Backtracking:

TRUMP SETS AN AGENDA FOR HIS 1ST DAY

His list of priorities doesn’t include border wall or Muslim ban.

BY NOAH BIERMAN AND TRACY WILKINSON
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump spent more than a year promising to build a wall, repeal Obamacare and rescind President Obama’s deportation protections for some immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
But on Monday, in his first extensive public comments since winning the e******n, Trump mentioned none of those issues. Nor did he talk about withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement, banning Muslims from entering the country or ending the Syrian refugee program, some of his other stock campaign pledges.
Trump instead made five more modest promises for his first day in office during a nearly three-minute video. It appeared to be an effort to soften his message while he establishes an inner circle of hard-liners, including Stephen K. Bannon, a top advisor who ran a website that has promoted white nationalist ideology.
In the video, Trump promised to withdraw from the massive T***s-Pacific Partnership trade deal, “a potential disaster for our country,” and instead pursue bilateral agreements with some of the countries involved.
He also pledged to lift restrictions on energy production, including shale and coal, to implement a rule that any new government regulation must be accompanied by removing two on the books, and to instruct his Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a new cybersecurity plan. His only discussion of immigration involved the legal kind — a crackdown on visa fraud.
“My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first,” he said. “Whether it’s producing steel-building cars or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here on our great homeland — America.”
Trump also said his previously announced ethics rules — barring those who work in his administration from lobbying for five years after they leave the government and from lobbying for foreign governments for life — would take effect as soon as he is inaugurated.
Trump vowed in the video to release more plans in the days ahead.
“These are some of our Day One executive actions,” spokesman Jason Miller said in an email. “By no means is it everything he’ll work on Day One or after that — many additional good things to come.”
Trump’s first installment, though, seemed especially tailored to the v**ers in the former Industrial Belt who helped him seize his surprise victory.
His focus on legal immigration was particularly striking and in line with the views of Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, his pick for attorney general and one of Trump’s earliest supporters in Washington. Sessions has been a critic of the visa system, arguing that work visas, in particular, allow foreign workers to displace Americans. He has also sponsored a bill that would end the visa lottery that grants tens of thousands of green cards a year.
Trump did not discuss plans to deport millions of immigrants, as he frequently did on the campaign trail. But the omissions were far from a declaration of a new agenda and left open the possibility that Trump may be recognizing the difficulty of achieving all of his ambitions immediately and trying to delay some of his most d******e proposals.
“There’s nothing he can really do about the wall on Day One,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, referring to building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. “He’s probably focusing on narrow, achievable goals that won’t cause too much controversy before Thanksgiving. There will be plenty of trouble down the line.”
Trump has yet to give a post-e******n news conference laying out his agenda or answering questions about his t***sition, which gives added weight to the video. He also addressed criticisms about the disorganized nature of the t***sition, insisting it has gone “very smoothly, efficiently and effectively.”
The video came amid news reports that fueled more uncertainty over how Trump will avoid conflicts of interest in his worldwide business ties, with new questions arising Monday over a conversation Trump had last week with Argentine President Mauricio Macri.
During a congratulatory call, Trump asked for help with permitting a construction project he is building in Buenos Aires, an Argentine journalist said.
Trump’s t***sition staff and the Argentine government both denied the project was discussed. However, Macri’s spokesman, Ivan Pavlovsky, said in a state- about conflict of interest. ment that the two men “briefly mentioned the personal relationship they have had for years,” alluding to their business ties, which date back to the 1980s.
Trump’s t***sition team did not respond to a request for a transcript or summary of the call and have denied that Trump’s businesses have created even a perception of potential conflict.
But Trump’s ongoing involvement in his companies raises the specter that he will use his position to further his financial interests. And the problem will not go away unless Trump puts a stronger firewall between his family and his business during his presidency, ethics specialists say.
Even if Trump does not ask for it, foreign leaders may believe they are winning influence with Trump by granting business favors to him or his children, who Trump says will control his businesses while he is president.
“Private interest currying favor and buying influence with leaders of countries by dealing with their children is a time-honored tradition in the world,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan group.
Wertheimer called Trump “a massive walking conflict of interest” and said questions surrounding his relationship with Macri would occur regularly unless Trump divests his business empire completely and creates a truly blind trust that does not involve his children, who are also key political advisors .
The issue dogged Trump before he was elected. He ran largely on an ethics platform, saying Hillary Clinton and her husband had enriched themselves from government service and exchanged access at the State Department for cash.
Trump has also promised to “drain the swamp,” eliminating outside influence in Washington.
Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway scoffed Monday when asked how long Trump would continue conducting business during the t***sition.
“Do you ask people how long they will play golf and do the t***sition?” she said, an implicit dig at President Obama, whose rounds of golf are a frequent target of conservative criticism. “Are you suggesting he is doing something illegal? I already said he is not. But the presumption is that he is.”
Conway said Trump had consulted on ethics with lawyers, accountants and advisors. She said that his role as a businessman in t***sition to the highest office marked “unprecedented times.” noah.bierman
@ latimes.com   tracy.wilkinson
@ latimes.com  
Special correspondent
Laura Tillman in Mexico
City and Times staff writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report.


Trump T***sition 2017
PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump used a three-minute video to discuss his plans for his first day in the White House. He made five promises.



E. ABRAMOVICH AFP/Getty Images
TRUMP’S call with Argentine leader Mauricio Macri raised concerns

The power of ‘Hamilton’
An inclusive message from the musical speaks louder than any Twitter feud.
CHARLES McNULTY THEATER CRITIC
Forgive me if I don’t take this moment to congratulate the theater community on its self-congratulatory outcry against our new tweeter-in-chief Donald Trump, who used his megaphone this past weekend to denounce the reception given to Vice President-elect Mike Pence at the Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
Video footage of Pence being booed by fellow theatergoers as he made his way to his seat at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Friday quickly went v***l. At the curtain call, as Pence was making his getaway, Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, read a speech that was written on the fly by members of the show’s creative team, including author Lin-Manuel Miranda, producer Jeffrey Seller and director Thomas Kail.
These are the words Dixon spoke with great respect and sincerity: “We, sir — we — are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”
Enter Donald Trump, tapping away at his touchscreen from one of his golf resorts. Amid a news cycle busily reporting the $25 million he paid out to settle lawsuits against Trump University, the president-elect lashed out on Twitter for the way his VP was treated.
A tweet criticizing the actor for not memorizing the curtain speech was deleted. Tweet No. 2was particularly exasperating to those who believe the next leader of the free world (who ought to be boning up on Islamic State and the budget) should be scrupulous about facts. Trump typed: “The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”
The t***h is that Pence, a public figure who will soon be second in command to the president, wasn’t rudely treated or “harassed” (as Trump’s first tweet put it) by the company. He was politely addressed by Dixon. It was the audience that jeered, not the actors. Pence, more statesmanlike than his boss, has not only described the booing as “what freedom sounds like” but also praised the musical and said he wasn’t at all offended.
Many in the theater community have been decrying Trump’s distortions and inaccuracies, his ill-informed assertion that the theater should be “a safe and special place” (rather than a place where artistic t***h is spoken to power) and his rather petulant demand that the cast apologize. I stand with these individuals in rejecting Trump’s remarks, just as I stand with those protesters of Trump who are exercising their freedom of assembly and the newspapers exercising their 1st Amendment rights by publishing critical stories of Trump’s myriad (and unprecedented) conflicts of interest.
But I think we may have fallen into a trap here. The most eloquent case to be made for the pluralistic values endorsed by “Hamilton” is the musical itself. What happened during the curtain call involved artists, yet it wasn’t really about art. It was about theater etiquette and those moments when the democratic imperative of speaking out overrides all other considerations. I don’t see the incident as an egregious breach of decorum myself. But nor do I think this is the occasion to get on our high horses and preach to one another in our echo chambers about the nobility of our artistic mission. The constitutional stakes are too high for sanctimony.
Conservatives would like nothing more than to throw kerosene onto the reignited culture war between the proverbial elites and the mythological ordinary Joes. A Broadway musical in which scalpers are getting thousands of dollars for a semi-decent seat is an ideal battlefield for those on the right to opportunistically wage this campaign.
Artists would be better served to channel the anger and disgust they feel into their work. Let dissent inflame their imaginations. Theater practitioners and patrons — in other words, citizens — would be advised to expand the focus of their outrage. America’s 45th president, a businessman with notoriously thin skin and a penchant for payback, seems dangerously intent on squashing protest, not only in acts but also in speech and thought. Trump obviously enjoys juggling multiple skirmishes — the better to distract when an opposing side is momentarily gaining an advantage.
But this is a time for unity of opposition. The same weekend that Trump took on “Hamilton,” he also (once again) took on “Saturday Night Live,” with Alec Baldwin’s Trump lampoon leading the show. Trump’s sniping at major media outlets for unflattering coverage continues apace even as he perpetuates the unfounded claim that many of the protesters outside of Trump Tower and elsewhere are paid operatives. It is the 1st Amendment, not Broadway, that is really under siege.
I have great reverence for theater’s long and unique history of dissent from the status quo. Euripides’ antiwar plays powerfully rebuked Athenian imperialism. Ibsen’s domestic dramas anatomized the manifold hypocrisies of the rising middle class. Brecht’s epic drama critiqued the capitalist structure of modern society as Europe tore itself to pieces. Tony Kushner, in the deadliest days of the AIDS epidemic in America, breached the wall of silence that Reagan’s conservative revolution had erected.
“Hamilton” is the most powerful theatrical rebuttal to the anti-immigration sentiments whipped up by demagogues. I hope Pence took in the inclusive vision of the show. And we should all dearly hope that Trump gets a special invitation to a musical that extends the vision and values of our Founding Fathers for a diverse 21st century America. charles.mcnulty
@ latimes.com  

Hamilton LLC
“HAMILTON’S” Brandon Victor Dixon, center, addresses Vice President-elect Mike Pence at curtain call.

WILL HEATH NBC
ALEC BALDWIN’S lampoon on “SNL” has drawn Trump’s anger.

JOB MARKET MYSTERY: WHERE ARE THE MEN?
Prison rate, paink**lers and video games offer clues, experts say
By Jim Puzzanghera
As the recovery from the Great Recession continues, job growth is solid and the labor force is growing at close to its fastest pace since 2000 because more unemployed workers are coming off the sidelines.
Still, the percentage of working-age Americans in the labor force remains stuck near its lowest level since the late 1970s. Although retiring baby boomers are the main reason, there’s another troubling factor that experts predict won’t be solved by stronger economic growth.
Too many men in their prime don’t have a job and aren’t even looking for one. Experts trying to figure out the reasons are probing the roles of criminal background checks, paink**lers and even video games.
In all, about 7 million men ages 25 to 54 are neither employed nor “available for work,” putting them outside the labor force. Their growing numbers worry and puzzle economists.
A little more than half of the men reported they were ill or disabled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 14% are going to school. And about 20% said they were either retired or handling home responsibilities.
Economists said increased globalization and the decline in factory jobs has played a major role in pushing prime-age men, particularly those with less education, out of the workforce. But that doesn’t explain why the problem is worse in the U.S. than in most other economically advanced nations.
Researchers have pointed to some other potential explanations. Prime-age American men outside the labor force are spending more time playing video games, making leisure time more enjoyable. About half are in so much pain from physical maladies that they take daily medication for it, making holding a job difficult.
And in a problem drawing more attention from economists, the nation’s high incarceration rate has left many men with felony convictions that raise red f**gs during employer background checks.
While the reasons may be up for debate, having so many men failing to contribute has troubling implications for the economy.
“It’s terrible. There’s absolutely nothing good that comes out of it,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. “It is certainly near the center of so much that is sad and wrong about the way our society and our economy are performing today.”
The problem has been building for a long time.
The percentage of prime-age men in the U.S. workforce — those either with a job or actively looking for one — peaked at 97.9% in 1954. But since the mid-1960s, the labor force participation rate for those men has steadily declined. The rate has varied during economic booms and busts, but generally has been on a downward trend.
The rate bottomed out at 88% in 2014 and has been hovering near there ever since. The figure was 88.6% in October.
The labor force participation rate for women rose sharply from the mid-1960s through the 1980s as it became more socially acceptable for them to work. But the rate for women has fallen off in recent years, too, to 56.8% in October. The overall participation rate for men and women older than 16 years old was 62.8% last month.
The Obama administration was concerned enough about the trend and its implications that the White House Council of Economic Advisors issued a 47-page report this summer examining the reasons for the decline and policies that could help address it. Eberstadt wrote a book on the subject, “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis,” that was published in September. And economists have been studying the phenomenon.
Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist, published a paper last month titled “Where Have All the Workers Gone?” that said “addressing the decades-long slide in labor force participation by prime-age men should be a national priority.”
“We’re not fully utilizing the human resources we have and that means the economy is not performing as well as it could be,” Krueger said in an interview. “That means our overall standard of living is lower because output is lower than it can be.”
Krueger, who chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2011 to 2013, added to the debate over the issue by conducting a survey that found that 47% of prime-age men who are out of the workforce said they took pain medication the previous day. Nearly two-thirds of those reported that they took prescription paink**lers.
When asked if pain prevented them from working at a full-time job, 40% of prime-age men out of the workforce said yes, Krueger found.
He said he hasn’t been able to determine if the pain problems are a cause or an effect for the men being out of the workforce.
“I suspect the arrows go in both directions,” Krueger said. “Some had severe disabilities that caused them to withdraw [from the workforce] and others became despondent and perhaps obese from their lifestyles which caused disability problems.”
Research this year by Krueger’s Princeton colleague, economist Mark Aguiar, pointed to another potential reason — the lure of video games.
Video games have become more elaborate and sophisticated, while online gaming has expanded the universe of people to play against.
Men ages 21 to 30 who were not in the workforce reported spending an average of 6.7 hours a week playing video games from 2012 to 2015, compared with just 3.6 hours from 2000 to 2007. The figures are higher for men in that age group with less than a college education. Erik Hurst, a University of Chicago economist, found that those men spent an average of two hours a day on video games in 2014, with10% of them reporting playing for six hours a day.
About 7 in 10 lower-sk**led men in their 20s without a job lived with a parent or close relative, according to his research. But despite that, they reported being happier on average than they were in the early 2000s.
“The life of these nonworking, lower-sk**led young men looks like what my son wishes his life was like now: not in school, not at work, and lots of video games,” Hurst wrote recently.
Eberstadt said the “most scandalously ignored” reason why so many prime-age men are not in the workforce is the nation’s high incarceration rate. As many as 20 million Americans, most of them men, have a felony record. That could help explain why the labor force problem is worse here than in other advanced economies, he said.
The U.S. has the world’s second-highest prison population rate — 698 prisoners for every 100,000 people, according to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research. People in prison are not counted in U.S. labor statistics, which look only at the civilian non-institutionalized population.
“Is there discrimination against felons and ex-cons? Do they lose their sk**ls in jail?” Eberstadt said. “This is a huge missing piece of the puzzle.”
Joel Valdez, 32, of Los Angeles was paroled in June from California’s Chuckawalla Valley State Prison after more than 15 years behind bars for his conviction on two counts of assault with a firearm. He’s been working at a v**er-engagement phone bank that employs mostly former inmates and is operated by LA Voice, a faith-based community organization. But it’s been difficult to find work with a felony record and, even though he earned a high-school equivalency degree in prison, he didn’t get much training.
“I know that, more often than not, if I’m not working in a warehouse or getting my foot in the door through labor jobs or having family friends, that it would be super hard to get a job because of my background,” Valdez said. “Some people are sketchy about hiring people with that background. It’s tough.”
A Los Angeles City Council committee approved an ordinance in September that would prevent most employers from asking about a job applicant’s criminal history until after a conditional offer has been made.
Reforming the criminal justice system, including “improving reentry into the workforce for the formerly incarcerated,” is among the ways to get more prime-age men back into the workforce, according to the White House report.
Its other recommendations included changing the tax code to expand work incentives and creating more demand for workers via funding for infrastructure upgrades.
Eberstadt said that overhauling disability programs also could help push more prime-age men back into the workforce by removing a key source of income. Expanding health insurance coverage also could address the problem of out-of-work men taking paink**lers.
“If men have preventative care and treat problems earlier on it could prevent them from causing the kinds of chronic pain that seems to be a barrier to work for so many people,” Krueger said. jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com  
Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera

ERNST HAAS Getty Images
THE PERCENTAGE of prime-age men in the U.S. workforce peaked at 97.9% in 1954. Above, workers on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco that year.

Separation of business and state
Pence pledges Trump will untangle holdings from the presidency. The search to fill Cabinet continues.
BY DEL QUENTIN WILBER AND DAVID LAUTER
WASHINGTON —As President-elect Donald Trump continued the work of forming his new administration Sunday, aides struggled with some of the baggage he carries with him — especially how to separate his business interests from government and the inflammatory rhetoric about Muslims that marked his campaign.
Trump met with a series of men — and one woman — who may be under consideration for high-level appointments.
Among them were campaign loyalists including Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, but also some outsiders, such as Jonathan Gray, a Wall Street executive and prominent Democratic donor, and Robert Johnson, the founder of the Black Entertainment Television cable network.
“We’ve made a couple of deals,” the president-elect said late in the day to reporters waiting at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., indicating that further Cabinet announcements could come soon.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), a member of the House GOP leadership, was the only woman on Sunday’s list, which also included Ari Emanuel, the prominent Hollywood agent and brother of President Obama’s former White House chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
“Great guy. Great friend of mine,” Trump said.
While busy with his t***sition, the president-elect has found time recently for other meetings, including one with three investors from India who are partners with him in a luxury complex outside Mumbai.
A spokesperson for Trump insisted that the meeting, first reported by the New York Times, was just a courtesy call, but it renewed questions about how Trump could avoid conflicts of interest while retaining an ownership stake in his far-flung network of businesses.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence insisted in a television interview Sunday that Trump would “create the proper separation.”
In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Pence said lawyers and experts were working on how to successfully untangle Trump’s holdings from the presidency.
“I’m very confident working with the best legal minds in the country that the president-elect and his family will create the proper separation from his business going forward,” Pence told host Chris Wallace.
Trump has said he will allow his adult children to run his business ventures; government watchdogs have said he should divest his holdings or set up a blind trust.
Among the potential problems: Trump’s company has operations in other countries, often in connection with foreign governments that could steer money toward his family in an effort to influence his decisions.
In addition to the meeting with the Indian business executives, Trump and his family came under criticism when his daughter Ivanka attended the president-elect’s first face-to-face meeting with a foreign head of government, the prime minister of Japan.
Her jewelry company also caused a stir by sending an email to reporters featuring a photograph of the $10,000 bracelet she wore during a poste******n television interview with her father.
At a news conference in Lima, Peru, where he was winding up a summit of leaders from Asia and the Pacific, President Obama pointedly noted that his administration had managed to go eight years without a major ethics scandal because White House lawyers had insisted that he and his aides “not just meet the letter of the law.”
Obama said he had advised Trump to appoint a strong White House counsel who would insist on similar care.
While Trump aides continued to deal with questions about potential conflicts, they also faced controversy over some of their remarks about Islam.
Reince Priebus, Trump’s designee to be the White House chief of staff, defended remarks made by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security advisor, that criticized Islam.
“Clearly there are some aspects of that faith that are problematic,” Priebus said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
Asked about Flynn’s statement that Islam was a political ideology masked behind a religion, Priebus said that “phrasing can always be done differently.”
But he praised Flynn as “an unbelievably gifted, smart person” who has Trump’s confidence.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Priebus said that Trump believes that “no faith in and of itself should be judged as a whole. But there are some people in countries abroad that ... need to be prevented from coming into this country.”
Asked about Trump’s suggestion earlier in the campaign year that Muslims might be required to register with government officials, Priebus avoided a clear answer.
“I’m not going to rule out anything. But, but I wouldn’t — we’re not going to have a registry based on a religion,” he said. “But what I think what we’re trying to do is say that there are some people, certainly not all people ... there are some people that are radicalized, and there are some people that have to be prevented from coming into this country.”
The country’s largest Muslim advocacy group condemned the remarks as examples of Islamophobia.
“Our nation is not served by the denigration of Islam or by the introduction of ineffective and discriminatory policies targeting Muslims,” said Robert McCaw, government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Trump’s weekend in New Jersey has seen a steady parade of visitors, including some past critics. On Saturday, Trump and Pence spoke with Mitt Romney, whom Pence described as a potential secretary of State pick.
During the campaign, the 2012 GOP p**********l candidate had been highly critical of Trump’s character and policies.
Pence said Romney was under “active consideration” to head the State Department. “The president-elect was very grateful that Mitt Romney came in,” he added, describing the hour-long meeting as a “warm and substantive exchange” of ideas.
He and Trump also met with retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, a former war commander in Iraq and Afghanistan who has been critical of some Obama administration policies and has the nickname “Mad Dog Mattis.” He is being considered to lead the Pentagon as Defense secretary.
Trump tweeted Sunday that Mattis “was very impressive yesterday. A true General’s General!”
In his interview with Fox News, Pence also addressed the controversy surrounding his attendance at the hit Broadway show “Hamilton.” He was cheered and jeered as he entered the theater Friday, and after the performance, the actor playing Aaron Burr gave a brief speech about American values directed at Pence.
Trump took to Twitter the next day — and again Sunday — to chastise the show’s cast and demand an apology.
The dispute flew across social media over the weekend, sparking the hashtag #boycotthamilton.
Trump’s tweets appeared to continue a pattern he established in the campaign in which he would use Twitter to change the subject away from headlines that were potentially damaging.
His tweets about Hamilton diverted at least some attention from the criticism of his naming of Stephen K. Bannon to be a senior White House official and the $25 million he agreed to pay to settle claims that his Trump University real estate seminars had defrauded students.
Pence, also following a pattern from the campaign, took a more conciliatory line. He said he had heard the remarks by actor Brandon Victor Dixon and was not offended by them.
A self-described history buff, Pence said he enjoyed the musical.
“It is a great, great show,” he said, calling it an “incredible production” by “incredibly talented people.”
“It was a real joy to be there,” he added. del.wilber@latimes.com  
Twitter: @delwilber david.lauter@latimes.com   Twitter: @DavidLauter

CAROLYN KASTER Associated Press
JAMES MATTIS is being considered as Defense secretary.

EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ AFP/Getty Images
RETIRED LT. GEN. Michael Flynn, right, national security advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, is under fire for calling Islam a political ideology masked behind a religion. A Trump aide came to his defense.

I guess you have your homework cut out for you...factcheck says nothing is sealed by a court..and i wonder why Obama was editor of the Harvard Law Review as opposed to your firend? The black graduation rate at harvard is on par with everyone else//about 96%...look it up....I research those things......Obama will go down s the worse to some because he was the only black and that to them makes him the worse by default...that is no surprise.........but he did turn America around and at least 57% of Americans see it that way...in line with many and exceeding many-but i'm not here to defend Obama to YOU. I want everyone to think what they like with my blessings......I just tell them what I don't subscribe to or what is bulls**t to me............

Well, don't verify or anything... Much safer for your delusion if you just deny it, right?

I decided to verify myself... it's a little concerning how difficult it is to actually find a simple count. But CNN reports Clinton ahead by 1.5 million, but their last update was last night. Wikipedia had an update from today and I checked their source which had the most recent update I've been able to find so far...

Clinton : 63,715,574
Trump : 62,001,293

That a difference of 1.7 million and change.

If you think you have a better source by all means share.

I pledge allegiance to the f**g of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Franklin was queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation. In the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention, a lady asked Dr. Franklin “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.” Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.”

Our Constitution created a limited representative republic. A republic is different from a democracy. In a democracy, the majority can directly make laws, while in a republic, elected representatives make laws. Basically, in a pure democracy, the majority has unlimited power, whereas in a republic, a written constitution limits the majority and provides safeguards for the individual and minorities.

In the United States, we actually have both systems. There is no way for Americans to directly enact legislation at the national level, but half of the states allow b****t initiatives which, if passed by a majority of the v**ers, have the force of law.

The Founders’ intent at the national level was a representative republic. The word democracy is not mentioned in the Constitution. Most of the Founders distrusted pure democracy. Some had been frightened by Shays Revolt and equated democracy with mob rule. Others were convinced by Madison that different factions would come together until they formed a majority, and then take advantage of those who were not members of their coalition. In fact, Madison showed that throughout history, this phenomenon had destroyed every experiment in democracy.

John Adams wrote that “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide,” and James Madison wrote in Federalist 10 that “Democracies have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” The reason pure democracies fail is that majorities learn that they can legally take property and/or liberties away from others. Those subjected to abuse can be anyone outside the majority coalition, and their minority status can be based on race, religion, wealth, political affiliation, or even which city or state they reside in. Demagogic leaders become adept at appealing to the emotions of jealousy, avarice, and entitlement. They also denigrate opponents in order to justify prejudicial actions taken by the majority. Soon, oppression of minority classes causes enough conflicts to collapse the democratic process.

A major difference between a republic and a democracy is immediacy. The Founders wanted laws made by representatives in order to put a buffer between popular passions and legislation. In a democracy, decisions are made in the heat of the moment, while periodic e******ns in a republic provide a cooling off period. To a great extent, democracies are ruled by feelings, while in a republic, the rule of law governs. In a republic, politicians can take principled actions that go against the will of many of their constituents with the knowledge that they will be judged by all the actions they take during their entire term in office. Political leaders are also given time to explain the reasons for their actions.

Of course, if an elected official does something grievously offensive, then the v**ers can follow the advice of Alexander Hamilton, who in Federalist 21 wrote, “The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” When the people’s will is thwarted, regular e******ns give them the opportunity to dismiss their representatives and appoint new ones.

http://www.whatwouldthefoundersthink.com/a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it

It has already been noted how he has placed relatives in positions that will allow them to be privy to information that will be shielded from press coverage. He already had a meeting with representatives from Argentina I think it was and his holdings in that country were a part of the meeting. Trump is tweeting about the play that mentioned him and planning to use the White House to enrich himself. he is going to show these people he does not give a s**t about them, fed them the r****t bait and will do nothing to improve their situations. They will get used just like the TP types did.

Report: Trump pressed Argentina's president about stalled building project
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/307050-report-trump-pressed-foreign-building-project-in-congratulatory-phone-call
http://truev***lnews.com/report-trump-pressed-foreign-building-project-in-congratulatory-phone-call/

I'm sure it was both......women are not so staunch that they would refuse career opportunities because of the policy originator. Matter of fact AA advanced under Nixon, a Republican.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_United_States

Nixon administration[edit]
For more details on this topic, see Richard Nixon.
The strides that the Johnson presidency made in ensuring equal opportunity in the workforce were further picked up by his successor Nixon. In 1969 the Nixon administration initiated the "Philadelphia Order". It was regarded as the most forceful plan thus far to guarantee fair hiring practices in construction jobs. Philadelphia was selected as the test case because, as Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Fletcher explained, "The craft unions and the construction industry are among the most egregious offenders against equal opportunity laws . . . openly hostile toward letting b****s into their closed circle." The order included definite "goals and timetables." As President Nixon asserted, "We would not impose quotas, but would require federal contractors to show 'affirmative action' to meet the goals of increasing minority employment."[32]
It was through the Philadelphia Plan that the Nixon administration formed their adapted definition of affirmative action and became the official policy of the US government. The plan was defined as "racial goals and timetables, not quotas"[25]:124