US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7008

On March 02 2017 23:01 Laurens wrote:


Oh I fully agree with you, I was just responding to this particular line from Biff:

On March 02 2017 23:13 MasterCynical wrote:
Looks like nuclear war with Russia is going to happen after all. Theyre beefing up conscription and deployment across all the allied countries.

On March 02 2017 23:26 Scarecrow wrote:
What does Trump gain from attacking and de-legitimizing investigative reporting? Please explain it to me.

On March 02 2017 23:26 Scarecrow wrote:

Stop calling them fake news. None of the mainstream ones are, though some are of a higher standard than others. CNN is not fake. Fox isn't fake. All the left/right wing does by tearing them down, is legitimize shitty news sites/blogs that prey on people who want 'news' that agrees with their feelings/prejudices.

Call these organizations agenda-driven, biased or part-time tabloid journalists if you want, but they're simply not 'fake'. They may make mistakes or be overzealous at times but they're not systematically making up sources and stories.

Most of the time it's the inability to distinguish opionated editorials from actual news that has idiots thinking the whole organization is untrustworthy and corrupted by bias.

As much as Trump likes to repeat his idiotic 'fake, phoney news' mantra, his assertion has no basis in reality (which is king right?). He's even gone so far as to say that "they have no sources, they just make 'em up." These are mainstream news outlets he's attacking, not some website/blogs called freedompress or 24-7truth.com. CNN/MSNBC/NYT/BBC systematically making up sources from thin air would be the scandal of the decade if it were true. But we only have Donald's word for it, which basically means it's a load of bs. They're clearly not the 'enemy of the people,' so why is he saying this? What does Trump gain from attacking and de-legitimizing investigative reporting? Please explain it to me.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz on Thursday morning said Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from any investigation into ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, joining a growing number of Republicans calling for such a move.

“AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself,” Chaffetz tweeted, after a series of reports spilled out about Sessions meeting twice with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak last year, while Sessions served as a chief adviser to Trump’s campaign. Sessions, during his confirmation hearing, had testified that he did not have communications with the Russians during Trump’s campaign.

Sessions said late Wednesday night that he “never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false.”

Earlier on Thursday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said “it would be easier” for an investigation into ties between Trump’s associates and Russian officials if Sessions recused himself.

“I think, the trust of the American people, you recuse yourself in these situations,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I just think for any investigation going forward, you want to make sure everybody trusts the investigation ... that there’s no doubt within the investigation.

Sessions so far has expressed openness to recusing himself, but has not definitively said he would do so.

On March 02 2017 23:34 Sermokala wrote:
I don't get all this sessions hubbub. He met with some Russian ambassadors during the campaign but is there any evidence at all that anything they discussed was beyond just a couple people talking?

When Sessions was asked during his 10 January testimony to the Senate judiciary committee how he would respond if he learned of communications between the Trump campaign and Russian officials leading up to the election, he said he was “not aware of any of those activities”.

He added: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”

While the committee was considering his nomination, the panel’s top Democrat, Senator Patrick Leahy, also raised the issue of communications with Russia in a written questionnaire.

“Several of the president-elect’s nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties,” Leahy wrote, before asking Sessions point-blank: “Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?”

“No,” Sessions responded.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for Sessions, denied he had deceived the Senate. “There was absolutely nothing misleading about his answer,” Flores said in a statement, noting Sessions had over 25 conversations with foreign ambassadors last year.

“He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign – not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the armed services committee.”

The Washington Post said it had asked all 26 members of the committee whether they had met Kislyak last year. None of the 20 who replied, including committee chair John McCain, had done so, it reported.

Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called for Sessions to recuse himself from any investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“If reports are accurate that Attorney General Sessions – a prominent surrogate for Donald Trump – met with Ambassador Kislyak during the campaign, and failed to disclose this fact during his confirmation, it is essential that he recuse himself from any role in the investigation of Trump campaign ties to the Russians,” Schiff said.

On March 02 2017 22:17 Danglars wrote:
Sessions is a tough guy, he'll survive everybody falsely claiming he perjured himself and trying guilt by association ten different ways. We know just how effective thinly sourced Russian stories were during the campaign. Americans aren't going to settle for conversations = bad or anything short of wiretaps showing pay for hacks sort of arrangements.

On March 02 2017 23:35 xDaunt wrote:

Like I've said before, Trump's gain is the neutering of his biggest political adversary. And with crap like that WashPo story on Sessions coming out on a routine basis from these outlets, Trump clearly should continue antagonizing the press.

On March 02 2017 23:51 Biff The Understudy wrote:
By the way North Korea uses masse destruction weapons to assassinate people in an international airport, and no one seems to care. Donald hasn't twitted about that?

On March 03 2017 00:06 Acrofales wrote:

Not sure you can call targeted nerve gas a WMD. It was used to take out a single person and succeeded. There was nothing massive about it. It's not as if they bombed the entire airport with nerve gas. The preocupation of nerve gas (and other chemical weapons) in warfare is their widescale applicability to indiscriminately kill everybody, including civilians, in an area.

Not making any value judgement about the North Korean state assassinating a political opponent in an international airport, but their use of nerve gas to do so doesn't seem like it should be anywhere near the top of the list of concerns over that...

Anyway, we have an entire thread dedicated to NK doing or saying alarming shit, where this can be discussed.