kimmy

The lid has been blown off all of that for quite some time. As I recall, most conservatives were calling for the guy who did so to face charges of treason at the time. And that was for exposing warrantless surveillance of Americans. Why would anyone assume that surveillance of people like Manafort, Flynn, Carter Page, or Rick Gates would be done without warrant? -k

I keep asking, why is anybody surprised that Trump would appear in surveillance when he brought all these Russian-connected operatives into his inner circle? -k

What's the rush? The Republicans were content to let Scalia's seat go vacant for 10 months waiting for the election. Surely it can stay vacant for a little longer while the Russia mess gets investigated. Why on earth would the Democrats be afraid of anything Roger Stone has to say? If he had anything damaging to the Democrats, he would have spilled it long ago. Roger Stone was part of the Republican campaign, and a Trump advisor. Roger Stone has also bragged about having contacts with "Guccifer 2.0", the hacker who claims to have hacked the Democrats last summer. Roger Stone claimed to have discuss the hacks with "Guccifer". Roger Stone also bragged about having "back channel access" to WikiLeaks. There are only 3 possibilities here: A ) Roger Stone is a big fat liar. B ) Roger Stone is the link between the Republican campaign and the hacking of the Democrats. C ) both A and B are true. Either B or C would be extremely bad news for the Republicans. So if anybody is worried about Roger Stone, it's you-know-who. Who knows what might come out of Stone's twitter account next time he goes on a bender? If Stone has any "accidents" in the near future, it's not the Democrats you should be looking at. -k

For the past 6 years people accused Obama of being unable to negotiate because he couldn't make deals with the Tea Partyists in Congress. Now that the so-called Freedom Caucus have pledged to kill "Trumpcare" because it's not draconian enough for their liking, it appears that maybe it wasn't Obama who couldn't make deals, maybe it was these Tea Partyists. -k

You can't blame media bias for words that come straight out of Trump's own mouth or straight from his Twitter account. I quoted from Trump's interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Fox News is so far up Trump's ass that Sean Hannity can taste what Donald ate for breakfast, and yet Trump went on Tucker's show and said that yes, he knows that Trumpcare is a big tax-cut for the rich and will have a bad impact on the working-class people who voted for him. You can watch the words come straight out of Trump's mouth if you click my link and watch the video. Every analyst who has studied Trumpcare agrees that it is going to cause millions of people to lose their health insurance. That's not just "left wing media", that's also hospitals and health insurance companies and advocacy groups. Trump's plans for big military spending aren't "media bias" either. They're in the new budget. His comments on the subject are a matter of public record. Trump's big supporters here, like Betsy and DogOnPorch will tell you that yes, Trump wants to boost military spending. They're proud of it. Trump's supporters think it's great that he wants to buy more aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons. That's not the media talking, that's Trump's biggest fans talking. If you disagree with anything I've posted, feel free to tell me where you think I'm wrong. I'm happy to discuss anything I've said. -k

They had plenty of cause to spy on Flynn. It would have been trivially easy for them to get a warrant to spy on him. He was working for Russian companies and lobbying for the Turkish government while he still had top-level security clearance with the Department of Defense. You can be 100% certain that they were spying on Flynn. It's not a scandal that they were spying on him. It would be a scandal if they weren't. The FISA court would have approved this warrant without thinking twice. Flynn could end up in prison or in front of a firing squad. Why was Trump so insistent on having this guy in his administration?? -k

Trump went on the Tucker Carlson show to do a softball interview, and he couldn't even do that right. Here's what happened when Carlson asked Trump about the healthcare plan now being referred to as "Trumpcare": The President here is admitting that his healthcare bill is a betrayal of the very people who won the election for him. -k

If you are asking for an apology, then I apologize. I should have used unoffensive, non-gendered language in describing your enthusiasm for military equipment. -k

So in this analogy, Trump is the chicken? Do I have that right? Look, if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, chances are pretty good that it's a duck. You, on the other hand, are looking at this duck and for some reason insisting it's actually a magical Phoenix. "The Elites" didn't make Trump slander Barack Obama. "The Elites" didn't make the White House slander the British intelligence service. "The Elites" didn't make Trump surround himself with Russian-connected individuals like Flynn, Manafort, and Page. "The Elites" didn't make Flynn call the Russians to talk about sanctions while he was still a private citizen. "The Elites" didn't make Flynn lie about it afterward. "The Elites" didn't make Jeff Sessions lie under oath about his contact with the Russians during his confirmation hearing. "The Elites" didn't make Trump lie about his business and financial connections with Russia. Why can't any of these people simply tell the truth? Why can't they answer simple questions honestly? And the funniest part is that Trump supporters, like yourself, don't care that these guys keep lying. Trump supporters aren't mad about the lying, they're mad that Trump and his buddies keep getting caught lying. -k

What personal attack? I was making note of your obvious enthusiasm for military equipment, which is abundantly apparent. -k

Trump didn't get "set up" by anybody except himself. It was him who made unfounded accusations with no information to support him. He can't blame "the elites" when he shoots off his mouth on Twitter. That's on him. He can't blame somebody else for the crap that comes out of his mouth or his Twitter account. -k

Yes, there was lots of talk of wiretapping. But Trump specifically accused President Obama of wiretapping him. Spicer still hasn't produced a single piece of evidence to support that claim. WRONG If by "Spicer won this one" you mean that he once again came away looking and smelling like an ass, then yes, Calm Spicy wins again. The US just issued a formal apology to Great Britain for Calm Spicy's big fat unfounded accusation last week that the British performed the wiretap for Obama. -k

While I realize that some people are very excited at the thought of all that military hardware, the lady who thought Trump would end the wars and spend all that money to help people get healthcare must be very disappointed to learn that millions of people will be losing their healthcare while Trump cranks up military spending. -k

What exactly has he done to "drain the swamp"? It appears his efforts to "drain the swamp" consist mostly of putting lobbyists out of work by hiring them to work directly for him, and make lobbying obsolete by giving corporations whatever they want. Also, can you name one actual step he has taken to "improve economy and US workforce"? -k

Why can't US hospitals find enough American nurses to meet their needs? -k

oh come on. Trump "learned" about the Obama wiretap from an article he saw on Breitbart, and the Breitpravda article was about Mark Levin's conspiracy theory. This claim against Obama doesn't come from high-level top-secret sources, it comes from the imagination of an alt-right radio blowhard. I'm also curious as to why you keep sticking up for Trump, Topaz. The rest of the Trump apologists here I get, but you are the one who said you thought Trump would stop the wars and use the money to give people healthcare. Now millions of people are losing their healthcare, and Trump is promising to boost military spending by billions of dollars and stockpile nuclear weapons and build new aircraft carriers. He's the opposite of what you thought. Why do you support him? -k

Oh... so there's thousands of American nurses sitting around unemployed because those darned Canadian nurses keep taking their jobs? Ok. -k

What information do Trump or his supporters think was obtained by wiretapping Trump Tower? Everything we've learned so far has a more plausible explanation. Jeff Sessions' meetings with Sergey Kislyak didn't happen in Trump Tower. Michael Flynn's phone conversations with Sergey Kislyak may or may not have happened in Trump Tower, but it's far more likely that Michael Flynn and Sergey Kislyak were both being monitored. It's also very likely that Paul Manafort and Carter Page were being monitored. It's very likely that these individuals with high-level Russian contacts were being monitored. What have we learned so far that indicates that Trump Tower must have been under surveillance? None of the info that has come out so far seems to suggest surveillance of Trump Tower. Rather it seems to indicate that the intelligence services were spying on exactly the kind of people you'd expect them to spy on. I also find it odd that Trump supporters are upset by this. Certainly when the DNC was hacked Trump and his supporters were delighted that foreign criminals had Exposed The Truth. But since the election Trump supporters' enthusiasm for Exposing The Truth has diminished tremendously. They're not interested in the The Truth anymore, they're anxious to figure out why their guy is being exposed. Why is that? And why DID Trump surround himself with Russian-connected people like Manafort, Page, and Flynn? Why did Sessions and Flynn lie about simple questions regarding their contact with Kislyak? Why has Trump continuously lied about his financial ties to Russia? Why does Trump Tower have a server in communication with a Russian bank? Why did Republican change their platform regarding military assistance to Ukraine during the RNC? When it came to Hillary, Trump and his supporters said "where there's smoke, there's fire!" But when it comes to the smoke currently billowing out of the White House, Trump supporters are stuffing wet towels under the doors and window-sills and shouting "LALALLAAA THERE'S NO FIRE" as loud as they can. -k

No. She should move on. The fact that she couldn't even defeat the orange clown should make it unmistakably clear: Americans just don't want her to be President. Someone else will carry the torch. -k

The notion that North American means quality and Asian means cheaply made junk is outdated. At this point it's our robots vs their robots, and their robots are better. Asian industries have invested billions of dollars into the best manufacturing technology available, and the mom-and-pop manufacturing facilities in North America can't compete. Foxconn didn't get to be Apple's contract manufacturer by sucking. The giant semiconductor foundries in Asia have no North American competition who can build to the same specifications. Several years ago I saw a TV show that explored a massive shipyard in South Korea, owned by Hyundai. Hyundai... tiny cars, huge ships. They could draw up a design on a computer, and giant computer-controlled cranes maneuver the steel into place, accurate to millimeters, and robots weld everything together as fast as the cranes can move it into position. This was apparently cutting-edge at the time. North American shipyards simply didn't have the ability to build this quickly or this precisely. Why did South Korea have this capability when North America didn't? Because Hyundai invested in it. For many years, the brand "Lucky Goldstar" was synonymous with cheap foreign junk. My first VCR was a Lucky Goldstar. It sucked. It was a piece of garbage. Lucky Goldstar knew as much, and they priced it as such. They just kept building cheaply made junk... until they got good at it. Nowadays "Lucky Goldstar" is "LG Electronics", and instead of cheaply made junk they build high quality products. While they were building cheap crap, they were also building their industrial capabilities, and building their expertise, and investing in engineering and technological advance. Now they're as good as any of their competitors. Hyundai went on much the same path. Hyundai started off building those crappy Hyundai Pony cars that were disastrous lemons, but they kept improving their capabilities, and they don't build lemons anymore. It's wrong to assume that North American manufacturers would just jump back into the industry and be at the top of the game because we're North American. LG and Hyundai got to where they are by going through the process of doing and learning and reinvesting. North American companies have, in large measure, not been "doing" when it comes to manufacturing, they have been contracting out. If they start "doing" on their own, they will be starting at the "Lucky Goldstar" and "Hyundai Pony" stage of the game, not the "LG Electronics" and "Hyundai Genesis" stage. My Carhartt jeans-- the toughest pants I've ever owned-- are Hecho En Mexico. What makes them tough? Ultra-heavy cotton, triple-stitched seams, steel rivets, everything is designed for durability. It's the design, not the location of manufacture that makes them tough. They have triple-stitched seams because that's how Carhartt designed them. They have super-heavy gauge cotton because that's what Carhartt specified. The notion that if these pants had been made in Canada or the USA they would be even tougher is quite silly, because they'd still be made to the same design using the same materials. A lot of the difference between "brand name" merchandise and off-brand competitors is just quality control. Kershaw builds some of their models of knives in China... the design is Kershaw's, the steel is to Kershaw specifications, and the quality control is performed by Kershaw, but the machining and assembly is done at a factory in China. I have a couple of knives that I bought from an off-brand Chinese manufacturer. These knives are built in the same factory using the same parts but they don't say Kershaw on them. I've had the real thing in my hands, and literally the only difference between the real knives and my clones is that the clones don't include the patented spring-assist opening mechanism. Other than that, they're identical. And extremely good. The only difference, aside from the spring-assist and the name on the package is that the genuine Kershaw article cost $50-$60 apiece and my clones cost $8 and $9 apiece. I guess I am missing out on the experience of having a Genuine Kershaw in my pocket, but instead I get to enjoy the experience of having an extra $50 in my pocket. -k

Dude, you can't quote that much of an article. State key elements that you want to address and selectively quote portions of the article that discuss the issue you wish to discuss. -k

The Liberals are BC's right-of-center party. They have been ever since the provincial Social Credit party collapsed in the 1990s and left a huge void in BC's political spectrum. The Liberals moved to fill that void and have done very well at it. They are not social conservatives, but they are probably the most pro-business government in Canada. -k

It is extremely likely that individuals with high-level Russian connections-- like Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page-- were under lawfully-authorized surveillance long before Donald Trump brought them into his campaign or (in Flynn's case) into his administration. The intelligence services simply wouldn't be doing their job if they weren't keeping an eye on these guys. And it's a dead certainty that Sergey Kislyak's whereabouts were under watch, so I can't imagine why anybody would be surprised that they knew Jeff Sessions met with him. I think that if you hang out with guys like Flynn, Manafort, and Page, and then wonder why the intelligence services know things, you can't be all that bright. It's like if your friends are mostly Hell's Angels you can't be too surprised when you start noticing unmarked RCMP cars hanging around your neighborhood. Obama didn't need to order anybody to spy on Trump. Trump practically begged them to spy on him by choosing to bring these individuals into his circle. -k

Yes, I recall that many on the forum were highly supportive of it. "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about!" ...hmmm. Trump seems pretty worried. I wonder why? Well, that's one possibility. The other possibility is that Trump pulled the idea out of his ass, and that this is nothing more than sheer bald-faced slander. Whichever the case, even Trump's minions don't know what he's talking about and won't touch this claim with a 10 foot pole. -k

So what "lie" is being alleged? That Sessions met with the Russian ambassador? That's not a lie, that's been verified. That Sessions denied communicating with Russian officials while under oath? That's also not a lie, that exchange is a matter of public record. What's this lie you're alleging? You guys are quite clearly drinking a different kind of kool-aid. -k