[KaiserJeep]

Consider this. The POTUS has a set of tasks just like anybody else. When you compare job performance, Trump is doing the job better than most, including especially his predecessor. OK, nobody much likes him - he's not a likeable person, not at all. He especially likes to figuratively and publicly "pee in the corn flakes" of anyone who fondly believes themself to be fashionably "progressive", using social media. The media hates him for this, and has lost all sense of propriety and standards, some even behave in an equally hostile manner. I would point out that any media outlet that does so has behaved unprofessionally. Trump as an individual has the right to say anything in the USA, and his position allows him to determine his own standards of conduct - not you or anybody else.

I don't like him either, but most of what he does I do not find offensive. As for real estate losses, back in the bubble of 2008 I lost $350K I really could not afford, which was a bigger portion of my personal fortune than the billions you mention were to Trump. If you cannot ride through the market downturns, you should be renting, not buying a home. I made it all back, and then some more. He made it all back, and enough more to amuse himself as POTUS.

[Plantagenet]

Barr just appointed a highly respected US attorney to investigate the use of informants (i.e. spies), electronic surveillance (i.e. wiretapping and spying) and the irregularities in the FISA Court application process (i.e. lying) that authorized the FBI/DOJ/Obama administration to spy on the Trump campaign.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the Obama DOJ and the leadership of the intelligence committees illegally targeted the Trump campaign for surveillance....not because of Russian collusion (because there was none as the Mueller report has now proven) but in order to conduct political espionage.

One interesting tidbit is that the "unmasking" of Americans caught up in FISA surveillance increased by 300% under the Obama administration. I wonder how much of that involved the spying on the Trump Campaign----and I wonder how much of that was done right in the White House by Obama's own personal advisors. We know some of it was.....and that is highly irregular.

Cheers!

[Revi]

The basic concept that a federal investigation is started, based on unverified opposition research paid for by the opposing party, shows how flawed the whole deal was.

That Revi and other D. Party partisans ignore this and focus on Trump's alleged personality issues says a lot about their cult groupthink dementia. They see in Trump what is not there. Being a bit boorish and direct is nothing like being a smiling snake. Any voter with a functional perception would prefer the former to the latter. The assertions about Trump being some sort of failure as a politician are pure nonsense such as the claims that he is a racist. Proof by assertion from deluded clowns.

Really? Are you sure you aren't just one of his minions?

[Newfie]

I’m pretty sure I’m not.

I didn’t vote for him or her. I think they both suck. But the evidence that has already been release is pretty damning.

[Plantagenet]

Committing fraud in a court filing is a crime. Making false statements to a court constitutes perjury.

The FBI/DOJ FISA applications to the FISA court to spy on Trump in the last year of the Obama Administration was a fraud on the court. The FBI/DOJ officials who submitted the application swore that the information they were supplying the court was "verified" (i.e. independently known to be true) when in fact it was mostly false, completely unverified, and came from the DNC and the Hillary campaign, who got it from a consulting company, who got it from an English spy, who got it from the Russians, and possibly from a NKVD Russian disinformation program. And the FBI knew that all along.

When independent verification was cited in the FISA application, it was in the form of news story. But the new story was based on leaks from the unverified dossier from Christopher Steele to US left wing media friends, ie. the independent verification cited wasn't independent at all, and the FBI knew that at the time it submitted the false FISA court documents.

The Obama era officials can't claim ignorance as a defense, because every page of the FISA application has "VERIFIED" stamped on the top, indicating the material had been been verified. But it wasn't verified. None of it.

It will be very interesting to see how the new investigation of the abuse of the FISA process and the illegal FBI/CIA spying on the Trump campaign at the tail end of the Obama administration comes out.

I've maintained for over a year that the spying on the Trump campaign was worse then watergate......Nixon's aides hired ex-CIA contractors to do their spying. But the Obama people were much cleverer.....they subverted the traditional apolitical character of the CIA and FBI and DOJ and IRS by having top level people in these agencies work against the Rs, and they were able to have FBI and CIA agents do their spying for them, with FISA court approval. All they had to do was lie to the FISA court.

But now they've been caught.

I'm very curious to see if the new prosecutor comes to the same conclusion that I did.

CHEERS!

[Newfie]

I remain of two minds on this.

On the one hand I’d love to see these folks brought to justice. I have a deep visceral feeling about this. It makes me angry, very angry.

In the other hand I don’t see the ads ever accepting the verdict no matter how well reasoned and researched, it will just further the political divide within the country pushing us to further polarities. So a part of says just let it ride, turn to the future.

[Cog]

These clowns tried to change the outcome of an election using the power of government to do so. That can not be forgiven or forgotten. If Hillary had won, we would have never found out about this attack on our Republic.

[Revi]

It's just a show they are putting on for us to divert our attention from them as they all get in their lifeboats.

[Cog]

It's just a show they are putting on for us to divert our attention from them as they all get in their lifeboats.

There will more room in the lifeboat if we execute the traitors.

[Plantagenet]

It's just a show they are putting on for us to divert our attention from them as they all get in their lifeboats.

There will more room in the lifeboat if we execute the traitors.

I'll be happy if we just indict some of them.

The DOJ, FBI and....evidence now shows.....the CIA were subverted to be part of the Obama/DNC/Hillary D attack team agains the Rs. We can't let the Ds turn our beautiful country into a banana republic. We have to return to being a country where the letter of the law means something and where powerful people who subvert our constitutional rights..... no matter whether they are in the FBI, the DOJ or in the White House....no matter what political party they belong to........powerful people should be punished in accordance with the law when they break the law.

Cheers!

[Newfie]

Plant/Cog;

It’s going to take a lot more than indicting a few to put the country back on track, a lot more.

The whole bipolar political system needs to go. The basic methodology for selecting presidential candidates has been subverted by the politicians. And with gerrymandering they have further subverted the basic principals of democracy. They are nothing more than an oligarchy set up to provide us with the fewest choices possible.

I’ve a few suggestions, such as my constitutional amendment to pick Lres candidates from a pool of ex governors. It may not be a great idea but it isn bad, and I’ve heard none better. That means no one is truly looking at how to fix this broken mess, no one is addressing the core of the rot. Lots of jingoistic and ass covering all around. Without some significant reforms we are going to allow the princes to lead us into a stupid war of the roses situation.

Sod that!

[dissident]

"NKVD". You are a rabid, hater idiot Plantagent. No NKVD has existed for decades before the USSR disappeared and why would Russia feed Killary and Obomber's anti-Russian agenda? That American idiots in the form of the D. Party and its zealots went into a hysteria over Russia to the point of actually calling for war is not any Russian psy-op. It is an obvious British psy-op to lead American blowhards by the nose. The D. Party was retarded enough to think it was being smart to use this transparently rubbish dossier. Steele is an MI6 flunky and the British have had a hate hard on for Russia for centuries. Little imperial chihuahua wannabe that they are.

The stooges that initiated the witch hunt against Trump got most of what they wanted. They didn't get rid of him, but they have stopped him from fulfilling his campaign promises. This is the opposite of Russian interests. Trump was too honest during his campaign and said things that the anti-Russian lunatics trying to pull all the levers of power can't tolerate. These fools pining for war are the real threat to America.

Who are the moron judges in these FISA courts? Sounds like they are politically appointed hacks.

[Plantagenet]

You are a rabid, hater idiot Plantagent.

Don't hold back-- rant and rave away before your head explodes.

It is an obvious British psy-op to lead American blowhards by the nose.

If the Steele dossier was concocted by British intelligence then you are right. But Steele said he got the dossier from his "contacts" in Russia.

Obviously we should investigate further and determine exactly where Steele got this dossier. If the Steele dossier originated with the Russians, as Steele says, then your ranting and raving indicate you are a sillyhead.

CHEERS!

[Cog]

Steele should be sitting in a black site being squeezed for every bit of intelligence he has. He is not an American and has no legal protections from enhanced interrogation. Give me immunity and I'd be happy to introduce Steele to some fun and games. As Planty is indicating, we need to know if this whole deal of Russian collusion originated with a Russian disinformation campaign or did it originate with the DNC?

I'm of the mind the Russians intended to interfere in our elections to some extent but couldn't find any Americans to participate. The Mueller report is rather clear about that part. I'm also of the opinion that nothing the Russians did had any affect on the vote outcome.

There has been a subtle shift in the MSM coverage as of late. They no longer use the term Russian collusion but Russian interference as their talking points.

[Newfie]

If you consider somebody who is both a millionaire and POTUS to be "the Biggest Loser", then clearly, you have no judgement worth mentioning. I have known such people occasionally in my life. Nobody liked them either.

Face up to it. This disagreeable, arrogant, and offensive person has more wealth than you will ever have, a series of blonde supermodel wives, and many admirers. You have already wasted some portion of two years hating him, time to give that up and get on with your life.

I am referring to the 1.2 billion he lost in the 80's and 90's when I call him the biggest loser.

I have known about him since at least the late seventies. My opinion of him hasn't changed.

The minions have their own opinion of him.

Revi,

I too have know of Trump for a long time and recall when he first broached the idea of running for President some decades ago. Trump is about the antithesis of what u admire in a person.

That said I had very strong reservations about Hillary, and those reservations have turned out to well founded. IMHO neither candidate was fit for the post.

This is a symptom, or effect, of a broken political system.

Tearing Trump (or Hillary) apart is not useful, it just keeps us stuck in the blame game.

I’m saddened that the public is not demanding substantial reforms to the political process. That’s one of the conversations we should be having now instead of the partisan bickering.

[KaiserJeep]

I maintain that JFK broke the American political system in the 1960s. Prior to that, our politics was relatively healthy, with a wider breadth of ideology inside each party than between them. However, the Democrats - specifically the far right Dixiecrats - were savagely oppressing the rights of minorities, most especially the Blacks. I saw the segregated South in my youth, and it was not a pretty sight.

The first crack that enabled the US Civil Rights movement was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was a social liberal in spite of his personal history of being WW2's Supreme Allied Commander. First he desegregated the US Armed Forces, then he supported the fledgling Civil Rights movement, including MLK. JFK then broke the power of the "solid Democratic South" with his "Camelot reforms". Unfortunately this produced the great ideological sorting of D's as Liberals, R's as Conservatives, and our politics has been severely broken since then.

I suppose JFK had no choice, the D party was the haven of militant segregationists such as Governor George Wallace of Alabama and Senator Robert Byrd, aka KKK Imperial Wizard Byrd. When millions of Blacks registered as Democrats, the party was transformed - and is still dysfunctional today.

[Plantagenet]

I maintain that JFK broke the American political system in the 1960s. ..... JFK then broke the power of the "solid Democratic South" with his "Camelot reforms". Unfortunately this produced the great ideological sorting of D's as Liberals, R's as Conservatives, and our politics has been severely broken since then.

You've got a point there, KJ. One of the great political realignments in history happened when the Ds broke with their pro-slavery and pro-segregation and pro-KKK past.

However, I must disagree with you that the parties are now cleanly "sorted" into D's as liberals and R's as conservatives, particularly now that Trump is president. When you tune out the media hysteria over Trump, its clear he isn't very conservative in many of his policies. For instance, in his tariffs and protectionism Trump is advocating things leftist Ds supported for years. Bernie Sanders and Trump have very similar policies on dealing with China. Hoffa Jr., the current leader of the Teamsters, was just on PBS endorsing Trump's tariff policy.

When you've got US labor and democratic socialists agreeing with an R president on this key issue, then things are more sordid then sorted.

Cheers!

[KaiserJeep]

Nor is Trump a true Republican. Trump's personal history as a registered Democrat is well known. A liberal NYC Democrat if the truth be told. Trump is actually a Populist. Populism is an aberation to normal politics that has occurred throughout American history, the last populist POTUS was Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. The last Populist candidate was Ross Perot, himself an oligarch like Trump..

I maintain that had the incumbent POTUS been an R instead of a D, Trump would have taken the D candidacy and afterwards still won the election for POTUS. Not many can agree with me here, because the left wingnuts of the D's persist in believing the election is about ideology and not money and power, which are synonymous. It never was about ideology, and probably never will be, and those that think that are trully naive.

Power and influence already belonged to Trump when he ran for office. He will win again because he still has such, plus the advantage of the incumbent. The D's simply have no oligharchal candidate in the same league.

[Plantagenet]

Nor is Trump a true Republican. Trump's personal history as a registered Democrat is well known. A liberal NYC Democrat if the truth be told. Trump is actually a Populist. Populism is an aberation to normal politics that has occurred throughout American history, the last populist POTUS was Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. The last Populist candidate was Ross Perot, himself an oligarch like Trump..

I don't understand why the term "populist" is some kind of pejorative epithet. The definition of a populist is: a person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.

It seems to me that populism is exactly what we need more of the USA. Look at the Ds....they are each trying to appeal to some narrow demographic, with Corey Booker and Kamala trying to the "black" candidate, Buttigieg being the "gay" candidate, Castro being the "Hispanic" candidate, Biden being the Old White Joe guy candidate, and several women trying to be the Hillary style candidate and attract the women's vote.

IMHO A populist who isn't a minion of the existing parties and who is working for "ordinary people" is a good thing, compared to that lot.

CHEERS!

[Newfie]

Unless you belong to one of the existing parties that are threatened by a populist.

Which I guess means a lot of MSM is in someone’s pocket one way or another.