US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8295

On August 04 2017 01:26 LegalLord wrote:

I will defend it as an unfortunate cynicism of how relations have evolved such that the best way to act in the interest of Russia is with active involvement in the elections of others. But you are rather selective in the way you look at foreign events if you think Russia is the only one or if you take the "it's only ok if it happens in countries that don't matter" approach to it all.
I know that it's tempting and easy to take a "everyone who disagrees with me is just a Putin bot" approach to that criticism. But it doesn't do you any favors to do so.

On August 04 2017 02:17 IgnE wrote:


and andrew jackson dealt with those issues in similar contexts of course. thats why he's the "same"

im not sure you are understanding my point here. equating andrew jackson and trump without further discriminating analysis, subtlety, or qualification is like lying on a hill and telling us what you think that cloud looks like. its fine as an idle pasttime but irresponsible and lazy in any other discussion

On August 03 2017 23:55 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I am actually positively surprised by those phonecalls. Was expecting worse. Obviously Trump has set a terribly low bar for himself for me to feel that way..

On August 04 2017 02:41 KwarK wrote:

I dunno. The Australian one felt more embarrassing than pretty much anything from the Obama era. Trump whinging for a while about an agreement that was already signed until he got interrupted by Turnbull pretty much saying "Okay, you done crying? Because you are going to honour this." and Trump responding "Yes daddy ". Then Turnbull asks if Trump wants to talk about anything that actually matters, like North Korea or Syria, and Trump says that Putin always gets what he wants when he asks for things and it's not fair.

On August 04 2017 03:00 Mohdoo wrote:
I think it is very important to recognize how thrashed Trump got in both these talks. He gets tossed around like a hunk of beef.

On August 04 2017 02:27 Plansix wrote:

What about this thread makes you think that it is anything more than an idle pass time? I could go into detail after work if someone asked, but the topic has been discussed before by most of the regulars in this thread. I am not paid for this and I'm not going to write a full essay on the topic in a thread filled with twitter posts dealing with the daily news.

On August 04 2017 03:32 IgnE wrote:


yeah you arent going to go into "a full essay" on the topic you just post twitter-worthy banalities a million times a day. you want to participate in the discourse but dont want any responsibility for your deluge of cliches. and in fact when anyone tries to engage you you simply drift off into non sequiturs such that its not even clear you are attempting to understand the conversation. do i have to go back and collect a representative sample of your thread tweets bemoaning the decay of public discourse and/or the decline of public media and/or the perpetuation of "historical myths?"

sometimes im not sure you would pass a turing test

On August 04 2017 04:14 Sadist wrote:
Is it normal for transcripts like this to be made public? Seems odd to me if it is.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase, according to people familiar with the matter.

The grand jury, which began its work in recent weeks, is a sign that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry is ramping up and that it will likely continue for months. Mr. Mueller is investigating Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether President Donald Trump’s campaign or associates colluded with the Kremlin as part of that effort.

A spokesman for Mr. Mueller, Joshua Stueve, declined to comment. Moscow has denied seeking to influence the election, and Mr. Trump has vigorously disputed allegations of collusion. The president has called Mr. Mueller’s inquiry a “witch hunt.”

Ty Cobb, special counsel to the president, said he wasn’t aware that Mr. Mueller had started using a new grand jury. “Grand jury matters are typically secret,” Mr. Cobb said. “The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly.…The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr. Mueller.”

As Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller investigates alleged Russian ties to the Trump presidential campaign, the White House and some Republicans in Congress are calling for a second investigation.

The proposed target is a retired woman living in a small town in New York's Hudson Valley: Hillary Clinton.

Washington University law professor Kathleen Clark, who focuses on legal and governmental ethics, says these calls for an investigation of Clinton — long after her political defeat — fall far outside American political norms.

Traditionally, losing candidates are left alone after the election.

With this effort to pursue Clinton, "I'd say that the norms are under significant pressure," Clark said.

The demands to investigate go back to the heat of the 2016 race, when GOP candidate Donald Trump routinely referred to his Democratic rival as "crooked Hillary."

On the campaign trail, he made a prediction: "She's likely to be under investigation for criminality for a very, very long time to come."

During his campaign events, crowds chanted, "Lock her up!" The idea was that Clinton may have violated some laws related to her use of a private email server while she was U.S. secretary of state. (Just before Election Day last year, the FBI reaffirmed its decision not to pursue charges against Clinton over the email server.)

After Trump won, he told The New York Times that he didn't want to hurt the Clintons.

But as the weeks and months went by, more and more questions were raised about the Trump campaign's possible connections to Russian operatives and oligarchs.

As Mueller's investigation of those allegations has intensified, Trump has stepped up his tweeting about what he has called "Hillary Clinton crimes."

And White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters this week that investigators have been looking at the wrong issue as they probe a 2016 meeting involving Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a lawyer who Trump Jr. had been told would have information from Russia that would damage the Clinton campaign.

"If you want to talk further about a relationship with Russia, look no further than the Clintons, as we've said time and time again," Sanders said.

The White House message is reverberating on Capitol Hill. Most of the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee last week signed a letter asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to name another special counsel — this one to investigate Clinton.

The committee's Republicans are united in another bid for Justice Department documents on Clinton and a list of other former officials, including Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI Director James Comey and, as the committee put it, "possible Hillary Clinton co-conspirators."

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said during the committee debate last week, "If it's in the public interest to investigate the Trump administration, it is most certainly in the public interest to investigate the real crimes by the real criminals."

But the calls for law enforcement probes of a defeated candidate may be unprecedented.

"I can't really think of any previous experience to compare it to," said Daniel Feller, a presidential historian at the University of Tennessee. As a specialist in Andrew Jackson's presidency, he knows a lot about partisan conflicts in American politics.

It's rare to see candidates re-fighting an election, he said, but this is particularly odd because "it's the winners who want to re-fight it."

Clark, the law professor, said of the calls for a Clinton investigation, "I think it puts the democracy at risk." She added, "It's improper to use the investigative authorities of the state as a raw political tool."

She noted that President Richard Nixon tried to get the FBI and Internal Revenue Service to investigate his political rivals. The House Judiciary Committee put that abuse of power in the articles of impeachment against Nixon.

On August 04 2017 04:50 Plansix wrote:


Source

I’m concerned that this will never stop. That the investigative powers of congress will be used to discredit political opponents endlessly. Or they will revive old investigations to cover up for their own parties failings. But mostly I don’t think it is healthy to be investigating the losers of elections, regardless of party.