Beijing "Targets Midwestern Republican States" after Trump appoints China trade skeptic

“China is now preparing some weapons,” Ms. Cheng said. China’s Commerce Ministry “is quite busy now, I’m sure.”

...

“Their objective will be to parry what Trump does with targeted reprisals in areas of U.S. vulnerability.”

Among China’s likely targets, say trade experts: Boeing Co. aircraft and U.S. farm exports from Midwestern Republican states. Canceled Boeing orders would hurt U.S. shareholders, labor unions and the U.S. trade deficit, prompting pressure on the new administration, said Derek Scissors, an economist at data provider China Beige Book International. As of last month, China is awaiting delivery of 292 Boeing jets.

Blocking soybean or other U.S. food exports would prompt action by Republican Senators whose constituents lack a large manufacturing base,


http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-weighs-response-to-new-u-s-trade-foe-1482401351
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/22/1613630/-China-Tells-Trump-s-Fools-Want-A-Trade-War-We-ll-Start-By-Targeting-Republican-States

The American Mustache Institute has risen to John Bolton's defense.

Kellyanne Conway thanks Mika Brzezinski for her "counsel and friendship throughout"

It's a wonderful life in Trumpville...

Yes, there is shame in not knowing

By Charles Taylor DECEMBER 19, 2016

There’s no shame in not knowing; there’s shame in not wanting to know. For years I’ve said this to my college students as a way of telling them that learning should never stop. But I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that, at a certain point, there should be shame in not knowing. What brought me to this point? Too many students unaware of anything before they were born: creative-writing students who have never heard of Edith Wharton or Ralph Ellison; journalism students who can’t identify the attorney general; students who don’t know what the NAACP or the Geneva Convention are. A teacher’s job is to teach, not shame. But how do you teach when, even when they reach college, students are not expected to have basic knowledge of our history, our culture, our government?

I raise this because in the weeks since the presidential election, in the guise of tolerance and understanding and that most useless of bromides, “having a dialogue,” we are being told that there should be no shame in not knowing. The emerging narrative of this election is that Donald Trump was elected by people who are sick of being looked down on by liberal elites. The question the people pushing this narrative have not asked is this: Were the elites, based on the facts, demonstrably right?


........................

Time was when battered women were told by police or by their priests that they must try not to antagonize their abusive husbands. That is exactly how Americans of color, gay Americans, undocumented immigrants, and women are now being addressed: They’re being told they must respect people who believe they have the right to jail, deport, or beat — if not yet kill — anyone who makes them uncomfortable. Because, of course, unlike the black or brown or queer people on the coasts, those Trump voters are the real America.

The apologists for Donald Trump voters have given their imprimatur to a culture that equates knowledge and expertise with elitism, a culture ignorant of the history of the country it professes to love and contemptuous of the content of its founding documents. Trump said his campaign would prove the experts wrong. He was right. The Trump supporters who in the last few weeks have contributed to the sudden surge in hate crimes, often invoking the name of their candidate, have shown, much more than the experts, they understand exactly what his candidacy was about.

MORE:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/12/19/yes-there-shame-not-knowing/FgRfohT2d17oKRle9LbiSM/story.html?event=event25

A nativity scene without any Jews, Arabs, Africans, refugees or unwed mothers

Wow, History Channel

Ex-Apprentice producer: Reality TV scam accidentally turned buffoon Trump into a world leader

“‘The Apprentice’ was a scam put forth to the public in exchange for ratings,” Pruitt said. “We were ‘entertaining,’ and the story about Donald Trump and his stature fell into some bizarre public record as ‘truth.'”

Their scam was so successful that it eventually got Trump all the way to the White House, although the president-elect has already signaled he doesn’t really want to live there and would prefer to stay in the Manhattan apartment building with his name on it.

“We are masterful storytellers and we did our job well,” Pruitt said. “What’s shocking to me is how quickly and decisively the world bought it. Did we think this clown, this buffoon with the funny hair, would ever become a world leader? Not once. Ever.”

Pruitt said their hopes were more modest for the “narcissistic” mogul whose “lewd (and) lascivious behavior” was caught on video but not released before the election.

..............

“Now that the lines of fiction and reality have blurred to the horrifying extent that they have, those involved in the media must have their day of reckoning,” he said. “People are buying our crap. Make it entertaining, yes. But make it real. Give them the truth or pay the consequences.”


http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/ex-apprentice-producer-reality-tv-scam-accidentally-turned-buffoon-trump-into-a-world-leader/

LOL!

Donald Trump's still-amazing doctor: don't worry if he dies.