U.S. Politics: Dirt From Ukrainians, Bombs for Iranians, Shut Down Your Brainiums...

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Trying to get inside the man's head leads to strange, strange, places.

It killed Rick James...

 

[Zorral]

Being 'president' is the only thing keeping him out of the courtroom for all sorts of criminal activities now, including those he committed before 2016.

[TrueMetis]

1 hour ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

How is saying "they volunteered to ______" not assigning motive? You are drawing a direct line. "They volunteered to kill people" or "they volunteered to commit genocides" that's just not a supportable statement! Sure, there are fucking monsters walking around and times of war sure seem to get them excited. But to assert that Tywin's cousin volunteered to kill people is flatly absurd. I've never been arguing about responsibility. Read the damn thread. This all started with an OG Bonnot post claiming that Buttigege joined the army to kill people. He does not have a fucking shred of evidence to support that statement and when Scot called him out you and others started down this path of  madness for the sake of your own moral aggrandizement. We settled this. Scot, DMC, Karradin, and I. We all agreed that responsibility for a body's actions are shared by the entirety of the persons compositing it. That conversation was settled. And then you felt the need to impress upon everyone that 'NO, EVERYBODY WHO JOINS THE MILITARY WANTS TO BE A KILLER. I JOINED TO BE A KILLER AND I'LL MAKE SURE EVERYONE I TRAIN WANTS TO BE A KILLER' (paraphrasing) which is just wrong. Your position has not been Karradin's reasoned 'joining the military, one should understand their complicity in killing' (paraphrased), but rather that joining the military in any way is volunteering to kill people. Which is not true. A JAG officer will under almost no conceivable circumstance be put into a position to use deadly force, so if they were volunteering to kill people then they made a big goddamn mistake in job selection. This is not semantics, it's refutation of a stupid and narrow understanding of how human beings make decisions.

Because volunteering is an action. If you volunteer for habitat for humanity, you volunteered to build houses. You can say you volunteered to help people, but the intent is distinct from the action. If you join the military you volunteered to kill people.

My position has been exactly the same as Karradin's, regardless of the horseshit incredibly offensive phantom you created to spar with.

[Maithanet]

Can we move this culpability of joining the military discussion to it's own thread?  It's not relevant to US politics and it's not like this is a slow news day or anything. 

[butterbumps!]

37 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Being 'president' is the only thing keeping him out of the courtroom for all sorts of criminal activities now, including those he committed before 2016.

Would he resign in order to receive a blanket pardon from Pence?  And would that even work?    I know that won’t stop the crimes NY state will be bringing against him, but is that a path this asshole can take to get out from under treason or whatever this is going to turn out to be?

[Gaston de Foix]

1 minute ago, butterbumps! said:

Would he resign in order to receive a blanket pardon from Pence?  And would that even work?    I know that won’t stop the crimes NY state will be bringing against him, but is that a path this asshole can take to get out from under treason or whatever this is going to turn out to be?

It worked for Nixon and Ford, and would work for Trump and Pence too.  Between his enormous wealth, his enduring popularity and the thinness of the case against him, he would probably survive any NY criminal law actions. 

[DanteGabriel]

7 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

It worked for Nixon and Ford, and would work for Trump and Pence too.  Between his enormous wealth, his enduring popularity and the thinness of the case against him, he would probably survive any NY criminal law actions. 

Just make him and his shitty children do the perp walk. I wouldn't care if they beat the NY charges (okay, I actually would care) but I want that shitty family to do the perp walk with reporters shouting questions, protesters jeering at them, and cameras recording every delicious second.

[butterbumps!]

Goddam that’s depressing as fuck.     So is there even a chance this doesn’t end with a blanket pardon?   Is it just a given this shitheel and family won’t be held accountable for anything?

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

Goddam that’s depressing as fuck.     So is there even a chance this doesn’t end with a blanket pardon?   Is it just a given this shitheel and family won’t be held accountable for anything?

Rich people rarely are held accountable. Trump never has been. Dont expect any kind of happy ending. 

[Zorral]

Pence can't pardon him for state crimes.  If he goes down, it's likely Pence does too.

His wealth isn't enormous.  His wealth is like everything else about him mostly smoke and mirrors, his smoke blowing.

~~~~~~

He has just begun his presser, which is a list of countries. ><> and he's already lying: the press isn't even covering my great trade deal with Japan -- hey, that trade deal doesn't exist.

This is ... just ,,, astonishing in its utter bullshit and incoherency and projection upon others of what he's done and is doing and wants to do, so he assumes everybody else does it too.

Bidens:

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/i-wrote-about-the-bidens-and-ukraine-years-ago-then-the-right-wing-spin-machine-turned-the-story-upside-down/

Quote

Wrote About the Bidens and Ukraine Years Ago. Then the Right-Wing Spin Machine Turned the Story Upside Down.
It’s strange to see my journalism twisted, perverted, and turned into lies and poisonous propaganda by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and their enablers. But that’s what has happened to a news ...

This is the consequence of him hanging out and sucking at the teat of fake news for years and years and years.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

As of an hour ago, NBC has the current whip count at 217. Not all are ready to impeach Trump (most seem to be), but are for an inquiry.

[butterbumps!]

So is there any other way this ends but trump pardoning his loathsome family just before resigning to Pence who blanket pardons him?   Like does it play out any differently whether he loses 2020 or gets impeached?

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

So is there any other way this ends but trump pardoning his loathsome family just before resigning to Pence who blanket pardons him?   Like does it play out any differently whether he loses 2020 or gets impeached?

Why do you think he will lose? If he does lose, why do you think he will give up power?

And no, dont give me the military thing. If there is him deciding to not step down itll be decided by congress and courts, just like 2000. And dems will acquiesce just like they did then. 

[Kalbear]

God, listening to him is so painful. Argh. 

[A True Kaniggit]

Meh. Y’all are just radical far left socialists. Or worse. 

Sarcasm. 

[dornishpen]

23 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

So is there any other way this ends but trump pardoning his loathsome family just before resigning to Pence who blanket pardons him?   Like does it play out any differently whether he loses 2020 or gets impeached?

If he runs and loses I doubt he would get a pardon from his Democratic successor, but there's a good chance they would decline to prosecute him for sake of the country's unity or healing or some other nonsense that continues the message that presidents who commit crimes aren't punished. He probably will get impeached, but right now it seems unlikely that the Senate will convict him and remove him from office, if that did happen he might be pardoned by Pence. If he resigns he'll almost certainly get a pardon.

[Jace, Extat]

28 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

So is there any other way this ends but trump pardoning his loathsome family just before resigning to Pence who blanket pardons him?   Like does it play out any differently whether he loses 2020 or gets impeached?

If you look at history the worst abusers of power rarely receive anywhere near the kind of punishment their crimes would dictate. Unless they go Full Hitler the deposed usually gets removed from power and asked not to be too troublesome. Don't want to set a precedent of holding our betters accountable to peasant laws.

[felice]

1 hour ago, TrueMetis said:

Because volunteering is an action. If you volunteer for habitat for humanity, you volunteered to build houses. You can say you volunteered to help people, but the intent is distinct from the action. If you join the military you volunteered to kill people.

Potentially more than one action. Or rather, action with multiple consequences, some of which you might actively dislike. If I buy a cake, I'm volunteering to give the cake shop money, and it's not because I want to give up my money! But I want the cake more, and I'm willing to accept the consequence of being broke. Not wanting to be broke doesn't make it any less voluntary (in this example - obviously many people are involuntarily broke).

[felice]

7 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I think this Ukraine controversy is going to take Biden down with it.

A plan with no drawbacks!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Even taking this at face value (and I wonder which part of the US nation was under threat from Iraq), through what means do they conduct their defense?

In a vast number of ways, and yes, one of them is forward military agression which leads to deaths most of the time. That fact, however, does not mean people are signing up to kill Muslims en masse. 

Quote

I'll admit this is true, but also incidental. Were American aircraft carriers built for hurricane relief? A rifle pressed into service as a hatstand doesn't stop being a rifle.

How is it incidental? Perhaps you are unaware, but one of the military's major marketing pitches is to sign up so you can save people who've just experienced a horrific natural disaster. 

If you want to argue that our military adventurism has gotten way out of hand in recent decades, I think you'll find few people here who disagree, but don't go walking around suggesting a desire to enlist means one also has a desire to kill. It never once crossed my mind while going through the process, and frankly as someone who was likely going to be in the D.C. area most of the time, if I needed to use a firearm, s*** got real.

Now please, can we move away from this sideshow? It's an incredibly fast moving news day and debating the ethics of joining the military is not entirely germane nor necessary.