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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 02 2017, @09:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-exactly-like-Ted-Williams dept.

The Center for American Progress reports

On [April 29], Donald Trump marks the 100th day of his presidency, and finds his approval ratings much lower than any of his modern predecessors.

One reason for this could be perceptions about his accountability. To become president, Trump made a lot of promises to a lot of people--663, in fact. In just 100 days of what would be 1,461 days of a first term, Donald Trump has broken 80 promises he made before he was sworn in.

[...] A close analysis of the 663 promises Trump made on the campaign trail shows how few he has kept, and how many more he has broken.

Trump's promises about what he would accomplish in his first 100 days are not the first vows pegged to a key milestone that were summarily ignored or broken. As a candidate, Trump made several pledges about the first paper he would sign, as well as what would he would do during his first minute and first hour as president. He kept none of them. On his first day in office, Trump failed to keep 34 different promises of what he said he would do on Day One in the White House--and fulfilled just two.

In total, during his first month in office, Trump broke 64 promises. He kept just seven of his promises in that first month.

Including those from the first month, Trump has broken 80 promises and kept seven in the first hundred days. Three promises have been addressed with some caveats in a separate category below.

[...] When the AP's Julie Pace asked Trump about the 100-day plan, Trump replied, "I'm mostly there on most items."

The reality shows the opposite.

[...] Trump promised he won't let countries steal our jobs anymore.

"We'll put our people back to work, we will not let other countries steal our jobs. It it is not going to happen anymore." Worcester, MA, 11/18/15 [Video]

According to a ThinkProgress analysis of Labor Department data, at least 11,934 American jobs have been lost or are in the process of leaving the United States since Inauguration Day.

In going to a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his amazing string of accomplishments over the last 100 days, Trump avoided the White House Correspondents Association dinner where he was sure to have been the butt of about a billion squarely-on-target jokes.

As for Trump's claim that "No administration has accomplished more in the first 90 days", Politifact notes

The 15 major bills [which Franklin Roosevelt signed in his first 100 days] included those that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Tennessee Valley Authority (both of which still exist) and the Home Owners Loan Corp. He signed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which established farm subsidies, and the National Industrial Recovery Act, which started public-works efforts to reverse the Great Depression. He signed legislation to legalize the manufacture and sale of beer and wine, and he issued executive orders to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps and to effectively take the United States off the gold standard.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:01AM (20 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:01AM (#503311)

    Brains: I've an IQ that is somewhere in the 145 to 180 range, depending on conversion factor, (3 to 4 standard deviations above the mean) and I qualify for all the 1-in-a-1000 societies.

    Conscience: I can't support choices that would make my children live in a 3rd-world country. Hurting them in this way would be evil. I wouldn't want them to live in a place like Venezuela or Syria or Iraq or Nigeria or Somalia or Mexico. Protecting my children requires stopping the invasion of 3rd-world people.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:11AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:11AM (#503322)

    > I wouldn't want them to live in a place like Venezuela or Syria or Iraq ....

    You don't seem so bright to me, you left off Chicago, Detroit, some tough parts of NJ, DC proper, and Baltimore, to just name a few.

    On the other hand, if isolating your kids from some of the gritty parts of reality is so important, then I guess you better move to a far suburb--of nearly any US city. And don't let them out of the house, no walking or biking to school either. Sheesh, you sound so scared that I could probably make you jump by saying "Boo" to your face.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:18AM (5 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:18AM (#503412) Journal

      In the worst shithole city that you name, the poor are still very very rich, in comparison to the poor in many other countries. You really haven't a clue, if you are comparing today's US cities to third world countries. May I suggest that you travel to some third world countries, and see first hand what life is like there?

      It would take decades to bring the US down to the level of some third world countries, but it can be done. Decades. Your grand children's lifetimes.

      And, yes, bringing the dregs of the world into the US will only hasten that decline.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:02AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:02AM (#503444)

        I think a couple weeks under a country-wide electricity outage would do it. Modern life is VERY fragile. How many families can feed themselves? Those poor people are able to get enough food to stay alive. Any major US city wouldn't be able to. They wouldn't even have enough water.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:00AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:00AM (#503470)

        The superiority complex of you older people is insane. Try traveling, aka run away from your home country for a bit. Maybe get some modern world exposure that isn't tainted by being in the military. There are plenty of countries that are actually more advanced than the US in many ways even though they are often considered "third world". Thanks for sending the younger generations into debt and generally letting your peers totally fucking screw up the country. You can try and blame immigrants, but it just shows your total lack of awareness and personal responsibility. You rail about millenials, but you older generations are the ones that fucked things up. Not brown people.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:19PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:19PM (#503606)

          They like to blame the kid in the back seat when the car runs out of gas on the side of the road. The kid in the back seat should have had the foresight to bring a spare can of gas.

          The walk to the gas station will do them a lot of good.

          Sometimes having to walk to the gas station is the only way to learn.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:47PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:47PM (#503619) Journal

          It's sorta entertaining to listen to little whiny assed babies carrying on. You don't know shit, but you want to pretend that you do. The entertainment value only lasts for a little while though. Go get yourself a real world education, then come back to tell me how things really are.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:52PM (#503793)

        I never pegged you as an optimist. 30 days would be all it would take, if that, for the finest jewels of the United States to become third world hellholes. (If you're comparing poor to poor.) It would take:

        A) Destruction of missions / food banks / homeless feeding programs in an area, or otherwise shutting down their operations. Destruction/removal of places where homeless shelter as well - not just licensed shelters but all the places they try to stay warm and dry at.
        B) Restricting the poorest segments from moving (as in keep them from being able to leave / flee the area for zones that may better treat them.)
        C) A combination of enforced segregation and upped vagrancy/homelessness laws further criminalizing being poor.
        D) Significant interference with the welfare distribution system for transients.
        E) Continuing the current healthcare process of denying the poor ongoing medical care. Obamacare wasn't nearly enough.

        That's about it. You'd get the worst of Somalia or Liberia in whatever zones those conditions would obtain in. And it wouldn't take decades - it takes people supporting jerkwads like Trump and their ilk. "Me first and fuck you," mentality. And turning your back on seeing the poor among you.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:47AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:47AM (#503398)

    Protecting my children requires stopping the invasion of 3rd-world people

    People with zero power and zero wealth aren't the source of the problems.
    If your children are competing against unskilled farm workers[1], you have failed as a parent.

    The problems are the result of people with enormous amounts of wealth (AKA The Oligarchy AKA Capitalists) who have purchased USA.gov to do their bidding; the "job creators" who have eradicated tariffs, cut wages, offshored jobs, and made the workplaces that remain in the USA more unsafe.

    ...and where brown-skinned people are being hired in the USA, it's those same "job creators" who are hiring them.
    Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has said that he will be going after those who harbor undocumented people.
    Will that mean the above mentioned employers?
    Don't hold your breath on that one.

    The way to solve the problem is to get money out of politics, making all election campaigns publicly-funded and undercutting the power of the Capitalist Class.
    If you aren't working toward that, you don't care about your children; you've just swallowing Trump's Fascist drivel.

    [1] ...and just watch what happens to the price of food after Trump and Sessions have their way with poverty-wage immigrants.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:24AM (4 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:24AM (#503419) Journal

      "If your children are competing against unskilled farm workers[1], you have failed as a parent."

      For a socialist, you certainly are elitest. Thanks for that bit of hypocrisy. What about semi-skilled labor? Are they also beneath the dignity of American citizens? Skilled labor? How about craftsmen? Where do you draw the line? At what point on the economic gradient do you determine that a person is a failure, and that his parents were utter failures? Will a bachelor's degree make the grade? If so, what pay level is "good enough"? $80,000? $120,000? $2,000,000?

      Socialism my ass. You DO realize you've just shot yourself in the foot?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:05AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:05AM (#503448)

        elitest

        Here's the last part for those who stopped short:

        watch what happens to the price of food after Trump and Sessions have their way with poverty-wage immigrants

        Multi-generational USAians -may- take those jobs, but NOT for the poverty wages currently being offered.

        ...and there was actually a site that challenged pale-skinned, soft-handed folks to give it a try.
        TakeOurJobs.org [google.com] (That URL now redirects to the United Farm Workers site.)
        I heard some of the UFW folks on Pacifica Radio talking about that.
        They said that they had a few takers for the challenge but it was rare when anyone lasted a week.

        .
        semi-skilled [...] Skilled

        Why would someone with skills leave his homeland?
        Wouldn't he already be making a comfortable living where he has family and friends?
        Why would he leave everything behind to come here?

        The answer is in a comment up-thread made by me.
        It's due to VIOLENCE.
        ...and the violence is due to USA's insane drug war.
        Ironically, if it wasn't for USA's Imperialism, those folks wouldn't have any reason to leave their countries.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:54PM (2 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:54PM (#503623) Journal

          The problem with that offer was, those same candy asses still had welfare to fall back on. Would YOU work for something like $180/week, if your welfare benefits were already more than $180/week? Hell no, you wouldn't.

          We have discussed the welfare trap in various threads, in the past. And, it is a trap. Once you're in that hole, the harder you work to get out of the hole, the more you are punished. Of course, they punish you before you get the first welfare check. Got a car less than x years old? (I think it's ten years, not certain though.) You have to sell that car, and spend the money on household expenses, before you will be approved for welfare. Okay, so now, you've sold your car, and you have no way to go job hunting anymore. TRAPPED!!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @07:25PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @07:25PM (#503876)

            > Would YOU work for something like $180/week, if your welfare benefits were already more than $180/week? Hell no, you wouldn't.

            Well, I mean, N of one but hi. I'm an AC who has enough time to read Soylent because I don't get enough paid hours per week. (I work 30-60h but can only charge for 20-30h.) I would get about a third more income if I arranged for a mutual departure (not being fired or quitting) and went on my country's employment insurance, which I have paid into and happily continue to pay into. But I wouldn't be employed and it'd be hard to re-enter the workplace. I wouldn't be contributing to society - the work I do is meaningful and brings us towards a better world. But there's not a lot of money, so I make a pittance in order to help keep the business afloat.

            I don't have kids. The impact from my work is not the pay I get, it is the difference made to the world, and I savour it.

            So the numbers don't exactly line up: I'm making a tiny bit more than (in USD) $180/wk, and would be getting a tiny bit under $1k/mo from the gubbmint. And our currency isn't pegged to the USD, but local prices pretty much match inflation, outside of fruit+veg which vary more by weather patterns than by currency exchange rates.

            Offhand I know of several others in a similar boat. I know one guy who runs a store in the boonies, he gets about 5 customers a day and then 5-10 in the early evening. Some days he loses money on power. But he is serving his community (the next foodstuff store requires a vehicle to reach) and making enough to live hand to mouth, and he gets to surf or code or read or play games all day. He eats the stuff that expires. He'd easily make more by taking employment insurance, but his community would suffer and so would his social standing. I can't speak to his exact financial situation - maybe he's got investments at > $180/mo, who knows - but I know at least five others in similar enough situations.

            Check this out https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=19273&cid=501996 [soylentnews.org] and note that while "pursuit of happiness" as "making money" is a USA thing it totally applies here (thanks Aristarchus!)

            Anyways, my 30 minute break is up, time to do some more fun, worthwhile, future-oriented work for minimum wage! Hell yes I will!

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:11AM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:11AM (#504069) Journal

              Salutes to you. You aren't the kind of person to leach off of the government. Unfortunately, we have a fair number of people who are content to sit around and be worthless.

              It is said that it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round, but I resent those who don't want to work, don't want to make any kind of contribution to the world, or to their fellow man.

    • (Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:33PM (1 child)

      by Kromagv0 (1825) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:33PM (#503585) Homepage

      If your children are competing against unskilled farm workers[1], you have failed as a parent.

      Depends. When I was 12-14 I competed against them for work but that was as actual unskilled farm labor at $4.25/hr. Corn de-tasseling sucks but is a good starter job as it teaches you how to bust your ass and earn some money, and realize that you should go and get some skill set so you don't have to de-tassel fucking corn the rest of your life. Then later on in high school I swung a hammer building houses, again competing against unskilled brown people, for a couple of summers but that job paid pretty well. That said if I was still competing for jobs with unskilled migrant workers there would be a problem.

      The problem is that now those jobs instead of going to young people are going to low skill migrants, or people looking to make a career out of corn de-tasseling, burger flipping, wal*mart greeter, etc. because they never learned any skills that were useful. The other problem is that bringing in all of these people drives down wages so you hear companies complaining that they can't get Americans to pick tomatoes for minimum wage ($7.25/hr) well maybe the companies need to raise what they are offering then.

      --
      T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @07:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @07:59PM (#503901)

        Fuck yes to your experience.

        All teens should be forced to farm, fish, or do otherwise hard menial labour - cleaning can count, easily.

        Not for life; not for 40h/week for a year. But damn shooting they should spend one summer working their fingers to the bone, or if not, then a part time job during school one year doing something similar.

        It is disgusting to meet 19-25yos who don't understand hard work, never even had a paper route, who think that the assembly line should stop for them when their feet get a little sore.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:52AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:52AM (#503401)

    I've got an incredibly large brain: i mean, like God's brain. You know: "Oooo, you are SOOO big!"

    I sit and jerk off in front of my kids, while in Switzerland, because i am so great.

    Derp

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:59AM (#503442)

    Haha, you almost had me there. Another 3-4 standard deviations above mean, etc here. It could have gone either way until the final sentence.

    I would have finished it like this: "Protecting my children requires preventing the conditions that lead to a 3rd-world country." Your phrasing is too specific and doesn't include the other, more basic warning signs going on right now.

    We need a healthy infusion of both libertarian and socialist ideas before the patient lapses into a 3rd world country.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:20AM (#503456)

    Trump is smarter. Just ask him, he'll tell you how much smarter he is.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:54AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:54AM (#503480)

    Brains: I've an IQ that is somewhere in the 145 to 180 range

    I think you're confusing the pseudoscience that is IQ (or rather, the notion that IQ is a direct measure of one's intellect) with real science. We don't even understand intelligence, let alone have an accurate way to measure it; all we have are correlations that people have arbitrarily decided are significantly related to how intelligent someone is. Please do not spread myths.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @07:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @07:36PM (#503881)

      I think you are confusing being unable to precisely define something with being unable to measure something.

      We could measure gravity's acceleration before we had a theory defining it.

      IQ tests might be pseudoscience in a way, but the Central Limit Theorem is incredibly scientific, and unequivocally states that if one measures a sum of noisy signals, each of which has a contribution towards a common metric, that sampling a population will give a normal distribution. So do IQ tests give an approximate answer to "where in the set of humans does the cognitive ability of this one lie"? Yes, absolutely. Might dimensions be missing? Sure; for example, very very few IQ-like tests check how well we can read social cues, which is absolutely a functional cognitive ability.

      > ll we have are correlations that people have arbitrarily decided are significantly related to how intelligent someone is

      Right. We have decided that spatial reasoning, vocabulary, discrete logic, accurate reading ability, some forms of pattern-matching, etc. qualify as indicators of cognitive ability. But these aren't arbitrary. Some aspects might be missing, but that doesn't invalidate the aspects which are evaluated. But "are these two 2D projections possibly of the same 3D object" is a real world ability with real world applications and being able/unable has real world impact. Surely you know persons whose visual-spatial ability is so weak that they literally cannot parse a map; thse folks can navigate using waypoints in my experience, but they absolutely exist and this limitation causes occasional problems. Similarly, surely you know persons with reading disabilities, face-recognizing disability, empathic disability, logic-chain disability. Saying they are just as able as everyone else does them the same disservice as telling a black person they have every opportunity a white person has. "Oh yeah? Really? Ha."