I’ve been cautious about predicting what Trump will do next, and when I do predict I’m usually wrong, because he is so random. But right now I’ve got a strong feeling that he is about to make a move on Mueller.
I know, I know, it’s been looking that way all along so saying that now is meaningless. But not really, because now is now and before was then. I know I know, he can’t do it because the law says he can’t. Well, wrong. That has never been true. I know, I know, it will be like the Saturday Night Massacre all over again. But no, that play has been made by Trump and it failed. Nixon had the balls to make the SNM work, and when Trump did the same thing he got told to sit down because he is basically a bully, and thus, spineless. So, he’ll be doing it a different way.
Syria is is way out, but not as a distraction. Rather, Syria involved Russia. Things are not going well with Russia. Suddenly we have all these negative interactions, and the whole Russia relationship thing is messed up. Why? Because of the fake witch hunt investigation and the fake news. The fake investigation and the fake news are national security threats.
That is the scenario Trump is setting up right now in his tweets. Rather blatantly.
So, the investigation, and the reporting, have to end.
I’m not sure how Trump is going to (try to) shut down the reporting, but here is how he shuts down the investigation.
Currently, Mueller is protected by a set of rules that would require Trump to ask people to do things they are not allowed to do, or could refuse to do, and unless he gets a Robert Bork on the case, that won’t work.
But, the rules are not laws, and they do not exist because of laws. They exist because of executive authority bestowed on the Justice Department.
(Trump, in case you were keeping track, is the executive.)
All Trump has to do is to write an executive order or two getting rid of those rules, and implementing new rules, including a rule that says he can fire any prosecutor working for the Justice department. Sis bam boom, as they say in Queens, Mueller is out.
What could happen then is, of course, Congress makes a move to put a law in place making the special prosecutor position protected. But don’t hold your breath.
Those bastards in the Republican Congress would have to get a 2/3rds majority to override a Trump veto, and they can’t even get a spoonfull of oatmeal to their mouths without dropping it on their laps, so that’s not going to happen. So the investigation will end.
Maybe we can vote in a Democratic Congress, but it won’t be veto proof. We’re stuck with the Republican obstruction and a Trump presidency until 2020.
Or perhaps we take other action, like a general strike against the government or something. I don’t know. But, the Mueller Time Fantasy will probably have to wait for a few years.
But when it happens, it will be nice:
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
or Paperback
*Please note:
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Trump is difficult to predict. That is why I didn’t vote for him.
But that said, I think we all sense that if Trump gets into trouble, it will not be for Russian collusion, but for lying under oath or some allegation of obstruction of justice
If Trump is careful, and doesn’t lie to the FBI or under oath, he will be fine.
Even if paying off a porno star is a campaign contribution (I don’t think so), it is a slap on the wrist – as long as he doesn’t lie about it under oath or to the FBI.
That is why everybody advises him not to volunteer to sit down with any investigator (Mueller or anybody else). Nobody thinks he can do that without lying.
Maybe he can or maybe he cannot.
But so far the Mueller investigation has nothing on Trump colluding with Russians to win the 2016 election.
Bannon:
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers.
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”
The Russians hacked emails and leaked them.
Collusion. Russians.
Yeah, as usual rickA chooses to ignore facts and give an “opinion” — which he’s famous for, mostly because his are as worthless here as a glossy page from an old sears catalog is in an outhouse on a rustic hiking trail.
Your timing is off.
Podesta was phished in March 2016.
The DNC hack started in April 2016.
The meeting you refer to took place in June 2016.
There is no evidence (yet) that the Trump campaign asked for phishing or hacking or paid for phishing or hacking.
But Wiki sez:
It makes no difference if the Russian hack predated the meeting. That they already had the emails rather than offered subsequently to obtain them is irrelevant.
What matters is that an offer damaging to HRC and advantageous to Trump was made – by Russians in possession of emails Russian hackers had obtained – and apparently gleefully accepted. And the emails were subsequently leaked.
BBD:
Do you know when the Russians gave the material to DCleaks or Wikileaks?
Under your scenerio that matters a great deal.
If the material was given to one or both of these entities prior to the June 9 2016 meeting, than you would need collusion between the Trump campaign and DCleaks or Wikileaks.
There is no evidence for that either – but that is quite different than evidence of collusion with the Russians.
Anyway – you need more than just a meeting with a russian and the subsequent publishing of emails to prove collusion. That is what is missing (so far).
Never, ever, expect rickA or mikeN to be concerned with facts. A very simple Bayes analysis of the posting history of both of them leads you to the conclusion that the probability they are concerned with facts is 0.
I disagree.
Bannon again, with my emphasis:
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers.
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”
But the Trump campaign did not report the offer to the FBI or anyone else. This decision moves the Trump campaign from passive collaboration with the Russian interference in the election to collusion with it.
Awesome video!
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”
Maybe the only public pronouncement made by Bannon that I whole heartedly endorse.
Frankly, all this speculation matters less than over-the-fence gossip. Your votes don’t count, your childish “democracy” is not fit for a junior school play, your POTUS can be Joe the Handyman for all the real power he has.
Trump’s juvenile rants play to his loyal rabble, who are as delusional as him. The real decisions, as always, are made by those running the country. You never see them but they see all. Unfortunately, they are deluded, too, in their hubris.
Here on the outside, we watch the sorry spectacle, an amateur western starring retarded children but with real guns. The outcome is in fact rather predictable. The children all die.
Just posted by the WaPo:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bannon-pitches-white-house-on-plan-to-cripple-mueller-probe-and-protect-trump/2018/04/11/1ec5b1b2-3d9f-11e8-a7d1-e4efec6389f0_story.html
I was never enamored with ‘collusion’ OR impeachment. Collusion seemed a long shot within today’s Web complexities. Impeachment would hand too much PR ammo to the GOP [“Dems couldn’t accept an election and had to resort to this”]
BUT- I suspect that the amount of grift and gangsterism that this administration and the Trump family have likely engaged in – the loans , foreign campaign donations and the money laundering -as well as the women who are beginning to be empowered to revoke NDAs and/or who feel they can finally, safely report on past sexual predation/crimes may still bring this kleptocracy to heel. And gangster prosecutions are something Mueller is VERY good at….
Trump may fire Mueller but that just will add more fuel to an already activist anti GOP base- even the judiciary committee GOPs are struggling to maintain McConnell’s “cover Trump’s ass at all costs” strategy and this evening are openly suggesting they may try to protect Mueller. Ryan is bailing , Fla.’s Ross is as well- that brings the number of House GOP quitters to 39 …might be more than enough shit to get spread far and wide – I would suggest that, just as you cannot predict Trump’s next action, we are in completely uncharted waters re public reaction to this circus. I was on the streets during the civil rights movement and the Viet Nam protests. It was nothing like this.
But collusion it nevertheless is.
You’ve very likely read the jaw-dropping New Republic article about Trump’s astonishing links with dirty Russian money and the mafiya, but just in case – and for the thread as a whole… LINK.
Trump came with a lot of baggage, didn’t he? All with Russian labels, right there, for anyone interested enough to read. All the rightwing denial and lies in the world aren’t going to keep the lid on this slop bucket forever.
I suspect that Mueller a master of contingency. Like Leto Atreides II he’ll have looked far into the future and prepared well in advance, and even factored his own demise as a necessary and desirable moment in the unfolding of events: Mueller on a Golden Path is likely to cement the ruin of the Golden Shower Boy, and GSB will rush to his destruction ignorantly and willingly.
And Mueller may have a ghola-like reprise if a putative replacement for him decides that he could be usefully recruited to the investigation or, more likely, if he’s recruited to a state-based follow-up to the many threads that he’s already cast into the judicial system in anticipation.
One way or another GSB is trapped in a web far more sophisitcated than he could ever imagine, and it would probably take constitution-destroying treachery on the part of GSB and the GOP to have a chance to escape it.
imgflip.com/i/28b8gd
The contingency is raid the lawyer, then leak all the stuff you find to the media to damage Trump politically.
Again, mikeN with a nonsense statement.
Try to think for once — even you could find a rational comment about this. Why do you go for the lowest false line of crap?
So you don’t think the WSJ report about another payoff by Michael Cohen came from this raid?
It is appalling to watch the the White House press briefing and see Sanders spout lie after lie after lie so rapidly. At least previous spokespeople could craft a reasonably deceptive lie — these people don’t even try. Apparently they know the smoother their lies sound the less the scum that back them will buy into them.
Just wondering what MikeN’s reaction would have been if Obama had an affair. The hypocrisy evidenced by the right is astounding. Something like 70% of Trump supporters seemingly don’t care that Trump had a series of affairs. The so-called ‘moral majority’ are only that when it suits them politically. Nice one.
I was just thinking, before i read this comment, how much bloody baggage Trump carried into the election. Not just
personal family relationship history which might be a turnoff with some voters, but so much more.
Take any random heroin junkie off the street and get him or her to run for prez; and theres gunna be waaaay less an amount of baggage.
In many ways Trump should have had a much cleaner run, because, never having held a political or civil service appointment before, there would be nothing for the donkey party or the press or the public to pass judgement on in reguards to prior performance.
Couldnt say ” oooh Trump voted for x in a vote in the senate, or Governor Trump really fucked over the finances of whatever state through mismanagement, or what about that time Trump was running some department and he forgot to do something or other.”
The bloke should be very clean, but hes not. Hes the filthiest cantidate ive ever seen.
This alone could reasonably be predicticted to cause turmoil and uncertainty if he was elected.
The same press eagerly pursuing Stormy Daniels’s statement about an affair completely ignored (including Fox News) when someone appeared before the National Press Club in 2008 to give details about an affair with Barack Obama in 2008. Largely irrelevant once Obama was elected, just like whether he was born in Kenya(I think he was not but that there were other details he was lying about).
I don’t think you have to wonder. MikeN is on record making up all sorts of illegalities President Obama committed (all of which are only in his mind, not reality) — he would have jumped all over any bit of news about an affair, whether it was before Obama’s election or after.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obamas-divorce-pregnant-mistress/
Lol. Electrician named Steve. Classic.
Li, nope that’s not the one. I don’t remember the name. There was a fringe website that ran the story. It was the same location that Gloria Allred delivered an accuser against Herman Cain 4 years later.
You know, I almost never use this, but ‘lol’.
Yeah, MikeN, that National Press Club gig back in 2008 was *so* credible:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/18/obama-accuser-larry-sincl_n_107900.html
And that’s your best shot? lolz
It’s not about the credibility, it is the media interest level in a story. They will jump over all sorts of stories about Trump that are less credible.
That story from 2008 I thought was ridiculous at the time, but now I’m not so sure with the details in the recent Obama biography, I think it’s the one by Garrow.
ETA: I guess MikeN doesn’t realise you can fact check his rants almost without lifting a finger.
The comment about what he would do had President Obama been associated with an affair was bait — just to see how bat-shit crazy an accusation he would bring out. He certainly delivered — vague story, no source, no reality, and denial when it’s pointed out that there is no substance to his assertion.
His hatred of President Obama for “presidenting (sic) while black” is astounding — almost as astounding as his willingness to lie.
It’s also interesting that mikeN has a hatred of Allred — apparently being a lawyer who represents women who have been treated badly is an evil thing to him. It’s no wonder he continues to lie and say that T Martin was a thug who deserved to be shot, despite facts to the contrary: people who are victims don’t deserve any sympathy.
Cain’s lawyer re the accusations from Ginger White, after saying the affair accusations weren’t something news sources should cover.
He was comparing them to the several accusations made against Cain about his pattern of sexual harassment. Like the ones he denied happened but for which money was paid to the women.
Treat women like shit and get a pass? Par for men in the Republican party now, and perfectly acceptable to the lackeys who support them — like the resident troll who is their strongest supporter posting.
Yea, I think Allred makes up accusers and stories. The story about Cain was pretty similar to the story by the woman who accused Moore that Allred brought up. As I said at the time, she was the only one keeping Roy Moore viable in his Senate race with her phony story.
Phony story — yeah, way to ignore all the evidence and support what we’ve known: in your world you never believe women because, well, they aren’t men.
And odd that stories of abuse of women from different abusers are similar (in your opinion)? Good lord you’re stupid.
Here’s something for the collusion theorists:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article208870264.html
Michael Cohen DID travel to Prague in August 2016 as the Steele Dossier says, and Mueller has the proof.
Cohen has vehemently denied ever having been to Prague, showing his passport to Buzzfeed.
Jake Tapper reported that this detail was matching a different Michael Cohen, which if true should have destroyed the entire dossier credibility.
Buzzfeed reported an 8-day trip to Italy in early July 2017, so he could have gone to Prague in that time frame.
McClatchy somehow thinks the trip was via Germany, which is not on Cohen’s passport at all. Perhaps they think he had a second passport.
Will any Democrat file articles of impeachment for bombing Syria without a vote(and before the inspectors could arrive to make a report)?
The decision not to report the Russian offer to damage HRC moved the Trump campaign from passive collaboration with Russian interference in the election to collusion with it.
Fact, MikeN.
It’s no longer worth responding to him (if it ever was). If you look at how increasingly separated from fact and reality his comments have grown it’s clear he’s in full-on lie and spread conspiracy mode.
Yes, he does seem to have tipped over into total bullshittery these days.
Metzomagic, that HuffPost story is a hoot — a real hoot!
Trump is a subject of investigation not a target at this point.
Still NOT looking good for Trump despite all the tap dancing, tweet tantrums, smoke, dissembling, whining, squawking parrots, pouting, mirrors, LOOK SQUIRREL!!!!!!, hand waving, gas lighting, brain washing, taunting, and all manner of b.s.
Can’t say how it will turn out. It’s speculation at this point,
but
Trump
is
not
off
the
hook
now.
Dang, my comment above was for MikeN.
So far I’ve read the following books relevant in some degree to the question of collusion:
* It’s Even Worse than You Think by David Cay Johnston
* Collusion by Luke Harding
* Russian Roulette by Michael Isikoff and David Corn
No one on the outside knows at this point what evidence Robert Mueller has. But given what the authors of those three books report, it’s likely to be plenty.
> it’s likely to be plenty.
That is at odds with a Washington Post report from a month ago that said Mueller told the Trump team that Trump is not a target of his investigation.
You’re hard of learning aren’t you? Even after people more intelligent than you carefully parse the logic in order to demonstrate to you that “not a target” does not mean “will never be a target.”
If confabulations and false dichotomies were pennies, you’d be a rich man…
Yes it doesn’t mean ‘will never be a target’. That could change at any point. Indeed saying you are not a target could be a way to get you to testify, producing evidence to make you a target.
However, what ‘is not currently a target’ means is that Mueller does not have substantial evidence linking Trump to the commission of a crime and does not believe Trump to be a putative defendant.
https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-9-11000-grand-jury (9.11.151)
Bernard, my comment can be expanded as
Washington Post reported in March that Mueller told Trump’s legal team Mueller does not have substantial evidence linking Trump to the commission of a crime and does not believe Trump to be a putative defendant.
This is a fact. If you wish to say Mueller has the goods on Trump, then you have to find a theory that is in line with this fact. The possibilities I see are:
Report is in error or made up.
Mueller lied(or made a good faith error).
Mueller found something in the last 45 days.
Bah, for want of a sufficiently-sensitive slash key…
Again with the false dichotomy. Mueller may well have substantial evidence, or at least substantially-mounting evidence, but not yet have the links to judge that Trump could at that point be successfully impeached/indicted/convicted. Until Mueller is satisfied that he has evidence, and that he has sufficient evidence to prosecute a case, Mueller can quite reasonably indicate that Trump is a ‘subject’ and not a ‘target.’
Of course you’re welcome to wallow in your Boolean logical fallacy, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. And Mueller has many ways to serve the dish – now, later, by impeachment, perhaps indictment, or by referral to state jurisdictions… that latter about which Trump should perhaps be most afraid, as he – or Pence/Ryan down the track – won’t be able to use pardons in such a scenario in order to escape justice.
Greg: What could happen then is, of course, Congress makes a move to put a law in place making the special prosecutor position protected. But don’t hold your breath.
It won’t happen as long as McConnell controls the Senate. He’ll just make noises about how it would be wrong and self-destructive for Trump to force Mueller out; he won’t act to further a law protecting Mueller. After last week’s Frontline episode, I’ve come round to the view that McConnell wants Trump gone so he can then deal with Pence. But of course he can never admit that.
MikeN: Trump would only be a target of Mueller’s investigation if at this point Mueller had evidence tying Trump himself to intentional collusion with Russia. That says nothing about whether Trump is a subject of the investigation; he certainly is.
And of course evidence making Trump a target of the investigation may come to Mueller in the future — and then everything changes.
Yes, Trump is a subject of the investigation. However, not a target is at odds with
“No one on the outside knows at this point what evidence Robert Mueller has. But given what the authors of those three books report, it’s likely to be plenty.”
It’s easy for things to change. For example, if the report that Michael Cohen did travel to Prague is true, that would be new evidence that is pretty significant.
The statement from Jake Tapper that it was a different Michael Cohen puzzles me (unless, of course, it came from a different Jake Tapper. But I think we can discount that.) I haven’t seen any support for Tapper’s claim, and nobody else has made that claim to date.
At this point I’m reserving judgement. But I’d sooner believe that Jake Tapper got it wrong than that both Christopher Steele and Robert Mueller made such a basic mistake.
It looks like every report of this goes back to him. However, I thought it was just a tweet, but I have seen that he reported it on air in more detail. That report said that people ran it down and found out it was a different Michael Cohen. I’m wondering who did this rundown, and was it before or after? If it was before and they still applied for a warrant, a lot of people are in trouble. If it was after, then this is major incompetence not to have checked that.
There is no error for Mueller to make here, as he is late to the story. He either has evidence that Cohen went to Prague, or he ran it down and figured out that that part of the dossier is false.
Also, Steele could not be in error, as he would not have the means to run down Cohen’s travel history. He has said the dossier was uncorroborated and he was handing it to FBI for investigation.
The problem is why the FBI that took it didn’t see that Michael Cohen did not travel to Prague, and that there was a different Michael Cohen that went there. This would make it clear that they were being set up, since the dossier didn’t just say Michael Cohen went to Prague, but that a source says Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen is a key player in the collaboration, and he visited Prague to meet with a collaborator.
My opinion is that Steele made up this report, with help from others, to help the FBI get its warrant. The date on this memo is the week they applied for the warrant, as well as a second source ‘confirming’ Carter Page’s meeting in Moscow. However, the others made a mistake and got the travel info on the wrong Michael Cohen. So what was intended as info to help the FBI corroborate the dossier has now proven it to be false. The question is did the FBI figure this out and ignore it?
Doesn’t matter whether it cannot be proved that Trump was directly involved. His election team clearly colluded with Russian interference in the US elections by not reporting the meeting to the FBI.
It’s sitting there in full view. Guilty as charged.
You might be right if the meeting had happened as described beforehand by the music producer who set it up. Instead the meeting did not have any evidence of Russian interference in the election.
You were there? Or you just made this up?
We know what the meeting was about because of the emails that led to its being set up. Or do you think when the doors closed they said, nah, let’s talk about greyhound racing instead?
Get a fucking grip please.
Good point. We have only the claims of various participants that said the meeting was about adoptions and the Magnitsky Act, they felt they were cheated.
What I don’t get is the part where the Russian lady met with Fusion GPS before and after the meeting. Strange coincidence. It couldn’t be a setup because we didn’t hear about this meeting during the election.
What we’ve got is a Russian hack, then an offer to damage HRC conveyed to the Trump campaign, then a meeting (about which some participants subsequently lied by omission), then the release of the hacked emails.
It’s mind-boggling that you can bring yourself to defend this shit. This, what was it again? Bad, unpatriotic and treasonous shit.
You can smell it from the other side of the Atlantic, you know.
Russians meet with agents of Trump campaign to offer dirt on Hillary-> INVESTIGATE TRUMP FOR COLLUSION.
Russians meet with agents of Hillary campaign to offer dirt on Trump-> INVESTIGATE TRUMP FOR COLLUSION.
My understanding is that the donkey party did some wierd shit not in keeping with their own rules about cantidate selection and others found out about it . Somehow the 2nd cantidate, Sanders, got shafted in some way,
Is this true and if so what do donkey fans think about that?
I wasnt really following at the time.
A party that loves nukes and has a membership full of fuckwits that love nukes aint gunna have a moral foundation to begin with, and hence, any sort of shennanigans wouldnt surprise me.
Next up: Sean Hannity revealed to be a client of Michael Cohen. Sean Hannity clearly does not adhere to the principles of journalism but he definitely has a thumb glued to the scales of Justice.
Er, you seem to be alledging this TV star bloke is or has perverted the course of justice in the court system in some way.
If so, details would be nice. Which court case or cases to start with and your theory of mechanism in which the perversion was achieved.
Being a client of some lawer in no way translates to withholding evidence or lying to a jury or bribing a judge.
I think your allegation requires substantial fleshing out to be considered plausible.
Or are you just making up shit?
Li D
Australia.
The way to enact change is to be absolutely transparent, coherent, unhypocritical, and strictly accurate.
Then theres no comebacks and any mud slung just slides off.
Dont embellish or add unnecessary crap, just cuz it sounds good.
Its really bad methodology.
This muppet dosnt get journalism ethics . Thats a fair call at this point.
But talking ‘ definitly ” ” scales of Justice”. Jeez.
Your ability to misrepresent what is known is astounding. Since your reference is likely Nunes, who is known to never have told a single bit of truth about this, your take isn’t surprising.
The FBI did not find Clinton’s campaign had met with Russians, nor did Steele say that. A researcher two levels down from the campaigned (hired by someone at a firm the campaign hired) was alleged to have contacted some of the Russians but no link back to the campaign was found. We do know that Russia hacked the Clinton campaigns emails and leaked them to Trump-friendly outlets (well, people who believe facts know this, I doubt you buy it because it doesn’t match your imagination and conspiracies), and we know the US intelligence agencies (and agencies elsewhere) concluded that Russia had a hard-on for supporting Trump, distributing pro-Trump false information, and were not found to do the same for HRC (again, facts that don’t meet your dishonest view, but tough).
And, while Nunes spouts bullshit about the FBI’s opening of a counterintelligence operation in July 2016 because of allegations about Papadopoulos, he (and you) ignore the fact that it wasn’t because of Steele’s report — Papadoboulos isn’t mentioned in it. The FBI began looking at him because he told an Australian diplomat that he knew Russians had obtained thousands of Clinton’s emails. (And he’s since plead guilty about originally lying to the FBI.)
I’m sure you’ll have another completely false take on history, but you’re the only one who believes anything you say.
> A researcher two levels down from the campaigned (hired by someone at a firm the campaign hired) was alleged to have contacted some of the Russians but no link back to the campaign was found.
You just made the link back.
Not sure why you say ‘researcher’. I took that to mean Chris Steele.
And it wasn’t just contacts. Hillary Clinton’s campaign money went to Russians to provide this dirt on Trump.
MikeN, the very model of the unsinkable rubber duck.
FTS. He’d lie about his own date of death.
No mikeN, that’s pure crap on your part: read for comprehension: there was no link back up — nothing came from that researcher.
Why have you bought into the right’s insistence of continually lying?
I don’t know what researcher you are talking about. I was going with the link
Hillary campaign/DNC ->Perkins Coie law firm(campaign finance law violation) -> Fusion GPS -> Christopher Steele -> Intermediaries -> sources in Russia(money paid according to Steele).
I think the researcher you are thinking of was working for the Trump campaign. Committed suicide, was trying to contact hackers to get Hillary’s e-mails.
Speaking of date of death: The official White House statement, from the office of the press secretary, about Barabara Bush’s death gave the wrong date: April 17, 2017
Even if it were the first time they had made a mistake, something like this should be inexcusable — instead it’s just another reminder of how crappily the entire institution is running.
Here are three strong arguments against conservatism: Alex Jones, Kellyanne Conway, Laura Ingraham. Want some more? Want some more? Adolph Coulter and Michele Malkin. How about Hugh Hewitt to round it out. This collection of cruel, lying, divisives (new word) all appear to have no working mechanism for expressing empathy or humanity for anyone but themselves. These people thus cannot bond with the majority of other Americans. In a world where we must increasingly band together to get through the coming hard times, these people are instead very apt to be hurling vitriol and hatred at anyone who doesn’t mirror their own particular narrow political and religious imprinting.
They are not particularly good at team building for this reason.
Hang on a tic.
Lets say i know a um, a Buddhist. Or an environmentalist. Or an investment banker. Or a proponent of some type of new diet.
And he/she is a downright arsehole. And ive met some of his her mates and some of them are fucksticks as well.
But just because they are writeoffs, it wouldnt seem academic sort of,not sciency, to use them to illistrate idealogical shortcomings.
A challenge needs to address core stuff.
Not adherends with their foibles.
A really good challenge probably recognizes at least some positives. In that its long enough, broad enough, to show full consideration of the movement in question, and most movements have some glimmer at least of upsides. If upsides aint recognized by attackers, its reasonable to assume attackers aint fully conversant with the subject.
Does what im saying make sense?
An articulate critique on conservatism, or any movement, should idealy be personality free.( Uming and ahhing to myself if this should apply to Maoism if one was to use Mao to attack it. Yeah probably . Lol )
Basically, it dosnt seem reasonable to attack say, biblical teaching, using say, Australian colonialist arseholes as examples.
Id love to read an articulate argument against conservatism if you got one.
Id possibly agree.
“Basically, it dosnt seem reasonable to attack say, biblical teaching, using say, Australian colonialist arseholes as examples.”
Note. The reverse dosnt apply.
I can easily and correctly attack colonialists on the grounds of not understanding their own idealogical literature.
Thou shall not steal , motherfucker arseholes. Learn to read and get the drift!
What means this conservatism of which you speak?
The people SteveP lists are propagandists who are the tip of the iceberg of a huge echo machine that has been systematically spreading increasingly extreme Rightwing ideology that entrenches greed and violence for the benefit of a few at the top of society.
Ideology here means a closed set of ideas that doesn’t self correct. In this case, the binding force is cynical manipulations where the ends justify the means, not a philosophy or set of principles.
For instance, in American society a malignant solipsist like Trump doesn’t get to be president on his merits. It requires a whole lot of deliberately manufactured and organized stupidity.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t perfectly nice people who are unaware that they are being duped by grifters, however.
Li D
Try Chris Mooney’s The Republican War on Science.
A review of rightwing lunacy that damages all of humanity. ‘Conservatism’ has ‘evolved’ since the days of Enoch Powell, although in somewhat predictable ways, really.
Just quietly, because the Cohen investigation is coming out of the Southern District of New York, any identified crimes arising would surely be prosecuted by the State and not federally, would they not? This means, for Cohen, that he has no recourse to presidential pardon – and it also means that if Trump is implicated in any associated crime he can’t attempt to pardon himself, or expect Pence/Ryan to wipe his bum for him…
If so, there must be mad panic in the Trump camp.
No, state court is possible, but SDNY is part of FBI, a federal investigation.
I know the SDNY is federal, but my question relates to where the prosecutors would direct the charging. It seems that Cohen is well exposed to the State in terms of his potential crimes:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/new-york-should-amend-its-double-jeopardy-law-to-make-sure-trump-cant-bail-out-michael-cohen.html
From what Jed Shugerman said on The Last Word a few hours ago I suspect that any charges they can make at the State level will be made at the State level. The question is whether Trump would attempt to hint at pardons if the NY loop-hole is not closed. Although, if they should wander down that path, I suspect that the case for obstruction would grow so hugely blatant as to be undeniable to all but the most stupid of conservative ideologues…
https://twitter.com/jedshug/status/986764990223978496
Seems that the New York legislature has now taken up cudgels against the double jeopardy loophole to which Shugerman pointed:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/19/new-york-state-law-trump-pardons-eric-schneiderman
It will be interesting to see whether the NY Republicans come on board, or if they’re as morally bankrupt as the rest of the GOP.
And I only just discovered that Trump pardoned a sailor taking photos of classified submarine bits. Why am I not surprised…
Now Bloomberg is reporting ‘from several sources’ that Rosenstein told Trump directly Trump is not a target of Mueller’s investigation or the Michael Cohen raid. So the something learned in 45 days can be ruled out.
At this point, either the news reports got it wrong, Mueller(or Rosenstein) lied, or Mueller does not have substantial evidence linking Trump to a crime.
How many times do you need to be told that Mueller could have “substantial” evidence but still not be inclined to tell Trump that he is a target? Mueller will flick to “target” when he feels that he can nail Trump to the mast without having the investigation compromised. Until then he has not obligation to project his knowledge or understanding to the potential criminals that he is investigating – or to the monkey ideologues who are trying to caltrop the public perception of a huge and complex undertaking.
That would be a violation of DOJ guidelines. If he has substantial evidence, he is a target. If he is of interest, he is a subject. Yes, he can flip from subject to target, but at this point Mueller does not have substantial evidence.
Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. 19 admissions of guilt to date argue to the contrary.
And then there’s Cohen’s spiralling demise at the hands of Clifford and Avennati, and the DNC’s new lawsuit against all the players in the 2016 election hack. In some ways that latter suit will have the same impact that the Watergate version did – it will draw attention to issues even if Trump plunges the country into a constitutional by firing Mueller – and it’s a civil case so there’s nothing that Trump can do to stop it. And worse for him and the GOP is that civil standards for proof are lower, so success is that much easier to realise.
One way or another Trump’s not getting out of this intact. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.
Despite all the enthusiasm on the Left, the DNC is doing terrible job of fundraising. Seems rigging things in favor of Hillary is hurting them with the Bernie folks. This lawsuit is an attempt to get those fundraising numbers up. It is the liberal equivalent of the various bills Republicans put up for a vote when it’s close to election time- balanced budget amendment, defund Planned Parenthood, repeal ObamaCare, etc.
Yeah, that’s the arguement that the Republicans used in repsonse to the Watergate suit – the one that they had to pay out on… Have you read the actual complaint that the DNC lawyers filed? It’s detailed, and doesn’t need the same extreme standard of proof that Mueller will need, and it details real damages in response to the crimes for which charges have already been laid.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4443261/4-20-18-DNC-v-Russia-Complaint.pdf
You can call the suit whatever you like, you delusional GOP lickspittle, but the proof will be in the outcome. And the substantive result won’t be any monetary consequence, but the damage to the reputation of the Republican party, which is ill-represented by the sell-serving swill the is currently sitting in Congress and the Senate on behalf of the people who voted for them.
If anything useful could come out of the Trump fiasco, it will be a reborn Republica Party where the representatives have true intregrity and are able to sort the wheat from the chaff, and to say to their own that enough is enough and the country deserves better.
Trump comes in as a newcomer to politics, and manages to beat the first female major party nominee, with 25 years of experience as the wife of the President, Senator from New York, and Secretary of State, who is backed by Obamas and the Bushes. Now you think you’re going to beat him with a civil lawsuit, something he is rather familiar with. What’s next, a reality show, or building design?
Great non sequitur there MikeN.
Do you have an app that churns them out?
Prediction: This is the lawsuit that will have more of an impact.
http://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/feclawsuit.pdf
The Senate Democrats’ ongoing attempt to block all nominees to executive branch is going to hurt here. It takes 4 FEC Commissioners to make a ruling and Dems have blocked a pair from being confirmed(not really blocked but they are part of the general slowdown). The law allows for private lawsuits in such a case, and this will cause discovery of bank accounts and potential criminal case against every donor involved.
Tom Delay was indicted and for some time convicted of money laundering for roughly a similar scheme. In the intervening time, the Supreme Court has expressly ruled that this scheme is illegal, and their ruling hinged on the idea that such a scheme would not be implemented without being exposed and prosecuted.
>And I only just discovered that Trump pardoned a sailor taking photos of classified submarine bits. Why am I not surprised…
Yes, it was to highlight that this guy went to jail while Hillary was even more reckless.
You really need to get that cognitive scotoma checked. You’re on the brink of complete ideological blindness.
He did Bernard. It was to please the liars who believe his actions were nothing while Hillary actually did scores of things that threatened the country.
Not true of course – the militarty was appalled at the guy’s action, but feeding the false narrative about evil HRC is more important than facts to the low lifes on the right.
He has passed into no longer trying to make comments based on fact — he still argues that the nazi who killed someone at the big rally was only trying to escape (and someone, a trouble-maker, got in the way, apparently), that T Martin was a gang-banger and thug who deserved to be shot, and that some great conspiracy was in place to make Trump’s inauguration crowd seem minuscule. If he’s willing to make those arguments, as long-debunked as they are, the stuff about the investigation and HRC’s “crimes” shouldn’t surprise you at all.
Whether dishonesty shown is done by choice or by lack of ability to think rationally is anyone’s bet.
Nah, lots of troublemakers got in the way(stupid to attack a car, but I applaud them in that situation), but the woman who died was not one of them.
No longer making comments based on fact, right after you commented that I was right.
No mikeN, the people protesting the Nazis, white supremacists, KKK, and other Trump supporters were not the troublemakers. Thanks for making the point.
I’m not seeing where I said you were right. I certainly didn’t say your lie about HRC doing worse than the guy from the Navy was a factual statement — it’s not.
But Trump’s pardon was for the reason I said.
No, it wasn’t to highlight that HRC was more reckless — that implies she was, and that isn’t true.
It was to give gullible people that impression — it seems to have worked.
What did you mean by ‘He did Bernard. ‘?
Only that he pardoned the sailor. It wasn’t because HRC did anything worse, because we know that’s a lie: he did it to please the people who are too uninformed to know it’s a lie as well as those too immune to reality to know it’s a lie.
Apparently the list of things you know that really aren’t so is endless.
It’s interesting to point out that the sailor took the pictures despite (by his own admission) knowing it was illegal to do so. His claims that he took a photo to “document his service” were quickly shown to be false, since he, other servicemen, and the pictures themselves, showed that he had methodically gone through the reactor area and engine room and took a series of pictures documenting the area.
It was also pointed out that immediately after he told the FBI he hadn’t distributed the photos he went home and destroyed his computer, camera, and memory card before the FBI could examine them. The FBI and Navy both said his actions directly put national security at risk. Quite a different scenario than the one HRC (secretaries of state before her) were accused of, despite the mouth-breathers lies. The most egregious lie mikeN and others push is that there were different standards — the fact that investigations led to different conclusions and actions (than the ones they wanted) is too complicated for them to understand.
Do you have another explanation for low DNC fundraising?
>It’s interesting to point out that the sailor took the pictures despite (by his own admission) knowing it was illegal to do so.
Hillary knew what she was doing was illegal, even sending out warnings to others not to use private e-mail, while she was not just using private e-mail but her own server.
>His claims that he took a photo to “document his service” were quickly shown to be false,
And Hillary’s claims were shown to be false, such as saying she was doing it for convenience not wanting to use more than one device.
>It was also pointed out that immediately after he told the FBI he hadn’t distributed the photos he went home and destroyed his computer, camera, and memory card before the FBI could examine them.
Hillary destroyed computers, and deleted e-mails after receiving a subpoena.
> The FBI and Navy both said his actions directly put national security at risk.
FBI said extremely reckless. CIA won’t comment on what they had to do in response to Hillary’s e-mail being possibly available to foreign countries. They definitely had to use a lot of resources to go thru her e-mail and see if any of their programs and assets were at risk
> Quite a different scenario than the one HRC (secretaries of state before her)
Colin Powell also went against the record keeping law, but he wasn’t using it for classified info, and he wasn’t running his own server which is more susceptible.
> The most egregious lie mikeN and others push is that there were different standards — the fact that investigations led to different conclusions and actions (than the ones they wanted) is too complicated for them to understand.
Yes, that sort of thing happens when you are allowed to use witnesses and co-conspirators as your attorneys having them sit in the room with you. Having people get immunity to provide info that could be acquired with a subpoena also helps. If they’d used the Mueller/Weissman tactics against Team Hillary, we’d have President Bernie right now. Oh who am I kidding, the DNC would have rigged it again and put in Biden.
So, in slightly related commentary, Kellyanne Conway bashed Dana Bash when she asked about hubbie George Conway’s anti-Trump tweets.
George Conway re-tweeted Maggie Haberman’s tweet showing an image of the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas and First Lady Melania Trump at Barbara Bush’s funeral.
“When you contrast this photo with a weekend-long tweetstorm from current @potus, it’s striking,” Haberman wrote. Emperor Donald, of course, was on the golf course at the time, showing how coarse he is. Apparently the Bushes didn’t want him to come.
So this leads me to muse about the the coarsening of our entire culture with Donald Twitler , the lying name caller as our POTUS. You know, Kellyanne’s face when she realized she had an opportunity to treat Dana Bash as a hostile commentator looked a lot like the photo that is being circulated of the Travis Reinking, the Tennessee shooter; Maniacal.
Which brings me to a couple of other things. Is Murka Great Again now or what? Here in Murka, when a white maniac, who had previously been arrested for a disturbance at the freaking White House, has his guns taken away for this crazed behavior, he is allowed to have his guns returned to him after a little while. That way , when he goes completely starkers and decides to kill a bunch of people at a restaurant, he won’t have his fucking second amendment rights infringed. That makes total conservative sense, right? Kuz you wouldn’t want to do that to a white person. And oh, by the way, it was a black good guy without a gun who disarmed the white maniac.
But I guess that stricter gun laws that reduce gun violence would really hurt the cherished illusions of libertarians and their ilk that it is just them and their beloved firearms that stands between the world’ most powerful military and a totally unfair police state. So we are just going to have to accept having these annoying civilian collateral damage deaths in the mean time. Sorry.
It seems that the guns were returned to his father, not to him, and it was his father who (for some reason unkown to me) returned at least two of them to his son.
And of course, unkown should really be . 🙁
OK — unknown somehow vanished from my correct. No good deed blah blah blah…
The system allowed the shooter to re-acquire his guns via his father. Was there no stipulation that the kid be kept away from those guns? From all guns? And without a working background check system, how useful would any effort within the family have been anyway?
The astounding lack of judgement exhibited by gun owners and advocates time and time again really makes me wonder if their prefrontal lobes are all slowly getting eaten away by lead poisoning.
The addition of staggering amounts of staggeringly lethal weapons into a society which is supposed to be based on things like national coherence (“We the people”) , on civil behavior in business and government, on adherence to the basic principles of modern western civilization, on observance of nature and nature’s laws, is stunningly stupid.
Stunningly.
You really don’t like it when reality shoots your asinine conspiracies all to hell do you?
Cover the base…
From the Sb diaspora:
Oh noes, teh magicals!
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2018/04/23/potus-shield-prays-against-witches-and-warlocks-opposing-trump/
Base is covered!
https://i2.wp.com/freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2018/04/doonesburysaint.jpg?ssl=1
——H/T Paryngula
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/04/22/evangelical-is-just-another-word-for-hypocrite/
Comey’s memos reveal Trump lied about his alibi. There’s still hope for the Russian hookers story! Maybe Mueller will get him on the stand and Trump will repeat the lie and impeachment here we come!
MikeN, it’s not a surprise that your federalist “news” is a steaming pile of intentionally dishonest shit — that’s what the federalist puts out for your kind.
Trump has not even made a good number of nominations (part of the right-wing ignorance that government doesn’t need people who have an understanding of anything), he hasn’t vetted any of the people he has put forth worth crap, and some of it goes back to 2013: Democratic folks screwed with the rules to make it more difficult for the racists in the Republican party to filibuster the nominees of the black president they didn’t like. Republicans responded with innovative procedural blocks. The roles are now reversed — nothing new, despite the crap from the paid liars at the federalist.
Holds are also in play – from both sides. At one time Grassley was responsible for 4 himself on Trump nominees, and Republicans blocked nominees for three seats.
Both sides have tossed blocks in the way, and Trump has been the major problem by nominating people who shouldn’t even be working as dog catchers for important positions.
Once again, your “ooh, all the problems are due to the evil left” whine is vacuous — at least, it is to anyone who has the time to check its veracity. If you’re a simple minded right-winger who doesn’t care about facts — well, that’s the federalist’s target readership.
Federalist is not the issue, the link is to a filed federal lawsuit.
The holds or blocks, however you wish to justify them, are what allowed the lawsuit to happen.
Yes the federalist story is key, because of their typical dishonesty.