Those transcripts are classified, so we'll have to wait for someone to hack his emails/the FBI and release them to WikiLeaks to read them, but the administration has admitted that they would show that he discussed their intention to eliminate the sanctions Obama had just implemented that day, even though he was a private citizen at the time and Trump was not yet president, contrary to what they've been selling us for the last month.
Subverting foreign affairs in collusion with a foreign nation's diplomats, that's called treason.
Allowing someone you KNOW subverted foreign affairs by colluding with a hostile foreign nation and it's diplomats and lied about it repeatedly both in public and privately to the administration to retain high security clearance for almost a month after the subversive crimes come to light...that's complete incompetence that rises to the level of impeachment, IMO. Far worse than what Nixon did.

You elect a gameshow host its in a twisted sense very logical that your country should be run like a bad reality TV show.

I wouldn't trust Trump to host a show on QVC if he were producing it as well... his incompetence is really beyond question anymore.

I don't know why they didn't go thru the proper red tape to enter America legally. But then again, what does someone living on the streets and off the kindness of strangers in cities off the grid know about proper first world nation entry methodology?

I don't know what it feels like to struggle with illegal immigrantion, but I do know what my favorite cartoon illegal immigrant, Stitch, would say,

"Ohana means family, and family means never saying goodbye."

I consider Mexico part of our Ohana -- and some of those people are struggling to get here to meet their literal ohana. Maybe Amurica means fuck you, and fuck you means goodbye.

Anyway, I'm just an average American citizen that's doing alright in life, not perfect, but I certainly don't blame Mexicans for my problems... Idiots do though. Similar to how idiots take a few bible verses against homosexuality and weigh that sin as greater than all others, these other idiots similarly equate Mexican immigration as a higher, more serious issue than it actually is.

In psychology that's called "compensation", where you pretty much ignore your incompetence and inadequacies, and redirect your efforts into improving something else to put your mind at ease. This wall is compensation for America's actual problems.

Dear Arnold,

I apologize for calling you a "worthless, incompetent cocksucker" when you were Gov of California. Please drop "worthless" from my sentiment.

I always find it telling when a person accused of corruption defends themselves by pleading ignorant.

Ah, well, that makes it all OK then. You're either a corrupt liar, or an incompetent idiot. Either way, clearly the kind of person we want in government!

Franklin, as an ELECTED public servant, has consistently represented his constituents well enough to be re-elected.
Betsy Devos has never held office, never run a loan organization, never run an educational business, been hyper critical of the department she is tapped to run, and doesn't understand the issues this office entails at all, much less have a grasp of the details involved in the life changing decisions she'll be in charge of making, AND she refuses to answer questions when she knows her answers look terrible AND she has not yet finished her application (they've conveniently ignored the ethics forms nominees fill out BEFORE they get a hearing, so she shouldn't receive a hearing at all yet, like the rest of the nominees, which clearly indicates they have something to hide that would disqualify them all). In fact, it's obvious that she's only been nominated because her family bought the post with $200,000,000 in donations to Republicans and her vocal push to privatize education (but not it's funding, leaving us with something like our quasi-privatized prison system), meaning the Republicans plan to hand her the post with no real hearings and no matter how incompetent and unprepared she is....she already bought it, the hearings are just a formality.
...so no, not at all the same.

@worm
you do realize that you literally just made @Januari 's point...right?

and i get it...government spending BAD.
government can't do anything blah blah blah...gotcha.

but instead of using the VA as an example of government malfeasance and incompetence,why not use medicare/medicaid?

the VA is run by the DoD and considering that during rumsfelds tenure they lost over a trillion american dollars..POOF..where is that money? nope..can't find it.the pentagon is a mess.

medicare/medicaid is run by the dept of health,which runs on a 3% overhead,has the ability to negotiate with pharmacuticals,and is a system that is already in place AND we all already pay in to.

see,
i am not a fan of obamacare.
i think single payer is the way to go,and the only way to go.
people like to make the comparison of obamacare insurance with car insurance.
forgetting that driving is a privilege...
breathing is not.

so if we take the "profit motive" out of health care.then the majority of people NOT covered would not wait until something dire or life threatening was going down with them to head to the doctor.preventive care has been shown to reduce medical costs dramatically.
see:norway
see:denmark
see:france
see:britain

while i understand many liberals defense of obamacare,i see it only a half measure that can easily be remanded and/or gotten rid of all together.however unlikely that may be.the threat will be enough.

people forget that obamacare was basically written by the heritage foundation in 1992.a right wing think tank and not much was changed (though the pre-existing clause was a positive).

they forget that then Governor mitt romney implemented a similar health care system in massechusetts.which saw steady increases in premiums yearly.

and here is the thing that really eats at me.
it is mandatory.

so here is my prediction:
obamacare is not going anywhere.
while it may be used as apolitical football and health insurance companies will use (and already HAVE used) the threat of leaving due to little or no money (this is a lie) in order to force the government to raise their subsidies.

this is corporate welfare on a scale that over-shadows the bank bailouts of 2007.which at final tally was over 17 trillion.

so obamacare is going nowhere because it is the goose that lays the golden egg,and the gift that keeps on giving.

oh there will threats,and over-politicizing,and wringing of hands,and committee meetings.

but that will be just for show.
we put the fox in charge of the henhouse,and the fox is gonna make damn sure it is going nowhere.

@newtboy
hey man,thanks for giving him a shot.
this was the first video i ever watched of officer izzo,and i forgot where i even came across him.

maybe facebook?
i dunno,but i have many facebook friends who are cops and corrections officers.so probably.

i really dug how he addressed the disparity of poor neighborhoods,and the working poor to those of more privileged backgrounds.how he,as an officer,is forced to further compound their struggles by:tickets/racial profiling and as he pointed out..arrest arrest arrest.

from what i gather (because i couldn't find the original) he had posted a video that many of his fellow officers had found offensive and controversial.this video appears to be a clarification directed towards his fellow officers who could not understand why he was criticizing his own profession,and therefore criticizing THEM.

it appears he didn't go the "hey guys,i am sorry" but rather doubled down by clarifying what he felt law enforcement SHOULD be and not what it had become.

he blames the command staff,and in many of his videos he repeats that accusation.i remember even here on the sift we had a cop explain that many of the things we were all bitching about,and being offended by,were actually due to the command structure and not the patrol officers themselves.

which has a ring of truth to my ears being ex military.

i love how he directly speaks of how some patrol officers are forced to do unethical and immoral acts,while the command staff ignores those officers with the most facile of justifications:hey,it's legal.

that puts the officer at risk.just like a bad command staff in the military puts the enlisted man at risk.i mean,just look at the suicide stats for todays military..twenty two military men commit suicide daily,and how does the military brass respond?

those men had mental issues.

oh really? EVERY single one of them?
either there is a suicide epidemic or maybe..maaaaaybe...those who are in command,and whose responsibility it is for the well being of their men,are a gaggle of incompetent fuckwads.who do not have the courage nor integrity to own up to their own epic failures as commanders.

listening to officer Izzo,i suspect there are many parallels between military service and law enforcement.

i respect how he states he is doing this for the everyday patrolmen,even the ones who disagree and are criticizing him.

i think it is a good thing to hear a perspective from a man who does the job.to hear that even the cops are going "what the fuck".

anyways,thanks for watching man,i hope others give officer Izzo a chance as well.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

So much incompetence on display. Also narrator sounds like the retro-encarbulator guy.

I think Cenk nails it here. Democrats didn't fight. They took blame for Republican obstructionism. So little of Clinton's campaign was about Trump's bankruptcy / incompetence, all about his bigotry which just riled up his base.

You said, "If you do admire him, then there is no other choice but to vote for Clinton. You either trust him or you don't". I believe that is a perfect example of a binary choice. You said it, not me. I believe there -are- other choices, such as voting -for- someone, rather than against.

As for remembering my stance if Trump should win, I'll say the same to you. When the debtor's prisons are raping the remnants of the once-middle class while Hillary only focuses on feeding the MIC with more wars, remember who put her in the position to do that. Because it for damned sure won't have been me.

If I haven't been clear enough, neither of the major candidates is worth my vote. I actually believe that Clinton is slightly more dangerous, due to the combination of competence and utter rapaciousness. Trump's total incompetence limits the damage he can do. The fact that these are the only two candidates with any real chance of victory is a complete damnation of our system. We're fucked.

But -DON'T- try to tell me what my conscience says, or how I have to respond. You haven't come anywhere near earning that right. Nobody in this universe has.

To be honest, even though I ain't voting for him, I almost would feel more comfortable with Trump 'the idiot' in office. An incompetent President cannot hurt us as bad as an extremely skilled politician whose hawkish stance with Russia will screw us for years.

Trump inherited over 200 million in real-estate from daddy in the early '80s.

If he'd sold it and simply put the money in indexed funds, it would be worth about 12 billion today. If he'd held onto it the real-estate would be worth about 15 billion today. At his most generous, Trump estimates his own wealth around 8 billion. Other sources have it much lower (Deutsche Bank estimated it well under a billion about ten years ago).

So, to answer your question, "How does he manage his companies?"

Badly. But when you start with so much even total incompetence takes a while to drain your accounts.

No major bank will lend him money anymore. I've heard that he owes hundreds of millions to Putin cronies, which perfectly explains why he's so Putin friendly. He's probably been told they'll write off some or all of his debt if he carries their water for four years as president. I think it's entirely possible Trump is bankrupt and doing Putin some favors is the only way to keep himself solvent.

I 100% agree that not only is Bernie the better candidate and would make a better President than either Clinton or Trump, he would also have a better chance of beating Trump.

Republicans might not like Sanders on a political level ("ermahgerd, teh socialism is coming!", etc), but they DESPISE Clinton on a personal level.

And let's be honest, most of that has nothing to do with her real or perceived failings.. it's because
a) she's a woman and
b) she was married to Bill.

But that is irrelevant because Clinton is the candidate.

Addressing your other points:
"Trump is a womanizer / misogynist / predator. Yeah, and Clinton is married to a worse one who disgraced the Presidency while he was in office.

Trump lies constantly. As opposed to the Clintons, who would never lie. For example, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" (Bill), "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" (Bill)"

Sorry, I missed the part where Bill Clinton was the nominee. Leaving aside the dubious nature of the allegations against him, the point is that he's not the candidate, Hillary is.

The email thing was bad, but as has been gone over many times, it was stupid rather than malicious.

"Trump has no experience with government and would make an incompetent president. What's worse: a crooked / corrupt Washington insider that knows how to game the system, or someone with no experience?"

Easy, Trump is worse. When did we all decide that being able to make deals was a bad thing? That's what politics is. If you don't know the system, you will get railroaded.

Now, my preference would have been for someone who knows the system and wants to change it, but as that's not going to happen, I'll take someone who can get shit done over an inexperienced buffon any day.

Once again, I completely agree that Bernie would have stood a better chance than Hillary of being elected, but it pretty much doesn't matter anymore. Everyday that passes Trump slips further behind, giving me some small hope for humanity.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

Yeah, Trump is a complete tool. Guilty of all the stuff Maher said about him. Given that kind of "competition", what would the Democrats have to do to get those 20 states to flip their direction?

I can take a stab that that one, Bill -- he's sitting right next to you. If the Democrats had chosen Sanders as their candidate, I guarantee that at least some of those states would have gone blue on election day.

Firm, registered Democrats? They'd all happily vote for Bernie in the general, just like they will vote for Hillary.

Undecideds, moderates, and young people? Drastically more likely to vote for Bernie than Hillary. A huge segment of the voting population is disgusted with the two major choices, and would happily flock to a candidate that has a proven track record of honesty and integrity, instead of the dog and pony show that we have now.

Firm, die-hard Republicans? Maher is right; there is a certain percentage of people that would never vote Democrat. But, I don't think that number is above 50% of the population even in the reddest of red states. But even for many of those people that are completely dissatisfied by Trump, from their perspective Hillary is NOT a better option.


Let's consider how all the arguments against Trump play to that specific audience: (note that the responses are what *they* think, not necessarily what *I* think)

Trump is a womanizer / misogynist / predator. Yeah, and Clinton is married to a worse one who disgraced the Presidency while he was in office.

Trump lies constantly. As opposed to the Clintons, who would never lie. For example, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" (Bill), "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" (Bill), and "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time" (Hillary).

Trump has no experience with government and would make an incompetent president. What's worse: a crooked / corrupt Washington insider that knows how to game the system, or someone with no experience?

etc. etc.

Hillary goddamn Clinton is NOT going to be seen as a reasonable alternative to Trump to those people. No matter how much he goes off the rails. No matter what crazy, foul, contemptible shit he says or does. No matter how many skeletons you dig out of his closet. Why? Because they are convinced (reasonably or not) that the Clintons have done just as much questionable shit and more, they are perhaps just better at covering it up.

But if the Democrat candidate was Bernie Sanders, I'm sure a lot more of those hard-line Republicans would be way more tempted to vote blue in November.