What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Zanza]

The Irish PM, celebrating St. Patrick's Day with Donald Trump.

It's fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St. Patrick and his legacy. He too of course was an immigrant. And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe he's also a symbol of — indeed the patron of — immigrants.

Here in America, in your great country, 35 million people claim Irish heritage, and the Irish have contributed to the economic, social, political, and cultural life of this great country over the last 200 years. Ireland came to America because, deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed.

And four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the wretched refuse on the teeming shore. We believed in the shelter of America, in the compassion of America, in the opportunity of America. We came and we became Americans. We lived the words of John F. Kennedy long before he uttered them: We asked not what America can do for us, but what we could do for America. And we still do.

That's a very diplomatic speech. He only praises America and at the same time transports a very clear message that is contrary to his hosts policies.

[Caliga]

Is this normal timing for the Irish president to be in America? He said every year they gather there...

Don't Irish-Americans care more about St. Patrick's Day than the actual Irish do?  I thought I had heard that once.

[Zanza]

A German journalist just asked Trump about the wiretapping claims and he answered that this might be at least one thing he has in common with Angela Merkel.

[Syt]

Merkel and Trump - note the body language

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/842773050751946758

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/trump-refuses-to-shake-hands-with-angela-merkel.html?mid=facebook_nymag

Trump Refuses to Shake Hands With Angela Merkel, and It's Very Awkward

President Donald Trump finally met with German chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House on Friday. The sit-down was bound to be slightly tense: Merkel has criticized the the president's travel ban and beat out Trump for Time Person of the Year in 2015. Trump, in response to losing, tweeted that Merkel was "ruining Germany" and described her open-door refugee policy as an "utterly catastrophic mistake." But this scene in the Oval Office between two key allies was something else:

https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/842783170365939713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Just to recap: Photographers asked Trump and Merkel to shake hands. Merkel leans in and quietly asks, "Do you want to have a handshake?" Trump continues to sit with his hands clasped between his knees. Like we've said before, Trump does not forget.

Damn, looking at the NBC video is something. Merkel seems relaxed and jovial, he seems tense and can't even look at her. He looks like a reprimanded first grader.

[celedhring]

Is this normal timing for the Irish president to be in America? He said every year they gather there...

Don't Irish-Americans care more about St. Patrick's Day than the actual Irish do?  I thought I had heard that once.

I'm starting to believe that non-Irish care more about St. Patrick than the actual Irish do. My GF's family is hosting a St. Patrick's party, and there's not a single Irish gene in their bodies.

[Caliga]

Are any of them from Galicia?

[celedhring]

Are any of them from Galicia?

Yeah, they have Galician ancestors. Are you suggesting that Ireland is the mainstream version of Galicia? 

[Admiral Yi]

I'm starting to believe that non-Irish care more about St. Patrick than the actual Irish do. My GF's family is hosting a St. Patrick's party, and there's not a single Irish gene in their bodies.

Maybe some Black Irish genes. 

[Syt]

http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/17/media/trump-administration-blocks-media/

Trump administration ramps up efforts to block media

President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration "can get around the media when the media doesn't tell the truth, so I like that."

The president was referring to his Twitter account. But recently he has taken steps to control news coverage.

The Trump administration has given preferential access to favorable outlets while excluding others -- a move critics say is dangerously reminiscent of state-controlled media.

In the latest incident, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson invited Fox News to cover his meeting at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, on the North-South Korea border, but denied access to the press pool that provides all media outlets with an account of the secretary's activities.

"Fox unilateral network team was allowed into this meeting -- pool asked for access and was blocked," wrote CNN's Pamela Boykoff, the author of Friday's pool report. "Local embassy official told the pool it was 'the Secretary's decision.'"

Tillerson was already being criticized for refusing to allow pool reporters to accompany him on his plane during the trip, which had been a standard practice for his predecessors at the State Department. Tillerson did allow a reporter from the conservative Independent Journal Review to accompany him, but not as a pool reporter.

That reporter, Erin McPike, has not filed any stories from the trip so far -- a source of consternation among other members of the media. A spokesman for IJR said McPike was with Tillerson to write a profile piece, not to write spot news stories about the trip.

"There was absolutely no agreement with State" to forgo daily writing or reporting, McPike told CNNMoney. "I am also not the pool reporter. I'm doing a longer piece." McPike also said she prizes objectivity and fairness: "I completely reject the state-run media charge" leveled by some observers.

On the domestic front, the administration has also given preferential access to favorable media outlets. Five of the seven in-person interviews Trump has given to the media since becoming president have gone to Fox News.

Last month, White House press secretary Sean Spicer blocked CNN, The New York Times, Politico and several other news outlets from attending an off-camera White House press briefing that other reporters were hand-picked to attend. When reporters from these news organizations tried to enter Spicer's office for the gaggle, they were told they could not attend because they were not on the list of attendees.

At Friday's joint press conference, one German reporter asked Trump, "Why are you scared of diversity in the news?"

Trump declined to answer that question.

[celedhring]

Well, I was hoping that Tillerson would be one to behave as an adult in this administration. Seems I was wrong.

[Syt]

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-german-reporter-fake-news-236182

Trump accuses German reporter of citing 'fake news'

President Donald Trump bristled at a question from a German reporter Friday afternoon who asked about his "America first" trade policies and disdain for the media, remarking that the reporter must have been reading "fake news."

"Mr. President, 'America first,' don't you think this is going to weaken also the European Union?" the reporter asked at Trump's bilateral press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "And why are you so scared of diversity in the news and in the media, that you speak so often of 'fake news' and that things after all, in the end, cannot be proven, for example the fact that you have been wiretapped by Mr. Obama?"

"Nice friendly reporter," Trump replied amid scattered laughter in the White House's East Room. He did not directly address the reporter's question about his disdain for the media, nor did he address a portion of that same reporter's question to Merkel, which referenced past comments from the chancellor about walls coming down in seeking her thoughts on Trump's policies.

The president did insist that he is "not an isolationist" but that he will insist, as he did on the campaign trail, that the U.S. is treated fairly in the international marketplace and does not fall victim to the pitfalls he blamed for job losses across the country.

"The United States has been treated very, very unfairly by many countries over the years and that's going to stop. But I'm not an isolationist. I'm a free trader but I'm also a fair trader and our free trade has led to a lot of bad things happening," Trump said, noting America's significant trade deficit and the accompanying accumulation of debt. "We're a very powerful company — country. We're a very strong, very strong country. We'll soon be at a level that we perhaps have never been before."

"I am not an isolationist by any stretch of the imagination," the president continued. "I don't know what newspaper you're reading, but I guess that would be another example of, as you say, fake news."

[Maladict]

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-german-reporter-fake-news-236182

Trump accuses German reporter of citing 'fake news'

President Donald Trump bristled at a question from a German reporter Friday afternoon who asked about his "America first" trade policies and disdain for the media, remarking that the reporter must have been reading "fake news."

"Mr. President, 'America first,' don't you think this is going to weaken also the European Union?" the reporter asked at Trump's bilateral press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "And why are you so scared of diversity in the news and in the media, that you speak so often of 'fake news' and that things after all, in the end, cannot be proven, for example the fact that you have been wiretapped by Mr. Obama?"

"Nice friendly reporter," Trump replied amid scattered laughter in the White House's East Room. He did not directly address the reporter's question about his disdain for the media, nor did he address a portion of that same reporter's question to Merkel, which referenced past comments from the chancellor about walls coming down in seeking her thoughts on Trump's policies.

The president did insist that he is "not an isolationist" but that he will insist, as he did on the campaign trail, that the U.S. is treated fairly in the international marketplace and does not fall victim to the pitfalls he blamed for job losses across the country.

"The United States has been treated very, very unfairly by many countries over the years and that's going to stop. But I'm not an isolationist. I'm a free trader but I'm also a fair trader and our free trade has led to a lot of bad things happening," Trump said, noting America's significant trade deficit and the accompanying accumulation of debt. "We're a very powerful company — country. We're a very strong, very strong country. We'll soon be at a level that we perhaps have never been before."

"I am not an isolationist by any stretch of the imagination," the president continued. "I don't know what newspaper you're reading, but I guess that would be another example of, as you say, fake news."

I was enjoying that press conference, especially the German reporters. And Merkel could run circles around him if she wanted to, and he knows it.

[jimmy olsen]

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-german-reporter-fake-news-236182

I was enjoying that press conference, especially the German reporters. And Merkel could run circles around him if she wanted to, and he knows it.

Isn't one of the biggest flaws of the incompetent that they don't realize they're incompetent?

[Malicious Intent]

The Dunning–Kruger effect.

[CountDeMoney]

I was enjoying that press conference, especially the German reporters. And Merkel could run circles around him if she wanted to, and he knows it.

No, he doesn't know it; that's the problem.  You're exactly right about D-K, he's a textbook example.



We're all going to die.