US Politics Mega-thread - Page 10093

On March 20 2018 06:59 GreenHorizons wrote:


I love when people lash out with these non-sensical responses. Of course you care about others say/said lol.

K, not everyone supported the idea but only one person shot down the idea that we didn't know McCabe deserved to be fired because of Trump's history.

Glad to know Democrats/Liberals are of the position they don't know if McCabe should have been fired or not and reflexively presumed because of the timing it couldn't have been justified, but now completely agree it could be justified.

On March 20 2018 07:15 m4ini wrote:


Ahm, do i? I haven't even read the thread you're referring to. I have absolutely no idea what was argued, because i didn't care for it. I still don't. Again: i not once made a statement in regards to that, why do you think that is? Because i care so much that i had to contain myself to.. not.. post? What?

I generally speak for myself and state my opinion, and skip the parts that i'm not interested in. Namely, pretty much all the pages recently that had your crying over the FBI and "abolish police" bullshit, which includes everything that was happening on these pages (and i suppose slightly after), for example. I don't care if people think that it was justified or not, it doesn't matter. If the firing was justified, then it already was months ago - meaning, Trump was being a petty manchild. If it wasn't justified, quel surprise. Not that unexpected, is it? In the end, nothing changes. It's not the first time Trump fires someone, and certainly won't be the last time.

On March 20 2018 03:25 GreenHorizons wrote:


You're not concerned this could be someone loyal to/inspired by ISIS working their way up to a much larger attack and possibly Trump and the FBI are failing to stop him 4 bombs in?

On March 20 2018 06:59 GreenHorizons wrote:


I love when people lash out with these non-sensical responses. Of course you care about others say/said lol.

K, not everyone supported the idea but only one person shot down the idea that we didn't know McCabe deserved to be fired because of Trump's history.

Glad to know Democrats/Liberals are of the position they don't know if McCabe should have been fired or not and reflexively presumed because of the timing it couldn't have been justified, but now completely agree it could be justified.

On March 20 2018 06:54 xDaunt wrote:

It's going to be really amusing if the IG report shows that Comey directed McCabe to leak stuff as is suggested by McCabe's public comments.

On March 20 2018 08:09 Danglars wrote:

Somewhat likely that it happened considering Comey’s decision to leak confidential notes from his meeting with Trump to the media in order to force the appointment of a special counsel. I could see him suggesting something similar to McCabe. But then again, Comey was real CYA up until the end, so it’s less likely there’s Strzok-Page style texts for the IG to find. It’s definitely an amusing possibility that the investigation turned up proof.

I am enjoying that it’s ok to criticize the FBI now (for recommending McCabes firing), it’s still a great nonpolitical organization that these politically biased committees are accusing of wrongdoing, and McCabe is losing his pension. Similarly, that the time it took for the IG and DPR to reach conclusions on his behavior is suspect. Hilarious. This Trump presidency is a riot from both sides.

On March 20 2018 07:58 Toadesstern wrote:


I don't think you understand the situation correctly here.
"Glad to know Democrats/Liberals are of the position they don't know if McCabe should have been fired or not and reflexively presumed because of the timing it couldn't have been justified, but now completely agree it could be justified."

The bolded is where you're going wrong in a way. People don't reflexively presume he is innocent, people reflexively assume that the reason he was fired for is bullshit and that he was fired out of spite.
That's not the same. The latter makes no judgement call whatsoever about wether he deserves to be fired or not, it just states that, given what we know about the Trump administration, the reason they fired him for is most likely bullshit. It can still be of the opinion that he deserved to be fired but that's very unlikly to be the reason he got fired for (imo).

That's what people were getting at. Just that you somehow interpreted that as people thinking he's innocent. I didn't bother to comment on it despite reading it either because frankly it's pointless. I don't have the information to make a call on wether or not he should have been fired and I'm also pretty sure he was fired just out of spite. That doesn't absolve him of other things so if he's in deep shit sure he deserves to be fired. And I really don't think anyone was saying anything else.

On March 20 2018 08:22 GreenHorizons wrote:


Some people were most definitely saying something else as I showed, but I can and did admit not everyone was.

Everyone disagreeing with the people who did, even if they didn't feel compelled to correct them is something of note in my opinion.

It felt like more people were receptive of the idea there was no way his firing was justified, but I'll accept that the majority of liberals presume it could it be even if the timing wasn't.

Seems to be a bit more mixed on whether him not getting a pension was a bad thing or not, but I'm glad to hear that it's not empathy for most that was driving the reaction, but simply the problematic optics/timing of the firing.

I'm a bit curious... if he did deserve to be fired, and the investigation was going to linger on long enough for him to collect his lifetime pension. Would expediting it in order to prevent him collecting the pension after having avoided a deserved firing be a good thing on it's own?

On March 20 2018 06:40 GreenHorizons wrote:


“impossible to evaluate,”

Is entirely different than what just about everyone here was saying. I don't think you objected previously?

On March 20 2018 08:26 IyMoon wrote:


Hard to say.... In a normal situation where the POTUS isnt tweeting about you and clearly putting his finger on scales atleast in the court of public opinion no. In fact that would probably be best.

On March 20 2018 08:31 ChristianS wrote:

I don't think I've said anything about McCabe's firing yet, and I'm probably deluding myself, but I feel like I can explain the issue with it in a way that you probably wouldn't object to. You've mentioned that you don't see the big issue because you think McCabe is guilty of a lot of offenses that either were or should have been fireable during his career at the FBI; I'm not familiar with his career, but I'll just presume that you're right about that for the purposes of this discussion.

But in a more general sense, what's the purpose of punishing people for crimes? Maybe there's some greater sense of justice or at least vengeance achieved by hurting people that have done bad things, but in general, the primary reason is to reform other people in the future. It sends the message that the behavior in question is bad, and that it will be punished (the third reason to punish people, reforming their behavior, doesn't really apply since McCabe was about to retire anyway). That deterrent simply isn't achieved if it's entirely clear that he isn't being punished for the things you're talking about. If McCabe were fired for illegal wiretapping operations under Bush, or some kind of human rights violations involved with FBI drug-busting operations, or some other ugly FBI activity, that would be worth doing because it would discourage the FBI from similar activity in the future.

But it's entirely clear that's not what McCabe's being punished for here. And realistically, whatever the IG winds up recommending, that's not what he's being punished for either, even if that's the stated reason. Because if he was actually being punished for that, he would have been fired at the time, or else the decision would have waited until the IG actually issued a report. Instead, the administration pushed hard to fire him just in time to deny him retirement benefits.

Why do we think Trump did that, when McCabe was already gone from the FBI anyway? Does Trump have such a strong sense of justice that he simply thought punishing him was the right thing to do? Yeah right, Trump has never acted out of moral duty and there's no reason to think he did here. Was Trump just mad at McCabe, and wanted to spite him? That's not totally implausible, Trump certainly seems like he could be vindictive when he sees someone as having wronged him.

But I think it's far, far more likely that Trump wanted to send a message, that if you testify against the administration you will be punished. McCabe testified against the administration, so they took this apparently spiteful action to signify to anyone else in the administration that if they talk about anything they might know, it'll go bad for them. That's bad. In fact, it's not really any less bad even if it does turn out that the firing was "justified," that is to say, if the IG finds that McCabe broke the law by leaking information or lying under oath or something. He'll probably sue for wrongful termination, and if he broke the law he'll lose and if he didn't he'll get his retirement back, but I don't imagine the rest of us care all that much about McCabe's post-FBI standard of living.

There's a funny thing with whistleblowers, where the particulars of how they blew the whistle matter very little to the public, but as a legal matter they make a lot of difference in how the whistleblower will get treated. Personally, I don't care very much whether McCabe actually violated policy by talking to Congress or the press or whoever else about what was going on with Trump. I care whether the investigations into the administration will be allowed to continue unimpeded, or if they'll manage to cover their tracks and evade justice. If McCabe broke the law by getting out information that will help that investigation, then firing him is "justified," but it doesn't make his firing anything other than a threat to other people that might have info that would help the investigation.

On March 20 2018 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:


Can't argue with the tweets being in bad taste. Not sure if you might have mistyped so I'll ask another way. If Obama had a FBI person who should be fired, but was close to collecting a lifetime pension would it be a good thing if he expedited the conclusion of the investigation to prevent tax payers from being on the hook for the rest of the shoulda been fired guys lifetime pension?

Or would it be better to let them collect the pension for life at the expense at tax payers essentially letting him off and making sure tax payers pay for it for the rest of his life?

On March 20 2018 08:51 IyMoon wrote:



I would say the correct call is to let the person collect their pension until they are fired by recommendation of investigation. At that point terminate the full pension

On March 20 2018 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:


Can't argue with the tweets being in bad taste. Not sure if you might have mistyped so I'll ask another way. If Obama had a FBI person who should be fired, but was close to collecting a lifetime pension would it be a good thing if he expedited the conclusion of the investigation to prevent tax payers from being on the hook for the rest of the shoulda been fired guys lifetime pension?

Or would it be better to let them collect the pension for life at the expense at tax payers essentially letting him off and making sure tax payers pay for it for the rest of his life?



I think we all agree it looks like Trump was trying to send a message.

Shouldn't something like this, if unjustified, make it easier for Mueller to prove an obstruction case, not harder? Why would this make you more concerned they may evade justice?

Am I to believe the president can intimidate witnesses and there's nothing Mueller can do about it? If that's the case I'm inclined to believe there's a terrible lapse in our ability to pursue justice in these circumstances.

Can Trump really cover his obvious tracks sufficiently to prevent Mueller from being able to recommend charges? Would that mean the FBI or a special investigator may say something like "we wouldn't recommend pursuing charges" while the person they are saying it about is definitely guilty?

Again, if so, that seems like a significant hole in our ability to pursue justice in these circumstances.

Do you think that there is any way that Trump can be end up being found not-guilty of collusion/obstruction and that the justice system did it's job correctly?

On March 20 2018 08:14 Gorsameth wrote:

Are these 'confidential notes' the ones that, during Comey's hearing, he was commended for recording in such a way as to avoid being deemed classified?
Or is there another set of notes I am not thinking of at the moment.

On March 20 2018 08:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:
I don't know how McCabe's pension works, but most of the time you don't just start collecting a pension, you file a claim to start collecting it and it's reviewed. Which gives time and leeway if there is ongoing disputes about the employment and benefits.