Donald Trump's Fantastic Incredible Awesome Rhetorical Presidency-Podcast 620

Donald Trump’s Fantastic Incredible Awesome Rhetorical Presidency-Podcast 620

Foreign Policy Based On Cable News and Twitter

Wars. Rumors of wars. In Donald Trump’s Fantastic Incredible Awesome Rhetorical Presidency-Podcast 620 Trump breaks another promise. Remember 2013? That’s when Trump said Obama should forget about Syria. Save his powder for something more important. In the debates, then candidate Trump said the same thing. Leave Syria alone. We’ll get nothing out of attacking Assad.

Trump Fine With Assad Until…

At the end of March Senators McCain and Graham were pleading to attack Assad. However as late as last week Nikki Haley was telling her UN Counterparts and the world Assad could stay. Then came the chemical attack on Syrian civilians. Children. Pictures on cable news. President Trump saw the pictures and got mad.

Cable News Made President Mad

As Trump and his team met with the Chinese at his resort in Florida, he ordered a counterstrike. 59 missiles. 70 million dollars. The runway where the planes took off is still intact. Syrian military aviation continues to fly sorties from that runway. On a dime this president has changed US foreign policy. Changed one of the cornerstones of his campaign. Another major promise broken.

North Korea Too

Over the weekend the USS Carl Vinson Strike Force was detailed to the Western Pacific. Off the Korean Peninsula. Suddenly Donald Trump has become George W. Bush. If you voted for Trump is this what you voted for? We’re a long way from building the wall and getting China to send all those jobs back now, Toto.

Alt Right Deeply Misinformed

Then there are the rumors. The bad reporting. The discourse on social media. One hundred fifty thousand US troops to Syria? Says so right here. China deploying another one hundred fifty thousand of their troops to the Yalu river, China’s border with North Korea. Russia and Iran say they’ll respond if there are any more US attacks. Word is the Russian Navy is very busy in Europe. More activity than the cold war.

How About Those Twins?

Voters who didn’t want to talk about foreign policy because it was too complicated might want to bone up. TV producers and Radio Program directors and talk show hosts may want to drop the banter about sports and the weather. Republicans should take a look at the bargain they made with this president and ask themselves just what they bought and must now defend.

Trust Me. It’s Gonna Be Great

Welcome to Donald Trump’s Fantastic Incredible Awesome Rhetorical Presidency-Podcast 620. Tax Reform, a trillion dollar stimulus program and another run at repealing ObamaCare loom. The US is twenty trillion dollars in debt. On top of that, perhaps a war in Syria he campaigned against and a crisis in North Korea. Don’t worry though. The president will tweet about it. Foreign Affairs crisis? Bah. More tweets. In Donald Trump’s Fantastic Incredible Awesome Rhetorical Presidency-Podcast 620.

(Editor’s Note: Late Tuesday the President told the New York Post, “We are not going into Syria”, and blamed the confusion on his ‘aides’. Which would be his ambassador to the UN among other fairly senior administration personnel. Oddly enough regime change remains a new goal. He also said, “We’re sending an armada” to North Korea. Rhetorical Presidency indeed.)

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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The American Dream Is Killing Us? Really? Podcast 618

The American Dream Is Killing Us? Really? Podcast 618

“Deaths of Despair” is what some researchers call them. Death due to suicide, drug overdose and the consequences of heavy drinking. Alarm bells are ringing. Over the last twenty seven years deaths among middle aged white people with a high school diploma or less have doubled. So many deaths it has caused a fall in overall US life expectancy. Let’s talk about it in The American Dream Is Killing Us? Really? Podcast 618.

Failure Isn’t Your Fault Anymore?

This is a lurid headline. Lurid headlines get attention. Writers are writing. Talkers are talking. Princeton researchers blame ‘Cumulative Deprivation’. We’re suddenly wondering if The American Dream Is Killing Us? Really? Podcast 618.

American Dream Grows Up

What is The American Dream? James Truslow Adams tied it to the Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal. We have an unalienable right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Who Says You’ll Be Happy

When did it become The American Dream? Do we expect our government to help us be happy? Are we supposed to be guaranteed success in our pursuit of happiness. A house in the suburbs? Two cars? A great job? Happy children? Retirement? Health Insurance?

Economic Inequality

Robert Samuelson thinks economic inequality is the cause. Inequality causes slow active social forces accumulating and destroying the hopes and dreams of white people with a high school education or less. It drives them to despair. Drink. Drugs. Death. Writers like JD Vance add to the ‘White Trash‘ ethos with stories of poor, dumb white people living in Appalachia.

We All Have Tough Times In Our Family Histories

In The American Dream Is Killing Us? Really? Podcast 618 I tell some stories of my own family’s history in the coal mines. I wonder what people think we’re responsible for these days. All of us have some kind of despair but we fight it. We get knocked down and get back up. Live to fight another day. Never give up.

Get Up And Fight

Life is a challenge. It does not come with a guarantee. How we define winning and success changes with age and time. Happiness doesn’t require a house in the suburbs and two cars. Happiness requires a warrior mentality to some degree. Sometimes you just have to reach down and get it.

The American Dream Is Killing Us? Really? Podcast 618

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 605-Bannon's Fourth Turning

Podcast 605-Bannon’s Fourth Turning

Steve Bannon and The Fourth Turning

The President’s co chief of staff is obsessed with a book called The Fourth Turning. Podcast 605-Bannon’s Fourth Turning discusses reaction to the idea someone as powerful as Steve Bannon would formulate a political philosophy on a pop history/sociology best seller. The Fourth Turning co-author the late William Strauss was a playwright, theater director and lecturer. Co-author Neil Howe is a best selling author and consultant. Strauss and Howe coined the term ‘Millennial’. Both men described themselves as Amateur Historians. The Fourth Turning, Bannon’s apparent zeitgeist, was published in the early 1990’s. See a video of the two authors appearing on C-Span’s BookNotes here.

Chaos Dead Ahead

The book some say Steve Bannon has based his political philosophy on postulates every 80 years the United States is marked by crisis and chaos. Business Insider says Bannon believes the United States will soon reach our climax conflict and that Trump is in the White House to usher it in.

Is the United States in a Political Crisis?

Politicians tend to magnify the political challenges they face. Reporters play along. Divided since the beginning crises of one kind or another have been a way of life in the US. It’s very American to think of the government with distrust and apprehension. Especially when, as the saying goes, the legislature is in session. Are we in a political crisis?

Want To Know The Future?

Crisis will find the Trump administration. The response to crisis is what will determine it’s fate. Theories predicting ‘the’ crisis are questionable. Free Will is a gift to Human Beings. We think and act voluntarily. We can be the authors of our own stories. Controversy surrounding the Fourth Turning and Steve Bannon’s embrace of the theory encapsulates much of what is wrong with our politics. In Podcast 605-Bannon’s Fourth Turning I’ll tell you why.

One Day At A Time

Living one day at a time doesn’t mean avoiding passionate views. We do not remain passive and uninvolved but do the best we can with what we have. We will never know exactly what tomorrow may bring. Isn’t that the fun part of life?

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