Self-selection.

Are you diversifying your sources of information, or are you sticking to a comfortable, confirming bubble?

I don’t know whether she can tame the beast that is the State Department, nor whether Romney could do it either.

During the Bush administration it seemed that the State Department had it’s own agenda separate from that of the president. Yes, foreign policy should have some continuity– but I think there would be a consensus here that continuity of the Obama foreign policy isn’t what we need.

We will of course disagree which direction it should take, but we need an “authoritarian” to reign in the State beast.

Maybe Romney could be clinical like he was at Bain Capital when the hard decisions had to be made to liquidate a company that had no chance of revival. Would he be at State?

Bolton sounds like that kind of guy, and his neo-con philosophy might be an interesting good cop/bad cap strategy balancing other factions inside the Trump administration.

Whoever is selected he/she needs to be someone who is professional enough to at some point advance the policies of the president.

The word “friendliness” in the context in which I used it doesn’t mean what you think it means. My use of the word meant “thinking a person is innocuous, an ally, a friend, in your corner” etc. etc..

What you actually meant, I believe, was “politeness” or “diplomacy” or “cordiality.” Not “friendliness,” which is not appropriate in terms of Putin and negotiations. Those other words are appropriate.

Big Maq posts, “…universities have become ‘monocultures’, where dissent is becoming less and less allowed. Yet, we are doing this to ourselves, voluntarily.
Could it be these universities are merely reflecting our society’s own behavior?”

The answer is “NO”, and you know it.

Between the Left’s Gramscian takeover of higher ed and the collusion of the Dept of Education and Justice’s Div. of Civil Rights, it is being done to us, not by us. Title IX has become a perversion. Which is why today I would not send any of my kids to a private college or university, where the First Amendment is only a concept, not an enforceable principle, and where an alleged rape is not necessarily investigated exclusively by the administration using an unconstitutional DOE code of procedure.
One of my boys went to Haverford College, which, always “liberal”, has turned into a Leftist slimepit, constantly oozing PC. Catharine MacKinnon, the Leftist lesbian feminist law professor got an honorary degree there 25 years ago. Her speech culminated with her shrieking “All men are fuckers” repeatedly…and no one took her mike away. One of her later achievements is getting rape designated an act of genocide, at the so-called International Court of Justice, apparently.

More like the Alt Right destroyed his opponents and Trum just came to pick up the pieces and loot.

Would like to take the liberty to change that up a bit.

I think we are in a self selection society / culture.
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We have an abundance of information that didn’t exist or wasn’t easily acquired only a couple or three generations ago.

Today, we can find out a great deal about a vast variety of things.

We also suffer from information overload.

Between TV, emails, facebook, twitter, etc., all the things which demand our attention in between or along side our every day responsibilities, there really isn’t time to follow up and carry out our due diligence on all this “information”.

So, we select our sources.

If we pick the ones that tell us what we want to hear and/or merely confirm our world view, we are getting a very filtered and skewed idea of reality.

Once we lose the discipline or desire to seek views that challenge our own, then we risk letting ourselves to be molded by those sources providing us the input. This also allows us to “overlook” counterfactuals, or dissonant facts, even obvious ones.

Thus, with no due diligence, and ignoring “inconvenient” facts, “post-truth” happens, and we begins a slide into what would otherwise have been unacceptable, in thoughts, beliefs and action.
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Many here, and elsewhere on the right, correctly criticize (or jeer) how universities have become “monocultures”, where dissent is becoming less and less allowed.

Yet, we are doing this to ourselves, voluntarily.

Could it be these universities are merely reflecting our society’s own behavior?

Until proven otherwise, I assume that Trump will cross the T’s and dot the I’s on matters of conflict.

I am a big admirer of Romney and would love to see him in the administration for a number of reasons; not the least as a demonstration of solidarity. It would also enhance Trump’s image with respect to his alleged thin skin and propensity to hold grudges. I trust–hope–that Trump is not cynically trolling his name, or setting him up for an act of revenge.

Unfortunately this realism resulted in him being executed by Mussolini when Ciano angered the Nazi’s.

Trump shares a lot of traits with old Benito so why not pick family?

Because most people don’t know doctors personally, they don’t have a clue what havoc the ACA has made. The thousands of pages of regulations along with possible criminal penalties are a nightmare. I doubt if the damage can be reversed. Too many doctors have already retired, left the profession, or have cut back their hours after joining a group practice.

On the other hand, I think Trump has a strategy of trolling the media – Trump knows and has lived by a rule: any kind of publicity is good publicity. Keep people talking about you, any way you can.

I put the Muslim Registry in that camp. Get that bit of news going, get people talking (and freaking out), deny you ever said it, oh, here’s a video from a year ago showing you said it, etc. etc. etc. (I’m very much opposed to the registry, btw, but I *think* I know when I’m being trolled)

We’re in a post-truth culture now. Such as his claim that he already has prevented Ford from moving a plant to Mexico.

All that matters now is if you are a “street fighter”. Guys like Romney are ridiculed because they actually cared about the truth, respect, etc. All those old, passe’ values.

As has been said earlier, I’ll believe Trump is going to “drain the swamp” when he has credibly established that his own businesses won’t benefit from the conflicts of interest he appears to be setting up.