The Trump and Clinton administrations had the following five traits in common during their first years:


There was a painful transition in personnel from campaign operatives to Beltway professionals;
Because of poor cooperation with Congress, both administrations failed to reform health care, but they both narrowly passed tax bills (hikes for Clinton, cuts for Trump);
Each administration had a fixation on a particular financial market as a metric of success (the bond market for Clinton, the stock market for Trump);
In each case, there was an excessive involvement of family members in policy-making
Both administrations were constantly dissatisfied with the press coverage they received.





Our network analysis shows that Donald Trump has repeated the early error of the Clinton administration. He has been too much engaged with his inner circle, including family members, and allowed their responsibilities to overlap confusingly with those of other advisers and himself. In sum, in the Trump administration as in the Clinton administration, the president is more prominent than in the case of Nixon, but there are too many influential advisers working too closely with Trump, just as was the case in Clinton’s first year.




If nothing changes in the Trump White House, the president will remain the center of all attention, and he will retain an inner circle of close advisors drawn from his past associates and family. It is possible that the increasing influence of more politically experienced operatives will reduce the disorienting gyrations in personnel and policy that attracted so much media attention last year.


https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/trumps-advisor-network-is-not-as-unprecedented-as-its-made-out-to-be/553148/

Clinton's Presidency was well on it's way to meltdown until he hired Leon Panetta as Chief of Staff . He brought structure and discipline to the White House and most importantly limited the access to the President ,especially to Clinton's previous inner circle . I don't know if General Kelly will be able to get it done. But if Trump can't find an insider who isn't completely a swamp critter to do the job; he should probably recruit one from the corporate world . It is a growing trend in the corporate world for CEOs to hire professional Chief of Staffs . So there should be many to choose from .

Clinton balanced the budget, Dufus adds to it.

You want a balanced budget then no infrastructure, no welfare, no health care, no education or alternatively no military. The budget can be balanced with massive tax increases or no spending, there just isn't much middle ground

I personally don't care so much for a balanced budget, but would go for a manageable debt, which repubs and conservatives seem to care about only when there is a democrat in the white house, or when they are the minority party. When they control government they turn into stupid drunk sailors on shore leave. The idiots made Pappy Bush a one term president for promising NO new taxes, and reality called for new taxes.

Even the senile King Ronald (Reagan) believed in tax cuts, but raised taxes when he needed to spend money not budgeted. The Dufus is no King Ronald, not even close, and while his being senile hasn't been proved, he has lost his freaking mind for sure and no doubt is a lying, cheating bully with a history of conning folks out of their hard earned money.

I personally don't care so much for a balanced budget, but would go for a manageable debt, which repubs and conservatives seem to care about only when there is a democrat in the white house, or when they are the minority party. When they control government they turn into stupid drunk sailors on shore leave. Don't insult drunken sailors that way ! . Do they spend like drunken Democrats ? Indeed they do . The debt is unsustainable now in excess of 100% of GDP and growing every year with mandatory spending . AND this has happened while interest rates were at give-away rates . I remind everyone that recent examples proves that when the crash comes ,it comes swiftly and hard .


Clinton balanced the budget, Dufus adds to it. Not quite . Bubba signed on the the Newt agenda .

There's hope then, since Dufus can maybe sign onto Nancy's agenda, or if we get lucky, Schumer's too. Hard to believe Newt went along with cutting military spending. Ahh the good old days of compromise.

herr Donald should've picked Newt as Chief of Staff.

The performance of Flynn and then Kelly blew my mind! Newt could do worse, if he can pass a background check. On an unrelated issue, did you hear the Dufus's remarks, or read about this?

https://www.wired.com/story/pro-gun-russian-bots-flood-twitter-after-parkland-shooting/

no did not watch or listen. Like I said ;I'm trying to ignore the tropes and platitudes .

Clinton got impeached in the house, acquitted in the senate. Will Trump be so honored?

depends on who has the majorities ,and if Senate Repubics turn on him ( a possibility ) . Impeachment is a political process .Nixon would've been convicted if Repubican Senators had not marched to the White House to tell him he did not have their support . But at least with Nixon there was a crime . Nixon tried to cover up WH involvement in a criminal break in . Clintoon lied perjured himself and suborned perjury from others(aka obstruction of justice ) . He lost his law license over that (his supports will say he surrendered his license before official disbarment ) . He also paid fines and settlements for a number of the cases he lied about .

Trump ? Still waiting for a crime .

Trump ? Still waiting for a crime .

This depends on how you define crime. The man's whole life is one of cheating, he has stolen billions but bankruptcy and cheating your creditors is no longer considered a crime

no doubt about that . The proper way would be to investigate a crime ;not investigate looking for a crime . Today's indictment of trolls who will never be extradited proves once again that this is a fishing expedition . I'm surprised he didn't indict Borat . Someone tell me which foreign influence has the biggest impact ...... 13 Russians trolls posing as Americans and taking out ads in Facebook and posting comments on twitter..... or ..... foreign former MI6 agent Christopher Steele creating a fake dossier on Trump, paid for by the Evita campaign ,that was used as justification to get FISA warrants spy on his campaign ?????

For a year the American taxpayers have paid a fortune for this while real investigations like
Nikolas Cruz was ignored by our law enforcement agencies . https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics/parkland-shooting-fbi-tipster/index.html

Mueller found his crime all right, or should we say CRIMES, and it was just as Hillary said, Russia was spreading FAKE news for the Dufus against her. Seeing as how all the Trump sycophants don't seem to be able to tell a straight story about their activities, or contacts, before, during, or after Trump was elected, we may have more still, and to be fair, maybe they were set up by Vlad and the crew, but for sure none of them has come forward with anything but denials. I can see where they could be unwitting co conspirators in the meddling drama. So many background check failures doesn't help Dufus either, and another point to add to dumb incompetence on top of his lack of action against his buddy Vlad. Puts to bed though, the Trump claim of a witch hunt, or a hoax for sure! Also doesn't clear The Dufus or his sycophants of any wrong doing, witting or unwitting, and no doubt we will have even more revelations to come. Wonder what he tells his true believers about that now? Regardless Mueller is still working!

The FBI dropping the ball on the Florida shooter was vastly disturbing on so many levels, but there are no denials about that so far, and while it may not have prevented this tragedy, all he had to do was deny any allegations, there was nothing illegal about Cruze's actions whatsoever until he went to the school. It absolves the Florida legislature of nothing, as the root cause of this is still a young disturbed guy being able to buy a lethal weapon so easily, under the current laws. The blow back will be NASTY and rightfully so.

I also think you better back away from Carter Page and those FISA allegations while you can. Get some popcorn and watch the show, but don't listen to any of the Trump sycophants especially Devin Nunes. He never had any credibility.

Why are you trying to prove Hilliary right? She lost an election, her fix was in and the Russians ran around the net doing something, does anyone think they changed the minds of the people in the rust belt or the people outside the big cities? Sometimes there is just a need for change, it happens regularly about every eight years

I don't know for sure whether it did or not, but both of them being in the public eye they had a history in which to draw from. Hillary, a lousy campaigner, had the better credentials, even with DECADES of right wing conspiracy theories and investigations. The Dufus well he has ALWAYS been a lying, cheating, bully, and a Dufus RACIST con man. That was an easy call for me. You are right the fix was in and the right wing won, they beat establishment conventional repubs so we get Trump, because that's the rules of the electoral college. Cool, but does that mean those opposed to him and his ilk should roll over and fall in line and kiss his ring? Doesn't work that way here Clete, probably never will.

He thinks he can stay in power with his RACIST base of supporters? His repub sycophants? We will see in short order.

There you go .... an admission of political motivation for domestic spying .

Has nothing to do with politics, more with actual probable cause to look deeper into the matter. You may think Carter Page and the Dufus and his sycophants, are clean as the driven snow, but I would lean toward verification. Given the history of the people involved you actually are objecting to a deeper look?

I'm not even talking about the Steele dossier, which everybody likes to blow smoke about, but actual FACTS and events we may not have a clear grasp of, but should become clear later. The investigation is hardly over with.

Given the history of the people involved you actually are objecting to a deeper look? The normal way is to investigate a crime .....not look for a crime to investigate . That's how banana republics do it ;you know ,that presumed guilty thing .

From the Mueller indictment.....2 of the Russians were able to enter the U.S. on travel visas which they received after applying for them through the State Dept in 2014. From June 4, 2014 - June 26, 2014 they traveled around the US.


Who was head of the FBI ??? Robert Mueller & State Dept ??? JFKerry .

Total election spending: $2.4 billion. Total Russian Facebook ad buy: $100,000. Total Clinton/Trump Facebook ad buys: $81 million.

Russian Facebook ad buy in "purple states"PA: $300. MI: $832. WI: $1979 (all but $54 before primary). This effort look like a Keystone cop skit . Note everyone has stopped talking about the pile of manure called the Schiff memo.

Well you have to admit 17 kids gun slaughtered in school tends to get some headlines... for a while anyway.

What is the Schiff memo...12 pages long ? Given the concerns the FBI had ,he could've rewritten it in an hour or 2 . He's stalling because his bluff was called . He needed the Mueller indictment diversion so the narrative could be reinvented again . We have gone from Russia hacking voting machines to Trump and Russia stealing the election to Trump obstructing justice to Trump associates being charged with unrelated issues . To Russian pajama boys sending out fake news feeds ,mostly after the election ;that few even read ,and even if they did were not influenced by them. Do you not see how they played it ? They allegedly organized anti-Hillary rallies .Then after she lost they were organizing anti-Trump rallies (yes that is in the indictment ) . The only foreign meddling I see that was significant was a former Brit spy who used Russian sources to create a fake dossier that was then used as a primary source to get FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign (Guessing the Russians were having a slightly tougher time penetrating the Trump campaign emails ).

There is a lot of stuff stirring around in the pot all right, but we won't know what's cooking until it's ready. Mueller isn't letting anybody look under the lid until he says so, and Schiff has his hands full with butt kisser Nunes, but he has cooled down his urgency for a more pragmatic approach and letting the repubs holler all they want. So let your imaginations run wild with the right wing narrative while we just enjoy the show The Dufus is putting on, as he gets hit from all sides. Even Punk Paul, and Moron Mitch have bought a bag of popcorn and are trying to keep their head down and avoid the stink of the Dufus Show.

Kids and woman hate The Dufus right now.

Michael Moore got punked by the Ruskie snowflakes .He attended one of their fake rallies . He must be mighty pissed at his patrons .

Michael Moore got punked by the Ruskie snowflakes .He attended one of their fake rallies . He must be mighty pissed at his patrons .
Why should we care about Moore being duped, he is so far left he is up himself. This is all a smokescreen, if this is all the investigation could find, some social media sites and a few poorly attended rallies then they have wasted their time. As a witch hunt, this is a failure and they should be fired

They have uncovered criminals, and their activities so far Clete, I mean Manafort seems to be an INTERNATIONAL criminal with a high end degree of dastardly doings. I suppose that counts for nothing. Maybe you can dismiss the level of propaganda a site can help spread, but doesn't those rallies give credence to influencing a few minds? It's not like The Dufus won by a landslide. It happened on OUR soil by foreigners, trained to blend in and spread BS, and you say this is NOTHING?

That's a pretty cynical view. You sound just like The Dufus.

I mean Manafort seems to be an INTERNATIONAL criminal with a high end degree of dastardly doings.

Manafort may or may not have committed crimes while acting as an agent for the former Ukraine President . Let me ask you this . Why did Mueller make his indictment of Russian pajama boys public when he knew that there is zero chance of extradition ? Wouldn't it be more professional to seal the indictments on the chance that one of them may travel back to the states ?


Maybe you can dismiss the level of propaganda a site can help spread, but doesn't those rallies give credence to influencing a few minds? Not at all . Everyone attending those rallies had their minds made up .There were very few undecided ;and they certainly did not attend political rallies .Trump won in the swing states because he got out his base . Evita's base was not as committed and divided because of how her campaign and the DNC shut out Bolshevik Bernie .

It is all a circus, a smokescreen. He had to do something to show results and what has he proved? Russian interference in elections, yes, it did exist

Seems new charges have been added to Manafort and Gates for more fraud while he was working with The Dufus campaign, for no salary I might add,

Trump-Russia: New charges for Paul Manafort and Rick Gates - BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43164321)

Seven key takeaways from the Russian indictments - BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43093260)



What the post-election rallies demonstrate, however, is that the Russian efforts haven't ended. US intelligence officials, in testimony before Congress earlier this week said essentially the same thing - that the Russians, undeterred, will seek to continue to foment chaos in the days ahead, including during the 2018 US congressional midterm elections.The question, then, is what the US does - or does not do - to prepare and respond.

And that's the point.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/Russians_are_coming.jpg

https://media2.giphy.com/media/14pwo4ac6wwt9u/200w.gif

Trump-Russia: New charges for Paul Manafort and Rick Gates - BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43164321)


What are the new charges?Thursday's 32-count indictment alleges that the pair conspired to hide more than $30m (£22m) in Mr Manafort's personal income from tax officials.
It also claims that Mr Gates concealed more than $3m of his own income.
The money "flowed through" a $75m offshore account controlled by them, according to the indictment filed by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia.
It is also alleged the two defendants filed tax returns to the US authorities from 2010-14 that they knew to be factually incorrect.


Again nothing there .The period in question is 2010-2014 . Manafort only worked for the campaign for a brief period to manage the convention. He worked for the Trump campaign from 3/29 /16 through 8/19/16 . The only activity of his related to anything Russian was the change in the GOP platform . Mostly he worked the convention floor making sure Trump delegates didn't bolt to Cruz or some other compromise nominee like Kasich .

Hard to keep track of criminal activity I know.

https://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2018/02/21/kind-quid-pro-quo-deal-paul-manafort-make-chicago-banker-involving-white-house/



Manafort received three separate loans in December 2016 and January 2017 from Federal Savings Bank for homes in New York City, Virginia and the Hamptons.The banker, Stephen Calk, president of the Federal Savings Bank, was announced as a member of candidate Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers in August 2016.

Funny I saw nothing about that in the reporting of his many charges . Was he charged with anything related to that loan? I thought that in the former Va Guv McDonnell case ,SCOTUS imposed higher standards for federal prosecutors who charge public officials with wrongdoing. Maybe it is only for Democrat public officials .

Hmmm where did I see a politician use influence to get a sweetheart deal on real estate ? Does the name Tony Rezko sound familiar ?How about Susan McDougal and Jim Guy Tucker ?

ok more details : He retained former Euro-pols to take positions favorable to the Yanukovych Ukraine government .He wired $2 million to them from off shore accounts sometime around 2012 He and Gates did this to avoid registering as a foreign agent .

The indictment identifies lobbying firms Manafort was hired by as Company A and Company B . But it is widely known that the firms involved are the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs .

hhmmmmm Podesta ....where have we heard that name before ?
The Podesta Group lobbying group was founded in 1988 by brothers John Podesta and Tony Podesta



..hmmmm John Podesta ? Where have we heard of him before ? OH YEAH !!! John Podesta was chairman of Evita's campaign !!!!!! You remember him . He thought so much of email security that he used a GMail account for the campaign's communications . It was easily hacked into and some of the emails were released by WikiLeaks .You know ;the emails that said the Evita campaign was colluding with the DNC to deny Bernie Sanders a fair shot at the Democrat nomination That Podesta .

His brother Tony spent the campaign as a donation bundler for Evita .
Tony Podesta stepped down as chairman of the group the same day the Manafort indictment came down.

Again nothing to see here, yes some tax defaulters got caught, did it take an expensive national investigation to do that? This is a great witch hunt and the witch is already known and found


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/Russians_are_coming.jpg

Yes great movie, some one is still looking for those ruskies under the bed

Clete this is way beyond a travesty now. The reason Mueller keeps on piling it on Manafort is that he thinks with enough pressure Manafort will flip and giver evidence against Trump. The
reason Manafort didn't flip and give up Trump wasn't because there were only 18 indictments and he might need 32 more. The reason is because there was no Russian collusion and he's got nothing to give up.
I'm beginning to admire Manafort . If he gets convicted he
faces a significant risk of dying in prison of old age
.The easy thing to do would be to give in like Gates and Flynn did.

And it could be he is the only game in town. Mueller has to justify his existence

I have to say Mueller is certainly justifying his existence all right. It's an old fashion mob prosecution. Even if there is no collusion from The Dufus DIRECTLY there seems to be a lot from the people he hired, as well as other criminal activity, and a whole lot of lying about it.

Okay I'll bite. Why do you admire a life long international criminal who bribes bankers and commits fraud to secure money, and is in deep hock to Russian oligarchs? Bet you admired Capone and Bugsy too.

Okay I'll bite. Why do you admire a life long international criminal who bribes bankers and commits fraud to secure money, and is in deep hock to Russian oligarchs? Bet you admired Capone and Bugsy too.

as of right now there are only allegations . Tell me why he would risk years in jail if he thought he had done anything criminal .Mueller has bullied him as much as anyone . They used agents with guns drawn to bust into his house in the dead of night while he and his wife were sleeping . That is how you treat a drug bust when you are targeting MS13 .

There is no secret about the game Mueller is playing .It is the same gestapo tactics he used on Dr Steven Hatfill. They persecuted him for 10 years .Their agents ran over his foot . That he was completely innocent was no concern. They spent millions of dollars and wasted
“hundreds of thousands of investigator hours "on the case.(his words ). Even though all the letters spoke jihadist language about the US . They instead targeted a patriot . (yes I speak with knowledge having known Dr Hatfill for a brief time in college ).He left school to join the Army and worked at the
United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases .Where he dedicated himself to protecting Americans from bio-terrorist threats . He never handled Anthrax in his duties . He was harassed ,investigated to death . The justice Dept publicly pointed the finger of accuse in his direction without ever coming close to charging him .

Ironically at this time Mueller was threating to resign because of President Bush's NSA policies (oh the irony ) while at the same time trampled all over Hatfill's rights . Hatfill ultimately sued the government and was awarded $6milion . Add that to the cost of the investigation I guess.

But that was not all . Not satisfied that he had not found a domestic terrorist ;Mueller shifted his sights on
Bruce Ivins, another Army researcher who had actually volunteered to help the FBI investigate this case, and had been doing so for years.

Prosecutors falsely stated Ivins purposefully gave a misleading sample of anthrax spore. It was a lie and they tried to hang him on this circumstantial evidence . How did they know it was him ? Well he was familiar with the area where the anthrax had been mailed .
Ivins was never indicted, just given the Hatfill treatment. His house was raided, and he was threatened with a death sentence.One of Mueller's stooges ,
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said Ivins was guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and they were “confident that Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks.”
Mueller ordered an independent audit of the FBI’s case by the National Academy of Science, then formally closed the case in 2010, sticking with the conclusion that Ivins, and Ivins alone, committed the terror attack. One year later the NAS released their results and confirmed what many scientists had been repeating for years: the FBI's science and conclusions were wrong .

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/new-report-casts-doubt-on-fbi-anthrax-investigation/

Ivins ? ....well he ended up committing suicide from the pressure . So he'll forever be the accused anthrax attacker .


Mueller very early on came to the conclusion that there was no way AQ was involved and spent no time investigating that possibility . He said there was no direct link . Instead he targeted 2 patriotic Americans and hounded them for a decade even though there was no direct link to the attack for either .A former agent sued the FBI saying evidence that was favorable to Ivins was suppressed .






For his efforts Mueller had the 2nd longest tenure as FBI chief .

As for Dr Hatfill ;
Much of Hatfill’s time these days is devoted to teaching life-saving medical techniques to military personnel bound for combat. They are his “band of brothers,” and the hours he spends with them, Hatfill says, are among his happiest. He also serves as an adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University. Then there is his boat. Hatfill has committed $1.5 million to building his floating genetic laboratory, a futuristic-looking vessel replete with a helicopter, an operating room to treat rural indigenous peoples, and a Cordon Bleu–trained chef. Hatfill intends to assemble a scientific team and cruise the Amazon for undiscovered or little-known plants and animals. From these organisms, he hopes to develop new medications for leukemia, and for tuberculosis and other diseases that have been growing increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics. Any useful treatments, he says, will be licensed to pharmaceutical companies on the condition that developing nations receive them at cost. Hatfill hopes to christen the boat within two years. Scientists at USAMRIID, where the FBI once suspected him of stealing anthrax, have expressed tentative interest in helping him mount his expedition. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-wrong-man/308019/
He started (ABSOG) Asymmetric Biodiversity Studies and Observation Group, a not-for-profit trust to support his pharmaceutical mission.

Interesting background Tom, but I am not ready to declare Mueller incompetent, or The Dufus's hired sycophants squeaky clean yet. Regardless Manafort and anybody else will have their day in court. You have to excuse me for being dubious of this crowd, not that I am a fan of the FBI, or law enforcement, I've seen many miscarriages of justice in my time, but repubs elected The Dufus, and the Dufus hired all the actors in this scenario, so if his own peeps stick it to him then that would be justice.

If a few white collar types get stressed, then too bad. I can hold my water until the investigation is over, and somebody explains how the pieces fit. I just don't believe the people around this president can be dirty as sin and he is not. Nor that their crimes should be ignored or forgiven if in fact they are guilty. Just please don't tell me rich guys can do no wrong. Or the FBI, or cops in general are always right. Neither would be true, but we will surely see.