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US Politics: Free Trade, Freer Trade, and Nuclear War


Fragile Bird

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24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I forgot to get back to this. Thanks man, it was really helpful. And a little discouraging.

Glad to help!  I definitely didn't mean for it to be discouraging - but I do think it's important to let people know how central quant methods is before they get into poly sci (or even public policy).  I didn't really have any idea when I started.   

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3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

CNN has people saying they think something's going to happen in the next few days, that his anger level is beyond anything anyone has ever seen. He's apparently angrier at Sessions and Rosenstein than even Mueller.

His red line has always been anyone looking into his business dealings and I'm betting Cohen has plenty of info that got seized relating to that. Cohen is his mob-lawyer enforcer. He's like ground zero for a TON of shady shit Trump and also later the GOP has been up to. I'm betting he's more pissed then ever because he thought that stuff was "off limits" and is now scared shitless about what they might know and angry that they are coming after him.

 

3 hours ago, Triskele said:

Of course the turtle is still saying stuff about how there's no need to take action to protect Mueller.

Of course he is. McConnell doesn't give a single shit about democracy, the rule of law or the US. He's been burning US institutions down for years now to get power and he's not gonna stop now.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've been noticing that Trump has a tendency to conflate himself with the country as a whole, and it's becoming more prevalent. Seems to me that that's how the mind of dictator would work. "I am the State!" 

It's the reason he's so pissed at Sessions. In his mind the DOJ are "his lawyers" and it's their job to look out for his interests.

It's less distatorial imo and more his innate authoritarian instincts and his history in the private sector as a CEO. To him the government should be like one of his businesses and so everyone answers to him and the people who work in the government exist to further his agenda and protect his ass. He does not understand the idea of the state as it's own entity separate from himself that he works for or with. And thus he views actions that aren't what he wants as betrayal.

It's part of why he's all in on the deep state conspiracy. What other reason could they have for doing this? It must be that they are working for his enemies instead of for him.

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7 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Someone pointed out (I'm guessing this has been pointed out everywhere) that this is such BS too because we know that Trump has more-or-less attempted to fire Mueller already.  So they really can't plead "Oh, I don't think he'd go there" with a straight face.  We know he's tried to go there and that he wants to go there for a fact.  And it's just being reported that he almost went there in December too and barely backed off once some reporting about Deutche Bank turned out to be wrong.

And the reason he almost did it back then is the same red line issue that explains why he's blowing up now. He doesn't want any investigations anywhere near his business dealings cause he knows he's in deep shit once that happens. He's spent a long time hiring people to build an elaborate web to hide his financial crimes and connections.

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25 minutes ago, Shryke said:

His red line has always been anyone looking into his business dealings and I'm betting Cohen has plenty of info that got seized relating to that. Cohen is his mob-lawyer enforcer. He's like ground zero for a TON of shady shit Trump and also later the GOP has been up to. I'm betting he's more pissed then ever because he thought that stuff was "off limits" and is now scared shitless about what they might know and angry that they are coming after him.

Also , Cohen is on the RNC as deputy finance chairman.   Just the best, best people. 

I heard on NPR mention that part of Mueller's job is that if he discovers other crimes during the investigation that aren't part of the investigation, he should turn them over to proper authorities who would deal with them.   Looks like he did that but I doubt Piss Man will appreciate the nuance. 

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8 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Also , Cohen is on the RNC as deputy finance chairman.   Just the best, best people. 

I heard on NPR mention that part of Mueller's job is that if he discovers other crimes during the investigation that aren't part of the investigation, he should turn them over to proper authorities who would deal with them.   Looks like he did that but I doubt Piss Man will appreciate the nuance. 

Well, another reason I read suggested for Mueller doing this is it spreads the investigation out. If Trump ever fired Mueller, there'd still be other investigations going on and it'd be much harder to put out all the fires.

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9 minutes ago, Triskele said:

This makes me hopeful that even if Trump is able to shut Mueller down there's now stuff that will come out in New York that will be enormously damaging.  

 

7 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Well, another reason I read suggested for Mueller doing this is it spreads the investigation out. If Trump ever fired Mueller, there'd still be other investigations going on and it'd be much harder to put out all the fires.

With what looks like both fed and state looking in on Trumpy, he has to feel the squeeze, I would imagine.

Time for another big cold glass of schadenfreude. :cheers:

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14 minutes ago, Triskele said:

This lawyer for Stormy Daniels was just on Cooper talking about Michael Cohen and seemed to relish the chance to rip him and predicted he would "fold like a cheap deck of cards" on Trump.  He saw saying he doesn't think Cohen will be willing to go to jail for Trump.  

I think that would be one more the more satisfying ways for Trump to go down:  that he doesn't get loyalty from his "best people" once the heat is on, and it sure feels like it could go that way.

Hopefully there is a big, long line of people, including Kushner, that have flipped once this is over. Then Mueller will reveal that Manafort has already flipped. We'll really get to test the limits of cowardice of the Republican leaders. Probably, Paul Ryan will show up at the White House dressed up as Jar Jar Binks and try to make Trump Emperor at that point.

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39 minutes ago, Triskele said:

This makes me hopeful that even if Trump is able to shut Mueller down there's now stuff that will come out in New York that will be enormously damaging.  

There's some interesting links here to this Cohen issue actually.

So here's a thing from a fairly reliable (afaik) insider blog talking about why Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, recused himself:

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/04/id-like-to-think-that-somewhere-trump-is-fuming-as-another-hand-picked-lawyer-recuses-himself/?rf=1

(looking now it seems to be popping up elsewhere too but I'm too lazy to change this link)

The reason: Trump personally interviewed him for the job. Which makes any move by Berman here look shady as fuck so to keep his license he has to back off.

So yeah, he's a big Trump supporter but Trump compromised him via the interview and he's not gonna throw his career under the bus for Trump.

And this is basically true of a ton of these positions that are in areas where Trump has properties. He's been very interested in the US Attorneys specific regions and doing the completely unprecedented step of talking to them himself.

From what we know of Trump this is almost certainly to sniff them out and demand loyalty from them to insulate himself from prosecution because. he knows his real estate businesses are shady as fuck and rife with financial crimes.

But it seems like it's going to backfire on him because of issues like this because I can't see these people falling on the sword for him and the investigations can now leak in from sources outside the specific USA's office, like Mueller.

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5 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Hopefully there is a big, long line of people, including Kushner, that have flipped once this is over. Then Mueller will reveal that Manafort has already flipped. We'll really get to test the limits of cowardice of the Republican leaders. Probably, Paul Ryan will show up at the White House dressed up as Jar Jar Binks and try to make Trump Emperor at that point.

Apologize to Jar Jar Binks.

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8 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Apologize to Jar Jar Binks.

:D

WASHINGTON AND THE WORLD
How Putin’s Folly Could Lead to a Middle East War
Russia’s intervention in Syria has brought the region to the brink of disaster.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/09/syria-putin-russia-war-middle-east-217838

Quote

 

Donald Trump needs to stop prevaricating over Syria and take advantage of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Syria failures.

Putin, who unexpectedly thrust Russia into the Syria civil war in September 2015, initially claimed he was there on a counterterrorism mission to fight the Islamic State. Fast-forward 2½ years, and Putin is now in the unlikely position of trying to contain the outbreak of what could be the ugliest Middle East war of the 21st century between Iran and Israel.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Shryke said:

There's some interesting links here to this Cohen issue actually.

So here's a thing from a fairly reliable (afaik) insider blog talking about why Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, recused himself:

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/04/id-like-to-think-that-somewhere-trump-is-fuming-as-another-hand-picked-lawyer-recuses-himself/?rf=1

(looking now it seems to be popping up elsewhere too but I'm too lazy to change this link)

The reason: Trump personally interviewed him for the job. Which makes any move by Berman here look shady as fuck so to keep his license he has to back off.

So yeah, he's a big Trump supporter but Trump compromised him via the interview and he's not gonna throw his career under the bus for Trump.

And this is basically true of a ton of these positions that are in areas where Trump has properties. He's been very interested in the US Attorneys specific regions and doing the completely unprecedented step of talking to them himself.

From what we know of Trump this is almost certainly to sniff them out and demand loyalty from them to insulate himself from prosecution because. he knows his real estate businesses are shady as fuck and rife with financial crimes.

But it seems like it's going to backfire on him because of issues like this because I can't see these people falling on the sword for him and the investigations can now leak in from sources outside the specific USA's office, like Mueller.

That is amazing. Everything he touches turns to shit, it's about time some of that ended up landing on his fragile confection of hair plugs.

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Quote

US military officials: All necessary assets (ships, warplanes, and cruise missiles) are in place, armed and ready to attack Syria. Orders from President Trump are now expected "anytime."

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Quote

Russian Ambassador at the #UNSC: The strike that you’re planning against #Syria will lead to a catastrophic results.

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Russia will respond if the United States launches a strike in Syria, Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin 

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Looks like Russia is pushing back quite a bit on this. Of course I can't even imagine the response if the Russia bombed a US ally. Some people on reddit were discussing whether Syrian possessed the capability to shoot anti ship missiles at the US destroyers off the coast until it was pointed out that if Syria ever successfully hit back the US would just level the country. I'm a fair bit disappointed in the US to be honest there is no alternative to Assad, the SDF (and i'm a huge YPG partisan) kind of are but they are way to far from from Damascus removing the Syrian regime without an alternative would result in a literal genocide, so taking potshots at them from the side just feels dishonest and cruel. Finally some Syrians talking about how things are waiting to get bombed.  

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