RedSpawn

One last philosophical question. If election meddling occurred through a domestic agent rather than a foreign one, do we breathe a collective sigh of relief? To me, the damage done is still the same and just as worrisome. It's just the Attorney General has the jurisdictional control and authority to prosecute the offender especially if he is a U.S. citizen.

We don't need to just make better choices. . . We need a political system that PRODUCES more competent, capable, and less corrupt candidate choices.

We have to take Trump the carnival barker, snake oil salesman, and televangelist seriously because the instant you dismiss or discount the competition as unworthy of any serious consideration, he secures the Republican nomination, wins the federal election and becomes the President of the United States. Sincerely, Your Twilight Zone Future in August 2017

No, I don't think it is funny that we could have a political idiot or cretin in the White House occupying the Office of the President. However, this certainly isn't the first time we had this problem, and it won't be the last. As I said before, we are a nation of laws, not men. We all agreed to play a political game back in November 2016. We all cast our vote for President of the United States trusting that the political establishment will do right by us and our votes. Trump won and some of us feel robbed since the mercurial, highly inexperienced, carnival barker and snake oil salesman won against all odds. America is not in the business of overturning her elections on whimsicality or a fickle change in public sentiment. The President is not a commodity we can purchase on amazon.com and return for a complete refund when he doesn't perform as promised. Retail politics at the national level don't work that way. Technically, the Office of the President is not for sale, but Citizens United and allegedly Mother Russia has a thing or two to say about that. When you realize that the political game of electing the President is rigged (or masterminded) from the start and that various factions load the political dice to try to manufacture the outcome they want, you start to worry less and less when there is a "glitch" in the Matrix program and we end up in a political reality we weren't quite prepared for. The evolution and ascension of Trump is a reminder of how fundamentally broken, flawed, lopsided and dare I say, unfair our current election system is. The solution to this dilemma doesn't involve removing Trump from Office because the broken, flawed campaign system will remain unchanged with its usual cast of characters or dare I say, vultures looking for a political carcass. The solution is not putting Hillary Clinton into the White House as she is also a symptom of what's wrong with this current campaign finance system. We don't need another family dynasty assuming the Office of the President potentially for another 8 years. THE OFFICE IS NOT FOR SALE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER OR THE MOST POLITICALLY CONNECTED FAMILY IN THE D.C. ESTABLISHMENT! The solution is to fix the public campaign finance system's holes and add a level of transparency and accountability in political contributions and donations the world has never seen. Corporations shouldn't be participating in 1st Amendment speech for ANY elections as they are nothing more than legal fictions and human instrumentalities. If we have to reside in this Twilight Zone political universe, with no Rod Serling as host, we should know every single contribution these faceless entities make so there should be no "dark money" which floods our elections and hides under the cover of darkness. We know where the gaping holes are in our current federal campaign finance laws, yet we are still conducting our McCarthy hearings on Trump as a distraction. Politicians don't have the political will to outlaw their political drugs of choice. They are drug addicts hooked on dark money who will protect the D.C. political swamp by any means necessary. The rise of Trump is NOT the problem. He is a symptom or a sign of the underlying problem. And we can't afford to mistake a symptom for the actual disease. We need to rid ourselves of the disease of corruption, graft, dark money, and a faulty political campaign finance system. START CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM and EMPTY THE CONGRESSIONAL NUCLEAR SWAMP in Washington D.C.

OK. Hate is a very strong emotion, but I have to imagine that on some level you are jealous of a man, and I use that term very loosely, who has proven your prediction back in June 2016 way off. . . waaaaaaay off. See above. Trump survived his own party's attempt to lynch him and secured the Republican nomination for President defeating 17 other candidates with more impressive political pedigrees; he remained in the election through November 2016; and he did not lose the federal election by a gigantic margin. In fact, he won the election, thanks in part to the Electoral College votes. He did NOT win the popular vote, however. He exceeded your expectations and won the Presidency of the United States and snatched it from the jaws of a well-groomed Hillary Clinton-- even as a snake oil salesman and televangelist. And the funny thing is Trump didn't initially believe he could do it either. LOL!

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Be very careful. You can hate a person's political ideology but when you suggest, even in jest, that he isn't a human being you are traveling down a dangerous road. Every -ism starts out of hate and not recognizing the humanity in people who do not look or think or behave like you. Isms leads to schisms and schisms undermine nationalism in the United States of America. With no national unity, we fail to function as a Union. We all become easy targets for the barrage of attacks from "Russia" and from the propaganda from our own political institutions and intelligence communities. And you're confusing your hate and contempt for Trump as a viable political position. Your hate for Trump is a FEELING and when I ask you for follow up questions about Trump's ACTIONS or even certain accusations against him....I usually get crickets chirping. So exactly where do you find Trump on this political spectrum? http://humanknowledge.net/PoliticalSpace.jpg

Hmmmm. Why must one be an asshole Trump fan if he supports the candidate? Why must one denigrate the person instead of the ideology? It smells like an ad hominem attack. http://www.ih8trump.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/trump-playing-the-media.jpg http://www.pocketfullofliberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/adhominem.jpg

There is also another reason that African-American poor people vote Democrat and poor white people typically vote Republican--especially for the Southern belt. If we don't understand the American history of the pathology of the South and the ideology of race in the South post Reconstruction, we are doomed to miss some important propaganda that reinforces cultural biases and dictates political dogma. Keep in mind, I am ignoring that there was a shift in political party labels after the Civil Rights Act of 1965. I must qualify this oversight. As stated before, 'Negroes' were always supposed to be at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder. The struggle of African Americans to forge and maintain a positive identity in a U.S. society that reduced their existence to that singularly alienating phrase “the Negro problem" shows both the mindset of the populace and the heavy burden and plight of an oppressed people. During Reconstruction, The South was divided into 5 military zones and had federal troops monitoring the situation and developments and furthering the will of the Union since the Rebellious South lost the War. With the withdrawal of federal troops from the south in 1877, southern white authorities banded together with impoverished whites under the banner of white supremacy, and instituted a new system of racial subordination. Commonly known as Jim Crow, this system enforced by law and custom the absolute separation of blacks and whites in the workplace, schools, and virtually all phases of public life in the South. The Jim Crow system supported the ideology that 'colored' people are on the absolute bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder and white people (even poor) were above blacks. It is very important we don't dismiss or discount how important it is for Southern institutions to sanction and permit this caste system for almost 100 years. This carefully crafted system easily segregated the political concerns of "the Negro" against "The White Man". Sounds like conjecture, right? See below: http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/images/uploads/gallery/negrocartoon2.jpg http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/june/negro-cartoon.jpg http://images.slideplayer.com/19/5790881/slides/slide_11.jpg http://images.slideplayer.com/18/6170044/slides/slide_15.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2puMHNJ-eNM/VJAQJ0jrbTI/AAAAAAABXuI/8sTZHDKkRQg/s1600/DSC_0035_wm53.jpg http://equalityofblackeducation.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/7/2/17725961/7776309_orig.jpg?1362075634 http://slideplayer.com/slide/9245334/27/images/23/Congress+passed+the+Reconstruction+Act+of+1867.jpg In the Midwest to South, a Negro's political concerns must be diametrically opposed to that of a white man's political concerns. The white elite used the old divide and conquer mentality of Old Dixie to drive a wedge between poor whites and poor African-Americans. Politicians understood this and preyed on both populace's fears about class, status, power, and wealth. I still believe it is one of the reasons that poor whites and poor blacks, in general, vote opposing party labels. Old habits die hard! Poor whites did not want to compete for jobs and economic standing with poor blacks who just a few years ago were chattel property with no legal rights.

Trump threatens Venezuela with Unspecified Military Option http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-threatens-venezuela-with-unspecified-military-option/ar-AApTMLD http://blackholezoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Global-oil-Reserves.jpg http://www.zionoil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2012-World-Reserves.jpg Never ever underestimate the power of monetary hegemony (petrodollar) when it comes to U.S. Military intervention strategies. Follow the Oil and follow the $$$.

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/AxisofEvil-2.jpg And soon there will be one less axis per evil as originally outlined by George Bush.

Mike, When the Supreme Court says through the Citizens United case ruling that corporations (legal fictions) can contribute unlimited sums of money to political action committees (PACs) and super-PACS for local, state, and federal elections, then this is no longer about a victim mentality or voters failing to take responsibility for their candidate choices (which are now co-opted by the way). If politicians and their campaign platforms can be owned and operated by Corporate America, then campaign finance reform IS a national security issue. We NEED IT to preserve the Union and protect the integrity of our political institutions from this kind of attack from within. How does the nation overturn the Supreme Court's ruling which proffers personhood for legal corporations and gives them as much political standing as Men? Corporations can't vote, but THEY CAN exercise a 1st Amendment right they aren't entitled to and BUY THEIR VOTES WITH millions of dollars of excess cash they funnel to PACS and SUPER-PACS. It's kinda hard to fire a mistaken Supreme Court judge who has transferred ownership of the ballot box from "We the people" to faceless corporations and billionaire tycoons. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TYbu5Ipz1Rg/UznC08LJt2I/AAAAAAAAyrE/xuPlTeCGj6Y/s1600/Unlimited-Plutocracy.jpg http://whatsupic.com/images/whatsupic/1422624175y.jpg http://itsamoneything.com/money/wp-content/uploads/Jamie-Raskin-Dark-Money-Billionaires-Plutocracy.jpg

Please delete

I 99.9% agree with what you said, but the average working class Republican voter has been conned way before Trump. Trump was just the final straw that broke the camel's back. The Republican working class voting block is beginning to connect the propaganda dots. They now realize that helping upper crust rich people or faceless corporations doesn't trickle down to the masses or transform their position on the American socioeconomic ladder. It just transfers wealth to people and 'legal fictions' who least need it. It's about respect AND understanding other people's narrative and daily walk in life. The average voter wants to be 1) respected and 2) understood. Once you stood on top of the washing machine and could determine that the circuit breaker was not tripped, you elevated from an insulated, "bookish" professor to a card carrying, hands-on, real-life problem solver. The other guy could RELATE to you once he knew you understood what blue collar work was like. Politicians use psychology and marketing to try to convince voters that they respect them and "get them" and "are looking out for their best interests". However, once in office, politicians have to sell out to the special interests who financed their political campaigns and their supporters eventually feel hoodwinked.

This is one of the messages left on HROTHGAR's BBO FORUM profile page by an innocent bystander. I have censored the name, but hrothgar's actions to a STRANGER clearly reveals his character. I am so glad he has me on ignore. Well said!

Excellent response, but now we are getting somewhere because the "R" promise is no better than the "D" promise. Both are just fallacies propositioned by two parties who happen to be opposing sides of the same political coin. When will the American voters' subconscious mind accept that "R" is no better than "D" and that "D" is no better than "R" and that $19 trillion in debt equals $1,000,000 lottery won 19,000,000 separate times. That is how much BOTH Parties have overspent over this nation's lifetime.

Question for Ken and others: Does this apply to your analysis of Republicans who actually had the audacity to vote for Trump?

https://jerclifton.com/2016/08/17/what-reality-are-trump-people-living-in/ This article was posted back in the Trump discussion group in September 2016, but it explains the Trump voter better allegedly. Please note that I am NOT a Trump voter, but I will defend who the Electoral College has chosen by following the Constitutional guidelines for federal elections. It comes as no surprise that the article finds that Democrats and Republicans experience two different realities of the same world. That subconscious mind is at work again.

So we have about half the whites in the under $50,000 class voting R. The question is why. Or at least that could be the question. For 2012, apparently many "middle-class white voters who say they are struggling to maintain their financial positions" (which is really the group I was thinking of, the ones under 10K would not be lower middle class or any middle class) think that Romney would have been better for their economic interests [Wrong number deleted] Were they wrong? Perhaps. Perhaps not. In a way, it is more interesting if they are wrong. In my fantasy family (FF as Rik says) I portrayed a family that quite possibly thinks that the Dems are interested in various definable groups, but not interested in them, maybe even considers them the enemy. If this some good sized number is thinking this way, and if they are wrong, it would be a very good idea for the Democratic Party to start thinking about how they can correct this mistaken view. Providing that the view is mistaken. bottom line: If 86% [oops, wrong number] of "middle-class white voters who say they are struggling to maintain their financial positions" think an R would be better for their finances than a D, the Ds have, at the very least, a problem in communication. I don't think writing them off as morons is a good idea. Why would a voter think that "R" would be a better choice for their finances than "D" since we have discussed that "D" and "R" are just two wolves and a sheep discussing what's for dinner?

Yes it is sad. People nowadays want something for nothing even when it comes to a public good such as transportation. New York can't afford to play hardball when it comes to its transportation infrastructure. This is a sad testament to where we are as a nation. We are fighting over who pays a little extra so the New York rail can operate and take folks to work to make the doughnuts that make this nation and local economy great.

It's not a witch hunt but it is a deep dive predicated on the best of legal standards. . . a sneaky suspicion.

If Mueller already had an open and shut case on Trump's money laundering with the Russians why would he need to sit on this information? Isn't it an egregious national security concern for a sitting President to have laundered money with the Russians and then sit in the Office of the President and conduct foreign policy affairs as an agent of such collusion? If Mueller had "clear and compelling evidence" of such money laundering then he should act on it to preserve the Union and the integrity of the Office of the President. He should remove the attendant national security threat.

Why are you wooed and nervous by the sabre rattling? Korea needs $$$ from China to feed its own people. Let China handle Kim Jong since his residential address is in the Asia Pacific Rim.

You are speculating over the outcome of Mueller's investigation because to date he doesn't have "clear and compelling evidence" that Trump money laundered with the Russians. He has the hint of a suspicion which is a very low legal standard to ask for bank records and try to make a case (if one can actually made). I am wondering where this investigation will lead but only time will tell.

American exceptionalism and monetary hegemony allow us to be the global police over the world's nuclear arsenal and arbitrarily determine who are axes of evil and who aren't.