US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4044

On June 14 2016 12:42 oBlade wrote:

I do remember the story. While we're on anecdotes, we live in a world where Stephano snuck a knife onto an airliner, so I do feel more comfortable knowing people of good conscience keep their eyes open. I'm going to assume you didn't mean one woman's retarded mistake a month ago is enough to destabilize law enforcement.

Reporting something as maybe suspicious, which has been going on in air travel for years and law enforcement forever, is different than reporting an active terrorist conspiracy. Michael Fortier was convicted for not warning authorities about the Oklahoma City bombing, no? If someone has actual substantive knowledge of a terrorist plot, and they don't alert anyone, they're culpable.

On June 14 2016 12:42 oBlade wrote:

I do remember the story. While we're on anecdotes, we live in a world where Stephano snuck a knife onto an airliner, so I do feel more comfortable knowing people of good conscience keep their eyes open. I'm going to assume you didn't mean one woman's retarded mistake a month ago is enough to destabilize law enforcement.

Reporting something as maybe suspicious, which has been going on in air travel for years and law enforcement forever, is different than reporting an active terrorist conspiracy. Michael Fortier was convicted for not warning authorities about the Oklahoma City bombing, no? If someone has actual substantive knowledge of a terrorist plot, and they don't alert anyone, they're culpable.

Lawyers for Donald Trump are fighting a legal move that could result in the public seeing videos of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee being subjected to pointed questions about his Trump University real estate seminar program.

Class-action lawyers suing Trump for fraud over the Trump University business attempted last week to file 48 video clips of the real estate mogul at two recent depositions, including segments where he offered prickly responses to what he called "harassment questions."

The plaintiffs said they needed to file the videos to show Trump's demeanor and to clarify some video segments not transcribed by a court reporter, but in a filing Monday with a federal court in San Diego, Trump's legal team called those reasons "disingenuous."

"Plaintiff offers no legitimate reason for seeking submission of these videos, which are clearly intended to prejudice Mr. Trump," Trump lawyers Dan Petrocelli and David Kirman wrote. "Plaintiff's request to use video transcripts is an obvious attempt to prejudice Mr. Trump."

Trump's attorneys did not explicitly refer to his presidential bid or say what type of "prejudice" they believed was intended. However, they noted that the credibility of witnesses is not supposed to be considered by the judge at this point in a case.

Petrocelli and Kirman also served up a warning of sorts to U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel and the plaintiffs by saying that, if video submissions are permitted, Trump's side will seek to file potentially unflattering video clips of depositions from Trump University students and others "whose credibility could be called into question based on their demeanor in the video."

"Admission of [the plaintiffs' video clips] could necessitate defendant to respond in kind with similar videos, all of which will result in many inefficiencies and will make the record unnecessarily unmanageable," Trump's lawyers wrote.

A coalition of media organizations filed a motion with the judge Friday asking him to lift any limits on the plaintiffs' authority to release the full videos of Trump's depositions conducted in December in New York and in January in Las Vegas.
Curiel has yet to rule on that motion, but set a hearing on that issue for June 30.

Trump launched a series of racially-charged attacks on the judge earlier this month and has insisted that the judge has been unfair, but the real estate developer's attorneys have never raised those issues in court, nor have they moved to recuse Curiel.

On June 14 2016 12:47 Plansix wrote:
That is already a crime, it's called being an accessory to the crime. No need for new laws.

On June 14 2016 13:00 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:


One woman's mistake isn't enough to bring down law enforcement, but when a million people report that muslim looking guy who lives near them for doing everyday tasks that aren't terrorism because they're scared of being punished it does become a problem.

What Trump is suggesting is so far beyond Michael Fortier that I'm not even sure why you're bringing it up. Or is this another one of those you're interpreting Trump wrong moments and we should just cease discussion.

Trump’s proposal that Americans be forced to report their neighbors expands on an idea he’s been peddling since last year, when he told a crowd in South Carolina, “People move into a house a block down the road, you know who’s going in. You can see and you report them to the local police. Most likely you’ll be wrong, but that’s OK. That’s the best way. Everybody’s their own cop in a way.”

We need to make sure every single last person involved in this plan – including anyone who knew something but didn't tell us – is brought to justice.

If it can be proven that somebody had information about any attack, and did not give this information to authorities, they must serve prison time .

On June 14 2016 13:46 Doodsmack wrote:
"Hey you know those laws that make you an accessory to a crime if you have substantive knowledge but don't tell anyone, they should apply to terrorism too. They already do though, so nevermind."

Is that really all Trump's saying in this speech about what he'll do as President?

On June 14 2016 14:27 xDaunt wrote:

Bill needs a higher grade of guest on his show.

On June 14 2016 16:30 On_Slaught wrote:
Trump banning the Washington Post from his events for saying things about him, based on his own words, that he didn't like. Guy clearly feels he isn't accountable to a free press.

In the words of Klay Thompson, "I guess his feelings got hurt."

Send in the Clowns

Still boggled by reports that Trump, having realized that the numbers on his tax plan aren’t remotely credible, has decided to fix things by bringing in as experts … Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore. I mean, at some level this was predictable. But it still tells you a lot about both Donald the Doofus and his chosen party.

Granted that Trump is deeply ignorant about policy; still, you might have thought that he would try to signal his independence from the establishment by, say, turning to some business economist. Instead, he turned to the usual suspects from the right-wing noise machine. And what a choice!

I mean, Kudlow is to economics what William Kristol is to political strategy: if he says something, you know it’s wrong. When he ridiculed “bubbleheads” who thought overvalued real estate could bring down the economy, you should have rushed for the bomb shelters; when he proclaimed Bush a huge success, because a rising stock market is the ultimate verdict on a presidency (unless the president is a Democrat), you should have known that the Bush era would end with epochal collapse.

And then there’s Moore, who has a similarly awesome forecasting record, and adds to it an impressive lack of even minimal technical competence. Seriously: read the CJR report on his mess-up over job numbers:

"The recurring “oops,” intended as a dig at Krugman, took on an unintended irony after Abouhalkah discovered that Moore’s numbers did not match those of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In fact, Moore later acknowledged, he was using BLS numbers not from “the last five years” but from an earlier five-year period: December 2007 to December 2012. Focusing on that period is arguably dubious, because the span captures the depths of the Great Recession and the housing crash, which hit some states harder than others—and whose impact likely would have swamped any tax-rate effect. There are other issues with the quality of Moore’s argument, too, like its glancing-at-best treatment of how factors like housing costs shape population and job growth.

In any case, Abouhalkah found, Moore’s numbers were wrong even for 2007-12, in ways that complicated the “low taxes = more jobs” message.

Texas did not gain 1 million jobs in the 2007-2012 period Moore measured. The correct figure was a gain of 497,400 jobs.

Florida did not add hundreds of thousands of jobs in that span. It actually lost 461,500 jobs.

New York, with [its] very high income tax rates, did not lose jobs during that time. It gained 75,900 jobs.

Oops, indeed."

Of course, Moore remains the chief economist at Heritage. And maybe Trump believes that this is a certificate of quality, that anyone in that position must be a real expert.

Truly, Donald Trump, you know nothing.

But it still tells you a lot about both Donald the Doofus and his chosen party.