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On June 10 2017 00:19 pmh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2017 23:48 KwarK wrote:
They're still looking for a way to ditch Trump but keep the voters he brought into the party. Yes, I imagine this being a big issue for the republicans. The stuff brought up so far is far from enough to push those people away I think. There needs to be a scandal or event that hurts many of the ordinary people or something very appalling. All this rusian stuff is a bit to vague,the man in the street probably sees it as the usual political bickering that they hate so much already. A sharp economic downturn could do the job. http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-rogers-worst-crash-lifetime-coming-2017-6?international=true&r=US&IR=TBut as much as I appreciate jim rogers as a financial expert,the track record of his predictions (like a complete collapse of the Eurozone) is not that great over the past few years. I do think he is right with his bubble but timing is everything,for all you know it could last for another 4 years as well.
I doubt there is anything that can be done to dislodge trump from his core of supporters. They believe in his personality, not what he does, and they have painted the opposition with such a harsh brush that regardless of what happens (unless its caught on video tape specifically) many will pass it off as a set up by the left or MSM.
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United States41117 Posts
If one good outcome comes out of these four years is that hopefully the Religious right is finally destroyed.
Evangelicals know Trump is a liar. They just don’t care.As former FBI Director James Comey repeatedly called President Donald Trump a liar, Trump decided to prove him right. In a speech that neatly coincided with Comey’s long-awaited Senate hearing, Trump preened and crowed in front of a rapt audience at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual luncheon. The speech itself? Anti-climactic. He played all the old favorites—a little bit of blood-and-soil, some exaggerated claims about the Johnson Amendment, a dash of persecution complex—and then proceeded to repeatedly violate the Ninth Commandment.
He said he’s added one million jobs to the economy. (False. CNN Money says the number is actually 594,000.) He claimed that insurance companies are fleeing the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges and blaming former President Barack Obama. (Half-true: Companies are pulling out of the exchanges, but they’re blaming the Trump administration’s policies.) He blamed Democrats for the vacancies in his administration. (False: The vacancies exist mainly because he’s been slow to put forward nominees.) He said that Ben Franklin reminded members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to begin their sessions with prayer. This story is beloved by religious right partisans like David Barton, but it is also only half-true. Franklin made a motion to hold prayer, but it was never voted on.
This is the part where people point and laugh at evangelicals. It’s tempting. They seem like easy marks for a con like Donald Trump. But they’re in on the con. Trump wasn’t even the first self-identified Christian to lie at today’s event. Senator David Perdue of Georgia claimed that the U.S. poverty rate is “the same today” as it was when President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty, thus proving that big government doesn’t work. But this is a lie. The poverty rate was 19 percent in 1964 and it’s 13.5 percent now.
Evangelical activists are fine with Trump’s lies because they grasp the bargain they’ve made for power. Today’s godly lunch-eaters applauded our withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement; they clapped for Senator Ted Cruz when he promised them a flat tax and the end of the IRS. This has never been about the Bible, not entirely. Lies aren’t even the most disturbing facet of today’s luncheon. That honor goes to the speech delivered by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who recounted the biblical tale of David’s successful sneak attack on Jerusalem. The message, he told listeners, is that outright belligerence isn’t necessary. You don’t need to file lawsuits; often, legal demand letters will do the trick.
You don’t have to rewrite the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in order to destroy the separation of church and state. You can pick away at it instead, brick by dusty brick. You can lie. And your enemies will be so busy laughing at you, they won’t even realize what you’ve done.
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On June 10 2017 00:17 Doodsmack wrote:
If there was a third Sessions meeting, he's done. And that's very bad for Trump, and I think Trump knows it, or Sessions would already be gone.
come on, you can't possibly think in the face of all that has happened that this actually means anything?
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On June 10 2017 00:19 pmh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2017 23:48 KwarK wrote:
They're still looking for a way to ditch Trump but keep the voters he brought into the party. Yes, I imagine this being a big issue for the republicans. The stuff brought up so far is far from enough to push those people away I think. There needs to be a scandal or event that hurts many of the ordinary people or something very appalling.All this rusian stuff is a bit to vague,the man in the street probably sees it as the usual political bickering that they hate so much already. A sharp economic downturn could do the job. http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-rogers-worst-crash-lifetime-coming-2017-6?international=true&r=US&IR=TBut as much as I appreciate jim rogers as a financial expert,the track record of his predictions (like a complete collapse of the Eurozone) is not that great over the past few years. I do think he is right with his bubble but timing is everything,for all you know it could last for another 4 years as well.
You do remember this is the guy who got elected after people heard (from his own mouth) he grabs random women by their genitals because he can?
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I always thought it was a bit strange that in America the religious support Donald Trump, a man who seem to lack any morals whatsoever.
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United States41470 Posts
Trump is more accurately described as what happens when you go past not having any morals at all and come out the other side. Moral and amoral aren't opposites, it goes moral, amoral, immoral. He's actively immoral.
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On June 10 2017 00:31 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
I always thought it was a bit strange that in America the religious support Donald Trump, a man who seem to lack any morals whatsoever.
yeah, it is rather strange; shows how hypocritical they are and how little their morals actually mean to them.
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On June 10 2017 00:17 Doodsmack wrote:
If there was a third Sessions meeting, he's done. And that's very bad for Trump, and I think Trump knows it, or Sessions would already be gone.
Yesterday someone from the admin said Sessions has Trump's full confidence, so it's really only a matter of time until he's gone.
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On June 10 2017 00:31 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
I always thought it was a bit strange that in America the religious support Donald Trump, a man who seem to lack any morals whatsoever.
They do not require some level of purity or morality to cast their vote. They are in it for the long game and have been for almost two decades. If they can stack the Supreme Court with judges they think will overturn Roe or limit gay marriage, Trump is a small price to pay. This is the main reason why they have been crushing the far left in elections. The GOP couldn’t rid of them in they wanted to.
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United States41117 Posts
Their called baby boomers who are selfish but also "religious".
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On June 10 2017 00:28 brian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2017 00:17 Doodsmack wrote:
If there was a third Sessions meeting, he's done. And that's very bad for Trump, and I think Trump knows it, or Sessions would already be gone. come on, you can't possibly think in the face of all that has happened that this actually means anything?
It's the same type of thing Flynn was fired for. Lying about these Russian meetings makes them look guilty af. A 3rd meeting would come dangerously close to perjury, since Sessions has even clarified in writing AFTER his Congressional testimony that he met with Kislyak twice.
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On June 10 2017 00:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Their called baby boomers who are selfish but also "religious".
You expect me to believe Jesus would vote in favor of paying higher taxes for the sake of helping the poor have access to health care? That doesn't sound like Jesus at all. He was more of a boot strap every man for himself kinda anarchist.
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Considering that the memo's were carefully constructed to not contain any classified information I wish Trump the best of luck with that.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/06/09/theres-no-indication-comey-violated-the-law-trump-may-be-about-to/?utm_term=.b651ba34a1b7
President Trump’s declaration that the Thursday testimony of former FBI director James B. Comey was a “total and complete vindication” despite “so many false statements and lies” was the sort of brashly triumphant and loosely-grounded-in-reality statement we’ve come to expect from the commander in chief. It was news that came out a bit later, news about plans to file a complaint against Comey for a revelation he made during that Senate Intelligence Committee hearing meeting, that may end up being more damaging to the president.
CNN and Fox first reported that Trump’s outside counsel, Marc Kasowitz, plans to file complaints with the inspector general of the Justice Department and the Senate Judiciary Committee about Comey’s testimony. At issue was Comey’s revelation that he provided a memo documenting a conversation with Trump to a friend to be shared with the New York Times.
As the news broke, I was on the phone with Stephen Kohn, partner at a law firm focused on whistleblower protection. We’d been talking about where the boundaries lay for Comey in what he could and couldn’t do with the information about his conversations with the president. Kohn’s response to the story about Kasowitz, though, was visceral.
“Here is my position on that: Frivolous grandstanding,” he said. “First of all, I don’t believe the inspector general would have jurisdiction over Comey any more, because he’s no longer a federal employee.” The inspector general’s job is to investigate wrongdoing by employees of the Justice Department, of which Comey is no longer, thanks to Trump.
“But, second,” he continued, “initiating an investigation because you don’t like somebody’s testimony could be considered obstruction. And in the whistleblower context, it’s both evidence of retaliation and, under some laws, could be an adverse retaliatory act itself.”
In other words, Comey, here, is an employee who is blowing the whistle, to use the idiom, on his former boss. That boss wants to punish him for doing so. That’s problematic — especially if there’s no evidence that Comey actually violated any law that would trigger punishment.
This is where my original line of inquiry to Kohn comes back into play.
Comey testified under oath that, following a conversation with Trump in the Oval Office, he wrote a memo documenting what was said. Last month, he provided that memo to a friend and asked that it be shared with the New York Times.
That, as described, is not illegal, Kohn said.
“Obviously you can report on a conversation with the president,” he said. “What the president does isn’t confidential or classified.” There is the principle of “executive privilege,” which protects the president’s deliberative process as he does his job. But that wouldn’t cover a conversation like the one between Comey and Trump.
In a piece he wrote for The Post on Thursday, Kohn described a 2003 case involving Robert MacLean, an air marshal who was fired for leaking information about a Homeland Security Department decision. That case established a relevant precedent for the Comey question. The Supreme Court determined that the DHS rule prohibiting leaks was insufficient cause for firing in the whistleblower context, since it wasn’t a law. By extension, even if Trump tried to argue that Comey violated executive privilege, that, too, is not codified in law.
If the information in that memo Comey gave to his friend was classified, the situation changes. But in his testimony, Comey described how he protected classified information in memos he wrote documenting conversations. There’s no indication, despite Trump’s lawyer’s cleverly worded statement on Thursday, that Comey crossed that important legal line.
Comey gave nonclassified notes about a conversation he had with the president to a friend with the express purpose of releasing that information to the media. In Kohn’s eyes, there’s nothing remotely illegal about that — making the new “frivolous grandstanding” from Kasowitz particularly problematic.
“The constitutional right to go to the press with information on matters of public concern, as long as you’re not doing it in a way that will bring out classified information,” Kohn said, “the reason why that is protected constitutionally is that the courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — have ruled that the public has a constitutional right to hear this information.” In other words, it’s constitutionally protected speech.
Trying to get DOJ to go after Comey –a material witness– over "leak" is yet more obstruction of Justice.
— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) June 9, 2017
It’s also worth noting that Trump’s tweeted attacks on the veracity of Comey’s testimony are also unlikely to bear much fruit. Making a mistake in testimony is not in itself illegal. When Comey made such a mistake last month, the FBI corrected his statement after the fact. Perjury requires a demonstration of intent, that the person meant to lie. That would be a difficult case to make legally.
We can safely assume, though, that Trump’s team is aware that Comey likely didn’t violate any laws, and that they are simply using these arguments as a tool for undermining the parts of his testimony that they didn’t like. How they’re doing it, though, could make their problems worse.
Kohn summarized the new minefield into which Trump and his lawyer might be walking.
“They know that they’re not going to get anything out of Comey on this, because there’s no evidence,” he added. “But they’re clearly trying to create a chilling effect. Not a chilling effect on classified information. … This is a chilling effect on people not to talk about conversations they had with the president that are not classified as a matter of law.”
“That is illegal,” he said. “That is unconstitutional.”
An interesting article about the claim yesterday that Trump's lawyer might bring a complaint against Comey due to leaking the non-classified memo. It is interesting to read because these are Trump's standard tactics from the business world. If someone takes a shot at Trump, Trump hits back twice as hard and maybe files a lawsuit. But that tactic only works as a private citizen. We will see if he follows through, but my bet is someone will hit the breaks on this.
As always, its isn't the crime, it is the cover up. Nixon had this problem. Bill Clinton had this problem. It is so tempting to use the office of the president to defend yourself, but that only creates more problems.
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You should stop viewing the religious right as some sort of religious organization. They value patriarchal values of men leading the household and women having a place in society that is different and subordinate to men. Trump embodies patriarchal values in the extreme. He does whatever he wants with women and the women in his life say yes or they are exiled. He keeps the children as his own unless they are disloyal (Tiffany Trump). In that light, the Religious Right has every reason to support Trump. The morality stuff was always just a cudgel to be used against either non-patriarchal men or women who didn't follow their directions.
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On June 10 2017 01:09 Wulfey_LA wrote:
You should stop viewing the religious right as some sort of religious organization. They value patriarchal values of men leading the household and women having a place in society that is different and subordinate to men. Trump embodies patriarchal values in the extreme. He does whatever he wants with women and the women in his life say yes or they are exiled. He keeps the children as his own unless they are disloyal (Tiffany Trump). In that light, the Religious Right has every reason to support Trump. The morality stuff was always just a cudgel to be used against either non-patriarchal men or women who didn't follow their directions.
I saw a lot of women defending Trump's grabbing comments as "normal" and "what all men do" on Facebook. It was super creepy to realize there are entire sub-societies in our country that see sexual assault as just kind of a normal thing that men do because men are built differently than women. They really do accept this idea that men can't control themselves sometimes and will assault women. They don't blame the men.
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On June 10 2017 01:11 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2017 01:09 Wulfey_LA wrote:
You should stop viewing the religious right as some sort of religious organization. They value patriarchal values of men leading the household and women having a place in society that is different and subordinate to men. Trump embodies patriarchal values in the extreme. He does whatever he wants with women and the women in his life say yes or they are exiled. He keeps the children as his own unless they are disloyal (Tiffany Trump). In that light, the Religious Right has every reason to support Trump. The morality stuff was always just a cudgel to be used against either non-patriarchal men or women who didn't follow their directions. I saw a lot of women defending Trump's grabbing comments as "normal" and "what all men do" on Facebook. It was super creepy to realize there are entire sub-societies in our country that see sexual assault as just kind of a normal thing that men do because men are built differently than women. They really do accept this idea that men can't control themselves sometimes and will assault women.
Look at every single fancy, rich, and vain televangelist. They have harems of women. The sexuality morality stuff was always a stupid ruse to club outsiders and women that didn't follow their in-group male instruction.
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On June 09 2017 22:10 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2017 14:42 Danglars wrote:On June 09 2017 14:20 ChristianS wrote:
Here's where I think conservatives are crazy to be celebrating about the hearings: their cause for celebration is that we didn't see smoking gun evidence of collusion or obstruction of justice. That's an insanely low bar. It wasn't even that the accusations were dropped or disproven. We know pretty much the same stuff we knew before, but some stuff we know more certainly (i.e. confirmed directly from Comey rather than anonymous sources), some stuff we know in more detail (e.g. "honest loyalty"), and some more explosive allegations didn't happen (e.g. "Comey sez Trump threatened his wife if he didn't burn the evidence"). If anyone thought this would be resolved after today, they were wrong.
If Trump's guilty, that's very good news for Trump. If he's not, that's bad news for Trump. Because if it was resolved, he could put this behind him, but with the water still murky, this promises to drag on a great deal longer. Liberals and some conservatives will say there's enough evidence of wrongdoing, conservatives will say there's not, and the stalemate will lead to more investigation, which will mean it will return to the foreground again and again and again.
It's like the emails last year. It wasn't just about how bad the scandal was, it was the longevity of the story. That one scandal dominated coverage for basically the entire year, whereas a lot of other big scandals fell out of the news cycle and didn't have such a big impact on the election. The Khan thing, Judge Curiel, even the Access Hollywood tape had a big impact on the polls when they landed, and then faded away, whereas the emails kept coming up again and again (with one last hit in the form of the Comey letter).
That's what this scandal is for Trump - and with Comey's testimony, he can't even deflect to criticizing the media at the moment. His accuser is James Comey, who's got about as good a reputation as anybody can have right now. Trump's advocates aren't even bothering to argue why what he did was good or just or proper. The best they can argue is that based solely on the actions described Trump can't quite be convicted of a felony. Yes this is celebrating with a very low bar. Quick reminder that even his supporters in this thread have very little good to hope for from the man (on the whole), so I'll take the good I can get. A lot of that is at the margins ... I'll break out the good stuff if he doesn't squander this in tweeting by the end of the week. if you have little hope, wouldn't it be better to just invoke article 25 and remove him, so you can have Pence who can get in some actual progress for your goals?
The 25th amendment (the relevant part of that amendment) should only serve for medical incapacitation e.g. stroke and not a political device.
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On June 10 2017 01:11 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2017 01:09 Wulfey_LA wrote:
You should stop viewing the religious right as some sort of religious organization. They value patriarchal values of men leading the household and women having a place in society that is different and subordinate to men. Trump embodies patriarchal values in the extreme. He does whatever he wants with women and the women in his life say yes or they are exiled. He keeps the children as his own unless they are disloyal (Tiffany Trump). In that light, the Religious Right has every reason to support Trump. The morality stuff was always just a cudgel to be used against either non-patriarchal men or women who didn't follow their directions. I saw a lot of women defending Trump's grabbing comments as "normal" and "what all men do" on Facebook. It was super creepy to realize there are entire sub-societies in our country that see sexual assault as just kind of a normal thing that men do because men are built differently than women. They really do accept this idea that men can't control themselves sometimes and will assault women. They don't blame the men.
I would not call them sub-societies. That sort of thinking is far more common that people would like to believe.
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