Looking Forward: Prematurity, Misadventure, and the Wreck of a Presidency

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tiassa, Aug 1, 2017.

  1. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,634
    No, because you embraced untruth over truth (i.e. "Hillary is a criminal.") Manipulators like Trump thrive in an environment where untruth is as welcome (in this case, even more welcome) than truth. Once you create such an environment, you are partly responsible for how people use it.
    That's great. And through your embrace of untruth you campaigned even harder against Clinton. To claim "but there's no way that campaigning against someone helps their opponent!" doesn't fly.
    See above.

    Let's say you oppose coal; you think coal power is somewhat dirty. But you make claims that nuclear power kills billions of people a year, supporting natural gas is the same as supporting genocide and renewable energy will soon kill every single eagle in the US and poison all our children. And let's say that coal begins to grow in popularity and pollution levels go up. You would be part of the problem - even if you claim "but I said something bad about coal once, so you can't blame anything on people like me."

    Nope. It's the embrace of untruth. Saying things like "Hillary is a criminal" is a lie, and the power of magical thinking will not change that.
     
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  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    [quote[TCS said,
    criminal? yes
    repeated? yes
    prosecuted? no[/quote]
    Wow, those are strong accusations. (and I read the definition of criminal law)
    Care to expand on her repeated criminal behavior, which after investigation did not lead to prosecution?
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Wow, those are strong accusations. (and I read the definition of criminal law)
    Care to expand on her repeated criminal behavior, which after investigation did not lead to prosecution?
    That may not satisfy your intense dislike of Hillary, but you cannot call someone a criminal unless and until they have been proven guilty. She wasn't.
     
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    It seems to me that you have invalidated some 40 years of dedicated public service by Hillary Clinton with a handwave, because she destroyed a few documents from a private server, for, I am sure, some good reason.

    You don't even know what was in those documents. Do you think she was engaged in treasonous actions?
    Give it a break man. Let go of this hate. At least give her credit for serving the Nation to the best of her abilities, as I am sure you did when you were in service to the Nation.

    But perhaps you might examine your own actions during the time you served. Perfection in all respects?
     
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Still haven't cracked that dictionary, apparently.
    Yes, you have.
    You are part of the Limbaugh's Ass echo chamber, and represent it here.
    Silly boy - but then, if you didn't make shit up for me to have posted, you'd be unable to reply at all. So we have to cut you slack for fiction and innuendo.
    But while you're at it, along the "thinking" line, you should at least notice the oddity of insisting on a much higher level of political activity, and significantly more motivation from personal enmity, than someone you call a "fanatic". My take is you don't know what the word means.
    And you spread Hillaryhate, and you claim that personal enmity justifies assessing Trump v Clinton as a "rock and a hard place".
    That, on top of your long history of posting similarly in other matters, and your stereotypical refusal/inability to acknowledge a variety of simple facts and events of the past thirty years. And so forth.

    You own this entire Republican government. Trump is your baby.
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Via New York Times:

    Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia's attempts to disrupt last year's presidential election, has issued subpoenas from a Washington-based grand jury in recent weeks, according to several lawyers involved in the case.

    At least some of the subpoenas were for documents related to the business dealings of Michael T. Flynn, the retired general who briefly served as President Trump's national security adviser. Mr. Flynn is under investigation for foreign lobbying work, as well as for conversations he had during the transition with Sergey I. Kislyak, who was Russia's ambassador to the United States.

    Mr. Mueller's team is broadly investigating whether any Trump associates colluded with the Russian government in its attempts to disrupt the election. It is unclear whether the subpoenas issued in recent weeks relate to other members of Mr. Trump's campaign who have been a focus of the Mueller investigation, including Paul J. Manafort, the former campaign chairman.

    A grand jury based in Alexandria, Va., began issuing subpoenas in the Flynn case months ago. Mr. Mueller took over the investigation in May and assembled a team of prosecutors in an office in downtown Washington. Mr. Mueller has not impaneled a special grand jury, the lawyers involved in the case said, and has decided instead to use one of several grand juries that regularly sit in Washington.

    Ty Cobb, special counsel to the president, said that he was not aware that Mr. Mueller had started using a new grand jury. "Grand jury matters are typically secret," Mr. Cobb said. "The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly."

    He added, "The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr. Mueller."

    The Wall Street Journal first reported Mr. Mueller's use of the grand jury in Washington.

    Note the disputed detail.

    Mr. Mueller has not impaneled a special grand jury, the lawyers involved in the case said, and has decided instead to use one of several grand juries that regularly sit in Washington.

    Alright, then. Meanwhile, the song remains the same. Summertime dirges are heavy, so heavy.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Apuzzo, Matt. "Mueller Issuing Subpoenas Through Washington Grand Jury". The New York Times. 3 August 2017. NYTimes.com. 3 August 2017. http://nyti.ms/2vo4Pea




    Click because it's heavy, so heavy.​
     
  10. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

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    1,263
    and that is where you're wrong:
    for starters, it is not "untruth", per your claims. it is just personal. that is it... you can make all the justifications or complain about that all you want, but it doesn't change the facts: i have information you do not, and i've made a decision based upon that. if you agree or disagree with it, that is fine. but it's not untruth.
    you can call it an untested claim all you want, but you can't state it's false unless you have evidence, and to do that you would have to have details, which you don't have.

    1- i campaigned against both candidates - so how does that help the idiot trump?
    2- I consider her a criminal because of what i know and what i experienced. i've always stated this, and i've always
    stated it's my opinion
    if anyone takes that as hillaryhate, or spreading "untruth over truth", then you can use it as evidence that said person who accepts my opinion is either:
    - someone who knows me and considers the argument valid (or at least worth considering)
    - someone who doesn't need my arguments to dislike hillary and has already made up their mind
    that doesn't make any sense at all to me, as it seems like an irrational attempt to justify your own perspective. for starters, there is such thing as levels of evidence. you cannot make the claim that the opinion of one person is equivalent to, say... a study. just like you can't state that a singular study is equivalent to a validated point of fact.

    what you're saying in that quote is essentially the same argument as the anti-climate change or pseudoscience idiots: because you believe that your perspective is real, regardless of the overwhelming validated evidence that is presented that directly refutes your perspective, then it should have equal weight or value to all other perspectives. this may be true if all things are like religion and only belief is required, however some things require different levels of evidence- like science.

    advocating for or against something only means that you advocate for or against that something. anyone who attaches any other special meaning to it, especially when you're advocating against the other choice, is not lucid, nor are they making a rational decision.

    the better and more accurate example would be this:
    you are looking for a truck and see an f-150 and a silverado, so you have to decide what to buy. a person tells you that the silverado is lousy off road and doesn't work well, and the f-150 breaks down all the time. these are his opinions and they're offered as such. what choice do you make? (this is the important part, so pay attention) most people would consider that there are only two options here, so would then argue the pro's and con's of each brand and try to make a selection based upon what they felt was the best choice for the time, place and their life: but there is a lesson here that is very relevant - you can also consider the tacoma (and many others)

    So, applying this to me: i stated the ford is crap because it breaks down all the time based upon my opinion. but i also stated the chevy is lousy off road and doesn't work well based upon my opinion.
    Your claim is that i "embraced untruth over truth" because my experiences with both ford and chevy suck, and i prefer mercedes or toyota
    and that because i advocate for mercedes or toyota and denigrate ford and chevy, then the fact that some idiot bought the ford means i'm responsible for their stupidity... and yall also want me to take responsibility for those idiots decision and your inability to accept that everyone has a choice and making a choice uninformed is really f*cking stupid, regardless.

    my opinion is well informed, regardless of what you believe, so whether you accept it or not is irrelevant. it isn't false, nor is it untruth, nor is it hillaryhate. it is exactly what i stated: my opinion based upon my personal knowledge.

    ya don't like it - tough
    i don't care, nor will i stop. just because you are delusional doesn't mean i have to change your diapers... that is the mindset of someone who wants the gov't to take responsibility from them because they're not mentally able to accept reality or life in general.
    all ya gotta do is falsify my argument: prove my experience didn't happen
    by all means, i will patiently await your evidence
    Write4U
    i am not talking about destruction of documents - i never was. i am talking about personal experience and interaction with hillary.
    nope. perhaps i will elaborate when billvon presents his evidence that those experiences are all unreal, fake and untrue
    and they weren't investigated either. they were not charged. they were either ignored or worked out privately
    ok, If:
    Merriam-Webster states that a criminal is (3) guilty of crime
    i use this definition it is because i have knowledge of actions that were criminal (as defined by Blacks Law, the link you read)
    there is no requirement per the definition to be adjudicated unless you're specifically asking for a criminal record

    if we were talking about having a criminal record, this is a different story as that requires adjudication

    i used the term correctly

    @iced trump jr
    Fanatic:
    sounds just like you
    still like you
    political ideation is no different that religious ideation, so this is especially true in your case
    ... so, we're still describing you!
    how about that... all of the above perfectly describe what i've been saying about you, and this is verbatim from the dictionary definition i just linked for "fanatic".

    so i guess i have cracked that dictionary after all, what?
    You own this entire Republican government. Trump is your baby. enjoy the diaper.
     
  11. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    16,479
    i take you missed the inherent irony in attacking someone's reading while at the same time admiting to being to lazy to read something else. still the same whiny child as always i see. look just because i label your actions as i see reasonable doesn't make me either a troll nor delusional and projecting. i get you have some ego issues but the point remains you and mr toad are being mocked for a frankly delusional hatred of hillary clinton viewing as some sort sociopathic monster that has zero semblemce with reality.
    this is why i called you and toad dishonest. donny jr. flat out admitted to colluding with russia and your claiming you haven't seen any evidence.

    http://time.com/4852612/trump-jr-hillary-clinton-russian-lawyer-info/

    its literally over we have hard evidence of trumps campaign colluding with russia the only question now is how many people get prosecuted for it.
     
  12. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

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    you do that to anyone who makes a claim that is different than your own, especially when you're fanatically defending a point
    (doesn't matter what point it is)

    no, i haven't seen any evidence
    1- thanks for the link
    2- i don't get TV or papers
    3- i typically don't give a sh*t about politics (in the news) because of things like mudslinging. when i need information for anything i'll do research that doesn't include articles
    so ... if there is evidence then why hasn't anyone started impeachment proceedings?
    seems a great way to get the idiot out of office...
    hell, they impeached billy because he couldn't keep it zipped... what's stopping yall from hitting the idiot-in-chief?
     
  13. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    I think having the POTUS charged with a serious criminal offense(s) would get him out of office quicker than impeachment. But am unsure...
     
  14. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    23,328
    Does the USA have strong insider trading laws?
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Well that's just stupid, especially as applied to me.

    You worked so hard, and came up with something so silly, so flagrantly wrong, so completely a phantasm of a moronic hallucination, that it's almost a shame to pop it - but really, where in my posting on this thread are you seeing "frenzy", "enthusiasm", "unreasoning", or the slightest hint of a "cause" of any kind?
    Lessee: no cause, no enthusiasm, no idea, no devotion, in my posts. Nothing but coldblooded, disrespectful, and spot on accurate disparagement of you and yours. So what can you possibly be reading into my posts? - it can't be the usual errors of fact and implication (all the stuff about your voting, for example), they're trivial.

    This is an actual puzzle. What "cause" can these guys be projecting unto me? Do they actually imagine that rubbing their collective nose in the shambles their help and cooperation has made of the US government rates as a "cause", as a political ideation of religious fervor and significance? That their shitheap toupees are matters of "extreme" "zealous" "frenzy" on the part of the bystander who remarks on the odiousness of their origins? Is my cause supposed to be them?

    And it's thread relevant, wildly enough. Because the crackup of this crowd that will follow the disaster of Trump is going to be worse than the Tea Party "Nobody Here But Us Independents" flake convention. They haven't recovered from W yet - they have nowhere much to fall to.

    So whatever they imagine the outer world of "liberals" and such to consist of, that's going to make a difference in what happens.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2017
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    It would be easy to overstate any number of aspects about the Lawfare analysis of incoming FBI Director Christopher Wray and the simmering McCabe question:

    We spent some time yesterday gauging how the organization would react to his removal as deputy director, should Trump demand that of Wray. The short answer is that while there would likely be tolerance for Wray's choosing his own leadership team over time, he would do himself grave damage within the organization by shunting McCabe aside in any fashion understood to be responsive to the political demands of a boss who already fired one director. In other words, complying with Trump's demands would make Wray look like a hatchet man.

    ‡​

    We don't have the impression that the removal of McCabe has been the subject of a great deal of water-cooler conversation at the Bureau. But it is safe to say that his removal would be badly received and that employees would rally around him just as they did around Comey. (Let's not forget the "Comey is my Homey" t-shirts at FBI Family Day.) It's also safe to say that removing McCabe, at least if Wray does it quickly or in a fashion that appears responsive to political pressure, would also undo a great deal of the good will with which he walked in the door yesterday among people whom he has to lead for the next ten years.

    There's another complication for Wray: removing McCabe would face certain legal complications. McCabe is a career FBI special agent, not a political appointee, and he's a member of the Senior Executive Service. Civil service rules prevent a simple firing, and while McCabe can be reassigned or encouraged to retire, he cannot be reassigned for four months after installation of a new agency head without his consent. More broadly, to reassign a 21-year veteran of the FBI for political reasons would send a strong message that the FBI is no longer an apolitical organization, an identify of which FBI employees are fiercely proud, even if it doesn't run afoul of civil service protections—at least if it were done without McCabe's cooperation.

    The problem for Wray is that Trump might not care about any of these niceties: Not about whether he's making his FBI director look like a political toady, not about how the workforce understands the director, and certainly not about compliance with civil service protections.

    But as Benjamin Wittes and Nora Ellingsen↱ worked the final touches on their post, Murray Waas↱ reminded:

    Shortly after the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller in May, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe told several of the highest-ranking managers of the bureau they should consider themselves possible witnesses in any investigation into whether President Donald Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, according to two senior federal law enforcement officials.

    McCabe has told colleagues that he too is a potential witness in the probe of whether Trump broke the law by trying to thwart the FBI's Russia investigation and the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

    Two senior federal law enforcement officials have told me that the new revelations illustrate why they believe the potential case against Trump is stronger than outsiders have thought.

    "What you are going to have is the potential for a powerful obstruction case," a senior law enforcement official said. "You are going to have the [former] FBI director testify, and then the acting director, the chief of staff to the FBI director, the FBI's general counsel, and then others, one right after another. This has never been the word of Trump against what [James Comey] has had to say. This is more like the Federal Bureau of Investigation versus Donald Trump."

    Piecing together the scraps, the Vox report suggestss with distinctive twenty-first century precision, "as many as 10, and possibly more, of the nation's most senior law enforcement officials are likely to be questioned as part of the investigation into whether Trump committed obstruction of justice, according to two government investigators with firsthand knowledge of the matter".

    If we accept that the Trump machine really is so clumsy as it seems, a pertinent question percolates. One of the confusing contrasts in all of this is that while I have no doubt that Attorney General Sessions, being a lawyer, knew damn well why he had to recuse, how did an attorney botch up his SF-86? There is the list we already know: Comey, McCabe, Rybicki, Baker, Bowdich, Ghattas. There is also Rosenstein, and, yes, Jeff Sessions. And this is its own context for the Attorney General, though forgetting contacts with foreign nationals might give Mueller some leverage.

    But Waas gives some focus to the point about the senior federal law enforcement officials suggesting the case is stronger than the public understands, and one of the questions I still have about Messrs. Sessions and Flynn, especially, is what in the world made them think they could omit those details, and why they would think the government wouldn't know. That is, it's one thing to suggest that yes, Donald the Younger really is that stupid, but Jeff Sessions is an attorney, and an Attorney General, both of a state and of the United States; he has been a U.S. Senator who served on the Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, including time as chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, and a seat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security. He might be seventy years old, but that shouldn't imply senility. What in the world would make him, or a former special ops general with intel experience including the directorship of the Defense Intelligence Agency, think they could omit those contacts? How could they think the U.S. government wouldn't know?

    And as this morbid comedy of error and omission in search of good faith continues, one recurring theme is that over and over the Trump jokers just keep stepping in it. If this was an anime, then Trump and Mueller would both already know every detail, and this whole chess match would be playing out with some shadowy, high-ranking official triggering leaks to keep discourse and process alike moving forward.

    Of course, such conspiracism is at the heart of the Trump defense, and for the most part people outside the epistemic #DimensionTrump have come to accept this is because the President and his team know they're guilty. And we're beyond prodding and poking and even skewering. The leaks are hemorrhages where Donald Trump is run through. While his supporters weep and gnash at perceived injustice, the point seems to be that they're really, really guilty of something, and apparently rather quite obviously so, and thus every time—I mean, leaking about the Duterte call was a strange choice, but, yeah, Donald Trump betrayed the United States Navy, so ... yeah, right, someone decided to leak that bit, because, well, the President of the United States of American just betrayed the United States Navy, and, yeah, maybe people ought to know about that.

    The release of staff-prepared transcripts from calls to Australia and Mexico are devastating, essentially mocking the president. Some might think it a cruel and unnecessary leak, but think of how we got to this point; if Donald Trump hadn't gone out of his way to lie about these calls in particular, or, you know, pretty much everything about who said what, that leak might not have happened. But, yeah, exposing the sniveling wet end—(How did he ever get so far being such a blithering puddle?)—for what he is only drives home the point of his general incompetence, while also raisng questions↱ of his competency: "I am the world's greatest person that does not want to let people into the country"? What does that even mean?

    Nonetheless: Do we already know what happened?

    And I think part of the answer is that the mysterious collective we, that is to say, the United States as such, already have a good deal of the record of what happened, and the rest is a matter of piecing it together, figuring out what is what, which rules apply, and how the process leads to its various ends.

    We already know there is guilt around Donald Trump; the question is whether any of that guilt is actually on the President of the United States. And there are reasons why so many would accept that yes, there is; a good portion of that would have to do with the diversity of potential crimes. And, yes, there are people working intelligence who already know at least some of the guilt, and it seems more and more likely law enforcement knows, too.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Benen, Steve. "Leaked transcripts offer a peek behind the Oval Office curtain". msnbc. 3 August 2017. msnbc.com. 3 August 2017. http://on.msnbc.com/2v4KpV1

    Waas, Murray. "Exclusive: top FBI officials could testify against Trump". Vox. 3 August 2017. Vox.com. 3 August 2017. http://bit.ly/2vvhoEd

    Wittes, Benjamin and Nora Ellingsen. "Christopher Wray's First Problem: What to Do About Andrew McCabe". Lawfare. 3 August 2017. LawfareBlog.com. 3 August 2017. http://bit.ly/2v3QOzP
     
  17. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Well... as you may know, one of the biggest factors when dealing with people with serious mental health issues is one of "culpability".

    If you have ever had to work with people who suffer these types of conditions you would also know that it is very easy to get caught up in their somewhat twisted reality which will eventually have you all running around in circles going blah-de-blah-de-blah wondering what the hell is going on.
     
  18. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

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    if there is evidence to be found, (and from what is presented, there is enough to make a legitimate circumstantial case unless and until there is a direct link and or evidence provided to establish trumps liability) then it would behoove the public to stimulate their respective representatives and senators to initiate impeachment proceedings...

    so why hasn't this happened?

    thought for the day: is there anyone in the INTEL community that doesn't end up reporting to the POTUS either directly or indirectly?

    ...


    @Iced-trump
    you mean other than your delusional argument that you know Toad's intent, or regarding the definition of the word "fanatic", or the delusional claims of owning the republican gov't/trump, or your psychic knowledge of my awareness of world news, or your argument that if people's opinions don't match your own political ideology then they have their heads up Limbaugh's *ss or are somehow wrong, or the defense of your ideology with the statement that because someone's opinion is anti hillary then obviously there is no possible way this could be for any reason other than hillaryhate and their lack of knowledge, or the insistence that only your ideology can possibly be informed, or that only your own interpretation of events can be true, or the fact that you have no culpability and that it's all everyone else's fault the idiot trump is in office, or that the fault of all the current mess is just republicans, or that if someone proves you wrong it's making things up, or ...

    that sounds just like "frenzy", "enthusiasm", "unreasoning", "A person marked or motivated by an extreme cause" and "Pertaining to, or indicating, fanaticism; extravagant in opinions; ultra; unreasonable; excessively enthusiastic"

    again, thanks for validating my point
     
  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Because the Senate and House are controlled by Republicans.
     
  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Click for something entirely different.

    Any number of aspects, including diverse assertions of respect for process and other such either formalities or niceties; I would, however, assert that the main reason will be found in examining the relationship between majority and leadership in the House of Representatives, to the one, and what portions of the public their offices represent, to the other.

    That is to say, as long as impeachment hinges on House Republicans either introducing their own Articles or advancing others such as the Sherman Articles, impeachment isn't moving forward. House Republicans generally don't listen to their non-Republican constituents. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, the political calculus apparently focuses on the fact that Democrats are a minority party in both chambers; as the Los Angeles Times reported in June:

    The "i-word" has been on the tongues and in the tweets of several of California's House Democrats. Rep. Jackie Speier has said impeachment is "really the only way we can go" if the facts show President Trump obstructed justice in the Russia investigation. Rep. Ted Lieu tweeted a photo of his weekend reading: a report on the impeachment process. Rep. Maxine Waters led a chant of "Impeach 45!" at the recent L.A. Pride Parade.

    But only one member of Congress has actually begun the procedure: Brad Sherman, an 11-term Democrat who represents Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, has drafted and circulated articles of impeachment.

    Sherman's move puts him at odds with House Democratic leaders, who have tried to quell talk of impeachment to keep the focus on the economy, healthcare and the investigation into Russia's interference in the presidential election.

    This is one of those aspects in which the best estimate speaks against overcommitment in what would amount to an identity faction fight. Without the proverbial smoking gun, the Democratic base knows there is only so much point in rattling the Party cage over this one. It is an article of faith that Democrats will move when they perceive their opening; not every Democrat is Barack Obama. In the end, what the minority party and its base need is a stronger narrative about what has happened and continues to develop; they just don't have one that effectively—in estimation of market reception—transcends the basic right-wing pushback. We saw President Trump drawing battle lines yesterday, for instance, denouncing Democrats and calling on them to abandon the Russia investigation as part of properly serving the nation.

    The Democratic base knows well enough that the time to make that kind of noise will either come or not; there is very little to be gained by it, right now, except entrenching Trump supporters in their anti-identification against the president's critics.

    Trump's base, obviously, won't abandon him hell or high water. The Republican base, though, becomes a really big question mark. Congressional Republicans won't roll on the president until they perceive a genuine midterm threat, or so goes the conventional wisdom. I wouldn't even know which variation to expect, though, during a period that sees the bell curve of conventional wisdom so massively disrupted.

    The other thing that we need to account for is that if anyone is rushing, say, the Watergate schedule↱, it might well be Trump himself. I can't quite explain it, because it seems impossible, but it's almost like they're self-destructing in blind ego-defense such that they might get it over with as soon as possible, believing essentially that, sure, he will be forced from office, which will in the long run help build his brand, or some similarly ridiculous notion. That's the thing; it's unbelievable.

    The president has or, at least, had people around him willing to try to protect him. And he keeps wrecking them. Donald Trump is virtually begging to be driven from office, refocusing attention as he did on the Russia probe and firing James Comey. Or, hey, here's an underappreciated one: Remember that bit with Qatar not so long ago? How a bunch of emirates and Saudi Arabia suddenly threatened blockade if Qatar didn't turn on the Muslim Brotherhood, and when it came to President Trump to show some international leadership on behalf of a nation hosting our troops, he boasted that he triggered the crisis? Do you know what that was about? That would at least appear to be about Kushner Companies hemorrhaging at 666 Fifth Avenue↱, and not liking the terms of a half-billion dollar loan↱, intended to rescue the investment, offered by a Qatari firm. Everything about the Trump presidency seems unbelievable, yet here he is to make sure we must believe an astounding dose of it all.

    In the end, for a largely disempowered minority party, the midterm is the next big cudgel; Republican voters, however, have some decisions to make, and let's face it, all those people out to the left of the Democrats are just ignored because centrists and rightists alike would assert those would be campaigning for Trump's impeachment just like they would any other Republican president.

    In a way, that's a matter of definitions; the agencies run through the executive branch, but in the end what is the difference between reporting to and answering to? I do not mean that flippantly; while the directors might formally report to the president, they answer the Constitution. And as you're aware in the law enforcement context, answering the Constitution is a complex and oft-sensitive discussion; while I would acknowledge symbolic gravity in effect, reporting to the president should, in the end, be no different than, say, the station captain answering the police commissioner; or an associate prosecutor answering the District Attorney, or Attorney General, such as the department might be.

    One of the interesting comparisons history will be able to describe has to do with the idea of "question everything", the prospect and comprehension voters undertook regarding a shakeup of traditional political order, and what aspects the Trump administration actually challenged, thus questioning which principles.

    Matters of definition are among the easiest of challenges to formulate; one merely need assign their own definition, with no real obligation toward promulgation, and then demand answers according to that mysterious definition. But, yes, if we consider the difference 'twixt reporting and answering to someone or something, your thought for the day points to an important value now under challenge.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Horowitz Satlin, Alana. "Pentagon Distancing Itself From Donald Trump On Qatar". The Huffington Post. 7 June 2017. HuffingtonPost.com. 4 August 2017. http://bit.ly/2v4uuI6

    Kocieniewski, David. "Kushner Cos. Sought Qatar Funds as Jared Advised Trump". Bloomberg. 10 July 2017. Bloomberg.com. 4 August 2017. https://bloom.bg/2wswWG6

    Mai-Duc, Christine. "Brad Sherman, an L.A.-area congressman, is standing alone on impeaching Trump". Los Angeles Times. 25 June 2017. LATimes.com. 4 August 2017. http://lat.ms/2vAho6O

    Walsh, Ben, Ryan Grim, and Clayton Swisher. "Jared Kushner Tried and Failed to Get a Half-Billion-Dollar Bailout From Qatar". The Intercept. 10 July 2017. TheIntercept.com. 4 August 2017. http://bit.ly/2sNZ313
     
  21. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,266
    I've never been all that comfortable--or certain--about this. I don't doubt that Trump is stupid (though, again, his ignorance is far more confounding than his stupidity), but in many respects it seems sort of "cultivated"--albeit in a very different way from, say, W. for instance. Also, stupidity is often seen as--to the public eye, at least--lessening culpability, and I've kind of run out of patience and tolerance on that one.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Do you mean (as you wrote) why hasn't the public done their proper "stimulation" ? - because guys like you are in that public, of course. Same way he got elected.

    Do you mean why haven't the members of Congress done their jobs? Because they are Republicans, short answer. Do I need to describe the current Republican Party and Congress to you, or have you noticed for yourself that (for example) W nor Cheney nor any of their Cabinet were subpoenaed and deposed under oath by the appropriate Congressional committees, regarding anything they did?

    Do mean why haven't the appropriate officials entrusted with such investigations done their jobs?
    Why hasn't this happened yet, you mean.
    Because without support from Congress such an already very difficult job becomes almost impossible, and Congress is full of Republicans.
    Because many of them are politically impaired, especially from the W&Cheney administration's erosion of their institutional integrity.
    Because the effort to make it happen is did not begin until Trump was elected, and that was less than a year ago. A case like this would normally take two or three years to put together under the easiest of circumstances.

    Or to ask more directly: Why are you pretending not to understand this situation?

    No, it obviously doesn't.

    For starters, there's still no "cause" in all of that - to have fanaticism, you have to have a cause in the first place. Even if you accept the definition of a fanatic as someone who has redoubled their efforts (but I am indolent compared with you, remember?) after forgetting their cause (what did I forget?), you have to have had a cause at one time.

    But the main point is that you raving like a lunatic is not me being fanatical.
    The only stuff in there in the least "unreasoning" or "frenzied" is stuff you made up in your childish rants, mostly strawmen - like my claiming to understand Toad's "intent", or arguing that "anyone who doesn't agree with me yadda yadda". Pee Wee Herman stuff. The rest of it's just a list of ordinary observations I made that you don't happen to like. And I don't blame you for not liking them - they're damning. But they are not frenzied, or unreasoned, or enthusiastic.

    Or wrong.

    And the reality of Trump, the cherry on top of this horrible Republican Party's thirty year shitpile, is not going to go away by itself.

    The legacy - Trump is Ronald Reagan's legacy - is and will be in the history books for the life of this country.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2017
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    The man who put together Trump's campaign for the Presidency - the staff, the funding, the strategy, the entire operation (it started in 2011 or earlier, notice) - was as far from stupid as you can get. And if it wasn't Trump, who was it?

    There's a sense in which all con men are stupid, simply from the pettiness of their goals, the shortness of their horizons, the meanness of their chosen worlds. The transcendent ones who do not do murder directly - Bernie Madoff, Ken Lay, the great Ponzi himself, dozens of them and now Trump - invite always the sad shake of the head, the recognition (once sympathy for the victims is set aside) of the tragedy in the waste of talent displayed. Opportunity cost raised to its civilian pinnacle (outside of war and mass murder).

    You've got a guy who found and played the angle of TV time, and had the ability to exploit it to its maximum - who can talk a third of the United States into backing him on anything, literally anything - and all he has to show for it, or probably ever will in real terms, is a gold plated toilet.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2017

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