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A bigly flip flopperTrail of broken promises: 10 of Donald Trump’s biggest flops during his first 100 days Remember when the president wanted insurance for all? ALEXANDRA ROSENMANN Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have been among the more disastrous in American presidential history. Not only has he seen his healthcare bill go down in flames and his discriminatory executive orders overruled in federal court, he has failed the very people who voted him into office. Politifact has been tracking over 100 such promises, and while Trump has followed through on some, like slashing regulations, he has broken countless others. Here are ten ways he has bamboozled his base. 1. His repeated promises to "Rip up the Iran deal." Trump has repeatedly called the Iran deal the worst ever, and swore to tear it up immediately on entering office. In fact, Trump could have killed the deal this week just by doing nothing. With a set of Congressional required 90-day certifications expiring, Trump could have said he was unable to guarantee Iran was complying with the deal and it would have started to collapse on its own. Instead, Rex Tillerson, acting as Trump’s delegated agent (on Tuesday of this week), sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan declaring that Iran was complying with U.N. requirements to constrain its nuclear program. Not that he wanted anyone to notice. The operative part of his note is indecipherable to an average reader: “This letter certifies that the conditions of Section 135(d)(6) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (AEA), as amended, including as amended by the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-17), enacted May 22, 2015, are met as of April 18, 2017.” 2. “Drain the swamp” Trump didn’t drain the swamp; he flooded it with Goldman Sachs alumni and Bush-era officials, making his the richest cabinet in U.S. history. 3. Get Mexico to pay for a border wall “Nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively,” Donald Trump said in his presidential campaign announcement. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.” During Trump’s first week in office, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto reiterated that Mexico would not be paying for a wall. As for it being “inexpensive,” the cost is now projected at $15 billion, approximately $120 per household. 4. Repeal and replace Obamacare with “insurance for everybody“ Trump’s failure to deliver a passable health care bill last month was a total blow to his reputation as a deal maker. The failed deal that he backed failed miserably totally shattered his promise of "insurance for EVERYBODY". 5. Label China a currency manipulator After meeting with Chinese President Xi at his Palm beach resort Mar-a-Lago, the president completely reversed his “tough on China” position. 6. Eradicate crime in Chicago Candidate Trump frequently targeted the “carnage” of Barack Obama’s hometown and Hillary Clinton’s birthplace with threats to “send in the feds” once he took office. But Chicago’s murder rate remains high despite Trump’s boasts last August that he could fix the problem “in a week.” 7. Save the coal industry Despite a policy and production shift, one of Trump’s most audacious claims has been dismissed by top industry executives and some of his biggest supporters. 8. Stay out of the Middle East Trump’s military strike on a Syrian airbase was a complete 180 from the isolationist rhetoric he campaigned on, a move that has angered some of his most ardent supporters. The policy reversal was especially hypocritical given his criticism of President Obama in 2013. 9. Not take vacations “I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off,” Trump said in June 2015. As of mid-April, Trump has spent nearly 30 percent of his term staying at or traveling to Mar-a-Lago. 10. Sue his accusers During the fallout from his 2005 Hollywood Access tape, Trump promised at a campaign rally in Gettysburg, PA: “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.” Five months later, he is yet to take legal action. Bonus: Two months before his historic upset, Trump promised voters “every dream you ever dreamed for your country” would be fulfilled should he be elected. Let’s just say they’ve had a rude awakening (rickety's wet dreams aside). ------------------------------------ Trump's broken promise could break another Smoke has been billowing skyward from the Trumpster fire for nearly 100 days — I know, it feels more like 100 weeks — and his refusal to release his tax returns is only stoking the flames. Basically, his broken campaign promise to release his tax returns is now imperiling his grandiose campaign promise to overhaul a tax system that he supposedly understands “better than anyone who has ever run for president.” He promised to roll out a tax reform plan by February, but two months later, his incompetent motley crew has rolled out nothing. That’s because they’re not in sync with Capitol Hill because politicians — including a sizeable contingent of Republicans — are wary of passing anything that might wind up enriching Trump. They don’t know what would enrich Trump because they’re in the dark, just as we are, about Trump’s finances. And they’re in the dark because Trump refuses to come clean on his tax returns the way every non-authoritarian president has done since 1976. More than a dozen Hill Republicans are calling for Trump to release his tax returns, and even Trump loyalist Joe Walsh, an ex-House member and polarizing rabble-rouser, surfaced on MSNBC with a plea for Trump transparency: “I do think this issue will come back and bite him on the butt.” Trump’s fantasy of doing a bipartisan tax reform deal is likely dead unless he releases his returns. Democrats say they won’t cooperate unless or until they have solid assurances that the reform provisions won’t put money in Trump’s pocket. And three Republicans in the conservative House Freedom Caucus have signed onto a Democratic bill that would compel Trump to release his returns. New presidents are usually at their peak of political influence during their first 100 days. Trump hits the 100-day mark at the end of this month, and he will have accomplished nothing (except to tweet and run his mouth). The travel ban is tied up in court. The overhaul of Obamacare crashed and burned. He needed to kill the Obamacare taxes before tackling broader tax reform. Now he says he might try to re-target Obamacare before moving on to tax reform — but that was just something he said last week, and, as we know by now, his word means nothing. The good news is that far fewer people are buying his snake oil. According to the latest Gallup poll, 45 percent of Americans see Trump as a guy who honors his promises. Granted, 45 percent sounds high, given his long trail of broken dreams, but that share has dropped 17 points since February. I doubt that this exchange, from Monday’s White House press briefing, will reverse the downward trend: Reporter: “Is it time to just say once and for all that the president is never going to release his tax returns?” Sean Spicer: “We’ll have to get back to you on that.” Does the Trump regime really believe it can overhaul the tax system, with bipartisan support, by stonewalling a broken promise and further destroying the poseur’s credibility? Even his Treasury secretary has told the Financial Times newspaper that Trump’s dream of a summer signing ceremony is “not realistic at this point.” Or, to paraphrase Trump: Nobody knew that governing could be so complicated. D.Poleman 04-21-17 ---------------------------------- Yet another view of the drumpf's many broken promises: He said he’d use his business experience to whip the White House into shape. You bought it. Then he created the most chaotic, dysfunctional, backstabbing White House in modern history, in which no one is in charge. He said he’d release his tax returns, eventually. You bought it. He hasn’t, and says he never will. He said he’d divest himself from his financial empire, to avoid any conflicts of interest. You bought it. He remains heavily involved in his businesses, makes money off of foreign dignitaries staying at his Washington hotel, gets China to give the Trump brand trademark and copyright rights, manipulates the stock market on a daily basis and has more conflicts of interest than can even be counted. He said Hillary Clinton was in the pockets of Goldman Sachs and would do whatever they said. You bought it. Then he put half a dozen Goldman Sachs executives in positions of power in his administration. He said he’d surround himself with all the best and smartest people. You bought it. Then he put Betsy DeVos, an opponent of public education, in charge of education; Jeff Sessions, an opponent of the Voting Rights Act, in charge of voting rights; Ben Carson, an opponent of the Fair Housing Act, in charge of fair housing; Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier, in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Russian quisling Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. He said he’d faithfully execute the law. You bought it. Then he said his predecessor, Barack Obama, spied on him, without any evidence of Obama ever doing so, in order to divert attention from the FBI’s investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives to win the election. He said he knew more about strategy and terrorism than the generals did. You bought it. Then he green-lighted a disastrous raid in Yemen, even though his generals said it would be a terrible idea. This raid resulted in the deaths of a Navy SEAL, an 8-year-old American girl and numerous civilians. The actual target of the raid escaped, and no useful intel was gained He called Obama “the vacationer-in-chief” and accused him of playing more rounds of golf than Tiger Woods. He promised to never be the kind of president who took cushy vacations on the taxpayer’s dime, not when there was so much important work to be done. You bought it. He has by now spent more taxpayer money on vacations than Obama did in the first three years of his presidency. Not to mention all the money taxpayers are spending protecting his family, including his two sons who travel all over the world on Trump business. |
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Msg # | Subject | Author | Recs | Date Posted |
548034 | Re: A bigly flip flopper | RocketRoj | 0 | 4/21/2017 11:10:31 PM |