Monday, November 14, 2016

THE ELECTION AFTERMATH EDITION

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Trump’s Hires Will Set Course of His Presidency (NYT) "Rarely in the history of the American presidency has the exercise of choosing people to fill jobs had such a far-reaching impact on the nature and priorities of an incoming administration. Unlike most new presidents, Mr. Trump comes into office with no elective-office experience, no coherent political agenda and no bulging binder of policy proposals. And he has left a trail of inflammatory, often contradictory, statements on issues from immigration and race to terrorism and geopolitics."

THE ECONOMY:

- The Trump Administration Could Test Whether Deficits Help the Economy (NYT) "Even for people who don’t like Mr. Trump’s proposed tax cuts or the rest of his policy agenda, if he gets his way on taxes and infrastructure spending, it will be a test of whether deficits really matter in a world that has been locked in a slow-growth reality for years."

- Dow Jones Has Best Week Since 2011 Due to Trump Election Win (Breitbart) "Stocks skyrocketed after Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton, as investors considered the potential benefits of increased government spending and less regulation of financial markets."

- Trump Rides a Wave of Fury That May Damage Global Prosperity (NYT) "But trade is such an elemental part of the modern global economy that impeding it is almost certain to produce the opposite effect. It will damage economic growth, diminishing prosperity for all."

- Trump’s Victory Bodes Well for Investors — for Now (NYT)

THE MEDIA:

- Lies in the Guise of News in the Trump Era (NYT) "And one takeaway from this astonishing presidential election is that fake news is gaining ground, empowering nuts and undermining our democracy. While the poisonous 2016 campaign is behind us, these alt-right websites will continue to spew misinformation that undermines tolerance and democracy. I find them particularly loathsome because they do their best to magnify prejudice against blacks, Muslims and Latinos, tearing our social fabric.

THE NEWS AND OPINIONS (MAINLY OPINIONS):


- Conway: Obama, Clinton should call for calm; Reid should 'be very careful' (Fox News) "'I am calling for responsibility and decency. I hope President Obama says, ‘Cut it out,'" Conway said on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'Everybody is looking for a peaceful transition, and you have the Senate minority leader acting like a garden variety political pundit.' Conway warned Reid, a Nevada Democrat retiring from the Senate in January, to 'be very careful about characterizing someone in a legal sense' regarding his attacks on Trump, but said she was not suggesting legal action was pending."

- 'THEY'RE GOOD PEOPLE': Trump backs off promise to investigate Clinton with special prosecutor (Fox News) "'She did some bad things, I mean she did some bad things,' Trump said, to which Stahl responded, 'I know, but a special prosecutor?' 'I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them,' Trump said. 'They’re, they’re good people. I don't want to hurt them.'"

- Trump maps out a new administration to bring a seismic shift to Washington (WaPo) "But, [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell said, 'I think it’s always a mistake to misread your mandate, and frequently new majorities think it’s going to be forever. Nothing is forever in this country . . . We’ve been given a temporary lease on power, if you will. And I think we need to use it responsibly.'"

- Donald Trump Appears to Soften Stance on Immigration, but Not on Abortion (NYT) "Mr. Trump repeated his promise to name a Supreme Court justice who opposed abortion rights and would help overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized them, returning the issue to the states. On immigration, he said the wall that he has been promising to build on the nation’s southern border might end up being a fence in places. Mr. Trump also said he considered the Supreme Court decision last year that validated same-sex marriages as settled, and that he was 'fine with that.'" and ‘Proud to be gay’ Peter Thiel has a top job on the transition team that just appointed a virulently anti-gay politician to shepherd domestic policy vetting (Re/code)

- Trump reportedly looking for way to pull US out of climate agreement (Fox News) "A source on Trump’s transition team told Reuters that the team was looking for ways to bypass the procedure to leave the Paris accord, which was agreed upon last December. Trump has previously stated his disbelief in global warming. Other global governments, including China, have expressed their reaffirming support for the deal."

- Things Are About to Get Much Worse for Poor Americans (The Atlantic) "Because Trump has been so vague about his own plans, beyond Mexican walls and Chinese trade wars. In the absence of more details, one document that gives a sense of where things could go is Ryan’s grand plan “A Better Way.” This document is more thoughtful and potentially less draconian than Ryan’s previous budgets, which concentrated massive pain on the poor and the sick. But even this relatively kinder and gentler approach would still make it harder to be poor in America, by cutting welfare and health insurance payments to the poor in order to balance the budget while financing a historic tax cut for the wealthy. If President Obama was a throwback to the programs of the 1960s, this could be a throwback to the 1950s. Trump’s victory on Tuesday night was clear-cut. But it is critical to note that an evisceration of poverty spending is not what America’s poor voted for."

- If you voted for Trump because he’s ‘anti-establishment,’ guess what: You got conned (WaPo) "Look at the people Trump is considering for his cabinet, and you won’t find any outside-the-box thinkers burning to work for the little guy. It’s a collection of Republican politicians and corporate plutocrats — not much different from who you’d find in any Republican administration. No, their commitment is to be of service to that most oppressed and forgotten group of Americans, the wealthy. Trump’s tax plan would give 47 percent of its benefits to the richest one percent of taxpayers. Paul Ryan’s tax plan is even purer — it gives 76 percent of its cuts to the richest one percent in its first year, and by 2025 would feed 99.6 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent."

- Why the way Trump won makes him more dangerous (WaPo) "The American constitutional system’s checks and balances may be about to face a historic test. If they still work, however, Trump should find himself bogged down in a series of inconclusive political battles, which ultimately disillusion his followers, encourage his opponents and force him into a more conventional, and stable, form of democratic politics."

- Resist Much (NYT) "The Republicans will control everything, including the Supreme Court. Washington is theirs, with minimal checks and balances. And if the forgotten, the undereducated, the Rust Belt survivors think they are going to see a renaissance of their communities, consider this headline from Yahoo Finance on the day after the election: 'Trump win is a ‘grand slam’ for Wall Street Bankers.' He will not betray his class."

- Bernie Sanders: Where the Democrats Go From Here (NYT)

- No, Electors In States Trump Won Should Not Vote For Clinton (The Atlantic)

- The Electoral College Is Hated by Many. So Why Does It Endure? (NYT)

- The Alt-Right Will Fail. Even Under President Trump (Wired)

THE REALITY:

- President-elect Donald Trump is about to learn the nation’s ‘deep secrets’ (WaPo) "After one of the briefings in 2008, Obama told a close adviser that it was perhaps one of the most sobering experiences of his life. He said, 'I’m inheriting a world that could blow up any minute in half a dozen ways, and I will have some powerful but limited and perhaps even dubious tools to keep it from happening.'"

THE STATISTICS:


- The 13 most amazing findings in the 2016 exit poll (WaPo) "The desire for change appears to be at the root of the choice lots and lots of voters made. And Trump was change while Clinton was more of the same."

- Trump won because college-educated Americans are out of touch (WaPo) "The reality is that six in 10 Americans do not have a college degree, and they elected Donald Trump. College-educated people didn’t just fail to see this coming — they have struggled to display even a rudimentary understanding of the worldviews of those who voted for Trump. This is an indictment of the monolithic, insulated political culture in the vast majority our colleges and universities."

THE TECHNOLOGY:

- Why technology may prevent Trump from delivering on his jobs promise (WaPo) "But those jobs, many in the manufacturing sector, are increasingly done by technology. Machines are learning to do the jobs of manufacturing workers; artificial intelligence-based tools are mastering the jobs of call-center and knowledge workers; and cars are beginning to drive themselves. Over the next decade, technology will decimate more jobs in many professions, inequality will increase and more people will be disadvantaged. The remedies that are being proposed are to impose trade barriers. But closing the doors to foreign trade won’t bring jobs back. It will only slow the global economy and hurt American exports, thereby shrinking the U.S. economy and accelerating job loss. We now need a nationwide conversation on how we can distribute the prosperity we are creating. We must create equity and fairness in our legal, justice and economic systems."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- ‘Prediction professor’ who called Trump’s big win also made another forecast: Trump will be impeached (WaPo) "'I'm going to make another prediction,' he [Allan Lichtman] said. 'This one is not based on a system, it's just my gut. They don't want Trump as president, because they can't control him. He's unpredictable. They'd love to have Pence — an absolutely down the line, conservative, controllable Republican. And I'm quite certain Trump will give someone grounds for impeachment, either by doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocketbook.'"

- Confirmed: Donald Trump Says He Will Take $1 Salary as President (Breitbart) "'The answer is no,' he said, when asked about his campaign trail promise by CBS interviewer Lesley Stahl. 'I think I have to take by law one dollar so I’ll take one dollar a year.' He admitted that he didn’t even know what the salary was, but when he was told it was $400,000 salary he declined it. 'I’m not taking it,' he said. He added that he would not be taking too many vacations either. 'There’s so much work to be done and I want to get it done for the people,' he said. 'I want to get it done. We’re lowering taxes, we’re taking care of health care.'"

Sign up for email distribution of the Day's Most Compelling News below or by visiting Top of the News

No comments: