What will Mueller discover?
I'm clueless. What would motivate Trump to try to squash Comey's investigation? Apparently Trump thinks he committed some offense, but what? Did the Russians try to blackmail him? Did Trump sell the presidency in some way? Or is he innocent and just... cognitively challenged?
What do you think is going on?
What do you think is going on?
Comments (1016)
If he has high crimes and misdemeanors to hide (acts which he had to have committed very early in the game) it was because he was too arrogant to listen to institutional advisors about what a president can and can not do. As an independent business operator, he could make contacts with whoever he wanted -- like Vlad the Schemer, for instance. As an elected official, (and the top one at that) he no longer had so much freedom of action.
Because he had opted to use family members (like his son-in-law Kushner) it would appear he might have thought he could still operating the family racket, just make the racket bigger.
Trump's ignorance and utter lack of judgement is the reason of all this. I think the Steele dossier puts it as it is, that basically Trump is a willing "agent" here, not somebody that is somehow that was blackmailed.
And this is because the businessman who had his enterprises go bankrupt and was saved by Russian money simply likely thought that it would be a win-win scenario if he would get some assistance from the Russians during the election and would have the sanctions lifted in response. That the FBI has as it's mission objective to deny foreign intelligence services such operations simply didn't come to Trump's ignorant mind at the time. His open remarks to Russia to hack Hillary and the overall cavalier way Trump handled this issue in 2016 is in my view a proof of this.
Now it's been coming out how active the Trump administration was to do away with the sanctions, but in it's ineptness couldn't get anything done. And once when Flynn was fired, that all changed. That they denied having any meetings with Russians and now we are with some 20 meetings or so being shown tells were this is going. I believe that this is the most corrupt and incompetent administration this far in the history of the US, when it comes to the President and the his closest circle.
So what will Mueller find? Well, as he's already investigating Paul Manafort, I assume that the investigation will be thorough. And likely in the end Trump will resign.
Or then as a distraction, Trump goes to war with North Korea.
Trump will cling on to what is most important to him: his base. Breaking from the Paris accord was a thing to please the base. And when the time comes for an impeachment, he will likely resign and accuse that he has been a victim of an evil conspiracy perpetrated by the intelligence community and the evil elite ruling Washington. And his supporters will believe this. Trump for them will be a martyr as they can cocoon themselves in their own echo chambers in the social media and just create an alternative reality for themselves where the Russia-thing was fake.
I don't see America getting any better, unfortunately.
I'd say that the GOP are just as guilty. With all the gerrymandering and voter suppression they're actively trying to destroy any semblance of a legitimate democracy. And they seem to be doing whatever they can to avoid holding Trump (and other Republicans) accountable for their misdeeds.
No argument from me. I think it's disgraceful that more principled Republicans aren't standing up. I'm not American, but I admire McCain as a principled Republican. The rest are just 'whatever wins, and bugger the principles'.
McCain is all talk. He speaks out against things like the nuclear option but then always toes the party line when it comes to action.
It's time, again, to quote the Wikipedia definition of 'demagogue' in case anyone has forgotten it.
Trump is an obvious demagogue, but of course, that word has too many syllables for 'the base' to comprehend.
I think there must be an offense at the heart of it. Maybe it's as (relatively innocuous as) accepting Russian money to bail him out at a vital moment.
I started off a bit sceptical about the anti-Trumpism a lot of people were proclaiming. What was so great about Hilary Clinton? I thought. I thought, an old socialist like me has seen Reagan and George W Bush come and go and still the USA has been largely a source of stability in a relatively peaceful and prosperous Western world. I dissented, from Vietnam to Iraq, but I still had that underlying pro-American feeling.
Now however it begins to look as if the USA has seriously abdicated. China and the EU under Merkel may be deciding they can steer the ship. Can there really be 3 1/2 years of US political paralysis ahead of us? Or isolationism which even the old poodle Great Britain can't say Woof to?
We all know that conservativism is about free markets and deregulation. But, here comes along green energy, which is the fastest growing sector in the economy and soon to be the largest sector for the matter, and conservatives lose their shit and scream 'hoax', 'left-wing agenda', and such other nonsense.
These people have their heads up their asses and no amount of screaming will get to them, and what's worst, even hard economics isn't having any sway on the matter. I say fuck'em. Hope they die out soon enough.
Britain and France abdicated world leadership after WW2. Maybe it's just time for the US to retire into obscurity?
Oh yeah, and Britain and France gave up power peacefully... because that's just what you do when you hold the reigns of power, you freely give them away without a fight... :s
Yes there is. The percentage is that you set the terms, and just like the casino, when you set the terms, you generally win.
No, you aren't 19 trillion in debt. You stole 19 trillion - everyone knows you'll never pay it back.
One of the best books about that whole scene from an American perspective is The Fifty Year Wound by Derek Leibert.
Quoting Mongrel
Did I say something different? :s
By saying "No"? >:O You're quite a peculiar character :P
This is a tad hyperbolic and ignores the fact that Democrats attempt to do the same thing. And I don't want to see a "legitimate democracy" if by that you mean a pure, direct democracy. The US was never intended to be that.
140 million voters for national office, millions for senators and reps, hundreds of thousands for state officials, etc. means that direct democracy is out of the question. I agree it is probably undesirable.
California has passed some good law by Initiative and Referendum (thousands of propositions have been put before the electorate) but they have also passed some counter-productive legislation. Property taxes were lowered and the rate of increase given a very low ceiling by the 1978 Proposition 8. The resulting drop in revenue, and the inability to increase taxes at the local level (which is where education funds mostly come from) has caused serious harm to California's cultural infrastructure.
Everybody does it, but it's well known that the GOP has turned gerrymandering into a way of life. It's easy to find sources: here's one.
As for voter suppression, if memory serves turnout was higher this election in every state in the South except one: North Carolina. Want to guess what the Republican legislature has been up to in North Carolina? There was even a memo from NC GOP bragging about how low black turnout was. Real commitment to democracy there.
This is as old as the hills. It's not going away pretty much ever. To the extent that both parties do it, there is some modicum of balance, but that's the best one can hope for. The sooner one stops expecting politicians to be saints, the better.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't know the details, but I know a lot of the criticism of voter ID laws amounts to the soft bigotry of low expectations, e.g. "the black folk can't be expected to have driver's licences," etc.
I'm not saying that they don't. I'm saying that the Republicans do, and so that they're not just guilty of turning a blind eye to Trump "destroying the republic in full view of everyone" (as Wayfarer puts it).
No, I mean that every citizen has a reasonable opportunity to vote. So none of the suppression tactics that are designed to practically disenfranchise certain groups of people.
Yes, but you're neglecting to mention the fact that Wayfarer is a pink-cloud flying 60s liberal spirituality guy. That's expected from him.
But in all seriousness now, I don't think Trump is "destroying the republic" - he's just taking things on a completely different path compared to Obama. The break between Bush and Obama was big, but it's not as big as the break between Trump and Obama. That - combined with the fact that Trump has utterly humiliated the media - encourages a one-sided portrayal of his Presidency.
Quoting Michael
Why not? Politics is a battle, which requires wits and intelligence to win. Yes, underhanded tactics can always exist, and as a political opponent you should be aware of them, even if you don't use them yourself. So failure to be aware of them and finding a way to counter them is YOUR failure.
You might be OK with a one-party authoritarian state, but most of us would prefer a legitimate democracy.
Quoting Agustino
What alternative reality are you living in? He's only humiliating himself.
Politics is politics. The players of politics (that doesn't mean you the citizen) know this. Democracy, or oligarchy or dictatorship - they don't care. Just the means they have to employ to stay in power changes. For them, it's all the same, regardless of political system. That's one of the disadvantages of politics - it's all about power, even if the masks change. And that is true even if you're fighting for a good cause like Ghandi - Ghandi also had to be wise as a serpent and outmanoeuvre the British.
Quoting Michael
He did humiliate them DURING the elections - even merely by winning and then rubbing it in their faces.
This coming from someone who complains so much about the supposed injustice of the moderation here. You really do have inconsistent principles.
Or is it that you have no principles and will just say and do whatever best pushes your agenda? 'Cause that would make responding to your complaints so much easier.
Right, and since when is an internet forum the equivalent of politics? :s We're not here to battle out for political victory, so I don't understand at all why you're even making that reference. Do you consider the forum to be a political arena? And by the way Real Politik has little to do with principles. Ghandi had principles - he still had to be sly as a serpent though.
Anyway, this ad hominem does you well - saves you from addressing any of my points.
We're talking about justice, and how the Republicans are engaging in unjust political activity. You don't seem to care. And yet you do care about perceived injustice on this forum. This seems like inconsistent principles on your part.
So is justice important to you? Is it only important when it favours your agenda? Is it only important when it comes to discussing philosophy over the internet?
Yes, because they're doing politics. I don't expect them to play fair to begin with. That's how politics is. If I have an opponent in politics, I wouldn't expect him to play fair - you have to be ready for everything.
So what I'm talking about isn't whether what they're doing is good or not. I'm talking about your silly expectation that they would be just. That's the bigger problem.
Quoting Michael
No it's not. I am concerned about injustice in those places where I can make a difference. If I was a political actor in America, I might be concerned about the injustice there too, because I could do something about it. But what's the point about being concerned about something you can't do anything about? You're not a political actor. Let political actors sort it out themselves, and don't have expectations of them. If you don't want to do that, then join politics and make a difference. But don't sit on the sidelines crying about X or Y. That's useless.
Quoting Michael
To me personally, yes. But I don't expect this to hold true for others by necessity.
I'm not saying that they would be just. I'm saying that they're not, and that this is a bad thing.
What's the point? Jesus, are you just not human? People care about terrible things that happen in the world even if there's nothing they can do to stop them.
How do you respond to the recent terror attacks? With a "meh, it happened; but I can't turn back time, so it's useless to dwell"? That's pretty sociopathic.
Then you should condemn the Republican party for their gerrymandering and voter suppression attempts, because they're being unjust. Instead you seem to be trying to excuse them.
Why? So that I give them the joy of laughing in my face?
Quoting Michael
Yeah, so what? It's a terrible thing. So? Is that gonna change it?
Quoting Michael
I care about terrible things that I can do something about. If I can't do something about it then the energy I spend caring about it is wasted energy. It ain't going to change whatever happened. It's just going to fill my soul with negativity and put me down.
Quoting Michael
I'd say:
(1) No point crying about spilt milk.
(2) Need to be careful in public spaces which are potential terrorist targets.
(3) Tragedy can hit at any moment.
(4) If I was in politics (or I ever get elected), I'd do something about it.
(5) Do I know any of the victims, and is there anything I can do for them?
So you'd rather be like one of those little girls crying about injustices around the world while sitting in their comfortable homes and doing nothing right? That's being a nice person right? Just sit back and say the right words, that will certainly fix the world up. Yeah that's certainly the way of fighting injustice. Condemning the Republicans... they must be rolling on the floor with laughter.
The world doesn't care about cries. The world only changes with actions. You or me or anyone can cry as much as we want about all injustices. The world itself is silent. And God only helps those who dare take action.
I don't see any proposals for action in this thread. All I see is crying about this and that.
Politics is about power, not truth seeking, and the Dems are no holier than anyone else.
This thread is interesting (and I'm not being sarcastic) to the extent that I get to hear how the choir talks among itself after a sermon.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2252532-despite-allegations-no-evidence-of-trump-russia-collusion-found/
Trump or Trump's campaign?
Nobody was saying that condemnation without action achieves anything. My point is that he's showing inconsistent principles by arguing against perceived injustice here but responding to political injustice by simply saying that that's how the game is played.
And also that it's sociopathic to not care about things just because you can't change them.
How come I supported Trump's election then? I'm a conservative, and everyone knows that.
Quoting Michael
I'm responding to the injustice here because there's something I can do about it, and it's certainly not expected of an online forum to turn political.
Quoting Michael
No, I'm pretty sure that's not what sociopathic means.
I'm not violating anyone's rights by not caring about things I can't do nothing about.
I'm actually interested in how you came to this conclusion, but since you've turned radioactive again... nevermind.
I think this is a false dichotomy. The choice is not between manning the barricades and being a whiny little girl.
One of the main things citizens do is talk to each other. If your government does something you disagree with, it is important to talk about it. That doesn't have to be some big public display. You talk to your family and friends, just like you talk about anything else you care about. There will likely be plenty of other people talking to their family and friends. Over time, public opinion shifts, and that matters.
It is important to keep ideas circulating, to keep talking. If you don't, the idea will be gone. One way you help keep a democracy alive is by being informed and keeping the level of discourse from falling. Some people will engage in more directly political activity, and they have to come from somewhere. You want them to come from an environment of careful thought, healthy debate and respect for the truth. If you were a dictator, you'd worry more about that than about the little armed rebellion your massive security forces easily put down. But imagine that out there, beyond the palace, they're all talking, it's impossible to stop, some of your own staff are probably talking.
Talk is important. Do it often; do it well.
Not true. If I were a dictator I'd worry most about those close to me betraying me, or organising rival factions. They control the power, not the public. The public can be used BY THEM to overthrow me. The public is always a political tool, never an actor. The public always requires someone to be led by. So someone from my entourage can use the public's lack of satisfaction with me to overthrow me, but it will always be someone who has control of state apparatus, whether it is secret services or military. They can quickly move the public to act, backed up by part of the state.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Talk changes nothing. It may even be good for smart dictators. Let the dogs bark is one of the most effective way of appeasing public unrest, provided that the public isn't too intelligent to catch on. Just ask Michael, he likes applying the tactic ;)
Apparently, you're being sarcastic here, but about what I have no idea.
Quoting Michael
To which my retort is, once again, that this is hyperbolic fear-mongering. If both sides do it, but you choose to make lunatic statements like the above when only one side does it, then I can't take you seriously.
Quoting Michael
You'd have to be more specific, of course, but no reasonable person would disagree with this as stated.
Beats me. I never understand why you come out all guns blazing for Putin, either. That's why I've decided to 'never discuss politics with Agustino'. Works out a lot better.
Maybe you should? Just sayin'.
Yeah, in a lot of cases active opposition isn't required, we just need to reduce support for bad policies or bad actors and talking sense to people is the most effective way of achieving that.
The reason dictators suppress talk is because that's how revolutions get started. Sometimes active resistance is necesary, but the only way a resistance gains support is through talk. Are you aware of any smart dictators who allow free speech?
Possibly that he did nothing and he found it offensive that he was being investigated.
Citation please. Wouldn't want to add to the fake news that's already in circulation.
Quoting Mongrel
Just to recap, if you haven't been following, there is evidence of (1) some co-operation or contact of some kind, between 'persons involved in Trumps' campaign (a very motley crew) and at least some Russian operatives. Also (2) almost incontestable evidence that some Russian hackers penetrated confidential American systems, leaked information, like the Podesta emails, through Wikileaks, and also planted false stories to influence the outcome.
Why would Putin want Trump to win? Because he could see what a useless outcome it would be, that Trump was completely incapable, and would weaken the USA. And he hated and feared Clinton. Trump, he could work with, not because he *likes* him - as if 'liking someone' could come into Putin's calculations! - but because a Trump win would be bad for the US. Which it patently and obviously has been, and will continue to be.
I think you misunderstood the intention of my post. It's just more leaked stuff; unconfirmed, but probably true (most of the leaked stuff has been true, I think.)
My view is, I don't think Trump personally colluded with anyone from Russia, but that people in the Trump campaign machine might well have. But we will have to see. Mueller is, I'm sure, an incorruptible and dogged investigator, and his hiring was an unintended consequence of the Comey sacking. But Trump, aided and abetted by a craven GOP, has proven himself a bald-faced liar, and will continue to brazen it out.
You will find that any evidence there is doesn't pass even basic scrutiny. The sources are either DNC itself or consultants and firms hired by the DNC.
Neither the NSA, CIA or FBI has supplied any of its own evidence to support the Russia claim. Given how long this has now been going on and the fact that the NSA records pretty much everything - it appears an almost stone cold fact that there is no collusion between Trump and the Russians.
This doesn't make Trump any less an embarrassing ogre - but it does prove that the Democrats and the MSM have abandoned any connection to reality when it comes to Trump. The daily salivating outrage and crisis reporting by CNN, WAPO and the NYT on all matters is insane.
So much so, that the MSM out trumps Trump.
You know this how?
There are credible reports of Russian hackers leaking DNC emails, and demonstrated links between Paul Manafort and Russian money.
What has been shown already is worse than what everyone was howling 'Lock her up' about in regard to Clinton.
But I think the crucial point is that Donald Trump doesn't understand any of this. I'm sure he has a very vague idea of 'the Russia thing' and believes - falsely - that he himself has been accused of colluding with Russia. That's why he said he'd been 'vindicated' by Comey - it was because Comey said that Trump himself wasn't a target of the investigation. But - he never had been! I don't think the story was ever about that at all. It was about the possibility of some skullduggery involving some of the shady Alt Right types riding the Trump bandwagon, with some nefarious Russian activity, during the campaign (which Trump then exacerbated by making all these fawning statements about how smart Putin was).
But because he doesn't understand it, he's making it much worse for himself. If he really knew there was nothing to be found, then why sack the head of the FBI, and then come out on TV saying it was 'because of the Russia thing'? If you wanted to make people think there was nothing to hide, then this sure would do the opposite. And it makes the sacking much more politically contentious than it might have been.
So now the whole story has taken on a life of it's own. Conspiracy theorists, anti-Trump activists, all his many enemies in the 'fake media' are now piling on board 'the Russia thing' as a kind of anti-Trump juggernaut. And I don't think Trump himself has the foggiest idea of why, other than that it's all bullshit. He's wrong about that - it's not all bullshit. But there's a lot of bullshit, and this time it's coming at him, instead of from him.
So... if it is the case that there is no direct evidence tying Trump to collusion, and yet the investigation is broadening - which it clearly is - then it can only be the case that the investigation has turned up some other compelling evidence of some other sort of punishable offense.
A shout out to another aspect of the balance of power... the free press.
This is what the enquiry into 'the Russia thing' started off looking into, but then the story broke about alleged collusion between various figures involved with the Trump campaign and Russian personnel - that's when it got closer to Trump. But the point remains, I don't think Trump himself really understands what the investigation is about and why it can't be let go.
Seems like the Cold War propaganda has done its job... 40-50 years later >:O
Vlad? You meant Vladimir? >:O
:s no it's not... At least you'd not pronounce it that way. There's no "d" sound in it.
What's the chicken rooster game?
Why not?
And? At least you may have a little bit of fun watching them :P
Indeed Jeep... The Russian investigation began with the intent of investigating any possible Russia interference. And look where it has led...
There are a whole plethora of seemingly disparate facts that all become coherent when tied to Trump and co. Of course, that's not the only possible explanation if it becomes one officially, lest - if there is evidence that leads directly to Trump - the appropriate authorities will be very very thorough in making that case. Trump is nervous and for very very good reason. His personal attorney(who has no security clearance and thus is not allowed to hear classified information) has hired his own personal counsel.
Interesting indeed.
It's almost been hijacked by the frenetic interest around the possibility of using it as the killer blow against the Trump presidency. To that extent, Trump is right in sensing that it's aimed at him, even if he really doesn't understand what it's about. I said to a friend on the weekend, Trump's response to 'the Russia thing' is like a rhino charging a jeep - the rhino doesn't really comprehend what a 'jeep' is but it better get the hell off my territory.....(speaking of jeeps.... :P )
People like to fake being moral when they're not...
If there is no expressed written legal recourse, then the law is absent. As such, the statutes ought be immediately changed as a means of not only remedying the current situation, but also as a means of deterring it in the future.
If it is the case that there is expressed written legal recourse, but it is not being enforced, then those involved in prosecuting such grievances against the American ideal aren't doing their job.
If it is the case that the laws are no longer enforced because in order to enforce them the government would have to admit that they ought to have been being enforced all along, then they would be admitting that no one is/was doing their job.
If it is the case that this offense is being overlooked simply because all of those responsible don't want to admit that no one was doing their job because - after all - they all need to keep their job(they can get rich that way, ya know?), then they ought not have it.
The American system is quite simply the best that money can buy. They're not alone.
1. Russia tampered with the election and affected the outcome.
2. Trump and/or the Trump campaign facilitated that.
Until incidents like idiot Don Jrs I'll-advised meeting with the Russian lawyer connect to those possible occurrences, they should not take precedence over working towards Medicaid-for-all, working against American racist police brutality, ending the war in Syria, and the coverage of those things.
Mueller's investigation and Congress are two different things, so I'm not sure what you mean by talking about one thing taking precedence over another.
:-|
So at the very least I'd guess that Mueller is going to discover some shady money stuff.
Those ideals are long gone my friend - for most people. You think Obama was preserving the ideals the US was founded on? Give me a break...
Was that an argument?
X-)
Trump Jr. has been caught in a bold-faced lie, as has anyone who knew about that meeting prior to it's being disclosed by Manafort. It is worth noting that the evidence already warrants conviction of Manafort for espionage. Thus, he is primed for turning state's evidence.
Most people in politics, including Dubya, Obama, and Hillary, have been caught in bold-faced lies. That doesn't denote treason, which has been thrown out by MSM always attached to the bet-hedging phrases like "seems" or "appears." And you need a trial for espionage, so considering he hasn't even been indicted, saying evidence already warrants his conviction of it is nonsensical. And you assume he has substantial state's evidence to turn. Since it's been 9 months and we've yet to see evidence for that holy-grail of Hillary supporters--evidence of a Russia-hacked election--that evidence could, and probably is, just shady financial dealings....which we all already know Trump has participated in.
Nice post.
What is the big surprise? As of yet, it's not clear the Russians have gotten anything except possibly the lessening of sanctions for actions they haven't even been proven of doing.
To prove this true, or even support it as likely, you have to show what Trump has gotten from the Russians and how he has bent to them. So, far we've seen barely any evidence of either.
Of course it does. It would just show all the Russia paranoia and frenzy whipped up by MSM, Democratic and some Repbulican congressmen, and Hillary supporters is a big load of nothing. Considering no evidence has yet been shown of Trump actually being "Russia's guy," that's probably the case.
You'll have to ask that when and if he actually commits it. Hillary Clinton sold Putin uranium through her Clinton Foundation; nothing happened to her.
And yet there is no evidence that happened because of Russia. But we know for a fact the Hillary campaign worked with their media connections to build up Trump during the Republican primaries because they thought he was the easiest to beat. We also know Hillary was a terrible candidate whose campaign people ran a terrible campaign, completely ignoring the Rust belt states they went on to lose to Trump.
That's why Trump won....not some ephemeral Russia connection.
Is that an argument you're making? I hope not. The Trumps have lied like Obama, the Bushes, and the Clintons lied before them. That doesn't mean they're working for the Russians or helped the Russians "hack" the election.
I never said this. You're reading my posts just terribly.
I never said this stuff. Why are you having such reading difficulties?
You really need to provide a link for this one that supports this claim and explains what it entails.
Can you say that in that rant and ramble you don't provide one piece of evidence showing Trump is owned by Putin or he helped them "hack" the election? Thanks for supporting my arguments.
Actually, it was the Democrats/DNC who ran the most repugnant and repulsive campaign when they rigged the primary against their superior candidate, Bernie Sanders, who both had better policies and a better chance against Trump. In doing so, they defrauded Sanders, his voters, and his donors, and have lost many future Democrats who will never trust the party again.
That is the biggest lie of all. Trump lies continuously, and all of his trolls applaud. That is how this catastrophe of Trump's presidency is sustained. It will end in disaster for everyone.
[b]No, the biggest lie of all is your saying I'm wrong. Obama straight up lied to us about having the NSA unconstitutionally monitor our phones. Bush shamefully lied about WMD's to push his sending 4000 Americans to die in a war where our forces killed over half a million. And the Clintons are pathological liars lying for years about the Clinton Foundation and the money they made off of it, including money from Putin
So, your saying their lies aren't as bad as the Trumps makes you their troll, and their liar. Congratulations.[/b]
But I think it is a dead certainty that (1) Russia did try and influence the election and (2) favoured a Trump victory. Putin can obviously play Trump like a violin, and many of his business cronies thought he would be great for business. The tragedy is, Trump doesn't even comprehend any of this. He has no more understanding of it, than he does of health care legislation, which is zero. His comprehension is about that of a fifth-grader. So it can only ever be about him, he has no concept that Russian interference in the US electoral process might be bad thing, it means nothing to him. Doesn't understand what the fuss is about, except for bad people being out to get him.
Firstly, don't ever talk about propriety when discussing the Trump's or the Clintons. They are both corrupt families with no regard for human lives other than their own. Ask the Hondurans or Libyans who died in the coups Hillary pushed while she was SOS. And she did it in Honduras because the Honduran leader wanted to raise the minimum wage. And what you said about the Trumps is all conjecture. Could they have done what you said they did, sure; is there any evidence showing they did? Hardly any at all.
[b]You can't think something is a dead certainty; that shows it isn't. Try to avoid speaking in inherent contradictions. Whether Russia tried to influence our election isn't the important question. American and Russia have been trying to influence each other's elections, and have actually succeeded in influencing other countries elections, for decades. The only real issue is did they succeed, and did Trump and his campaign help. Again, we have no real evidence. So, people need to relax until we do. This intense focus on Russia has detracted from his war on public education, his continuing the disastrous war in Syria, and other real issues.
And his being a clueless idiot with no morals doesn't make him a traitor. Actual treason would, so people should let the investigation go and stop with the incessant speculating and obsession on possibilities. It has hampered our country considerably.[/b]
A big whack of cash. Follow his sales.
Sorry, there's no evidence of Trump receiving a huge amount of money from the Kremlin for anything, much less for tampering with the election. The Clintons, however, got 30 million from Putin for uranium. Imagine how the Russia conspiracy theorists would have reacted if Trump did that.
You didn't say "the Kremlin", you said "the Russians". And to my understanding, there is a long history of Trump getting cash from Russians.
Well, you haven't shown Trump has taken a huge "whack" of cash from the Russians either. Feel free to provide the link. And there's nothing illegal about taking money from Russians, only in many cases from the Russian government. Taking money from just Russians certainly doesn't show you helped the Kremlin interfere with the election.
Lord knows the Clintons have taken lots of money from the Russians....and the Saudi Arabians....and the Qatarians.
What counts as proof of criminal wrongdoing when it comes to knowingly and intentionally colluding with the Russian government for the expressed written objective of influencing the American election, governmental institutions, and/or American politics in ways that are most favorable to Russia and/or her interests?
:D
I wouldn't know, since I've never defended Trump. So, you better take those shits and giggles back.
This would be a question for a specialist in International and Constitutional Law. However, the evidentiary rule of "beyond a reasonable doubt" would still apply. And evidence of that level hasn't come close to being provided. Of course it would have helped if the cowardly DNC had let the FBI investigate their servers. I wonder what they were afraid of revealing.
You're really obsessed with shits and giggles; you should probably talk to someone about that.
And no evidence has been provided, so there is no evidence for anyone to see or use to make their decision. There certainly is no evidence for any conviction. Considering they've been yapping about this and investigating it for over 8 months now and provided nil, the prospect of evidence doesnt' look good.
Could there be evidence somewhere? Sure. There could be evidence John Podesta, who works for the Russians, arranged this all to frame Trump. But until that evidence is provided, it's pointless and useless.
Perfectly mistaken on several fronts.
Strictly speaking, the claim is not true on it's face, because the public is privy to some testimony, other documents, emails, etc. - all of which may be, and some of which most certainly is being, used as evidence to further the investigation.
That said...
No evidence(in the form of specific Mueller team findings) has been provided to the public. There are legal reasons for that. It does not follow from that that there is no evidence for anyone to see, because Mueller's team are most certainly included in "anyone". So, when some see evidence, it makes no sense to say that there is no evidence for anyone to see. It is equally mistaken to state that "there certainly is no evidence for any conviction", simply because none has been provided to you personally.
Translation=I've seen no evidence, so I cannot decide. I've certainly not seen enough to convince me of guilt.
I'm fine with that.
Thanks for supporting my point since none of this "some testimony, other documents, emails, etc" proves, or even substantially points to, Russia hacking the election or the Trump campaign helping it.
[b]Thanks again for supporting my point that no evidence has been provided by the public. And you have no idea what legal reasons there are for not releasing what they have, just as you don't know what they have or if they have anything at all. The fact you claim you do shows how poor your reasoning has been on this thread. And you really read my post poorly, as I said they could have evidence in my earlier post, just as someone could have evidence that Obama conspired with the banks to not prosecute them for the 08 crash. But what they could have could be nothing and is useless until its provided:
"Could there be evidence somewhere? Sure. There could be evidence John Podesta, who works for the Russians, arranged this all to frame Trump. But until that evidence is provided, it's pointless and useless."[/b]
That is so nonsensical and fallacious, it's sweet. Using that logic, if someone said someone's eating Ice cream was proof of Russian collusion, only those who knew exactly what that is could say it's not.
Try again, and be logical next time.
And yet such unshakable conviction...
:-*
And your first sentence of your last tweet is as nonsensical as your last few posts. Logic has been tough for you, today.
And if you can't show how one post of mine has been a troll post, and we both know you can't, you're definitely trolling me.
I know. Sad thing is that it seems that s/he actually believes what s/he says...
Sand admittedly doesn't know what counts as proving Russian collusion, which means s/he cannot know what kind(s) of evidence would be considered relevant and/or what amount would be sufficient/adequate. And yet, all this certainty about evidence...
You clearly couldn't be logical "next time." Ciao, Creative...you do have my sympathies.
Sigh...
Saying and knowing are two different things. What you've said doesn't follow from what I said... aka non sequitur/strawman. What you said was "using that logic, if someone said someone's eating Ice cream was proof of Russian collusion, only those who knew exactly what that is could say it's not."
What you should've said is... using that logic, if someone said someone's eating ice cream was proof of Russian collusion, only those who knew what counts as proof could know that it's not.
X-)
For example, lets say - for shits and giggles - that the prosecution has a lead regarding a suspect having a meeting. It turns out that someone else attended that meeting, and that that person was already quite familiar to the intelligence community by virtue of investigations from years gone by.
This is all pure conjecture...
:D
He has a story to tell, and he's more than willing to tell it, if he's granted immunity.
Where is Michael Flynn???
8-)
I'm not sad, nor am I complaining. Trump's victory did not surprise me in the least, and I think that it's about time that the inevitable negative results of a long standing history of corruption become undeniable.
Sometimes it takes a Trump to motivate different thinking...
We know - verbatim - the Russian operative objective. We know that as a direct result from past investigations(some decades old) that were not focused upon the Trump campaign. We know that Manafort voluntarily signed a contract in which he promised to make the world match words clearly expressed within the aforementioned Russian operative objective. The matching could be no more precise.
The exact same language expressed the exact same objective on two separate occasions.
When one aims to infiltrate America with the clearly expressed written objective to influence and/or effect the American political system in ways that are the most favorable to Russia and her interests, s/he is a Russian operative.
Paul Manafort is one such person.
Remember the meeting?
Manafort attended.
Remember the change in the republican platform?
Manafort kept his promise. Manafort made the world match his words.
Remember the meeting?
It happened while Manafort was still on the campaign team.
Remember the email?
Damning stuff on Hillary was promised.
Jr. says "I love it". He further called out a time frame... the end of the summer...
Remember the meeting?
Manafort was there.
The end of the summer...
Before then though.
Trump, openly - brazenly - called out to Russia on public airwaves asking them - publicly and [i]unapologetically[i] - to release Hillary's emails if they had 'em...
The end of the summer...
First of all, you need to provide a link proving Manafort "signed a contract in which he promised to make the world match words clearly expressed within the aforementioned Russian operative objective"...because we don't all know that.
Secondly, even if Manafort did agree to do that, that's not proof he actually did so. And nobody had provided proof of that.
Um, that's an obvious tautology. And the Russians and Americans have been trying to influence each other's elections, and have actually influenced countries elections, for years. That itself proves nothing.
No evidence has been given proving that.
What change in the platform? You need to provide a link to that--and proof Manafort changed it--or you're just hypothesizing.
The only damning stuff on Hillary and (mostly) the DNC came from WikiLeaks, not Manafort. And all that stuff was true things Hillary said and the DNC did, as in shamefully rigging the primary for Hillary.
I remember him calling on WikiLeaks to do that, so you need to provide a link for that. And even if he did, that's not collusion.
I do not need to provide a link in order for that to have happened. It did. Your belief isn't necessary.
His actions prove he did so. Your belief isn't necessary.
This followed...
Tautologies are imperative in this case. Being a tautology isn't inherently negative. I'm not defining something to prove my case. To quite the contrary, I'm arguing that a Russian operative named Paul Manafort was hired by the Trump campaign, and the proof of that is how the Russian government defines the objective in addition to having Manafort sign a contract that clearly expresses the exact same objective.
What you're calling a tautology, I'm calling the only acceptable standard by which to reasonably judge what counts as being a Russian operative. If Russian herself determines that standard, then that's the one we use as a means to judge and/or assess whether or not someone is satisfying that objective.
Regarding the bold assertion that Paul Manafort satisfied Russia's own objective and did so after having signed a contract that clearly included standard...
I've not brought forth evidence proving that. Evidence has been provided, just not to you evidently.
I'm lazy. Look it up yourself. It was the only change in that platform. It happened immediately following Trump's official nomination ceremony, perhaps even the same weekend. The media barely noticed. It removed all the talk about supporting(arming) a certain group of rebels who were/are amidst armed conflict with Russia. Crimea maybe? Ukraine? Can't remember, but that specific doesn't matter.
Proof that Manafort changed it? That's too rich. He quit and/or was dismissed immediately after the republican national convention. He was already known to be acting as a Russian operative. Despite posing numerous questions to the campaign and different people within it - about the change - no clear answer was forthcoming.
Who had the motive? Who had already signed a contract clearly expressing that motive? Who had the ability? Who quit after the platform change and meeting?
Whoever changed it satisfied the exact same objective as any and all other Russian operatives we've known about in the past twenty or so years. Manafort had already given his word to do things just like that.
Of course you do, since you're so amazingly biased in all this, nobody has a reason to believe you without one. Thanks for showing you were being mendacious.
You claim his actions prove he did so without providing a shred of evidence backing up your clearly biased canard. Again, you've shown your mendacity.
No, tautologies are pointless and prove nothing; they only repeat the original claim.
Yes, you're arguing it with no evidence whatsoever, and we know how much you want the Russia story to be true. So, again, your outlandish claim has no credibility.
Evidence clearly hasn't been provided since you can't even bring it up to back up your outlandish claim, And your trustworthiness declines with every unsupported way-out claim.
You may be lazy, but you also clearly can't provide a link supporting your outlandish claim about Manafort and the platform. Thanks for showing you can't. You must expect people to believe everything you say...pretty delusional.
No, your outlandish claim Manafort changed it is too rich, and you clearly lied again since you can't provide any proof whatsoever. And you also haven't shown in any way Manafort was a Russian operative...except in your fantasy.
[b]So, now you don't even know who changed it, and you can't even show it was changed. That's really rich. And you've shown no proof Manafort gave his word to do it. Another fantastical imagining.
So, since you have provided no evidence or proof of any of your erroneous claims, it's clear they are only your wondrous fantasies.[/b]
By the way, Hillary has nothing to do with this.
I admire much of what you write here. Just so ya know. You help me to be a better philosopher as well.
All of it is verifiable/falsifiable, and will be in due time...
Mueller is in no hurry.
X-)
But I'll be your devils advocate anyway...:)
Except the accusations came from the Steele Dossier which began to be investigated in June '16, with the FBI paying Steele to continue his work in October.
No, nobody knows the accusations originated from the Steele dossier (which is Christopher Steele' claims, not evidence in itself), especially since the deceitful deep stated is and has been involved, as well as the Clinton campaign and DNC's still questionable claim their servers were hacked. They still haven't let the FBI examine them.
I'm pretty sure it was Mother Jones and BuzzFeed reporting on and publishing the Steele dossier that kicked the whole thing off (publicly, at least).
Regardless, wherever it originated, the accusations preceded the election, and didn't come from Hillary's camp. The Steele dossier is one source, and GCHQ another (in 2015).
And I'm not claiming that the accusations are true. I'm questioning your claim that the accusations came from Hillary's camp in response to losing the election.
Even if Mother Jones wasn't a biased publication, they could have no idea the CIA, FBI, or NSA-- not the Steele dossier--didn't actually kick the whole thing off. I'm surprised you don't get that.
And regardless, whether or not accusations--even from a sketchy guy like Michael Steele--preceded the election, that doesn't mean the enterprise to push the Russia conspiracy theory didn't arise to influence the election and/or cover up for Hillary's awful campaign and embarrassing loss.
I do get that. I even provided an article on GCHQ having alerted the U.S. intelligence agencies of such suspicions in 2015. I was specifically referring to the public accusations (as I explicitly said in that very quote). Besides, I'm not invested in the Steele dossier having been the original source. The point I'm making is that the original source isn't Hillary's post-election camp.
I don't even know what you mean by this. The accusations, investigations, and media reporting preceded the election, coming from sources that weren't Hillary's camp.
I see that you do get that about the "public alert,' and I missed that. However, your belief the GCHQ alert was the beginning still continues the mistake of not leaving open the distinct possibility the Deep State originated this on their own or in collaboration with the DNC/Hillary camp, with or without any evidence supporting it.
I don't even know what you mean by this. You have no idea the accusations weren't coming from Hillary's camp. And what I said was clear; you have no reason to not "know what I meant by it," particularly since I never said the Russia conspiracy theory had to come from Hillary's camp or Hillary's camp alone.
I see you're pushing a "Hillary and the DNC are the Illuminati" conspiracy theory here.
Yes, it's theoretically possible that Hillary suspected in 2015 that she might lose the election to Donald Trump, and tricked the British intelligence services with false evidence of collusion (or coerced them into fabricating it), and was in secret league with Christopher Steele to produce a fanciful report. And that after the election and out of spite she coordinated the wider media and the intelligence agencies into carrying out wide-ranging investigations and propaganda, all under the nose of President Trump and a Republican-controlled House and Senate.
But, of course, that's lunacy. The far simpler explanation is that Hillary and the DNC aren't some masterful schemers able to undermine the government and manipulate the newspapers, and that there are genuine intelligence reports of suspect activity that have nothing to do with Hillary being angry that she isn't the President.
If I were to say "the conspiracy theory came from some NYT article yesterday", and you respond by claiming that it's been discussed for months, and then I counter by saying that I didn't say it came only from that article, then it's clear that I'm arguing in bad faith. Which you seem to be doing here. You said you don't believe in the theory, and that it came from Hillary's camp in response to losing the election. My responses are entirely warranted.
I did no such thing; and the only one pushing conspiracies is you. And since that both strawmanned my argument and personally and erroneously insulted me, I didn't and won't read the rest of your post or your future comments on this thread.
Have a good day.
Hey Sand...
Just for shits and giggles, define "Deep State" for me, wouldja?
Add to this Trump Jr's total and utter lack of surprise given the gravity of what was being offered to him, and... well...
It's only a matter a of time.
That Russia was pushing for Trump was totally clear during campaign, as was the very strange behaviour of Trump toward Putin. The collusion is also obvious, few months ago somebody counted 11 different times the Trump team meeting Russing, but now if after Trump Jr. and Sater e-mails there's no doubt of the collusion. The only one's doubting will never accept any kind of proof. It's all a conspiracy, fake news. They'll believe their alternate Seth Rich universe and believe that there's a widespread conspiracy against Trump.
What is obvious even now that Trump was totally ignorant and clueless of the fact that having help from a country like Russia wouldn't be a same thing if Putin was just your average conservative billionaire supporting the political right. And his Russian handlers likely could treat him so that he didn't have any idea of how deep hole he had dug for himself.
This is beginning to make Watergate look like a petty crime...
Oh, if we had the tapes that were available under Watergate, this whole thing would be over in no time. At least Mueller is doing a tedious job. Just hope Trump doesn't resign before then.
Hah, serves him right!
I find it unacceptable to cheer about the fall of anyone.
That is not to say that the world would not be a better place if lots of folk fell. Rather, it is to know that we all have no real choice in either our own cognitive ability or our first worldview...
Guess he found something. Must be Manafort.
The troubling this is that (a) Trump clearly believes he is above the law and (2) there would be no possible way of ever explaining to him the real issues. He is incapable of grasping the complexities.
If he weren't President - it wouldn't matter.
'Dissimulation
d??s?mj??le??(?)n
noun
1. concealment of one's thoughts, feelings, or character; pretence.
"an attempt at dissimulation"
synonyms: pretence, dissembling, misrepresentation, deceit, dishonesty, duplicity, lying, guile, subterfuge, feigning, falsification, shamming, faking, bluff, bluffing, counterfeiting, posturing, hypocrisy, double-dealing.'
Don’t Wait for Trump for Fire Mueller
Reminds me of the song toy soldiers from Eminem.
Has the cheque from the Trump Foundation arrived on your doorstep?
Alas, I wouldn't have said anything had I not seen Wayfarer being back to his old self, spreading propaganda.
Luckily you would never dream of spreading Trump propaganda. When you do it, it's just telling the truth! ;)
The stock market tends to go up.
Quoting Michael
Right exactly. That's good. People are getting excited about doing business in America again.
Of course, Wall St is going to benefit from deregulation and promised tax breaks. Note that the benefits are going to the rich. As for the second statistic, Obama had 3% quarters too. So what? You have about an overall 2.1% growth rate under Trump so far. Talk about fake news...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-first-9-months-the-economy-and-markets-are-ok-but-not-the-greatest-ever-2017-10-20
Quoting Baden
I never said they were greatest ever, but they are very good, despite the left trying to claim Trump is incapable. And yes, Obama had even 5% quarter.
He is incapable. Investors believing that he'll implement policies that will benefit them isn't the same as being capable.
Regulations protect workers, consumers, and the environment.
It will benefit business, including, yes, investors. What's wrong with that? That's what the President is supposed to do.
Nothing's wrong with that per se. It just doesn't mean that Trump is capable.
Yeah, while crippling my small business which cannot afford to hire 10 Hanovers to find loopholes in the law :-}
Obama had to repair the broken auto. Trump merely stepped in after he got it running. And you're crediting him with what? Not crashing it again in a few months after taking office. OK, well, that's a low bar.
Obama made big business stronger than ever in the US. Never has big business, including big banks, been as loved and protected as under Obama. It's the small entrepreneurs that have been crushed.
Perhaps. There are always going to be people who lose out, whether it's the big business owners, the small business owners, the consumers, the workers, or the environment.
You just have to decide which is more important. I think that preventing (or slowing) global warming, ensuring that workers earn enough to live and are safe in the workplace, and that consumers have quality goods are more important than making it easy for small entrepreneurs to succeed.
And why would you be looking to find loopholes in the law anyway?
The entrepreneurial part of the economy is the absolute most important part (that doesn't include big business). If you cripple the entrepreneurial part of the economy, everyone else will suffer soon.
Quoting Michael
Of course, if you have more money than you know what to do with, you don't have to be looking, the 10 Hanovers will do that by themselves for you.
More people will suffer if the environment isn't protected, if workers aren't protected, and if consumers aren't protected.
The workers ain't gonna make work for themselves will they? The consumers ain't going to produce for themselves no?
I'd say Manafort is the best bet. Flynn, Page, and Stone are possible. Also heard that it could be Tony Podesta, although I think investigations into him only started recently, so it would be surprising if they had something on him already.
No, but so what? Regulations don't stop business. People had work and consumers had goods to buy under Obama.
Perhaps more work and goods would be available if these regulations were to be cut, but I bet the consequences wouldn't be worth it. Low wages, harm to the environment, injured workers, poor quality goods...
Yes, they do stop entrepreneurship. I don't want us to become a world where we all work for a few big huge corporations, and all of us have jobs - so long as we work for them. That's like communism, except that not the state, but a few large companies are doing it.
The charges aren't known yet.
Money laundering was what I expected.
Do you understand the market? That's called instability.
That sounds rather serious.
It's regarding the money stuff. Conspiracy against the Department of Justice and Department of the Treasury.
You can read it all here.
Although part of the first charge (conspiracy against the United States) says "the defendants PAUL J. MANAFORT, JR., and RICHARD W. GATES III, together with others...". It could be that the second indictment is directed at these "others".
Flynn will definitely cop it, I reckon, but Trump will hobble on, horribly damaged, but still shouting "Fake news! Fake news!" to a dwindling flock of sycophants and fanboys unless dear Jared goes down and then he'll sink like a punctured liner.
Wow, that's a big pile of evidence of some serious tax evasion and undisclosed lobbying.
This one is directly about the Trump campaign and Russia. He's admitted to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian officials whilst foreign policy advisor for the campaign.
The market growing at a fast rate is instability? Are you kidding me?
Yeah, I've been following stock markets since I was 14, so I guess I have a better understanding than most.
Rapid growth, like rapid decline, is indicative of increased high-frequency trading, which is instability in the market place.
High-frequency trading isn't the same as instability in financial markets. It would depend on how heavy momentum is, and instability is typically marked by rapidly falling prices.
Won’t happen, but we can always wish.
Please put the booze down, it's not doing you any good ;)
Or, Trump resigns (or is removed) and the Government pursues him further to determine if he's committed any crimes, and if so charge him.
And then Obama becomes President again.
I thought we were going with the "won’t happen, but we can always wish".
A day later and in a fluke accident at an NRA rally, every rabid gun-toting redneck dies horribly of self-inflicted gun wounds.
Quoting Wayfarer
True, but the rabid gun-toting redneck Obama & Clinton haters and Trump voters are generally unemployable, unskilled, jobless working class males without a future, anyway, so they might as well get on with their dying, rather than cluttering up the jailhouses, shooting galleries, and workhouses.
Note to "middle class" white liberals: pay attention to what happened to your deplorable brothers on the other side of the tracks. Once AI eliminates your jobs, you will replace them in their misery. You'll be the feckless, white-necked losers loathed by the elites.
This is the most disgraceful interference with due process by the media. What makes it even more galling, is the irony of Trump’s continual railing against ‘fake news’, while the media that do support him engage in egregious falsehood and obvious subterfuge. I would love to see Rupert Murdoch arrested and charged with sedition.
Oops, mixing your cliches... Death knells are sounded, nails are pounded into the coffin.
X-)
I'll have to refrain from that.
A particular pet peeve of mine, are the things that are said to nowadays ‘beg the question’. As all of us literati know, ‘begging the question’ is an informal fallacy whereby an argument assumes what it sets out to prove. But nowadays, all kinds of people are using the expression the wrong way, which begs the question of whether it will continue to be of any use in argument. ;-)
Mueller Has Enough Evidence to Bring Charges in Flynn Investigation
Looks like I'm right.
Oh, I know it's sick, but I love it when the shit hits the fan. It makes such a beautiful pattern.
For your aesthetic delight...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/05/trump-commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-business-links-putin-family-paradise-papers?CMP=fb_gu
I think it's on record various people lied repeatedly about meeting Russians. Regardless of what they spoke about, the lies themselves are a problem if the checks and balances are to work.
Trump lies continuously , but he’s very effective at using lies to distract from lies.
Now, I can imagine Trump hasn't lied to congress on a specific question but then it seems to me he should be invited to either congress or senate and be asked direct questions about a couple of facts we know he's been lying about and get this charade over with. Or is partisanship so ingrained that the functioning of the political institutions is relegated to an irrelevancy (which would be a sad state of affairs from my point of view)?
Edit: ABC article updated to read that Flynn "is prepared to testify that Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians, initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria."
Referring to this, which is regarding him persuading Russia not to respond to Obama's sanctions.
I remember in the start of this year Flynn's lawyer already wrote a letter that "General Flynn would a have a real story to tell".
Seems the Flynn and his lawyers and Mueller's team have finally managed to do a deal.
My guess is that in closed door, off the record meetings, the President and his lawyers/advisors are probably frank and honest about the progress of the war, the defense against the investigators, the pursuit of the terrorists, or what have you. But, if the war is not going well, or if the investigators appear to be ready to screw one to the wall, and maybe will impanel a grand jury which will hand down indictments, what else can the Prez do by put up a positive front?
After all, it might work out OK. It didn't for Johnson (huge demonstrations, civil disobedience), it didn't for Nixon (he was screwed to the wall, indicted, convicted, impeached, disgraced...) but it did work out OK for Clinton (he was investigated, impeached, disgraced -- and somehow managed to successfully finish a second term without too much difficulty. George Bush II screwed up royally, wrecked Iraq, fucked over the American economy, was feckless in ever so many ways, but still wasn't disgraced. Obama's every error (nothing too minor to criticize) was brought to light, but he managed to complete two terms without being tarred and feathered (they tried).
There is some evidence that Trump has a thin, but Teflon coated skin to which shit doesn't stick. Kennedy, Clinton, and Bush II all seemed to have that special slipperiness. People loved accusing Nixon. The good men Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama just couldn't avoid stuff sticking to them. If there was a bad smell 10 miles away, it would stick to those two. They fortunately had no personal scandals (hardly so much as a really bad faux pas) or they would both have been run out of town on a rail.
I don’t know how the Mueller thing will pan out, but everyone reading should know about this book.
:-} What a waste of time. I think people like you need to read a book titled "How to stop fapping daydreaming about another man's ruin"
Quoting Wayfarer
There aren't any Trump puppets here, there are reasonable people, and unreasonable ones like you, who have developed an irrational fear of Trump and, from time to time, go around digging some dirt and gloating about how wonderful it will be when Trump gets ruined (which of course hasn't happened so far, beating absolutely ALL of your idiotic predictions). How pathetic.
He does seem delusional. Apparently he still believes that Obama's birth certificate is fake, and that it wasn't him on the Access Hollywood tape. And these are things he's saying in private, so it can't be put down to him lying to his supporters.
cue the trumpet.
Quoting Michael
I have no doubt he believes his own lies.
The question is for what reason and can that reason be proved. If the reason is relatively benign such as contacting the ambassador to ask him not to react too strongly to sanctions then there's nothing there warranting impeachment in the eyes of the GOP. I mean, that Trump is a liar has already been established several times over but this doesn't matter to his base nor the GOP. So if the reason what he lied about is something resembling treason, there might still be a problem of proof, making it plausibly deniable. The GOP only stands to lose if something sticks to "one of theirs" so they're not going to impeach without something resembling proof and only if it's egregious.
Perhaps more important then is whether power in the house and senate will swing back to Democrats, who might believe lying is sufficient regardless of what was lied about.
What's dirt? At this point there is suspicion of actual crimes. That doesn't seem like dirt but a serious issue. Personally I think justice is fun and if these are crimes then I'm going to enjoy Trump's downfall. If these are crimes and it doesn't bring him down, I'll be disappointed both in the legal and political system of the USA. If there is no crime, I still think he's unfit but there shouldn't be any consequences.
We are allowed to have favourites here without that being stupid and that goes both ways. You are a bit of a Trumpet, I'm obviously not. That's fine, we can still talk about what he does even if we have certain preconceptions about the person - especially if we're open about them.
Unproven allegations. Trump may be guilty, but the ridiculousness of this situation is that Wayfarer has, for more than a year, been like a little child, and every time he reads something negative about Trump he immediately believes it and jumps cheering anti-Trump slogans. It's almost as if his heart skips a beat... That's the annoying part, not the part that he just dislikes Trump. Many people dislike Trump, and in certain regards, I dislike him too, but there's a difference between disliking someone and acting the way Wayfarer does.
Quoting Benkei
Hmmm... do you think the legal system is capable to deal with those who have real power? I don't really think so.
Quoting Benkei
Sure, and I actually quite agree with a lot of the analysis you posted in the previous comment.
Quoting Benkei
Yeah, I agree. I think even if Trump is guilty of collusion, he was smart enough in doing it, and it won't get back to him anyway.
I mention Trump's nefarious and destructive hijacking of 'The Office of Presidency' in this thread, and also the post-truth thread, from time to time. I don't know why it pushes your buttons, you seem otherwise an intelligent enough person but around this issue you're simply hysterical, for some reason.
"What has been shown is no collusion, no collusion," Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for fundraising events in New York."
The problem with this is that what Flynn was lying about, was meeting with Russian representatives in order to influence Russian government activities. Trump is obliged to acknowledge that Flynn was lying, but he can't admit what he was lying about.
I disagree Bitter.
Everybody else might be frank and honest, but it's obvious that this President really does have genuine problems in understanding his situation or things in general. It's not just biased media wanting to portay Trump in a dubious light. It's not just what is leaking by a multitude of people, but the simple things he clearly has done. Like the fact just how Trump got to have Mueller investigating this whole fiasco in the first place.
Here's (just one) example that has me totally convinced that Trump has serious problems. After doing a extremely stupid move of firing James Comey, Trump couldn't even go with the figleaf excuse that his administration made up for him (that the reason was how Comey had handled Hillary Clinton). No, he had to publicly on television say that he fired Comey because he wanted the Russia investigation to go away. Now this forced the acting attorney general to put Mueller to investigate this.
Who the Hell does that kind of thing? A small child might rebel against his or her parents by saying exactly the opposite. Now you have these kinds of events with Trump far too often, so I really am starting to think that this old petulant guy is losing it (if he had anything before).
And the likely reality is that the KGB got him at very early stage, the Russian intelligence services continued the contacts and got to him especially when he was in financial distress. It wasn't like a recruitment to betray your country, but things just dressed up as business contacts. And likely Trump was a willing partner here. No pee-pee tapes needed. Trump was incapable of understanding that getting help from Russian intelligence services would put him against the Intelligence Community and the FBI as the latter has as one of it's top mission to counter operations of foreign intelligence services in the US.
Judging by our conversations in the past, I don't think you know what "having power" means. So this statement is kind of meaningless.
Trumps public performance is worse than all 20th-21st century presidents since Warren Harding. It isn't vastly worse, only because other presidents haven't always performed superbly either. Narcissism is probably a prerequisite to anyone who aspires to high national office. We know that behind close doors, Richard Nixon wasn't cooly rational. Kennedy was an active philanderer. (I don't hold it against him, just that he wasn't a model of probity. Johnson behaved like a professional ;;politician: effective in managing congress, unsuccessful in managing the Vietnam War. I never thought Reagan was a great communicator, and I don't think he was a 'big picture' thinker, so to speak. The reputation of Clinton's presidency may very well deteriorate over time. He also had sexual improprieties, but succeeded in passing some neoliberal programs (like ending welfare as we know it) that did the poor no great good.
I loathed George Bush II. His war on terrorism is a lingering blight on this country and the Middle East. Obama seemed pretty upright. No huge scandals, no big frauds, no hands in the wrong place, and so on and so forth. And then there's Trump.
Trump's policy objectives don't require him to be especially statesmanlike. To the extent that he is something of an isolationist, why bother being nice to other countries' leaders? If you don't really care what most Americans think, (he got elected), there is no need to now project patrician sophistication. He can afford to project, "I'm a rube, you're a rube, but I'm a lot richer than you are."
I'd like to see Trump impeached and convicted out of office. I just don't see him contradicting himself.
He just has. He has acknowledged that he had to fire Flynn for lying to the FBI and the VP. And he says in the next sentence, that there was no collusion with Russia. But what was Flynn lying about? Why, he was lying about colluding with Russia. I sense there is a very major drama imminent.
The basic point about Russian involvement in the US election is, I think, beyond dispute. Russia wanted Clinton to lose, partly because Putin hates her, but also because I think that Russia thinks she would have been a much tougher adversary. Whereas Trump - all you have to do is flatter him, and he'll think you're terrific (if he perceives you as a powerful man, someone whose flattery is significant.) Putin plays him like a fiddle; Trump is obnoxiously rude about almost everyone, including people who work for him, and people on his own side of politics. But notice he will never say anything negative about Putin, whom he accords great respect. After the G7 meeting, he said he believed Putin over and above his own intelligence agencies (a claim he was later obliged to retract.)
Let's really hope the shit well and truly hits the fan before too much more damage is done to America and the rest of the world.
I don't think more new damage is going to be done... other than Trump just himself creates.
The Trump administration:
- didn't lift the sanctions. (The primary objective for Russia)
- didn't change course with NATO.
- hasn't de facto changed course with Russia (even if the President adores Putin).
Hence the response of the US administration and government can be seen from the inquiry itself and that the most pro-Russia ideas that Trump has floated have been shot immediately down.
The shit will likely hit the fan. Actually, it won't be pretty.
It seems pretty likely that the Trump and the Russians have had some kind of relation for some time, so it will have consequences if everything is displayed publicly. Likely Trump will resign just as Nixon did. The FBI and the Intelligence Community actually do not want to go through this because it will look so bad. After all, this is the greatest intelligence operation ever done in history,
The Pence administration then will be harassed with just how much in the loop Pence was on this thing. And likely Pence as your traditional conservative won't get the racists so excited as Donald, so it's going to be a repeat of the Ford administration.
You people really have no understanding of politics. You think it's so easy to get caught with something like this. At that level, if they're smart, it's almost impossible.
Quoting Wayfarer
And if he was colluding with Putin, you think that he would be praising him?! Are you people so dumb?! If I'm colluding with someone, I don't want the public to know that, do I? So what will I do? I will say in public that the respective person is the absolute worst, while behind closed doors doing his politics. If he really was colluding, you think Putin would want him to get ousted from the White House? A puppet President is almost his dream.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's not true. He's not been rude to important leaders of state like China's President, etc.
I don't think that article really gets to the point. The issue is just what are the matters which were discussed with the Russians, which have most likely not yet been revealed. If one had discussions with the Russians concerning things not illegal to discuss, then there was no need to lie about such discussion in the first place. But If lying about having discussions is exposed, then the natural thing for the liar to do is to claim that the discussions were not concerning anything illegal. But then the question is, why did the individual lie in the first place. Obviously, it's just a matter of the lying continuing. If you're caught lying about a meeting, then you proceed to lie about the subject matter of that meeting.
What is implied by this, is that the subject matter of the discussions is not as innocent as what is being claimed. Remember, Trump stated in public, during the campaign, an invitation to the Russians to hack Hillary's computer. If he stated such a thing in public, who knows how much further he went in private. We don't know if Flynn has decided to come clean and expose the real subject matter. It is likely that some things will remain concealed.
I think we do. A Republican majority Congress will only impeach Trump if they collectively come to the conclusion that siding with Trump will make them lose big (or should I say bigly). And that to happen there obviously should be more shown than now is precented. And things like Trump firing Mueller. After the Midterms if the DNC takes charge (again an if), it's a different thing.
Any politician with even the smallest amount of clear thinking could avoid this scandal, but Trump simply doesn't think clearly. How stupid was it to fire James Comey and then say publicly on TV that he fired him "because he wanted the Russia investigation to go away". What kind of politician does that. It's not some kind of 3-D chess, but simple ignorance and stupidity. He is a Moron, as his Secretary of State has said, even if he is very gifted at getting racists all hyped up.
Quoting Agustino
Agustino, it's totally obvious Trump clearly didn't understand that things that he was doing with Russians would be anything illegal or something that would create a shitstorm. And clearly the thing wasn't presented to Trump as something treasonous, that he would now be betraying his country. It was more like, you get multiple things done with one smart stroke.
You see for Trump it was a win-win: Russians help him, he helps Russia and gets a diplomatic breakthrough. Everybody wins. He was even having backchannels on building a Trump Tower in Moscow at the start of the campaign. So everything would be fine. Or so he thought. That the FBI would basically have to look at this likely didn't come to his mind. . Just as Metaphysician Undercover above states, Trump publicly stated Russians to openly to look for the e-mails, so basically he was totally ignorant what it would mean.
Trump himself is his worst enemy.
No, if he had been totally ignorant, he would have gone himself to meet with Russian officials. Why didn't he?
Remember that before the whole mess he was actually contemplating meeting Putin when he still was a candidate. And meeting him even before the inauguration. So Trump was very eager to meet Putin. Naturally people like Manafort understood keep a low profile, because they understood that these actions have to be made behind closed doors.
And it's notable the absolute denial at every stage that the Trump campaign and his administration has said, which have been shown to be false.
Besides, when someone tells on email that Russians close to Kremlin have information on Hillary Clinton and Don Jr replies "I love it", just how evident is that absolute cluelessness of what people are doing.
I've allways said and will repeat it: If Putin was an American Billionaire and the Russian Intelligence Services a sleazy Superpack, political people in the US would be writing books on how phenomenal the Trump campaign was and how groundbraking pioneers they were in showing how 21st Century US Presidential campaigns are run.
Yeah, saying he wants to do it vs actually doing it are two different things. As far as things go, and apart from the Comey firing (which wasn't due to just the Russia thing, though that certainly played a part), Trump, even if he has colluded with Russia, has played his cards in a very smart way.
Basically actual Trump administration policy towards Russia hasn't changed much. (Even if Trump made a strange purposal of having an US-Russian “impenetrable Cyber Security unit” to address issues like the risk of cyber meddling in elections.) That's because his administration, people like Kelly, McMaster and likely even Tillerson aren't so pro-Russia. (Yep, likely Tillerson understands that he's in a different position that CEO of an oil Company.)
The most pro-Kremlin people were quickly dismissed, fired, and now targeted By Muellers probe.
I'm not so sure just how capable Trump is. I think there is a possibility that if Mueller goes after Kushner, Trump might fire Mueller. Which would create even a bigger shitstorm.
This is true. First of all there was a blanket denial, and then news of the Donald Jnr meeting came out, and it was like 'oh, that. Well that wasn't important'. Whenever some claim has been shown to be false, Trump or his spokespersons will just present 'alternative facts', which are then disseminated by the Alt Right media. Truth doesn’t matter - only the narrative matters, and the narrative always must be Trump Wins.
But, it’s getting very hairy - he’s now come out and accused James Comey of lying about Trump asking him to lay off Flynn. And Comey doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s going to lie, especially about something as critical as this. I think this will be the kind of thing that will bring Trump down; he’s not doing back room business deals now, it’s the real thing, involving real claims of perjury, lying and obstruction of justice, in matters which directly affect the security of the United States.
And the real question is why he is doing all that? If it would be that they just got help from Russians, because they hated Hillary, why all the denying and obstruction of justice?
It's simply far too improbable that it's just a coincidence. It's obvious that the KGB kept taps on the guy right from the moment he started thinking about making business deals in Russia. The obvious fact about this comes to light how he went to Moscow in the first Place:
(see The Hidden History of Trump’s First Trip to Moscow)
From the above one thing is evident, even only from Trump's "Art of the Deal", that it was an Russian high ranking official that made the initiative. Not that Trump had otherwise somehow the bold idea to build something in Moscow by himself. Needless to point out, even after the times Trump has been to Moscow, no Trump Tower has emerged there. Yet Trump sought this for a long time until January 2016 (see Trump’s business sought deal on a Trump Tower in Moscow while he ran for president)
That Russian Intelligence Community sought to get a connection of a foreign businessman isn't itself alarming as typically every more important businessman going to the Soviet Union had a KGB file on them. But when you add to the fact that Trump has gone bankrupt and has had to go to other financiers than American, and that Russians have played here a part, then it seems like something that should be investigated. And of course Mueller seems to have gone this way, so likely we will find out later.
So it's going to be interesting...
Likely yes and we've already seen the legal groundwork for that possibility today : a president cannot obstruct justice according to his lawyer.
Yeah! I hope you're right. I know that the media is full of spin masters, who will edit video to portray whatever they want, but in every clip that I see now of Kushner and his wife, he looks very troubled. Is this the look of a guilty man who knows his transgressions are about to be exposed?
For just a second I forgot who his wife is.
And likely Trump will continue to be as predictable as he has been. Just like the tweet he made where he didn't understand what actually he was writing (which one of his lawyers then posed as having himself sent), I do believe that he will make things worse for him. And I really believe that sooner or later he will fire Mueller.
Not only because it's extremely likely that Russians have indeed been financing Trump, but also because the only arena that matters to Trump is the public media discourse. For Trump this is a public show, allways has been. This we have seen over and over again. Most important to him is how he looks to his hard-core followers. And Mueller here with looking at Deutsche Bank has "crossed the Red line" that Trump himself imposed on the issue. Hence Trump would look to be "weak", especially if family members would be next in line.
What Trump just needs is someone saying to him what he wants to hear: that the President cannot obstruct justice and not only can he fire Mueller, but it would be in his best interest.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/us/politics/how-fbi-russia-investigation-began-george-papadopoulos.html?_r=0
Did he just admit to obstructing justice?
Hannity: "NYT trying to distract you with fake news!"
Hannity, later: "OK, so it isn't fake news, but I'm going to distract you with a car chase".
Yep, what's wrong with that? How is that obstruction of justice?
It isn't a normal interaction between two people. It's the President ordering an investigation into him be ended.
This is likely the relevant statute:
An order can be illegal even it it isn't carried out.
If he'd just asked if he could, then it might not have been an issue (or at least wouldn't be obstruction), but it wasn't just that.
It seems to me that you'll always bend over backwards to try to defend Trump. God knows why.
He did NOT impede Muller's investigation, nor did he influence it for that matter. He did not behave "corruptly" - using means that are outside of what is legally possible for him to do (and by the way, it is legally possible for him to fire Muller). In a court of law you have to prove actual damages - and actually, Trump did not impede anything.
Quoting Agustino
Whoever ... endeavors. Obstruction need not be successful.
See United States v. Tackett, 113 F.3d 603, 611: "Although the omnibus clause of §1503 requires that a defendant’s actions were intended to obstruct an actual judicial proceeding, the government need not prove that the actions had their intended effect. Furthermore, an endeavor to obstruct justice violates the law even if, unbeknownst to the defendant, the plan is doomed to failure from the start."
Quoting Agustino
He might have the legal authority to fire Mueller, but not for any reason. Firing him because he's investigating you would be an example of corruption. I don't know if corruption is defined in U.S. statute, but Shumaker and Longsdorf define it in their 1910 law dictionary as "an act done with intent to give some advantage inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others".
Remember that Nixon was going to be impeached for obstructing justice (and abuse of power) after firing the special prosecutor investigating him.
Quoting Agustino
He wasn't just contemplating it. He ordered it.
Nope, he didn't order it. You don't understand what ordering it means. He would have ordered it if McGahn would have resigned. He wanted to order it, McGahn told him he would resign, so then he didn't order it. You're not allowed to refuse an order from the President, you can resign, but not refuse.
It's since been corroborated by others, including the Washington Post and even Fox News.
You're free to think it "fake news" if you like, but they have more knowledge of the matter than you, so you'll just be voicing an uninformed assumption.
Quoting Michael
Well, I don't really understand why leftists don't get this point - in this case, it seems clear as daylight that there was no obstruction of justice. So I'm not trying to spin anything, I think that YOU are trying to spin the actual situation.
Quoting Michael
And this isn't true either, I think that it's clear by now that in certain areas Trump isn't a very moral person - like sexuality for example.
And as for it being "clear as daylight that there was no obstruction of justice", that's simply not true. You've shown that you don't even understand the law, so that's quite a bold claim to make.
The Washinton Post has a report on the legal problems, with opinions from a constitutional lawyer and a former White House ethics lawyer. Their word trumps yours (pun intended).
I didn't call them fake news, and I did read the reports. Through reading them, I deduce that the President didn't give an order - he wanted to give an order. If he had given an order, then McGahn would have resigned.
Legally it's a very simple issue. Order given = either the person resigns or they carry it out.
It's a good thing you're not a lawyer.
So according to you, Trump gave an order and McGahn did what he couldn't do, which is refuse to obey it?
Exactly, so he didn't order him. Maybe he suggested it, contemplated it, or expressed his desire to do it. That's not the same as ordering him. I already explained the difference. An order cannot be disobeyed - either he tried to implement it, or he resigned. Neither of these two things happened.
You're my boss. You order me to make you a cup of tea. I refuse. I've disobeyed your order.
Then you'd be fired. Was McGahn fired? :-d
You're playing ridiculous word games here. This is what I mean by you bending over backwards to defend Trump.
Yeah, I wouldn't fire you if it wasn't an order, and it was just a suggestion. But if it's an order and you disobey, you'd be fired. It may even be treasonous to disobey an order of the President.
Quoting Michael
As far as I see, that's what you're doing, since you're refusing to accept and understand what an order commonly means.
It's not treasonous (or a crime at all) to disobey an illegal order, which is what this would have been.
In fact, it's not treasonous to disobey a legal order: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
Quoting Agustino
It is not a given that the punishment of insubordination is being fired. Nor is it given that insubordination is punished at all. It depends on context. You might not punish me at all over a cup of tea, given that I might resign and I'm worth more to your company than you're willing to lose (over a cup of tea).
I know what an order is. It's when a superior tells you to do something. You're the one trying to play word games and spin it as an order being defined as something that is either obeyed or which if disobeyed results in resignation or a firing. That's just ridiculous.
Trump asking/telling McCahn to have Mueller fired because he doesn't want to be investigated fits this definition.
No, insubordination, even in a light matter, is punished, because it teaches others that disobeying is permissible. This is especially so at White House or military level.
Quoting Michael
Yeah, disobeying the President of the United States, as someone under him, does give comfort to the Enemies of the country.
What action taken? There was no action taken :s
Quoting Michael
The reports are what people declared. What people declared isn't necessarily the truth, or perhaps they didn't word it in the most accurate manner.
Quoting Michael
What if Trump asked McCahn to fire Mueller because he thought that the process was a waste of time and resources?
And again, Trump took NO ACTION. There was NO ACTION taken - nothing was done. He asked him to do it, he explained that if he would be ordered to do it he would resign, and Trump decided not to give that order. Hence no action was taken.
The action taken was telling McGahn to have Mueller fired. What exactly would it take for you to accept it as an action/order? Must Trump personally hand deliver a notice of termination?
This is all just nonsense spin.
Quoting Agustino
No it doesn't. Again, you seem to just be fabricating legal knowledge apropos of nothing. Try actually doing some research, as I have been doing. Here's a good place to start.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/27/trump-fbi-us-constitution?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Now you need to put down the Crack pipe...
Why? They are purposefully trying to lynch Trump in order to promote their left-wing bias, because they cannot get over the fact that the Democrats lost the election. There's nothing true in these accusations, all lies.
No, that's not an action, that's a discussion that was moving towards taking a certain action.
Quoting Michael
What you are doing is spin, since you don't take the events as they happened, instead you twist them so that you can say Trump "ORDERED" Mueller to be fired and actually tried to obstruct justice. No he did not - he contemplated it, but at no time did he take or attempt to take an action that obstructed justice.
Quoting Michael
I don't see how the document linked disproves what I said. Can you give a citation please that you think disproves it?
I'm not spinning anything. I'm repeating what the news has reported. Whereas you're fabricating knowledge of what Trump did (or didn't) do in an attempt to defend him.
The anti-Trump news you mean? Like CNN.
The news that reports the facts. That those facts always seems to show Trump doing something wrong isn't their fault.
Nope, those aren't facts. It's not a fact that Trump tried to obstruct justice. That is your silly spin. What is factual is that some people from the White House have declared that Trump initially told them to fire Mueller, or expressed his desire to do so. That's all.
My guess, admittedly based on limited info, is that the term was used in jest as it relates to Trump's narrative about a "deep state" working for elites against the interests of average Americans. In that sense this sarcastic remark can be taken out of context (intentionally) and then used as confirmation of the notion of a secretive association it was attempting to ridicule.
Conjecture of course but I feel like I have an intuitive understanding of the Trump strategy and the mindset of his typical supporter. The general Democratic strategy, too, if I may be so bold. With few exceptions they both seem predictable and unprincipled attempts to manipulate the emotions of their constituents. But I guess that's always been the case in politics so this is nothing new.
"Are you even going to give out your calendars? Seems kind of depressing. Maybe it should just be the first meeting of the secret society."
The Republican Senator Ron Johnson who was pushing the story later backtracked, saying it was probably a joke.
No, not in all contexts. Some discussions are facultative, merely done for the purpose of seeing what other people's positions are for example. Trump did not order Mueller to be fired, if he had done that, then McGahn would have resigned. He did not resign, hence Trump did not order it. He wanted to order it, and when he saw that McGahn and others don't support it, he didn't.
Quoting ProbablyTrue
No, it's not attempted obstruction. He considered taking a certain course of action, and was persuaded differently. Considering a course of action is different from actually embarking upon it.
Backing off under threat of great consequences is different than a casual discussion about whether he should or not.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/us/politics/trump-mueller-special-counsel-russia.html
It still remains a fact that he did not embark upon the process of firing Mueller. He chose not to at the end of the discussion with McGahn.
The process begins with Trump telling a subordinate what to do. That subordinate refused.
Seriously though, in addition to all the other problems with grand conspiracy theories, if there were a legitimate secret society--ooh!!--wouldn't the members come up with a really sophisticated name to conceal its function?
Granted they were communicating in a way they assumed was private, but still this is childish to the point of being unbelievable. Imagine me asking you, let's say a fellow worker or even friend - Hey, wanna ride to the secret society meeting together?
I know that's not a great objection, but the whole thing is too inane to take seriously. Having said that, these are FBI employees and the nature of the organization is somewhat secretive, so that gives the conspiracy a hint of plausibility it would otherwise be lacking.
Trump orders Mattis to nuke NK. Mattis refuses. Trump didn't try to nuke NK?
No he didn't. He just expressed what he would do in case Trump would order him, that he would resign. He did not resign. Why not? Because Trump didn't order him.
No, he was considering it, but he didn't actually try to do it. If he orders Mattis, and Mattis starts initiating the procedures, and then something goes wrong and they don't do it anymore, then he did order him.
And by the way, if Mattis refuses in such a hypothetical case, that is unconstitutional. The generals CANNOT refuse the President in such a circumstance. They can try to convince him otherwise, but if it's an order, it cannot be refused - that would be treason.
Again, of course it can be refused. Orders don't have some magical power of compulsion. Trump would be free to punish someone for disobeying, and having charges pressed, but it doesn't then follow that he's willing.
We've gone over this. It isn't treason to disobey the President.
This is wrong.
Quoting Agustino
Not strictly true. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42065714
And even if it were; better to die a traitor than live as a mass murderer.
Yes it is. The President is the Supreme Commander of the military, and it is TREASON to disobey a military order of the President, punishable by death. No military in this world allows ANY kind of disobedience of orders.
This is from the article PT quoted.
Quoting ProbablyTrue
Why?
Quoting ProbablyTrue
Yes, they can debate the President and try to convince him otherwise, but if he says this is what we have to do, they cannot disobey.
Quoting ProbablyTrue
That's a different matter altogether now.
And yes, if things got that far, there would be a lot of chaos, and we'd move into a mode of operation that is outside the constitution, with different factions forming, Congress maybe opposing the President, etc. At that point, it doesn't matter what the law is, what matters is who controls the power structures better and whose orders are followed.
No it isn't. Treason is "whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere."
Quoting Agustino
Not necessarily. Someone found guilty of treason "shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."
You don't understand how the law works. Disobeying a military order is giving aid to the enemy.
No it isn't.
Yes it is, ask any lawyer that deals with military cases, and you'll see. Through all of human history, disobeying military commands was brutally punished, precisely because the consequences of doing so could be very grave.
Any act of disobedience in the military promotes further disobedience, which aids the enemy in a war effort and prevents the cohesion that is necessary for the nation to be victorious. (not to mention that it slows down what could be critical war efforts)
Yes it is. It doesn't need to be specifically mentioned in the law to be so. The law provides general principles, it never mentions all particulars of implementation.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/14/military-ignores-obamas-order-release-shaker-aamer-guantanamo
Really, you have zero familiarity with military history and how things actually work.
It doesn't need to be mentioned - we're not in kindergarten.
It results straight from reading and understanding the law.
Billy lights a fuse attached to a bomb inside the bank. Unbeknownst to him there is a wet spot half way down the fuse and the flame goes out. Billy decides to not light the fuse again. Did Billy attempt to blow up the bank?
Article 90 isn't the crime of treason. It's the crime of "Assaulting or willfully disobeying superior commissioned officer."
Yes, because he actually initiated action that would have blown up the bank, and it is only a fortuitous occurrence which stopped it.
No, you're just making it up.
Ok, so practical matters considered, they cannot disobey the order. Case closed.
Case closed? Yes, case closed; it isn't treason. Furthermore, they can disobey. They'll just be punished for it, were Trump willing.
And finally, article 90 wouldn't apply to the case of McGahn disobeying Trump's order to fire Mueller.
I can care less how lawyers find a way to classify it in the law. I'm a practical man. It's same with accounting - I don't care how accountants classify things, that's their problem.
We're talking about what crimes, if any, have been committed. It is the legal technicalities that matter, not your pragmatism. Whether or not it's "practically" treason or "practically" not obstruction is irrelevant. Either it's legally treason or it's not; either it's legally obstruction or it's not.
Legally, disobeying the President isn't treason, and legally, according to experts responding to recent news reports, there's a case for Trump obstructing justice. Your personal, uninformed opinions on these matters have no bearing.
It's called "insubordination". Look it up.
It is very relevant. Your good sense is often more important than the law, especially when interpreting the law for a non-lawyer, like I presume both of us are.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Thanks.
No, not according to all experts.
Of course not. There are lawyers for the defense, too. The primary problem is the matter of intent, which is hard to prove. Why did Trump try to fire Mueller? Was it really for suggestions of conflict, or was that just an excuse? Given that he told Lester Holt and the Russian ambassador that he fired Comey because of the investigation into collusion, regardless of Rosenstein's memo, trying to fire Mueller a few weeks later fits a pattern of behaviour which would suggest corrupt intent.
But my main issue with your claim here is that Trump didn't really try to do it because it wasn't actually done. That's just silly. Relenting because you don't want someone to resign doesn't mean an attempt wasn't made.
No. Either it satisfies the legal definition of treason or obstruction of justice, or it doesn't. You can't simply decide that disobeying the President is treason because it "makes sense" to you.
He has said that innumerable times. Because he sees no need for such an investigation since there was no collusion.
Quoting Michael
No, it's not only because it wasn't actually done. It's because he didn't give the order, and hence McGahn did not resign.
Quoting Michael
Again, a consultative discussion in which someone expresses that he will resign if you give a certain order does not indicate that he tried to obstruct justice.
Ending an investigation into you because you claim to be innocent is obstruction of justice.
So you keep saying, but people with more knowledge of the situation say otherwise. Your supposed reason for denying that it didn't happen - McGahn didn't resign - doesn't make sense.
He did not end the investigation, he expressed his desire to do it, but ultimately did not act on it. We'll see, but I highly doubt anything will happen to Trump for this, because it's just normal practice in my view.
"Attempted murder", now honestly, what is that!? Do they give a Nobel prize for "attempted" chemistry?
Also, because it's hilarious (although also worrying if true):
When the "Kremlin list" finally came out, in Russia it was met with incredulity, mirth and relief. It included the complete list of richest businessmen cribbed directly from the latest Russian Forbes report, plus the list of all heads of government departments, including even such innocent figures as the head of the presidential human rights council. Naturally, such a formal and all-inclusive catalogue is worthless. And one wonders why it took months to come up with a list that could have been compiled within a few hours at most.
According to Anders Åslund, who was involved in the Congress-mandated effort, that's pretty much what happened. At the last moment some unknown administration official ditched the work of Russia experts and replaced it with this nonsense, which made the whole effort look ridiculous.
President Attacks FBI, Justice Deparment in Attempt to Deflect Investigation into Improper Contact between Russians, Son, Close Associates.
GOP Agrees, Attempts to Shift Suspicion onto Government Agencies.
So the media is fake. Trump has low approval ratings overall just because all Democrats hate him, and Democrats are roughly 50% of the population. And hopefully, when this matter is solved, and nothing happens to Trump, especially you Wayfarer, will apologise for creating a fuss for so long out of nothing.
Have you been reading Machiavelli as of recent?
No, why? In fact, I've never read Machiavelli's Prince fully.
Well, wouldn't it bother you if you had a president who persistently lies about, well, very important issues? As a person who likes Plato (I do, to great extent) and Stoicism (again, my guiding philosophy in life), then wouldn't it be an issue of some strong cognitive dissonance to like the guy under the tenants of those two philosophies?
I know Trump frequently "lies" if you can even call them that, about insignificant issues. The media counts things like "it was the biggest crowd ever" as a lie - that's not a lie to me, and it's really insignificant - it's more of a way of speaking, as in "it was a really big crowd". This is unlike other Presidents who usually lie about big issues - I haven't seen Trump being that kind of liar yet.
What are the significant issues he's lied about? Maybe stuff like the Stormy Daniels issue, but we're not sure yet what the truth is there.
Quoting Posty McPostface
Trump isn't a morally perfect person, for example, I think in matters of sexuality he has some important shortcomings, but in terms of getting things done, useful policies (like the tax & bureaucracy reduction), it seems that he's been doing well. Also, he's a very good cheerleader for America.
Yeah, this is the very decadent and slippery slope dilemma that America faces. Namely, that we've grown accustomed to having leaders get away with lying and hypocrisy.
Quoting Agustino
Yeah, and I liked Bill Clinton too for being a great president; but, that doesn't pardon him for his misconduct with Lewinsky. Had Obama done anything in the slightest bit similar to Bill Clinton, then I think you know how the Republicans would respond. But, now we have a president that claimed that groping women by their genitals is an OK thing if spoken in a locker room 'banter' (what does that even fucking mean?) along with allegations that he spent time with a prostitute and paid her to keep silent. Go figure.
The dissonance is real.
Wow. Lying is a only a way of speaking now?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html
Proves my point. A list of things which aren't even worth calling lies. It's like saying the President lied because he said he had [s]covfefe[/s] coffee in the morning instead of tea >:O - give me a break. Maybe that's a lie for people like me and you, but when you're dealing with matters as important as the US President is, then that is really insignificant.
Quoting Posty McPostface
Okay, but you do have to admit that somethings really are insignificant, and shouldn't be considered lies in the true sense of the word.
Quoting Posty McPostface
As far as I remember, he apologised for those comments. And as I said before, he's not morally perfect, and I especially singled out that area of his life. What prostitute did he spend time with?
Saying things that are wrong and can be verified as wrong aren't lies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading
Insignificant lies, given that he is the President. And they may not even be lies - they can be taken as hyperbole. A hyperbole isn't a lie.
"We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history."
They say this is a lie. That's wrong. It depends how you interpret it. If you interpret it as a reduction in corporate tax, it is the biggest in history. You could also interpret it as "really big" tax cuts.
This is what I mean, the media is really dishonest. How can anyone read and believe this crap? It's like the most uncharitable way to read someone's statements in history!
Actually, it seems to be a plural of a prostitute, meaning prostitute(s).
https://www.dailyrepublic.com/wires/second-porn-star-claims-trump-invited-her-to-hotel-room/
Well, they are pornstars, not really prostitutes >:O . But okay. I read about the Alana Evans thing, but I don't really buy that Trump invited her for sex. In fact, she didn't claim that either, she said she considers it a possibility though. It seems that both Evans and Stormy are capitalising on this for financial gain atm - their popularity is skyrocketing, and directors will hire them to do new pornos, knowing that now people will search for them and buy the movies. So, it's in their direct interest to make controversy.
You seem to have no problem with a person who holds the highest office in the world telling lies at an unprecedented rate. The evidence is there. The mental gymnastics you perform to justify them is impressive. It's a shame you are such a partisan that you can't even seem to give an evenhanded report on him.
"I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book."
Doesn't sound like a lie at all.
It was the second one, and you don't have to try to find bullshit like this. These lists are full of them, that's why they can't be taken seriously.
Again, many of those are not lies. You just want to interpret them in your own way, rather than the way they were meant in - that's called being uncharitable.
Accusing a former president of wiretapping him? Lying about voter fraud? Lying about people being killed? Are you such an intellectual infant that you can't figure out which ones are big lies and which ones are little lies?
For example this - it's true. Manafort, who was part of the Trump team, was wiretapped, for example.
The media is so dishonest, that they will take a statement and call it a lie, and then write an article about it, and if you read the article, you'll see that the statement is actually not a lie at all. But of course, who bothers to read the article?!
This is marketing101 - length implies strength. Put up a long list of "lies" and people will believe they really are lies, because the list is long. It's pathetic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zFhYoBlZ2g
What's wrong there? Trump behaved very normally. Of course, you cannot say everything openly, that's why he told the guy "you can figure it out yourself". That's how talk goes on at the high levels. Not everything is talked about directly.
If your worldview is so fragile that you have to rationalize every line of BS this guy spews to salvage it, it might not be worth salvaging.
No, that wasn't the context. The context was that he repeatedly told that guy that he had told him enough, and he can figure the rest by himself, and that guy kept insisting. That is called, at minimum, being rude, or being stupid.
The Clinton campaign was embarrassed by Wikileaks, they (or rather the company they hired to investigate their servers, Crowdstrike) made up the Russian hackers nonsense first as a way to explain away their incompetence (or possibly as a cover-up for the murder of Seth Rich, who was likely the leaker to Assange). Then they repurposed the idea and made up the "Russia Collusion" twaddle via the "Dossier," on the basis of which they got the FISA warrant to spy on Trump, hoping to be able to get something on him that they could use to impeach him.
Since the Mueller investigation is ultimately based on the noise created by the "Dossier", which was bought and paid for by the DNC and FBI in the first place, the whole thing is a hall of mirrors, complete and utter nonsense from top to bottom, and it has been from the beginning.
Democrats and liberals, and their media cheerleaders, have been living in fantasy land for a year. The cognitive dissonance and nervous breakdown incoming is going to be delicious.
Only for a year? I think the fantasy has been going on for many years.
I'm not creating any fuss. I'm reporting on the fuss that the media, the intelligence community, and the Congressional investigations are making.
Also, my concern with Trump isn't just about the allegations of criminal activity (or the criminal activity of members of his campaign), but also of his character and policies, and being found innocent of collusion or obstruction wouldn't take away from that.
Well that's fake news. Here are Trump's approval ratings. The highest he's had among Republicans is 89%. Here are Bush's approval ratings. His highest among Republicans is 99%. And this is just comparing against the first year of Bush. Bush's lowest approval in his first year is 85% compared to Trump's 77%.
There are 167 lies there. 75 more for "Pants on Fire" and 112 more for "Mostly False". Are you just going to cherry pick a few and defend them by saying they're just exaggeration? That's intellectually dishonest of you. Trump lies a lot. Deal with it.
A lie about the SOTU: "Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history."
From here:
Depends what you mean by dishonest. It depends how you interpret it. It can be taken as hyperbole. A hyperbole isn't a lie.
Well yeah, in general, over the past few decades liberalism has gradually mutated into a cross between an infantile zombie cult and the Stasi with a smiley face, but I was just referring specifically to the "muh Russia" mania.
No, my position is that Trump is our God Emperor and the saviour of the human race.
The Papadopolous thing is just another red herring (and anyway, anything that has anything to do with Stzrok is automatically tainted now and irrelevant to anything Mueller), so is Carter Page being "under suspicion" before (lots of people are investigated by the FBI, it's their job to be suspicious, it's not proof of anything). Neither of those are what clinched the FISA warrant, as McCabe testified.
What did it was fake opposition research paid for by the DNC and the FBI, ginned up by a ex-British intelligence hack with a boner for Trump - an intelligence hack who, funnily enough, literally worked in collusion with the Russians to concoct the "Dossier." IOW, if Putin has had any hand in throwing a spanner in the works of American politics, it's been via the "Dossier." He must be laughing up his sleeve.
This whole thing, even the "ten billion security services suspicious of Trump" thing (remember that?) was backed up by nothing more substantial than this piece of tripe. And the cream of the jest is that an article fed to the Atlantic by Steele himself was used as corroborating evidence.
It is to laugh.
Exactly my point, if you call this a lie *facepalm*. Look, real lies are things that are said to deceive and usually harm others. This is an inconsequential 'lie', and in fact, it's not even that. It's just an exaggeration. We all know that's how Trump speaks. Some people have a hyperbolic discourse - I've had many friends who were like that.
Quoting Michael
Thanks for admitting you hold a grudge, and the obstruction and collusion is merely a pretext. That's a beginning.
I stand corrected on that. The main point that they are really high still remains. He's doing a good job as far as Republicans are concerned.
Quoting unenlightened
Sure, I can clarify what I mean. I mean that the media is uncharitable, and doesn't take the comments Trump makes with the meaning that they are really intended to convey. If he says "biggest crowd ever" - that's a hyperbole because that's his style. We all know that, so they are the stupid ones who read what he says in a way that it was never intended in. In philosophy, we call that being uncharitable.
Yeah, I noticed what you were trying to do, and I ignored it, because I don't think you're right.
I don't know what you mean by this. We argued over Donald Trump's campaign to be President long before any talk of collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice hit the news, and I was always firmly against him.
Cause you already disliked Trump, so when you see all those unlikely things on the news that would be harmful to Trump, you're inclined to believe them because you want them to be true - it would confirm your dislike of Trump.
Rather I'd say that your support of Trump has left you with confirmation bias given that you seem to just dismiss any serious allegations against him and pass off everything else as inconsequential.
I think the accusations should be investigated, but you and Wayfarer are being unfair when talking about them, and presenting clearly biased viewpoints. I don't think the investigation should be shut down, I think it should be allowed to run its course.
Yes, it's pretty nonsense. Page had been the subject of a FISA warrant since 2013, and this latest renewal was after he'd left the Trump campaign, so it doesn't make sense to accuse the FBI or the Obama administration of trying to target Trump.
It also misleadingly stated that Comey referred to the dossier as "salacious and unverified", although the transcripts (or was it a live showing?) of his testimony showed that he was only talking about specific parts (the prostitutes in the hotel room), and he refused to comment on other parts (e.g. the parts about Page himself). And although it's true that they didn't mention that the DNC funded the dossier, they did mention that it was politically motivated, and so the court was aware that the source wasn't a neutral party.
It then finishes by noting that it was actually intelligence on Papadopoulos (from the Australian government, I believe) that kicked off the investigation, not the dossier.
Some people are so strange.
I believe Trump thinks that he’s entirely innocent - because he has never taken the time to understand what is being investigated. Because, in Trump’s world, everything is about him, and because he has no patience with facts, he believes that he has been falsely accused of something he never did. He won’t listen to anyone who tries to explain what the investigation is actually about because he’s so furious about the whole issue, which he firmly believes is a media and DNC conspiracy to undermine him. Meanwhile his Republican enablers only ever act to keep him happy, by telling him what he wants to hear and stroking his ego. So it’s not even that Trump is covering something up - he doesn’t even know what has to be concealed. But he’s so angry about it, and has it so wrong in his mind, that he is determined to stamp out ‘the conspiracy’. That’s what I think is going on.
Strangely, that only started to happen as soon as he declared his intention to run for president.
People already have the measure of him, they've had ample opportunity to spot if there's a mad, totalitarian gleam peeping out from a crack in the facade for years, and there never was - so they automatically discounted the sudden tidal wave of propaganda that descended on him as soon as he came down that escalator, as the obviously partisan hackery that it was.
Either he's the world's most consummate actor, who's bided his time for decades under public scrutiny waiting for the right time to unleash his genocidal plans, all the while presenting the image of a boorish, bombastic but essentially ok liberal guy, or he really is what it says on the tin: a patriot who's decided to do something about the appalling state of economic and moral decline of America.
At any rate, the choice between him and an evil goblin with a vagina was a no-brainer for many people. And probably the biggest cause of his win was the number of Left-leaning people who just despondently stayed at home or voted for someone else, rather than get up off their arses and vote for the evil goblin with a vagina.
He's not someone I'd invite around for tea and conversation, certainly. I have the same snobbish feel for him as most of his critics do. But I don't let that guide my judgement of his doings.
That's one hell of a selective memory you have there. People have been calling the guy for what he is for decades. :-}
If people are comparing him to Hitler then it'll be because of some authoritarian tendencies he might be showing as President, which is obviously not something that would tend to come up when he's just a businessman and TV star.
As far as I'm aware, people didn't start thinking Obama is or might be the antichrist until he became President.
Ah, well that's because nobody had ever heard of him.
This seems to be happening occasionally. It looks like an 'end of page' related bug. When it occurs and I want to see the last message that was posted, I go to the profile page of the poster and look at his/her messages there.
You can't say that the authoritarian tendencies didn't come out in the TV show. And, I'm very sure they were quite evident to most everyone who knew him before that.
Around here, you couldn't avoid hearing that authoritarian voice saying "You're fired!".
Now the lies of the media are starting to come to the surface.
You know, the so-called "Trump lies" about Obama wire-tapping him, etc.
Well, we know that she really was paid $130,000 by Cohen.
Yes >:)
[hide]Actually no, I just claim that there was a conspiracy between the FBI and Obama against Trump and his administration, and that's undeniable now.[/hide]
How so? Because Obama was wary about informing members of Trump's administration that they were under investigation? I hardly count that as a conspiracy.
It's a conspiracy if they were working together to fabricate charges, but there's no evidence of that at all.
Was this a joke, or do you actually believe that Obama (illegally) tapped Trump's phones, as Trump's tweets claimed?
I don't care whether it's "legal" or not. That is irrelevant to me. Pretty much anything that someone does with the authority of the state (which makes the laws) can be portrayed as legal.
I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Obama's administration or the FBI listened in to Trump's phones.
Yeah, because he was conspiring into what information to share and what information to withhold from the President-elect of the United States.
What evidence is there that Obama tapped Trump's phones whether legal or illegal? Do you just believe it because Trump tweeted it?
I didn't say I believe it. I said I wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened.
Oh, OK.
Then I wouldn't be surprised if the pee tape is real and is being used as blackmail and if Trump personally conspired with Putin to help swing the election in his favour, with something like refusing to enforce sanctions against Russia part of their quid pro quo.
Was he? From what I have read, the concern was with sharing the information with Trump's transition team, given that some of them were under investigation:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/12/politics/susan-rice-email-russia-investigation-trump-team/index.html
There's no suggestion that the FBI should lie to Trump were Trump to ask for information about it. Being the President, I'm pretty sure he's entitled to know everything.
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-graham-uncover-unusual-email-sent-susan-rice-herself-president-trump-s
I don't see anything underhanded here. Do you?
Yes. The underhanded bit is in the blacked out "..." area.
How can you know what the ... area says?
I can't, but since it's not shown, I can only assume.
So you just assume that it's underhanded, in lieu of any actual evidence?
And you accused me of being biased.
I was kidding actually about that part.
I think that bit is underhanded, since he showed that he was willing to hide things from Trump and his team.
That's not underhanded at all. It's being responsible with classified information and being mindful of an ongoing investigation.
Well, that tape supposedly involves girls taking a golden shower on a bed. Trump is not naked (presumably) in it. Why is it compromising?
If there was a tape of you watching two prostitutes piss on a bed for you, wouldn't you want that kept out of the public eye?
Why is that compromising? He's just watching a golden shower, he's not involved in the activity or anything of that sort.
If you have a video of me watching a dog pee, is that compromising? :s
But it's a fact that some people are embarrassed by such things.
I really don't know what you're trying to get at here.
What if this email served as a preemptive attempt to give the appearance that she was doing things by the book? "The lady doth protest too much" sort of thing.
If you send an email to yourself reminding you that you've done everything by the book--which you likely know may be used as a reference at some point in the future--then I'm inclined to think you're probably not doing things by the book.
I'll admit I'm not following this Russian collusion thing closely at all and have limited understanding if sending these sorts of emails to oneself is standard practice.
I am suspicious of all the actors involved, regardless of political affiliation, and I think this cynicism is warranted right now. At all times, actually, when it comes to the machinations of those in positions of political power.
Assume the meeting was by-the-books. What's the best course of action? To keep an honest record or to keep it off-the-record?
Assume the meeting wasn't by-the-books. What's the best course of action? To keep a dishonest record or to keep it off-the-record?
Maybe keeping a dishonest record is better than keeping it secret if the meeting wasn't by-the-books, but keeping an honest record is definitely better than keeping it secret if the meeting was by-the-books.
I find that last scenario to be the most plausible. The first part of it.
Many people will take your (Susan Rice's) depiction of events as outlined in an email sent to yourself at face value assuming it's an accurate portrayal of what happened, whereas I in my cynicism would make the opposite assumption.
This line of paranoid thinking falls under a similar class of counter-intuitive observations made by Machiavelli: "when one sees an enemy commit a grave blunder, one ought to believe that there is deception beneath it." Differences, obviously, but that same "don't take things at face value" political warning.
I could very well be wrong though and I'm hoping we can get to the bottom of this Russian collusion thing in the near future. I don't doubt that Trump could and would do something like that if given the opportunity, but I've not seen any solid evidence as of yet that he did and it's been some time.
Even some leftists like Glen Greenwald--no fan of Trump at all--have found this whole thing to be baffling.
That's easy to explain. That's because their bodily privacy would be invaded, obviously.
I don't think he did. But I think there's evidence that Page, Manafort, Papadopoulos, Kushner, and Trump Jr. did: that the FBI were granted FISA warrants on Page and Manafort, the emails regarding the purpose of the Trump Tower meeting, and Papadopoulos' drunken comments to the Australian ambassador.
For Trump himself I think there's evidence of obstruction of justice (e.g. firing Comey "because of the Russia thing" and trying to fire Mueller), and possibly also money laundering (e.g. the $100 million sale of a $40 million property). His refusal to admit that the Russians interfered, coupled with his refusal to enact the sanctions that were near-unanimously passed by Congress suggests a very strange loyalty to Russia, which I suspect is due to blackmail (e.g. the piss tape, and possibly also evidence of money laundering).
Why is that embarrassing?
No, you said that invading bodily privacy is embarrassing. You haven't told me why invading bodily privacy is embarrassing.
Yes, however, there is danger even here. Because if it is a real blunder, then you will have missed an opportunity - and if it's not a real blunder, then you will have fallen into a trap. Sometimes the enemy may commit a grave blunder because, if the blunder is not attended to immediately, it will turn out to be profitable for him later on - and he is banking on the fact that you will interpret the blunder as deception.
No, that's not what I said. I said having others take pictures of you naked in the shower which are then shown to the public is embarrassing because it is invading your bodily privacy. So no more word twisting here please.
"is embarrassing because it is invading your bodily privacy"
Why is invading bodily privacy cause for embarrassment?
Just like the little child, you keep pushing with the why. I've answered your first why, so if I answer this second order why, will you ask another why? Because if you will, we'll get nowhere. So you must decide to come to a stop with the whys at some point. When will this point occur?
Right, we must come to a stop. We just have to admit that, for whatever reason, some people are embarrassed by whatever it is that they're embarrassed by.
And it's reasonable to believe that somebody would be embarrassed by a video showing them watching prostitutes they've paid to piss on a bed, whatever the reason for the embarrassment would be (or no reason at all; the embarrassment often just is a visceral reaction).
No.
Supposedly, so the story goes, Trump paid the prostitutes to piss on the bed because Obama and Michelle slept there? :s I find this reason to be, frankly, unbelievable. If anything, he should have pissed on the bed himself, but why pay the prostitutes to do it? The story just makes no sense. Even if it happened, Trump didn't do anything himself, so I don't see why it would be embarrassing for him.
Whether or not you see a reason for the embarrassment isn't relevant. What matters is whether or not Trump would be embarrassed. If so, he's open to blackmail. That's the issue surrounding the alleged piss table.
Good, how do you know he would be embarrassed by it?
I haven't said he would be. I said he might be, which would make the existence of such a tape a national security issue, given that it could be used as blackmail.
Again, I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
Firing Comey seems really dumb, but then again there were tons of leaks coming out during his tenure which seem to have now largely stopped. Coincidence?
Maybe Trump's professed "nationalist" agenda is interpreted by the Russians as being more aligned with their national (and regional) interests, at least much more so than previous administrations--or a Hillary Clinton administration--which pretty openly sought U.S. global political, economic and military hegemony. I just don't see how loyalty to Russia is implied in trying to ease tensions and find some common ground upon which to build a better relationship. I'm not saying that's what Trump is trying to do, but that's what I would try to do if I were president, and I don't consider myself to be a Russian agent.
I'm under no illusion about what type of leader Putin is or trying to dismiss his government's flaws, but whether a more cooperative or more adversarial relationship serves the interests of average U.S. citizens is something to be considered. Why are pundits like the old neocons--with their bogus WMD claims fresh in our minds--so hawkish about engaging in renewed hostilities with Russia? Who benefits from this? Is it OK for us to foment anti-Russian sentiment in places like the Ukraine? Etc.
Also, other nations (e.g. Israel) lobby U.S. politicians all the time and they do so largely by emphasizing mutual geopolitical interests, but those who take money or other benefits from them aren't accused of being foreign agents. And while I don't like the idea of foreign governments meddling in our domestic affairs or us meddling in theirs, it does seem pretty commonplace. Now if you're an American and you're actively (and knowingly) working against our interests (but again, whose interests are represented in this "our"?) then that's another matter.
I just can't see what's truly unique here. But again I'll acknowledge not keeping up with it as much as you guys and looking at it through an extremely cynical lens, knowing how the U.S. government has repeatedly engaged in efforts to prop up friendly but unpopular regimes around the world for a very long time now, and has done so through the use of nefarious tactics. Tu quoque fallacy? Perhaps, but the hypocrisy of many of those who appeal to the "sanctity of democracy" is pretty amusing given our nation's record. Not as bad as Russia's, admittedly, but we've done many things that run contrary to our professed principles. Much of which predates Trump.
Here's the thing with Trump. With all other people, we assume they are innocent until proven guilty. With Trump, the Crooked Media always assumes Trump is guilty before proven to be guilty...
Such is politics.
No, I just said I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
Sure, that's what you said. ;)
So we know that there are more people involved than just these 13 indicted Russians. I wonder if they're not included because they're American citizens?
https://www.justice.gov/file/1035547/download
But as you point out there is more to come.
Mueller obtained another guilty plea -- this one from a guy named Richard Pinedo, who operates a company that helps skirt security requirements on online payment systems. Doesn't seem to be connected to Trump campaign. www.justice.gov/file/10…
Trump doesn’t seem to have understood that the story has never been about him directly co-operating with Putin to throw the election. What’s really coming out, is that Putin hated Clinton, and because of that, and for various other reasons, he favoured a Trump Presidency, and worked towards that end - whether Trump was aware or not. It’s a lot more complicated that Trump understands it to be - and as has become obvious in the first year of the Presidency, Trump is not good at grasping anything complicated.
And Gates appears to be working on a plea deal. Things ain't looking good for Manafort.
Oh, and you are? Is that why Trump built a billion-dollar real estate empire, and you didn't? :-}
They can. Trump did it.
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/20/16680190/hr-mcmaster-trump-idiot-kindergartner
Is that why Trump is McMaster's boss, because he's less intelligent than him?
Because Trump was elected President and McMaster wasn't. It has nothing to do with intelligence.
Who's doing that?
Takes intelligence to run that campaign and win.
Timely wisdom from a biscuit.
And Trump has all the wisdom of a fortune cookie.
Is it possible for wisdom not to lead to success though?
Sure, success does usually bring a reputation for wisdom, but why is that? Isn't it because it takes wisdom to be successful?
Trump wasn't running it. Pretty sure it's the campaign manager that runs it. And winning doesn't take intelligence, only popular appeal.
So you think the "campaign manager" would have run the incredibly controversial and non-traditional campaign that Trump ran? Sorry, "campaign managers" cannot do that - they just know how to do standard campaigns. The rest comes through the guidance of the person running for office. They have to ASK them to do things differently.
It's inevitable. Success is the obsession of the fool. Far better to fail attempting the right thing than to succeed at the wrong.
How did it go... hmmm, let me remember... wasn't it that the fox who cannot reach the grapes, calls them sour? X-)
Paul Manafort and Kellyanne Conway ran a "standard campaign"? Isn't Manafort a prime suspect for "nonstandard" campaign?
You have not justified this attempt to invert the logic :P
PM joined late, after the campaign was already well underway.
Perhaps those acts which appear as throwing the boat off course are actually well thought out intelligently designed acts of a genius. Who would have thought that appearing as a numbskull is the act of a genius? No, looks don't deceive and the acts are as they appear, the acts of a numbskull?
No, no, absolutely not :B - here's the rower and the boat:
*shakes head*
But, for now, it’s chaos as usual at the Whitehouse. Another expose of his tawdry affairs with porn stars and models, arguments about why the White House hired a known domestic abuser, proof that ‘the Russia thing’ actually did happen, and the failure of legislation to deal with immigration. Trump doesn’t care, thrives on chaos, keeps all around him focussed on fighting fires and arguing with each other.
Who's "Person A"? Thought Manafort at first, but as he's already been charged I'd have thought he'd be named. Or is that not how these things work?
Apparently he's expected to plead guilty.
From the dossier:
Cohen's statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee:
A suspicious denial if he had been to Prague. If it were for innocent reasons, why lie to Congress (a crime) about it?
So the previous report is possibly wrong.
I was delighted to find that I have an ally in James Comey on that. I saw the following quotes in a news article this morning and was so struck by their freshness that I wrote them in my diary:
Asked whether he believed Mr Trump should be impeached, Mr Comey replied, "I hope not because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty bound to do directly."
"People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values."
I think you have weigh that against the possible damage he could do as President. What if he decides for a more aggressive approach to North Korea, or a more lax approach to Russian interference in future elections?
Pity. As cynical rants go, it was a good one. :up:
So... Sean Hannity, eh?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/business/media/sean-hannity-michael-cohen-client.html
Sadly, this is probably perfectly acceptable to Trump partisans.
Thanks, Baden. It was definitely cathartic!
That would require a candidate who shares them. Unfortunately, American government has not been representing the overwhelming majority of it's citizens for a very long time. This is proven true by looking at legislation and other official activities where conflicts of interest between the overwhelming majority and the very few have been in play. The very few being a source of money and power for elected officials. The ability to become rich and powerful while in government requires that one turn their back on the common good. That is the case, because so many have and are currently doing so...
Many government officials financially benefitted in tremendous ways as a direct result of being an elected official, and currently do in lots of cases. This is no big secret. Trump knows that, and is exactly why he scoffs at the emolument clause. The problem is that Trump is in your face about it, whereas most everyone in past kept in quiet.
Conflict of interest?
What is that again? A lost principle that is imperative to the success of a democratic republic... unfortunately so. A preventative measure that is absolutely necessary.
Keep it under wraps? Are you suggesting that Mueller would involve himself in a cover up?
Mueller is required to provide a report to Rosenstein. Rosenstein then has to decide what to do with it. He might make it public, he might send it to Congress, or he might do nothing with it.
Why Mueller’s findings in the Trump-Russia probe may never see the light of day.
So it wouldn't really be a cover-up as such (or at least not in a legal sense). What could be worrying is that, according to that article, Trump can order Rosenstein not to release it to the public or Congress.
The winner in all of it is the press. The mystery provided lots of semi-interesting content. Would any of it have happened if Trump hadn't fired Comey? Probably not.
It'd be 18 U.S. Code § 371 - Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States and/or 52 U.S. Code § 30121 - Contributions and donations by foreign nationals.
Source.
Bit of a waste of time you posting that, then, really. The same people you thought were telling you the truth have had to retract.
Will you only believe what they used to say and choose to not believe what those same ones are saying now?
How inconvenient, eh!
James Clapper, Former Director of National Intelligence; "We did not include any evidence in our report, and when I say our, that's NSA, FBI and CIA, with my office the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report."
Todd; "I understand that but does it exist?"
Clapper; "Not to my knowledge."
Still, if Chelsea Clinton got busted for having a meeting with Russians, after her mother claimed there was no contact with Russians, would be harped upon endlessly by the likes of Hannity, Levin, and Wilkow as a smoking gun.
As a European it never ceases to amaze me how the brains of Democrats and Republicans switch off any time it concerns one of their "team".
Poor lot.
You're an excellent example of what I mean. You come into this thread with a baseless assertion and then try to make fun of people with a different opinion. Newsflash: reasonable people can reasonably disagree but requires everybody involved to respect each other instead of thinking ridicule and sarcasm are appropriate.
Keep it up.
I see. So it exists in the ether?
Maybe they will put it before an ethereal judge in an ethereal court supported by ethereal witnesses.
Maybe Trump will be put in an ethereal jail.
Clapper: "We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, ‘our,’ that's NSA, FBI and CIA, with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report." - emphasis mine
Todd: "I understand that. But does it exist?"
Clapper: "Not to my knowledge."
So evidence could exist outside of Clapper's knowledge as he also explains in the below video, which from a later date than Clapper's statements you're basing yourself off but are interpreting totally incorrectly.
Clapper explains that he would not necessarilybe aware of FBI evidence. About the collusion probe:
"So it’s not surprising or abnormal that I would not have known about the investigation, or even more importantly, the content of that investigation."
"So I don’t know if there was collusion or no,"
Clapper is also asked if he agrees with Trump that the Russian investigation is a "witch hunt," to which he replies, "I don’t believe it is."
So, yes, you're just peddling partisan bullshit and seem to insist on a reading of Clapper's words he himself cleary didn't mean.
Ii has been a case of investigating a person rather than investigating a crime.
No crime has been identified.
Crime is what is supposed to be investigated which goes for every individual.
This whole farce, remember, is an "insurance policy" in case Hillary lost the election.
No, he's not fumbling. You just refuse to take his initial statement at face value as only pertaining to the report. And then when he tells you "that's not what I said nor meant" you come out claiming you know better than Clapper himself what he meant, whereas for a casual reader like myself it's pretty clear what he means.
Quoting Dalai Dahmer
The remit of the Müller investigation is quite clear and broader than an investigation in a specific crime. appointment of special counsel
Quoting Dalai Dahmer
Right. So suspicious behaviour should be ignored because we cannot link a specific crime with it? I really hope you never get into law enforcement with that idea of what investigations are supposed to accomplish.
Quoting Dalai Dahmer
Müller's investigation has so far resulted in 22 plea deals and indictments. Hardly a farce.
As I said, you continue to be a prime example of an American whose brain shuts off when somebody on his team gets attacked. You're confusing loyalty with stupidity.
It is the old mafia tricks.
Quoting Benkei
Yes I am right. That is how it is supposed to work.
Keep watching. You'll see.
Ah, so you admit that what you claim hasn't yet been borne out by the facts. I guess that's something.
Facts have not been produced. If Herr Muller had facts that fitted their collusion narrative he wouldn't have lost interest in it and gone instead looking into alleged consensual sex with a hooker.
He isn't. He was looking into (among other things) campaign finance violations, and then passed it onto the Southern District of New York.
There's a bit of irony here.
Those who adamantly support the idea that Trump is innocent have been offered a plethora of 'reasons' for believing so, all of which involve some sort of pre-planned highly organized governmental conspiracy against Trump. Nearly anyone who has formed a strong(unshakable) judgment of guilt or innocence is uninformed. Aside from those actually privy to the evidence that the special counsel is following, no one has an appropriate evidential basis upon which to arrive at such a judgment.
That said...
There is a surprisingly large amount of evidence that is available to the public. It's not Mueller team evidence. It's public. However, the investigators are surely considering it as well as what they have exclusively. Rest assured that Mueller's team is looking at actual events, things that actually happened that are relevant to Russian interference. Things said in public. Things said in private. Things going on in public. Things going on in private.
Things happening unknown to the public at certain times that corresponded with things said in public and private by Trump and/or his team during that same timeframe.
There are timelines of known events relevant to the possibility of conspiracy to commit fraud against the United States(collusion). Some of these are readily available for public examination. After looking at a comprehensive timeline of known verifiable events, one would be very hard pressed to believe that it was all coincidence.
I'm expecting some sort of analysis quantifying the likelihood of coincidence.
http://time.com/5337253/peter-strzok-congress-testimony-hearing/
https://thebea.st/2uhTTNA
There's always something deeply comical about Trey Gowdy whose false impression of his own intelligence clearly derives exclusively from being around people even stupider than him.
Also he has the gall to accuse others of bias and complain about the length of the Mueller investigation after he spent two and half years on Benghazi.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download
Beat me to the punch. Funny how Mueller keeps discovering stuff seeing as it's all fake news...
Yeah, but no allegations of Americans aware they were cooperating with Russian GRU military personnel...
Live Rosenstein press conference.
So WikiLeaks?
Most likely, I think.
Notable because that's the same day Trump proclaimed: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,"
https://mobile.twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/1017815390485794816
Ooo, gotta hold him to his word for once. Let's see how that pans out.
Is this the straw that will break the camel’s back, so to speak?
And will President Trump see the writing on the wall, and resign office before impeachment?
If so, when? And finally, in a Trump speech announcing such, would he show even a small percentage of the dignity and class that Richard Nixon (of whom I’m no fan) showed in his resignation speech?
There's also the fact that at the time of the infamous Don Jr meeting with the Russians promising 'dirt on Hillary', Trump promised a campaign audience that 'next week, we will have really big news' - which turned out not to be forthcoming, as the meeting was a fizzer.
Quoting 0 thru 9
I don't think so. Trump said during his campaign that he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone dead and get away with it - and it's true. The craven hacks that the GoP has become, aided and abetted by the peanut gallery at Fox, will continue to duck and cover. I do believe the day is coming, but I don't think this is it. What it does do, is makes it impossible to rationalise winding up the Mueller investigation.
No, Trump didn't want to become President.
Originally, but that doesn't mean he's not grateful for Putin supporting him. His is a pretty black and white world, you like me, I like you. Maybe there is compromat too. But that's less likely than a combination of gratitude and general love for dictators in my view.
Ha! He sees himself as supreme ruler. I really think that he doesn't think that impeachment could ever be possible.
He knew about it earlier in the week and yet still said on Friday "I would call it the rigged witch hunt, after watching some of the little clips. … I think that really hurts our country, and it really hurts our
relationship with Russia." and "I think I'd have a very good relationship with President Putin if we spend time together."
As the saying goes, you can indict a ham sandwich,
In other words, an indictment is not a verdict of guilty.
It's political strategy for sheep-public consumption. Publicity of Strzok testimony needs a distraction. Also the often used strategy of such announcements on Friday for infusing into sheeple brain processes. It is known that critique requires immediacy which is diluted over a weekend when the feeble minds of sheeples are thinking of beer and sports.
I'll indict a feta/spinach omelet. Verdict: guilty. Sentence: death by chewing.
It'll just turn to shit in a few days. The same way Mueller is going.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Very possibly true! We are only engaging in educated speculation perhaps, at least I am. But that may be the case. Time will tattle. I remember rumors that Obama was not going to ever give up the office of President. Whichever party is in office, the system of checks and balances has become most unbalanced. However, the system of checks (or preferably unmarked 100 dollar bills) buying the officials is better than ever. The bloated and broken two-party system. One hand washes the other, like Lady MacBeth. The tale will go on and on as long as it is allowed to. I have no answers, only vague impressions. But a diagnosis comes before the prescription. :confused:
Though the agency was formed in 2003, the Trump reign has lately made much of ICE. Which makes me get metaphorical. The “ice” comparison really seems to fit Mr. Trump. Hard, cold, and slippery are adjectives are could describe both. He is the cloudy and opaque type of ice, not the clear variety. Very strong, when the temperature is right. But also very brittle. One could imagine Trump giving up the Presidency if he felt cornered, and sick of the whole thing. He has been a politician less then three years. Easy come, easy go. (Or more bluntly... “F*** it all! I don’t need this. I’m retiring to Mar-a-Lago!) I doubt loyalty to the Republican party would prevail IF the heat became inescapable. Right now, it is merely warm. The ice is still hard.
Richard Nixon started his long political career after serving in WWII. He weathered many storms and losses, including the 1960 election. Yet he still understandably surrendered when surrounded. Whether a Trump impeachment or resignation would truly help the USA is debatable. Would it really change anything? Would it just bring on more bitter divisiveness? Would it make the desperate times even more desperate? I am on the fence about it, mortar shells flying overhead from all directions, the wounded groaning and holding on to life...
Putin's aims are simple and well documented. Just start with the official Russian military doctrine. It states the following:
Hence the main focus is to weaken the Transatlantic Alliance and also the European Union. Have the European countries deal with Russia on a bilateral basis is the objective. Now Russia has to deal with these countries as part of EU and/or NATO. Any West European country is militarily weak compared to Russia on a bilateral basis. Hence without a working NATO, East European countries will fall under the sphere of influence of Russia. Putin doesn't have to invade them (and risk WW3).
Hence Putin isn't likely to invade a NATO country. He can succeed with his game if NATO becomes as defunct as earlier similar organizations like SEATO and CENTO, which now are in the dustbin of history.
And now he is winning...
I'm asking with an objective tone btw. I'm not selling anything.
Couldn't care less. Just pretend I know the history of the 20th Century.
Russia isn't going to try to invade the US.
So you see conflict with Russia eventually if Europe falls. Where does China fit in this possible future?
But true about China: as a species were mostly Asian. :)
Yes. Those 30,000 emails, eh?
Nearly all of Hillary Clinton's emails on her homebrew server went to a foreign entity that isn't Russia. When this was discovered by the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), IG Chuck McCullough sent his investigator Frank Ruckner and an attorney to notify Strzok along with three other people about the "anomaly."
Four separate attempts were also made to notify DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz to brief him on the massive security breach, however Horowitz "never returned the call." Recall that Horowitz concluded last month that despite Strzok's extreme bias towards Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump - none of it translated to Strzok's work at the FBI.
In other words; Strzok, while investigating Clinton's email server, completely ignored the fact that most of Clinton's emails were sent to a foreign entity - while IG Horowitz simply didn't want to know about it.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found an “anomaly on Hillary Clinton’s emails going through their private server, and when they had done the forensic analysis, they found that her emails, every single one except four, over 30,000, were going to an address that was not on the distribution list,” Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said during a hearing with FBI official Peter Strzok. -Daily Caller
Gohmert continued; “It was going to an unauthorized source that was a foreign entity unrelated to Russia.”
Strzok admitted to meeting with Ruckner but said he couldn't remember the "specific" content of their discussion.
“The forensic examination was done by the ICIG and they can document that,” Gohmert said, “but you were given that information and you did nothing with it.”
Meanwhile, “Mr. Horowitz got a call four times from someone wanting to brief him about this, and he never returned the call,” Gohmert said - and Horowitz wouldn't return the call.
And while Peter Strzok couldn't remember the specifics of his meeting with the IG about the giant "foreign entity" bombshell, he texted this to his mistress Lisa Page when the IG discovered the "(C)" classification on several of Clinton's emails - something the FBI overlooked:
“Holy cow ... if the FBI missed this, what else was missed? … Remind me to tell you to flag for Andy [redacted] emails we (actually ICIG) found that have portion marks (C) on a couple of paras. DoJ was Very Concerned about this.”
Internal Pushback
In November of 2017, IG McCullough - an Obama appointee - revealed to Fox News that he received pushback when he tried to tell former DNI James Clapper about the foreign entity which had Clinton's emails and other anomalies.
Instead of being embraced for trying to expose an illegal act, seven senators including Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) wrote a letter acusing him of politicizing the issue.
"It's absolutely irrelevant whether something is marked classified, it is the character of the information," he said.
McCullough said that from that point forward, he received only criticism and an "adversarial posture" from Congress when he tried to rectify the situation.
"I expected to be embraced and protected," he said, adding that a Hill staffer "chided" him for failing to consider the "political consequences" of the information he was blowing the whistle on.
Authord by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
The indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose task it is to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and ‘Russians’, that was released yesterday by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, raises so many questions one has to be picky.
Many people have already stated that the report contains no proof of anything it claims, and that Mueller doesn’t have to prove a thing, because the 12 Russians he accuses will never show up in a US court. Many of course also have at least questioned the timing of the release, 3 days before the Putin-Trump summit in Helsinki, of information Mueller and Rosenstein have allegedly been sitting on for months.
THE MUELLER REPORT: the role of WikiLeaks (labeled “Organization 1”). Mueller very much focuses on both Julian Assange -though he doesn’t get named and is not indicted- and his presumed links to the indicted Russians, who -allegedly- posed as Guccifer 2.0:
Use of Organization 1
47. In order to expand their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Conspirators transferred many of the documents they stole from the DNC and the chairman of the Clinton Campaign to Organization 1. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organization 1 to heighten their impact on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
a. On or about June 22, 2016, Organization 1 sent a private message to Guccifer 2.0 to “[s]end any new material [stolen from the DNC] here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing.” On or about July 6, 2016, Organization 1 added, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after.” The Conspirators responded, “ok . . . i see.” Organization 1 explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”
b. After failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016, on or about July 14, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent Organization 1 an email with an attachment titled “wk dnc link1.txt.gpg.” The Conspirators explained to Organization 1 that the encrypted file contained instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents. On or about July 18, 2016, Organization 1 confirmed it had “the 1Gb or so archive” and would make a release of the stolen documents “this week.”
48. On or about July 22, 2016, Organization 1 released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network by the Conspirators. This release occurred approximately three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention. Organization 1 did not disclose Guccifer 2.0’s role in providing them. The latest-in-time email released through Organization 1 was dated on or about May 25, 2016, approximately the same day the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server.
49. On or about October 7, 2016, Organization 1 released the first set of emails from the chairman of the Clinton Campaign that had been stolen by LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators. Between on or about October 7, 2016 and November 7, 2016, Organization 1 released approximately thirty-three tranches of documents that had been stolen from the chairman of the Clinton Campaign. In total, over 50,000 stolen documents were released.
This means Mueller et al claim that WikiLeaks received the DNC files from Russian parties which had hacked into DNC(-related) servers. Something Julian Assange has always denied. Now, remember that the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former US intelligence professionals, as well as others, have said that the speed with which the files were downloaded from the server(s) indicates that they were not hacked, but put onto a hard drive.
The person who is supposed to have done that is Seth Rich. Who was murdered on July 10 2016. Kim Dotcom has long claimed to have evidence that Seth Rich was indeed the person who provided the files to Assange. Today he said on Twitter that his lawyers warned him about exposing that evidence, citing his safety and that of his family.
Half a year after Rich’s -never solved- murder, in the first months of 2017, the US Department of Defense was involved in negotiations with Assange in which the latter was offered -temporary- ‘safe passage’ from the Ecuador Embassy in London where he is holed up, in exchange for Assange ‘redacting’ a batch of files on the CIA known as Vault 7.
These negotiations were suddenly halted in April 2017 through the interference of James Comey -then FBI chief- and Mark Warner, a US Senator (D-VA). In the talks, Assange had offered to prove that no Russians were involved in the process that led to WikiLeaks receiving the files.
Today, of course, Assange is completely incommunicado in the Ecuador embassy, so he cannot defend himself against the Mueller accusations. Mueller really doesn’t have to prove anything: he can say what he wants. Comey and Warner prevented Assange from providing evidence exonerating ‘the Russians’, and Assange has been shut down.
Let me repeat once again: Assange is fully aware that the smallest bit of non-truth or half-lie would mean the end of WikiLeaks. It is based on ultimate trust. Nobody would ever offer a single file again if they wouldn’t have full confidence that Wikileaks would treat it -and them- with the utmost respect. So the American approach is to smear Assange in any way possible, rape allegations, collusion with Russian agents, anything goes.
And ‘the Russians’ can be ‘freely’ accused in a 29-page indictment released on the eve of the first summit President Trump is supposed to have with his Russian counterpart a year and a half into his presidency, where his predecessors all had such meetings much earlier into their presidencies. With many lawmakers calling on him to cancel it.
Half a year after Rich’s -never solved- murder, in the first months of 2017, the US Department of Defense was involved in negotiations with Assange in which the latter was offered -temporary- ‘safe passage’ from the Ecuador Embassy in London where he is holed up, in exchange for Assange ‘redacting’ a batch of files on the CIA known as Vault 7.
These negotiations were suddenly halted in April 2017 through the interference of James Comey -then FBI chief- and Mark Warner, a US Senator (D-VA). In the talks, Assange had offered to prove that no Russians were involved in the process that led to WikiLeaks receiving the files.
Today, of course, Assange is completely incommunicado in the Ecuador embassy, so he cannot defend himself against the Mueller accusations. Mueller really doesn’t have to prove anything: he can say what he wants. Comey and Warner prevented Assange from providing evidence exonerating ‘the Russians’, and Assange has been shut down.
Let me repeat once again: Assange is fully aware that the smallest bit of non-truth or half-lie would mean the end of WikiLeaks. It is based on ultimate trust. Nobody would ever offer a single file again if they wouldn’t have full confidence that Wikileaks would treat it -and them- with the utmost respect. So the American approach is to smear Assange in any way possible, rape allegations, collusion with Russian agents, anything goes.
And ‘the Russians’ can be ‘freely’ accused in a 29-page indictment released on the eve of the first summit President Trump is supposed to have with his Russian counterpart a year and a half into his presidency, where his predecessors all had such meetings much earlier into their presidencies. With many lawmakers calling on him to cancel it.
This means Mueller et al claim that WikiLeaks received the DNC files from Russian parties which had hacked into DNC(-related) servers. Something Julian Assange has always denied. Now, remember that the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former US intelligence professionals, as well as others, have said that the speed with which the files were downloaded from the server(s) indicates that they were not hacked, but put onto a hard drive.
The person who is supposed to have done that is Seth Rich. Who was murdered on July 10 2016. Kim Dotcom has long claimed to have evidence that Seth Rich was indeed the person who provided the files to Assange. Today he said on Twitter that his lawyers warned him about exposing that evidence, citing his safety and that of his family.
The DNC servers were hacked.
Not actually technically possible due the their density. "Leaked" after downloaded to a hard-drive is the greater probability.
British former diplomat, Craig Murray, appears to have may been the go-between (between such a DNC insider, the murdered Seth Rich, and Wikileaks).
Seth Rich was on the Bernie Sanders campaign, which was nefariously derailed by Hillary's lot, and who's donated funds were slipped from their intended destination to the Hillary camp (just for context as to general election corruption)
The private cyber security company, Crowdstrike, which was, and is, employed by the DNC, refused to hand over the server to the FBI.
The question as to why?
A protection racket.
That is not correct. Mueller is tasked with investigating the Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 elections. This includes investigating the extent to which the Trump campaign was involved and any other related possible crime.
They were hacked.
Please do not accept jury duty for the sake of justice.
An accusation does not automatically equal guilt.
An example of the danger of stupidity.
Is this a case that if you repeat it enough it will become true?
I understand the phenomena of emotional investment in this belief.
It started with someone you didn't want to win winning.
Along with you came millions of others supported by the presstitutes.
Such a shame it is, and will continue to, unravel. Well, a shame for you.
It became diluted to that when the "collusion" conspiracy theory began disintegrating.
That was set up. Typical entrapment attempt by opposition which had, and was only designed to be, for media optics.
Yep, this shows the utter ignorance and naivety of many Trump supporters. Why, they haven't anything against Russia, so why bother, why not be in good terms with them? So Trump is doing just fine trying to improve the relations!
The utter inability to see that Russia especially under Putin sees the US as it's main enemy and is trying weaken the power of the US in the World is evident with these people. Russia clearly understands that Trump is a passing moment, and is trying to get the most of it. And Americans believe the lies. Why, it's just the American "Deep State", the military-industrial establishment, fooling the people and making everything up. Russia and Putin would just want better relations.
The lack of understanding the motives and the agenda of foreigners can be very detrimental.
Are you a Russian cyber troll?
Good question.
I would vote for Trump 2020, but I can't get past the way he flirts with racists.
Isn't Finland already part of Russia? Kind of like Idaho is part of the US?
He never believed he could win and almost certainly never wanted to be president, and he'll do what he thinks is best for his ratings 100% of the time, which is the only thing keeping him from resigning at present.
If someone can pitch him the right angle he might resign (especially if someone can convince him Mueller is closing in), something like "These are levels of obstruction never seen before folks..." "Because of constant fake news and anti-American actions by crooked Hillary and the lying democrats, I am choosing to step down a winner and leave this country in the capable hands of vice president Pence", "It's really a shame folks, but in the time that I have been president I've done more for this country than any other president. At least that's what people are telling me. *grins cheekily and emits a spastic shrug*". It's really sad folks, I really had a lot of great things, tremendous things, in store for this country, and now the democrats are going to have to live with the fact that they might be responsible for making America un-great again".
:lol: Hilarious! You got him down to a “T”. (Well, maybe tragi-comic is a better term than hilarious, or maybe it is gallows humor. Whatever). You nailed it. I think that is pretty much what he would say. America first... well actually ME first! It’s the Me Generation!
And what is this thing with the right-wing and Trump using the word “folks” so damn much? I hear it on talk radio, which I listen to out of morbid curiosity and can stand for about 5 minutes. I think Rush Limbaugh was one of the first to popularize the term in the recent past. “Folks” is just so... folksy. So chummy and buddy buddy. Just good honest hard workin’, salt-of-the-Earth people. (No welfare queens or drug dealin’ pimps here. No sir!)
How does this make sense? The meeting was not arranged by the Democrats, so who is it that was trying to entrap him? For that matter, what's the relevance to guilt/innocence?
I'd love to believe that, but I don't think it's realistic. Trump does not like to be pushed around. I expect he'll use every tool imaginable: challenging a subpoena in the Supreme Court, pardoning the folks who might testify against him, and even pardoning himself. All this in the name of terminating the "witch hunt."
Enlighten us on the motives and agenda of Russia. While you're at it, do the same thing with the ostensibly selfless motives and agenda of the United States. Tell us why our military spending should be so high relative to other nations; why others should welcome our effort to impose our agenda around the world; why we should be encouraged to meddle in the affairs of others while complaining when they do the same to us; etc.
This sort of American exceptionalism - I'm assuming (perhaps erroneously) this is the angle you'll take - is pushed by neocons (ooh!) and others in order to justify continued American global dominance. All the while our own country languishes with massive discrepancies in wealth, in access to quality education, in healthcare, in racial and cultural divisiveness, in a pervasive cynicism regarding politics, etc.
I think the assumption is erroneous. There's a differences between disparaging and alienating allies and deluding yourself Russia is benign on the one hand and the issues resulting from the military - industrial complex, a political system hostage to two malt identical parties and other social ills on the other. So, you can not care about international relations up to a point but being chummy with the guy that probably orchestrated a lot of influence on the last USA election is not not caring, it's wilful ignorance at best and bad faith at worst.
I don't think the two things are incompatible; in fact that seems the most reasonable position to take at the moment: Russia may represent a genuine danger for us and our allies and yet we may need to prioritize our very serious domestic issues for the time being, and part of that may involve scaling back the empire.
What I mainly took issue with was the mocking tone ssu took (I generally appreciate his contributions btw) towards those who feel there's been a significant divergence of interests between the political/economic powers within the United States and normal working class people. This is something that's been commented on for a long time now, and it should be pointed out that it's mainly been by those who identify with the Left (Zinn, Chomsky, et al).
Just seemed both condescending and contradictory. On the one hand, we're to dismiss the idea that a group of citizens within the United States - those with wealth and power no less - have conspired to advance their interests at the expense of average citizens through various forms of manipulation. This was associated with crackpot conspiracy theories, e.g. "deep state", military-industrial complex, etc.
On the other hand, there's no similar dismissal of the alleged conspiracy undertaken by Putin and the Russians to advance their interests through any means necessary. In fact, he's accused of pursuing just such an agenda through collaboration with Trump as well as other clandestine measures, like fomenting racial discord within the country, undercutting our relationships with traditional allies, etc.
Anyhow, best to be suspicious of Putin's Russia and the manipulative powers within the United States - whether these be Trump and his lackeys or the previous and largely bipartisan "establishment".
The Hillary's pedocrat party paid Fusion GPS for a "dossier". The Russian he met, Natalia Veselnitskaya, worked for Fusion.
Guilt of what?
Is Finland racist?
I would also add that our concern with the affairs of others around the world is something that's not always been honorable. Do you guys support our readiness to prop up nondemocratic regimes when it serves our (whose?) interests? Launching wars under false pretext in the Middle East and elsewhere? Giving China most favored nation trading status despite blatant human rights violations? How about the near unchallenged support our politicians give Israel against Palestinians? Or how about our politicians wearing American flag pins and appealing to the patriotic sentiments of the masses while gladly outsourcing their jobs for the sake of cheaper labor costs and lower environmental standards?
For those of you implying some deficiency in morals and/or knowledge of those who disagree with your view that the US should take on the role of protector against Russian aggression, do YOU have a problem with your country receiving money and other benefits from such an unjust and immoral country as the United States? Is that really who you want as an ally? Or could you "not care less" how these funds have been acquired and how the US behaves towards other (esp non-European) nations? Seems extremely hypocritical tbh to call out Americans for ignorance or a lack of concern while looking the other way when it benefits you to do so.
Yeah, I'm suspicious of attempts to frame things in moral terms. We need to get our own house in order before we start lecturing others on how to conduct their affairs. And that position does not preclude a genuine concern for others around the globe, but rather demands it. Especially if we'd like to take a leading role in world affairs moving forward. As usual, none of this should be taken as even tacit approval of Trump - he's a symptom of much larger issues that he may be exploiting to his advantage but that he did not create.
Russians may actually feel quite free in their own country. I haven't heard of a demand for Russians to immigrate to the US. They may not even be subject to vaccination regimes and propaganda there.
Is the US more free than Russia? I don't know. Maybe not.
I agree but perhaps my paragraph wasn't as clear as I thought it was. :up:
Wrong it was indeed. But many think that only neocons are in favour of NATO etc.
IN FACT American unilateralism and especially the extreme hubris of the neocons is the total opposite here. If you noticed, neocon policies were not so loved in Europe (remember Freedom Fries?).
The basic fact, despite all the critique you can justifiably have toward US foreign policy, is that other Western countries accept and are quite OK with the whole international system that the US itself created for itself after WW2. NATO, CENTO, SEATO were all American ideas at the end. NATO brings not only stability, but basically puts the US in the position of a superpower, just as all the other international organizations like the IMF or the role of the US dollar does (again something done after WW2). Hubris would be to think that the US has such a leading role just because it has the strongest military and the largest economy.
The Superpower status comes from the role that the US plays through organizations like NATO. One has to remember that the US had a very large economy before WW2, but it was a smaller player on the World. Hence there isn't a reason why economic and military power would go automatically hand in hand with the nations position in the World.
Somehow many Americans don't see any reason for these complex alliances, think (as Trump) that these organizations and alliances are just a burden to the US, a lousy deal. The fact is without them, the US wouldn't be a Superpower, it wouldn't get other countries to send troops to it's wars and likely would lose it's position, which indeed has made it's own position better. Just think about the role of the US dollar. Futhermore, other countries would make their security arrangements then without the US. Basically they would turn their back on the US in these issues and make their own policy. If you the Americans would be OK with that, well, president Trump said the EU was a "foe" of the US.
Quoting Erik
Now that a is big subject. Perhaps in a nutshell it is that Putin needs an sinister enemy to justify his crackdown on the opposition and to stay in power for life. After all, first it was Napoleon, then Hitler, so don't trust the West. And offence is the best defence.
One has to be critical of the criticisms and statements on both sides, which one can only be with truly learning about the issues oneself. Occams razor is a good method here.
Best propaganda is made by only referring to facts. Hence you have to know what facts are then left out in order to notice the subtle propaganda/agenda.
Mueller's investigation team is composed of lawyers who are all Democrat donors. His chief investigator is a slime ball who has, on several occasions, sent people to jail who were later released in Appeals courts. The slime ball withheld evidence which would have cleared these men in the first place, but he sent them to jail anyway, until appeal. He should have been disbarred. This is the type of slime ball Democrat, the Democrats use to rail road people.
The entire Mueller investigation is based on the saying, the best defense is a good offense. As long as Mueller appears to be on the offense, and Trump on the defense, Mueller can delay the investigation into his own shady dealings with the Russians. Trump knows this, but he is not stopping it, because they have nothing. It makes Trump look like the underdog which is creating sympathetic support for Trump. It is also putting the spot light on the radial side of the Democrat party and the media, who are both showing their true colors. This will allow Trump to win the midterms for the Republicans, then the tide turns.
This is merely an expression of insecurity. What it is saying is that you FEEL trolled.
Your feelings are not going to be, however, a reflection of reality. Of what is actually real or true. Of what is actually happening.
The other clue as to insecure feelings expressed is this us vs them dialectic. It is as though "Russian" is some mysterious alien and therefore foreboding shadowy creature thing while one's own assumed identity must always be on the side of right merely for being familiar and customary.
It is this type of typical insecurity which buys easily into media and authoritarian narratives which are essentially designed to accentuate the split mindedness of sheeples for the greater ease of political/militaristic actors toward manipulation and society engineering of such plastic subjects.
Mueller is the current face of a protection racket. To protect "business as usual".
The "business" does not like anything too unpredictable.
They are not so able to predict the Trump character, whether he be either good or bad for the average, everyday American
But "business as usual" is, in my view, definitely not good for the everyday American. "Swamp" is an accurate term whoever uses it.
There's plenty of criticism levelled by the Dutch press on Dutch issues or European issues. In the USA you have bipartisan cheerleaders masquerading as news outlets dominating the news. The level of distrust is incomparable. I can cite any Dutch newspaper in the Netherlands or refer any news program for facts and whether the person is a communist or a right-wing xenophobe, he'll accept those facts. If I cite the NYT to Republicans, half of the time I have to find corroborating evidence before we can talk about what those facts mean. It's sad really that there's apparently such a dissonance within the population.
So certainly, I also take issue with the USA's foreign policy and definitely have an opinion about a lot of its domestic issues. You're welcome to take issue with the Netherlands as well. In practice nobody cares about the Netherlands because it's not in the same position as the USA, which is still a superpower and a potential elephant in the chinashop.
Do we want the US to be an ally? Of course, if only because it beats having it as an enemy. The same is true for China and Russia for that matter, which have horrible human rights records domestically where the USA reserves that for refugee children. The USA though, pretends to be a democracy based on the rule of law so I do hold it at a higher standard than despotic regimes. And morality does come into play when money is better represented than people and it's clear as daylight. The Netherlands shows tendencies to develop the same problem the US has in that respect. As does Europe as a whole. We kind of benefit from being a fragmented cooperation of different States here as it makes it much harder to influence every country at once.
I also believe the US should not take the role of protector against Russian aggression (or any type of aggression for that matter). In fact, I think it should do far less and when it does act, to do so for the right reasons and based on actual evidence (Iraq anyone?). What is a problem, I think, is having Trump fawn over Putin and downplaying the rather serious implications of Russian meddling in the US elections (and other Western countries including the Netherlands). You'd expect we have common ground to work together to combat these cyber attacks but you wouldn't be able to tell based on Trump's performance at NATO, in the UK and today again in Helsinki.
The world would be a very quiet place. But at least we know that your house is in order.
You didn't answer the question. You referred to entrapment.
"Mueller is the current face of a protection racket. To protect "business as usual"."
Do you have any facts that support your claim?
What about the many indictments? Are they fiction?
I can understand why you might like Trump's policies, but I cannot understand why anyone would have such faith in his character that you can't even conceive of the possibility he did something wrong. I, for one, don't assume he's personally guilty of a crime - and won't until (and unless) facts support it.
No one knows. Are you having fun, raza? :sparkle:
Thanks for the thoughtful replies, guys. Valuable input on the perception of the US from European perspective(s). Lots to think about...
Indictments are indictments. What they say are neither fiction or truth.
That's because you have a nodule in your medulla.
Wrong with regard to what? Everyone has done something wrong whether caught out or not.
Opinions welcome.
Except Hillary and Obama. They’re blameless.
So my response to that would mean I would be talking about Trump, yeah?
You are quite weird.
These are the first 3 sentences of this entire discussion thread.
"I'm clueless. What would motivate Trump to try to squash Comey's investigation? Apparently Trump thinks he committed some offense, but what?"
What name stands out most, you think?
You talk about Trump A LOT. I checked your posting history.
And? Your point?
??????? ?????? ???????, ???
Maybe I'm not a Russian troll but just straight Russian.
What facts support your claim? Is it just faith in the virtues of all things Trump, and faith in the evil nature of all things Democrat?
[i]"Relativist: that you can't even conceive of the possibility he did something wrong"
raza: "Wrong with regard to what? Everyone has done something wrong whether caught out or not."[/i]
1. With regard to the law (prime importance)
2. With regard to ethics (not all unethical activities are illegal).
Which law? If it is of “prime importance” then you would need to state which law.
Was he speeding?
You're not the only one who talks too much about Trump. Many of us do. But it's odd that you came here apparently exclusively to promote Trump. You don't appear to have any other function. I think that's what @Jeremiah's talking about. (But I'm not going to comment on the Russian cyber-troll accusation, which is just speculation.)
You highlight what is the difference between an indictment of someone and of whether that means that someone is guilty.
There is evidence that I have commented on other topics.
Now you also say “talks too much about Trump”. There are two ongoing threads on Trump. Many have contributed to them. And I started neither of them.
My advice is do not start a thread if you don’t want responses.
So commenting on threads others start is odd?
How odd.
The vast majority of your overall posts are about Trump and the Mueller investigation and on Trump's side. So, your almost-exclusive function here is to promote Trump. That doesn't make you guilty of anything. It's just an observation.
I reply to responses. Therefore I attempt to maintain the dialog asked of me by others. You are doing that right now. Weird eh?
I think there is a touch of that virus here.
What's weird is you can't admit your almost-exclusive function here is to promote Trump. It's not against the rules. You can support anyone you like within reasonable boundaries. Why dance around it? That's what you're here for. Embrace it.
It appears that my function is to moderate politically indocrinated commentators such as yourself.
Case in point. NOW you have moderated to introducing the word “almost”.
My function is functioning successfully.
You’re entitled to opinion. I regard your mindless anti trump proselytising as spam.
Again, I'm not declaring he's necessarily guilty, but here are a few of the laws that he might have broken:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/953
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1505
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512
As a reminder, my question was: can you conceive of the possibility he broke the law or did something unethical (even if not a violation of the law)?
Interesting. Got a link for that?
Edit: looks like it’s forced immunity to prevent them pleading the Fifth.
Damned both ways. But hey, this does seem to about identifying foes. Not merely those with other facts and disagreements but actual foes.
So please feel free to explain what you mean by “reality”? Are you suggesting reality is what the intel state says it is?
Only a bot wouldn't have recognized my post as a joke. How did you get past the reCAPTCHA? AI???
"Somewhat of a pointless exercise. But hey, whatever grabs your interest."
Is it completely irrelevant to you if Trump actually committed a serious crime?is it that you simply think it is so extremely unlikely that he committed a serious crime? is it that you think all politicians are criminals, so it doesn't really matter as long as Trump does the things you want done? I'd really like to understand where you're coming from.
Insert Trump's crime here >........< and then there is something to discuss on this topic.
Insert Trump's crime here >........< and then there is something to discuss on this topic.
I listed some crimes that Trump has possibly committed. Criminal investigation starts with suspicion, followed by investigation to see if there is a case. You can't demand proof of a crime prior to the investigation. Why should Trump not be investigated?
And has he been? If not why not? Maybe the FBI should be talking to you to get direction.
:grin:
:razz:
:lol:
Russia. Why?
It appears I have merely interrupted a conversation you were having with yourself.
Carry on.
Mueller investigative results to date, re: level of Russia’s influence on insignificant number of American voters.
The extent of Russian operative penetration consisted of placed Facebook ads.
(You know? The type of ads which barely anyone takes any notice of?)
Above meagre Russian operation took place on Obama’s watch.
Rosenstein has had to admit that No American has been shown to be involved in any Russian’s attempt to influence voters via such meagre means.
Outcome: Some political theatre and a good payday for many lawyers and media persons.
It is impossible to assess the impact of any individual advertising campaign, whether allowed by law or not. Nevertheless, in the aggregate, it is pretty clear that advertising is somewhat effective.
If you're right that it was nothing more than a few facebook ads, then it is much ado about nothing. But it was certainly at least a bit more than this, and possibly a good bit more. We need to wait and see.
What about all that computer hacking?
Quoting raza
What difference does this make? If the store got robbed while I was at the desk, or while you were at the desk, is that supposed to implicate one of us, or something?
Are you talking of a “hack” of the dnc server that the dnc never turned over to the FBI for investigative analysis despite several FBI requests?
The point is that Trump had zero control of that phenomena while Obama, comparively speaking (relative to Trump), had massive, governmental authoritative resources, therefore the other end of the spectrum with regard to control.
To utilise your analogy, therefore, Trump was neither the robber or the store owner whereas Obama would be the store owner.
Here is merely one of the many reports of the time including James Comey’s own testimony.
‘The FBI requested access to the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) servers and servers for other Democratic entities that were hacked during the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday, but its request was not met.
In a hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday afternoon outlining the intelligence agencies’ findings on Russian election interference, Comey said there were “multiple requests at different levels” for access to the Democratic servers, but that ultimately a “highly respected private company” was granted access and shared its findings with the FBI.’
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-director-comey-agency-requested-access-to-dnc-servers/
Not really. The point is that Store owners didn't ought to be best buddies with store robbers. And if they are, folks start to talk about 'an inside job'.
Your premise that Trump had zero control is unsupported, so you cannot conclude that trump was not the robber. And the store owner cannot be held responsible for the theft (unless there is evidence of 'an inside job'). That responsibility is placed squarely on the thief.
Did I say that Russian Facebook ad creators were colluding or “buddies” with Obama-the-store-owner?
No I did not.
The “store owner” has responsibility for security (just as Hillary Clinton was responsible for security of classified material with which she spectacularly failed at).
Trump as robber, insert your evidence here >……………<
So much derangement on display all over this thread.
I just said your premise that Trump had zero control is unsupported. So we cannot yet rule out the possibility that trump is the robber.
Quoting raza
So the robber goes to court and says look judge, the store owner should have prevented me from robbing the store he's the real guilty party.
It is not up to the accused to provide evidence of what he is accused of.
Your premise, or accusation, that Trump controlled a Facebook ad operation by some particular persons of Russian origin is unsupported.
You are being really quite silly.
I think you should consider writing children’s literature.
Because even a child could see that Donald is Putin's poodle...?
:cheer:
It appears that children are seeing it that way.
Let me tell you the story of the emperor's new clothes. Are you sitting comfortably?
I'm sure there's a mathematician out there somewhere who could put some statistical numbers out there... the odds that it is all coincidence?
More likely to win the lottery, I would think.
These Republicans, at least, realise the very serious nature of Russia's information warfare capabilities, and that it has to be combatted. And also how serious it is, that the President of the USA doesn't see that, and in fact seems infatuated with Putin, and dictators generally.
But Trump simply can't get his head around the idea that the Mueller probe isn't necessarily about him - because in Trump's world, everything is about him. This is why he keeps frantically tweeting about 'witch hunts' and conspiracy theories. It would be funny if it weren't so diabolically serious.
Honestly, I think trump is a symptom of much bigger problems. Other symptoms include the recent attacks on workers' rights, equating money to freedom of speech, de-regulation of the financial sector, de-regulation of environmental protections, repealing anti-trust laws, etc...
All have the same root. Monetary corruption.
Yes, I believe we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-june-2016-meeting-knowledge/index.html
This could be the dam wall going.
Aww yeah, that's was' up...
Remind me though, did Trump jr. originally lie about the existence of that meeting?
If memory serves me well, yes.
Hmm...
What if Mark Zuckerberg had walked up to Trump and said "I've got dirt on Clinton, do you want it?" and Trump had said yes, what crime had been committed?
Then Mark says "oh, and by the way, I can use targeted advertisements to influence Americans. How many ads would you like Donald?"
To which Trump replies, "I'll take a 150,000 in cash."
What crime would be committed?
Just replacing Mark with the Russians doesn't make it a crime. It's only when Trump directed or knew about the DNC hacks that I start to see something of a case but I'm not sure nor reporting a crime is a crime itself in the USA. It's certainly not the case in the Netherlands.
As far as I'm aware a conspiracy to commit a crime against the US government is sufficient to get one's self in the slammer. So, foreknowledge has already been assured with Cohen coming out on the recorrd about the issue. Now the rest lies with what Muller has already been covered by his investigation.
Good luck with that one since everyone present would be criminally liable as well so they won't talk unless they make a deal. Making a deal makes you an untrustworthy witness as you could say anything to get a free pass on an unrelated parking ticket or tax claim. You'll need to flip quite a few people that aren't family to get anywhere near establishing a case for this.
Yeah, that goes without saying. I'm more into letting this drag out until the next relection just to sear it into the memory of everyone who voted for Trump that that was a bad idea.
I believe it would be a crime if Trump encouraged Russia to get information illegally. That would mean he was conspiring with the Russians. He actually did ask Russia to find Hillary's emails, and reportedly this prompted activities to do just that. Had Russia actually delivered the emails, then I think Trump might be held guilty of a crime. They didn't, but it's dancing close to the fire. Also consider the "nothing burger" meeting between Don Jr and the Russians - again, nothing came out of it, but had something come out of it, it would possibly have been a crime.
It would also be a the crime if someone hinted or promised relief on Russian sanctions in return for information.
Accepting or soliciting a "thing of value" from a foreign national for election purposes is a crime:
52 U.S. Code § 30121 - Contributions and donations by foreign nationals
Here's where some legal experts say that the June 9th Trump Tower meeting could show this law being broken, as opposition research counts as a "thing of value".
If you are talking about Don Jr's statement about the meeting (being about adoption, etc.), then it's more than a strong rumor that Donald J. Trump helped draft it. Trump's legal team acknowledged that he dictated it to Don Jr. This admission came after repeated denials that Trump Sr had anything to do about it.
From the CNN story on the Cohen claim:
But if Cohen is believed (and it's a big 'if') then it will definitely show that Trump has been lying about the meeting from the outset. Although as many people have commented, Trump lies or confabulates so often that he has actually managed to normalise it to the point where his followers don't think it matters - they will still blame the media, or the FBI, or whomever, for anything untoward. It's the 'post-truth world' that he has ushered in.
Quoting Posty McPostface
If only. He does enormous harm just being there.
The article does say "Cohen alleges that he was present, along with several others, when Trump was informed of the Russians' offer by Trump Jr." so Mueller can always subpoena these others to testify to the grand jury. If he's telling the truth then they'll either corroborate or perjure themselves.
:yikes:
I don't think it covers hiring some professional service. Else Trump would have broken the law by paying Chinese workers to make his MAGA hats.
Ah, which included hiring Russians, by the way.
It is all corporate games.
I think he plays to the mistrust many have in the usual politicians who “act presidential” while being essiantlially criminal behind public scenes.
People generally know presidents and politicians of the past are corrupt.
For all we know, on a scale Trump maybe less so. If he isn’t less so he will want to appear less so.
Also, it appears to be his personality and so if he attempted to sound “presidential” he would not carry it as believable.
Testimony under oath:
https://youtu.be/dax8KvfPXPI
18 charges. Maximum sentence of 305 years. How many will he be found guilty of? How long, if he gets one, will his prison sentence be? Place your bets.
They did. The problem is that the CEO forced the loan to go through (against the president) because he wanted Manafort to get him on Trump's team. This was the argument the defence used; the loan would have been approved regardless so it doesn't matter that he lied on the form.
Bank fraud
Whoever knowingly executes a scheme to obtain moneys from a financial institution by means of false representations...
Tricky one. He certainly did falsely represent himself (the defence admitted it), but given the prosecution's own argument, the loan was granted in exchange for a personal favour for the CEO. So the defence has a point. On the other hand, if it was just about the favour then Manafort wouldn't have bothered to lie on the form, which suggests that the false representation was intended to help secure the loan, with perhaps the favour as a backup. As the law looks to refer to intent rather than outcome, as a professional non-lawyer I side with the prosecution.
Manafort did his crimes during the Obama Administration. His dealings were known by the FBI years before he worked for Trump. The Obama Administration never acted on this until the Democrats thought they could associate his crimes with Trump using fake news. How many fell for this scam?
So he's guilty and should be punished accordingly.
Quoting wellwisher
Which dealings? Certainly not the fraudulent bank loan, as from what I can see that was late November 2016.
And of the dealings they knew about, did they have sufficient evidence to charge him, and if so then why didn't they? Are you saying that they decided not to charge him because they hoped that in a few years time he would work for Trump who would be running for President and win, and then they could use Manafort's financial crimes to somehow get revenge on Trump?
You really need to spell out your accusation more clearly because at the moment it doesn't make much sense.
Quoting wellwisher
What scam? If he's guilty then he's guilty and the prosecution is entirely warranted.
And this definitely doesn't make any sense. It was under the Trump administration that Manafort was indicted and is being prosecuted.
Are you just saying that the Obama administration was lenient towards white collar crime and that the Trump administration is finally cracking down on criminals like Manafort who should be held accountable?
Let the criminals go free because they're on our side is what he's saying. Which is a fairly typical attitude of hardcore Trump supporters and of Trump himself, the "law and order" president.
The idea that the Republicans are the party of "law and order" (and of "family values" and "fiscal responsibility") is laughable.
Wait a minute. Fines are a possibility under the other charges as well. I'm going to drop the imprisonment and go straight to a prison term the length of his time already in jail for breaching his bail terms and a penalty of 3 million USD.
That would be hella lenient.
And yet possessing drugs for personal use gets you years in prison.
I really should learn to clarify when something is an explanation or argument from someone else rather than something I actually believe. I meant "I suspect the judge, like most people, will think white collar crime doesn't have any "real" victims and therefore the punishment will be lenient".
Yes, sorry, I was just reflecting on the sorry state of affairs in US law. Those same judges will punish drug possession harshly.
[quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Jefferson]In November 13, 2009, Jefferson was sentenced to thirteen years in federal prison for bribery after a corruption investigation, the longest sentence ever given to a congressman. He began serving that sentence in May 2012 at a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in Beaumont, Texas. He appealed his case after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on similar issues. In light of these findings, on October 5, 2017, Jefferson was ordered released, pending sentencing or other action, after a U.S. District judge threw out 7 of 10 charges against him. On December 1, 2017, Judge T. S. Ellis III accepted his plea deal and sentenced Jefferson to time served.[/quote]
You might be on to something. Although that was a plea deal.
He still served 8 years so not that bad. :-)
The last one made me laugh.
What shall come of it all though?
With any luck, next week, Brexit will fall through, and Trump will be finished. The whole 2016 nightmare will finally begin to be over.
I think our best shot is that Trump will finally be embarrassed into resigning; the ghost of collusion-past might fix him yet!
Woah, hold your horses!
Something so extreme would tear the U.S apart at the seams (it would make a martyr out of Trump for far right causes). Much better it would be for America and the world to see him capitulate and plead mercy.
Quoting tim wood
I reckon it has been shrinking, but there is still a group of Trump supporters who are tone-deaf to any and all Trump foibles; no matter what he says or does, fake news, MAGA, they took our jobs, etc...
I wonder about the house republicans though (the actual representatives)... They would not want to risk betraying Trump if their constituents might cannibalize them for it, but on the other hand Trump legitimately represents a festering constitutional and national crisis (he has no respect for American law, and he has turned America into a political laughingstock, and is generally incompetent or demented).
If he can be sufficiently embarrassed though - the kind of embarrassment that will make even the staunchest Trumpeter gulp - he may decide to resign in lieu of being disrespected at every turn.
I read somewhere that Trump's cabinet actually considered using the 25th amendment to declare him unfit/incapable of doing the job, but they "didn't want to precipitate a constitutional crisis". As it becomes more and more clear that Trump is himself a constitutional crisis, maybe we can get a classic back-stabbing out of it...
"Et tu, Pence?"
Maybe but the only way out I can realistically see would be making his base disappear. And that's not going to happen. The twenty percent of Americans who love the guy are the twenty percent that decide who represents the Republican party. Besides, Pence is arguably worse, so it's not like the way "out" leads anywhere positive.
Or they both go and Pelosi will be President.
Is that the way it works? I thought Mitch would be next in line?
Here's the current list.
America (at least used to) set democratic and legal standards in its role as the global leader. If Trump doesn't get spanked it will set a frighteningly low standard, and would likely lead to the end of American global leadership.
Ah, ok. Well maybe Trump resigns and Pence's ecstatic joy turns into a cardiac arrest and Pelosi dies of boredom at the sound of her own bullshit. And then... Grassley. Nah. Hopeless.
Damn, Ben Carson is only about a dozen sudden deaths away from the presidency. Frightening.
Personally, I hope (and believe) he’s going to get charged with perjury and that he won’t see out his term.
It's just a matter of finding the right candidate for the next person in the office. Hopefully a woman.
Why?
Just for a change, ya know? Republicans being manly men and all. Democrats need to appeal to women t hoist up the base for the upcoming elections.
There's no way that's going to happen even if he gets charged with perjury today. They could easily tie that up with all sorts of legal stalls--plus it would take forever even without intentional stalls. No way that would get done in less than two years at this point.
Democrats need to put their focus on who they're going to run against Trump and just how they're going to successfully market that person so they can win. They should be getting started on this already. It's really pretty foolish to wait until four-five months before the election (which practically means that they need a narrow stable of candidates now and they need to develop marketing strategies for all of them now).
Trying to win via getting rid of or somehow handicapping Trump isn't going to work. You're not going to get rid of him quickly enough (if at all), and he's basically impossible to handicap. If Democrats can't make a candidate seem more appealing on his/her own merits, Trump will win again.
The house is not going to impeach the President as long as it seems very unlikely the Senate would confirm the finding. Which we are a very far way from.
IMO - these are both good things for the country - If somehow Trump was impeached - it would just make him a martyr to his base. The country needs to defeat Trump in the next election - and show him and the world we have not completely lost our minds as a country.
One can hope anyway.
it is not a set rule - but agree it would be near impassible to indict a sitting president.
Quoting tim wood
- equally valid. All things in the fullness of time I guess. Hope we don't have to wait too long for the fullness of time to be done with Donald Trump
Actually, the Republicans need to figure out how to get rid of Trump and get someone respectable to run in his place, in time for the next election. Impeachment might be a good option.
Republicans who don't like Trump, you mean?
How about Mueller? :wink:
Can't be ... too ironic. Though you might be onto something there, truth always proves to be stranger than fiction.
Yea, I vote for this. Trump would excel at playing the martyr role. It would give him a story line to build on for years to come. He'd probably start his own TV network and use the martyr drama to elevate the next Trump.
What concerns me about all the investigations is that if Trump feels trapped he may not give up the office if he loses the election. He may invent some new "emergency" to justify staying. Right now he's largely immune from prosecution, but if he loses the election he could go to jail.
My other concern is that I'm not sure the Dems are capable of putting up a winning candidate. We'll see....
I genuinely think the main problem is less that America is insane for voting for Trump but rather that between Hillary, Cruz, Sanders and Trump, you're really screwed no matter who you choose. The political powers that be need to get their act together and put a candidate forward that isn't a complete disaster. I also don't know if you can blame Americans too much, American democracy is suspect and the Russians are not the problem.
The prospect of his indictment is only as interesting as the competency of the person who might replace him. If you say it can't be worse then you're just asking for it.
Personally, I don't think Sanders was a complete disaster, though I would agree he has weaknesses as a candidate, mostly his angry all the time personality.
As example, Sanders suggested we provide free college for all, paid for my the super rich. You know, it's the 21st century, a high school education doesn't cut it anymore. This was a wise policy that would have benefited many and hurt no one. The super rich wouldn't miss the money.
We might observe how most of the Democratic candidates are now scrambling to claim at least some segment of Sander's vision as their own. He's been talking about these things for decades when no one would listen. He never changed his tune to cater to the fads of the moment.
Anyway, not a perfect candidate, but surely not a disaster.
But you have and we see it and it’s not Trump.
Biden?
The Atlantic
So, now, the report says that Trump didn't literally pick up the telephone and ask for Putin's help. But he said it on live television - 'Russia, are you listening?' - and concocted a letter with his eldest son to conceal the intent of a meeting with Russian agents to secure political advantage. His organisation blatantly worked with Julian Assange to publish email dumps illegally obtained by Russian hackers for political advantage. All of this is documented and in the public domain, it's hiding in plain sight.
But as we have learned over and over with Trump, you can't shame someone who has no shame. And he's so successfully muddied the waters and lowered the bars, that again everyone but him and his enablers will be the ones that are burned.
Putin?
Sanders may sound revolutionary from an American perspective but he's mostly advocating for things that most of the West is already doing. The problem is the way he is advocating for it doesn't appear to be as balanced or as sensible as what the other countries did, really focusing on the top 1% or .1% and not really being mathematically correct in his statements. I don't like his deviations from the norm, they range from bad to terrible.
Sure, I haven't noticed any problems of the same scale as the others with Biden but I am not as knowledgable of him as the others.
Yes, agreed.
Quoting Judaka
But he's not running in those other countries. He's running in an insane nation which elected Trump.
All part of Trump's plan to drain the swamp. Now he can distance himself from those corrupt people, and claim credit for exposing and cleaning up all that corruption which was going on.
A: Trump did not collude with the Russians.
The same could be said of you.
:up:
You wrote that Mueller discovered that Trump did not collude with the Russians. In much the same way it was discovered that OJ did not kill his wife.
The Moscow Trump Tower meetings that Trump repeatedly denied, happened all throughout the campaign. The Trump Tower meeting for acquiring ‘dirt on Hillary’ occurred and was subsequently lied about.
And Trump repeatedly tried to thwart the whole investigation. Mueller leaves the door open to the possibility Trump might be prosecuted when he leaves office.
So Trump’s March claim of ‘total and complete exoneration’ is totally unfounded; the report stops just short of indictment but in no way constitutes an exoneration.
I'm surprised that ignorance actually was a defense in this case:
So they broke the law but they can't be prosecuted because it can't be proved that they knew they were breaking the law?
The most outstanding thing was that the Russians got away with it and will get away with it. Putin is truly one of the greatest intelligence service masters in history.
Overall, Mueller was cognisant of the legal obstacles to prosecuting a sitting President:
[quote=Mueller Report]Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.[/quote]
According to Mark Joseph Stern, writing in Slate, this sentence is particularly important:
He says:
(Absent a strong Republican voice in Congress, I still think impeachment is unlikely.)
~ The Guardian
Donny predictably regards this as vindication ;-)
I read a story at the beginning of last year about the substance of the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian agencies and agents. Basically the thrust of the story was that the Trump campaign was fundamentally shambolic and amateurish, and that nobody in the campaign actually believed Trump would win (which is also documented in Wolff’s book.) So their approach was completely unsystematic and off-the-cuff. So Russian links were part of that, but it didn’t amount to a conscious conspiracy. It was just opportunistic and organic; people on the team had Russian connections, Trump was indeed pursuing the Moscow tower deal (all the time lying about it).
Had Trump and his team been professional or diligent (I read a quote that ‘Donald doesn’t do “diligence”‘) then they would have knocked back any approaches from Russia or anything that suggested it. But they let it slip, because Trump and his team were sloppy. And what with Putin’s documented interference and meddling, it really did look like there might have been improper contact, and it had to be investigated.
So I think the full extent of the co-operation might be in the open. Maybe it doesn’t amount to a criminal conspiracy, but with what is already known, it is certainly a disgrace and certainly grounds for impeachment. But Trump has lowered the standards so much that he can probably just continue to bullshit his way through it. We’ll see.
EDIT: apparently obstruction charges require intent to actually be established.
I think you're being endlessly charitable by calling it a "slip" and "sloppy."
There's a fine line between legal and illegal and Trump&Co just barrel on through life on that line like a herd of crazed rhinos.
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-not-merely-reject-the-trumprussia-conspiracy-theories-he-obliterated-them/
It is as if somebody is inserting acids into a body that eats away at the ligaments and the tendons.
These forces are motivated by self-interest, but their common feature is an operational nihilism. They are trying to sow disorder at the foundation of society. The goal is not really to convert anybody to a cause; it is to create cynicism and disruption that will open up the space to grab what you want to grab. They rig the system and then tell everybody, “The system is rigged!” And therefore, all values are suspended. Everything is permitted.
...
The system more or less held this time. But that’s just because people around Trump often refused to do what he told them to do. And we happened to have Robert Mueller, who seems to be a fair referee.
The Justice Department has not been defended from political assault. William Barr’s news conference before the report’s release eroded any claim to impartiality and trustworthiness.
Trump doesn’t seem to have any notion of loyalty to an office. All power in his eye is personal power, and the government is there to serve his Sun God self. He’ll continue to trample the proper systems of government.
It’s easy to recognize when you are attacked head-on. But the U.S. is being attacked from below, at the level of the foundations we take for granted 1.[/quote]
That's right, before 2015 Putin wouldn't have time to speak to a egoistic American millionaire.Now it's a bit different.
Quoting fishfry
I assume Assange, Glenn's old buddy, thinks the same.
Yep, quite a Trumpian exoneration.
Quoting Wayfarer
Really? Why?
The argument that they were just sloppy doesn't hold.
They were trying to build a Trump building even as the election campaign was going on. The simple reason I find is that Trump and his inner circle was totally ignorant about the fact that the FBI keeps taps on what foreign intelligence services do in America. They couldn't fathom that it would be different to mingle with Putin and the Russians than some American billionaire and a Super Pac. That isn't just being sloppy.
It's similar as if we would start believing that the Hollywood acces -tape were just "Locker room talk" that had nothing to do with Trump's actual conduct with women. Like that the multitude of accusations don't matter, because there is the possibility of Trump just made it up.
The fact that they were hiding this, at that time, indicates that there was not complete ignorance.
Isn't that what you high-toned philosophers call an ad hominem? If you chose to, you could read what Greenwald wrote and challenge his substantive points. But why bother? Mueller found no collusion and no obstruction, and for some bizarre reason all the TDS True Believers are doubling down on their delusion. It's something to behold.
You complain about people not reading Greenwald but Mueller had described several instances of what could be considered obstruction and yet this is your take away. Have you read it? It's because a sitting president cannot be indicted that Mueller doesn't reach conclusions with respect to obstruction. Here's a nice visual that shows at least 4 instances described by Mueller are basically hard evidence of obstruction:
Lawfare Blog
Oh I've listened to Mr Greenwald. Not only commenting this issue, but also how Mr. Greenwald defends the Venezuelan regime and how it hasn't done much wrong, but how evil Americans are the real culprit of everything bad that has happened in the country.
Basically Mr Greenwald is also a pure example of how a sensationalist journalist has to, very unfortunately, pick his side and after that turns into a supporter of the side he or she backs up. The most unfortunate thing is that it's not actually the 'side' that supports the journalist, it's the obnoxious followers that create the fan base for these journalists. A Conspiracy whistleblower is sucked into appeasing the conspircacy crowd. So Mr. Greenwald assisted Edward Snowden and published Snowden's findings, which then forced Snowden to seek refuge from Russia. And then Greenwald was the instant hit with the conspiracy theorists and especially with the Alex Jones conspiracy crowd also. And this then easily shows what kind of journalism Glenn goes after:
The simple reason why it is so is that people simply cannot tolerate that somebody would be critical of both sides. Greenwald would be then a "sell off", who would "betray the cause" if he would be critical in this case and simply would loose his audience. And then there wouldn't be any money. That's how it goes.
So how does Glen Greenwald answer the allegations of Russian involvement. With a tight rope performance, I would say:
And later,
Great answer.
Several more paragraphs of Greenwald bashing hardly bear on the topic at hand.
I've decided to stop arguing with this point. I think you should keep it up all the way to November 2020. Reporters on the ground in Iowa and other early primary states report that nobody cares about Russiagate. All the Dems can do is get Trump reelected. Now I'm no fan of Mr. Trump. But compared to what the Dems are offering these days? Not much of a choice, but ... like I say ... keep it up till election day. See how it works out for you.
How does it work for a Dutchman?
Ah! I get it. The retreat to "every political issue is just campaign babble"-argument. Yes, there cannot be any, absolutely any other reason for anyone, especially foreigners, to talk about this issue other than in the realm of the next presidential elections.
Silly season is coming soon up.
Quoting fishfry
Bashing? My point is that journalists have to pick their sides. Not always, but especially when the issue is a hugely political one. When they don't behave so, it's actually their readers/followers and fanbase that are the most wrathful, hence the readers are the ones forcing the journalist to pick one side and the narrative of that side.
This is patently not true. The numerous links between the Trump campaign team and Russian operatives were noted and had already given rise to numerous indictments and jail sentences. Trump's campaign manager and his lawyer are or will be both in jail soon (his lawyer for telling lies on his client's behest.)
As to obstruction, Mueller pointedly did not absolve Trump of that, saying that 'while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, neither does it exonerate him.' As many others have observed, Mueller laid out 'a road map to impeachment' i.e. he documented sufficient wrong-doing for Congress to pursue it.
So repeating Trump's delusional mantra - he hadn't even read any of the report when he said it! - cuts no ice here.
Even if it will take a miracle in the Senate, even if it will cause a bunch of headaches for Pelosi, and even if it will create more division in the short term, impeaching the Teflon Don is the healthiest thing for both America and the world.
Impeachment is about the only thing that can restore global faith in American competence and leadership.
Don't forget, Republicans moved to impeach Nixon, a Republican (but he resigned before proceedings started). If there were one or more honest, er, renegade Republicans who signalled that they would support impeachment, then I think it would happen. But in the current circumstances it would turn into a massive brawl of the World's Biggest Ego vs. Everyone Else. A shitfight to end all shitfights. Therefore, I agree with Pelosi.
When the brown mist clears and we start washing away the excrement, we're going to find new appreciation for clean houses and the merits of house-cleaning (and we will resolve never to repeat this shitty affair).
I used to think Trump would resign before impeachment, but now that he's quadrupled down I just don't know anymore. Somehow we all continue to underestimate his stupidity (and his luck, OR our own stupidity), which makes me think any stupid thing is now possible.
Quoting Sergey Lavrov
On the one hand Trump believes that Russia supports him, and on the other hand Russia uses his buffoonery to question the ability of the U.S to remain the political leader of the free world.
I don't know much about Chinese politics, but I also would wager that electing a president for life is somehow a response to the shock of Trump's victory. He makes it look like it's better to continue sleeping with the devil you know than to risk electing a more ridiculous devil.
And that, unfortunately, is a death knell for democracy.
I still think (and hope) it's possible that Trump is forced out or chooses to resign, but absent that, it's desperately important that the Democratic Party selects the best possible candidate and runs the best possible campaign. (One thing to take solace in, is that there are now quite a few conservatives in the media (including ex-Republican party members) who are throwing their weight behind getting Trump out (if you haven't already, you've got to read Rick Wilson's columns on the Daily Beast.))
Quoting VagabondSpectre
It seems obvious to me that Russian wanted to see Trump elected because they knew he would be an utter disaster for US politics. And they got that right!
It's so pathetic that it might not even be criminal in the sense that a racoon cannot be found guilty of arson or kidnapping. Trump is the racoon, but to be fair, a racoon would honestly make a much better president.
So, legally he's too stupid for mea culpa (the ability to understand wrongdoing), which leaves the U.S in the unenviable situation of having a flailing toddler as the commander in chief. At this point it's as much about national dignity as anything else, and in so far as the U.S represents and leads the western world, it becomes a question of western dignity.
Ye gads... What have we become?
Quoting Wayfarer
I truly believed he would be out of office by now. His campaign was an ever intensifying circus (the before times, the long-long ago), so I intuitively felt that if elected, his presidency would also be an ever intensifying extension of it (If he's a master of anything, it's circus rings). "How many years could Americans endure?" I thought... One, maybe two years tops?
Alack, alas...
Quoting Wayfarer
The irony of it all... The most zealously patriotic do the most damage to national interests...
Are we not entertained?
It's astonishing me how many people are hanging on to this. Let's just say I disagree.
Muller did find sufficient evidence for obstruction, but stopped short of stating that as a conclusion because under a certain precedent, a sitting president ostensibly has the privilege to obstruct, therefore he left it to congress to decide.
Muller explicitly stated in the report that the report does not exonerate the president of obstruction (if he found no obstruction, this would not have been stated). He did clear Trump of collusion, but not obstruction.
No, it's just pointless. Some people are really dug in on this point and it's not productive to argue with them. Impeachment and collusion and obstruction are not the issues on which the election will be decided. If the Dems keep up the Russiagate crusade, we will all find out on the evening of election day whether that was a good strategy. Between now and then I prefer not to discuss it since it's so pointless. Mueller released his report, no collusion, no obstruction. Look, we all think OJ killed his ex-wife but they had a trial and he was found not guilty and most of us have moved on.
ps -- I'll stipulate that some people think Mueller found obstruction. I realize this is the Mueller thread so I shouldn't be here unless I'm prepared to argue all things Mueller. I can see why it was wrong of me to decline to engage in this particular thread. Personally I had enough of Mueller and Russiagate. It's my opinion that I'm not alone in that. But such people should not engage in Mueller conversations. Ok.
'Everyone has a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts' ~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
What I see being argued in the news and the blogs and the cable channels are opinions, not facts.
He didn't charge collusion and he didn't charge obstruction. Just like the jury did not exonerate OJ, it merely failed to find him guilty. We all understand that aspect of how American courts work. Being found not guilty is not the same as being found innocent.
On the issue of whether Mueller found obstruction but felt he could not act because Trump is a sitting president, I hear many different learned opinions about that. I have not personally read the report nor am I a practicing attorney or professor of Constitutional law. I have noticed that opinions on this question seem to correlate with the speaker's political feelings about Trump. I can't concede that what you state is fact; although I don't deny it either. I don't know and don't have enough interest to find out for myself. It truly seems like more of a subjective litmus test for people who already didn't like Trump to start with.
The Muller report is not a court though, it was meant as a probe to find and discover evidence. It found evidence of obstruction, but it did not find evidence of collusion
May I quit now while I'm behind? Nothing I could say could change your mind; but more to the point, I really have nothing else to say. It's all a political process and there's an election coming up. We'll all find out in due time. Meanwhile, the question is whether the left and the Dems should keep up the Mueller drumbeat, or should maybe talk about the endless interminable wars, and immigration, and government spending, and inequality, and health care, and all those other issues of actual importance. If the Dems keep up the Mueller thing I predict the American people will hold it against them. That's my opinion.
I have stated that I hear arguments on both sides; don't actually know; and don't care to find out. I agree that's not an appropriate stance for someone who is participating in this thread, which is why I'm trying to gracefully get out. I am pretty sure most Americans agree with my stance. Like I say, we'll find out on election day. It's a political process, not a matter of true or false factual issues.
Yes but the people saying that are the same people who have been saying that since before the 2016 election. The fact that Mueller found no collusion (I'll leave obstruction alone) has no effect on people who already didn't like Trump and still don't like Trump. Is that your ultimate argument? That you don't like Trump? That's the argument you're making. You don't like Trump therefore you hold a particular legal opinion. That's not rational. That's partisan.
One could argue (I have seen it so argued) that Mueller erred in making this statement. The judge in the OJ case didn't say, "Well we still think the mofo did it no matter what the jury said." If you don't make a case then you don't smear the accused. It's exactly the same error Comey made when he gave his famous press conference "exonerating" Hillary and then enumerated all her crimes. When a prosecutor can't bring a charge yet chooses to smear the accused, those smears can not be cross-examined and adjudicated in a court of law. Therefore it was inappropriate for Comey to open his yap and likewise for Mueller to do the same. If you can't bring a case, then that's all you say. Anything more is prosecutorial misconduct or at least bad judgment.
What was my point again? Because I didn't even mention the Russians but pointed out your statement on obstruction was false. Even if I did mention the Russians, just because nobody in Iowa would care about it certainly isn't an argument for me not to care about it.
We can both care about "Russiagate" and conclude Republicans and Democrats are entrenched in their party loyalties for it not to matter for the election. They are separate things.
Do you really think that this is just about the elections?
Fuck the elections. The Democrats are already a disaster. They have been that since the condescending morons we know since they chose Hillary to be their candidate. Because of what? It was 'her time'? People hated that and Trump got elected. And their condescending attitude towards the MAGA-hatters is the thing why Trumpists love Trump.
No, the issue is your total inability to see this in any other context than as a campaign issue.
When the leader of the sole Superpower is in strange cahoots with the leadership of a country that thinks the US poses an existential threat to itself, it has a lot more effects than the next goddam elections. I'm not a Democrat. I just voted for the conservatives in my country. Be the US president a Republican or a Democrat isn't an issue here. What kind of a trainwreck the foreign policy the US has and will have is the issue. What's the standing of the US in the World is an issue. How effective NATO is an issue, even if my country doesn't belong to NATO. Is the US a justice state or a banana republic is an issue.
Who wins the next elections is another issue.
Not true. There is indeed evidence of collusion. What Mueller did not find was a prosecutable case for criminal conspiracy. On the latter, there is some evidence that is suggestive of conspiracy when considered in the context of Trump's behavior toward Putin.
Working with Wikileaks and attempting to work directly with Russia on the Clinton dirt was collusion, but does not fit the legal definition of criminal conspiracy.
Trump's hinting at a pardon for Manafort, and Manafort's responding by lying implies they're hiding something - which could very well be actual conspiracy. Absolutely not prosecutable, but nevertheless highly suspicious.
Trump gets away with passing judgement on his opponents based on "hunch" (e.g. Obama spying on him), so turnabout seems fair play. He vilified Hillary for deleting emails, and he deserves vilifying for his alleged amnesia and hiding his finances.
It's also very important to point out that public support for Nixon's removal in office during Watergate was at only 19% when the Watergate hearing started, and ended at 57% by the time he resigned over a year later, and I would imagine that decades after the fact, well over 57% of Americans now would agree it was best he exited the office.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to pursue this line of reasoning. As you say, the report has not looked into collusion because it is not a criminal term. l. So you're applying some common sensical meaning to what collusion entails (we don't have a set legal definition and jurisprudence dealing with its interpretation) and then set out to shoehorn facts of the report into evidence for something for which no evidentiary barrier is set. Why go down that road at all?
To get the facts straight. Republicans continue to make the false assertion that Trump was exonerated of "collusion". The relevant facts are that there was not sufficient evidence for a prosecutable case of criminal conspiracy, but there was nevertheless a great deal of lying about the many interactions with Russians, as well as obstructive behavior that may have blocked finding the complete truth about conspiracy (particularly the manipulation of Manafort).
But can you get "the facts straight" when there's no clear understanding of what collussion is and how the facts described by Mueller would fit? It just seems like an invitation to get into a semantic discussion.
The semantic discussion can be avoided by sticking strictly to the facts and refraining from use of the misleading term "collusion." But if it is going to be brought up, it should be called out.
The Mueller report paints a very dark picture of Trump's behavior, irrespective of whether it fits prosecutable crimes. I'm aware of only 2 Republicans who acknowledge this. The rest simply dismiss the report under the veil that "it exonerates the President of collusion." In effect, lying doesn't matter to them as long as it wasn't under oath. Obstruction and witness tampering is irrellevant to them if it has not been proven to have affected the ability to prosecute a crime.
I get it. Orange Man Bad. Not everyone feels that way, even those of us who clearly see Trump's many flaws. I wish the Dems had run a better candidate in 2016. I hope they do in 2020. That's the system we've got. I like Tulsi Gabbard for her pro-civil liberties and anti-war stance. She's polling at 0.8%. Not much of a constituency for peace these days.
If I may ask: What unspeakable things did Trump do to your family?
Why must it be personal and not what he has done, oh, say, to immigrant families by separating kids from parents?
How many lies does a person have to tell before he's a bad person?
And that many still don't think he's bad seems to me to be a cultural problem in the US (no sense of morals anymore) and the worst excess of the insane tribalism that passes for a political system over there.
Another sacrifice for the volcano?
Unspeakable?
Well, I wouldn't want to start speaking about why the US President has these photos where his own daughter poses as a young girlfriend to my own children. Likely this sex offender will be exposed later in history books.
He didn't. He wrote that Barr's summary "did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office’s work and conclusions."
Had Barr's summary fully captured the "context, nature and substance" of Mueller's report, we would call the summary "accurate."
I assume you were perfectly fine with Bill Clinton's statement, " "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is." IMO, lawyer-speak that misleads is just as dishonest as a direct lie, even if the lawyer-speak keeps you out of jail.
And then when congress asked Barr if Mueller supported his summary of the principal conclusions, Barr lied and said he had no idea. That's the crime Pelosi is accusing him of.
I am an American and I do need to ask. You said Trump did unspeakable things to your family. I would like to hear what he did to your family. You made a claim. Back it up or retract it.
Sex offender like Bubba, Teddy (who actually killed a girl) and JFK? Methinks your outrage is selective.
Trump did nothing to your family. Your kids are already seeing much worse on Pornhub. There's this thing called the Internet these days. You haven't made your point because you can't.
Because the person I'm challenging explicitly said that Trump had done "unspeakable" things to his own family. I'm challenging that assertion.
As far as separating families, Obama did the same. Obama also put kids in cages. You could look it up. Obama had a horrific humanitarian crisis on the southern border in the summer of 2014. He separated families, caged kids, and turned many kids over to traffickers. (Documented cases)
Think of it this way. An adult shows up with a kid. No paperwork. They could be family. Or they could be a trafficker and his victim. How do you know? You separate them till you can sort out the truth. Would you just take the trafficker's word for it? What kind of policy is that?
In one recent case, the same kid was used three times by three different people to pretend to be a "family." In another case, a kid turned out to have been taken by his mother against the wishes of his father, who had a good job and income in their home country.
One need not endorse Trump's sometimes awful rhetoric on immigration to call out liberal hypocrisy on the issue.
Elizabeth Warren yesterday read from the Mueller Report on the floor for 45 minutes and then called for Trump's impeachment. I think she is correct, and that impeachment proceedings ought to be commenced for lying and obstruction of justice, even if the prospects of securing the resignation of the President are remote. The behaviour this individual has engaged in is a threat to the constitutional integrity of the United States and can't be left unchallenged. As always, the obsequious fawning and obfuscation of the GOP and in particular Speaker McConnell, are likewise a disgrace to the office and threat to the integrity of the nation.
I looked it up:
[i]"Under past administrations, some border-crossers were occasionally prosecuted, and were thus separated from their families. Children were separated from parents when authorities had concerns for their well-being or could not confirm that the adult was in fact their legal guardian. Prosecution was more common in cases with more severe crimes, like drug-running. ...
"The main difference between Trump and Obama, as both experts noted, centers on how they handled immigrants caught near the US-Mexico border. Under Obama, the Justice Department was given broad discretion on who should face criminal charges, and federal prosecutors rarely went after families.
But in April, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would prosecute 100% of illegal border-crossers in a policy known as "zero-tolerance." Adults went to jails and awaited criminal proceedings. Children were sent to detention centers run by the Department of Health and Human Services, and some were eventually placed in foster care."[/i]
Trump's zero-tolerance policy treated all border-crossers as criminals, which resulted in separating children from parents whose only crime was crossing the border.
LOL. Fact-check from Trump-hating Wapo. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/09/politics/fact-check-trump-claim-obama-separated-families/index.html?no-st=1557361075
Here's one of Obama's kid cages.
But again, completely off the point. Someone claimed that Trump did "unspeakable" thinks to their family. That's a lie. A politician implementing a policy you don't happen to like is not an "unspeakable" personal attack on your family. The person who made that claim has been unable to back it up and lacks the integrity to withdraw their hyperbole.
My heartfelt advice to people who viscerally hate Trump would be to get the DNC to pick a better candidate next time. Hillary was a corrupt, incompetent warmonger disliked by most Americans. Or as Obama said in 2008, "You're likable enough, Hillary." Ouch! Remember that Trump's 2016 campaign against Hillary was virtually the same as Obama's in 2008. Label her corrupt and unlikable, call out her support for the Iraq war. Obama wrote the playbook and won with it. Trump read Obama's playbook and won with it.
To win an election, run a better candidate. That's politics. Not every election you lose is a direct attack on you personally.
Genetic fallacy to reject a claim because of a prejudice you (and Trump) have against them. Show that it's false (good luck with that).
Regarding the picture you showed, it's discussed here. The Obama administration had to deal with a short term sudden influx of unaccompanied minors, and they had to deal with it somehow. In Trump's case, it was a situation caused by his policy.
In terms of the crisis on the border? The main difference is the way the MSM ignored Obama's 2014 humanitarian disaster on the border and politicized Trump's. FWIW -- since someone earlier asked about my personal life -- I formerly lived in Mexico for several years and follow border issues with great interest. No, I do not see much substantive difference between Obama's clusterfuck on the border and Trump's.
I have a number of other mentions on political topics. I hope nobody minds if I don't reply to those. I find political conversations here futile. "Seriously, you cannot tell the difference between Donald Trump and Barack Obama?" That's disingenuous.
Political conversations are tedious when they are so unserious. Political philosophy is not political advocacy. People who viscerally hate Trump and who can't see beyond that are missing a lot. In this case the past several decades of bipartisan failed immigration policy leading directly to today's crisis. If all you know is Orange Man Bad you just can't even think. I see so much of this lately.
Obama's immigration policies, from border control to deportation were widely covered across the media. A simple google search would show that. However unlike Trump, Obama never called Latin Americans "rapists", "vermin", or that they were "invading" or "pouring in the country", "diseased" or other de-humanizing rhetoric that have lead to increased anti-immigrant sentiment to the point now where citizen-formed militia have been detaining immigrant families along the borders by the hundreds, and which a member of the militia suggested that they should just "shoot them up" or that "we have to go back to Hitler days and put them all in a gas chamber." Obama also never entertained the possibility that George Soros was funding a migrant caravan, driving white supremacists to fear that whites were being replaced by non-whites and that the Jews were to blame, ultimately leading to the most violent antisemitic attack on US soil. Additionally, while Obama did split families within the nation through policies that increased deportation, Obama did not split families who were crossing the border (they were detained together, then deported together). The Trump administration introduced the zero-tolerance policy of deporting immigrating parents back to their home countries while detaining the children in concentration camps, with shoddy means to return them. In fact, it's very likely that many of these families will never be reunited since there weren't systematic means to track families.
Political conversations are only impossible when the other interlocutor, such as yourself, is completely clueless.
I'm pretty sure this has been explained to you multiple times Fishfry, so I have to ask: are you an actual fish? Does your memory last for five seconds?
Confusing rhetoric with policy. I get that you don't like Trump's style. Obama deported record numbers of undocumented immigrants. You could look it up. Perfect illustration of why I won't participate in these insipid political discussions. Obama's actual record on border issues was awful. He always had great rhetoric. And a jump shot.
Your statement that Trump called Latin Americans rapists is a lie, of course. You could look up the quote. Orange Man Bad. Not conducive to thought.
Here's a little light reading to bring interested readers up to speed on Obama's reality versus rhetoric on immigration.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers/story?id=41715661
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/obama-record-deportations-deporter-chief-or-not
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/08/trump-deportations-behind-obama-levels-241420
Which is just more Trumpian bollocks, of which there is an endless supply.
Quoting fishfry
Do you like Trump's style, of inciting hatred for the purpose of political advantage? I recognize that there is a style of "attack" which has become prevalent in politics, to focus on the weaknesses and wrongs of the other party, because it produces political advantage. But it also incites hatred which leads to division within the nation. Trump takes the "attack" to a new level, utilizing the divisions (national borders) already in place, to incite hatred of the others for the purpose of political gain. As if this were the way to produce a great nation.
You show your hand there by cutting out the remainder of my post which shows how Trump's rhetoric has produced tangible consequences. In that respect, his dehumanizing rhetoric cannot be so casually divorced from his policies which stem from the same white supremacist ideology that his rhetoric is predicated upon. You also straight ignore the fact that Trump is separating families at the border and Obama didn't.
Quoting fishfry
Yeah, you're telling me.
Now there are reports that Barr has commissioned an investigator to look into the origins of the Mueller report, which Trump is convinced was a consequence of illegal acts. Not hard to envisage, under Trump, an investigation, followed by a conflict between the Attorney General, the FBI, and divisions in his own Justice Department, all fueled by the mother of all conspiracy theories, namely, the one in Trump's mind, and completely disregarding of the actual fact of Russian interference in the US electoral system. Of course, Trump loves chaos, confusion, instability, division, arguments, and so on, so all grist to the mill.
(And also pause to note, again, that the only individual that Trump is ever uniformly courteous about and obsequious to, is Vladimir Putin. Everyone else are all subjected to the same barrage of tweets and insults.)
The other story of the day is that Trump believes that if impeachment proceedings were brought against him, it would actually work to his benefit. And - he's probably right! Kudos to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer for recognising this and sticking to the game plan.
No I find some of the things Trump does appalling. As I've mentioned I'm what you might call a Mexicophile. I moved to California as a young adult and always had a great affinity for Mexican culture. I travelled through country years ago and recently lived there for a few years. All things being equal I am closer to an open-borders type. I regard Mexico as a friend and neighbor. I oppose Trump's policies on Mexico and I am sickened by some of his rhetoric.
So how the hell come I am here seeming to defend Trump?
It's because I can see what Trump is doing; butwhat the Democrats have done on border issues over the past couple of decades is much worse.
Democrats talk a great game on compassion. Which frankly I appreciate because I have tremendous compassion for the plight of the people whose best hope in life is to somehow get into the United States by any means necessary.
But in order to defend themselves against political charges of being "soft on immigration," the Dems have passed some of the most harmful bills and pursued some of the most inhumane and literally inhuman policies imaginable. They passed the Secure Fence Act of 2006. I've heard "liberals" say, "Oh that's a fence, not a wall." Spare me the sanctimony.
Google some of the immigration rhetoric of Hillary, Obama, Biden, Bill Clinton. Look at the laws they passed. Go back to the 1980's. Reagan signed a huge amnesty. The Bushes as you know have close ties with Mexico both in business and in their own family. They were always good on immigration. In fact Bush proposed a very sensible program of immigration reform. The right of course rejects any talk of immigration reform so they objected; and the left hated anything that came out of Bush's mouth (with very good reason of course) and so Bush's actually pretty good idea quickly disappeared.
Bill Clinton was tough on immigration. Obama deported records of Mexicans and hardened the border. All to placate the right so he could get his domestic programs through.
And the drug war. 100,000 Mexicans died between 2000 and 2010 in a bloody drug war down there. Financed by US Democrats like Hillary and my own California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is called by the right a "liberal" but who is the most bloodthirsty warmonger and opponent of civil liberties in the Senate. She votes for the wars and her husband profits. You could look it up. Don't get me started on DiFi.
US government financial aid to Mexico was conditioned on the money being used to fight the drug war. As if Mexico "pushes" drugs on the US. On the contrary it's spiritually sick Americans who smoke, shoot, snort, and pop every mind-numbing substance known to man in order to cope.
You don't know about the American backing of the bloody drug war in Mexico run by powerful Democratic politicians because Rachel Maddow didn't tell you about it. You could Google it.
I can't give you chapter and verse on every dirty deed the Dems did in the past 30 years because this is a forum post and not a book that needs to be written. The Dems funded all the surveillance and interior checkpoints (awful violation of the Constitution) and the militarization of the border to buy off the Republicans who wanted tough action. So it got harder and harder and harder to cross the border. Migrants had to go farther out into the desert.
In the meantime the same Dems pass sanctuary city laws (which I happen to support). What is the net result?
We leave people to die of thirst in the desert. And if they make it through, we give them drivers licenses, job, legal protection.
What kind of fucked up immoral system is that?
So when someone says, Oh Trump said something awful; or that his policies are awful, you get no argument from me. It only seems that way.
It's that when you tell me that Trump personally injured your family because he "caged children." GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK.. Obama caged children. The big joke is that the caged children meme got started because someone tweeted a photo of kids in cages and said they were Trump's cages. But the photo was from 2014 and was one of Obama's cages.
If you don't separate the families then you will be turning kids over to traffickers. Obama had documented cases of that and plenty more that were not documented. Better optics than separating the kids from the adult to find out who's a family member and who's a trafficker.
"Trump put kids in cages" is a slogan, not an actual thought.
Or when you tell me that "Oh he called Mexicans rapists."
Bill and Hillary Clinton and Obama and Biden and Pelosi and DiFi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer -- all the big "centrist" Dems of the past 20 years -- passed laws that damn near destroyed Mexico.
And now it's all Trump did a bad thing and Trump said a bad thing and that's all you want to know?
I have three words for that kind of thinking. Ignorant. Disingenuous. Childish.
Ok this has all been on my mind for a few days. This is how it came out tonight. I wish I could write the book. I can document everything. It's all well known. I'm not letting the GOPs off the hook but frankly only half the GOP hate the immigrants, the social cons. The business-oriented GOPs love the cheap labor. And of course when it's illegal the workers can't complain if you don't pay them.
So it's a sick, depraved, hypocritical, inhuman, inhuman, and evil system we've developed over the southern border. It's bipartisan but the Dems have been much worse because at least the Bush family regards Mexico as a friend. I for one would like to see some meaningful immigration reform in my lifetime.
But "Oooh Trump put kids in cages" and "Trump called Mexican rapists."
Yeah. Those things are true. And so is a lot more. So stop throwing out slogans as if this is the politics forum on Craigslist. Try to see beyond your angry emotions. I get you don't like Trump. Try to have another thought besides that.
Ok that's what I have to say about all this.
There's a simple answer to all of this: there actually is an US immigration policy, which both parties when in power adhere to.
Even if the rhetoric is naturally totally different and yes, there are small differences how the policy is nuanced. In the long run it has been quite similar. It's just like the War on Terror. Just look at how similar Obama and Bush were. Even Trump in the end is quite similar.
WaPo
:grin: Mueller didn't discover anything.
[quote=Amash]While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct. Our system of checks and balances relies on each branch’s [sic] jealously guarding its powers and upholding its duties under our Constitution. When loyalty to a political party or to an individual trumps loyalty to the Constitution, the Rule of Law — the foundation of liberty — crumbles.[/quote]
Hopefully there are one or two more with some remaining vestige of conscience and principle who will stick their heads over the parapet.
I'm not defending Trump's immigration policies, since in fact I oppose them.
I'm simply calling attention to, and expressing my deep frustration with, the bipartisan decades-long legacy of bad decision making and bad policy that's resulted in a terribly inhumane and indecent situation. And if ALL you can see is "Trump separated families," I can only repeat that I find that kind of thinking ignorant (if you simply don't know anything about US immigration policy), disingenuous (if you do, but pretend not to for partisan purposes); and in any event, childish. Yes Trump's border policy sucks. But both parties are to blame for how the situation got to this point. So ignorance doesn't help here. Nor does it convince me that you are trying to make a serious point about immigration.
ps --
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/dna-tests-reveal-30-of-suspected-fraudulent-migrant-families-were-unrelated
They did a pilot program where they DNA-tested illegal border crossers with kids. 30% of the kids didn't belong to the parents. They also busted a ring of criminals recycling kids to act as family members.
So say you are in charge of US border policy. When adults bring kids across the border and say they're family, do you decree that "OK, come on in?" Or do you separate the families until you can determine who is a loving parent and who is a child trafficker?
Come on, please give me an honest answer. You're in charge of policy. What do you do?
I disagree that this is mere whataboutism. When Trump haters tweet out a photo of "Trump's child cages" that actually turn out to have been Obama's, I am entitled to call out the hypocrisy. When you fixate on Trump's awful rhetoric on Mexico and compare it to Obama's actual record on Mexico, you find that on balance, if you're a man from Mars, you would conclude that Obama did far more damage to the US-Mexican border than Trump has. You don't like Trump's style. Well yes Obama had great style. And did a lot of damaging things. Obama's border policy was awful. Obama's malfeasance on the border has led to the humanitarian and political disaster we have now. And yes Trump's rhetoric's made it worse. But that doesn't mean you can say that and then stop thinking. Try to have TWO thoughts. Orange Man Bad, ok. Now try to have ANOTHER thought as well.
Here's another example from only two days ago. Trump gave a speech and said something sensible -- or at least arguably sensible -- about immigration. He said we should prioritize merit instead of family ties.
This is a perfectly sensible statement, even if you don't agree with it. One can make a case that a country should screen immigrants based on their potential ability to thrive or at least survive on their own in our society.
Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives, spoke out against merit.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/444047-pelosi-says-merit-based-immigration-is-a-condescending-word
Have any of you worked in the tech industry? The tech industry is full of H1b immigrants from India who have technical degrees in computer science and engineering. There are in fact about half a million H1b's in the country at any given time.
India is a country of 800 million people. I'm sure they could find 50 or 100 million illiterate peasants to send to the US. And why not? Does Nancy Pelosi think we should take in India's illiterate peasants? Don't their families have merit?
We import illiterate peasants and laborers from Mexico; and college educated professionals from India. Why? Because the government is helping out the farmers with farm labor, and the tech companies with tech labor.
And by the way why don't we import India's teachers? Because the teachers have a better union than the programmers.
But really, why not engineers from Mexico? Mexico has bridges, power plants, roads. Mexico has excellent engineers. But Silicon Valley isn't lobbying Congress to increase the cap on Mexican H1b engineers.
Why is this, anyway? Our immigration system makes no sense. But here is Nancy Pelosi literally denying the reality of Indian immigration of highly skilled professional workers. Why? Because]she knows that her listeners don't know shit about our actual immigration system hence don't even know about the H1b's from India; and two, she doesn't care. Pelosi knows about the H1b's because it's Congress who authorizes their presence.
Pelosi damn well knows immigration's based on merit. She and Congress agree on that fact. She just denies it in public because Trump tried to say something sensible on immigration.
I object to this level of hypocrisy. Again, if ALL you see is that "Trump called Mexicans rapists" then you are missing the evil hypocrisy in the news every single day. Do you think Nancy Pelosi is really advocating for 100 million illiterate Indian peasants to come to the US?
Or do you think she's just saying the sky is green simply because Trump said it's blue?
It's a sick joke that Pelosi mocked the idea that we'd restrict immigration to people with engineering degrees. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE DO and Pelosi knows it because she signs off on the legislation making it possible.
Please try to see past your dislike of Trump's style, to the bullshit emanating from literally everyone in Washington about literally everything.
Quoting fishfry
Quoting fishfry
Quoting fishfry
Quoting fishfry
r u ok?
My views are rooted in the failure to pass the Immigration Bill of 2013. It wasn't perfect, but it was a good start. It passed the Senate (14 of 46 Republicans voted for it, while all 54 Democrats did) (see this). The only reason it didn't become law was because the Tea-Party dominated House failed to pass it. This no-compromise, right-wing group are home to some of Trump's most ardent supporters (see this). What they mostly didn't like was that it granted "amnesty" to illegals. They spoke of deporting all 11 million of them. Trump the candidate even spoke of doing this.
So no, it's not just about family separations - but it IS about the intractable position of Trump and his ardent supporters - a position that is a giant step backward. Trump the candidate embraced their position from the beginning, even saying he wanted to deport all illegals. Trump stoked that Tea-Party fire with his rhetoric, rhetoric that was so extreme that Trump earned strong support from White Nationalists.
Trump's prime focus has been that wall. Had Trump been the sort of negotiator he claimed to be as a candidate, he could have gotten a lot of wall built. Dems were willing to fund the wall in 2018 in exchange for permanently taking care of the "dreamers." (See this). Trump only offered a temporary reprieve for them. He was playing to his Tea-Party+White Nationalist base.
There is no perfect solution to the Immigration issues, but positive steps could be taken if compromise were possible.
NY Times
Washington Post
What's next? Horse heads in beds?
I agree with everything you said and I really appreciate your post. Yes you are right, there's a hard core of GOPs that simply will not allow any immigration reform at all. Hillary was right when she said that HALF of Trump's supporters were a basket of deplorables. Trump's rhetoric on Mexico panders to that base and I'm very unhappy about that. But the Democrats pander to much the same base. You may have seen recent news stories that Biden once called for a fence to keep out drugs. Now that Trump's for it, the Dems are against it.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/politics/kfile-biden-drugs-fence-2006/index.html?no-st=1558569322
Quoting Relativist
I just disagree that it's only Trump and the deplorables. You can look up the immigration rhetoric of every one of the prominent Dems over the past twenty years and they're all for border enforcement and all for fences and deportations and employment verification and the militarization of the border. And when there is a humanitarian crisis consisting of a flood of central Americans, Democrats ignore it.
Just the other day Kirsten Gillibrand, a Dem candidate for president, said that if she were president she would let all families into the country without reservation, and she would trust them all to show up for their court proceedings. Statistics show that about 2% of all asylum seekers released in the country show up for their hearings. Gillibrand's rhetoric is no more serious or useful than Trump's. Does anyone want to defend importing tens or hundreds of millions of the world's illiterate peasants into the US with no restrictions at all? Many of them not families but traffickers with their victims? What kind of thoughtful policy is that?
I see both sides as actively impeding any kind of meaningful immigration reform. I just can't see it as all Trump's fault. But yes now that you mention it I do recall the 2013 bill and its scuttling by the Tea party deplorables As Trump would. say ... Sad!
Never better, thanks. @Wayfarer wrote a post that models the direct opposite of the "Orange man bad" school of political discourse. He didn't say, "Oooooh Trump said a bad thing about Mexicans," or "Oooooooh Trump separated families," as if turning children over to their traffickers represents a more humane policy. He wrote something intelligent. I'm incredibly gratified that someone can discuss Trump's policies without resorting to childish emotionalism. Made my day.
And he’s been lying ever since. The Mueller Report showed he was lying, but as soon as it came out, what was the first thing he did? He lied about it.
But he wasn't under oath, so that's OK....that seems to be the way Trumpists view it. Even if no crime is ever charged, and no impeachment ever proceeds, Mueller unequivocally shows what a liar Trump is, and that he's engendered a culture of duplicity throughout his administration.
I have to believe this will come to an end before Nov 2020. Basically I think it ought to be clear to everyone that Trump’s occupancy of the office is no longer tenable. You can’t have a functioning democracy where the main role of the head of the Justice Department is covering up the President’s felonies.
The obvious problem with this counter-narrative is that it's bullshit.
There's a compelling piece of evidence about this fact. It concerns the meeting between ex-Australian Foreign Minister, and Australian Consul to Great Britain, Alexander Downer, and George Papadopoulos, one of the many shadowy bit-players in the Trump campaign. They had drinks one night in 2016 in London.
So - who to believe? My money's on Downer, who has generally declined comment further on it since. Instead, he did what he was obliged to do, which is report the matter. If Donnie Jnr had done that when he was approached by the Russians about 'dirt on Hillary', then none of this would be happening.
How anyone can condone/excuse/rationalise what Donald J. Trump is doing in this matter, beggars belief.
Phew!
They shouldn't impeach until it becomes politically impossible not to. Otherwise they risk feeding the witch-hunt narrative which Trump will milk for all it's worth. Having some Dems clamouring for impeachment while the leadership appears to resist is about the right strategy for now. When the dam breaks, you want the water to drown your target not buoy him.