The Day In Trump, solid On This Date Action
The Daily Dose/November 17, 2016
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Foremost Humorist
THE DAY IN TRUMP: We elected him despite everything we knew about him. Our favorite disqualifier was Trump University being nothing more than a boiler room operation designed to bilk people out of their money. There were dozens of others, of course, and I’m sure you have your fave.
Trump was a misfit of a private citizen, an embarrassment as a candidate and – since past performance is the best indicator of future performance – will probably be an embarrassment as president.
OTOH: It is possible, not particularly likely, but possible, that Trump will be OK, though. Maybe he does want good things for our country. Or maybe he just wants to draw more attention to himself. It’s his only real talent and he does it splendidly.
OTOH II: Maybe he will realize the very best way to draw attention to himself is to really make America great again. To produce an America that once again is looked up to and respected by the rest of the world, instead of presiding over an America that currently is not doing itself or the planet any particular good.
Don’t Even Start: Hillary Clinton would not have been any better. She could care less about anything other than consolidating wealth and power in her and her family. Her transition would be doing nothing more than laying the groundwork for doing that as president.
One Can Hope: Maybe – maybe – a GOP president and a GOP controlled Congress will team up for some groundbreaking tax reform. Trump, after all, is a businessman and he knows an economy anchored in low taxes, free markets and minimal regulation is the only way to produce a long term, flourishing economy.
Economy 101: Lower taxes means you and I will more money to spend. It will give businesses more money to meet our growing demands. They will be able to expand and hire more people and pay them better wages. Revenue lost by the Treasury because of the tax cuts will be made by having more people in the workforce making more money. If it’s not made up, tough noogies. Our government will have to get by with less.
GREAT MOMENTS IN CHANGING NATIONAL CAPITALS: The United States Congress meets “in the city of Washington, in the territory of Columbia” for the first time on this date in 1800. For the first ten years of its existence, the Congress had met in Philadelphia.
Congressmen didn’t work any harder then than they do now. Neither the Senate nor the House could muster a quorum, so only business transacted that day was adjournment until the following day.
Dry, Technical Matter: Congress that year consisted of 32 Senators and 106 Representatives and both houses had Federalist majorities. The Federalists, however, were on their way to History’s scrap heap. They would lose their majority in the House and the presidency the Democratic-Republican Party later that year, and would stop being a factor in American politics by 1816.
FunFact: Though Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were the two presidential candidates in 1800, Jefferson actually ended up beating his running mate, Aaron Burr, in a contingent election in the House of Representatives. Adams lost both the electoral and popular votes by a wide margin, but back then ballots cast by electors didn’t differentiate between president and vice president and Jefferson and Burr both received 73 electoral votes. Jefferson won on the 36th ballot cast by the House.
Tibet…You Remember Tibet, Right?: Lhamo Dondrub, 15, is named the 14th Dali Lhama on this date in 1950. He replaces the 13th Dalai Lama, who had died in 1933.
This Has To Be Better Than The Electoral College, Right?: Selections of Dalai Lamas are long, involved affairs, involving search parties, visions and signs. Events led assorted Tibetan Buddhists to Dondrub when he was still a toddler and he was selected the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1937, when he was two-years-old. In 1939 he was publicly recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama and was given full temporal authority in 1950.
The Dalai Lama was forced to flee Tibet in 1959 and he, and other Tibetans, have lived as refugees ever since.
He’s Such A Kidder: Speaking to a group of Associated Press (AP) managing editors, President Richard Nixon, then knee-deep in the Watergate cover-up, says he is not a crook on this date in 1973. Nixon was such a non-crook that he resigned the presidency the following August, of course, and had been spending most of his recent time sparring with Congress about the turning over tapes of White House conversations he’d had recorded.
Thought For The Day: I almost never think of my calendar years. I’m forever hiking across the same plateau with no end in sight. – Saul Bellow, Ravelstein
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Nate Thurmond has the most rebounds in an NBA by someone not named Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell, 42, on November 9, 1965.
Today’s Stumper: After the Democratic-Republican Party won the presidency in 1800, what was the next party to win the presidency? – Answer next time!
