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He was born in New York City, to a builder and real estate developer Frederick Trump and his wife Mary McLeod. He was one of the five children.
He had his initial schooling in the Kew Forest School, Forest hills, New York. At the age of 13, his parents sent him to New York Military Academy (NYMA) in Upstate New York where he performed well, both socially and academically; emerging as a star athlete and student leader by the time he graduated in 1964.
He was at Fordham University for two years before joining the Wharton School of Finance at the University Of Pennsylvania, from where he graduated in economics in 1968.
Business Career
He joined his father’s company, ‘Elizabeth Trump and Son’, while still in college. The company focused on middle-class rental housing in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. He became deeply involved in the project and with a $500,000 investment, turned the 1200 unit apartment complex in Cincinnati with a 66 percent vacancy rate to 100 percent occupancy within two years.
In 1971, he moved to Studio apartment in Manhattan, New York and became involved with larger building projects. In the following year, he finalized first multi-million dollar real estate transaction with the sale of Swifton village in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In 1985, he bought Mar-a-lago estate in Palm beach, Florida and renovated the Barbizon hotel and 100 Central Park South.
In 1988, he bought the Plaza Hotel in New York City.
In 1989, he bought a fleet of Boeing 727 airplanes to form Trump air shuttle service. Unfortunately a helicopter crash killed three Trump casino executives which lead to big issue.
By 1989, poor business decisions left him unable to meet loan payments but he somehow financed the construction of his third casino, the $1 million Taj Mahal, with high-interest junk bonds. The increasing debt soon brought him to business bankruptcy.
In 1990, he regained his previous stable financial position and fame and opened the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Soon he gained approval for Riverside south development of West Side rail yards.
In 1996, he got the ownership of Miss Universe Organization which produces the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Tean USA pageants.
In 2003, he became joint partner with the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) where he became the executive producer and host of the NBC reality show, ‘The Apprentice’ which became a huge success. Following its success, he co-produced a show, ‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ along with British TV producer Mark Burnett.
On October 21, 2004, Trump Hotels and Casino & Resorts declared a restructuring of its debt which led to a reduction in his individual ownership from 56 percent to 27 percent. The company applied for Chapter 11 Protection in November and soon the company re-emerged from bankruptcy as ‘Trump Entertainment Resorts Holdings’.
He marketed the Trump name on large number of products, including ‘Trump Financial’, ‘Trump Sales and Leasing’, ‘Trump Entrepreneur initiative’, ‘Trump Restaurants’, ‘Go TRUMP’, ‘Donald J. Trump signature collection’, etc. Moreover, he also received $1.5 million for every one-hour presentation he did for ‘The Learning Annex’. He also has a business simulation game called ‘Donald Trump’s Real Estate Tycoon’.
Political Career
Trump also harbored political aspirations. In the 2000 elections he expressed his wish to run as a third-party candidate for the US presidency. In 2004 and 2008, he speculated about running for president in the Republican Party and in between in 2006, he considered running for governor of New York as a representative of the party. He again registered as a Republican in 2009 after having registered with the Democratic Party in 2001 and campaigned for it.
In 2010-2012, his involvement in politics intensified when he publicly announced his consideration of candidature for presidency again. However, his association with the ‘Birther issue’, a group that firmly believed Barack Obama was not born in the US, disparaged his political reputation. But he continued to be against Obama on various political issues.
In January 2013, he endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli elections. He was also a featured speaker at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Trump announced his candidacy for president as a Republican in June 2015. As a flamboyant personality with a successful business career and media presence, he quickly emerged as the front-runner for his party's nomination and was formally nominated for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
His campaigning focused on domestic issues such as illegal immigration, crime, Islamic terrorism, offshoring of American jobs, and the U.S. national debt, and his campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again” resonated with the American citizens.
While many of his campaigning tactics received criticism, they also ensured that he got unprecedented media coverage. He was accused of lying and embellishing facts during his election speeches and received a lot of negative backlash with major publications like ‘Politico’, ‘The Washington Post’, ‘The New York Times’, and the ‘Los Angeles Times’ terming his statements as downright falsehoods.
As a presidential nominee, he adopted a populist political stance and supported a broad interpretation of the Second Amendment. His tax plan calling for reducing the corporate tax rate to 15% and replacing the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") with a different free-market plan earned him support from several quarters.
Trump’s campaign was, however, fraught with controversies. There were several accusations of sexual misconduct against him and he was criticized by the media for using vulgar and sexist language. A 2005 recording of him bragging about how he forcibly kissed and groped women caused a major dent to his popularity. He soon issued a public apology in a bid to salvage his reputation.
Despite his detractors and all the negative publicity surrounding him, he managed to emerge victorious in the general election on November 8, 2016 in which he defeated Hillary Clinton to become the President-elect of the United States. He will be assuming office as the 45th President on January 20, 2017.
Major works
In 1974, he obtained the option to buy two rail yards in New York City and after few years with the help of 40-year tax abatement from the government, he bought and turned the bankrupt Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt and also created the ‘Trump organization’.
In 1980, he undertook the project of constructing the Wollman Rink in Central Park and completed it in six months using $750,000 of the remaining $3 million budget. In the same year, he renovated the Trump tower in New York City and Atlantic City casino business which led to huge debt.
In 2001, he completed the Trump world tower, which was a 72-storey residential tower across the UN headquarters. He also began construction on Trump plaza along the Hudson River.
In 2006, he bought the Menie estate in Balmadie, Aberdeen shire, Scotland to create the best golf course in the world on a site of special scientific interest (SSS) but it was met with criticism from environmentalists and by local landowners. But the battle became more difficult this year when the Scottish government approved the construction of a wind farm nearby.
He has hosted many wrestle mania events in Trump Plaza and has been an active participant in several of the shows. On June 15, 2009 he bought the WWE RAW show from WWE owner Vince McMohan.
He wrote many books which became famous worldwide for their entrepreneurial guidance. It includes, ‘Trump: The Art of the Deal’, ‘Think big: Make it happen in Business and Life’, ‘Think like a champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life’, ‘Trump 101: The Way to Success’, ‘Trump: How to Get Rich’, ‘Trump: Surviving at the Top’, etc.
Awards & Achievements
In 2005, he again got nominated for Primetime Emmy for ‘The Apprentice’ under the aforesaid category.
In 2007, he earned the Star on Walk of Fame for his contribution to Television.
In 2013, he was inducted in to the celebrity wing of the WWE hall of fame at Madison Square Garden due to his contributions to the promotion of several WWE shows.
Personal Life
In 1977, he married Ivana Zelnickova and had three children from her, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. The couple called off their marriage in 1992 when Ivana discovered his extra-marital love affair with an American actress Marla Maples.
In 1993, he married Marla Maples and they had one child, Tiffany two months before their marriage. In 1997, he filed for a highly publicized divorce with Maples which was finalized in June 1999. The divorce agreement allotted $2 million to Maples.
On January 22, 2005, he married Melania Knauss at Bethesda by the Sea Episcopal Church, on the island of Palm Beach, Florida, after proposing to her the previous year. They have a son together named Barron William Trump.
In 2011, he claimed in an interview to be a Presbyterian within the Protestant group after gaining the membership of New York City’s ‘Marble Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church’.
Top 10 Facts You Did Not Know About Donald Trump
Donald Trump is a teetotaler and has never smoked cigarettes or done drugs.
He is a germophobe and hates shaking hands. When faced with the inevitable situation of shaking hands, he has an interesting technique of avoiding it; he vigorously pulls the other person close into his body.
At one time, he acted as a financial advisor to Mike Tyson and hosted Tyson’s fight against Michael Spinks in Atlantic City.
Donald Trump is confidence personified. In fact, at times his over-the-top confidence borders on braggadocio. In 2004, he was quoted in The Daily News saying, “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me—consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”
Though Trump has been a very successful businessman, in hindsight, he has wasted some brilliant business opportunities. In 1988, he had the opportunity to buy the Patriots, a professional American football team, but he turned down the offer because he didn't think it was a good investment. The team is now worth more than $2 billion.
He is the only presidential candidate to have his own board game, titled Trump: The Game.
Trump has the dubious distinction of winning the Razzie Award for worst supporting actor for the film 'Ghosts Can't Do It', in 1990. He played himself in the movie.
He is a golfer and a member of the Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York, and plays regularly at the other courses he owns and operates.
He was an active member of the “birther” movement that questioned President Obama’s birthplace.
A consistent vocal critic of Barack Obama, Trump offered Obama to play golf anytime on any of the golf courses that he owns with one rider - if Obama ended his term early.
Read more at http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/donald-trump-3378.php#OaL7SCeMemPPHxKB.99
Seven Donald Trump policies that could change the US
Republican has made bold statements on tax and immigration
NOVEMBER 9, 2016 by: FT Reporters
Donald Trump’s stunning victory in Tuesday’s US presidential election sets the stage for a series of radical policy reversals both at home and abroad.
A Trump presidency could scupper some of Barack Obama’s signature achievements, including Obamacare, climate change policy and the nuclear deal with Iran. Democratic hopes of shaping the Supreme Court for a generation would be dashed; a markedly more conservative court is now likely. Foreign policy could also undergo a dramatic shift.
Many analysts caution that there is a big difference between campaign promises and official policy — trade renegotiations sometimes turn out to be less substantive than advertised. Commitments on foreign policy issues, such as moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, are sometimes set aside.
But here are seven ways in which life could change under a President Donald Trump.
1. Trade
Mr Trump has opposed the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership deal and called for fundamental changes to the Nafta pact with Mexico and Canada. Such policies appear to have boosted his appeal throughout the rust belt of the Midwest, with huge consequences for the election’s ultimate outcome. He has also threatened to impose punitive 45 per cent tariffs on goods from China, stoking fears of a trade war.
2. Foreign policy
Mr Trump has said that Mr Obama’s deal with Iran, which seeks to prevent the Islamic Republic from attaining nuclear weapons, would be dismantled or at least restructured. While Mr Obama began his term by setting out a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, Mr Trump has said he would be open to both Japan and South Korea developing nuclear arsenals. He has also questioned the US’s treaty commitments to Nato allies that do not pay their own way while suggesting a much closer relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
3. Healthcare
Mr Trump has signed up to the Republican pledge that Mr Obama’s signature Obamacare reforms must be “repealed and replaced”. He has not set out a comprehensive alternative but says he will encourage competition between markets in different states.
4. Tax policy
Mr Trump has promised the biggest tax revolution since Ronald Reagan, pledging to cut taxes across the board. He says no American business would pay more than 15 per cent of their profits in tax, compared with a current maximum of 35 per cent. The top rate of tax would fall from 39.6 per cent as the Republican reduces the number of tax brackets.
5. Supreme Court
For many political activists in the US this could be the biggest consequence of the election. With the highest court in the land currently split 4-4 between conservative and more liberal judges, Hillary Clinton’s supporters had hoped that a ninth justice chosen by a Democratic president would shift the balance, possibly for a generation. Instead, Mr Trump faces relatively easy confirmation of his pick by a Republican Senate and he may also have the opportunity to replace some of the relatively elderly complement of liberal judges.
6. Climate change
Mr Trump has called global warming a hoax invented by China to make US manufacturers uncompetitive and vowed to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement, which built on a deal Mr Obama struck with China. He also says he would stop all US payments for UN global warming programmes.
7. Immigration
This is the issue that excited most passions in the campaign, both among Mr Trump’s supporters and among Hispanic voters eager to prevent him from taking the White House. Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama had backed comprehensive reforms that would give illegal immigrants a chance at full citizenship. Mr Trump has campaigned on his pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border, called for a ban on Muslim immigration and the deportation of 11m unauthorised immigrants. However, he has subsequently made more ambiguous statements, promising instead “extreme vetting” and declining to clarify his precise plans for undocumented immigrants.
Article source : https://www.ft.com/content/01a377fa-a63c-11e6-8b69-02899e8bd9d1
'An epochal change': what a Trump presidency means
for the Asia Pacific region
From China and Japan to India and the countries of south-east Asia,
leaders are being confronted by the unknowns of a new American president
Thursday 10 November 2016 03.06 GMT
Donald Trump’s victory has the potential to radically redraw the geopolitical landscape in Asia, where Barack Obama has been trying to counterbalance China’s growing regional influence with his “pivot” strategy.
Some believe a Trump presidency could represent the biggest threat to Washington’s security ties with its two biggest allies in the Asia-Pacific – Japan and South Korea – since the end of the second world war.
But the rest of the region will be watching intently.
“There is a sense that this is a big epochal change, that this is the end of the old order and we are not sure what is coming,” said Nick Bisley, an international relations expert from La Trobe University in Melbourne. “And I think this is especially true in Asia because it is the place where you have seen American influence most obviously challenged, politically and economically, by a rising China.
“It doesn’t seem that Trump is going to be interested in defending those old verities of US primacy in Asia and carrying the lion’s share of the weight of maintaining the strategic balance in the region,” he added. “It is now going to be much more self-interested in how it behaves.”
China
On the campaign trail Trump hinted at a more robust policy towards China, accusing Beijing of “raping” the US economy and threatening to slap massive tariffs on Chinese imports, while simultaneously threatening to pull US troops out of Beijing’s regional rivals, Japan and South Korea.
But Bonnie Glaser, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, said Trump had shed so little light on his strategy for the region that speculating about what might happen was almost pointless.
“On the South China Sea he has said very little. On cyber security, I haven’t heard anything. North Korea, who knows?” said Glaser. “On so many of these issues he has just been silent.”
John Delury, an expert in US-China relations from Yonsei University in Seoul, said he believed the region had been caught off guard by Trump’s triumph.
“Asians had been expecting a Hillary victory,” he said. “Trump is this gigantic question mark … The first reaction is simply not knowing who are we dealing with. Who is this guy? How is he going to conduct foreign policy? And who is he going to give responsibility to?”
Many China experts believe the country’s Communist party leaders will be relatively relaxed about having to deal with a Trump White House.
“I just don’t think they would be alarmed by a Trump presidency,” said Glaser. “The silver lining that some Chinese [officials] have drawn is that Trump could be somebody that they could negotiate with, that as a businessman he is somebody who is transactional, who might be able to cut deals on some issues. I think they would try to make that work for them.”
Delury, the author of Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century, said Beijing had been gearing up for a Clinton victory and therefore “bracing for a harder edge to China policy”.
“So there may be some relief that they don’t have to deal with a formidable foreign policy leader in Hillary Clinton. There is probably some hope that despite his anti-China rhetoric, Trump is an amateur at foreign policy. Trump is an isolationist so the Chinese are going to see that as an opportunity to keep strengthening their position and their role in the region.”
Delury said Trump was also likely to ditch the highly contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which under Obama had been “a centrepiece of an American resurgence of its role in Asia”.
“That’s good for China ... That is definitely a tilt towards the Sinocentric order for Asia,” he said.
But if Beijing will be calm about having to deal with a President Trump, experts believe other countries in the region are feeling far less sanguine.
Nick Bisley said the region was now in for “a wild ride” over the coming months.
“We used to know how things work and we now have no sense that we know how the game is played ... It’s 2016. At one end is Leicester City Football Club [winning the English Premier League] and at the other it is Brexit and Trump. I do think it is the end of the old liberal order and we are into seriously uncharted territory.”
Glaser rejected the idea that Trump’s victory meant the US would now completely roll over to Beijing in Asia.
“The US is not going to be pulling out of Asia and ceding it to China. So where does Trump get tough? Where does he look to make compromises? I just don’t know.”
Japan and the Korean peninsula
While Japanese government officials were cautious about commenting on their preference for the next president, Trump has caused consternation and alarm in Tokyo with suggestions that he is willing to make dramatic changes to the security glue that has held the two countries together for more than 60 years.
Amid rising concern over Chinese military activity in the South China Sea and North Korea’s apparently unstoppable acquisition of a viable nuclear deterrent, a Clinton victory would have given Japan the assurance it needed that bilateral security ties would remain untouched.
In public remarks over the past few months, however, Trump has hinted that his “America first” mantra could mean the withdrawal of 47,000 US troops from Japan and another 28,500 ranged along the southern side of the heavily armed border that separates South and North Korea.
Tokyo and Seoul, Trump claimed, have benefited from US security largesse for too long, protected by vast numbers of personnel and military hardware that they pay little to maintain.
“If somebody attacks Japan, we have to immediately go and start world war three, OK? If we get attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us,” he said in a speech last year.
The prospect of Trump weakening or even scrapping that guarantee would cause alarm in Tokyo, particularly after securing vows from Washington that the US would come to Japan’s aid if China attempted to retake the disputed Senkaku islands by force. The East China Sea islands, known as the Diaoyu in China, are administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.
Koichi Nakano, a politics professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, told the Guardian: “We don’t know if he will do what he has said he would do on security with Japan and South Korea, or settle down to the status quo.”
A worst-case scenario would involve a US withdrawal from the region, which could encourage Chinese expansionist ambitions and compel Japan to beef up its own military, Nakano said.
“But it’s also possible that Trump loses interest once he’s in power … we know that he doesn’t have much interest in foreign policy so it might be the case that he becomes very detached from security issues and leaves them in the hands of the usual suspects from the Republican party.”
In response to Trump’s “freeloading” claims, some analysts have pointed out that both South Korea and Japan contribute huge sums to the upkeep of the US military presence in their countries.
Tokyo contributes ¥192bn ($1.84bn) a year towards maintaining the US military presence. US bases in Japan cost about $5.5bn a year, according to the Pentagon. South Korea, meanwhile, contributes $850m a year – about half the cost of maintaining the US troop presence there.
And under Obama, both have moved to strengthen their own roles in the security relationship.
Just over a year ago Japan passed a controversial law that allows the country’s military to exercise collective self-defence – or coming to the aid of an ally – in overseas conflict for the first time since the war.
South Korea, meanwhile, has agreed to host the US-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) missile defence system – a move aimed at deterring North Korean ballistic missile attacks. China, however, says deploying Thaad would upset the regional balance of power and compromise its own security.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the country’s national security council was due to hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the US election result, although it is not clear what immediate action could be taken by the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, who is in the midst of a cronyism crisis that could end in her resignation.
Mark Lippert, the US ambassador to South Korea, said the country’s security ties would remain unchanged, whoever become president. “Our alliance has been strong for over 60 years, and I see no change in that,” Lippert told reporters in Seoul, according to Yonhap.
“Over the 60 years, we have had this special alliance. It’s been through ups and downs. [But] it will always get stronger. I am confident that that trajectory will continue. The alliance continues to be strong, and it will continue to grow.”
Perhaps most alarming is Trump’s suggestion that Japan and South Korea should end their dependence on the US nuclear umbrella and develop their own nuclear deterrents.
That, many analysts agree, could spark an Asia-Pacific arms race that would further destabilise an already tense region.
In April, Trump told Chris Wallace on Fox News: “It’s not like, gee whiz, nobody has them. So, North Korea has nukes. Japan has a problem with that. I mean, they have a big problem with that. Maybe they would in fact be better off if they defend themselves from North Korea.”
When Wallace asked him if he was referring to nuclear weapons, Trump answered: “Including with nukes, yes, including with nukes.”
North Korea
Trump has spoken of his desire to meet the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
While the idea of dialogue will appeal to those who have declared the Obama administration’s policy of sanctions and isolation a failure, the North Koreans themselves did not take the gesture seriously, with one official dismissing it as glib election campaign propaganda.
Philippines and south-east Asia
Barack Obama courted Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia during his time in office. All have territorial disputes with Beijing over the South China Sea, a route for about $4.5tn (£3.4tn) in trade that the US is concerned China wants to fully control.
Trump’s lack of concise policy on China has led governments in south-east Asia to wonder if they should still look the US as a counterweight to Beijing if he wins and abandons the “pivot” policy.
Even before the results were in, the US chargé d’affaires in Manila was attempting to reassure the Philippines that the relationship would continue, already battered by President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated anti-US rhetoric.
“Whoever wins this election, our country will value the ties with the Philippines, as it has over all these many decades. And that, I can say with full confidence,” Michael Klecheski said.
Duterte, who also won the election this year as an anti-establishment candidate who horrified the Manila elite, has been regularly compared to Trump.
His relationship with the US has spiralled since he took office in June but he soon congratulated Trump upon his victory. “I don’t want to quarrel any more, because Trump has won,” Duterte said in a speech to the Filipino community during a visit to Malaysia.
Although the Philippines has one of the strongest claims against China, winning an international tribunal in July, Duterte has tried to ease the relationship with Beijing.
A Trump presidency with less focus on the South China Sea could bolster that policy.
And in Thailand, where a military government has increasingly looked north to Beijing, US ambassador Glyn Davies also tried to talk up the strength of the relationship.
Trump has some allies in the region, or at least admirers. Notably, Cambodian strongman Hun Sen has described the Republican candidate as “very talented”.
Trump is perhaps least popular in the region’s majority Muslim counties, Malaysia and Indonesia, where there was widespread anger on social media and in newspapers when he announced his plan to ban Muslims entering the US.
A poll conducted in the region this week revealed that Clinton was overwhelming the preferred candidate amongst resident Asians.
India
In India, Donald Trump’s victory could cause short-term economic panic, but may have long-term foreign policy benefits, argues Neelam Deo, the director of foreign policy think tank Gateway House.
“There is complete economic confusion, and the short-term response of the stock market will be negative. How the economy will respond to Donald Trump is a complete unknown and the uncertainty itself is already having a negative fallout,” she said.
Close ties between the US and India under the Obama administration could also take a turn for the worse. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be shocked as he had set a close relationship with President Obama, who had become the campaigner-in-chief for the Hillary campaign, and who has projected herself as the candidate for continuity.”
Trump has indicated that he would work towards a stronger relationship with India, saying he would be “best friends” with India, and broadcasting a message in Hindi saying “ab ki baar Trump sarkar,” (meaning “this time, a Trump government”) referring to Modi’s campaign slogan in 2014 elections.
It is unclear if those statements would translate to foreign policy benefits for India. “I wouldn’t take those statements too seriously as they are designed to woo a small contingent of American Indians,” said Deo.
“But Donald Trump, who doesn’t seem to overanalyse anything, is likely to take a stance against Pakistan, which would be consonant with his stance on Islamic terrorism, and would be in India’s favour.”
Article source : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/10/an-epochal-change-what-a-trump-presidency-means-for-the-asia-pacific-region
<Questions>
Q1. What do you know about Donald Trump?
Q2. If you were an American citizen, who would you pick as a next president of America? Why?
Q3. What is the biggest difference in leadership from a company owner to a national president?
Q4. What are the major threats and opportunities for Korea originated from Trump's election?
Q5. Are we ready to deal with controversial political agendas which are suggested by Trump's administration for next year?
Q6. What is the most urgent agenda for Korea next year in line with changes of United States administration?
A Movement For California to Secede
Gains Steam After Election Day
by Michal Addady @michal_addady NOVEMBER 10, 2016, 12:13 PM EST
It didn’t start with Donald Trump, but he certainly helped.
“Calexit” didn’t start with Donald Trump, but his victory on Election Day certainly sparked more interest in the idea.
A play on “Brexit,” it’s the new name for the prospect of California seceding from the U.S. The movement is being lead by the Yes California Independence Campaign. What started as a fringe political movement in 2014 seems to have gained steam in the past six months, thanks in part to the U.K.’s recent Brexit vote and Donald Trump being elected president.
“What’s going on in the U.S. politically and culturally is so different from what’s happening here,” Yes California president Louis Marinelli told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “I want California to be all it can, and our group feels the political and cultural connection to the U.S. is holding us back from our potential.” The group’s goal is to hold a referendum in 2018 that, if passed, would transition California into its own independent country. As Marinelli explained to the Times, the vision is for California to become a nation within a nation, similar to the way Scotland relates to the rest of the U.K.
When Britain voted to leave the European Union this summer, Marinelli saw it as a milestone that may have set a precedent for Calexit. He told Newsweek, “This is the first Western secessionist movement that worked, and I think that is going to be very profound.”
Yes California saw support grow on social media after Brexit, building its following to about 6,700 Facebook likes and 650 Twitter followers. It has since grown to over 21,400 Facebook likes and 8,300 Twitter followers, likely having been given a push from Donald Trump’s Election Day win. Many voiced their support for the movement on Twitter.
As CNNMoney reports, the movement has even grabbed the attention of some potential Silicon Valley bankrollers, but others have expressed doubt that California could actually survive as a sovereign nation. While the plan is unlikely to actually come to fruition, the state would be in a better position to do so than others. It’s the sixth largest economy in the world according to 2015 global GDP figures; it produces over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts; and, according to a WalletHub analysis, it’s one of the least federally dependent states in the U.S.
Article source : http://fortune.com/2016/11/10/calexit-california-secession/
Silicon Valley Braces for Uncertainty
After Donald Trump’s Victory
President-elect’s campaign lacked specific plan for how he would tackle technology policy
By TRISHA THADANI/ Updated Nov. 10, 2016 10:19 a.m. ET
Donald Trump’s election victory is seen as a blow to Silicon Valley, putting the presidency in the hands of a vocal critic of several big technology companies and an advocate of policies tech executives have said could hurt the industry’s development.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump didn’t offer a specific plan for how he would tackle technology policy—unlike his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, who in June issued a detailed tech platform that executives broadly applauded. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s advocacy of tighter limits on immigration and trade alarmed an industry that prizes high-skilled immigrants and gets most of its revenue from overseas.
The electorate’s endorsement of Mr. Trump’s populist message, which broadly blamed elites for the problems of many disaffected Americans, could also spell trouble for Silicon Valley, which has spawned companies that delivered far more in profits and stock-market valuations than they have jobs for middle-class workers.
Mr. Trump took aim at several big names in technology during the campaign. He called for a consumer boycott of Apple Inc. over its refusal to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation access a terrorist’s iPhone over privacy concerns. He accused Jeff Bezos of using the Washington Post, which he owns, to advance the interests of Amazon.com Inc., the e-commerce giant he founded and runs—a claim the Post and Mr. Bezos strongly disputed.
And, as he did with other companies outside technology, he claimed International Business Machines Corp. was moving jobs overseas.
The GOP candidate received scant support from prominent technology executives other than entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel . Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. Chief Executive Meg Whitman and Cisco Systems Inc. Chairman John Chambers, two stalwart Republicans from the industry, both backed Mrs. Clinton.
A number of tech executives and investors voiced alarm at the election Tuesday night, with one prominent venture capitalist, Shervin Pishevar, even suggesting California should secede. “If Trump wins, I am announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation,” said a post on Mr. Pishevar’s Twitter account Tuesday night as the Republican candidate headed toward victory.
The tech sector thrived under President Barack Obama. The four most valuable companies in the world—Apple, Google parent Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon—are all tech companies. Alphabet enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the Obama administration and its chairman, Eric Schmidt, helped early development of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. Mrs. Clinton’s technology policy blueprint broadly echoed the Obama administration’s, emphasizing a close relationship with the private sector.
Even within that relative harmony in recent years, tech companies clashed with Washington over the limits of government authority and surveillance, particularly after the 2013 revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Apple earlier this year beat back a government attempt to force it to break the security on an iPhone used by a shooter in the San Bernardino, Calif., terror attack—the episode that prompted Mr. Trump’s criticism of the company. Microsoft in April sued the Justice Department over secret orders to reveal customer data.
Debates over encryption, privacy and other tech issues are likely to intensify during Mr. Trump’s presidency, which will begin as the tech industry appears on the cusp of disruptive innovations—in areas such as self-driving cars, robots and artificial intelligence—that would require new policy responses.
Aaron Levie, chief executive of online-storage company Box Inc. and a Clinton supporter, said much of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric is antithetical to many views of Silicon Valley. “What we need are very sound policies and an approach that works for bringing everybody into this innovation economy and into the future,” Mr. Levie said in an interview Wednesday. “And the only way to do that is by a very productive partnership between both the private sector as well as the public sector.”
Tusk Holdings, which advises tech startups on regulatory strategies, said in a note to clients that Mr. Trump’s election could spur new discussion on technology’s role in displacing workers—such as concerns that autonomous vehicles could take jobs from truck drivers.
There could be a silver lining for tech companies, though. Scott Kessler of CFRA Research said Mr. Trump’s win, coupled with continued Republican control of Congress, increases the chances for changes to the tax code that could enable U.S. companies to bring home more overseas profits. U.S. companies have an estimated $2 trillion stashed overseas—including $216 billion in cash and investments held offshore by Apple as of Sept. 24.
And Mr. Trump is likely to adopt a light regulatory touch that could benefit tech businesses, said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. A Trump administration is unlikely to expand regulatory oversight on encryption, or in areas of innovation like artificial intelligence, meaning there will be “a lot more freedom to innovate with data and algorithms, so that is very good for tech,” Mr. Atkinson said.
Still, the lack of specific policies from Mr. Trump during the campaign leaves uncertainty on hot-button issues such as the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” rules, which generally bar telecom companies from favoring some traffic over others. Most technology companies support those rules, though many telecom providers oppose them.
While Mr. Trump didn’t offer an official position on net neutrality, he expressed displeasure with the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order through a tweet, “Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab.”
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban worries that Mr. Trump will embrace advisers who are antitechnology. If so, “one of the greatest growth engines of the country could be diminished,” Mr. Cuban said in an email before the election. “In that case we could see emigration of talent, rather than immigration.”
Article source : http://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-braces-for-uncertainty-after-donald-trumps-victory-1478716165
Bernie Sanders: Trump already breaking campaign promise
to ‘drain the swamp’
By Catherine Ho November 15 at 3:43 PM
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Tuesday took aim at Donald Trump’s inclusion of lobbyists and industry executives on his transition team, blasting the president-elect for going back on a campaign promise to keep special interests out of Washington before he has even stepped foot in the White House.
“Mr. Trump described himself as a populist taking on the establishment, someone who would ‘drain the swamp,'” Sanders said. “Unfortunately what we’re beginning to see is what I feared, which is a lot of what Mr. Trump said to get votes is not what he intends to do as president of the United States.”
In a call with reporters, Sanders and Whitehouse urged Trump to adopt or strengthen ethics rules implemented by President Obama aimed at keeping lobbyists and special interests off his transition team and administration. The Obama executive order restricting lobbyists from working in the White House has not always been effective — the administration later issued waivers to allow some lobbyists in — but the order is generally cited by watchdog groups as a positive step toward reducing ethical lapses in the executive branch.
The Trump transition team has yet to publicly indicate what ethics rules, if any, apply to the lobbyists and executives now leading policy and federal agency personnel issues on the transition.
[Donors and lobbyists already shaping Trump’s ‘drain the swamp’ administration]
The corporate lobbyists helping to shape the Trump transition include Steve Hart, a tax lobbyist and chairman of the law and lobby shop Williams & Jensen, who is overseeing the Labor Department; Mike McKenna, an energy lobbyist who is overseeing planning for the Energy Department; and Mike Catanzaro, a partner at the lobby firm CGCN who has represented Halliburton and Koch Industries. The transition is also tapping Wall Street veterans and billionaires to influential roles: the executive committee overseeing the transition include Steven Mnuchin, an ex-Goldman Sachs partner who is being considered for treasury secretary, and New York financier Anthony Scaramucci. Billionaire and Oklahoma oil executive Harold Hamm, who advised the Trump campaign on policy, is being considered for a Cabinet post.
[Donald Trump narrows candidates to lead Treasury and Commerce, major backer says]
“It doesn’t look like they’re draining the swamp, it looks like they’re pouring the swamp into the transition,” Whitehouse said. “If nothing changes, they’ll be pouring the swamp into the Oval Office as well.”
Sanders and Whitehouse said Trump should implement changes to lobbying laws that Trump proposed on the campaign trail: a five-year ban on members of Congress and executive branch officials who want to become lobbyists after leaving government, and a lifetime ban on senior executive branch officials from lobbying for foreign governments.
[Trump proposes five-year ban on executive branch officials and lawmakers who want to become lobbyists]
Article source : https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/15/bernie-sanders-trump-already-breaking-campaign-promise-to-drain-the-swamp/?tid=sm_fb
<Questions>
Q1. Have you ever heard about 'Calexit'? Could you explain this concept in detail?
Q2. How do you think about the future of IT industry after Trump's victory in election?
Q3. What would happen in your working field due to the Trump's election result?
Q4. How do you think about politician who is breaking his major campaign promise right after election victory ?
Why didn't the United States elect a female president?
Published Tuesday 15 November 2016
It was supposed to be the day America would catch up with history and the rest of the world. Finally, the US would elect its first woman president.
It turns out that the catch-up will be delayed. When it comes to political empowerment, the United States is ranked 73rd out of 143 countries, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2016.
The US is slowly falling down the list – not because its record on electing women is getting worse, but because other countries are getting substantially better. Today there are 60 members of the Council of Women World Leaders, all of them current or former freely elected heads of state or government as president, prime minister or chancellor. On the list of countries that have had such a leader in the past 50 years, the US is dead last.
This chart from the Global Gender Gap Report 2016 shows the state of gender equality
in the US, and a pronounced lack of female representation in politics
The obvious question is, why? Why can’t the world’s most powerful nation elect a women president?
In trying to parse how much of this failure is the unpredictability of politics’ rough-and-tumble process and how much is sexism, I separate the causes into two categories: the seed and the soil. The seed is the individual candidate. The soil is the ground in which that candidate has to try to prosper: the institutional structures and processes that either facilitate change or throw up barriers.
Winner takes all
The United States and its winner-take-all system is tough soil for new growth to take root in. The electoral college, not the popular vote, determines who gets elected, giving more weight to outliers in middling states like Michigan or Ohio. In this system, third-party candidates can act as spoilers, preventing major party candidates from gaining a clear advantage in some states.
The hurdle for women is lower in countries in a parliamentary system, where the multiple parties can agree to back one another’s leaders in coalitions. Parliamentary elections also put more parties in play. The more parties in play, the more opposition leaders there are. And since women often become opposition leader before they become prime minister, there are more opportunities for women to take the top job. Women also often find an entry point to the presidency in countries where the prime minister is the executive and the president wields more symbolic “soft power”.
More than 100 countries, furthermore, promote women’s chances to lead with some sort of quota system, requiring a certain minimum number of seats in parliament to be filled by women. Women are given the chance to hone their political skills as a member of parliament or deputy, establishing a well-stocked pipeline of experienced women legislators prepared to run for the high office.
In the US, where no such quotas exist, the percentage of the House and Senate seats held by women seems to plateau at about 20%, never attaining what many regard as a critical mass of 35%. Affirmative mechanisms are highly unpopular and unlikely to be enacted.
Quotas don’t advance unqualified women but remove in-group favouritism and closed social networks, so qualified women can advance.
Question of stamina
Fighting to lodge in this forbidding soil, the seed has its own disadvantages. Women simply do not fit the archetype of a leader in a country that stakes its superpower status on its military might. Men are presumed to be strong until they show otherwise. Women must prove they have strength, which is what made Donald Trump’s attack on Hillary Clinton’s “stamina” so effective. Using this code word, he played on Americans’ unconscious fear that Clinton was not strong enough to be commander-in-chief.
Nearly all of the female leaders in the Council of Women World Leaders have experienced scrutiny of their hair, dress, voice and style that men get much more rarely. In the seemingly endless US election campaign, the objectification of Hillary Clinton went beyond hyper-scrutiny to misogynistic name-calling, with anti-Clinton T-shirts and signs reading “Trump the bitch”.
Trump was accused of this kind of misogyny, and his rise gave voice to an unsettling loss of centrality among some supporters, encouraging them to abandon political correctness, as they saw it, and vocalize their unease at the advancement of women (and other historically underrepresented groups).
Of course, women are judged for themselves as much as men are: on their experience and their message, and their likeability. Clinton, with her baggage of investigations dating back to her husband’s administration and her more recent history of email troubles, was widely seen as an imperfect messenger and therefore not deserving of the presidency. In her book Lean In, Google CEO Sheryl Sandburg says that women must be liked, and Clinton, polls showed, was not liked. But neither was Trump – his unfavourable rating was worse than his opponent’s – yet he is president-elect.
This anomaly points to a tolerance gap in American politics when it comes to mistakes or misjudgements. In the scrupulous fact-checking that the press conducted, prompted by Trump’s constant straying from the truth, Clinton was cited for roughly a fifth the number of “less than true statements” as Trump. Nonetheless he successfully branded her a “liar”. A simple litmus test: put one of Trump’s false statements in Clinton’s mouth (“Crime is rising”; “We’re the highest taxed country in the world”) then ask how the voters would react.
This was a peculiar and particularly difficult election for our female presidential candidate, but only in degree. These same individual and institutional difficulties challenge women at some level in every US election. The country now ranks 93rd in representation in the two houses of Congress, according to the Interparliamentary Union.
According to Saadia Zahidi, an economist at the World Economic Forum who authors the Gender Gap Report, 47% of all countries have had at least one female head of state, ever. At the current rate, Zahidi has projected, it will take more than 100 years for the world to get to gender parity, where half of all heads of states are women at any given time. Will the United States get there by then?
The silver lining is that women around the world are making substantial progress in reaching highest-level offices. That progress will continue and be sustainable as more women see that it is possible and desirable.
Article source : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/can-america-elect-a-woman-president
<Questions>
Q1. What was the weak points of Hillary Clinton as a president candidate?
Q2. How much percentage of seats are occupied by women in Korean national parliament?
Q3. What are the merits and demerits of female leadership? How about male leadership?
Q4. Are we equipped with enough social infrastructure or social consciousness to support female leader?
Q5. How do you think about American election system? Is it a democratic system?
President Obama Speaks on the Results of the Election:
"We Are Americans First"
NOVEMBER 9, 2016 AT 12:04 PM ET BY MELANIE GARUNAY
Summary: President Obama speaks on the results of last night's election and the next steps we can take as a country to come together.
The President addressed the nation on the election results and the next steps we can take to come together as a country and ensure a peaceful transition of power. This is something every American should watch -- no matter his or her politics.
"We have to remember that we're actually all on one team…We’re not Democrats first, we're not Republicans first, we are Americans first. We're patriots first. We all want what’s best for this country."
President Obama, November 9, 2016
Read his full remarks:
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Yesterday, before votes were tallied, I shot a video that some of you may have seen in which I said to the American people: Regardless of which side you were on in the election, regardless of whether your candidate won or lost, the sun would come up in the morning.
And that is one bit of prognosticating that actually came true. The sun is up. And I know everybody had a long night. I did, as well. I had a chance to talk to President-elect Trump last night -- about 3:30 in the morning, I think it was -- to congratulate him on winning the election. And I had a chance to invite him to come to the White House tomorrow to talk about making sure that there is a successful transition between our presidencies.
Now, it is no secret that the President-elect and I have some pretty significant differences. But remember, eight years ago, President Bush and I had some pretty significant differences. But President Bush’s team could not have been more professional or more gracious in making sure we had a smooth transition so that we could hit the ground running. And one thing you realize quickly in this job is that the presidency, and the vice presidency, is bigger than any of us.
So I have instructed my team to follow the example that President Bush’s team set eight years ago, and work as hard as we can to make sure that this is a successful transition for the President-elect -- because we are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country. The peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. And over the next few months, we are going to show that to the world.
I also had a chance last night to speak with Secretary Clinton, and I just had a chance to hear her remarks. I could not be prouder of her. She has lived an extraordinary life of public service. She was a great First Lady. She was an outstanding senator for the state of New York. And she could not have been a better Secretary of State. I'm proud of her. A lot of Americans look up to her. Her candidacy and nomination was historic and sends a message to our daughters all across the country that they can achieve at the highest levels of politics. And I am absolutely confident that she and President Clinton will continue to do great work for people here in the United States and all around the world.
Now, everybody is sad when their side loses an election. But the day after, we have to remember that we’re actually all on one team. This is an intramural scrimmage. We’re not Democrats first. We're not Republicans first. We are Americans first. We’re patriots first. We all want what’s best for this country. That’s what I heard in Mr. Trump’s remarks last night. That's what I heard when I spoke to him directly. And I was heartened by that. That's what the country needs -- a sense of unity; a sense of inclusion,; a respect for our institutions, our way of life, rule of law; and a respect for each other. I hope that he maintains that spirit throughout this transition, and I certainly hope that’s how his presidency has a chance to begin.
I also told my team today to keep their heads up, because the remarkable work that they have done day in, day out -- often without a lot of fanfare, often without a lot of attention -- work in agencies, work in obscure areas of policy that make government run better and make it more responsive, and make it more efficient, and make it more service-friendly so that it's actually helping more people -- that remarkable work has left the next President with a stronger, better country than the one that existed eight years ago.
So win or lose in this election, that was always our mission. That was our mission from day one. And everyone on my team should be extraordinarily proud of everything that they have done, and so should all the Americans that I’ve had a chance to meet all across this country who do the hard work of building on that progress every single day. Teachers in schools, doctors in the ER clinic, small businesses putting their all into starting something up, making sure they're treating their employees well. All the important work that's done by moms and dads and families and congregations in every state. The work of perfecting this union.
So this was a long and hard-fought campaign. A lot of our fellow Americans are exultant today. A lot of Americans are less so. But that's the nature of campaigns. That's the nature of democracy. It is hard, and sometimes contentious and noisy, and it's not always inspiring.
But to the young people who got into politics for the first time, and may be disappointed by the results, I just want you to know, you have to stay encouraged. Don’t get cynical. Don’t ever think you can’t make a difference. As Secretary Clinton said this morning, fighting for what is right is worth it.
Sometimes you lose an argument. Sometimes you lose an election. The path that this country has taken has never been a straight line. We zig and zag, and sometimes we move in ways that some people think is forward and others think is moving back. And that's okay. I’ve lost elections before. Joe hasn't. (Laughter.) But you know.
(The Vice President blesses himself.) (Laughter.)
So I've been sort of --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Remember, you beat me badly. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: That’s the way politics works sometimes. We try really hard to persuade people that we’re right. And then people vote. And then if we lose, we learn from our mistakes, we do some reflection, we lick our wounds, we brush ourselves off, we get back in the arena. We go at it. We try even harder the next time.
The point, though, is, is that we all go forward, with a presumption of good faith in our fellow citizens -- because that presumption of good faith is essential to a vibrant and functioning democracy. That's how this country has moved forward for 240 years. It’s how we’ve pushed boundaries and promoted freedom around the world. That's how we've expanded the rights of our founding to reach all of our citizens. It’s how we have come this far.
And that's why I'm confident that this incredible journey that we're on as Americans will go on. And I am looking forward to doing everything that I can to make sure that the next President is successful in that. I have said before, I think of this job as being a relay runner -- you take the baton, you run your best race, and hopefully, by the time you hand it off you're a little further ahead, you've made a little progress. And I can say that we've done that, and I want to make sure that handoff is well-executed, because ultimately we're all on the same team.
All right? Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.)
Article source : https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/11/09/president-obama-speaks-results-election
Clinton and Obama urge Democrats to rebuild party
after election defeat
Politicians reflect on what went wrong in stunning loss and encourage party to fight for its values as it searches for new leader
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have urged their party to reflect on what went wrong as Democrats search to find a new leader and rebuild after her stunning defeat to Donald Trump.
On a conference call with congressional lawmakers, Clinton offered a raw evaluation of how the loss has affected her but encouraged Democrats to fight for the party’s values harder than ever in the Trump era.
“No one is sorrier than me,” she said, according to a Democrat on the call. “Heartbreaks don’t heal overnight, and this one won’t.”
Clinton said the party must “analyze” and warned lawmakers against becoming “distracted or divided” in the many fights ahead.
Meanwhile, Obama addressed supporters on a conference call late on Monday, congratulating Clinton on a “history-making race” while acknowledging how painful it is to lose.
“Expected losses are hard enough, unexpected ones are just worse,” Obama said. “I was telling my team, you’re allowed to mope for a week and a half, maybe two if you really need it. But after that, we’ve got to brush ourselves off and get back to work. We’ve got to come together and focus on a way ahead.”
Like Clinton, Obama encouraged the party to evaluate what went wrong and to rework its strategy at a grassroots level.
“We have better ideas,” Obama said. “But they have to be heard for us to actually translate those ideas into votes and ultimately into action.”
Also on Monday, Clinton officially won New Hampshire’s four electoral college votes by a razor-thin margin of less than 1%. Trump’s campaign had until Monday evening to ask for a recount but did not do so.
In the end, Clinton won 232 electoral college votes to Trump’s 306, which is the only measure that counts in determining the outcome of a US presidential election. Although final vote tallies are not in, Clinton is leading the popular vote by more than 800,000 votes.
“Our vision for America earned more votes … We can’t afford to be discouraged or divided. We are stronger together,” she told Democrats.
Clinton’s campaign requested the conference call to thank members of the Democratic caucus for their efforts during one of the most divisive presidential elections in modern history, according to a Democrat on the call. It lasted about 18 minutes.
Clinton had an all-star team of Democrats who blanketed the country on her behalf, most notably Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, and senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
On the call, the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, said: “Our hearts are broken but our determination is deepened.” She thanked Clinton for her service, saying: “Hillary, you are one of the greatest leaders in our country’s history – president or not.”
Clinton has kept a low profile since her concession speech from the New Yorker hotel in Midtown on Wednesday. The next day, a woman and her 13-month-old daughter, Phoebe, saw the Clintons walking their dog near her home in Chappaqua, New York.
Margot Gerster posted the photo, presumably taken by the former president, of her and Hillary Clinton standing in the fall leaves on Facebook with the hashtag #ImStillWithHer.
“I got to hug her and tell her that one of my proudest moments as a mother was taking Phoebe with me to vote for her,” Gerster wrote. “She hugged me and thanked me and we exchanged some sweet pleasantries and then I let them continue their walk.
“Now, I’m not one for signs but I think I’ll definitely take this one. So proud.”
Article source : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/14/clinton-obama-democratic-party-chair-trump-election-loss
<Questions>
Q1. How do you think about Obama's leadership?
Q2. How do you think about Obama's speech right after 2016 presidential election defeat?
Q3. Why has the Democratic party lost in 2016 election?
Q4. What is the most important factor to be a successful leader in the nation?
Q5. Who was the most respectful leader in our society who integrates divisive society into one?
첫댓글 저 오늘 처음으로 참가해보고 싶습니다~ 따로 신청해야하나요?
환영합니다 제갈와룡님 !~
일단 자기소개 게시판에 소개해주시고 모임장소로 오시면 됩니다.
특별한 신청과정은 필요없고 자기소개와 관심가는 토픽중심으로 말하실거 간단히 준비해오시면 됩니다.
ㅋ 그럼 모임에서 뵈요 !:)