Trump is just plain rude.

[CathyA]

Did you see the video of how he pushed the prime minister of Montenegro in order to be in front? What a jerk. It's totally humiliating to have him representing the U.S. He is incapable of saying anything reasonable, unless he totally reads from a script that I'm sure others have written for him and have warned him not to stray from it. I can only shake my head in disbelief. I just can't get used to the idea.

[LDAHL]

We live in loutish times. Politicians can pummel reporters to the floor and still win a House seat. Students can send a professor to the hospital and get punished with a letter in a folder (to be removed at the end of the semester).

[creaker]

That video was like watching a pushy 8 year old. Incredible.

[Alan]

We live in loutish times. Politicians can pummel reporters to the floor and still win a House seat. I agree with the loutish part, but in the case of the gentleman from Montana, that result falls at the feet of our desire to take the effort out of voting, delivering a ballot to everyone's doorstep and picking it up again weeks before an election.

A truism in my industry is that convenience is the enemy of security. I think that also applies to good governance.

[Tybee]

Students can send a professor to the hospital and get punished with a letter in a folder (to be removed at the end of the semester).

I had not heard this--can you provide a link, as that is really a horrifying story, and unfortunately, very easy to believe these days.

[jp1]

To be sure, this wasn't new behavior by Gianforte, it just reached a new higher level of aggression against the press an previously. His dislike press if they aren't supportive of him is cut from the same cloth as Trump. I don't think it would be safe to say that he would have lost if everyone had all voted on Election Day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/gianforte-has-history-of-controversial-views-hostile-comments-to-press/2017/05/25/ceab14bc-4144-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html

[jp1]

And apparently being successful capitalists makes people very, very bad in Trump's eyes. It's intersting how things change. I remember being taught in elementary school (in the 70's) that the communists in the Soviet Union banned Levi's because they wanted to make the people buy the inferior Soviet jeans regardless of what the people wanted but America was better because we were free to buy what we wanted. The similarity to Trump's apparently desired automobile ban seems strikingly similar to the 40 year old Soviet ban on American products. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since he loves Russia so much.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/26/trump-calls-germans-very-bad-threatens-to-end-german-car-sales-reports.html

[ApatheticNoMore]

They just had to wait 40 years and Levi's would outsource their production and cheapen the product. What the Russians can't do, the race to the bottom that is globalization will. Far more cases of it lowering quality than raising it, so your teacher was mostly wrong if she thought otherwise (in theory people could buy good products from all over the world (well maybe but their wages might not allow it in many cases as they are the same as 40 years ago). In reality they mostly buy the cheapest possible products from all over the world, and so good becomes hard to find). Although cars are probably the exception in that competition with the Japanese raised quality.

[JaneV2.0]

I think Trump has managed to alienate the whole European Union and the UK, with his bloviating. He doesn't seem to fully understand NATO funding, he's disclosed classified information--which Britain has responded to with a promise not to share information with us, he's characterized Germany as "bad" ( so eloquent is the Donald), he's disheartened the Pope with his retrograde policies...As I said to a friend "Another day, another embarrassment."

[BikingLady]

I quit reading the news after yesterday, the Montana pushing was the last straw for me. I am taking a break for a few days...longer maybe or at least I will try.

[Teacher Terry]

Truly appalling! I want this circus to end.