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The election of Donald Trump has come as a shock to me. Even though I live in Vienna and am not directly affected by Trumps presidency in the same way my American friends and family are, it is extremely painful to watch how this man is turning a whole country and its values upside down. Every day, my life begins and ends with Trump. In the morning I reach sleepy-eyed for my phone while laying still in bed and read about the latest media scandal. When I go to bed I open the New York Times app one more time to check what has happened.

For a while, I tried abstaining from the news, but I am proud to admit that I have found something that works much better: weight lifting.

A couple of months ago I started a crossfit-similar exercise regimen that is mainly about lifting weights. Kettlebells, bar-bells, push-ups with 10 pounds laying on top of you. It sounds really hard, because it is.

In my first group lesson, I almost blacked out from the fast repetition of exercises, followed by the feeling of throwing up. When the lesson was over and everyone high-fived each other, tears were rolling down my cheeks a bodily response of relief. But it got better very quickly.

I have never been particularly interested in sports before, and besides the occasional yoga class, they never played a big role in my life. Sports basically meant YouTube Yoga or YouTube Pilates for me. I once started a 30 Day YouTube Yoga Challenge and it took me eight days to get past Day 4.

However, I am now completely in love with weight lifting. Not just because it is exercise for my body, but it gives me the piece of mind in a way that yoga never could. Weight lifting turns my brain in a blank slate. Nothing (including sleeping or watching TV) can reach that same level of calm for me than 30 squats with a 26 pound kettle bell in my hands.

While my body is preoccupied with exercise repetitions and, lets face it, constant pain, my brain can relax. Whereas in yoga groups you are encouraged to think about your day and let it all go, weight lifting doesnt even get you to this contemplative point. With stretching and staying in the downward facing dog for what feels like hours, my brain was still able to think about Trumps Muslim Ban or his latest attack on the news media. Yoga might as well have been as well be called Meditating with Trump.

Strength training has been associated with increasing brain function in multiple studies. It is said to slow dementia and increase long-term memory function by 10 percent. It also lowers stress, which can accumulate easily these days just by reading the news. Exercise promotes the production of hormones such as norepinephrine, while at the same time lowering cortisol levels significantly.

While Cardio and other forms of exercise still leave some room for you to think about current events, strength training doesnt. Instead of thinking about alternative facts, or immigration policies, the only things I can really think or rather feel about are WATER!, TOWEL!, ONE MORE!, all in capital letters and exclamation marks.

Since Trump got elected, many people have taken up new habits to personally deal with the constant news, be it going to events, stress eating, or obsessively caring about their nails like Jeanne Vaccaro, a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University. While this might feel like an overtly personal act of self-care it is also a means to be stronger in order to face the new reality head on. It means dealing with it, instead of hiding from it. Dealing with it also means being active to counteract what is happening: be it going to the womens march, tweeting or having a very long and complicated conversation with your relative or friend.

Weight lifting helps me with all of that and I am only getting stronger every day.

The rest is here:
Donald Trump Is Making Me Toned - Huffington Post

Then he won, in epic fashion. His populist message swept the Rust Belt out from under Democrats and suddenly the victim of purported rigging was headed to the White House.

Again, no evidence was given, but Trump felt strongly enough to demand an investigation into the matter.

Now, people influential with the most powerful man in the world are publicly raising concerns that there is a cabal of entrenched bureaucrats hidden in the bowels of the nation's government who are intent on his political demise.

But the idea of a deep state, similar to the idea of a rigged election or a fraudulent vote count, could cause a more fundamental threat: Each presupposes the government is actually controlled by hidden hands that ignore the law without compunction. It assumes these government actors wantonly ignore the law. That's a potentially destabilizing and explosive idea. So is, however, the notion that Russians helped install the president. And that's something Democrats have taken to pushing even though there's no evidence that Russian meddling had any effect on the November results.

With all these swirling accusations in the ether, discussion of a "deep state" -- formerly the obsession of conspiracy theorists and scholars of Egyptian and Turkish politics and the subject of spy novels and TV shows like "Scandal" -- is creeping into the American mainstream.

Trump himself has not spoken publicly about the term. But he did accuse political holdovers of trying to undermine his presidency by leaking information about his campaign's communications with Russians.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer offered his take on the idea during Friday's White House press briefing.

"I think that there's no question when you have eight years of one party in office, there are people who stay in government and continue to espouse the agenda of the previous administration," Spicer said. "So I don't think it should come as any surprise there are people that burrowed into government during eight years of the last administration and may have believed in that agenda and may continue to seek it. I don't think that should come as a surprise."

Spicer dismissed the idea that the CIA is working to identify those people and remove them from government.

That would be against the law, by the way; the CIA is barred from conducting "internal security functions" inside the US.

But that didn't help squash the conspiracy theory this week following documents released by WikiLeaks suggesting the CIA knows how to tap into smart phones and TVs.

Of course, neither the CIA nor any other spy agency would be able to lawfully use those tools on an American citizen under the law without first getting a FISA warrant.

Neither would former President Barack Obama have been able to wiretap candidate Trump, as the President suggested recently without offering any evidence. At least not under the law. For starters, the President doesn't conduct investigations. Second, his government would need a warrant to monitor conversations between Americans. There's some gray area when it comes to communications with foreign nationals.

Trump opponents, it should be noted, have been no less paranoid about what the new president will do, and have taken a number of actions to protect data on climate change, for example, gathered by the federal government.

But none of this has stopped the idea of a "deep state" from taking hold.

According to CNN's most recent reporting, the former President is perturbed by Trump's wiretapping allegations, but he's trying hard to bite his tongue -- save for a statement from his spokesman -- and give the new administration room.

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How Donald Trump could delegitimize his own government - CNN

Washington Times

Donald Trump tweeted 260 times within first 50 days of presidency: Report Washington Times Mr. Trump has taken to Twitter at least once a day since taking office, cranking out no fewer than 260 tweets from his @RealDonaldTrump account since his swearing-in, or roughly five posts per day the same number of in-person press conferences he's ... What did President Trump do this week?USA TODAY Inside Donald Trump's War Against the StateTIME Major Impact: President Donald Trump's First 50 Days in OfficeBreitbart News RollingStone.com -The Economist -Breitbart News all 807 news articles »

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Donald Trump tweeted 260 times within first 50 days of presidency: Report - Washington Times

Washington Times

Trump holds partial Cabinet meeting at his golf club Washington Times President Donald Trump, center, meets Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, right, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, left, along with other members of his cabinet and the White House staff, Saturday, March 11, 2017, at the Trump National ... Trump: Economy 'getting straightened out'Politico all 15 news articles »

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Trump holds partial Cabinet meeting at his golf club - Washington Times

President Donald Trump said the Secret Service did a fantastic job dealing with a "troubled person" who jumped the White House fence Friday night.

He addressed the incident to a group of reporters Saturday, saying he appreciated the Secret Service's efforts.

The intruder has been identified as 26-year-old Jonathan Tran, according to a representative with the U.S. Attorney's Office.

FoxNews.comhas more on the incident:

A person climbed a White House fence Friday night and gained access to the complex's south grounds before being arrested, the Secret Service said Saturday, shortly after noon.

The incident occurred at about 11:38 p.m. Friday while President Trump was at the White House, officials told Fox News.

The Secret Service also said the unidentified person scaled an outer-perimeter fence on the White House complex's southeast side, near the Treasury Building, and was arrested without further incident by an officer in the agency's Uniformed Division.

The intruder was carrying a backpack and purportedly got close to the White House's south portico residence entrance, near the Washington Monument.

No hazardous material was found inside the backpack, and a subsequent search of the complex grounds resulted in "nothing of concern to security operations," the Secret Service said.

Watch the video above to hear Trump's comments.

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Read more here:
Pres. Trump on White House Intruder: 'It Was a Troubled Person' - Fox News Insider