It turns out that Donald Trump’s ‘executive time’ (i.e., time to watch TV, tweet, and gossip on the phone with his friends) occupies a much larger portion of his daily schedule than was previously reported, with many such periods included throughout the day. In fact, it looks like being president is just something he does in his spare time, and that may not be altogether a bad thing.
One of the methods used by wealthy people and businesses to intimidate people and prevent them from taking action against them is to threaten them with legal action. Even if you, as an individual, are completely in the right and they are completely in the wrong, you will encounter a lot of up front costs and hassle in pressing your case, because the high-priced lawyers on the other side will make things as hard as possible for you. People like Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein use this tactic repeatedly and, sadly, it usually works to silence critics.
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In that great comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin is always imagining himself in heroic exploits that showcase his genius and where he vanquishes all who dare challenge him. That reminds cartoonist Reuben Bolling of someone …
Tom the Dancing Bug 1370 donald and john – genius
A report says that in 2018, Donald Trump will reduce the demanding schedule that he pursued in 2017 which involved playing a lot of golf at the various course and resorts that he owns. (There is a website that tracks the amount of golf that he plays.) This year he has told his aides that he wants more ‘executive time’, i.e., time alone, and that his first scheduled daily meeting will be his intelligence briefing at 11:00am. And it does not get much busier the rest of the day either.
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James Fallows says that the recent revelations of widespread sexual abuse and harassment by powerful people in so many areas of work share one significant feature with the revelations in the new book Fire and Fury about how all the people working in the White House or who have come into contact with Donald Trump have known all along that he is utterly unsuited to the job. In both cases, the situation was an ‘open secret’, in that insiders knew what was going on and yet did nothing about it, except whisper the truth among themselves and warn those whom they happened to know personally.
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I noticed that the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri won four awards at last night’s Golden Globes awards show for Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, best drama, and best screenplay. I had reviewed this film favorably when it came out last month. It is widely tipped to do well at the Academy Awards show next month as well.
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North Randall mall that is located close to where I live was at one time the largest mall in the country and its opening was a celebrity-studded event. But like many malls that do not cater to high-end customers, it has fallen on hard times and became a ghost mall with all the stores moving away. So the impoverished city of North Randall was delighted when Amazon announced its intention to lease the property, raze the largely abandoned mall, and put up one of its giant ‘fulfillment centers’ that would reportedly bring in 2,000 jobs.
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As pretty much everyone might have expected, Donald Trump responded vigorously to the assertions in Michael Wolff’s new book that everyone around him, including his closest confidantes and members of his family, think he’s an idiot. He sent out a series of tweets praising his own intelligence.
“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star….. ….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!”
Peter Maass warns us that we should pay less attention to the Donald Trump-Steve Bannon relationship that is currently dominating the news and more to the malevolent influence that Rupert Murdoch has on Trump.
One of the less-noted passages in Wolff’s book explains that the president reveres Murdoch, regularly seeking advice from the founder of the Fox empire, a condition that made Bannon jealous of Murdoch’s power over Trump. The book quotes Roger Ailes, who ran Fox News for Murdoch until being dismissed for sexual harassment, as noting that “Trump would jump through hoops for Rupert.”
Matt Taibbi tries hard to convince us that there is an upside to the awful revelations in Michael Wolff’s gossipy new book about the first year of the Trump presidency.
The book certainly doesn’t seem like good news. Wolff tells us our president is probably a neurotic illiterate, incapable of focus beyond a few seconds, and thought of as a deranged simpleton by even his most trusted advisors.
…Wolff basically describes Trump as a deficient buffoon who, when it comes to politics anyway, is totally out of his element, mistaking fake ardor for the real thing, constantly demanding fealty from Congress, the business world and staff:
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