"He can't get Congress to send a health care bill for him to sign. His own family is causing public relations (and possibly legal) problems. He was something of an outsider at the recent G-20 meeting in Germany, emerging with no major deal and left behind as his international counterparts forged ahead with a climate change agreement the United States has now abandoned. Leaks – some of which are apparently coming from his own staff – reveal a White House foundering and struggling to get traction."
"President Donald Trump, made famous by being a dominant boss on reality TV, has lost control of the biggest enterprise he has taken on, the running of the federal government, analysts and experts say. And the one thing on which the Twitter-happy president has kept a firm grip – his mobile phone – has only gotten him in further trouble, with his tweets used against him in court decisions and by his political foes."
"In what is sure to ignite another firestorm of debate in polarized Washington, a longtime friend of President Trump said Monday night that Trump is "weighing" whether to dismiss Robert Mueller, the Justice Department special counsel investigating possible ties between the Russian government and the Trump campaign."
"Carnival is know as die fünfte Jahreszeit (the fifth season) in German. It is a time when the usual rules of polite society are thrown out the window.
In the major cities of the Rhine region the inhabitants become Narren (jesters) for a week, mocking the political establishment of the day with satirical floats which parade through the city centres.
The past twelve months have clearly provided plenty of ammunition to the west German satirists.
In Düsseldorf one of the central floats on Rosenmontag (Rose Monday) showed US President Donald Trump standing next to French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen, Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders and Adolf Hitler - all of them sporting carefully coiffed blond manes.
The four populist leaders of past and present held a banner reading “Blond is the new brown”.
"At 12:06 a.m. ET, the President of the United States tweeted this: "Despite the constant negative press covfefe."
By 6 a.m., that tweet had been deleted. Shortly after, Trump tweeted this: "Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe" ??? Enjoy!"
To be clear: This is, on its face, dumb. Trump seemed to be trying to type "coverage" and misspelled it. As he often does. Then he fell asleep and didn't correct the mistake until he got up in the morning. We've all been there! (OK, not all of us. But me.)"
"Two White House officials said Trump and some aides including Steve Bannon are becoming increasingly convinced that they are victims of a conspiracy against Trump's presidency, as evidenced by the number of leaks flowing out of government — that the crusade by the so-called “deep state” is a legitimate threat, not just fodder for right wing defenders."
"Like people in the 1970s, people today want to return to the so-called “Golden Age” when there were lots of jobs in heavy industry that were union, paid really well, and provided excellent benefits. They imagine that “Buy American” might help to bring all that back."
"The problem is that employers have long since turned on the labor movement and driven down working conditions so far that is very hard to return to that world. The strategy being pursued by employers today is totally different from what unions faced in the 1950s and 1960s, when the Steelworkers and Auto Workers had these great jobs."
"And, of course, that seeming “Golden Age” puts the focus on only one particular sector. Steel jobs were not naturally wonderful jobs with pensions and health care and high salaries. They had been hideous jobs where people worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, until the Congress of Industrial Organizations built powerful unions in the 1930s and changed all that."
"Manufacturing is only 8 percent of all employment in the United States. What we need is a massive grassroots movement that makes all jobs—whether they are in manufacturing, or in service, or in agriculture—into really great jobs with union protections."