Summations Only

If one were to assume, for the sake of argument, that the prostitutes story were to be correct, why on earth is he worrying ? Past experience suggests his supporters would simply applaud him for it.

I do at least take from that, the comfort that someone, somewhere is at least on one occasion being listened to when he says "Are you out of your fucking mind ???"

Yeah, but it was the bit about the reason not only being that, but also not wanting to look too much like a tyrannical regime.Don't piss on my fire too much - it's a really small one ! ;-)

Is that before or after tax ?

I'm quite interested in Trump's announcement that he's going to launch an investigation into mass voter fraud.This strikes me as a potential pitfall.I start from the assumption that there is no mass voter fraud. There's no evidence of any, and I understand that people have looked for some.This leaves Trump with 2 choices - get his people to "investigate"; or get the appropriate arm of government to investigate (not sure of US jurisdictional law here, but am assuming it's the FBI).If his people "investigate", that's safe, and he can claim he didn't want to burden the taxpayer with an effectively meaningless investigation (though I understand voter fraud is a federal crime). It does rather de-legitimise the "investigation" though.If however he gets the FBI to investigate, then assuming they find at most 2 or 3 cases (rather than the 2.3m he's claiming), where does that leave him ?He can't accept such a finding - he is seeking to avoid challenges to legitimacy, and the better move would have been to simply drop the issue if he had no Plan B.So what do we think his Plan B is ?Try to get the FBI to bald faced lie ? Dangerous, and with insufficient actual evidence and lots of people having to be in on it (risking imprisonment for Trump), not a likely outcome.Brush the result under the rug and hope people will forget about it ? Possibly, particularly if he can get it strung out for 3 years ?Or my personal choice, use a failure to dig up any evidence to attack the FBI for bias, and possibly use it to force the replacement of top brass he doesn't like.

Well, the motivation is clearly money. Maybe they feel that Trump's win means that money is now all the justification you need.It's like the racists and hard right thugs such as Yiannopoulos, who believe that they now have a mandate and popular support for their vile cesspits of ideas.There's been a move to the right and to populism - the extreme right and the rich are cashing in.

I genuinely believe that at the moment, they think they can get away with anything. No one in authority in politics is opposing anything Trump does.The Democrats appear not to have a leader of any substance or eloquence - the GOP are either gleeful or silent - and anyone in a functional role in government just gets replaced if they speak up.The Courts and lawyers seem to be doing what they can, but it's firefighting and not a concerted opposition. There are protests, but no organised voice of opposition and sense.As long as this situation prevails, I think that corporate greed genuinely feels it no longer has to even pretend.

I'm guessing he'll just say that he knew nothing about what Flynn was doing.That's hardly credible, but when has this ever bothered the Trumpster ?

I am having visions of a phone call from Putin to Trump:"Donald - this Flynn situation, it concerns me. We still have deal, yes ?"

Just read Trump's latest tweets on the matter. Do they seem a little flaccid to you, compared to his previous forays ?

It won't make any difference to the dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporters. If he consumed a baby live on stage, they'd cheer for him.What might happen, I guess, is that increasing numbers of Republicans might start to realise that the guy is totally out of control, and that they need to wrest back the reigns of power.Not a great alternative, but it has to be a safer bet.Kudos to the reporter who caught him out on the biggest victory thing though :-)

Democracy's greatest weakness will always be that the large majority of voters will lack the capacity, or experience, or time to understand in sufficient depth, the issues upon which they are voting - and its greatest tragedy that they will believe the contrary.Edited by vimesey, : Autocorrect's incorrect grammar.Edited by vimesey, : No reason given.

Read some Wilde.Or some of Churchill's stuff. Compare the following:"we have some bad hombres here and we're going to get them out.""Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."When it comes to wit, I'm afraid your hero's wit would shame a sloth.

The responses from Sweden have been wonderfully humorous and ironic. Good on them ! :-)

I'm afraid the State visit invitation is very unlikely to be withdrawn - but there will no doubt be extensive protests.In the interests of being fully open about these things, there was a petition launched, encouraging the State visit invitation not to be withdrawn, which got around 330,000 signatures, from recollection. Another petition, asking for the invitation to be withdrawn, did get 1.8m signatures though. (There is a reasonably strong right wing populist movement in England, which sees Trump as an opportunity for them to push their agenda).What I'm curious about, is that Geert Wilders' poll lead has been narrowing in the past few days - I wonder if this has anything to do with Dutch people having the opportunity to see what a populist leader actually looks like, when he gets into office. (Not that Wilders would have Presidential power, or even be able to form a government, under the Dutch political system, but I do wonder if Trump's blatant lack of an iota of statesmanship, and his utterly childish behaviour, is having an impact in Holland).Edited by vimesey, : Autocorrect doesn't like Dutch names