President Trump- The Implications

[rebound]

I think you missed the joke.

I guess maybe I did, too?   Was that some vague racially-tinged reference to white folk having to work, and not blacks?  If so,  go get on another forum. There's no place that here, and really not anywhere.   If not, I'm not sure what the joke was supposed to be.

Holding that aside, and getting back specifically to Trump, here's a cut/paste of response I did yesterday on this topic on FB.  It is, I think, more to the issue:
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This really is a stupid comparison, and would have gone away except for Spicer and Trump. Of course it wasn't larger than Obama's. Obama was the first black president, etc, etc. he brought record crowds. No way Trump, or anyone, would have beat those numbers. A more fair comparison would be to Bush or Clinton, and those were similar. The "controversy" is Trump claiming they were. And it's stupid. There is no reason to try to make this claim except ego. And that's the problem with trump. Forget politics and positions, he can't let go of his ego.
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[erfalf]

I guess maybe I did, too?   Was that some vague racially-tinged reference to white folk having to work, and not blacks?  If so,  go get on another forum. There's no place that here, and really not anywhere.   If not, I'm not sure what the joke was supposed to be.

No, just the non-racially "tinged" Obama voters don't work. Geez, always with the knee jerk reactions. You know white people voted for Trump too right. And they actually had the gaul to show their faces at his inauguration, in numbers I would dare to say were greater than any other race present. Math is hard isn't it.

[erfalf]

And for some real perspective, below is an image of Hillary's inaugural address crowd, for comparison...

[rebound]

No, just the non-racially "tinged" Obama voters don't work. Geez, always with the knee jerk reactions. You know white people voted for Trump too right. And they actually had the gaul to show their faces at his inauguration, in numbers I would dare to say were greater than any other race present. Math is hard isn't it.

Man, I seriously can't tell if you are intentionally going all "troll-y" on me, or what...

So, I just want to confirm.  You position (even if you caged it in a joke) is that there were more people at Obama's inauguration because a majority of them were black, and a lot of them didn't have jobs anyway, so they had nothing better to do?   And that Trump's voters were mostly white, and so had jobs, and couldn't come?   I just want to make sure I am understanding what your thoughts are here.  I'll let others make their own decisions on their perceptions of you depending on your answer.

And what does Hillary have to do with it?  She didn't win (which is I guess your point), but even if she had, SHE wouldn't have had the same numbers as Obama, either.  She would have been the first woman president, so that would have bumped attendance quite a bit, probably more than Trump's,  but almost certainly would have been less than Obama's.

Again, it's not the actual number.  Trump drew a respectable crowd.  It's his inability to accept they weren't as large as Obama's and not lie about stupid stuff that IS the problem.

[erfalf]

Man, I seriously can't tell if you are intentionally going all "troll-y" on me, or what...

So, I just want to confirm.  You position (even if you caged it in a joke) is that there were more people at Obama's inauguration because a majority of them were black, and a lot of them didn't have jobs anyway, so they had nothing better to do?   And that Trump's voters were mostly white, and so had jobs, and couldn't come?   I just want to make sure I am understanding what your thoughts are here.  I'll let others make their own decisions on their perceptions of you depending on your answer.

And what does Hillary have to do with it?  She didn't win (which is I guess your point), but even if she had, SHE wouldn't have had the same numbers as Obama, either.  She would have been the first woman president, so that would have bumped attendance quite a bit, probably more than Trump's,  but almost certainly would have been less than Obama's.

Again, it's not the actual number.  Trump drew a respectable crowd.  It's his inability to accept they weren't as large as Obama's and not lie about stupid stuff that IS the problem.

Oh MF, I meant to say white people voted for Obama. Changes the whole context now doesn't it. It was truly meant to be a jab at Obama voters portraying them as little snowflakes that always have time to jet set around to things like that, but can't actually get a job.

[rebound]

Oh MF, I meant to say white people voted for Obama. Changes the whole context now doesn't it. It was truly meant to be a jab at Obama voters portraying them as little snowflakes that always have time to jet set around to things like that, but can't actually get a job.

Well, that's better.  I was a little worried about you for a bit there...

Obama's numbers aren't hard to figure out.   He came in at an absolute low point, when the economy was tanking and people were looking for a cathartic experience.  And he was the first black president.  Given the history of this country, that was a huge deal.  His performance, or not (depending up a person's political bent), is irrelevant to the numbers at the time.   Trump simply doesn't hold that kind of position.  At worst, he's a buffoon who shouldn't be there, and at best he's a retrenchment back into older ideologies.   Neither is too exciting, and so the lower numbers.  But like Obama, his numbers at the event have virtually nothing to do with how he will do as president.   It's too bad he chose to make an issue of it, as it further hurt is credibility.   

[cannon_fodder]

If we are being mean - I thought it was a commentary on Trump supporters being unable to afford travel to Washington, DC.

If we are being obtuse - I thought it was a social commentary on the United States lagging the rest of the world in vacation time.

If we are being serious - the size of the crowd at inauguration is neither important nor surprising:

Of course the crowd was smaller, Trump was sworn in as the least popular president elect in history.  And even then, many of those that still support him do so because they viewed him as the least of two evils.  Finally, Washington, DC has a huge African American population and is surrounded by highly educated affluent suburbs.  Trump did not do well with highly educated people or black people.  So it makes sense on many levels why his crow was smaller.

And it is unimportant because popularity doesn't matter too much once elected. It really doesn't drive policy according to research (money drives policy).  Plus, as stated above, the crowd size in DC might not be indicative of popularity anyway (in this instance, it may have been, but still not that important).

What is important is that the ego of a billionaire, married to a model, who is the most powerful man in the world is so fragile that he cares.  He cares so much he is willing to direct his staff to pretend it was the largest in history.  To actually approach a lectern in front of people who can read or look at photos and just make a blatantly false statement.  He cares so much his staff is still discussing it, tweeting about it, and insisting that the crowd size wasn't small. It's totally huge at least above average!  And his hands are huge.

Honestly - why not just say "I'm happy for all the Americans who were able to attend and I hope they had a great time.  If you say the crowds were smaller than 4 years ago, fine.  I wasn't elected to draw bigger crowds to Washington, DC.  Now do you have any real questions or can I get to work?"

[patric]

What is important is that the ego of a billionaire, married to a model, who is the most powerful man in the world is so fragile that he cares.  He cares so much he is willing to direct his staff to pretend it was the largest in history.  To actually approach a lectern in front of people who can read or look at photos and just make a blatantly false statement.  He cares so much his staff is still discussing it, tweeting about it, and insisting that the crowd size wasn't small. It's totally huge at least above average!  And his hands are huge.

Maybe its more about having his staff lie about things not worth lying about. 
Directing a former journalist to unconvincingly parrot an ego stroke is a move from fantasy to policy.

[Conan71]

So, the inauguration is over, we need to be over it as well.

Trump has signed executive orders to revive the Keystone XL Pipeline and Dakota Access pipelines.  Obama sitting on the issue for several years before finally giving it the axe in 2015 seemed more to me like someone trying to figure out the political winds than someone with a real conviction on the issue.

We are nowhere close to being free of dependence on oil and oil products and are decades away from that regardless of which party holds the White House so there has to be safe methods to deliver oil to refiners and their final markets.

The other option seems to be truck or rail car to transport oil and that has vastly greater risks associated with it if you look up rail accident statistics and highway accident stats.  There are 1500 to 1800 rail incidents a year ranging from crossing collisions to derailments.  I honestly thought derailments were a rare occurrence until I had lunch with an old acquaintance a week or so back whose job it is to coordinate crews to clean up derailed trains.  It's virtually a daily occurrence somewhere in the United States.

I certainly do have reservations about pipelines crossing significant wetlands and wildlife areas and imminent domain so there is a serious trade off to consider.  Yes pipeline construction creates temporary jobs like any other infrastructure project and the kind of numbers they were claiming for permanent employment courtesy of the Keystone XL were very over-blown.

Discuss.

[swake]

So, the inauguration is over, we need to be over it as well.

Trump has signed executive orders to revive the Keystone XL Pipeline and Dakota Access pipelines.  Obama sitting on the issue for several years before finally giving it the axe in 2015 seemed more to me like someone trying to figure out the political winds than someone with a real conviction on the issue.

We are nowhere close to being free of dependence on oil and oil products and are decades away from that regardless of which party holds the White House so there has to be safe methods to deliver oil to refiners and their final markets.

The other option seems to be truck or rail car to transport oil and that has vastly greater risks associated with it if you look up rail accident statistics and highway accident stats.  There are 1500 to 1800 rail incidents a year ranging from crossing collisions to derailments.  I honestly thought derailments were a rare occurrence until I had lunch with an old acquaintance a week or so back whose job it is to coordinate crews to clean up derailed trains.  It's virtually a daily occurrence somewhere in the United States.

I certainly do have reservations about pipelines crossing significant wetlands and wildlife areas and imminent domain so there is a serious trade off to consider.  Yes pipeline construction creates temporary jobs like any other infrastructure project and the kind of numbers they were claiming for permanent employment courtesy of the Keystone XL were very over-blown.

Discuss.

The Keystone XL pipeline does nothing for American oil or oil dependence. That pipeline is intended to take oil from the tar sands in Canada to the gulf for foreign export. By easing the export of Canadian oil that pipeline could actually have the impact of increasing domestic oil and gas prices.

The tribes in the DAPL protests aren't trying to block the pipeline, just reroute it, what has been done repeatedly before but ETE is refusing to do now. Yes, that ETE. And Trump himself was an investor in the DAPL pipeline.

[rebound]

Also, I want to know if the existing pipelines are already at max capacity.   The Green route is the one that is still proposed.  The other route already exists.  Is that route full?   And then everything merges at Steele City, so I guess that means we have capacity from there to Houston/Port Arthur?  If we don't need it, don't build it.

[swake]

The Trump Administration has placed gag orders on the Department of Agriculture, the EPA and The National Institute of Health among others. No press releases, no publications of scientific findings, no blog posts, no social media or speaking engagements. All EPA contracts are frozen.

Trump wants the ability to review science before it's shared, and if it's to be shared and we know about his lack of relationship to the truth and facts if he doesn't like them.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/24/14372940/trump-gag-order-epa-environmental-protection-agency-health-agriculture

[Conan71]

The Trump Administration has placed gag orders on the Department of Agriculture, the EPA and The National Institute of Health among others. No press releases, no publications of scientific findings, no blog posts, no social media or speaking engagements. All EPA contracts are frozen.

Trump wants the ability to review science before it's shared, and if it's to be shared and we know about his lack of relationship to the truth and facts if he doesn't like them.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/24/14372940/trump-gag-order-epa-environmental-protection-agency-health-agriculture

I don't recall, did he promise transparency during his campaign?  That's pretty opaque if he did.

I had questioned a friend about the holds being placed on contract awards at the EPA, but apparently that is not terribly unusual when a new administration comes in for contracts, hiring, etc. to be put on hold.

Editing reality by an administration is nothing new.

Now, a new admin changing reality might be a different issue.   

[erfalf]

The Trump Administration has placed gag orders on the Department of Agriculture, the EPA and The National Institute of Health among others. No press releases, no publications of scientific findings, no blog posts, no social media or speaking engagements. All EPA contracts are frozen.

Trump wants the ability to review science before it's shared, and if it's to be shared and we know about his lack of relationship to the truth and facts if he doesn't like them.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/24/14372940/trump-gag-order-epa-environmental-protection-agency-health-agriculture

I would agree that this seems like a bit of a non-starter for the time being. He did put a hiring freeze on all non-essential personnel, which this certainly falls under. Seems pretty rational at the moment with a little flair added by Swake.

[swake]

I would agree that this seems like a bit of a non-starter for the time being. He did put a hiring freeze on all non-essential personnel, which this certainly falls under. Seems pretty rational at the moment with a little flair added by Swake.

No, a gag order is not normal and may not even be legal and is at least against policy as stated today

http://mashable.com/2017/01/24/trump-administration-gag-order-epa-usda/#uehquaPaCiqC