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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On March 03 2017 01:22 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:15 farvacola wrote:
lol, Danglars has resorted to attempting to use Claire McCaskill as cover, Sessions must really be done for. Forget the claim that he couldn't have been in contact as part of his Senatorial position so soon? Get your issues straight and we might have a discussion, if indeed you're interested in having one.
Her meeting with a group of Senators is very different from a one on one meeting during the height of Russian hacking of a US election when you're on Trump's team and slated to be in his administration.
But don't worry, this is only an isolated incident with team Trump.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case.
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Norway28673 Posts
On March 03 2017 01:23 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:20 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 03 2017 01:09 KwarK wrote:SEN. PATRICK J. LEAHY:
Several of the President-elect's nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. 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? SESSIONS:
No. *turns out that Sessions met with Sergey Kislyak. Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, is considered by US intelligence to be one of Russia's top spies and spy-recruiters in Washington, according to current and former senior US government officials.* (CNN) I'm really not sure where the ambiguity in his language was. That he asked whether he had been in contact with part of the russian government about the 2016 election, not during the election. If they were only talking about stuff entirely unrelated to the 2016 election, then he's technically truthful. Which is the best kind of truthful, obviously. It's like when your girlfriend asks you if you've been hanging out with that female coworker she's extremely suspicious of because all her friends tell her you're cheating. And you say "no". And then later on it turns out that you went out for a drink after work and you explain "yeah but that was like a work thing, we weren't technically hanging out so I didn't see any reason to not remove that instance from the breadth of your inquiry and answer purely the technical limitations of the question so I think you'll find that I never lied and it's your fault for providing ambiguity in the question that gave me grounds for tactical omission". Pretty sure that'd be fine, right?
Of course that's not fine. But morality and legality are two different things. With my wife, I honestly care more about the former, but it's largely irrelevant in determining whether Sessions did anything illegal. And I never thought he was a person of upstanding character in the first place.
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On March 03 2017 01:31 LegalLord wrote:
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case.
You don't think you're being a little disingenuous by saying its as simple as speaking?
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United States42739 Posts
On March 03 2017 01:27 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:21 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:On March 03 2017 01:20 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 03 2017 01:09 KwarK wrote:SEN. PATRICK J. LEAHY:
Several of the President-elect's nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. 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? SESSIONS:
No. *turns out that Sessions met with Sergey Kislyak. Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, is considered by US intelligence to be one of Russia's top spies and spy-recruiters in Washington, according to current and former senior US government officials.* (CNN) I'm really not sure where the ambiguity in his language was. That he asked whether he had been in contact with part of the russian government about the 2016 election, not during the election. If they were only talking about stuff entirely unrelated to the 2016 election, then he's technically truthful. Then what were they talking about at the RNC Convention a campaign event? I don't know what they were talking about, and I find it overwhelmingly probable that there is actual fire to to along with the smoke here. But based on the specific question he was asked, I have not seen actual proof that he lied. Omitted truth, yes, but I'm guessing those are different from a legal pov? (Not a lawyer!)
He also said
I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.
One of the meetings with Kislyak was a private one on one meeting in Session's office in September, while Sessions was a key part of the Trump campaign and the Russian ties and interference were already a big story.
Will any of the conservatives here at least concede that Trump's team shouldn't be meeting with the intelligence operatives of a hostile foreign government which is interfering in the election to help them, even if they just discuss the weather?
Additionally would you be willing to concede that "I did not have communications with the Russians" lacks some of the necessary ambiguous language needed to reconcile it with numerous meetings with the Russians.
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On March 03 2017 00:11 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 00:06 Acrofales wrote: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? 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. VX gas is a WMD according to the resolution 687 of the United Nation. WMD doesn't mean you have killed a lot of people with it. If you kill one person with a nuke or a super advanced chemical weapon, you have used a WMD. If you kill a million using a knife, you haven't. It's an international term to qualify a type of weapon, not a quantitative denomination.
Technically, resolution 687 does nothing in terms of qualifying what is or isn't a WMD, that would be the Geneva Protocol (referred to in 687, but only with regards to how it affects Iraq).
The Geneva Protocol is an agreement on armed conflict and what weapons not to use. Now we have generally interpreted it as a broader ban on anything that it contains, but that would not be correct. The Chemical Weapons Convention is what prohibited the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and their precursors... and guess who is not a signatory of that treaty.
But that is a complete aside: the problem here is assassinating a political opponent. Not the means in which it was accomplished (unless you are somehow taken by surprise that NK has chemical weapons and is willing to use them... ).
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Norway28673 Posts
On March 03 2017 01:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:27 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 03 2017 01:21 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:On March 03 2017 01:20 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 03 2017 01:09 KwarK wrote:SEN. PATRICK J. LEAHY:
Several of the President-elect's nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. 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? SESSIONS:
No. *turns out that Sessions met with Sergey Kislyak. Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, is considered by US intelligence to be one of Russia's top spies and spy-recruiters in Washington, according to current and former senior US government officials.* (CNN) I'm really not sure where the ambiguity in his language was. That he asked whether he had been in contact with part of the russian government about the 2016 election, not during the election. If they were only talking about stuff entirely unrelated to the 2016 election, then he's technically truthful. Then what were they talking about at the RNC Convention a campaign event? I don't know what they were talking about, and I find it overwhelmingly probable that there is actual fire to to along with the smoke here. But based on the specific question he was asked, I have not seen actual proof that he lied. Omitted truth, yes, but I'm guessing those are different from a legal pov? (Not a lawyer!) He also said Show nested quote +I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians. One of the meetings with Kislyak was a private one on one meeting in Session's office in September, while Sessions was a key part of the Trump campaign and the Russian ties and interference were already a big story. Will any of the conservatives here at least concede that Trump's team shouldn't be meeting with the intelligence operatives of a hostile foreign government which is interfering in the election to help them, even if they just discuss the weather? Additionally would you be willing to concede that "I did not have communications with the Russians" lacks some of the necessary ambiguous language needed to reconcile it with numerous meetings with the Russians.
Ya, 'I did not have communications with the Russians' appears to be a technical lie as well. 
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 03 2017 01:34 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:31 LegalLord wrote:
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case. You don't think you're being a little disingenuous by saying its as simple as speaking?
Well unless you think there's a huge cabal of Russian spies in the US government that only came to light because of Trump, I would say that McCarthyism is more likely than genuine concern.
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You forgot to mention Hillary, LL, you're slipping.
Anyways, even Republicans are calling for recusal.
Top Republicans said Thursday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from federal investigations of whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) tweeted early Thursday that “AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself.”
Later, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said in a statement, “Jeff Sessions is a former colleague and a friend, but I think it would be best for him and for the country to recuse himself from the DOJ Russia probe.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also initially said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Sessions should bow out.
Top Republicans call on Sessions to recuse himself from Russia investigation
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On March 03 2017 01:38 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:34 Mohdoo wrote:On March 03 2017 01:31 LegalLord wrote:
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case. You don't think you're being a little disingenuous by saying its as simple as speaking? Well unless you think there's a huge cabal of Russian spies in the US government that only came to light because of Trump, I would say that McCarthyism is more likely than genuine concern.
One end of the spectrum: Huge cabal of Russian spies
<HUGE AREA FOR INTERMEDIATE INTERPRETATION>
Other end of the spectrum: McCarthyism
If you don't think (One end of the spectrum), then (Other end of the spectrum).
Good faith arguing was nowhere to be seen.
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Issa and Chaffetz are on board with Sessions recusal and an independent investigation. Once Gowdy, the last of the Benghazi howlers gets on board, no Republican has any right to oppose it.
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Particularly since there's an obvious parallel here, given how many people in this thread took Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton during the e-mail investigation as an *obvious* sign of impropriety, despite the fact that she then recused herself from the investigation immediately afterwards.
Sessions should have recused himself ages ago. He probably still will now anyway, but it shouldn't have taken him getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar to do so.
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On March 03 2017 01:38 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:34 Mohdoo wrote:On March 03 2017 01:31 LegalLord wrote:
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case. You don't think you're being a little disingenuous by saying its as simple as speaking? Well unless you think there's a huge cabal of Russian spies in the US government that only came to light because of Trump, I would say that McCarthyism is more likely than genuine concern.
What's the incentive to lie about it until you can't deny it, though?
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On March 03 2017 01:38 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:34 Mohdoo wrote:On March 03 2017 01:31 LegalLord wrote:
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case. You don't think you're being a little disingenuous by saying its as simple as speaking? Well unless you think there's a huge cabal of Russian spies in the US government that only came to light because of Trump, I would say that McCarthyism is more likely than genuine concern.
You're making this into some kinda false dichotomy. Its not a matter of whether there is zero or extreme Russian involvement. The issue is whether or not there is an inappropriate level/type of involvement.
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If talking to Bill for 30 minutes at an airport is cause for recusal, this qualifies.
This isn’t a witch hunt, this is the Republicans being held to the same standard they set over the last 6 years.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 03 2017 01:41 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:38 LegalLord wrote:On March 03 2017 01:34 Mohdoo wrote:On March 03 2017 01:31 LegalLord wrote:
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case. You don't think you're being a little disingenuous by saying its as simple as speaking? Well unless you think there's a huge cabal of Russian spies in the US government that only came to light because of Trump, I would say that McCarthyism is more likely than genuine concern. What's the incentive to lie about it until you can't deny it, though?
Probably to avoid this situation earlier during confirmation.
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On March 03 2017 01:35 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 00:11 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 03 2017 00:06 Acrofales wrote: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? 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. VX gas is a WMD according to the resolution 687 of the United Nation. WMD doesn't mean you have killed a lot of people with it. If you kill one person with a nuke or a super advanced chemical weapon, you have used a WMD. If you kill a million using a knife, you haven't. It's an international term to qualify a type of weapon, not a quantitative denomination. Technically, resolution 687 does nothing in terms of qualifying what is or isn't a WMD, that would be the Geneva Protocol (referred to in 687, but only with regards to how it affects Iraq). The Geneva Protocol is an agreement on armed conflict and what weapons not to use. Now we have generally interpreted it as a broader ban on anything that it contains, but that would not be correct. The Chemical Weapons Convention is what prohibited the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and their precursors... and guess who is not a signatory of that treaty. But that is a complete aside: the problem here is assassinating a political opponent. Not the means in which it was accomplished (unless you are somehow taken by surprise that NK has chemical weapons and is willing to use them... ).
Well, I guess you are right, tbh I just wikipedia'ed that:
As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) by the United Nations Resolution 687. The production and stockpiling of VX exceeding 100 grams (3.53 oz) per year was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.
But that's not the point, the message NK gives by assassinating someone in an international airport with a chemical weapon that is considered a WMD is quite different that if they had had the guy killed with a gun in a dark alley. They want the whole thing to be terrifying and frankly it is. They just showed the world they are ready to use a weapon that can kill an insane amount of people, in a major hub.
But again, doesn't seem to warrant any reaction from the orange one and his goons.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 03 2017 01:42 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:38 LegalLord wrote:On March 03 2017 01:34 Mohdoo wrote:On March 03 2017 01:31 LegalLord wrote:
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case. You don't think you're being a little disingenuous by saying its as simple as speaking? Well unless you think there's a huge cabal of Russian spies in the US government that only came to light because of Trump, I would say that McCarthyism is more likely than genuine concern. You're making this into some kinda false dichotomy. Its not a matter of whether there is zero or extreme Russian involvement. The issue is whether or not there is an inappropriate level/type of involvement.
Probably partially. But it's also a convenient way to attack people they don't like. Which is what McCarthyism is all about.
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On March 03 2017 01:43 Plansix wrote:
If talking to Bill for 30 minutes at an airport is cause for recusal, this qualifies.
This isn’t a witch hunt, this is the Republicans being held to the same standard they set over the last 6 years.
6++++ years you mean?
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On March 03 2017 01:47 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2017 01:41 Nebuchad wrote:On March 03 2017 01:38 LegalLord wrote:On March 03 2017 01:34 Mohdoo wrote:On March 03 2017 01:31 LegalLord wrote:
So are the next four years set to be a never-ending game of, "Who talked to Russia and should be fired for it?" The trajectory of this presidency suggests that that is the case. You don't think you're being a little disingenuous by saying its as simple as speaking? Well unless you think there's a huge cabal of Russian spies in the US government that only came to light because of Trump, I would say that McCarthyism is more likely than genuine concern. What's the incentive to lie about it until you can't deny it, though? Probably to avoid this situation earlier during confirmation.
The point of a confirmation is to iron this shit out. He was trying to avoid a key objective of the confirmation.
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EPT
