thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 18, 2018 11:45:57 GMT -5
I think I agree with Virgil. Someone hold me, I'm scared. No shit. What is going on with him? He has been so reasonable the last few days. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2018 11:46:03 GMT -5
The President does not “own” the government. That’s one of the more frightening contentions I’ve seen here. I think someone needs a primer on the three branches of government. We can start with Schoolhouse rock. I'd suggest talk therapy and medication. Serious medication... |
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on May 18, 2018 11:47:22 GMT -5
"If you strike at the king, you must kill him" - Emerson The worst part of all of this is that they attacked Donald J. Trump, they have gone after his family, his friends, anyone remotely associated with him, they have tried to destroy his business- they tried to ruin him. They took a shot and missed. It's actually difficult to state, in ordinary circumstances, how fucked a person that screws with Trump is-- but Trump isn't just Trump. Donald J. Trump is the President Of The United States Of America. HE OWNS the government they tried to use against him.They now have to try to re-build their forces from OUTSIDE the government. Looking back Trump cut the head off the snake when he got rid of Comey. In the meantime- quietly, meekly looking like he's doing nothing, Jeff Sessions and John Huber have been paralleling the IG investigation... People are extremely fucked. Wait...what? He OWNS the government? When was Trump crowned as a monarch? |
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on May 18, 2018 12:08:12 GMT -5
This thread is surreal. How can two groups of people look at the very same set of facts and both be so divided on their interpretation? Don't answer, please. It's a rhetorical question. I don't want to give either side another excuse to lob grenades. @restofymam: It would shock me if Mr. Cohen didn't have a mountain of dirt on Pres. Trump. I nevertheless don't approve of the feds and New York state digging through it on a fishing expedition. Mr. Mueller's spinning off investigations in a furious hunt for wrongdoing is as egregious an abuse of federal power as the surveillance that got Mr. Comey et al. into hot water. Again: permitted by law, but the lines the US government is permitted to cross curdle my blood. I can only hope my own government isn't as savage. Virgil, Mueller has a strict mandate that he must only investigate specific crimes surrounding Russian collusion.
However, that doesn't mean, if he falls over another crime during his investigation, that he should ignore it because it isn't part of his mandate. He saw evidence of malfeasance outside of the Russian investigation and forwarded it to the NY attorney general, which is what he was supposed to do.
Trump comes from a notoriously mobbed up, back biting industry - the NYC real estate market - and he should have known becoming the POTUS would have increased the focus on his own business past (and GFs). I don't think he ever intended to win, I think he ran for POTUS as another free publicity stunt, and then couldn't figure out a way to gracefully back out of it. That's unfortunate, because now, all the quasi-legal stuff he was previously able to hide behind an army of lawyers has now caught the interest of every reporter and every law officer in the US - that's just what happens when you run for POTUS in a democracy, where you don't get to control the news cycle.
But that isn't Mueller's fault - he is strictly sticking to investigating his mandate, Russian collusion in the election. Trump should have known being POTUS would bring a laser focus on him, his family, and his business. It's unfortunate he ignored that possibility.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on May 18, 2018 12:09:35 GMT -5
"If you strike at the king, you must kill him" - Emerson The worst part of all of this is that they attacked Donald J. Trump, they have gone after his family, his friends, anyone remotely associated with him, they have tried to destroy his business- they tried to ruin him. Only the corrupt one in business with him. |
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on May 18, 2018 12:11:49 GMT -5
Stop wasting time feigning ignorance. The point is obvious, clear, and it stands: Donald J. Trump is the POTUS. He controls the executive. The CIA, FBI and other agencies that Obama directed to be used against him have been purged, are being purged, and those career bureaucrats are now facing prosecution. That might be your point, but it's not what you said. You are correct that the POTUS controls the Executive Branch operations -- within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution and the limits put in place by the House, Senate, and SCOTUS. That is not "ownership," nor is it without checks on power. Oh mid! Please! Like reality is of any import in this soliloquy ! |
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on May 18, 2018 12:17:06 GMT -5
I think I agree with Virgil. Someone hold me, I'm scared. No shit. What is going on with him? He has been so reasonable the last few days. I don't really see that. He at least is willing to stand near the lifeboats as the ship is going down. Whoopdeedoo It's an illusion in keep with Paul's game plan. Paul is so outrageously ridiculous that Virgil seems more grounded. An illusion. |
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tallguy
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Post by tallguy on May 18, 2018 13:26:57 GMT -5
The bottom line on Donald Trump is that he is quite possibly the single most dishonest and corrupt person in the country. He gets far more credit as a businessman than he ever deserved. He is a carnival barker. A promoter and showman promoting mostly himself. If there were an ethical window through which all of his actions had to pass, he would likely be shining shoes in front of some tower today rather than plastering his name on it. He has no moral underpinnings other than what most benefits him. He likely doesn't even know anyone honest and ethical, and if he does, he sure the hell does not associate with them. Anyone defending or professing support for him as the individual person he is and has shown himself to be for decades should probably be institutionalized. They have serious problems with reality.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on May 18, 2018 13:36:37 GMT -5
This thread is surreal. How can two groups of people look at the very same set of facts and both be so divided on their interpretation? Don't answer, please. It's a rhetorical question. I don't want to give either side another excuse to lob grenades. @restofymam: It would shock me if Mr. Cohen didn't have a mountain of dirt on Pres. Trump. I nevertheless don't approve of the feds and New York state digging through it on a fishing expedition. Mr. Mueller's spinning off investigations in a furious hunt for wrongdoing is as egregious an abuse of federal power as the surveillance that got Mr. Comey et al. into hot water. Again: permitted by law, but the lines the US government is permitted to cross curdle my blood. I can only hope my own government isn't as savage. Virgil, Mueller has a strict mandate that he must only investigate specific crimes surrounding Russian collusion.
However, that doesn't mean, if he falls over another crime during his investigation, that he should ignore it because it isn't part of his mandate. He saw evidence of malfeasance outside of the Russian investigation and forwarded it to the NY attorney general, which is what he was supposed to do.
Trump comes from a notoriously mobbed up, back biting industry - the NYC real estate market - and he should have known becoming the POTUS would have increased the focus on his own business past (and GFs). I don't think he ever intended to win, I think he ran for POTUS as another free publicity stunt, and then couldn't figure out a way to gracefully back out of it. That's unfortunate, because now, all the quasi-legal stuff he was previously able to hide behind an army of lawyers has now caught the interest of every reporter and every law officer in the US - that's just what happens when you run for POTUS in a democracy, where you don't get to control the news cycle.
But that isn't Mueller's fault - he is strictly sticking to investigating his mandate, Russian collusion in the election. Trump should have known being POTUS would bring a laser focus on him, his family, and his business. It's unfortunate he ignored that possibility. You're saying Pres. Trump opened himself to this kind of scrutiny by running for the presidency ...meaning there was a possibility an investigation might be opened into his campaign practices ...which might lead to investigation of men tangentially associated with the campaign such as Mr. Cohen ...which might lead to his files being thrown open ...which might lead to more dirt and skeletons in the closet ...which the law requires Mr. Mueller send to the relevant authorities for further investigation. My misgivings are twofold: firstly, I agree with Paul that the first step, the "Russian collusion" investigation, exists solely because powerful individuals in government want(ed) to sink Pres. Trump by any means necessary. Perhaps they legitimately suspected Russian collusion ab initio, or perhaps not. Perhaps they believe their rhetoric about the significance of collusion, but given how tightly tied to Russia the entirety of Washington is, I highly doubt it. In any case, they have a goal: get rid of Trump. How to accomplish this? They know he's got a lot of skeletons in his closet, probably a host of shady dealings with so-called "hostile nations" like Russia. Surely they can find something there. Hence they go though the motions to collect the dirt they need, only they're on shaky ground from the start. Every step of the way they're stretching the rules--sometimes beyond the breaking point--to establish surveillance, move from little fish to bigger fish, rout out any evidence of wrongdoing, all in pursuit of their goal. I deeply resent this kind of weaponization of a justice system, whether Pres. Trump is guilty or not. You may not agree with me at this cosmic moment in time, but a democracy does not want its leadership decided by who is able to best mobilize the state to dig up dirt on opponents and who is best able to conceal the skeletons in their own closet. Weaponization of the justice system is a policy straight out of Stalinist Russia or present-day Communist China. Investigate a political enemy with a veneer of concern, dig deep, find a skeleton, and throw him in the gulags. I simply can't approve. My other misgiving is that Mr. Mueller is absolutely the wrong individual to be conducting this investigation. It was true in 2016, true in 2017, and true today. I don't care if he's straight as an arrow, clean as a whistle, and honest as a saint, his appointment as an investigator and prosecutor should never have been permitted given his involvement with various actors during the 2016 campaign. I don't doubt that hundreds or even thousands of men and women would qualify to lead such an investigation. The fact that one of the most visibly conflict-of-interest-ridden individuals in America was chosen to conduct it isn't lost on me. Rep. Goudy couldn't wrap his mind around it, and it shouldn't be lost on you either. Mr. Mueller is a man you simply do not appoint as a prosecutor if you want your investigation to be beyond reproach, and yet there he is. I can't say how rotten, but there's something rotten in the state of Denmark there. So those are my two concerns: weaponization of the justice system, and a specific prosecutor who should never have been appointed. Both totally independent of my beliefs about Pres. Trump. I realize it's hard to separate the two given a character like Pres. Trump.
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tallguy
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Post by tallguy on May 18, 2018 13:50:39 GMT -5
And it is your right to think that. Robert Mueller's reputation for honesty and integrity is impeccable. He is not an attention-seeker. He has held top jobs with all five of the most recent presidents, both Democrat and Republican. His reappointment as FBI director by Obama required a special act of Congress, and he was confirmed 100-0. I'm certainly willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He has earned it. The partisan efforts to tear him down reveal much about his accusers, and nothing about him.
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on May 18, 2018 14:15:24 GMT -5
Tough Talk on Impeachment: I have appreciated the below quote and the video at the link from the first time I saw them in 2007. "On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this Administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any President has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don't give away the tools." — John Nichols
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 18, 2018 16:35:13 GMT -5
Keep in mind what the Party Of Treason actually did. They didn't just victimize Trump, and play members of his team. They tarnished the reputation of the United States by playing other nations. The long and the short of it is that the Democratic Party risked WWIII for a hoax concocted to cover up their criminal abuse of power 'clearing' Hillary and framing Donald J. Trump during the campaign and the transition.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on May 18, 2018 17:41:15 GMT -5
I'm certainly willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He lost my benefit of the doubt when he failed to recuse himself from prosecuting a case a reasonable man would have turned down on account of multiple conflicts of interest. That puts him on neutral ground with me. I neither trust him nor distrust him.
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dondub
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Post by dondub on May 18, 2018 18:54:20 GMT -5
First we have convictions for the Party of Treason....though no charges have been filed.
Then it's 'the POTUS owns the country'...not really remotely true but the kind of demented philosophy one can get from the extremist right.
And then this remarkable statement that just shreds the Constitution:
Trump is arguably entitled to a third term as his first term will have effectively been stolen by traitors.
Here come the fascists, empowered by Trump's own authoritarian bent. Is there a beer hall where I can mail a brown shirt down there in Florida? |
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dondub
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Post by dondub on May 18, 2018 19:03:06 GMT -5
And what, praetell, is a "porn lawyer"? I know what a porn president is, that's the guy that screws a porn star for $130,000 while his wife is breastfeeding a new born son. But a porn lawyer....hmmmm, is that just a disparaging kill the messenger term? |
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on May 18, 2018 19:58:43 GMT -5
You're blind to the fact that the Democratic Party is now the party of treason. They got caught. This is no longer "theory"- conspiracy or otherwise. It's an established fact. They are the worst. Trump is arguably entitled to a third term as his first term will have effectively been stolen by traitors. by that logic, Obama is entitled to TWO new terms. after all: so yeah. f*** your president and his third term. alright?
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on May 18, 2018 23:09:11 GMT -5
The best thing about our country is the periodic and peaceful transition of power. It makes us strong. If Trump fucks with that in 6 months or 2 years or 6 years, then he is the absolute worst. You're blind to the fact that the Democratic Party is now the party of treason. They got caught. This is no longer "theory"- conspiracy or otherwise. It's an established fact. They are the worst. Trump is arguably entitled to a third term as his first term will have effectively been stolen by traitors.Well, in that case, Obama was arguably entitled to a third and fourth term because of all the birth certificate bullshit. His first two terms were stolen from him. It was a witch hunt, dontcha know? |
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OldCoyote
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Post by OldCoyote on May 19, 2018 22:25:56 GMT -5
What do you mean, there was an inside FBI informant in the Trump campaign? |
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 20, 2018 11:23:30 GMT -5
You know it.
They know it.
And pretty much, everyone knows it.
Trump knew the stakes.
We knew the stakes.
The time has come.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 20, 2018 11:24:43 GMT -5
You're blind to the fact that the Democratic Party is now the party of treason. They got caught. This is no longer "theory"- conspiracy or otherwise. It's an established fact. They are the worst. Trump is arguably entitled to a third term as his first term will have effectively been stolen by traitors.Well, in that case, Obama was arguably entitled to a third and fourth term because of all the birth certificate bullshit. His first two terms were stolen from him. It was a witch hunt, dontcha know? Obama is entitled to a short drop and a sudden stop. After a full and fair trial and conviction, of course. |
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on May 20, 2018 11:27:04 GMT -5
Well, in that case, Obama was arguably entitled to a third and fourth term because of all the birth certificate bullshit. His first two terms were stolen from him. It was a witch hunt, dontcha know? Obama is entitled to a short drop and a sudden stop. After a full and fair trial and conviction, of course. I note it isn't your usual call for a firing squad. |
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on May 20, 2018 12:20:29 GMT -5
Obama is entitled to a short drop and a sudden stop. After a full and fair trial and conviction, of course. I note it isn't your usual call for a firing squad. you sure about that? |
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on May 20, 2018 13:11:16 GMT -5
Well, in that case, Obama was arguably entitled to a third and fourth term because of all the birth certificate bullshit. His first two terms were stolen from him. It was a witch hunt, dontcha know? Obama is entitled to a short drop and a sudden stop. After a full and fair trial and conviction, of course. Obama should be hanged? That's adorable! |
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on May 20, 2018 13:23:19 GMT -5
I note it isn't your usual call for a firing squad. you sure about that? While I will confess that my memory isn't what it once was, I have a high level of confidence that most of the time AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP is a line them up and shoot them type of guy. |
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on May 20, 2018 13:44:22 GMT -5
Obama is entitled to a short drop and a sudden stop. After a full and fair trial and conviction, of course. I note it isn't your usual call for a firing squad. so you are calling for lynching the black guy? how adorable. |
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 20, 2018 16:15:41 GMT -5
What do you mean, there was an inside FBI informant in the Trump campaign? Nope. Even the NY Post admits the informant was not part of the Trump campaign. He met with three of those already in Mueller's cross hairs. This isn't so much a story, but the usual attempted deflection and lies from the Trump and GOP supporters thereof.
And ... What the heck people? Do you think the FBI doesn't use live people to question potential sources while investigating? Do you think anyone connected to Trump needs to be treated like a special snowflake and have it all spelled out and safe?
Maybe they should have sent nice typed questionaires to Page, etc. and a return envelope with postage. 
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 20, 2018 16:22:22 GMT -5
And I want to point out I am noticing the usual hypocrisy of Trump supporters and enablers. They were all OK with coming down on Debbie Wasserman who was helping with Clinton's campaign yet suddenly if Manafort or Page is a criminal asshole its now got to be about Trump's campaign?! Still not about Trump. But what the heck are you all hiding? What big ass stupid did he do? Did he and parts of the GOP pay for the Russian targeted ads? What did he do? What did they do? With all this whining and deflection, it makes me wonder how bad it is.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 20, 2018 16:33:37 GMT -5
Well, in that case, Obama was arguably entitled to a third and fourth term because of all the birth certificate bullshit. His first two terms were stolen from him. It was a witch hunt, dontcha know? Obama is entitled to a short drop and a sudden stop. After a full and fair trial and conviction, of course. You really have bought into the manufactured lie that Obama gave a crap about anything other that Russian interference. And all you who are AOK with Russian interference as long as it gives you Trump, can't even be charged with anything close to treason even if you had set up and paid for the ads yourselves. We aren't at war with Russia. Treason does not apply.
And for the logic challenged, going after a known target like Manafort has nothing to do with Trump and his campaign ... except for the fact that Trump knowingly hired one of his many problem children. He needs to man up and take the rap for that just like Clinton needs to own she was OK with Wasserman running the DNC. The time for emotional temper tantrums papered in fake patriotism is long past.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on May 20, 2018 16:35:26 GMT -5
Well, in that case, Obama was arguably entitled to a third and fourth term because of all the birth certificate bullshit. His first two terms were stolen from him. It was a witch hunt, dontcha know? Obama is entitled to a short drop and a sudden stop. After a full and fair trial and conviction, of course. A good example of why we don't want paul's vision for the United States. |
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 20, 2018 16:47:53 GMT -5
Obama is entitled to a short drop and a sudden stop. After a full and fair trial and conviction, of course. A good example of why we don't want paul's vision for the United States. Right, because he's basically calling for ignoring the federal laws on the books just because he feels Trump was a victim. |
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