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US Politics: It’s Not A Crime If Your Feelings Got Hurt


Mr. Chatywin et al.

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52 minutes ago, Altherion said:

That link is utterly hilarious. Anyone reading it without prior knowledge would assume that the Democrats lost in 2016 because of Russian interference rather than, say, because they nominated a thoroughly disliked candidate who ran a pitiful campaign despite having twice the cash.

Honestly, both are accurate. If Clinton runs a better campaign she wins. If Clinton isn't interfered with, she wins. The 2016 campaign was close enough that any small thing could have done a change. 

52 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I doubt they'll change their minds. The report has a lot of good propaganda material, but there's nothing in there that would cause more than 15 Republican Senators to turn on Trump and impeachment without a conviction is not seen as particularly advantageous.

That was then, however. It wasn't seen as advantageous at the time because Clinton was reasonably popular and partisan lines weren't as drawn - and Clinton leaned in heavily to the idea that this was a partisan decision despite the fairly weak evidence. I don't honestly know if an impeachment without conviction would be as damaging, especially if dems leaned on doing an impeachment because it was the only way to get to the unredacted reports and other information, legally. 

I think that it isn't that useful, personally, and I think the chances of him not being removed being equated in low-info voters minds to him being innocent are high, but I can't say anymore whether or not it has the same possibility of harm as Gingrich's campaign. 

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

You know, that would make sense if during the president’s time in office limitation periods were suspended, but they aren’t, are they?

I don’t know.  This kind of thing has only come up a couple of times in US history.  Not much precedent in President’s or former Presidents being subject to criminal prosecution.

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15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Honestly, both are accurate. If Clinton runs a better campaign she wins. If Clinton isn't interfered with, she wins. The 2016 campaign was close enough that any small thing could have done a change. 

This is true, but it's misleading: the impact of the bad campaign is much larger than any other cause. When one side has twice as much money as the other, it shouldn't be so close. Also, a Presidential election attracts interference like a manure pile attracts flies. For example, Trump was also interfered with by foreign operatives (e.g. the former MI6 agent whose dossier started this whole collusion silliness) and there were people in the Balkans posting for both sides -- not because they cared either way, but because this made them more money than anything else they legally had access to.

21 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That was then, however. It wasn't seen as advantageous at the time because Clinton was reasonably popular and partisan lines weren't as drawn - and Clinton leaned in heavily to the idea that this was a partisan decision despite the fairly weak evidence. I don't honestly know if an impeachment without conviction would be as damaging, especially if dems leaned on doing an impeachment because it was the only way to get to the unredacted reports and other information, legally.  

I think that it isn't that useful, personally, and I think the chances of him not being removed being equated in low-info voters minds to him being innocent are high, but I can't say anymore whether or not it has the same possibility of harm as Gingrich's campaign.

I basically agree with you here: I don't think it would be as harmful, but nor would be very useful.

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40 minutes ago, Ice Queen said:

I understand all that, but surely you realize that leaves us all vulnerable? If we can't get rid of a corrupt wannabe despot, why did the founders include impeachment at all? What's the point? Yes, Trump will be prosecuted when he leaves office. That's not much comfort to the American people, not when he is committing crimes in broad daylight. 

And we have no recourse. 

IMO this is exactly the opposite of what the founders intended. Of course, this country got started in a rebellion against a despotic tyrant. We may go down that road again.

The one question the Dems need to ask Mueller: If he wasn't the President, would you prosecute?

The founders didn’t foresee the rise of formal organized political parties.  They assumed people would make loose coalitions of interested individuals regarding particular issues.  

“Party Discipline” has made it difficult to use impeachment and trial for removal from office as a viable threat to control the behavior of the President.  Further Congress’ willingness to cede power to the Executive Branch for the last 230 years has weakened the abstract ability of the Congress to act to reign in Presidents who abuse their power.

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2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The founders didn’t foresee the rise of formal organized political parties.  They assumed people would make loose coalitions of interested individuals regarding particular issues.  

“Party Discipline” has made it difficult to use impeachment and trial for removal from office as a viable threat to control the behavior of the President.  Further Congress’ willingness to cede power to the Executive Branch for the last 230 years has weakened the abstract ability of the Congress to act to reign in Presidents who abuse their power.

I'm pretty sure they did foresee the rise of formal organized political parties -- it happened almost immediately and Washington even warned about the consequences in his farewell address. I think it's more that they wanted it to be really, really clear that a President has committed a high crime or misdemeanor before an impeachment conviction. If you think about it, the high bar to an impeachment conviction is actually a formidable protection against partisan action: getting a two-thirds majority in the Senate is hard so the people who want to remove the President will need to convince at least some on the other side to join them.

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Further to my opinions about the US, I see the NY Yankees have stopped using Kate Smith’s recording of God Bless America after finding out about the racist songs she also recorded, including one about why black children were born - somebody has to pick cotton.

Lovely.

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So, this is what the Seychelles meeting was about. It was pretty weird, the billionaire of Blackwater infamy, meeting with shady foreign nationals in an obscure location. Naturally, this mercenary scum that engineers massacres in Iraq is a Trump ally. They have gotten everybody except Nixon in a jar into their crime family.

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Nader began cooperating with Mueller’s team in March 2018 and was given at least partial immunity for his testimony. Nader told Mueller that Dmitriev pressed him for an introduction to Kushner and Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. Dmitriev, Nader said, wanted Nader to convey to the incoming Trump administration that Russia wanted “to start rebuilding the relationship in whatever is a comfortable pace for them.”

According to Mueller, Nader did just that over dinner with Erik Prince in January 2017. Prince then agreed to meet with Dmitriev in the Seychelles later that month.

 

When Trump won, Putin deployed his oligarchs
After an election marred by Moscow's attempts to buoy Donald Trump's candidacy, the Russian president wanted to cash in.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/18/mueller-report-putin-trump-1282648

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Yeah bi-partisan-seeming Republicans often turn out to be uber-partisan hacks. Which is why Senator Collins decided to personally remove the right to an abortion to every woman in America. It's also why the moderate, never-Trump Republican Comey decided to inflict a fascist President upon the country by writing his letter. It also why the Attorney General Barr is now Trump's personal defense attorney. Because Russians interfering in our system of elections aren't important. Tax cuts for the wealthy are important. Turning gays into second-c,lass citizens is what is important.

 

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But Burr communicating with Trump's aides about the FBI probe could undercut some of those warm bipartisan feelings. The Senate Intelligence Committee's ranking member, Mark Warner (D-Va.), did not respond to a request for comment but Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the panel, made an indirect reference to Burr in a statement on Thursday.

"Given evidence from the Mueller report, the committee must take steps to ensure its investigations do not leak to the executive branch," he said

 

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Mueller report ropes in Senate GOP
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr apparently supplied the White House counsel’s office with information about the Russia probe.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/18/burr-mueller-probe-white-house-1282098

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I've seen a few different people reporting a militia rounding up asylum seekers and immigrants near the border at gunpoint and then calling border patrol.  It's been all over twitter today.  This is seriously fucked up if the videos are what they seem to be.  ACLU has referenced one of the videos and linked it too also I'm assuming this is actually happening.  Wtf.  

Charge these fuckers with kidnapping.

 

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/18/new-mexico-migrants-armed-militia-detained?__twitter_impression=true

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4 hours ago, Altherion said:

This is true, but it's misleading: the impact of the bad campaign is much larger than any other cause. When one side has twice as much money as the other, it shouldn't be so close. Also, a Presidential election attracts interference like a manure pile attracts flies. For example, Trump was also interfered with by foreign operatives (e.g. the former MI6 agent whose dossier started this whole collusion silliness) and there were people in the Balkans posting for both sides -- not because they cared either way, but because this made them more money than anything else they legally had access to.

I basically agree with you here: I don't think it would be as harmful, but nor would be very useful.

This is an oft repeated falsehood that right wing media has been hammering on.  The FBI investigation started in July 2016 after an Australian diplomat in Britain alerted US officials that WikiLeaks and Russia had dirt on the DNC and Clinton, when a drunk Papadapolous admitted as much.  This is before the FBI was even aware of the Steele dossier.  

The FBI investigation began independent of the dossier 

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I think also characterizing the Russian investigation as 'silliness' when you have the president's son taking meetings with Russian operatives, and the campaign chairman sharing months of internal polling data with people closely associated with Russian intelligence services, is stretching things.

Mueller may not have been able to get enough evidence to recommend prosecution, but it sure looks shady as fuck, and very much worth investigating. 

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4 hours ago, mormont said:

I'll give Barr this much: he has made this cover-up really look like a cover-up. 

I think it’s becoming abundantly clear that he had to get out in front of the report and lie like hell. It’s actually pretty damning. The best “honest” spin that Trump et al. can claim is that they were too dumb to conspire effectively. It’s pretty clear that they wanted to.

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5 hours ago, Impmk2 said:

I think also characterizing the Russian investigation as 'silliness' when you have the president's son taking meetings with Russian operatives, and the campaign chairman sharing months of internal polling data with people closely associated with Russian intelligence services, is stretching things.

Mueller may not have been able to get enough evidence to recommend prosecution, but it sure looks shady as fuck, and very much worth investigating. 

QUite so, however this post was by Altherion so you come to expect these kinds of things

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11 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

QUite so, however this post was by Altherion so you come to expect these kinds of things

If we can take anything from the Mueller Report, it’s that Altherion was as wrong as one can be about Trump. He’s argued for years that Trump is incredibly smart and playing dumb, but the report makes it undeniably clear that Trump is a complete idiot, who is so incompetent that he couldn’t even execute the crimes he was trying to commit.

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8 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Sanders completely pinned to the wall as her lie is exposed, calls it a "slip of the tongue." I guess is the new Alternative facts. She should be put under oath at all times, or just assume if her mouth moves she is lying.

Actually, reporters should start asking her, whenever she gives a response, if her answer is true or if she's lying.

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By the way, the Russians have come out and stated, once again, that they did not interfere in the US election.

You can all rest easy now.

I'm sure your president will also come out and explain, once again, that Putin assured him it wasn't true.

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