is only adolescent self-gratification, and those engaged in it aren’t the Resistance, but the Nursery.

 The more intelligent option is to treat President Trump like a Salesman even if both sides think he’s an Avatar. Which is to say, you may believe that he is a genuinely low sort of man, but he has been elected president and he will have to be dealt with through political means — through ordinary transactional politics.

 At the moment, that is easier for conservatives: I do not think very much of Donald Trump, but I do think a great deal of Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, and regulatory reform. If the Right gets a couple of good Supreme Court justices, corporate-tax reform, and some meaningful regulatory relief, we can call that a win.

But there probably will be wins for the Left, too: President Trump is deeply opposed to conservative plans for entitlement reform and the liberalization of trade, and he has at times pronounced himself open to redistributionist taxes.

 And if we’re all going to be honest with ourselves, Chuck Schumer and Kamala Harris might want to pay a visit to a union hall in Iowa and ask the fellows there what they think about Trump’s program on immigration.

 I did. It was enlightening. Blind and unthinking opposition to a president is only the flipside of blind and unthinking obedience. I myself am not much one for blind and unthinking anything. This isn’t Nazi Germany, none of you ladies and gentlemen in the pink hats is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the history books will not tell of acts of courage at the Battle of Soy Latte.

 You want a different political outcome? Go make it happen. This is politics, and politics can be ugly and stupid — but it beats the alternative.

 


 

 

I don't know about this advice to lefties, my friend. It certainly doesn't look like he's  entitled to entitlement reform at all, or "redistributist taxes." Are you kidding? Looks like he means to please those who  got him here and those surrounding him with love now - Bannon and KC and the lot. You see their fingerprints on everything.  He doesn't want to lose their love; he is deeply insecure, and I think, doubtful of his own greatness, except as it is reflected back to him by his most fanatic of fans. He feels that needs not the left, no room for compromise is my view,  I think he mistakes the limits of his power.

It is helpful to listen to some of the people who voted for him, though. They aren't all deplorable, and they have their reasons .I have heard some of them. They want their glorious past back, back before things got so complicated and  unpredictable,,,and so alien and strange. Shoot! A black man in the white house, and what  next, a woman?  Mercy me. One person I heard say, "But he will keep us safe." (This was a perfectly non-crazed, middle-class Boston lady.)

Do you ever red Redstate.org ? They are sane, intelligent writers on there. You won't agree with all of their opinions, but their facts are accurate. I particularly like Susan Wright. She is astute, fair and funny.

You’re correct, I think, about those who voted for him.

 Not all were simply haters – many yearn for the good old days when America had all the money, all the weapons, the food, science, technology….

The fact is, the rest of the world simply caught up with us…the playing field is much more level.

And many of those folks were anti-Hillary…or anti – female, or Democrat, or just exhibited a weariness and frustration with our political system and latched onto an “any port in a storm” mentality.

I have a close friend in Mexico – a professional, a surgeon to be exact, and we are watching this thing together – she tries to explain the Mexican understanding of the current situation, and I TRY to explain Donald McRonald and our political system.

And what I’m hearing is a bit unsettling, but not surprising. Mexico is rejecting McRonald and the United States. The people are imploring their government to distance itself from us – in other words find new friends and trading partners. There may even be a national, mass demonstration (not organized by the government) against McRonald in the coming days.

There is also a joke circulating around the country…” Go ahead…build the wall – we know how to tunnel!”

I think the world watched closely from the beginning when Nieto announced that Mexico would not pay for the wall – a position that was reiterated after the election.

And the terrifying McRonald response was oh, then we’ll just have to find another way to finance it. (Hey! I’ve got an idea…let’s make the American people pay for it. Then, years from now, Mexico will pay us back!)

And this skillful strategy was followed by the ominous Tweet from McRonald to Nieto:

“Oh yeah? Well if you’re not going to pay for the wall, then don’t come to the meeting!”

So he didn’t.

Probably for two reasons – he won’t let Mexico be bullied, and he will not deal with adolescent behavior.

My friend said at the same time, the Mexican Congress was preparing legislation to prevent Nieto from coming here. How’s that for standing up?

And it seems like every time McRonald opens his mouth, the gap widens.

Meanwhile, the cartels are investing in tunnel digging equipment. Now that, Mr. McRonald is Saaaaaaadddd.

Beginning to wonder how long his handlers will allow him to continue before stepping in?

 

Do they dare? Off with their heads  , I'll bet. He doesn't process the truth too well, but believes in his own reality

Bmichael, I got this from twitter, and you live in Kentucky.

The senate is three votes short of blocking Betsy DeVos. If you live in ME, TN, AK, GA, UT, NC, WY, LA, KS, SC, or KY, call your senators.

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