Walker88

The ranks of the Cult keep growing, as more and more Repubs are heading up to NY on the US Taxpayer's dime to audition for the #2 slot. Nobody wants to get voted off Veepstakes Island, so they are sucking up like a black hole swallowing nearby stars. The latest sycophant to toss his lack of pride into the ring is Marco Rubio, or Little Marco as his possible boss calls him. Rubio declined to say he would accept the results of the upcoming election if his guy lost. So, add Rubio to the traitors against US ideals and founding principles. (Is it too late to send him back to Cuba, as he now seems to prefer Fidel-style rulers?) Unsaid in all of the sucking up is that they are all really after the Presidency. It is not going too far out on a limb to guess their fearful leader will be dead in 4 years, so whoever is in the VP slot not only completes the term, but gets to run in 2028 as the incumbent. In fact, one could say they are all counting on their guy to win, and then please die.

Wow, it's not easy to get every fact wrong, but you did that. Rather than educate you, best you educate yourself. You can look up the votes in the 2020 election, and then correct yourself. As for the economy, you can go to the Dept of Commerce website, or even any investment bank site, and they will give you the GDP numbers under both guys. NOT EVEN CLOSE. What the previous guy has going for him, however, are two points that force historians and data jockeys to go all the way back to WWII and even to Herbert Hoover in the early 1930s. 1)Your guy presided over the worst economic performance (as measured by GDP change) going all the way back to the 1930s. Even before Covid the GDP change was in the bottom 30% of all Quarters since the end of WWII. 2) Your guy is also the first President since Herbert Hoover to leave office with FEWER Americans employed than when he took office. He achieved that dismal record by running up $8,400,000,000,000 in new National Debt, a 41% increase over the combined total of the first 44 US Presidents. Now I'll do some math for you....that debt is not only more than the GDP change during his tenure (in other words, even the mediocre growth was debt fueled, not organic growth), but it is the equivalent of $25,000 for every man, woman and child in the US, or $1000 for every person on the face of the Earth. If you wonder what caused inflation, imagine everyone in the US suddenly having $25,000 to spend and compete for goods and services. It took ratcheting up interest rates to get that under control. Oh, and your guy says if elected, HE---not the Fed---will set rates. Of course he will set them low, so expect hyperinflation and a total USD collapse. Your guy will bring all the skills and talents that had him produce 6 bankruptcies for his own companies, and a Recession to the US. Frankly, those who want him again deserve what they will get....UE probably popping 20% and the vast majority of his cult unemployed and suffering Stagflation. Darwin Awards all around for his cult.

It would take Rube Goldberg to draw something that represents any connection between an office romance or what Grassley manufactured now, and "just find me...11,780 votes". On the other hand, how do trumpers justify a Supreme Court Justice, who hung a flag upside down in his yard for days (according to his neighbors), which is the symbol of "stop the Steal" idiocy, not recusing himself when he rules on the indicted ex-POTUS and election-related issues? How about when another Supreme Court Justice, who failed to report trips and gifts paid for by a major Republican donor, and this justice has a wife who was directly involved in trying to overturn the 2020 election, but said justice can also stay involved in ruling on issues related to the election and the indicted ex-POTUS? Fani's romance in no way has any connection to the facts of the Georgia case, while two obvious biased justices are allowed to rule on matters directly related to the indictments against the ex-POTUS? Maybe Grassley can't keep two thoughts in his head at the same time, so isn't the least bit concerned---nor is any other Republican---about Alito and Thomas.

I'm not sure where you get your data, but it is wildly at odds with what medical journals such as the Lancet report from meta-analysis of research. The average person has trillions of bacteria, both good and bad varieties, in their gut. "Good" bacteria is involved in a host of body-necessary processes, such as manufacturing or refining the substrates to make essential hormones. One could almost believe that humans evolve merely to be vessels for bacteria to survive. At the very least the relationship is symbiotic. Antibiotics are equal opportunity killers, both good and bad bacteria are eradicated. An extremely healthy individual will restore most of his or her microbiome after a few months (NOT days), though the bacteria makeup may be different than before antibiotics, depending on the specific diet. Less healthy individuals can take years to fully recover from a single course of antibiotics, their immune system weakened for the entire period and their hormone production disrupted. In terms of worldwide deaths from 'superbugs', the latest data I could find was for 2019, and the number was 1.2 million people. In a world of 8 billion, that isn't much (unless you're one of them) but the trend is worrying. Many people are saved from superbugs, at least in the developed world, by last chance super antibiotics. There is also something called antibiotic scarring, which refers to bad gut bacteria building up antibiotic resistance after a single course of pills. After two courses, more resistance, after three, etc. Given the time and expense of developing new antibiotics, plus the lengthy approval process, we would be well advised to be careful in how we take and how we prescribe antibiotics. There are crazy people who come to Thailand and down doxy and zithro supposedly as a prophylactic because they plan on schtupping bargirls bareback, and think that will protect them from STDs. Idiocy!

TV Host George Stephanopoulos was asked what the first question should be in the debate. His answer: "Who won the Presidential Election in 2020?"

I'm happy to discuss it. Cohen is an admitted liar under oath, when he lied to protect his boss trump. Yes, that may impact some members of the jury, but the documents, signed checks and telephone tape are like a combination of the Rosetta Stone and the Dead Sea Scrolls. They point without a doubt to trump's intimate involvement in the hush money payoff and subsequent fraudulent accounting. Tie in Hicks' and Pecker's testimonies, and the fraudulent accounting is directly tied to trump's fear of how it would hurt him in the election. Thus, the evidence says "felony". As I have noted, Cohen is on probation, and any violation---such as perjury---will send him back to the slammer. Defense can attack his credibility, but that Sword of Damocles threat of jail hangs heavy over Cohen, and the jury will be reminded of that. No one has called any of Cohen's testimony this week perjury. Of course one person could take the stand and accuse Cohen of perjury, since he claims---when not under oath---that it's all lies. That would be the criminal defendant himself. The odds of trump taking the stand and testifying under oath make buying a winning ticket for Powerball look like short odds in comparison. Soon enough it's in the hands of the jury. Here's a prediction: if the jury finds trump guilty of a felony, every trumper here and on Fever Swamp media will accuse Biden of stuffing the jury with his people. There will be a shortage of capital letters on social media to write UNFAIR!. I suspect it will be a hung jury and the traitor will walk free, giving him another chance to bring a second disaster to the US if voters the Electoral College chooses him again. I also predict that if sanity prevails and trump loses in November, he will foment another terrorist attack on the Capitol and on critics and opponents, because his other indictments will finally reach a court of law, and trump knows full well that means he is likely to die in jail. A loss would also keep the power of SC appointment in the hands of Biden. By 2028 Sotomayor will have retired, and Alito and Thomas will probably be deceased.

He's confused. It's like elections: Heads we win, tails you lose. As the groveling sycophants know only too well, admitting that you will accept the results of the election even if trump loses again, gets you sent off Veepstakes Island.

Reps Comer and Jordan would absolutely LOVE what evidence you have on any Biden corruption. So far they have just been banging their heads against the wall, coming up empty handed as well as empty headed.

This isn't the trial most patriots wanted, as it is one of trump's lesser crimes....kind of like Capone's income tax evasion....but it is the only one that can't be blocked by trumpian sycophants or endless appeals. The stolen docs indictment should have been the easiest to bring to trial, as trump even admitted he took the documents, though he lied both about returning all of them, as well as claiming he 'declassified with his mind', which is a farce. No paper trail, no declassification, and there is no paper trail of any declassification. The Georgia case is held up because of an office romance that in absolutely no way is relevant to the actual crime. The DC case should long ago have gone to trial if not for the obviously tainted clowns on the Supreme Court, who despite ostensibly being Constitutional scholars, do not seem to have ever read the document nor the other founding documents of the United States. They are confusing the US Constitution with the Magna Carta, which grants the anachronism known as monarchs to be above the law. They also seem not to have noticed that the first 44 Presidents were not in any way hamstrung by lack of immunity; it's only the career criminal trump who is in dire need of it, or at the very least, a lengthy delay so that maybe the election can take place without the voters knowing if a sitting President tried to subvert 250 years of American democracy. While defense has tried its best to chip away at Cohen's credibility, the fact the documents and tape exists is really evidence enough to show trump was intimately involved in the fraudulent scheme. Also, attacking Stormy was meaningless because the fact of the tryst doesn't matter: it's the fraudulent accounting of the payoff that matters. Of course, it will also be pointed out that trump's crack legal team let slip that an NDA with Stormy does exist. Why would there need to be an NDA if the tryst never happened? trump's credibility takes a bigger hit with that than any cheap shot defense or trump's Gag Order Violating Proxies might have made. Cohen has held up well. Even admitting taping trump on the phone isn't nice, it is not against NY State law to record someone without their knowledge. Then there's the docs, the 9 signed checks, the gross up of the repayment to cover Cohen's supposed tax liability, and Hicks' testimony that trump said he feared exposure would hurt his election chances. In closing arguments (or in redirect if it happens), Prosecution will likely remind the jurors of the documentary evidence as well as other testimony from folks like Hicks and Pecker. Prosecution might also remind the jurors that Cohen is on probation, and if anything he said under oath is a lie, he would be returned to jail to complete his term plus additional time for perjury. Mob bosses are almost always convicted via the testimony of an insider, even one so flawed as a hitman for the Mafia, such as Sammy The Bull Gravano. The groveling sycophants using US Taxpayer funds to go to NY, when they should be at the work for which the taxpayer pays them, are cute. Embarrassing to the USA, but cute. I wonder if another groveling sycophant---Gov DeSantis---will change Florida law if trump is convicted of a felony, as currently felons cannot vote in Florida.

Can’t tell the players without a scorecard: Trump: Arrested 4 times, convicted sex offender, convicted bank fraudster, convicted insurance fraudster, convicted charity fraudster Campaign Chair: Convicted Felon (Manafort) Deputy Campaign Chair: Convicted Felon (Gates) Personal Lawyer: Convicted Felon (Giuliani) Chief Strategist: Convicted Felon (Bannon) Political Advisor: Convicted Felon (Stone) National Security Advisor: Convicted Felon (Flynn) Trade Advisor: Convicted Felon (Navarro) Foreign Policy Advisor: Convicted Felon (Nader, convicted of child sex offenses) Foreign Policy Advisor: Convicted Felon (Papadopoulos) Campaign Fixer: Convicted Felon (Cohen) Company CFO: Convicted Felon (Weisellberg) “The Best People”

To add to the other guy's pretzel logic, how is Biden responsible for BOTH killing Gaza civilians AND the rise of anti-Semitism? One would think that level of multi-tasking ability is exactly what the Oval Office needs. By the way, trump would not only supply the M 84 2000 lb bombs to his corrupt buddy Netanyahu, but likely the more powerful 4000 and 5000 lb variants. I mean, what could help clear out Gaza faster, so as Jared said, take advantage of the real estate potential of that Gazan Mediterranean waterfront?

I'll take your bet and raise you a hundred fold: Trump’s bombardment of dishonesty: Fact-checking 32 of his false claims to Time | CNN Politics

Biden can win some points by being slightly self-deprecating, something of which trump is not capable. trump can only portray himself as "unbelievable" and "best ever", which is as far from reality as is his 6'3", 215 lb physicality. If he's 6'3", then I'm 6'6". For example, Biden could say, "Some say my memory isn't what it once was, but I seem to remember you left office with 6.8% unemployment and a Recession. In my time in the White House, we've seen the best growth since the late 1990s, and 27 months straight of UE below 4%, which hasn't happened since the 1960s." Or, "Maybe I've forgotten, but how much did Mexico pay for the 58 miles of border wall built in your 4 years?" Biden might be old---trump isn't any fully cognizant spring chicken himself---but trump has the dubious 'honor' of inheriting 4.8% UE and leaving 6.8%, inheriting a growing economy and leaving a Recession behind, and achieving that disaster by running up $8,400,000,000,000 in new National Debt, a 41% increase over the combined first 44 Presidents. If that is maga-ing, no thanks. It will be fun if trump gets convicted of a felony in NY, since that means he is unable to vote, as is the rule in DeSantis' Florida. Biden can make a good joke of that.

If there aren't any questions about Hannibal Lecter or fighting uphill at Gettysburg, trump might be stumped. Oh, and windmills causing cancer and injecting Lysol to cure Covid....gotta give him a chance to show his, you know, really stable genius ability. If those topics are not discussed, the only thing left for trump will be to claim he has 'the best Healthcare plan ever', how he could end the war in Ukraine in an afternoon, how Mexico is going to pay for the wall he failed to build his only term, and how next week is Infrastructure Week. He would be well advised to stay away from the fake 'misremberances' he had in the recent TIME interview, as virtually every single point he made was false. The moderator might have this article at hand: Trump’s bombardment of dishonesty: Fact-checking 32 of his false claims to Time | CNN Politics Odds also favor trump trying to show off by saying "Man Woman Person Camera TV", as if he's the sole person on the planet Earth capable of such feats of cerebral magic. Wow, did the testers hoodwink him into thinking that was something special! I will call 'bias' myself if on CNN the debate is sponsored by trump's Depends adult diapers. That would be---to use a trumpian social media favorite---UNFAIR!

My understanding is that they've brought Hugo Chavez out of his crypt again to write code for Italian satellites which will beam the answers into Biden's ear piece. I mean, if old dead Hugo could write the code to alter Dominion voting machines, as trump's lawayer Sidney Powell claimed (albeit not in court), beaming answers is a piece of cake.

Interesting topic. I appreciate that there are some foreigners who can live like that and enjoy it. I am not one of them. I’ve gone out into rural Thailand to visit people, and after seeing the life they lead, and with which they seem either comfortable or resigned, I know full well it’s not for me. Nothing interesting to do, and no one interesting with whom to speak, even if they are generally nice people. Days seem to be spent with a little yard or field work, fresh-market shopping and meal preparation, gossip, and then in the evening getting drunk on cheap rotgut (unless the visiting farang buys some beer at the closest 7-11 or Big C…..which might be ten miles away). If they have a TV, it is constantly “on” and no matter how banal the content, it draws eyeballs and discussion much of the time. The occasional temple visit reminds me that faith at the retail level is a far cry from what Western converts pretend it to be. It’s just another flavor of Southern Baptist or televangelism…..those who supposedly ‘know’ exploiting the wishes and dreams of those who hope some unknown future offers them more than their present. And then tomorrow comes, which is exactly like yesterday, as well as a glimpse into tomorrow. Festivals break the monotony, but it seems just another excuse to get drunk. (The corollary in BKK is the expats who hit Happy Hour at 11am and finish when they fall off the stool, or are beside themselves on Buddha Days.) I doubt I could live rural in my own country, either, though it’s a fair bit more convenient than what rural Thailand offers. I do live rural occasionally, as I own a country place in the EU, but even with that I can only do a few weeks at a time…and it helps that the air is pristine and the climate moderate. There are also other nearby places like mine which are hundreds, if not a thousand years old, and I enjoy studying the architecture and pondering the construction techniques involved in felling hundred foot oaks and chiseling giant stones, hoisted into their final resting place by pulleys and counterweights and brute strength by those who long turned to dust. In rural Thailand, the climate re-consumes everything after a decade or two, and the construction is not particularly interesting anyway, so when it falls apart little of value is lost. There isn’t much to ponder when looking at corrugated metal or yards and yards of cement over rebars. The electricity also tends to be sketchy to the point of dangerous. Maybe because I’ve had the pleasure of living in many diverse countries and cultures, I accept that I need variety and welcome regular change. For those who want continuity and absolute predictability, I suppose rural Thailand fits the bill. More power to them. There's something for everyone.

Getting some Incel vibes from that ^ post. A bit of misogyny, too. If a 20s - 30s guy cannot get a date, it isn't women's fault, it isn't Boomers' fault, and it isn't "Chad's" fault. That leaves only one person who is responsible. The NYU Biz School professor Scott Galloway devotes a lot of comment to the sort of failure you mention. He admits the most dangerous person on Earth is a horny and lonely male. He attributes the rise of autocrats and autocrat wannabes to their ability to appeal to young men who have failed. He also says those guys never grew up, never developed any game, and didn't try hard enough to better themselves. Instead, they own their victimhood and grab any excuse they can, which their cult leaders are happy to provide. As women have been given the chance for greater opportunity, they have embraced it with both hands. They are now more likely to have a college degree than their male peers, Within 5 years women will be 60% of college graduates. Commensurate with that is higher earning power. If guys can't keep up, it's their own fault. Too many young guys today play video games, watch porn, watch MMA, moan on Reddit, and have the personality of a turnip. It's no wonder young women don't want them. Get in shape, get educated, earn some money, take on some interests outside of gaming and porn, develop a personality, and the world is your oyster, social media be damned. Nobody is entitled to anything. Success in any aspect of life has to be earned. Darwin rules.

Some people have called trump's cult "trailer park trash" I guess if it fits.... Here's a photo from the aftermath of trump's Hannibal Lecter Lecture the other day in NJ. Considering how their messiah left America after his term (6.8% unemployment, a Recession, and a 41% increase in the total 240 year National Debt, amounting to $8,400,000,000,000), the image is fitting.

Many different media sites have the trial proceedings in great detail, listing each piece of evidence entered plus transcripts of all testimony. Rather than list fifty odds pages here, perhaps you might take it upon yourself to go look. It's all readily available online. I suspect the defense will try to disparage Cohen as an ex-con and a proven liar. I don't think that will work, firstly, because he is an ex-con as a result of doing what trump told him to do, and secondly because there is plenty of precedence of a mob insider---someone who has committed crimes---of being taken seriously by juries when on the stand and under oath. Sammy "The Bull" Gravano was the right hand man of John Gotti as well as a "made man" in an organized crime syndicate, but his testimony that Gotti ordered the killing of Big Paul Castellano outside Spark's Steak House was believed by the jury and led to Gotti's conviction. Cohen remains on probation, so if he was found to have committed perjury, he would be returned to jail for the remainder of his original sentence. Defense is going to have to try to make Cohen not believable, because no way will defense allow trump to take the stand. I would not be surprised if in their closing arguments, the prosecution brings up Sammy The Bull. Cohen's testimony today laid bare that trump's concern was the election and how it would impact female voters. Cohen said trump told him to try to delay payment if possible, because if trump won, it wouldn't matter anymore (so no need to pay) and if trump lost, he wouldn't care if it came out. That kind of says trump didn't care if it would hurt his 3rd wife. When word came that the Stormy tale was about to come out days before the election, trump told Cohen (about the payment to Stormy), "Just do it". Hope Hicks has already testified that trump told her he was worried word of the Stormy thing would hurt the campaign, and Hope Hicks is not, unlike Cohen, an ex-con. Cohen yesterday corroborated what Hicks testified.

I was unaware there were still chemtrail wingnuts out there. I guess when the atmospheric conditions are right, and winds at elevation are strong, the checkerboard patterns produced by proximal airports using perpendicular runways bring them out again. I mean, what else could they be except a secret chemical to control the masses, with only the Globalist Elites having the antidote? Tie those in with Bill Gates vaccine microchips, and everyone is a sheeple, save for those who did their "research". LOL I know there are still Truthers out there (9-11) and a few believers in Crisis Actors (anything the Performance Artist Alex Jones spouts is bound to gather the moonbats), but he has gone fallow since his courtroom loss. He no longer stands outside Bilderberg conferences claiming the dinner menu is babies roasted in gold leaf. Jade Helm and FEMA camps have faded away, along with 33rd Degree Freemasons, the Rothschilds, and 10 foot shape-shifting lizard people from the rogue planet Nibiru. Nor does Skull & Bones, Bohemian Grove, the Trilateral Commission, or the Council on Foreign Relations run the world. Davos is now widely accepted to be little more than a place guys go to show off the new interiors of their Gulfstreams. False Flags, for their part, are more likely to be associated with a Chinese textile manufacturer suffering poor quality control. Picking up some of his slack, however, is Tucker Carlson, who now claims UFOs are actually craft full of Satanic demons who usually stay at deep ocean levels, and with whom governments have made a deal to largely leave populations alone. All of this supposed inter governmental cooperation always amused me. The US hated Saddam and Qadaffi, and still hates Putin, but all agree to keep chemtrails and intergalactic aliens a secret from their respective populations.

What are you rambling about? Your spelling (transliteration) is itself not correct. There are two ways to state that phrase. One just uses two words, their deity's name and the superlative of the word kabeer, which means good. In Arabic, an alef (ah sound) is put in front of the three consonant root to form the superlative, so the k b r becomes Akbar, so (deity) is greatest The second way that phrase is used is putting the pronoun 'he' between the deity and the superlative. The pronoun 'he' in Arabic is pronounced hoo wah. Thus...(deity) he is greatest In less formal written Arabic, there are no short vowels shown, only long vowels such as the Ah sound alef, the oo sound letter waw and the ee sound letter yeh. Bottom line, you are no more correct than the poster @RayC you attacked. If you speak Putonghua, you must be aware that transliteration is tricky, especially when a language contains sounds unknown to English. (This has been a public service announcement. We now return this station to its regularly scheduled rant.)

Yes. And also Wilson. Your point is what? The agency also had Aldrich Ames, Edward Lee Howard, Jim Nicholson, and others who broke the law. The Bureau had Robert Hansson and others. None equates to agency or bureau policy. Now a question or two for you.... Why did a country club owner and wedding planner need TS, SCI, SAP, SITK, Codeword, HCS and RD documents at his country club? That recklessness and theft represents infinitely more national security threats than all the names noted above combined. Are you aware anyone willing to put down $200K can join donny's club and would have had access to all of those documents? Do you know what the MSS is, and that an MSS case officer joined donny's club? She didn't join for the food, that's for sure. Any idea what sort of damage control the entire intel community had to do to determine what might have been compromised by trump's theft? Do you know what the term "exfil" means? Do you know what happened when donny showed off to FM Lavrov and Amb Kislyak in the Oval Office by sharing intel Mossad had given the US under the promise that it not be shared? Do you have any clue what such cavalier and reckless behavior does to other liaison relationships and even to foreign clandestine sources (who pay attention to the news)? I doubt you care and nothing trump could do would take away one iota of the worship you have of him, but the clown cost the country a lot---and not only the $175,000,000 the OMB and CBO estimated was spent by the US Taxpayer so trump could golf.

You might want to go read the SSCI report on the Russia investigation. The Repubs were the majority when they released it, and I don't think you could call them "leftists". They noted the travel to Spain of Paul Manafort his first week in the job of trump's Campaign Manager, where Manafort gave GRU asset Konstantin Kilimnik internal polling data from the trump campaign. Kilimnik then passed it to the GRU's Internet Research Agency, where they made up stories about such things as Uranium One and got them in the Facebook feed of voters in key swing States. That kind of smells like cooperation. The SSCI Report also noted the relationship between Roger Stone and Julian Assange, who had received emails hacked by a Romanian FSB asset from John Podesta and the DNC. Stone gave trump regular heads up on when new emails were going to be released. That, too, kind of smells like cooperation. Oh, and 140 contacts during the campaign between Russians and trump campaign officials, including donny, jrs "I love it!" meeting with a Russian asset in trump tower. Maybe the CIA gave the Repubs on SSCI special "leftist vaccines"? LOL Lucky for trump he had Barr as his AG. The good news is trump lost in 2020, the trump Recession and trump's 6.8% unemployment ended under Biden, and we've now seen 27 straight months of UE below 4%, the first time that has happened since the 1960s (You can go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a part of the Dept of Labor, to get the numbers if you so choose.)

You are such a funny little guy! What termination? Is that a fantasy that makes you feel better? Have at it, if it helps take away the pain of being who you are. Let's get on topic again here....trump in general and the trial in particular.... Not sure whether you think trump had a tryst with Stormy, but you do know it doesn't even matter, because he isn't on trial for getting spanked or cheating on his 3rd wife. He's on trial for the hush money payment and how he accounted for it. Why did he have to do a 'catch and kill', when Hillary faced the GRU lie of Uranium One plus her supposed deathbed-level health scare, yet she didn't feel the need to do a catch and kill? I guess he knew it would hurt his election chances. Elsewhere, why did he steal thousands of classified documents? Do you think he can "declassify with his mind"? Would you be in favor of publishing every document he stole, even sending full tomes of all the docs to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-un, the mullahs in Iran, and any other hostile nation? Why did he lie about returning them and have his lawyer sign a release attesting to that, when he still had highly classified docs at his country club, requiring the FBI to do a search and seizure? Why did he call his goobers to DC on 6 January and Tweet "It'll be WILD!"? Why did he tell them to "march to the Capitol" and "fight like hell"? Why did he lie and say Pelosi could have called for the Guard, when only POTUS can do that? Why did he lie and say he ordered the Guard to the Capitol, when the head of the DC Guard testified in Congress two weeks ago that trump did not order any Guard to go anywhere? If you prefer not to deal in facts and reality, then go ahead and call me a clerk or typist or whatever makes you feel better about yourself. Pretend I was "terminated", too. Your fantasies do me no harm, so knock yourself silly. Escape from yourself for a while.

Ah, I see you, too, have no clue what the agency does, probably gaining your 'knowledge' from Hollywood B-Fare. The agency is part of the Executive Branch. It gets tasked by the President to perform some tasks, while also regularly collecting and analyzing intelligence. If a President or Congressperson asks for some intel, the agency goes out looking for it. Some Presidents value what it produces, others (like trump) only want to be told what they already believe and want to hear. Covert action is ALWAYS at the request of the President. Generally, the agency is asked for options, and provides those to the Oval Office. The President then decides and issues a Finding, under which the agency will undertake the operation. There are no "rogue" operations. If a major covert action is undertaken, it is because the President has requested and approved it. The agency also tends to protect the President's public image. For example, the agency did not believe Saddam still had WMD, but Cheney was hellbent on an invasion. He got Tenet to go along, even though at the analytical level WMD was not believed to exist. The Neocons overruled. The disaster followed. The same thing happened in Afghanistan after 9-11. The agency argued the US should take out the al Qaeda bases, but not bother to try to bring the country into the 21st Century, arguing it would be a forever war. Bush didn't want to hear that and he set the stage for the wasted next two decades. The agency does not get everything right, but more often than not, it does. It also kind of encourages two polar opposite views...that it is nearly omnipotent and that it is quite incompetent. Both have value. The nature of intelligence work relegates the reality to somewhere between those two extremes. Mods: I appreciate this is off topic, but there is so much misinformation and misunderstanding that---since those folks have posted comments---I am addressing them.