It seems like the GOP has grown more and more sour on the CIA ever since they helped the black guy kill Osama bin Laden.
hat tip = @TeaPainUSA
hat tip = @TeaPainUSA
According to a Gallup poll released Monday, Americans have significantly less faith in Trump than they had in his predecessors. Only 44% said they are confident Trump will avoid major scandals in his Administration, 46% said they are confident in Trump’s ability to handle an international crisis, and 47% said they trust him to use military force wisely. When the same questions were asked at the start of Barack Obama’s, George W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s terms, roughly three-quarters of Americans said they had confidence in the newly elected President in these areas.
When compared with Gallup’s averages of confidence polling in his predecessors, Trump comes up short: he has a 32-point confidence deficit in his ability to avoid scandals in his Administration, a 29-point deficit in his ability to use military force well and a 28-point deficit in his ability to manage the Executive Branch. Most Americans (60%) believe Trump will be able to get things done with Congress, but even there he comes up far behind his predecessors — the average number of Americans with confidence in Obama, Bush and Clinton to work with Congress was 82%.The main thing (for me), is that Trump has benefited greatly from Low Expectations. And that's become kind of a standard play with the GOP in the last 25 years or so - The Empty Vessel; the guy with no experience and no practical know-how or training; coming in to do a job that he's woefully unprepared to do.
grifters gonna grift.— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) January 2, 2017
remember when DC press had collective 6-yr heart attack re: Dems and Lincoln Bedroom? https://t.co/rjxX1X1JMr
A person who travels in Palm Beach society circles said that tickets to the party were being sold for $525 each for members and $575 each for guests.
Trump’s transition team declined to comment on the ticket prices.
Incoming White House Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks rejected criticisms that Mar-a-Lago was selling access to the president-elect.
“The transition is not concerned about the appearance of a conflict,” she said.
“This is an annual celebratory event at the private club, like others that have continued to occur since the election. Additionally, the president cannot and does not have a conflict.”
The definition of irony, FOX News reporting on fake news! pic.twitter.com/xEbwfJNJZq— philip harris (@pharris830) January 1, 2017
To get help making sense of all these upheavals and tragedies, I reached out to Harvard psychology professor and polymath Steven Pinker. A cognitive scientist and linguist, Pinker focused his study of human nature on our propensity for violence — and conversely, cooperation — in his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. In the book, Pinker meticulously documented a steady decline in violence over the past several centuries, which, he writes, "may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species."
In August, he told me the world is still in a more peaceful period than at any other time in history. (You can read the whole conversation here.) A few days ago, I reached out to him again. I wanted to see how Pinker was looking back over the year that was 2016 — if the election of Trump, and all the global violence that followed, had changed anything. The email conversation that follows has been edited for length and clarity.