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My wife has a different theory:

She says he's just dead tired from only getting a total of only two hours of sleep for the past week.

Probably a better theory than mine.

I've been watching the news covering Trump's visit to the White House and Capitol Hill.

And I''m thinking there may yet be some hope...

Trump looks like the proverbial deer in the headlights.  He has all the demeanor of a man who had not expected to win, and finding out now that it is a reality, may now believe he has gotten in over his head.

All subjective opinion by me, of course.  But if he actually has some humility, if he actually understands the awesome responsibility he has been handed, and makes some good appointments, hires some good advisors, and takes small steps instead of broad and swift sweeping changes...  then perhaps we may be able wade through this.

It's the first glimmer of optimism I've had for some time.

I'll be the first one on the shore to greet you.

Well... as long as you hit the West Coast first.

A large part of the Trump vote was anti-Hillary (as opposed to pro-Trump or anti-government).

Yet... Hillary corrupt and inauthentic?  I will readily admit she has a 'presentation' problem yet even a modest amount of digging into her supposedly misconduct reveals very little substance.

The whole email thing may have been unwise (or more likely ill-advised) but the actual damage done was negligible (or zero), andt investigations concluded there was nothing criminally chargeable (I think I've posted on this before).  And yet the Republicans have got months of mileage out this, and swallowed happily by many of the Kool-Aid drinkers.   And Trump insists (and many believe) that not only was she guilty of crimes, she should be jailed!  wtf?  Really?  I seriously have a lot of disrespect for people who just swallow this shit with their blinders on.

The Clinton Foundation is basically beyond reproach UNLESS you read the spin of right wing bloggers and politicians.   Independent reviews of charities always place them high (and some at the top) in terms of money percent spent on 'final' product, and transparency.

The Benghazi issue has been debunked over and over.

And yet when the FBI director announced (and ONLY announced) some previously 'undiscovered' emails were going to be looked into, the Republican/anti-Hillary frenzy was insane.  This reaction was from an announcement, for christ's sake of emails she was only marginally involved with. 

So please... list some of her transgressions with supporting articles (and not from Rush Limbaugh and his ilk).

I have another sidebar (mentioned once before, I believe) on the Republican anti-Obama rhetoric which went into full steam after the Affordable Care Act was passed.  That's when they adopted their scorched earth policy to insure that the seed of dishonest, inept, and corrupt government was planted firmly, and 'of course', it was all Obama's fault.  It then become a relatively easy step to link all that with Clinton.

The economy is better now than it was 7 years ago, the unemployment rate is lower, and business indicators are positive and climbing upward.  Yet a huge portion of the American public (yes, here I go again with that white uneducated demographic again) believe the country is in a shit-hole.

I have seriously avoided politics most of my life, but this episode is so beyond the pale that I am unable to stay silent.  And even if Trump manages somehow to dump Obamacare, pack the Supreme court, unregulate a ton of business guidelines, I believe we can get past most of those without severe damage.  What I am truly worried about is that if he trashes all the climate control agreements that we have just recently signed on to, he may actually hugely contribute to a pollution trend that will affect life in s seriously adverse way.  We are on a knife's edge right now of creating an irreversible and harmful climate effect.

None of the above politics matters a crap if we live in a world unable to sustain life as we currently know it.

Shit... I am really depressed now.

["Quotes that define how I feel about the US election."]

Great quote.

Let's make this thread "Quotes that define how I feel about the US election."

That would be the title of the next book I'm not going to write, adding to the pile of other books I haven't written.

There have been a lot of conciliatory speeches and nice 'we must move forward' comments, etc.

I am not on board.

The fucking Republicans created the illusion of a bad economy and poorly run government caused by the Obama administration.  They did everything they could to stall, defeat, and undo any legislation in order to create the non-illusion of dysfunctional government, and they did it starting six or seven years with vicious attacks on Obama, all orchestrated by a cabal of high level Republicans dedicated to disparaging the system and Obama.  Never mind if they brought themselves down as well; they were already down, but they found a way to take everyone down with them, creating a huge dissatisfaction and anger against the US government.

"It takes two to tango,"  some might say, trying to deflect some of the blame to the Democrats.  But "it only takes one to stop the dance", and the Republicans left the dance floor years ago.

That's the anger part.

The sad part is that so many bought into the Trump rhetoric, and I'm going to get personal now.  The largest demographic he won was the white non-educated males.  So yes, I'm saying he won the election due to the ignorance and stupidity of Americans.

He's a sleaze, and I really doubt he will be able to hide that personality attribute for long.  Whether it leads to just embarrassment for the US or to horrible economic situations or to dangerous international political conflicts, I don't know.   But I have little hope for anything good in the next four years.

And for all you Trump supporters out there, I will leave you with this:
"for whatever one sows, that will he also reap."

Fair enough.

My knee-jerk reaction on reading about Patterson and his book was that he was just another right-wing wacko.  I tried to do a more in-depth research on him (and his book) but could find surprisingly little other than what you would expect to find on right-wing wacko sites.

A lot of his stuff has been debunked; I found this quote "his brief book does not contain much more than a collection of mostly unsubstantiated anecdotes and rumors aiming to denigrate the Clintons".  On the same page, I also found this interesting quote "Shelton's sober account now substantiates at least one story in Patterson's book" which has a strong implication that people have to dig pretty deep to find any stuff that can be verified.

It seems that if Patterson's book was accurate and verifiable, you would find a lot of it being quoted by the Trump propaganda machine.  Since it isn't, I surmise that they are worried about the backlash from quoting (not a valid argument by me here, but still, it is a talking point).

Anyway, until I kind some convincing arguments elsewhere, I will lump Patterson into the Rush Limbaugh deplorables.

Blood.

I'm gonna get my Finnish citizenship and move to Raahe.

Trump now thinks SNL (Saturday Night Live) is part of a media conspiracy and wants to cancel the show.  Guiliani claims that Dead People vote Democratic, and that some of the elections are rigged.

No wonder people look with disdain at Americans.  We deserve a lot of it.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/16/media/donald-trump-snl/index.html

Hillary is just as unconscionable...

I'm gonna have to be a Hillary fan-boy for a few moments here.
First, there are HUGE differences in levels of classified material.  Losing track or being careless with Confidential material is nothing like doing the same with Top Secret material.  A slap on the wrist is generally what happens with a first offense with low-level security breaches.  Also note that very few classification prosecutions are brought to court UNLESS the government can prove malice and/or intent.

Second, she was warned AFTER the fact, not before.  The worst thing (in my view) is she just took some bad advice.

I seriously suggest to anyone who is anti-Hillary to do multi-researches on any issue you believe she has a serious problem with (obviously you wouldn't go to Rush Limbaugh et. al. for sources but you don't need to go to her camp as well).  I have yet find any substantive evidence against her that is seriously damning.

Oh, and anyone who faults a criminal defense attorney for reducing the penalty their client receives or getting an acquittal has no business being the head of the Executive Branch of the United States of America.

John Adams is rolling over in his fucking grave right now.

Where's the 'like' button?

I hated Trump before it was cool for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Forbes_(farmer)

Ha-ha, love it!

"Will my fear of tangerines compel the dead midget in my closet to spring back to life and crap on my bed?"

Asked on Yahoo.

And answered:
"Only if the pomogranite in your drawer speaks in aremaic."

"Only if you don't pat the brown duck at the top of the hill."

"What is it with you and midgets? Don't you know midgets never die! And yes, the tangerines will compel it to strike back with a vengeance! Destroy all citrus fruits, immediately!"

And to keep fanning the anti-Trump flames, here is an article about the 2nd debate:

NY Times Article