Explained this on one of the MS programs. This woman is so on the ball. Until she put this investigation together, I had not heard how he bullied the commission for 250 around. Then when they refused to be bullied, he formed another commission and diverted the funds to them. This is how you get no public seating and $10 or 20 for a soda.

His greed is going to get him. He has gotten to the point where not one single thing can go on without him grifting off it. Everyone, including many of his supporters, sees it and it has led to a significant lack of support.

This is why he admires putin so intensely. This is what putin has accomplished, although, he, too, is on his last legs. There was a post here in the last few days saying how Putin's own soldiers were turning against him. A few days prior, he sacrificed 80k soldiers in retreating.

No wonder his "State Fair" was so poorly executed and everything was so overpriced. He just can't help grifting funds for himself.

And to avoid facing his tantrums, his minders keep him from learning the majority national opinion of him, no wonder he keeps on boasting.

And I agree with everything you said. His role model has been Putin, who finally stands to come to a bad end. I actually visited the USSR in the late '80s when my grandmother invited me to join her peace group on their first visit to their "sister town." However, this was under Gorbachev who had instituted more progressive policies and the mood there was positive and welcoming, there were groups all over dedicated to peace after they had suffered so profoundly during WWII fought on their own land. Putin deserves what he gets and, hopefully, so does the felon-in chief.

We had such high hopes for the Russians. You were so fortunate to have been able to make that trip. I would love to be able to read news about Russia, having had a personal experience visiting the country, especially under the circumstances that you had.

I worked for a professor of Russian history. When it all crumbled, I recall her saying “150 years of bad government.”

What she meant was that the citizenry was not trained in democratic ways. That is why Putin could succeed where Trump can never succeed.

So Reagan was not at all popular there. We had an extra day in Sochi (they held a future Olympics there) where we stayed since it was the closest city to our small "sister town." So I took a walk around with 3 of the other ladies in the group (the others in the group except for one woman and me were senior citizens). And it looked like Evelyn's purse strap broke, so I pointed out what looked like a shoemaker's shop since the sign was a big shoe. It was run by an elderly lady and when she found out that we were Americans, she said "Reagan!" and spat on the ground. So Evelyn explained to her that we were not fond of Reagan, we liked Jimmy Carter. Well, the woman brightened up, Jimmy Carter was obviously popular there, and she not only fixed Evelyn's purse strap, but I took a photo of Evelyn and the shoemaker lady with their arms around each other.

Great story. That’s what I mean when I said I would like to have visited.

Reagan. As dumb as he was, he wasn’t even close to what we have now.