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GON, have you been following Trump's performance recently? The average American, traditional or otherwise, wants him gone because he's making such a mess of everything. He's sinking the ship, not righting it. He was a failure as a businessman and he's proving to be a failure as a president. He's lost his war in Iran and is struggling to get out of it. He's just celebrated 250 years of American democracy by staging a cage fight at the White House. In a way, it seems quite appropriate given the way he's managed to fracture the country. The only thing he's really good at is lying and getting rich through corruption, although to be fair, the average American doesn't much like the Democrats either.

Same here. I like wine but decided at the start of the year that I'd stop buying it unless it was a special occasion. As I'm mostly by myself in the house it's not a good habit to get into. The second glass is always a bit bigger than the first. Anyway, I haven't missed it at all and the recycling bin is a lot less noisy when I put it out these days, so that's a positive.

It's better that Trump's corruption is out in the open for everyone to see, but only if it means they wake up to what's going on and get rid of him instead of just accepting it and letting him carry on. I don't think he's going to make another two and a half years anyway, given the shape he's in mentally and physically.

It’s not just the $50b although to be fair we don’t know whether those contracts would have been let anyway or who might have got them had no donations been involved, but it’s also about litigation that has been quietly dropped and regulations that have been amended to their advantage.

The Trump administration is removing about 900 ocean monitoring buoys from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans ahead of one of the most severe el Nino seasons on record. The buoys measure changes in the oceans to monitor global climate conditions. In Trump’s world, if you don’t measure a problem, there is no problem.

I’m sure that’s true. It’s the same here. Most people live their lives day to day without necessarily paying much attention to politics or the state of the world in general. However, the fact is that everyone is affected by the economy, the judicial and health systems, global supply chain disruptions, taxes, and the quality of the nation’s leadership. It’s the ordinary people who suffer the most when those systems don’t work for them and there’s a lot of that going on in the US these days. The wealthy are doing fine. Trump’s manipulated stock portfolio is looking pretty healthy, he can afford his increasingly frequent medical checkups, enjoy his special tax relief status and not worry about the cost of jet fuel for his weekly golf outings. Most Americans are just trying to make ends meet and get through another day.

I think it's already too late. Most of the damage is now baked into the system and the worlds psyche, and it will only get worse before Trump and his enablers get thrown out. Well, they're getting royally shafted now. There is transparency alright. The incompetence and corruption is out in the open for all to see and on a scale they will probably never see again. If they feel that's a win, then they can well admit that it's a sad state of affairs.

He’s got around that by appointing the guy as Acting Director. He can hold that position for something like 210 days before they need to do something about it. Plenty of time to get up to mischief on Trump’s behalf.

Even though he withdrew his lawsuit it looks as though the judge is going to reopen the case to investigate whether he was perpetrating a fraud on the court by effectively suing himself.

He's decided to drop his slush fund attempt but he still wants immunity from the IRS against any investigations into his taxes, including his children and businesses.

Well he couldn’t stand the thought of appointing someone better than he is.

It's astonishing how many of those who support him still can't see what he's doing to their country and the world. I can understand that people may be on side with his policies, such as they are since he doesn't seem to have any idea of what his job is supposed to be, but how they can accept his corruption, lying, incompetence, racism, bullying and general nastiness is beyond me. I think a lot of his supporters don't follow politics and don't know much about what's going on in general.

He’s also said he doesn’t care whether Iran makes a deal or not.

Same here. We had quite a bit of rain and some very heavy downpours and high winds, but could have been worse. I'm not far from Mundaring and our area had a pretty widespread power blackout overnight but it was restored again by midday. We've had a lot more damage in the past.

Yes, that led to the much more widespread use of stainless steel brick ties in coastal areas. This is a map of the earthquake hazard areas in Australia. The closer contours highlight the more earthquake prone areas. By and large Australia is a pretty stable landmass compared to many overseas places, but we still have a number of significant hot spots.