Mike and Karen: The Real Presidential Couple

Mike Pence in Afghanistan. 12/21/17 (CNN.com)

While Donald Trump spends most weekends on the golf course at his resort in Mar-A-Lago there is an administration that still has to their work.  If he isn't golfing he spends his time lounging around the White House, occasionally signing a deregulation bill in the process.  Fox & Friends, executive time, and burgers in bed all constitute a day-in-the-life for the 45th President of the United States.  But what about Mike Pence?  If Trump is seen as one of the laziest Presidents on record then what does that do for his Vice President?  Trump may be the President, but Pence is really the lead guy between the two.

Year in Review: 2016

I want to start things off by thanking every person that has come to the blog and read my articles!  Words cannot describe how thankful I am to each reader!  With that said, it is New Year's Eve and if you're like me, you just want this dumpster fire of a year to go away.  As worrisome of a feeling that 2017 will be, we do have to stay optimistic about the current climate.  We need to remember that the People of these United States have the final say in all decisions in this land and shall continue to let our voices be heard and considered!

This blog officially started this month and during that time there were 14 articles written for the site.  There will be many more for sure in the next year!  So let's do the Year in Review and highlight the Top 5 articles published in the year 2016!

Top Five Articles of 2016

1. Buddy System- How picking your really rich friends and campaign contributors is not "Draining the Swamp."
2. A Letter to Donald Trump and His Tweets- Donald Trump needs to be more diplomatic in his tweets.  What he posts matters more so now than it did when he was just a businessman.
3. Science: There's a Reason For It- Creationists and climate deniers need to understand that their views will lead to a lot of destruction in this world.
4. GOP Ambushes NC Politics aka Reichstag Fire Pt. 2- How a last-minute power grab by the North Carolina GOP showed the world that democracy does not matter when you lose.
5. Trump and Netanyahu: Partners in Crime- The worrisome tale of Israel and the rejection of the Two-State Solution.

Let's all have a great New Years and I look forward to writing more for Trump Monitor in 2017!  Thank you everyone!

Move Over Jackson, There is a New Kitchen Cabinet in DC

The whole platform of Donald Trump was his Reagan slogan of "Make America Great Again" and conservative voters bought it.  What they bought more was that he was a businessman, not a career politician therefore he was the outsider needed to clean up Washington; a modern day Mr. Smith Goes to Washington if you will.  The anti-establishment man is sheep in wolf's clothing, not the other way around.  His voters were hoping for "sensibility" and "forward-thinking" ways but have been stiffed so mightily, yet they do not even see that somehow.  If a Trump supporter gets upset by that then let's show them his picks for his cabinet and their most important asset to Trump: their wealth.

Morning Musings

Is seven in the morning too early to start a blog post?  Not if your profession requires you to be up a lot earlier than that on a daily basis.  Seven is sleeping in for me.  Anyways, here is the Morning Musings also known as "What I plan on posting this weekend."

I have four topics in mind (subject to change of course) that will be either covered all today or some today and some tomorrow:

1. Trump's Cabinet picks so far have a combined wealth of more than 1/3 of all US households
2. North Carolina GOP's last minute power-grabs
3. Russia's involvement in election hacking
4. David Friedman named as Trump's Ambassador to Israel

Stay tuned after I have my morning coffee...

Science: There's a Reason for it.

It is the year 2016 CE and yet people still cannot understand, nor do they try to understand, a real thing called science. Science has problems, solutions, equations, theories, and laws that are always changing when new theories or equations come through. No one argues (outside of debating which theory is more plausible) and every accepts the numbers when shown. This is entirely different to religion. Religion, as comedian Tim Minchin has stated, "kills" any argument made against it despite the overwhelming theories, laws, and practicalities towards it's falsehood.

Buddy System

Do you remember when you were in your American history class and learned about cronyism?  In case you forgot here is the definition:

The practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations.  

Now that you are refreshed lets look at the current storyline of Trump's cabinet setup.  The Trump platform promised to "drain the swamp" aka take undue influence out of politics.  Anyone with clear foresight knows that a shrewd businessman and a clever politician are two sides of the same coin so it should not have been a surprise at the people he has been nominating for his cabinet.  Speaking of which, let's look at some of his picks so far: