Wednesday, November 30, 2016

flim flam flummox?



Are we Razzle dazzled, yet?


As President-Elect Trump goes about filling Cabinet posts for his future administration, many Internet Commenters seem -- not dazzled, shall we say.


A New York Times reader wrote,
"I am not surprised.  When you elect a showman and not a leader, you can expect only such things."
~~ T. Anand Raj, Tamil Nadu




Checking a news site which actually has been run by one of Donald Trump's appointees, Mr. Steve Bannon, we noted one Commenter saying, "Trump made promises to get elected, and now it's the old switcher."




The next Comment on the site made dire predictions for the fate of the entire Republican Party "if they do not repeal Obamacare" -- I was trying to test out another site besides the N.Y. Times, for variety, but decided,


Well -- am not reprinting any threatening language, and besides the sentiment on the appointees didn't seem to be any different.  ("Left" and "Right" meet, in dissatisfaction...? - Trump's invitation to Steven Mnuchin,





to join his prospective team appears particularly unpopular.  [Then again, are these folks happy with anyone?])


____________________


NYTimes comments from readers:


AAF, New York
What did Trump say about draining the swamp?  Pretty soon the swamp will be overflowing like never before.




Christine C. Curtis, San Francisco
So much for draining the swamp.  New crocodile in town now.




MP, San Diego, California
Face it, when America puts on the pedestal the likes of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, it's been long past its glory days.  In fact, it's a third-rate kind of society. 


If you are not surprised by the preponderance of oligarchy and nepotism and favoritism in corrupted governments like Mexico's or Venezuela's or Vietnam's, don't be surprised by what you are seeing in the USA.


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Mona Kanin, Brooklyn
What the Times left out is that Mnuchin was part of the mechanism to defraud Americans during the housing crisis, created a bank, OneWest, to offer subprime loans and then made over a billion dollars in profit when he sold the bank. 


The mortgage holders, of course, were left with nothing.  Again, all of our fears about Trump come to life through his appointments.









Aundaray, NY
I have a feeling that if Peter Sellers was alive





he would have his next great script.  You simply can't make this up.




Juan Perez, Washington DC
It isn't enough to be bright.  You have to be ethical, too, to be a public servant.  This isn't a point-of-view thing.  It is putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.







Dennis, Chicago
Same swamp, different denizens




Quandry -- Long Island, NY
Judging from some of Trump's candidates for appointment to his cabinet, he is drowning in his own swamp, and not draining it.


Ron T -- Minneapolis
Trump is hiring the same people Hillary would have hired.  It is as if she had won, liberals take heart.


Jim B - California
One the other hand, Mnuchin's career path *is* downright Trumpian.  Both were born on third base, and swear they hit a triple.




Zane, NY
Perhaps Mr. Trump is pleading for us to recognize his ineptness so that he doesn't actually have to be president.  What can we do to move him along and back to his own pasture?




Ohio
Egad.  The same Richie-Riches that have been shafting regular people in every republican administration.  Plus Ça change...


Robert Foster - Columbus, Ohio
Guy looks like a number dummy, bookkeeper, accountant; however, he is a banker from dreaded Goldman:  hold onto your hats for another 2008 economic debacle.
Attorney, CPA




Gilby R. - US
Wow...what a bunch of sour grapes in here!  Get over it.  Hillary lost!  Ha ha ha!  Every one of Trumps picks is better than the incumbent!







Stephen - Austin, Texas
Insiders and Wall Street!  I guess draining the swamp was the latest thing he has walked back on.  America got played!


William Park - L.A.
This is all to be expected.  A con man's ultimate con.


ac    New Jersey
Could appointments for the Penguin, the Joker and the Riddler be far behind?




ASB - California
Warren Buffet.
---------------------- [Note from this Blog -- I had thought of Mr. Buffet, too...]




CastleMan - Colorado
I never cease to be amazed at the gullibility and outright stupidity of the American people.  This crew is really no different from the gang who wrecked the economy between 2001 - 2009. 


They will do all the same things:  give the rich massive tax cuts, give Wall Street and the banks a free hand to screw us all and build massive bubbles, encourage companies to move jobs overseas and lower wages and eliminate basic benefits like health care, and push college education further out of reach....


Our country is about to enter the darkest time in its recent history.  I am not optimistic that it will survive it.


------------------


Jack - Florida
After the next financial meltdown, Donald Trump style, We, the People, need to charge all the wealthy people the cost of the meltdown.  Don't put them in jail just take their money away and leave them on welfare.  Give the wealthy a taste of what it is to be poor!




Mike M.   Lewiston, Maine
Whoever said that democracy is the best form of government haven't met the "wise" voters of our nation and Donald Trump's cabinet of "deplorables."






Canada
Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy.  A word worth repeating more than once!




Tony De Angelo -- Pomfret, Connecticut
Drain the swamp!  (Of course, we do that by getting a Goldman guy to do Treasury).  What part of this do people not understand???




Rik Myslewski - San Francisco
Expect the master media-manipulator Trump to keep the Romney-Giuliani-Petreus-Goebbles-Whomever pot a-boilin' for a week or two more, thus successfully distracting the credulous media and übercredulous citizenry from his good-ol'-boy packing of his cabinet with fellow 1-percenter billionaires.




Idaho
He's here for at least 4 years.  That assumes there is a 2020 election.  Certain opposition people and journalists may start to disappear.  As soon as he gets the SCOTUS loaded up, and then the press muzzled
the really
bad stuff starts.




mgaudet, Louisiana
We had government of the people, by the people, for the people.  Now we have government of the rich,, by the rich, and for the rich.  We never learn.




Rick, New York city
You may consider it silly to criticize this choice, but do remember that Hillary Clinton was considered by so many to be too closely linked with Wall Street - via her occasional speeches at Goldman Sachs -- to even be considered as a human being, let alone President.




Peter Czipott, Dan Diego
Mnuchin's Wall Street origins don't concern me as much as his vulturine purchase of a failing bank for pennies, turfing out 35,000 homeowners, and then selling the bank at a huge profit -- 35,000 newly minted homeless be damned. 


What concerns me even more is the likelihood that, while an expert at finance, he is ignorant of macroeconomics, expertise that ought to be an absolute requisite in a treasury secretary.




elysianhome - Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, South Dakota
Would somebody please tweet Trump and tell him that dumping yet ANOTHER truck load of alligators into the swamp is NOT "draining the swamp"!


tsurrrfur - Oakton, Virginia
We now have a corrupt country where the well connected and established insiders do what they wish, and are never held accountable, even by the opposition Party.  They have an insiders agreement and club, where we pay the bills for their malfeasance with our ever declining economic status.







CL, NYC
If you recall, Geithner [Obama's Treasury guy] eventually took the job because no one else wanted it.


I suspect Trump is choosing a lot of outsiders because many qualified people do not want to be tainted by being associated with him, especially when his administration blows up.


I expect this administration to implode very quickly.




jpope - Santa Cruz, California
Mr. Trump is not "draining the swamp" he is filling the swamp up with elitist millionaires and billionaires that have one agenda:  become wealthier on the backs of the disenfranchised that voted Mr Trump in. 


 Hopefully those voters will realize it and vote out the republicans in the senate during the next midterm elections.


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{artworks, by Bob Dylan}


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