100 days of Trump.

(1)>>The 100 days of a President are considered pivotal . But are in reality meaningless.American Presidents make or break their promises . As always they collide with a dysfunctional Congress , end up being eating up by  the media moguls . Weighing in is difficult , but hard to give him a fair shake . In Case in point : Donald J Trump.  (1.2)>>Donald Trump, in the final stretch of last year's campaign, spelled out what he hoped to accomplish in his first 100 days in office. "I am asking the American people to rise above the noise and the clutter of our broken politics, and to embrace that great faith and optimism that has always been the central ingredient in the American character. I am asking you to dream big," Trump said, laying out his plan during remarks in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania   His Presidency has become the demoralizing daily obsession of anyone concerned with global security, the vitality of the natural world, the national health, constitutionalism, civil rights, criminal justice, a free press, science, public education, and the distinction between fact and its opposite. In the preview, Trump promised his First 100 Days would feature an ambitious number of particularly heinous plot points (ask Congress to repeal Obamacare; have Mexico pay for a wall; get rid of DACA), and critics, While Trump managed to muddle through several of the promised plot points, many are absent. His explanation for their absence remains bafflingly vague—there was no budget yet as we will see as he struggles to pass a budget & Tax reform . The hundred-day marker is never an entirely reliable indicator of a four-year term. In fact, only 28 bills have been signed into law since Trump took office in late January. In contrast, Roosevelt signed 76 bills into law in his first 100 days. President Harry Truman, in second place on this list, signed 55 bills into law in his first months in the White House. Trump's predecessor and frequent target of derision, President Barack Obama, signed 11 bills into law, but the early days of his administration are considered productive because they include major legislation to ensure children in low-income households have health insurance as well as the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which fights wage discrimination .White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Monday asserted that President Donald Trump had an “unbelievable” number of accomplishments in his first 100 days even though the president has failed to pass a health

care law or secure funds for a border wall.During Monday’s White House briefing, CBS News Correspondent Major Garrett noted that Trump had failed to keep his promises to the American people in the first 100 days of his presidency.“There is a lot that we feel very proud that we’ve gotten off and taken done [SIC] and taken care of,” (2.1)>>Spicer insisted. “If you look at the immigration piece, border crossings [are] way down, the number of executive orders, the pieces of legislation signed. I think we feel very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”  They spent eight years screaming about Obama's executive orders (despite his sparse use of them) and are now using the number of EOs signed as a measure of success? Unbelievable. In a memo obtained first by CNN, the White House highlights job creation efforts, regulation cuts and national security measures, among others.But not all the initiatives have been unqualified success -- Trump's travel ban, which is listed, is currently stalled in the court system.Further, the bulk of Trump's accomplishments have been made through executive action or memorandum, something Republicans decried Obama for doing during his second term. There are 37 points in this list and 23 (62%) were accomplished by executive order or memorandum. 
1. Donald Trump campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare, but when he took office, he observed, "Nobody knew health care was complicated." Of course, everyone knew healthcare is a complex issue that requires an intricate understanding of policies. Clearly, President Trump didn't take the time when he was President-elect to bone up on his understanding of America's health-care system. Lol! as of now there is no real replacement of Obama-care . Personally I don't think anyone within the Republican Congress "cares" to "replace" it . They love the market place insurance dominated less consumer friendly healthcare system, They want it to go away .
2. What’s more, the real story of Trump’s first 100 days has been all the positions left unfilled (primarily deputy staff at Cabinet agencies) and the massive number of tasks foisted upon Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose principal qualification seems to be that he can never be fired. And Trump is such a unique public figure that judging him by established political conventions has never been a reliable gauge of his future prospects.So a more important question might be whether it actually matters that Trump had a rocky first 100 days. Does history suggest that a rough start leads to a poor presidency?
The "Insanity of the Wall".

We need to build the Wall !

His nearly unwavering support for harsh immigration enforcement and a border wall fed off of the perception of an immigration system as chaotic and uncontrolled. He depicted a porous border and a large illegal immigrant population in a way that made many Americans feel like they weren’t in control of their country anymore. BUT is building a wall part of any immigration reform? I joked that the wall was being built not to keep Mexicans out of America who cross here illegally , but more like keeping Americans from escaping from their country . A wall works both ways  . Remember the GREAT WALL OF CHINA it was built to keep out the northern barbarians out of China in the 3century BC . (2.2)>>It was more or less a symbol of Emperor Chin's power over his people.   As the Trump administration advanced plans to erect a multibillion-dollar wall on the southern border, the leader of Mexico’s national governors association said Saturday in Washington that President Trump’s budget proposal proves that U.S. taxpayers will foot the bill.Trump has insisted that he will force Mexico to pay for the wall, but Mexican officials have refused. The president’s budget request Thursday included $2.6 billion, mostly for first stages of the wall.“Trump is asking the Americans to pay for the wall,” Gov. Graco Ramírez of the Mexican state of Morelos said in a news conference. “The first victory is ours.” Ramírez, who is president of the National Conference of Governors of Mexico, was in Washington for a meeting at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The Coming showdown & Government shutdown .  Lawmakers returning to

Washington this coming week (3)>>will find a familiar quagmire on health care legislation and a budget deadline dramatized by the prospect of a protracted battle between President Donald Trump and Democrats over his border wall. Trump's GOP allies control Congress, but they've been unable to send him a single major bill as his presidency faces the symbolic 100-day mark on April 29 — the very day when the government, in a worst-case scenario, could shut down.  {since Congressional Democrats and Republicans are involved in tense negotiations on a spending bill to keep the government open, differing over demands to provide Americans with health care. (April 27)  , like I said above , the House Republicans don't have a plan to "replace" , but would rather see Obama-care wither on the vine , return to the "status quo" before Obama-care }  Feeling pressure to deliver results, Trump wants to revive a troubled health care measure from House Republicans to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Trump also hopes to use a $1 trillion catchall spending bill to salvage victories on his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall, a multibillion-dollar down payment on a Pentagon buildup, and perhaps a crackdown on cities that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement by federal authorities. It was the latest concession by the White House, which had earlier dropped a demand for money for President Donald Trump’s border wall. Even with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, the Trump administration is learning that Democrats retain significant leverage when their votes are needed on must-pass legislation.A temporary funding bill  had expired Friday at midnight, and GOP leaders late Wednesday came out with a short-term spending bill through May 5 to prevent a government shutdown this weekend. Still nothing is settled .

The Tax Plan ?

(4)>>I am ready for Tax reform  are you ? Is this the opportunity for paying less taxes and getting

more for your wallet ? As a Californian I see my taxes going up . I live in a tax and spend state  anyway . What ever the feds do with taxes probably wont mean anything. The easiest way for Congress to do that, naturally, is to cut taxes, both on businesses and individuals.  It lowers the cost of doing business, and simultaneously increases the take home pay of every single American who pays taxes, having more to invest, save and spend.  That means more businesses, more jobs and more customers. President Trump on Wednesday offered a glimpse into his approach to tax reform, But Wednesday’s release contained no legislative text, or even the kind of detailed outline that policymakers often use to guide discussions of major reforms. Instead, it was a brief statement on how Trump plans to approach a revamp of the tax code, one of the new president’s major domestic objectives. And while it offered a few new insights, it left Washington waiting on key details. Trump’s tax plan proposes three tax rates for individuals: 10 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent.But the plan does not specify what levels of income would be subject to each rate. The lack of detail on the thresholds for the tax rates is a key reason why think tanks such as the Tax Foundation and the Tax Policy Center will find it difficult to provide revenue estimates of Trump’s one-page plan. For the average person, one of the major things to know is the proposal calls for winnowing the current seven tax brackets to just three at 10, 25, and 35 percent. It also means doubling the standard deduction, which is the dollar amount that reduces the amount of income people who don’t itemize their deductions are taxed.The plan calls for tax relief for childcare expenses and a repeal of the death tax, among other measures. The plan would eliminate most deductions, leaving them for mortgage interest and charitable giving. Of note, it would eliminate popular deductions for state and local taxes.For businesses, the plan suggests a standard 15 percent tax rate as well as eliminating tax breaks for special interests, according to a handout from the administration. As you know Trump has been  hiding his own  tax returns so we will not know how much he will benefit from his tax plan. The repeal of estate taxes alone would be worth hundreds of millions to the Trump kids. That is really the main thing Trump wants. I personally do not want to pay one cent to give the Trump kids more money. This plan is just a typical give to the rich rob from the middle class Republican plan. After reviewing the White House’s memo, Lily Batchelder, former chief tax counsel of the Senate Finance committee, tweeted that the plan was “immensely costly and regressive.”Most people could not help but marvel at the “skimpy” press release the administration tried to pass as an actual tax plan.

100 days and epilogue .
The first 100 days is, in large part, an arbitrary standard for evaluating the accomplishments of any new president — particularly nowadays. In our time, and in this political moment, it has become increasingly difficult to get big things done in Washington, D.C., in 100 weeks — much less 100 days.  Forbes magazine has this to say as we go into the full spectrum of a Trump administration . Even it may be a fair assumption , its a test of our political system how it can endure the strangest days ahead . (5)>>Please be aware .

"" The three major failures of Donald Trump’s first one hundred days in office set him up for even more spectacular failures in the next significant period of his presidency: the approximately 150 days between now and the start of fiscal 2018 on October 1.""

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>The 100 days of a President are considered pivotal .13 of the Trump-bills were just reversals of Obama regulations. Some others were as historic as naming a Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in American Samoa or creating a waiver to allow James Mattis to be appointed although he has recently served in the military. In comparison to many other Presidents including Obama he passed no major bill in his first 100 days. "No administration accomplished more in the first 90 days" (Trump) is just ridiculous. And what about his list of 60 promises that he would fulfill in the first 100 days? (1.2)>>Donald Trump, in the final stretch of last year's campaign. Back in October, before his election, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump laid out a 100-Day Action Plan. He called it his "Contract With The American Voter." Among other things, it called for the full repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, suspension of immigration from certain "terror-prone regions" and the lifting of "roadblocks" to let "infrastructure projects like the Keystone Pipeline move forward." (2)>>Spicer insisted. “If you look at the immigration piece, border crossings [are] way down, the number of executive orders. Facts matter less when people feel out of control. You wouldn’t know it from Trump’s rhetoric, but the flow of illegal immigrants across the border is near a 40-year low. Border patrol is huge and has plenty of resources. The U.S. has an infamously complex and strict immigration system.But these facts don’t penetrate the perception that the government lacks control over immigration.The hard truth for Trump voters is that Trump’s proposed solutions to immigration will not increase control. A border wall, deportation force, and mandatory E-Verify will increase the perception of chaos. Illegal immigrants responded to the doubling of border patrol in the 1990s by hiring smugglers and taking boats up the coast to avoid the border altogether.(2.2)>>It was more or less a symbol of Emperor Chin's power over his people.  As speculation mounts about which “tweetable gifts” China’s President Xi Jinping is bringing to the Mar-a-Lago summit on Thursday, the prize so far goes to a proposal for China to build Trump’s big, beautiful wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Xi would offer to do this as a sign of respect for America’s new president, at no cost to U.S. taxpayers, and to complete the project within a year. Especially famous is the wall built 220–206 BC by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the Great Wall has been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced; the majority of the existing wall is from the Ming Dynasty (  Considering the size and effort put into its construction over 2,000 years ago, the failure of the Great Wall of China is rather spectacular. It worked as a manifestation of power that put fear into the hearts of barbarian riders but it didn’t keep any invaders from the north out. According to some historical accounts, tribes in the north of China were militarily ahead but culturally behind, thus looting China whenever possible to steal the riches of their southern neighbors  This is one speculation as to why the Chinese opted to build the Great Wall. Another argument is that the Great Wall was nothing more than an ambitious project contrived by a vainglorious emperor. The Great Wall was supposed to show the world China’s superiority, making a clear distinction between civilized people and barbarians.  The real costs of the "great, great" wall Donald Trump promised to build during his campaign are beginning to settle in -- and threaten to divide the President-elect and thrifty Republicans on Capitol Hill. "You know, the Great Wall of China, built a long time ago, is 13,000 miles," Trump said in 2015. "I mean, you're talking about big stuff. We're talking about peanuts, by comparison, to that."        (3)>>will find a familiar quagmire on health care legislation  . House GOP leaders during a members-only conference call Saturday vowed to avoid a government shutdown and said they're closer to a deal to repeal and replace Obamacare, according to members who participated on the call. But Speaker Paul Ryan also downplayed the possibility of a vote next week, the same sources said. The Wisconsin Republican said the chamber will vote on a conference-wide deal when GOP whips are confident they have the votes for passage — but not until then..........   (4)>>I am ready for Tax reform  are you ?   The goals of the proposal, according to Trump’s administration, are to grow the economy, create jobs, simplify the tax code, provide tax relief for the middle class and lower the business tax rate. So what’s that mean? Two of Mr. Trump’s top lieutenants — Steven Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, both multimillionaires and former Goldman Sachs bankers — trotted out a plan that would slash taxes for businesses and wealthy families, including Mr. Trump’s, in the vague hope of propelling economic growth. So as to not seem completely venal, they served up a few goodies for the average wage-earning family, among them fewer and lower tax brackets and a higher standard deduction.The proposal was so empty of illustrative detail that few people could even begin to calculate its impact on their pocketbooks. Further, depending on where they live, some middle-class families might not benefit much or at all, because the plan does away with important deductions like those for state and local taxes. (5)>>Please be aware . I am worried about North Korea  . Our gun boats are heading over there ,plus a joint military exercise with Japan .  I see some conflict coming . The North Korean leader would be foolish to hit the American aircraft carriers , but it leaves room to speculate .President Trump during an interview that aired Sunday said he thinks North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a "pretty smart cookie."During an interview that aired on CBS's "Face The Nation," the president was asked what he makes of Kim.Trump said the North Korean leader was a young man when he took over power, adding that he is "dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others."President Donald Trump would not rule out the use of military force against North Korea in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Saturday, just hours after Pyongyang launched a missile test in defiance of international pressure.Trump downplayed the significance of North Korea's "small missile launch," which occurred early in the day. But when asked by host John Dickerson if he would consider military action in response to another nuclear test, Trump responded: "I don't know. I mean, we'll see."

A few Factors on Bill O'Reilly , and Free Speech .

Bill O'Reilly's Factor .

Before his ouster O'Reilly became the
most obnoxious TV personality
in American History .

FOX NEWS pundit (1)>>Bill O'Reilly paid the price this week . After 20 years of giving the "No Spin Zone" & " Talking points"  on his show . FOX NEWS decided to dump him over his reported sexual allegations of harassment . O'Reilly has been in trouble before .We all have heard much about his payouts to women , his outbursts of denial.   Let's focus on his career rather than the allegations for now .  I remember watching Inside Edition in that era of Tabloid themed shows that ran amok on most networks . There were the kings of the afternoon that started out as purely Liberal platforms . There was Geraldo Rivera, "Maury" Povich,  "Jerry" Springer, Michael Medved { I know this list is long .LoL } (1.2)>>Glenn Beck , Mark Levin ,Sean Hannity,  Rush Limbaugh and FINALLY BILL O'Reilly . All these altra right radio , and TV hosts & their shows all had a rather humble start doing gig's for liberal media .  In the 20 years somehow they  crawled to  FOX news , either first had shows on FOX , or appeared as "guests" . The slow transformation from Liberal journalism to the hard line right was taking shape unleashing a monster . One by one, the best of the best have fallen from Fox News. Andrea, Greta, Gretchen, Megyn, and now Bill O'Reilly. What the heck is going on? Murdoch owns Fox. Murdoch and his entire family are HUGE liberals who strongly support very left leaning policies. Any chance that O'Reilly is just the beginninng of bringing Fox more in line with main stream media? Seems so to me. FOX news was built around the Tabloid media format . This tabloid-ism brought in Glenn Beck and O'Reilly shaping how Fox was to evolve.  The idea of a "fair and balanced"a motto liberals have always discounted as clever branding. What ever "fair and balanced" means is an understatement .  Whether Fox is employing adversaries because public feuds fuel ratings, or because it’s in pursuit of a franker public debate, they aren’t saying news from the start faded out over the decade . The only liberal voice on Fox was non other than the late great Alan (2)>>Colmes, who passed away today at age 66.  Another Factor about Fox news was the "bimbo factor" , yea Fox news somehow was able to pull together some of TV's sexy est  { chauvinistic male dominated verbatim  }  sexy  young female anchors . I remember counting how many blue eyed blonds Fox employed , but never connected the dots to O'Reilly and his apparent addiction problem . Foxes big chiefs (3)>>News Chairman Roger Ailes last year was slapped  slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit  it made the news . I am sure that O'Reilly was sweating this out somewhere that his boss was caught trying to get a piece of Gretchen Carlson . I have a funny feeling that the Fox news floor was full of "liaisons" between co-workers not just besides Roger Ailes , it seems from a psychological stand point that the whole floor was a party house . Yes, this kind of environment would foster litigation . For a Conservative TV station Fox news was more a frat house of liberalism { loose morals } in disguise . Fox News is a company at which female employees were encouraged, during Ailes’s tenure,“to wear your skirts short and your heels high,” and to avoid wearing pants at all,allegedly so that Ailes could ogle their legs more efficiently. (Ailes is said to have once yelled, “Tell Catherine [Crier, a former Fox News host] I did not spend x-number of dollars on a glass desk for her to wear pant suits.”)Fox News is the network that in 2013 hosted an all-male panel to debate the question of whether it was okay for women to be a family’s primary breadwinner. Their conclusion: No, it was not okay, because men have to have control over women; that’s just science. “When you look at biology, look at the natural world, the rules of a male and a female in society and other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. Another factor is that  Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s departure from the network was partially inspired by the behavior of colleague Bill O’Reilly, according to a new report.Kelly was frustrated by O’Reilly’s criticism of her for publicly discussing sexual harassment she experienced at Fox, The New York Times reported Friday.The Times said Kelly sent an email to Fox executives complaining about O’Reilly’s behavior during his appearance on "CBS This Morning” in November.O’Reilly criticized Kelly for discussing how former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes allegedly sexually harassed her in a book she released the same day as his interview. Ailes left the network in July amid several several sexual harassment claims against him and a lawsuit from former anchor Gretchen Carlson.“Look, it’s open season,” O’Reilly said when asked about Kelly’s claims. “Let’s whack the Fox News Channel. I’ve had enough of it. It’s a good place to work. All right?”

Free Speech and the Berkley Campus .

Below is a video of the demonstrators

wrecking havoc . But is this free speech?

The question of what exactly is FREE SPEECH made its mark at UC Berkley . The violent clashes have set national . Here is a perfect definition of free speech as defined by the ACLU : “Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.”

—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut

Freedom of speech, the press, association, assembly, and petition: This set of guarantees, protected by the First Amendment, comprises what we refer to as freedom of expression. (4)>> It is the foundation of a vibrant democracy, and without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would wither away. It’s a shame that Berkeley, once the birthplace for a generation’s free speech movement, has become its graveyard. On Monday, police released the names of 19 people arrested on various charges ranging from battery to assault with a deadline weapon. A 17-year-old girl, who was not named because she is a minor, was arrested for battery. City officials promised to sort through more videos taken from nearby businesses and posted on social media, as they have done since violence also broke out March 4 at a similar rally and counter-protest. That one was planned by several of the same groups and also resulted in several injuries and arrests.Violent confrontations broke out in Berkeley on Last  Saturday. Clashes between backers and critics of President Trump — and scuffles between self-described anti-fascists and white nationalists — resulted in 21 arrests

Louise Rosealma was punched
 by Nathan Damigo —
 a white supremacist 

and numerous injuries. A California woman who was caught on a viral video being sucker-punched by a white supremacist at a protest Saturday recalled trying not to get her “skull cracked open” during the violent demonstration. Louise Rosealma was punched by Nathan Damigo — a white supremacist who attends California State Stanislaus — during Saturday’s “Patriots Day” demonstration organized by alt-right Nazi group the Proud Boys, KPIX-TV reported.   Citing safety concerns, administrators on Wednesday postponed Coulter’s scheduled April 27 appearance, saying it needed more time to find a “suitable venue.” The showdown continues between the (5)>>University of California, Berkeley, and Ann Coulter over whether the conservative firebrand will speak at the famously progressive school.Ann Coulter rejected an offer to speak at the University of California at Berkeley on a new date after the university canceled her event because of safety concerns, then quickly reversed itself, saying it would reschedule her speech. Coulter said she can’t attend on the new date and accused the university of continuing to try to place restrictions on her free speech. The student group that invited Coulter is now threatening to sue the school.But Coulter was not having it. In a Twitter rampage and a Fox News appearance, she accused the school of canceling the event and vowed to speak as planned. Event co-sponsor Berkeley College Republicans also pushed back, saying Coulter, a “highly sought after speaker,” could not change her schedule.   Student protest is often, in itself, an act of free speech. But university is a place where students are supposed to learn how to think. That mission is impossible if uncomfortable ideas are off-limits. And protest can easily stray into preciousness: the University of California, for example, suggests that it is a racist “micro-aggression” to say that “America is a land of opportunity”, because it could be taken to imply that those who do not succeed have only themselves to blame.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 (1)>>Bill O'Reilly. In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run, after the termination of original anchor David Frost. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In October 2004, the O’Reilly Factor star was hit with possibly the greatest lawsuit in the history of cable news: then-associate producer Andrea Mackris accused O’Reilly of sexual harassment, quoting the famed gasbag verbatim from phone calls she surreptitiously recorded. (1.2)>>Glenn Beck. Beck left Fox News after a tumultuous two and a half years at the network. He drew high ratings, but his tenure wasn’t without its share of controversy. Advertisers dropped Beck’s show en masse after he called President Obama a racist, and tensions between Beck’s camp and Fox News grew over other issues.The two groups decided to part ways in 2011. Beck’s comments on Friday echoed remarks he has made before. “I’m so sick and tired of being in the system,” he said when leaving Fox News. "I’m not going to play the game anymore.”   (2)>>Colmes. Alan Colmes was the only "liberal" Voice on FOX news , it was hard to believe that Fox allowed any other opinion since Hannity and O'Reilly set the standard script. The death of Fox News contributor Alan Colmes, who passed away in New York City at the age of 66, has been greeted with an outpouring of emotion from the channel’s on-and-off-the-air talent. Colmes, it seems, was a nice guy, a good friend, and an ideal colleague: all qualities one would imagine people who have had to spend their lives around the likes of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly would welcome. And while one should usually view tributes to the recently departed with a forgiving cynicism, in this case they are all too believable: Colmes was the most absurd, useless, and mocked television personality in America for many years, precisely because he was nice. In the context of Fox News, being a nice guy—and a “liberal” nice guy at that—meant being a buffoon, and a patsy. Colmes not only played the part to perfection—he defined it. (3)>>News Chairman Roger Ailes .Still, 21st Century Fox has now hired the same law firm that investigated harassment allegations against O’Reilly’s ousted former boss, Roger Ailes. This time, they’re to look into an allegation from former O’Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh that he invited her to dinner, told her he wanted to hire her as a contributor on his show, then turned on her when she wouldn’t follow him to his hotel room. An O'Reilly spokesman called the investigation nothing more than the pro forma follow-up to any report to a Fox complaint line.  Fox News’ parent company announced that Ailes would be resigning his position at Fox News but would receive $60 million and continue to work “as a consultant” with 21st Century Fox. Ailes’ ousting from the company follows a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson. According to The Washington Post, 25 women have come forward to make similar harassment claims against Ailes. The New York Times reported on July 23 that Fox News may have “a broader problem in the workplace,” that extends beyond Ailes after at least “a dozen women” told the Times that “they had experienced some form of sexual harassment or intimidation at Fox News or the Fox Business Network, and half a dozen more who said they had witnessed it. 
Free Speech and the Berkley Campus .
(4)>> It is the foundation of a vibrant democracy, and without it, other fundamental rights. Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Supreme Court : http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/what-does   Free speech is under attack in three ways. First, repression by governments has increased. Several countries have reimposed cold-war controls or introduced new ones. (5)>>University of California, Berkeley. In the 1960s, students at Berkeley helped change the world by igniting the Free Speech Movement, a seminal moment in the history of 20th-century civil liberties. Fifty years later, Berkeley leftists seem to have decided that free speech was a mistake — and the administration seems intent on helping them roll it back.You’ve already read about the riot that attended a speech by conservative stirpot Milo Yiannopoulos. You may have missed the destruction of College Republicans’ property, and the cancellation of a speech by conservative writer David Horowitz, after Berkeley officials told College Republicans that in order to provide adequate security, the speech would have to be held outside the middle of campus, and when many students are still in class.Keeping students safe is, of course, one of the most important jobs of a university. But so is exposing students to diverse viewpoints and supporting the sacred traditions of free speech. Berkeley seems to be willing to sacrifice the main point of an academic institution in order to ensure safety.

President Trump flexed his muscles.

After failing to repeal Obamacare , and twice struck down on his travel ban . A desperate American President has to look for a perfect opportunity to regain his poll numbers . Donald Trump has made his point. The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday night that the salvo of cruise missiles fired at the Shayrat airbase near Homs marked the full extent of the US president’s response to Bashar al-Assad’s use of a nerve agent against his own people. IT gets  EVEN MORE CRAZY . (1)>>This week Mr. Trump has to show some "force" on all fronts , in what looks multiple theaters of war . With an armada heading to North Korea . Is this Just nail biting is it ?  (1.a)>>Mr. Trump's unpredictability is dangerous even for any kind of foreign policy maker . A measure of his absurdity is that the beneficiary of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (Moab) missile dropped on the Afghan mountains will be the local rivals of its alleged Islamic State  victims, the rebel Taliban. Whatever if you really believe that (1.b)>>the "war on terror" started by the Bushes in the 1990's through 2009 is over . You might need a reality check . On Friday I was pondering which American war was the longest between the Korean war and the Vietnam war , which lasted in decades worth of dead American service men and women lost to fight not as much for the freedom cherished by the writers of the constitution , but lost batting an ideology . First Communism . Now it seems that our American leaders are fighting shadows that they created . With nothing to go

Is one of these heading
for North Korea ?

to battle against . The government still needs enemies because war creates only jobs in the military service . { example Trump's boost to the military budget and cutting domestic programs } This week the dropping of the "non-nuclear " (1.1) Mother of All Bombs" MOAB for short has completely darkened my world view . For our media junkies and affiliates are trying to rationalize it's use in Afghanistan against 39 suspected ISlamic State terrorists hiding in a cave in the mountains . Conventional weapons could have been used , but the show of power was for a piece of war propaganda to the world to see . 36 IS fighters were killed, according to the Afghan government, and the US military has not found any evidence of civilian casualties.The obvious question, following such a high-profile show of strength, is what this means. Does this mean IS is a bigger threat in Afghanistan than we previously thought? Is this President Trump just following through on his campaign promise to “bomb the shit out of IS”? Is the Trump administration trying to send a signal to countries like North Korea and Iran that it means business?According to experts on weapons and foreign policy, it seems this was a military decision, not a political one, based on the realities on the ground in Afghanistan right now. There’s no reason to assume this was something out of the ordinary, even though the bomb was bigger than ones typically used by the US military.  

 (2)>>Saturday is a holiday in North Korea, the birthday of the country’s founder and the current leader’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung. President Donald Trump is spending the Easter weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Springs. On Saturday, visited Trump International Golf Club, his 19th trip to a golf course since taking office 12 weeks ago.Meanwhile, halfway across the world, North Korea held its annual military parade, and used the occasion to show off a flock of new missiles, including two new intercontinental ballistic missile-sized canisters. North Korea has conducted nuclear and missile tests on important national holidays in the past—though not this particular one. On Friday, the country told foreign journalists visiting for the holiday to prepare for a “big and important event.” As Reuters notes, though, similar announcements have been busts in the past. Still, satellite images show signs that North Korea is preparing another nuclear test.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is headed toward North Korea as a show of force. This sort of scenario—beefed up U.S. naval presence combined with a North Korean weapons test—has happened before, quite recently in fact. The difference now, of course, is that Trump is president and nobody really knows what his North Korea policy is (or what might be going on in his head).  Perhaps even more significantly, on April 5, the Global Times, which is owned by the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, laid out what it called China’s “bottom line” on the increasingly tense situation on the Korean Peninsula.First, the editorial said “the safety and stability” of China’s northeast must be assured. To that end, the editorial continued, no North Korean nuclear fallout can be allowed to “contaminate” the region.Second, North Korea cannot be allowed to “descend into the kind of turbulence that generates a huge outpouring of refugees,” the editorial said, adding that China will also not allow “a hostile government” in Pyongyang.It concluded by vowing that Beijing would not tolerate a US military push toward the Yalu River.    Mean while in Washington D.C. if no

new war breaks out . Trump spends his time playing golf vary much like Obama did before him.  HOPE TO GOD it never does explode into a serious conflict not this Easter week.  This Month of April - May is the most dangerous month of the year 2017.  Assuming that there still is somebody rational and sane left in the Trump administration with enough influence, then all this madness can still be stopped.  There is also the very real possibility that the current fight inside the US elites will drain so much energy that nobody will really have to time and energy to engage in very risky foreign military operations.  And if all else fails, maybe somebody will suggest to Trump that a unilateral military intervention in Syria & North Korea , is pure folly and will cost him his presidency.  Maybe this is an argument which he will understand.

Extra Notes to the Syria Question . 

President Trump flexed his muscles  rather than his brain in a decisive move to strike at Syria after a chemical attack on civilians  { the story we are being told through our media. I don't think that that was case ... but} IS  There is more to this ?  The barbarism promoted by the Syrian regime cannot be understated. A resort to abject cruelty in the name of political power must be rejected on the face of it. How can the international community of nations solve a civil war of this type?Let's just remember that the United States is not a policeman to the world. It has no treaty obligations that would justify armed intervention in Syria.  (1.2)>>During the Obama administration the Syrian ceasefire had disintegrated. At best it survived 48 hours. In reality it was still born. Washington has now officially suspended further talks with Moscow over reestablishing a Syrian ceasefire.  The past Secretary of State John Kerry has called for an investigation of Syrian and Russian war crimes. You must remember that Russia was being blamed for actions committed by terrorist groups in Syria that are backed by the United

States trying to overthrow Assad. I know that sounds crazy , but that is exactly what is going on .  We have a country like Syria being ravaged by a three way war . Trump while campaigning last year himself cited that our nation should stop arming the rebels in Syria because we don't know who we are exactly arming . It begs a SERIOUS QUESTION in regards to  One of the worst chemical bombings in Syria turned a northern rebel-held area into a toxic kill zone on Tuesday, inciting international outrage over the ever-increasing government impunity shown in the country’s six-year war.Western leaders including President Trump blamed the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and called on its patrons, Russia and Iran, to prevent a recurrence of what many described as a war crime.Dozens of people, including children, died — some writhing, choking, gasping or foaming at the mouth — after breathing in poison that possibly contained a nerve agent or other banned chemicals, according to witnesses, doctors and rescue workers. They said the toxic substance spread after warplanes dropped bombs in the early morning hours. Some rescue workers grew ill and collapsed from proximity to the dead.  

 What President Assad has said  some ring of  truth ...

Just think . If the United States was divided
like this with various waring fractions . The Assad
government barely controls all of Syria . Half the country
is dominated by the ISlamic State , 

I don't think that the northern held rebel area could have put together a movie to get pushed on the western media that shows an actual chemical attack .   Syria's military had given up all its chemical weapons in 2013 after an agreement made at the time, and would not have used them anyway, Mr Assad was quoted as saying in an interview with news agency AFP."Definitely, 100 per cent for us, it's fabrication," Mr Assad told AFP in his first comments since a US missile strike on a Syrian air base in response to the chemical attack."Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists.Assad made the remarks during an interview with Croation newspaper Vecernji List that was published Thursday. The Syrian leader, whose army has battled various insurgent groups since 2011, echoed previous comments in which he said the conflict would be finished within months without foreign support for opposition groups and called out the U.S. for having trained and equipped Syrian rebels under former President Barack Obama. He also criticized Washington's current military deployment, which supports the Kurd-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in their battle against the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS."American policy is based on creating chaos in different parts of the world and creating conflicts among states. This is not new. It has been going on for decades, but in different forms," Assad said, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1.1) Mother of All Bombs" MOAB for short. Since the start of the gulf war the American military has given names to its bombs . The cryptic message in this bombs name is obvious . Moab is a biblical name , we all heard of Moabites . As a Jargon the word in modern military lingo mean that Moab refers to the Arabs . The United States Air Force dropped a 21,600-pound Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, bomb on what it said were ISIS militants in Afghanistan on Thursday. At least 36 people were killed in the explosion from the largest American non-nuclear bomb. But beyond the human cost, there was a debate about the financial price. And it isn’t as much as everyone was saying.The weapon, whose acronym inspired the nickname “Mother of All Bombs,” was produced by the Air Force, not by a third party like Lockheed or Boeing, “so we don’t have a standard procurement cost associated with them,” an Air Force official said. (1.a)>>Mr. Trump's unpredictability is dangerous even for any kind of foreign policy maker . You would not know that he just fired 59 cruise missiles at Syria, or right after that, the so-called “mother of all bombs” (MOAB), the most powerful bomb in the U.S. arsenal that is not nuclear. Because to cite Trump’s own outrage of fewer than three years past, what president when faced “with all the problems and difficulties” would spend the day playing golf?We are used now to Donald Trump’s blithe hypocrisy, to the complete lack of value assigned by him to his own words, but the world is burning, and part of that is due to Donald Trump’s own careless words and actions. To say nothing of the many unfilled jobs at the State Department.Former Obama official Chris Lu’s suggestion to eliminate the White House suddenly seems very reasonable indeed. It’s not as if anyone is currently using it to, oh, I don’t know…govern. (1.b)>>the "war on terror" started by the Bushes .More generally, after 9/11, rather than following the congressional authorization and focusing like a laser beam on countering the original Al Qaeda group and their patrons, the Afghan Taliban, the George W. Bush administration launched a general “war on terror,” which covered all terrorist groups of international scope, regardless of whether or not they focused on attacking U.S. targets.In the end, this massive Bush administration violation of the narrow 2001 authorization led to illegal U.S. drone wars and airstrikes in countries all over the Middle East and Southwest Asia — Somalia (against al-Shabab), Yemen (against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), Pakistan (against the Pakistani Taliban), and Iraq, Syria, and Libya (against ISLamic State ). The Obama administration then accelerated all these unconstitutional wars. According to this 2014 report by the Nation, US Special Operations forces are currently deployed in more than 100 countries, roughly 60 percent of the nations on the planet. The clandestine war has spread well beyond the Middle East; it’s now fully globalized.We’re fighting what Mark Danner, author of Spiral, calls a “forever war.” Fifteen years into the “war on terror,” we appear no closer to ending it than when we started. Worse, it’s not even clear what “ending it” would look like. We’re battling a constellation of ideas, not a conventional army, and there are no final victories in metaphysical conflicts.(1)>>This week Mr. Trump has to show some "force" on all fronts. Over the last week Donald Trump has seen his stock soar, even among supposed liberals, as he veers from the anti-interventionism of his election campaign and drops bombs on Syria and Afghanistan. Neither country poses the remotest threat to America’s national security. In neither is the US technically “at war”. Both were precisely the conflicts that Trump insisted he would abandon to concentrate on “America first”. Republican politicians, who earlier this week claimed America had no reason to fight Syria, instantly expressed their approval of the decision on social media. Also on social media were Trump supporters who had once accused his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of being a “warmonger”; unlike the congressmen, some are sticking to their personal convictions and openly criticizing the President for the attack. Meanwhile, longstanding critics of the President are also navigating their own cognitive dissonance as they try to reconcile their desperate desire to end Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s bloody reign with a deep conviction that Donald Trump is wrong about everything, everywhere, every time.    (1.2)>>During the Obama administration the Syrian ceasefire had disintegrated. During the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, the United States first supplied the rebels of the Free Syrian Army with non-lethal aid, but quickly began providing training, cash, and intelligence to selected Syrian rebel commanders.The United States began surveillance missions on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positions in Syria in September 2014. First, let’s set the context.  The Syrians gave up their chemical weapons three years ago (courtesy of Russia).  The Syrians have also pretty much defeated the Anglo-Zionist-Wahabi aggression against their country (courtesy of Russia, again). There is a new (kind of) US Administration in power (some say that this was also courtesy of Russia) which appeared to have given up on overthrowing Assad.  And right at this moment in time, in what is supposed to be a *pure coincidence*.The Syrian forces used chemical weapons In a location filled with children and a lot of folks with camerasHow stupid do they think we are?  (2)>>Saturday is a holiday in North Korea. President Donald Trump's tweets are adding fuel to a "vicious cycle" of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea's vice foreign minister told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Friday. The official added that if the U.S. shows any sign of "reckless" military aggression, Pyongyang is ready to launch a pre-emptive strike of its own.Vice Minister Han Song Ryol said Pyongyang has determined the Trump administration is "more vicious and more aggressive" than that of Barack Obama. He added that North Korea will keep building up its nuclear arsenal in "quality and quantity" and said Pyongyang is ready to go to war if that's what Trump wants.