US Politics: Everyone's Manipulating Everyone

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well Carter was president when disco was a big thing, along with bell bottom jeans and some really big oversized collars. So, it's understandable that people would have a bad taste in their mouth over all those years.

To be fair, the music itself wasn't that bad, but yes, the clothing and the hair styles were national disasters, so I'm changing my mind and proclaiming Jimmy Carter to be history's greatest monster. 

[Mexal]

24 minutes ago, Trebla said:

That's what I've been reading, too. He's continuing to deny it, though he's now willing to recuse himself from the Russia probe. His response to this may be that his initial denial of talking with the Russia ambassador may be how the question was phrased. I'll bold it. http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/321947-sessions-denies-talking-campaign-with-russia

Here is what he was specifically asked.  http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/russia-jeff-sessions-confirmation-hearing/

That might work for the for second question but the first? 

A few issues with his response.

1. The question asked him had nothing to do with him but more how he'd handle the situation if someone did have contact with Russian officials. He voluntarily answered that question, tied himself to being a surrogate and said he had no contact with the Russians. It's weird he'd feel the need to deny it and do it so broadly. All he had to do was say "I'd recuse myself" and that question was done.

2. His initial reaction to the report was he didn't remember what was discussed, similar to what Flynn did. Now it's "we didn't talk about the campaign" but last night, a Trump official told John Harwood that there was "superficial discussion of election related news". 

I just can't imagine this going well for Sessions. I don't know what was said in that meeting or if anything was said related to the campaign but lying about contacts with the Russian Ambassador who the IC considers one of Russia's top spy recruiters won't leave a good taste in anyone's mouth. 

So just to be clear on everything, this is what it looks like.

1. Former NSA Michael Flynn re-signs due to conversations with Russian Ambassador over sanctions

2. Paul Manafort re-signs over secret payments in Ukraine while he worked for pro-Putin Ukrainian President

3. Carter Paige, former advisor to Trump on Foreign Policy, who was recommended by Jeff Sessions, is still being paid by Russian media to give talks

4. Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer, worked with Felix Sater (Russian emigrant with strong ties to Russian underworld) and some other pro-Putin Ukrainian guy to create a secret Ukrainian peace plan with Russia that gave Russia everything it wanted. Oh and he lied about it within the space of a few hours to different newspapers

5. Jeff Sessions lies to Congress about meeting with Russian Ambassador twice during the campaign

6. Wilbur Ross is vice-chairman of the board of directors for the Bank of Cyprus, a bank that is also owned by a Putin KGB buddy and a Russian Oligarch who bought a house from Trump for $100m in cash that he's now tearing down and never stepped foot in after Trump paid $40m. Oh and the bank is well known for laundering Russian money

7. We also shouldn't forget the 5+ Russian diplomats who have magically dropped dead over the last 3 months since the Steele Dossier was released to the public

I'm sure there is more I'm forgetting but holy fuck this is convoluted. 

[Mexal]

14 minutes ago, Inigima said:

It's not perjury to lie under oath if it wasn't to cover up a crime? Since when?

Maybe I misrepresented it but basically there is enough wiggle room in his answer and the question that it'll be impossible to prove at this point.

 

[aceluby]

30 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Maybe I misrepresented it but basically there is enough wiggle room in his answer and the question that it'll be impossible to prove at this point.

 

I'm not really understanding the ambiguity here.

"Did you have contact w/ a Russian official?"

"No."

Is the ambiguity whether this person is a 'Russian Official'?

[OldGimletEye]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/01/trump-touts-study-that-says-immigrants-could-actually-save-taxpayer-dollars/

Quote

President Trump told Congress Tuesday night that too many immigrants fail to make their own living and end up dependent on the government.

His evidence: a detailed immigration report published last year by the National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious, nonpartisan research organization.

 

Quote

Trump is correct that the report did find that current immigrants receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. In 2013, for example, the authors of the report calculated that the government spent $279 billion more on first-generation immigrants than they paid in taxes. But over time, the report projects, immigrants and have the opposite effect on the budget deficit, saying a recent immigrant and her descendants could be — over a 75-year period — expected to pay an average of as much as $259,000 more in taxes than they receive in government benefits.

That conclusion, that current immigrants and their descendants may end up paying far more to the government than they get out of it, seems to undermine Trump's claim that the current immigration system would impose billions in costs to “America's taxpayers.”

The forecast that immigrants could ultimately improve the government's bottom line undermines Trump's claim that the current system is hugely costly for taxpayers — many of whom are themselves immigrants.

It is true that immigrants are more likely to receive some forms of direct public benefits — including food stamps and Medicaid — than U.S.-born citizens. But, as immigrants tend to be younger, they are also less likely to draw on Medicare and Social Security, and many of them will pay taxes to support these costly programs for years before receiving benefits from them. The authors of the report found that the children of immigrants are “among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the population.”

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/coal-is-a-state-of-mind/?_r=1

Quote

The big news from last night’s speech is that our pundits is not learning. After all the debacles of 2016, they swooned over the fact that Trump — while still lying time after time and proposing truly vile initiatives — was able to read from a teleprompter without breaking into an insane rant. If American democracy falls, supposed political analysts who are actually just bad theater critics will share part of the blame.

But that aside, I was struck by Trump’s continued insistence that he’s going to bring back coal jobs. This says something remarkable both about him and about the body politic.

He is not, of course, going to bring back coal mining as an occupation. Coal employment’s plunge began decades ago, driven mainly by the switch to strip mining and mountaintop removal. A partial revival after the oil crises of the 70s was followed by a renewed downturn (under Reagan!), with fracking and cheap gas mainly delivering the final blow. 

 

[Mexal]

31 minutes ago, aceluby said:

I'm not really understanding the ambiguity here.

"Did you have contact w/ a Russian official?"

"No."

Is the ambiguity whether this person is a 'Russian Official'?

No, the context of the question. There is enough wiggle room to think he believed he was answering a question about contact with Russian officials about the campaign rather then just contact with Russian officials. Perjury is notoriously hard to prove. Remember, Franken never asked him that question. He asked what would Sessions do if he found out Russian officials had contact with the Trump campaign.

Now, if it comes out the FBI has a transcript of those discussions, that might change this considerably.

[Rippounet]

Joke of the day:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/28/the-underdog-candidate-in-frances-elections-barack-obama-retirement-french-presidential-elections-marine-le-pen-francois-fillon-emmanuel-macron-petition/

[Fragile Bird]

11 hours ago, dmc515 said:

  Trump is not the self-destructive alcoholic Nixon was.  Nor does he approach Nixon's political genius that enabled us to open up China.

Gee I missed that comment in the wee hours.

Let me point out that Pierre Trudeau, the father of our current prime minister, opened negotiations with the Chinese in 1968 that led to the establishment of diplomatic relations in October of 1970, Canada being one of the first western nations to do so (the Swiss and the Scandinavian countries were first in 1950, Norway in 54, the UK's request in 1950 was refused, finally accepted in 1972). France in 1964. But before that Canada started trading grain with the Chinese back in 1960. Most communist nations and many third-world nations recognized Chin long before the US did.

Nixon was brave enough to go to China, yes, but as much as Nixon personally hated Trudeau, Canada's move broke a path for him. I don't underestimate the incredible importance of Nixon's move, but Trudeau's move ahead of most western nations was earlier political genius.  

The US didn't formally recognize China until 1979.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Just out of curiousity, what is the history of the law that everyone in the press has been quoting, that it's illegal for a member of the Executive Branch to lie to a congressional and senate committees.  Was it passed in response to Bill Clinton, or WMDs, or Benghazi, or does it date back to Watergate?

[aceluby]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

No, the context of the question. There is enough wiggle room to think he believed he was answering a question about contact with Russian officials about the campaign rather then just contact with Russian officials. Perjury is notoriously hard to prove. Remember, Franken never asked him that question. He asked what would Sessions do if he found out Russian officials had contact with the Trump campaign.

Now, if it comes out the FBI has a transcript of those discussions, that might change this considerably.

But Leahy did ask that question.  Which means it's not just one spot that may have some wiggle room, but two distinct times; one of which directly asked if he was in contact with Russian officials to which he said no.

Seems to me that leaves a lot less wiggle room, but I'm no lawyer.

[Mexal]

11 minutes ago, aceluby said:

But Leahy did ask that question.  Which means it's not just one spot that may have some wiggle room, but two distinct times; one of which directly asked if he was in contact with Russian officials to which he said no.

Seems to me that leaves a lot less wiggle room, but I'm no lawyer.

Leahy's question was very specific. If it can be proven that Session's discussion had to do with Trump's campaign, then yes, he committed perjury (assuming written questions are under oath). But that has to be proven and it'll be hard without transcripts.

[aceluby]

2 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Leahy's question was very specific. If it can be proven that Session's discussion had to do with Trump's campaign, then yes, he committed perjury (assuming written questions are under oath). But that has to be proven and it'll be hard without transcripts.

Yeah, they probably talked about snow, pierogis, and shit.

[TheKitttenGuard]

49 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Joke of the day:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/28/the-underdog-candidate-in-frances-elections-barack-obama-retirement-french-presidential-elections-marine-le-pen-francois-fillon-emmanuel-macron-petition/

With Trump as President nothing sounds too absurd.

The infinite ironies that it would produce could rip a hole in the time/space continuum. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 Maybe I'm missing something here, but there is something about this Russian/Trump campaign connection that is actually kind of reassuring. It all just seems so hand-handed and obvious. Like why would you have multiple meetings with more than one member of his campaign/future cabinet? Wouldn't you want just one contact so as to be more subtle? I get this Russian proclivity to blackmail compatriots, but what good does that do you if your obviousness costs them their jobs before you can even cash in on it? Seems really amateurish. 

[TerraPrime]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Just out of curiousity, what is the history of the law that everyone in the press has been quoting, that it's illegal for a member of the Executive Branch to lie to a congressional and senate committees.  Was it passed in response to Bill Clinton, or WMDs, or Benghazi, or does it date back to Watergate?

 

If the Senate swears someone in for a deposition, then they are under oath to tell the truth. Not telling the truth then becomes perjury. I suspect Congress has been swearing people in for depositions for a long time but I don't honestly know. My quick googling turned up nothing.

[Jaxom 1974]

15 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 Maybe I'm missing something here, but there is something about this Russian/Trump campaign connection that is actually kind of reassuring. It all just seems so hand-handed and obvious. Like why would you have multiple meetings with more than one member of his campaign/future cabinet? Wouldn't you want just one contact so as to be more subtle? I get this Russian proclivity to blackmail compatriots, but what good does that do you if your obviousness costs them their jobs before you can even cash in on it? Seems really amateurish. 

I feel like the people involved weren't as worried about it because of the Republican control.  The thought that Congress would be busy pushing their agenda, particularly the ACA, with Trump simply rubber stamping it all, that Trump would push the agenda of the wall and the Muslim ban to distract the masses.  It was all a series of smoke and mirrors to distract from the actual money grabbing going on. Because that's ultimately what this is all about, all ofbthat untapped Russian oil that Exxon has the rights to.  (All my opinion, of course).

But the players seem to have misjudged the extent of Trump's ego, the ineptitude of some of his people, the level of resistance from the population as a whole.   

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 minute ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I feel like the people involved weren't as worried about it because of the Republican control.  The thought that Congress would be busy pushing their agenda, particularly the ACA, with Trump simply rubber stamping it all, that Trump would push the agenda of the wall and the Muslim ban to distract the masses.  It was all a series of smoke and mirrors to distract from the actual money grabbing going on. Because that's ultimately what this is all about, all ofbthat untapped Russian oil that Exxon has the rights to.  (All my opinion, of course).

But the players seem to have misjudged the extent of Trump's ego, the ineptitude of some of his people, the level of resistance from the population as a whole.   

The irony being, that Tillerson (the Exxon guy) is one of the saner people in that administration and has thus far kept a distance to Russia. 

[Fez]

10 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

 

If the Senate swears someone in for a deposition, then they are under oath to tell the truth. Not telling the truth then becomes perjury. I suspect Congress has been swearing people in for depositions for a long time but I don't honestly know. My quick googling turned up nothing.

I have seen the argument that because Sessions was a sitting senator at the time of the hearing, and the hearing took place in a senate chamber/room, he's actually protected by the speech and debate clause in the Constitution from any perjury charges.

I don't know if that argument holds any legal water though.

[Real Heir of Bear Island]

As much as I'd love to find an excuse to relieve Sessions, I don't believe he committed perjury and do not believe it is a dismiss-able offense. I do think the statement was purposefully misleading, but that is not against the law.

With that being said, I believed sessions should recuse himself from the Russia scandal investigation prior to all of this coming out. He stumped for Trump, so there is definitely a conflict there. 

 

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

5 minutes ago, Real Heir of Bear Island said:

As much as I'd love to find an excuse to relieve Sessions, I don't believe he committed perjury and do not believe it is a dismiss-able offense. I do think the statement was purposefully misleading, but that is not against the law.

With that being said, I believed sessions should recuse himself from the Russia scandal investigation prior to all of this coming out. He stumped for Trump, so there is definitely a conflict there. 

I think he kind of has to recuse himself, given the way Senator Franken worded the question. Kind of genius really.