Archives for June 2017

The election of Donald J. Trump as our nation’s 45^th president has not only had a profound effect on both our national and international politics, but it has also impacted what we call our children.

In the most recent survey of baby names conducted by Field and Stream, the top three boys and girls names are all Trump inspired.

The most popular baby girl name is now Kellyanne, in honor of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and now presidential advisor, Kellyanne Conway. It seems American parents are impressed with Conway’s sticktoitiveness in defending the president at all costs no matter how ridiculous or absurd that endeavor may be.

Coming in second, as might be expected, is Ivanka. Trump’s daughter, and wife of Jared Kushner, is beloved by many new mothers for her poise and grace. Plus she scores points among sentimentalists for having converted to Judaism in order to marry the love of her life.

In third place for most popular baby girl names, for some inexplicable reason, is the name Eric. As you may know, Eric is the name of Donald Trump’s second eldest son.

On the boys’ side of the ledger, the new most popular baby boy name is Michael or Mike (Mick). This comes as no surprise as the name figures prominently in the Trump Administration. Mike is the name of Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence. It is also the name of three current or former cabinet members: Mike Flynn, Mike Pompeo and Mick Mulvaney.

Surprisingly, the second most popular name for baby boys is Reince, the first name of the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s current chief of staff.

Even more interesting is that the number three name on the list of boy names is Priebus, Reince’s surname!

Of course the popularity of baby names is subject to popular whims and vagaries. Many are seeing the current popularity of Trump inspired names as an aberration … a flash in the pan. Most people who follow such trends predict we will soon be getting back to names like Emma, Olivia and Sophia, for girls, and names like Liam, Noah and Mason, for boys, once Trump steps down (impeached?) from office.

Photo | bizpacreview.com

Nov. 2, 2020 – With Election Day finally upon us, Donald J. Trump is projected to win his second term in office in tomorrow’s presidential voting. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight gives the Republican a 75% chance of retaining the White House over his Democratic opponent, Michael Moore.

While Democrats are still hopeful for an upset, it is unlikely the liberal firebrand and documentary filmmaker will be successful in ousting the popular, but polarizing, president.

With the two congressional investigations into the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia during the 2016 election still under way, and after Trump’s firing of Robert Mueller, in 2018, as special prosecutor for the FBI’s separate probe, many Democrats have simply lost heart.

While Mueller’s ouster caused an uproar among Democrats, their demand for Congress to renew the independent counsel statute that provides for the appointment of a special prosecutor, one who could not be fired by the president or the attorney general, fell on deaf ears. The Republican-controlled congress saw no need for the lapsed independent counsel law arguing the two congressional investigations, now entering their fourth year, where more than capable of resolving any “alleged improprieties.”

Adding to the Democrats’ woes was the House Intelligence Committee’s reopening of the Hillary Clinton Benghazi/Email investigation. This allowed Donald Trump to once again stir up Republican resentment of Democrats and to reprise his attacks on his former rival, along with the reflexive chants of “lock her up,” while on the campaign trail.

Democrats had hoped their continuing calls for Trump to release his tax returns would finally gain some political traction but the most recent polling shows a majority of Americans either do not care about the issue or believe the president’s promise to release his returns “once the IRS audit is completed.”

Perhaps all those liberals and progressives banking on a change of course in 2020 should have seen the writing on the wall after the Democrats’ drubbing in the 2018 midterm elections.

The much-anticipated tidal wave of Democratic voters never materialized. Hope of retaking both the Senate and the House of Representatives never came to fruition thanks partly to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in 2018 allowing states to pass more stringent “voter ID laws” as long as state legislatures “vouched” they would not be discriminatory.

For Democrats it looks like it’s on to 2024 and finding a strong candidate to run against the likely Republican nominee, Mike Pence. There is early talk of Democrats going the route of Republicans in 2016 by nominating a celebrity. Dwayne “the rock” Johnson is a name much bandied about.

Photo | businessinsider.com