This should be alarming, right?

[kandrathe]

I think you'll find that the number of people in the US that actually like him is a more of an minority than actually voted for him. I think if you take a look, a number of the people that voted for him voted along party lines or as an anti-vote against Clinton (similarly, there were those that voted for Clinton as an anti-vote against Trump).

I'd agree with your assessment.

I think you can probably go further than that. I think the whole reason Pence was added to the campaign is because Ryan and McConnell know/knew that Trump is going/was to do/done something that will get him impeached and the potential other Vice President candidates that he had around him spooked Ryan and McConnell.

Perhaps. Also, they may have learned from McCain's pick that it does matter, and adding a crazy to the ticket can tank your chances.

As to sourcing, some of the sourcing won't happen unless the source's name is left off the record due to fear of reprisal in some way. Some of the other sources are showing to be false (and some have been retracted) while others seemed ludicrous at first, but are appearing to have some grain of truth (the dossier made by the former British spy and actions taken by various actors since that's come to light such as Putin's cleaning in FSS and the fact that a number in the FBI, CIA, and NSA are giving more credence now to said dossier).

Here is another opinion; Paul Roderick Gregory: The Trump dossier is fake – and here are the reasons why.

"President-elect Trump has dismissed the dossier’s contents as false as has the Kremlin. Trump is right: The Orbis dossier is fake news.

I have studied Russia and the Soviet Union professionally since the mid-1960s. I have visited Russia as a scholar, as the head of a multi-year petroleum legislation project, and as a business consultant close to one hundred times. My first visit was in 1965 shortly after Nikita Khrushchev’s removal. I have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in Russia, and I follow the Russian press regularly. I personally witnessed the creation in the early 90s of Russia’s giant energy concerns in the offices of the oil minister. I met with St. Petersburg officials in the early 90s but do not remember meeting then deputy mayor, Vladimir Putin. I have written and co-authored reports for the State Department, Congress, and the intelligence community; so I sort of know how these things work."

As to the fact checking, yes, some has been off, but some has been spot on as well.

All I can say is its really bad (aweful even), but not as bad as the WH "facts".

As to the rush to lynching, this happens from both sides of the media, those with a liberal slant going after conservatives and those with a conservative slat going after liberals (just take a look at the crap spewed by some conservative pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and others concerning Obama and Clinton). So, it happens from both sides of the media, but problem is we've lost some of the great reporters and pundits that could be civil and explain why the other side is wrong (Walter Cronkite, William F. Buckley Jr, and others). The problem is, the media got changed in the early 2000s when Rupert Murdoch brought tabloid journalism mainstream and the media became more about news entertainment and less about reporting what actually happened.

I guess if they say it enough they'll make it true.

Trump could clear a good amount of that up simply by releasing his tax returns, yet he refuses to do so. The longer he refuses, the more people are going to think he has something to hide.

Or, maybe his birth certificate. Really? If he doesn't have to do it, why do it? It would clear up some things and probably unleash a Pandora's box of red herrings and media distractions. I frankly don't care about his tax forms. He's not presidential material, but do you think there's a smoking gun in there that will get him impeached? I doubt it. Maybe something embarrassing to wave his tiny hands around and about.

I can agree with that, although I would extend that to our descendants (beyond just children and grand children).

I'm lower on Maslow's pyramid of needs lately. I aspire for self actualization again some day.

But I'm tired of people calling him a symbol of the "alt right". Let's stop with the euphemisms already and call him for what he actually is: a white nationalist.

What do you think Alt-Right is? It's White Nationalism taken to an extreme. It borders on outright racism.

I think it is reckless to imply racism where it may often only be selfish nationalism. The KKK is buoyed by this change in the political wind, but it doesn't imply the converse, that Trumpers embrace racism or the KKK. We know some do though.

I'm a Jewish American who worked with Steve Bannon. He is not a racist or an anti-Semite by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro