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United States43989 Posts
On May 11 2017 00:47 warding wrote:I have no idea how to interpret this. The Russian foreign minister is upset/disappointed by the firing?
Looked to me like the reaction of everyone watching this shitshow. The kind of laugh where you have to find it funny because it's so fucked up.
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On May 11 2017 00:55 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 00:51 Danglars wrote:On May 11 2017 00:46 Doodsmack wrote:On May 11 2017 00:45 Danglars wrote:
Next up Trump needs to fire his communications director and everybody in that department. He didn't have a guy out there this morning with the talking points. Shumer ejected his blather almost immediately and Trump's got his press secretary hiding in hedges. Absolutely irresponsible. You're not blaming that on Trump? In his capacity as the guy that hired these people, sure. For example, I don't like Spicer, but who would take that job, seriously? Maybe it's Trump that ignores messaging is important, maybe his staff was tangled up without leadership composing talking points from the letter and other angles. Don't tell me that there aren't thousands of people wanting such a prestigious and undoubtedly well-paying job who are more capable of public communication than Spicer. The guy is a walking PR disaster, he isn't even good in fluently talking, so what is he doing in such job? I understand that it may be difficult for Trump to fill specific positions with top experts in the respective fields, if the best people for the job refuse to have anything with him, but here we are talking about a pretty generic job for which there must be hordes of candidates.
Heading up a shitshow where your job is to be a liar is not generally a good career-building opportunity.
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United States43989 Posts
On May 11 2017 00:59 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 00:55 opisska wrote:On May 11 2017 00:51 Danglars wrote:On May 11 2017 00:46 Doodsmack wrote:On May 11 2017 00:45 Danglars wrote:
Next up Trump needs to fire his communications director and everybody in that department. He didn't have a guy out there this morning with the talking points. Shumer ejected his blather almost immediately and Trump's got his press secretary hiding in hedges. Absolutely irresponsible. You're not blaming that on Trump? In his capacity as the guy that hired these people, sure. For example, I don't like Spicer, but who would take that job, seriously? Maybe it's Trump that ignores messaging is important, maybe his staff was tangled up without leadership composing talking points from the letter and other angles. Don't tell me that there aren't thousands of people wanting such a prestigious and undoubtedly well-paying job who are more capable of public communication than Spicer. The guy is a walking PR disaster, he isn't even good in fluently talking, so what is he doing in such job? I understand that it may be difficult for Trump to fill specific positions with top experts in the respective fields, if the best people for the job refuse to have anything with him, but here we are talking about a pretty generic job for which there must be hordes of candidates. Heading up a shitshow where your job is to be a liar is not generally a good career-building opportunity.
O'Reilly's job is vacant.
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On May 11 2017 00:55 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 00:51 Danglars wrote:On May 11 2017 00:46 Doodsmack wrote:On May 11 2017 00:45 Danglars wrote:
Next up Trump needs to fire his communications director and everybody in that department. He didn't have a guy out there this morning with the talking points. Shumer ejected his blather almost immediately and Trump's got his press secretary hiding in hedges. Absolutely irresponsible. You're not blaming that on Trump? In his capacity as the guy that hired these people, sure. For example, I don't like Spicer, but who would take that job, seriously? Maybe it's Trump that ignores messaging is important, maybe his staff was tangled up without leadership composing talking points from the letter and other angles. Don't tell me that there aren't thousands of people wanting such a prestigious and undoubtedly well-paying job who are more capable of public communication than Spicer. The guy is a walking PR disaster, he isn't even good in fluently talking, so what is he doing in such job? I understand that it may be difficult for Trump to fill specific positions with top experts in the respective fields, if the best people for the job refuse to have anything with him, but here we are talking about a pretty generic job for which there must be hordes of candidates.
I always assumed Trump's foibles and the inability to defend such a man day after day before the press didn't put forth their names. But maybe you're right, I don't know.
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On May 11 2017 00:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Why did John McCain vote against this considering that he denies anthropogenic global warming? Or did he change his opinion?
Oh well, any bipartisanism should be welcomed these days.
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On May 11 2017 00:55 ZeromuS wrote:
hmmmmmm
The leaks here are pretty reassuring that any future coverup of the FBI's investigation of Trump's campaign aides will be immediately outed. Not my preferred reassurance but whatever. The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know. But these constitutional crisis deranged lunatics on the left are a good reminder for Americans what the Trump administration is up against.
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On May 11 2017 01:04 prplhz wrote:Why did John McCain vote against this considering that he denies anthropogenic global warming? Or did he change his opinion? Oh well, any bipartisanism should be welcomed these days.
Hopefully McCain and some other Republicans will use stuff like this as leverage over the Russia investigation.
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The incompetence is pretty staggering.
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On May 11 2017 01:06 Danglars wrote:The leaks here are pretty reassuring that any future coverup of the FBI's investigation of Trump's campaign aides will be immediately outed. Not my preferred reassurance but whatever. The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know. But these constitutional crisis deranged lunatics on the left are a good reminder for Americans what the Trump administration is up against.
CNN corroborated yesterday that there are grand jury subpoenas for associates of Michael Flynn.
https://cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/09/politics/grand-jury-fbi-russia/index.html
The man who first reported the existence of grand juries involving the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia is Claude Taylor, former White House staffer. He also named the EDVA district as the location of all those juries. Now MSM is confirming this. Mr. Taylor also reports now that there are 25 sealed indictments in EDVA. He also says that state AG Schneiderman will be bringing RICO charges as well against Donald Trump and the Trump Org, and there is no presidential pardon power for state level offenses.
Your thoughts?
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4491822/Trump-says-Comey-lost-confidence-everyone.html
President Trump defended his sudden firing of FBI Director James Comey, telling reporters Comey 'wasn't doing a good job' in brief comments after the sudden sacking shook Washington.
The president made his terse statement from the Oval Office during a meeting with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who served as secretary of state and security advisor under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
Asked why he fired Comey, Trump responded: 'Because he wasn't doing a good job, very simply. He was not doing a good job.'
The president shook his head when asked whether the issue affected his meeting with the Russians today. He had met earlier with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – as well as Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.
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On May 11 2017 01:14 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 01:06 Danglars wrote:The leaks here are pretty reassuring that any future coverup of the FBI's investigation of Trump's campaign aides will be immediately outed. Not my preferred reassurance but whatever. The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know. But these constitutional crisis deranged lunatics on the left are a good reminder for Americans what the Trump administration is up against. CNN corroborated yesterday that there are grand jury subpoenas for associates of Michael Flynn. https://cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/09/politics/grand-jury-fbi-russia/index.htmlThe man who first reported the existence of grand juries involving the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia is Claude Taylor, former White House staffer. He also named the EDVA district as the location of all those juries. Now MSM is confirming this. Mr. Taylor also reports now that there are 25 sealed indictments in EDVA. He also says that state AG Schneiderman will be bringing RICO charges as well against Donald Trump and the Trump Org, and there is no presidential pardon power for state level offenses. Your thoughts?
You mean aside from "The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know?" There will be no coverup. Comey was heading the career FBI investigators that will find out the truth. Trump made bad staffing decisions and some former Trump associates made bad decisions. Frankly, if any of this is traceable to Trump it probably would've already been leaked, but I'm waiting for the investigation's conclusion.
If some other state AG brings racketeering charges against Trump himself and Trump's company, that would be a new development and I'll follow it as details come out.
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On May 11 2017 01:14 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 01:06 Danglars wrote:The leaks here are pretty reassuring that any future coverup of the FBI's investigation of Trump's campaign aides will be immediately outed. Not my preferred reassurance but whatever. The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know. But these constitutional crisis deranged lunatics on the left are a good reminder for Americans what the Trump administration is up against. CNN corroborated yesterday that there are grand jury subpoenas for associates of Michael Flynn. https://cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/09/politics/grand-jury-fbi-russia/index.htmlThe man who first reported the existence of grand juries involving the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia is Claude Taylor, former White House staffer. He also named the EDVA district as the location of all those juries. Now MSM is confirming this. Mr. Taylor also reports now that there are 25 sealed indictments in EDVA. He also says that state AG Schneiderman will be bringing RICO charges as well against Donald Trump and the Trump Org, and there is no presidential pardon power for state level offenses. Your thoughts?
If Claude Taylor is right, the world is basically going to come crashing down lol.
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Canada13407 Posts
On May 11 2017 01:24 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 01:14 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On May 11 2017 01:06 Danglars wrote:The leaks here are pretty reassuring that any future coverup of the FBI's investigation of Trump's campaign aides will be immediately outed. Not my preferred reassurance but whatever. The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know. But these constitutional crisis deranged lunatics on the left are a good reminder for Americans what the Trump administration is up against. CNN corroborated yesterday that there are grand jury subpoenas for associates of Michael Flynn. https://cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/09/politics/grand-jury-fbi-russia/index.htmlThe man who first reported the existence of grand juries involving the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia is Claude Taylor, former White House staffer. He also named the EDVA district as the location of all those juries. Now MSM is confirming this. Mr. Taylor also reports now that there are 25 sealed indictments in EDVA. He also says that state AG Schneiderman will be bringing RICO charges as well against Donald Trump and the Trump Org, and there is no presidential pardon power for state level offenses. Your thoughts? You mean aside from "The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know?" There will be no coverup. Comey was heading the career FBI investigators that will find out the truth. Trump made bad staffing decisions and some former Trump associates made bad decisions. Frankly, if any of this is traceable to Trump it probably would've already been leaked, but I'm waiting for the investigation's conclusion. If some other state AG brings racketeering charges against Trump himself and Trump's company, that would be a new development and I'll follow it as details come out.
At this point the fact Trump and his friends are doing everything they can to derail the investigation or delay its findings and get in its way is whats going to end up bringing him down.
thats what happened to Nixon. For him it was the coverup
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On May 11 2017 00:47 warding wrote:I have no idea how to interpret this. The Russian foreign minister is upset/disappointed by the firing?
I can see 2 possibilities for that.
a) Russia is guilty and they think Comey is incompetent enough to not catch them.
-or-
b) Russia is innocent, to an extent, and they think Comey is competent enough to absolve them of collusion.
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On May 10 2017 17:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2017 17:38 LegalLord wrote:On May 10 2017 17:27 Slydie wrote:On May 10 2017 13:08 ChristianS wrote:On May 10 2017 10:17 xDaunt wrote:On May 10 2017 10:03 ChristianS wrote:On May 10 2017 09:47 xDaunt wrote:On May 10 2017 09:42 ChristianS wrote:
Serious question for those ITT who think Trump was justified on this one (so far, xDaunt and Danglars are in this category at least). What possible explanation is there for this happening right now? There's an ongoing investigation into matters that implicate Trump's campaign, and Comey is set to testify to Congress about the investigation tomorrow. All of the rationales for his firing offered by the administration are events from last year.
I figured the juicier allegations about Trump were probably false just because reality isn't usually that excitingk but I'm seriously wondering now, why would he do this if there wasn't something to hide? There are any number of reasons why Trump would get rid of Comey now, some of which are set forth in the letters attached to Trump's termination letter. I'm not going to pretend to know why Trump did it. However, I find it highly amusing that so many are jumping to the conclusion that Comey's termination is the product of some nefarious motive of Trump's to halt whatever investigation is going on into Trump's campaign or other affairs of his. If anything, I find this particular conclusion to be one of the hardest to believe. Trump simply isn't that stupid. Wait wait wait I need to walk through this one. You're starting from the assumption that Trump is smart. Because he's smart, he obviously knows that firing the FBI director in the middle of an ongoing investigation that implicates Trump is going to make everyone think he's guilty. If he was guilty, he would obviously never do that. So therefore Trump firing the FBI director in the middle of an ongoing investigation that implicates Trump clearly proves that he's not guilty. Did I miss any steps in that logic, or is that pretty much it? No, you pretty much have it backwards. There's a critical difference between presuming that someone is above a certain threshold of stupidity and then presuming that someone is smart. The logic is basically this: 1) Trump fired Comey either for a) legitimate reasons, or b) to cover up the investigation (an illegitimate reason). 2) Trump would only have reason to fire Comey to cover up the investigation if there was something to that investigation. 3) However, if there is something to the investigation, then firing Comey won't stop the investigation. 4) Only someone who is really stupid wouldn't understand Point 3 and would try to fire Comey to stop the investigation. 5) I find it highly unlikely that Trump is stupid enough to not understand Point 3. 6) For this reason, I think that it is more likely that than not that Trump fired Comey for legitimate reasons. Just wanted to make sure we weren't going full "this looks super incriminating, which is why he's OBVIOUSLY not guilty." Okay, so followup question. Nixon was happy to fire people investigating him to try to impede the investigation. Was Nixon too dumb to understand point 3? Shame on the Americans who voted for him. I hope you some day realize how much you have harmed your country. Don't let yourself forget the context under which Trump was elected. In a vacuum he is a completely and utterly terrible choice, that much is true. But in a vacuum the same thing could be said for all of his Republican opposition and his Democratic opponent. People were forced to make a choice that ended quite badly amongst a slew of choices, all of which would have ended badly. Quite simply, if not Trump then who would it be? Probably Hillary Clinton, who I'm sure you all would be ok with but whom most of the country very strongly dislikes. Voting Clinton was the least pleasant vote I cast in a long, long time. With such strong disdain even a dangerous fool seems like the "lesser evil" to too many people. A shitload of people voted Trump enthusiastically, said and repeated he was great and went to his meetings to chant "lock her up". And there are still many of them supporting him. I'm sick of blame deflection to anyone but the folks who voted for the guy. If I follow this thread, it's not Danglar, xDaunt and Biologymajor who are to blame for this shitshow, but the DNC or the liberal elites. What about blaming the guys who voted for that grotesque narcissistic batman villain?
Guess what? I'd still vote for Trump over Hillary Clinton. I'd still probably take him over the other republican candidates, too. No one who voted for Trump was under any delusion that they were voting for a paragon of virtue. Supporting Trump was about a combination of the ideas, the policies, and the desire to try something new given how rotten the GOP is. Nothing is going to change that calculation unless either a) it's shown that Trump really did do something illegal, or b) Trump abandons too much of the platform on which he ran. The latter possibility strikes me as being eminently more likely at this point.
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On May 11 2017 01:27 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 01:24 Danglars wrote:On May 11 2017 01:14 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On May 11 2017 01:06 Danglars wrote:The leaks here are pretty reassuring that any future coverup of the FBI's investigation of Trump's campaign aides will be immediately outed. Not my preferred reassurance but whatever. The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know. But these constitutional crisis deranged lunatics on the left are a good reminder for Americans what the Trump administration is up against. CNN corroborated yesterday that there are grand jury subpoenas for associates of Michael Flynn. https://cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/09/politics/grand-jury-fbi-russia/index.htmlThe man who first reported the existence of grand juries involving the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia is Claude Taylor, former White House staffer. He also named the EDVA district as the location of all those juries. Now MSM is confirming this. Mr. Taylor also reports now that there are 25 sealed indictments in EDVA. He also says that state AG Schneiderman will be bringing RICO charges as well against Donald Trump and the Trump Org, and there is no presidential pardon power for state level offenses. Your thoughts? You mean aside from "The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know?" There will be no coverup. Comey was heading the career FBI investigators that will find out the truth. Trump made bad staffing decisions and some former Trump associates made bad decisions. Frankly, if any of this is traceable to Trump it probably would've already been leaked, but I'm waiting for the investigation's conclusion. If some other state AG brings racketeering charges against Trump himself and Trump's company, that would be a new development and I'll follow it as details come out. At this point the fact Trump and his friends are doing everything they can to derail the investigation or delay its findings and get in its way is whats going to end up bringing him down. thats what happened to Nixon. For him it was the coverup
No, you're making unverified claims about what's happening right now. The investigation continues, or were you under the impression Comey was personally involved in impaneling grand juries and gathering evidence? Don't confuse your own frustration born out of irrational Trump hatred (or rational Trump hatred that's infected your consideration of current events) for actual proof of obstruction. You have no evidence and your suppositions are faulty.
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On May 11 2017 02:08 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 01:27 ZeromuS wrote:On May 11 2017 01:24 Danglars wrote:On May 11 2017 01:14 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On May 11 2017 01:06 Danglars wrote:The leaks here are pretty reassuring that any future coverup of the FBI's investigation of Trump's campaign aides will be immediately outed. Not my preferred reassurance but whatever. The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know. But these constitutional crisis deranged lunatics on the left are a good reminder for Americans what the Trump administration is up against. CNN corroborated yesterday that there are grand jury subpoenas for associates of Michael Flynn. https://cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/09/politics/grand-jury-fbi-russia/index.htmlThe man who first reported the existence of grand juries involving the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia is Claude Taylor, former White House staffer. He also named the EDVA district as the location of all those juries. Now MSM is confirming this. Mr. Taylor also reports now that there are 25 sealed indictments in EDVA. He also says that state AG Schneiderman will be bringing RICO charges as well against Donald Trump and the Trump Org, and there is no presidential pardon power for state level offenses. Your thoughts? You mean aside from "The investigation will continue apace and we'll find out if people like Flynn, Manafort, and Carter are guilty of more than we already know?" There will be no coverup. Comey was heading the career FBI investigators that will find out the truth. Trump made bad staffing decisions and some former Trump associates made bad decisions. Frankly, if any of this is traceable to Trump it probably would've already been leaked, but I'm waiting for the investigation's conclusion. If some other state AG brings racketeering charges against Trump himself and Trump's company, that would be a new development and I'll follow it as details come out. At this point the fact Trump and his friends are doing everything they can to derail the investigation or delay its findings and get in its way is whats going to end up bringing him down. thats what happened to Nixon. For him it was the coverup No, you're making unverified claims about what's happening right now. The investigation continues, or were you under the impression Comey was personally involved in impaneling grand juries and gathering evidence? Don't confuse your own frustration born out of irrational Trump hatred (or rational Trump hatred that's infected your consideration of current events) for actual proof of obstruction. You have no evidence and your suppositions are faulty.
Good luck convincing those on the left who are foaming at the mouth to get rid of Trump to actually consider the facts.
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On May 11 2017 01:59 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2017 17:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On May 10 2017 17:38 LegalLord wrote:On May 10 2017 17:27 Slydie wrote:On May 10 2017 13:08 ChristianS wrote:On May 10 2017 10:17 xDaunt wrote:On May 10 2017 10:03 ChristianS wrote:On May 10 2017 09:47 xDaunt wrote:On May 10 2017 09:42 ChristianS wrote:
Serious question for those ITT who think Trump was justified on this one (so far, xDaunt and Danglars are in this category at least). What possible explanation is there for this happening right now? There's an ongoing investigation into matters that implicate Trump's campaign, and Comey is set to testify to Congress about the investigation tomorrow. All of the rationales for his firing offered by the administration are events from last year.
I figured the juicier allegations about Trump were probably false just because reality isn't usually that excitingk but I'm seriously wondering now, why would he do this if there wasn't something to hide? There are any number of reasons why Trump would get rid of Comey now, some of which are set forth in the letters attached to Trump's termination letter. I'm not going to pretend to know why Trump did it. However, I find it highly amusing that so many are jumping to the conclusion that Comey's termination is the product of some nefarious motive of Trump's to halt whatever investigation is going on into Trump's campaign or other affairs of his. If anything, I find this particular conclusion to be one of the hardest to believe. Trump simply isn't that stupid. Wait wait wait I need to walk through this one. You're starting from the assumption that Trump is smart. Because he's smart, he obviously knows that firing the FBI director in the middle of an ongoing investigation that implicates Trump is going to make everyone think he's guilty. If he was guilty, he would obviously never do that. So therefore Trump firing the FBI director in the middle of an ongoing investigation that implicates Trump clearly proves that he's not guilty. Did I miss any steps in that logic, or is that pretty much it? No, you pretty much have it backwards. There's a critical difference between presuming that someone is above a certain threshold of stupidity and then presuming that someone is smart. The logic is basically this: 1) Trump fired Comey either for a) legitimate reasons, or b) to cover up the investigation (an illegitimate reason). 2) Trump would only have reason to fire Comey to cover up the investigation if there was something to that investigation. 3) However, if there is something to the investigation, then firing Comey won't stop the investigation. 4) Only someone who is really stupid wouldn't understand Point 3 and would try to fire Comey to stop the investigation. 5) I find it highly unlikely that Trump is stupid enough to not understand Point 3. 6) For this reason, I think that it is more likely that than not that Trump fired Comey for legitimate reasons. Just wanted to make sure we weren't going full "this looks super incriminating, which is why he's OBVIOUSLY not guilty." Okay, so followup question. Nixon was happy to fire people investigating him to try to impede the investigation. Was Nixon too dumb to understand point 3? Shame on the Americans who voted for him. I hope you some day realize how much you have harmed your country. Don't let yourself forget the context under which Trump was elected. In a vacuum he is a completely and utterly terrible choice, that much is true. But in a vacuum the same thing could be said for all of his Republican opposition and his Democratic opponent. People were forced to make a choice that ended quite badly amongst a slew of choices, all of which would have ended badly. Quite simply, if not Trump then who would it be? Probably Hillary Clinton, who I'm sure you all would be ok with but whom most of the country very strongly dislikes. Voting Clinton was the least pleasant vote I cast in a long, long time. With such strong disdain even a dangerous fool seems like the "lesser evil" to too many people. A shitload of people voted Trump enthusiastically, said and repeated he was great and went to his meetings to chant "lock her up". And there are still many of them supporting him. I'm sick of blame deflection to anyone but the folks who voted for the guy. If I follow this thread, it's not Danglar, xDaunt and Biologymajor who are to blame for this shitshow, but the DNC or the liberal elites. What about blaming the guys who voted for that grotesque narcissistic batman villain? Guess what? I'd still vote for Trump over Hillary Clinton. I'd still probably take him over the other republican candidates, too. No one who voted for Trump was under any delusion that they were voting for a paragon of virtue. Supporting Trump was about a combination of the ideas, the policies, and the desire to try something new given how rotten the GOP is. Nothing is going to change that calculation unless either a) it's shown that Trump really did do something illegal, or b) Trump abandons too much of the platform on which he ran. The latter possibility strikes me as being eminently more likely at this point.
I like how you leave no room for the quality of the job Trump is doing to change your support of Trump unless it's abandoning his campaign platforms. It lends a lot of credibility to the idea that you are just supporting what you think is best for the country.
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On May 11 2017 02:11 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2017 01:59 xDaunt wrote:On May 10 2017 17:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On May 10 2017 17:38 LegalLord wrote:On May 10 2017 17:27 Slydie wrote:On May 10 2017 13:08 ChristianS wrote:On May 10 2017 10:17 xDaunt wrote:On May 10 2017 10:03 ChristianS wrote:On May 10 2017 09:47 xDaunt wrote:On May 10 2017 09:42 ChristianS wrote:
Serious question for those ITT who think Trump was justified on this one (so far, xDaunt and Danglars are in this category at least). What possible explanation is there for this happening right now? There's an ongoing investigation into matters that implicate Trump's campaign, and Comey is set to testify to Congress about the investigation tomorrow. All of the rationales for his firing offered by the administration are events from last year.
I figured the juicier allegations about Trump were probably false just because reality isn't usually that excitingk but I'm seriously wondering now, why would he do this if there wasn't something to hide? There are any number of reasons why Trump would get rid of Comey now, some of which are set forth in the letters attached to Trump's termination letter. I'm not going to pretend to know why Trump did it. However, I find it highly amusing that so many are jumping to the conclusion that Comey's termination is the product of some nefarious motive of Trump's to halt whatever investigation is going on into Trump's campaign or other affairs of his. If anything, I find this particular conclusion to be one of the hardest to believe. Trump simply isn't that stupid. Wait wait wait I need to walk through this one. You're starting from the assumption that Trump is smart. Because he's smart, he obviously knows that firing the FBI director in the middle of an ongoing investigation that implicates Trump is going to make everyone think he's guilty. If he was guilty, he would obviously never do that. So therefore Trump firing the FBI director in the middle of an ongoing investigation that implicates Trump clearly proves that he's not guilty. Did I miss any steps in that logic, or is that pretty much it? No, you pretty much have it backwards. There's a critical difference between presuming that someone is above a certain threshold of stupidity and then presuming that someone is smart. The logic is basically this: 1) Trump fired Comey either for a) legitimate reasons, or b) to cover up the investigation (an illegitimate reason). 2) Trump would only have reason to fire Comey to cover up the investigation if there was something to that investigation. 3) However, if there is something to the investigation, then firing Comey won't stop the investigation. 4) Only someone who is really stupid wouldn't understand Point 3 and would try to fire Comey to stop the investigation. 5) I find it highly unlikely that Trump is stupid enough to not understand Point 3. 6) For this reason, I think that it is more likely that than not that Trump fired Comey for legitimate reasons. Just wanted to make sure we weren't going full "this looks super incriminating, which is why he's OBVIOUSLY not guilty." Okay, so followup question. Nixon was happy to fire people investigating him to try to impede the investigation. Was Nixon too dumb to understand point 3? Shame on the Americans who voted for him. I hope you some day realize how much you have harmed your country. Don't let yourself forget the context under which Trump was elected. In a vacuum he is a completely and utterly terrible choice, that much is true. But in a vacuum the same thing could be said for all of his Republican opposition and his Democratic opponent. People were forced to make a choice that ended quite badly amongst a slew of choices, all of which would have ended badly. Quite simply, if not Trump then who would it be? Probably Hillary Clinton, who I'm sure you all would be ok with but whom most of the country very strongly dislikes. Voting Clinton was the least pleasant vote I cast in a long, long time. With such strong disdain even a dangerous fool seems like the "lesser evil" to too many people. A shitload of people voted Trump enthusiastically, said and repeated he was great and went to his meetings to chant "lock her up". And there are still many of them supporting him. I'm sick of blame deflection to anyone but the folks who voted for the guy. If I follow this thread, it's not Danglar, xDaunt and Biologymajor who are to blame for this shitshow, but the DNC or the liberal elites. What about blaming the guys who voted for that grotesque narcissistic batman villain? Guess what? I'd still vote for Trump over Hillary Clinton. I'd still probably take him over the other republican candidates, too. No one who voted for Trump was under any delusion that they were voting for a paragon of virtue. Supporting Trump was about a combination of the ideas, the policies, and the desire to try something new given how rotten the GOP is. Nothing is going to change that calculation unless either a) it's shown that Trump really did do something illegal, or b) Trump abandons too much of the platform on which he ran. The latter possibility strikes me as being eminently more likely at this point. I like how you leave no room for the quality of the job Trump is doing to change your support of Trump unless it's abandoning his campaign platforms. It lends a lot of credibility to the idea that you are just supporting what you think is best for the country.
Why would I divorce the "quality of the job" from fulfilling campaign promises? During the campaign, Trump laid out not only specific planks of his platform, but also an overall philosophy of governance. If he adheres to those things, his supporters will almost necessarily think that he's doing a good job.
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EPT
