US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1137

On February 21 2019 17:21 Biff The Understudy wrote:

It’s a bit simplistic to attributes the opposition to Sanders to “billionaires” only. I remembered reading Krugman explaining for example that he thought his program was simply not serious, and that his numbers didn’t even start to add up. Considering what happened in Europe when populist left wing promising unicorns on the basis of flawed, wildly over optimistic numbers won, I would personally not support Sanders in a primary. When those people win, they damage the left for decades because they can’t deliver a fraction of their program and become « establishment » (read: living in the real world), which boomerangs badly.

The way I see it, Bernie wants the same thing than the rest of the democratic party, meaning a system looking a little bit more like Denmark, but adopts a confrontational, « revolutionary » and populist stance that revulses the moderates, just like the pragmatic, compromising, small step approach of the « establishment » revulses his supporters.

At one point all those people should realize that they need each other and are working towards the very same goal. But the left is gonna be the left, and the collosal stupidity of right wingers who still support a dangerous, morally bankrupt, megalomaniac and utterly incompetent moron after such a train wreck of two years, proves to be a decisive advantage, not for the country, but for the GOP.

On February 21 2019 19:11 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
I just fail to see how you can have lax immigration and better welfare to citizens at the same time.Better unemployment and other benefits may work if you had a wall and strong immigration policy, without that nothing is stopping millions of central americans moving up for the welfare.

It’s no coincidence that in 2015 when over a million refugees flooded Europe the small nation of Sweden took in the second largest number.Well, if you vote for those policies i just hope you don’t mind paying higher taxes.

On February 21 2019 13:40 Plansix wrote:
And we are back to the Republican filled FBI was biased against Trump from the start, despite the overwhelming evidence that the man is dripping with crime and grift.

On February 21 2019 19:59 iamthedave wrote:


Shrug. For all the dubious thinking behind it, Daunt's right that if Trump was going down we'd almost certainly know about it at this point. The final report is likely to be as damaging to his reputation - what little remains to damage - as the Clinton e-mail report was to her. It isn't going to land him in jail or see him ousted from the Presidency. At least... not directly.

On day three of a hearing meant to get to the bottom of an absentee ballot scheme in the as-yet-undecided U.S. House race in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District, Republican Mark Harris' son testified that he warned his father about the political operative at the investigation's center.

All eyes now are on Harris, who is expected to testify first thing Thursday morning about what he knew was going on in the eastern part of the 9th District, and when he knew it.

The State Board of Elections' investigation is centered on a political operative, McCrae Dowless, who was hired by Harris to get out the vote. A consultant testified that Dowless was paid roughly 5 percent of the Harris campaign's total expenditures over the course of the primary and general elections.

Investigators say Dowless' efforts went beyond what is legal in North Carolina, but Harris has said publicly a number of times that he knew nothing about any illegal activity being done on behalf of his campaign. Testimony by his own son on Wednesday calls those assertions into question.

Harris' son, John Harris, is an assistant U.S. attorney in North Carolina. He said Wednesday that he reviewed the 2016 primary results after Harris was defeated by incumbent Robert Pittenger.

He noticed oddities in vote-by-mail results in Bladen County, where the third-place finisher, Todd Johnson, won a near sweep of those ballots in the county. Dowless worked on behalf of Johnson in 2016.

John Harris then looked at publicly available data on when ballots were received and noticed that the absentee ballots were returned in "batches."

That led him to believe that someone was collecting ballots and turning them in.

"Did you talk about those concerns with Mark Harris?" asked Kim Strach, the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

"I did," said John Harris.

Investigators showed the board a number of emails John Harris exchanged with his father about absentee ballots in Bladen County, including an email in which he forwarded the specific North Carolina statute that forbids the collection of ballots.

John Harris said he did not think Dowless was honest about his tactics before Mark Harris decided to hire him.

"I had no reason to believe that my father or mother knew Dowless was doing the things that have been described [this week]," John Harris said. "I think they were lied to, and they believed the person who lied to them."

Dowless declined to testify on Monday unless the State Board of Elections provided him immunity from future prosecution. Board Chairman Robert Cordle said the board was not willing to provide that immunity.

On February 21 2019 19:59 iamthedave wrote:


Shrug. For all the dubious thinking behind it, Daunt's right that if Trump was going down we'd almost certainly know about it at this point. The final report is likely to be as damaging to his reputation - what little remains to damage - as the Clinton e-mail report was to her. It isn't going to land him in jail or see him ousted from the Presidency. At least... not directly.

On February 21 2019 20:05 Gorsameth wrote:
First off we likely wouldnt know about it because Mueller's team has not/barely leaked. Most of the leaks about the investigation came from Trump's side.
Secondly I thought it was clear that it was highly unlikely that Mueller would directly call for the President to be indited.

If Trump is going down as a result of the report its because it concludes he knew about/ordered a ton of illegal things going on in his campaign.
And even then it requires Republicans to join in which is highly unlikely regardless of how big and infallible the evidence might turn out to be.

On February 21 2019 23:26 ticklishmusic wrote:
The son emphasizes he doesn't think that his parents really knew (or they were willfully blind). But beyond that, there's written evidence he told his dad that this was a really bad idea and that this was potentially a felony.

I think we've hit the preponderance of evidence threshold here that Harris was up to some shit and not just another victim of a overzealous, crooked operative. IMO the seat should go to the Democrat.

On February 21 2019 23:50 xDaunt wrote:

The final report won’t damage Trump. To the extent that any portion of it sees the light of day beyond Barr, it will merely be a statement saying no collusion/crime or something to that effect. What has been damaging to Trump is all of speculation and innuendo that has been in the media for more than two years. That damage is not easily remedied.