Now that we have a new thread, 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 complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
So to the people who are concerned Trump people may have been spied on when they shouldn't have been:
I can truly say with no hesitation, I would support this same thing happening to democrats. If a democrat wins in 2020, I want Mueller's office to become a permanent part of our government where all his team does is investigate the current administration. Look into taxes, relations, business partnerships, everything of the executive branch.
What I keep not understanding is: Why would it be so bad if the FBI was a little overly paranoid? If there was a slight bit of smoke, why not go check if there is a fire? These people serve unbelievably important roles and we should WANT them to be under extreme scrutiny. Being an elected official should mean standards are HIGHER than average people, not equal, and definitely not lower.
It feels like people up in arms over the potential that someone got overly investigated are some weird form of offended by it, as if it is some kind of disrespect to be investigated. It is madness. We should never, ever just trust our elected officials to be good people. We have been shown that isn't the case too many times. We need oversight. Oversight can be effective. Its not like the entire idea of oversight is always going to be partisan so we may as well just not do it. We should always be striving for really, really high levels of oversight.
Fundamentally, I believe being a public servant should mean sacrificing a lot of your privacy. It is an honor to serve and many would leap at the opportunity despite the oversight. The fact that some fat cat CEOs are turned off by oversight is a FEATURE, not a bug of an effective government.
On April 11 2019 04:33 IyMoon wrote: Something tells me when this new Bar investigation finds nothing wrong, xDaunt is going to have serious problems with how it was conducted
Yup and the loop begins anew. It's the song that never doesn't ends at this point imo
Nah, the smart money is on the bad guys who were at the FBI/DOJ/CIA getting prosecuted. Hannity, who has been way ahead of most everyone on this and is obviously getting information directly from the White House, has been assuring it publicly.
You're citing Hannity unironically (I vaguely remember even you thinking he was a clown but I could be wrong) and arguing powerful people will be held accountable.
On the off chance your right, it will be perceived by about half the country as essentially a coup and the precipitation of responses will likely lead to civil war imo.
Hannity is a dunce, but he is an honest dunce. But more to the point, I have been paying attention to his reporting on this Russia stuff for a very long time. I'll just tell you that Hannity knows what's up. Someone in the Trump administration is feeding him information just as someone in the know has been feeding certain reporters such as John Solomon. But you are right that the reaction to those charges will be interesting to watch.
Hannity. Honest?
You can probably find a 6000 page long summery of all the dishonest shit he has said in just the last decade.
No.
I just feel like his main goal in this discussion is to gaslight the fuck out of everyone in it.
No, not quite. The point (whether he's aware or not) is to lead us toward chaotic conflict where no one (but those you agree with) can be trusted imo.
Here's the big question in my mind: to what extent is the press going to survive as it exists today given what might be coming? The American public -- particularly conservatives -- is already very distrustful of the media. The rest of the public is largely primed for disillusionment given all of the talk about "fake news" over the past couple of years.
Now, looking at the current press landscape as it pertains to the Mueller investigation and the investigation of Trump, the press is very clearly way out on the polarized limb of "Mueller and the FBI/DOJ are righteous, Trump needs to be investigated." Very little credence has been given by the mainstream press to the possibility that there is a big problem in the FBI/DOJ (and potentially elsewhere). What happens when Trump releases the full FISA applications thereby fully exposing those problems?
And here's the real kicker: we already know from documents released that the press is implicated in this mess. Not only are there the text messages between Strzok and Page openly discussing the media leak strategy, but we also know from the information about the FISA applications already released that the FBI, when applying for the FISA warrants, cited to press articles containing the information that was almost certainly leaked by Strzok and Page. In other words, the FBI relied upon the press articles to buttress the credibility of the faulty evidence that the FBI had (namely the Steele dossier), nevermind that the press wasn't providing any new evidence. Stated another way, the press was an accessory to whatever bad acts occurred with the FISA applications. Being involved in this, even if its indirectly and unintentionally, isn't going to help the media regain its credibility.
Of course, all of this is contingent upon the declassification of the FISA application showing that there was no other basis for the warrant other than the Steele dossier.
Looks fairly prescient now, eh?
tbf I expressed my concern and surprise at how quickly people tossed basic expectations of journalism at the time as well as the unwise choice of trusting Mueller, the FBI, or the system at large to hold itself accountable.
Just as I am now in your faith in Hannity and Trump to handle this in a way that doesn't lead to something worse than they are confronting.
There's a lot of isolation and echo chambering going on, as well as tech and algo's amplifying the effect leading to various things that seem obvious being surprises for others much later. The right and the FBI and the left and the weaknesses of norms and our systems are examples imo.
On April 11 2019 05:46 Mohdoo wrote: So to the people who are concerned Trump people may have been spied on when they shouldn't have been:
I can truly say with no hesitation, I would support this same thing happening to democrats. If a democrat wins in 2020, I want Mueller's office to become a permanent part of our government where all his team does is investigate the current administration. Look into taxes, relations, business partnerships, everything of the executive branch.
What I keep not understanding is: Why would it be so bad if the FBI was a little overly paranoid? If there was a slight bit of smoke, why not go check if there is a fire? These people serve unbelievably important roles and we should WANT them to be under extreme scrutiny. Being an elected official should mean standards are HIGHER than average people, not equal, and definitely not lower.
It feels like people up in arms over the potential that someone got overly investigated are some weird form of offended by it, as if it is some kind of disrespect to be investigated. It is madness. We should never, ever just trust our elected officials to be good people. We have been shown that isn't the case too many times. We need oversight. Oversight can be effective. Its not like the entire idea of oversight is always going to be partisan so we may as well just not do it. We should always be striving for really, really high levels of oversight.
Fundamentally, I believe being a public servant should mean sacrificing a lot of your privacy. It is an honor to serve and many would leap at the opportunity despite the oversight. The fact that some fat cat CEOs are turned off by oversight is a FEATURE, not a bug of an effective government.
The FBI works under the supervision of our elected officials, not the other way around. We don’t need a repeat of Hoover. If we need better governance over the executive branch, congress can do it as the entire system is designed.
Spying on citizens should just be for extreme circumstances.
The former way this was abused was anti-war and pro-communism figures getting wiretaps and tails and sometimes threats. I don’t want my government operatives, entrusted with the awesome power of the intelligence department, making a determination on “smoke.” One guy thinks your praise of Fidel Castro is enough smoke. The next guy has the idea that your foreign policy towards China is too dovish, so he suspects that you’re compromised/colluding. Suspicion is not enough. You must document more than smoke and hunch, and that’s precisely where xDaunt has been hitting on conflicting testimony.
I really doubt anyone will take this seriously unless the Trump administration does the same thing to a new Democratic campaign/administration. Embroils them in an investigation and subpoenas and selective leaks that cripple the first two years of the next president. I’m very serious about this. Partisans here are refusing to let go of the Russian collusion, even if it means sounding absolutely foolish about Barr/Rosenstein/Mueller.
On April 11 2019 05:59 Danglars wrote: Spying on citizens should just be for extreme circumstances.
The former way this was abused was anti-war and pro-communism figures getting wiretaps and tails and sometimes threats. I don’t want my government operatives, entrusted with the awesome power of the intelligence department, making a determination on “smoke.” One guy thinks your praise of Fidel Castro is enough smoke. The next guy has the idea that your foreign policy towards China is too dovish, so he suspects that you’re compromised/colluding. Suspicion is not enough. You must document more than smoke and hunch, and that’s precisely where xDaunt has been hitting on conflicting testimony.
I really doubt anyone will take this seriously unless the Trump administration does the same thing to a new Democratic campaign/administration. Embroils them in an investigation and subpoenas and selective leaks that cripple the first two years of the next president. I’m very serious about this. Partisans here are refusing to let go of the Russian collusion, even if it means sounding absolutely foolish about Barr/Rosenstein/Mueller.
I... uh... did we get to the point where Danglars is defending Communists 1st amendment and Mohdoo is trying to resurrect Hoover?
Its all on brand. Mohdoo has a lot of faith in institutions and Danglers is all about the first amendment. Both to a bit of a fault. But none of us be perfect.
On April 11 2019 05:46 Mohdoo wrote: So to the people who are concerned Trump people may have been spied on when they shouldn't have been:
I can truly say with no hesitation, I would support this same thing happening to democrats. If a democrat wins in 2020, I want Mueller's office to become a permanent part of our government where all his team does is investigate the current administration. Look into taxes, relations, business partnerships, everything of the executive branch.
What I keep not understanding is: Why would it be so bad if the FBI was a little overly paranoid? If there was a slight bit of smoke, why not go check if there is a fire? These people serve unbelievably important roles and we should WANT them to be under extreme scrutiny. Being an elected official should mean standards are HIGHER than average people, not equal, and definitely not lower.
It feels like people up in arms over the potential that someone got overly investigated are some weird form of offended by it, as if it is some kind of disrespect to be investigated. It is madness. We should never, ever just trust our elected officials to be good people. We have been shown that isn't the case too many times. We need oversight. Oversight can be effective. Its not like the entire idea of oversight is always going to be partisan so we may as well just not do it. We should always be striving for really, really high levels of oversight.
Fundamentally, I believe being a public servant should mean sacrificing a lot of your privacy. It is an honor to serve and many would leap at the opportunity despite the oversight. The fact that some fat cat CEOs are turned off by oversight is a FEATURE, not a bug of an effective government.
The FBI works under the supervision of our elected officials, not the other way around. We don’t need a repeat of Hoover. If we need better governance over the executive branch, congress can do it as the entire system is designed.
It doesn't need to be a 1 or a 0. We can have better oversight without repeating Hoover. Manafort and Flynn were rotten and needed to go down. They should not have been anywhere near the jobs they had. I want a system in place that prevents Manafort and Flynn from ever being in the positions they were in.
It is very important that we keep in mind Flynn and Manafort had plenty of involvement before being yanked. In an ideal world, they never would have made it as far as they did. Our methods of protecting the full integrity of our elections failed us because bad people became powerful. Our goal is always to prevent that from happening. We may not be able to get every single one, but it should be every voter's intention to prevent another Flynn from happening.
On April 11 2019 05:59 Danglars wrote: Spying on citizens should just be for extreme circumstances.
The former way this was abused was anti-war and pro-communism figures getting wiretaps and tails and sometimes threats. I don’t want my government operatives, entrusted with the awesome power of the intelligence department, making a determination on “smoke.” One guy thinks your praise of Fidel Castro is enough smoke. The next guy has the idea that your foreign policy towards China is too dovish, so he suspects that you’re compromised/colluding. Suspicion is not enough. You must document more than smoke and hunch, and that’s precisely where xDaunt has been hitting on conflicting testimony.
I really doubt anyone will take this seriously unless the Trump administration does the same thing to a new Democratic campaign/administration. Embroils them in an investigation and subpoenas and selective leaks that cripple the first two years of the next president. I’m very serious about this. Partisans here are refusing to let go of the Russian collusion, even if it means sounding absolutely foolish about Barr/Rosenstein/Mueller.
'Crippled' is a strange way to say he got half the things he wanted.
Besides Tax cuts and Healthcare, what else did he really want? I am convinced he doesn't give a shit about the boarder.
Trade? He did all he wanted there.
Do you think he could have done more without this investigation?
On April 11 2019 05:24 Doodsmack wrote: It remains to be seen whether the FBI/DOJ had reasonable suspicion (which is not all that high of a standard) in the beginning. Though the FISA thing with Page might be a discrete issue that requires probable cause. But the initial predicate issue is far from certain, despite what Hannity may think.
This is mostly correct. The one thing that I would clarify is the issue of the initiation of the investigation. The testimony so far has been that Crossfire Hurricane began on July 30, 2016. But this testimony is inconsistent with the known activity of spies who were trying to infiltrate the Trump campaign long before then. In short, we still don't know who started the real investigation and why. I suspect that Brennan is going to be a focus of this inquiry.
Yes I would agree that the investigation started much earlier than summer 2016. I was a bit surprised when Barr actually referred to summer 2016 being the time period he is examining.
He's looking at everything. And in fact, he made it very clear today that he wanted to look at what the intelligence services (ie Brennan and the CIA) were up to. Here's the relevant line of questioning:
Senator Shaheen: News just broke, today, that you have a special team looking into why the FBI opened an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. I wonder if you can share with this committee: who is on that team; why you felt the need to form that kind of a team; and what you intend to be the scope of their investigation?
AG William Barr: Yeah, I, uh, as I said in my confirmation hearing, I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016. And, uh, alot of this has already been investigated, and a substantial portion of this has been investigated, and is being investigated, by the office of the inspector general at the department. But one of the things I want to do is pull together all the information from the investigations that have gone on, including on the Hill and the department, and see if there are any remaining questions to be addressed.
Shaheen: Can you share with us why you feel the need to do that?
Barr: Well, for the same reason we are worried about foreign influence in elections we want to make sure that, uh, during an election, I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. It’s a big deal.
The generation I grew up in, which is the Vietnam war period, people were all concerned about spying on anti-war people and so forth by the government; and there were a lot of rules put in place to ensure there was an adequate basis for, before our law enforcement agencies get involved in political surveillance. I’m not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it’s important to look at that; and I’m not just talking about the FBI necessarily, but the intelligence agencies more broadly.
Shaheen: So you're not, you're not suggesting though that spying occurred?
Barr: I don’t, well, I guess you could, I think there’s that spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur.
Shaheen: Wow, let me, uh…
Barr: But the question is: whether it was predicated. Adequately predicated. And I’m not suggested that it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.
I think it’s my obligation, congress is usually very concerned about intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane, and I want to make sure that happened; we have a lot of rules about that.
And, I want to say that I’ve said I’m reviewing this, I am going to, I haven’t set up a team yet but I do have, I have in mind having some colleagues help me pulling this information all together, and let me know if there’s some areas that should be looked at.
And I also want to make clear this is not launching an investigation of the FBI. Frankly, to the extent that there were issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem that’s endemic to the FBI. I think there was probably a failure among a group of leaders there, at the upper echelon; and so I don’t like to hear attacks about the FBI, because I think the FBI is an outstanding organization, and I think that Chris Wray is a great partner for me and I’m very pleased that he’s there as the director.
And if it becomes necessary to look over some former official activities, I expect that I’ll be relying heavily on Chris, and work closely with him in looking at that information. But, that’s what I’m doing, I feel I have an obligation to make sure that government power is not abused; I think that’s one of the principle roles of the attorney general.
The amusing part of this video is that you can pinpoint the exact moment when Senator Shaheen shits a brick. She was not expecting that answer from Barr at all.
On April 11 2019 06:06 Plansix wrote: Its all on brand. Mohdoo has a lot of faith in institutions and Danglers is all about the first amendment. Both to a bit of a fault. But none of us be perfect.
The consistency is sort of refreshing to be honest, but I agree it's reflective of a problem.
On April 11 2019 05:24 Doodsmack wrote: It remains to be seen whether the FBI/DOJ had reasonable suspicion (which is not all that high of a standard) in the beginning. Though the FISA thing with Page might be a discrete issue that requires probable cause. But the initial predicate issue is far from certain, despite what Hannity may think.
This is mostly correct. The one thing that I would clarify is the issue of the initiation of the investigation. The testimony so far has been that Crossfire Hurricane began on July 30, 2016. But this testimony is inconsistent with the known activity of spies who were trying to infiltrate the Trump campaign long before then. In short, we still don't know who started the real investigation and why. I suspect that Brennan is going to be a focus of this inquiry.
Yes I would agree that the investigation started much earlier than summer 2016. I was a bit surprised when Barr actually referred to summer 2016 being the time period he is examining.
He's looking at everything. And in fact, he made it very clear today that he wanted to look at what the intelligence services (ie Brennan and the CIA) were up to. Here's the relevant line of questioning:
Senator Shaheen: News just broke, today, that you have a special team looking into why the FBI opened an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. I wonder if you can share with this committee: who is on that team; why you felt the need to form that kind of a team; and what you intend to be the scope of their investigation?
AG William Barr: Yeah, I, uh, as I said in my confirmation hearing, I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016. And, uh, alot of this has already been investigated, and a substantial portion of this has been investigated, and is being investigated, by the office of the inspector general at the department. But one of the things I want to do is pull together all the information from the investigations that have gone on, including on the Hill and the department, and see if there are any remaining questions to be addressed.
Shaheen: Can you share with us why you feel the need to do that?
Barr: Well, for the same reason we are worried about foreign influence in elections we want to make sure that, uh, during an election, I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. It’s a big deal.
The generation I grew up in, which is the Vietnam war period, people were all concerned about spying on anti-war people and so forth by the government; and there were a lot of rules put in place to ensure there was an adequate basis for, before our law enforcement agencies get involved in political surveillance. I’m not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it’s important to look at that; and I’m not just talking about the FBI necessarily, but the intelligence agencies more broadly.
Shaheen: So you're not, you're not suggesting though that spying occurred?
Barr: I don’t, well, I guess you could, I think there’s that spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur.
Shaheen: Wow, let me, uh…
Barr: But the question is: whether it was predicated. Adequately predicated. And I’m not suggested that it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.
I think it’s my obligation, congress is usually very concerned about intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane, and I want to make sure that happened; we have a lot of rules about that.
And, I want to say that I’ve said I’m reviewing this, I am going to, I haven’t set up a team yet but I do have, I have in mind having some colleagues help me pulling this information all together, and let me know if there’s some areas that should be looked at.
And I also want to make clear this is not launching an investigation of the FBI. Frankly, to the extent that there were issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem that’s endemic to the FBI. I think there was probably a failure among a group of leaders there, at the upper echelon; and so I don’t like to hear attacks about the FBI, because I think the FBI is an outstanding organization, and I think that Chris Wray is a great partner for me and I’m very pleased that he’s there as the director.
And if it becomes necessary to look over some former official activities, I expect that I’ll be relying heavily on Chris, and work closely with him in looking at that information. But, that’s what I’m doing, I feel I have an obligation to make sure that government power is not abused; I think that’s one of the principle roles of the attorney general.
The amusing part of this video is that you can pinpoint the exact moment when Senator Shaheen shits a brick. She was not expecting that answer from Barr at all.
This is the part people need to focus on. Calling it 'trump team spied on' instead of ' trump team investigated ' Is weird. I don't get why bar is saying 'he was spied on' instead of going , we need to see if the investigation broke rules and might have been spying is weird as fuck
On April 11 2019 05:46 Mohdoo wrote: So to the people who are concerned Trump people may have been spied on when they shouldn't have been:
I can truly say with no hesitation, I would support this same thing happening to democrats. If a democrat wins in 2020, I want Mueller's office to become a permanent part of our government where all his team does is investigate the current administration. Look into taxes, relations, business partnerships, everything of the executive branch.
What I keep not understanding is: Why would it be so bad if the FBI was a little overly paranoid? If there was a slight bit of smoke, why not go check if there is a fire? These people serve unbelievably important roles and we should WANT them to be under extreme scrutiny. Being an elected official should mean standards are HIGHER than average people, not equal, and definitely not lower.
It feels like people up in arms over the potential that someone got overly investigated are some weird form of offended by it, as if it is some kind of disrespect to be investigated. It is madness. We should never, ever just trust our elected officials to be good people. We have been shown that isn't the case too many times. We need oversight. Oversight can be effective. Its not like the entire idea of oversight is always going to be partisan so we may as well just not do it. We should always be striving for really, really high levels of oversight.
Fundamentally, I believe being a public servant should mean sacrificing a lot of your privacy. It is an honor to serve and many would leap at the opportunity despite the oversight. The fact that some fat cat CEOs are turned off by oversight is a FEATURE, not a bug of an effective government.
The FBI works under the supervision of our elected officials, not the other way around. We don’t need a repeat of Hoover. If we need better governance over the executive branch, congress can do it as the entire system is designed.
It doesn't need to be a 1 or a 0. We can have better oversight without repeating Hoover. Manafort and Flynn were rotten and needed to go down. They should not have been anywhere near the jobs they had. I want a system in place that prevents Manafort and Flynn from ever being in the positions they were in.
It is very important that we keep in mind Flynn and Manafort had plenty of involvement before being yanked. In an ideal world, they never would have made it as far as they did. Our methods of protecting the full integrity of our elections failed us because bad people became powerful. Our goal is always to prevent that from happening. We may not be able to get every single one, but it should be every voter's intention to prevent another Flynn from happening.
The interesting omission here is figures from the FBI that have been fired or quit in disgrace. If the magnifying glass is always pointed at the subjects of the investigators, instead of ever looking at the investigators themselves, well then of course you’re not afraid of abuse and of course the people that should have been indicted are purely successes.
A quick reminder that everybody that thinks supervision is already a good restraint on the FBI should be cheering that Barr is assembling a team to probe his department, and cheering that Nunes pushed to get the memo out and subpoena DOJ officials. I’m very afraid that partisanship will always beat this own and call the supervision biased.
Secondly, wtf are people about on “prevent another Flynn?” What a strange way to characterize an innocent man that only lied about a non-crime. It’s like saying we have to “prevent another Mohdoo” when his crime was going to the grocery store, but telling investigators after the fact that it was the laundromat. Flynn brings a lawyer with him for the grilling after the fact and there’s no Flynn (Lawyer says “I know there’s Russian histeria everywhere, but don’t omit contacts for fear that you become the next target. These are not friendly investigators just looking for what happened; they can and will nail you for false statements of benign things.)
On April 11 2019 05:46 Mohdoo wrote: So to the people who are concerned Trump people may have been spied on when they shouldn't have been:
I can truly say with no hesitation, I would support this same thing happening to democrats. If a democrat wins in 2020, I want Mueller's office to become a permanent part of our government where all his team does is investigate the current administration. Look into taxes, relations, business partnerships, everything of the executive branch.
What I keep not understanding is: Why would it be so bad if the FBI was a little overly paranoid? If there was a slight bit of smoke, why not go check if there is a fire? These people serve unbelievably important roles and we should WANT them to be under extreme scrutiny. Being an elected official should mean standards are HIGHER than average people, not equal, and definitely not lower.
It feels like people up in arms over the potential that someone got overly investigated are some weird form of offended by it, as if it is some kind of disrespect to be investigated. It is madness. We should never, ever just trust our elected officials to be good people. We have been shown that isn't the case too many times. We need oversight. Oversight can be effective. Its not like the entire idea of oversight is always going to be partisan so we may as well just not do it. We should always be striving for really, really high levels of oversight.
Fundamentally, I believe being a public servant should mean sacrificing a lot of your privacy. It is an honor to serve and many would leap at the opportunity despite the oversight. The fact that some fat cat CEOs are turned off by oversight is a FEATURE, not a bug of an effective government.
The FBI works under the supervision of our elected officials, not the other way around. We don’t need a repeat of Hoover. If we need better governance over the executive branch, congress can do it as the entire system is designed.
It doesn't need to be a 1 or a 0. We can have better oversight without repeating Hoover. Manafort and Flynn were rotten and needed to go down. They should not have been anywhere near the jobs they had. I want a system in place that prevents Manafort and Flynn from ever being in the positions they were in.
It is very important that we keep in mind Flynn and Manafort had plenty of involvement before being yanked. In an ideal world, they never would have made it as far as they did. Our methods of protecting the full integrity of our elections failed us because bad people became powerful. Our goal is always to prevent that from happening. We may not be able to get every single one, but it should be every voter's intention to prevent another Flynn from happening.
The interesting omission here is figures from the FBI that have been fired or quit in disgrace. If the magnifying glass is always pointed at the subjects of the investigators, instead of ever looking at the investigators themselves, well then of course you’re not afraid of abuse and of course the people that should have been indicted are purely successes.
A quick reminder that everybody that thinks supervision is already a good restraint on the FBI should be cheering that Barr is assembling a team to probe his department, and cheering that Nunes pushed to get the memo out and subpoena DOJ officials. I’m very afraid that partisanship will always beat this own and call the supervision biased.
Secondly, wtf are people about on “prevent another Flynn?” What a strange way to characterize an innocent man that only lied about a non-crime. It’s like saying we have to “prevent another Mohdoo” when his crime was going to the grocery store, but telling investigators after the fact that it was the laundromat. Flynn brings a lawyer with him for the grilling after the fact and there’s no Flynn (Lawyer says “I know there’s Russian histeria everywhere, but don’t omit contacts for fear that you become the next target. These are not friendly investigators just looking for what happened; they can and will nail you for false statements of benign things.)
Your not talking about some guy off the street walking into a grocery but the former director of military intelligence lying about his contacts with foreign governments.
Those are not 'non-crimes' and a man in his position should know that.
New Polling out of California is good news for Biden and Buttigieg, terrible news for Harris and mediocre news for Sanders.
Biden is in a solid first predictably favorable with older Dems with younger Dems reacting more strongly to the recent spate of reporting on inappropriate contact from Biden
Harris running third in her home state (same for Warren) is going to take a lot of spinning to keep fundraisers happy.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is the leader of the pack with 26 percent of California Democrats and voters leaning Democratic, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll released today. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont takes 18 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners, with 17 percent for native daughter, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg have 7 percent each, with no other Democratic contender topping 4 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds.
Democrats and Democratic leaners give Biden substantial leads on some key factors: 31 percent say he would be the best leader, followed by 18 percent for Sen. Sanders and 13 percent for Sen. Harris; 23 percent say Sanders has the best policy ideas, followed by 13 percent each for Biden and Sen. Warren, and 11 percent for Harris; 35 percent say Biden has the best chance of defeating President Donald Trump in 2020, with 17 percent for Sanders and 9 percent for Harris. Being a great leader is more important in a presidential candidate than having great policy ideas, all voters say 50 - 39 percent. Democrats and Democratic leaners agree 52 - 38 percent.
The issue of Biden touching women is not serious, 66 percent of all California voters say, including 67 percent of women and 71 percent of Democrats. Among all voters, 27 percent, including 26 percent of women, 37 percent of Republicans and 24 percent of Democrats, say this is a serious issue.
"'Let Biden be Biden,' say California voters, clearly unconcerned about former Vice President Joe Biden's tactile embrace of supporters," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
"But there is one noticeable generational split. The youngest of voters are far more inclined to say, 'hands off.'"
EDIT: Note for the less politically engaged: California is on Super Tuesday this primary making it one of the most important states and virtually impossible to compete in without an existing infrastructure and/or piles of money.
EDIT2: compounded by California having early voting meaning many people will have voted before the candidates have finished campaigning elsewhere. Also there's a 15% threshold so other than the top 3 everyone else has to double their support (or more) to even get delegates.
Not to say that he's a bad candidate or that he won't ultimately get the nomination, but Buttigieg feels somewhat astroturfy to me. He's being pushed onto the voting public in a way that other candidates are not. We'll see how well he's able to leverage this initial advantage.
On April 11 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote: Not to say that he's a bad candidate or that he won't ultimately get the nomination, but Buttigieg feels somewhat astroturfy to me. He's being pushed onto the voting public in a way that other candidates are not. We'll see how well he's able to leverage this initial advantage.
I like him, I like that he doesn't back down from calling out bullshit. He has my vote for now (As useless as that is in CA for someone who needs momentum at the start )
He might be getting pushed but that's probably because he is a democrats dream to go against republicans
On April 11 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote: Not to say that he's a bad candidate or that he won't ultimately get the nomination, but Buttigieg feels somewhat astroturfy to me. He's being pushed onto voting public in a way that other candidates are not. We'll see how well he's able to leverage this initial advantage.
It's quite reminiscent of 2016 to me. Except it's Democrats that are trying the flavor of the month thing and Sanders is in Trumps role electorally (as a social Democrat).
It's certainly in stark contrast to 2016 on the Democratic side in my view when the media and much of the public treated the primary as a forgone conclusion for months before they entertained the idea Sanders might be competitive.
One thing that's the same on the Democratic side is pretending candidates with no chance have a comparable chance at the nomination as Sanders. That fell off fast as soon as the fundraising and polling came in though.
Buttigieg is not particularly exciting to me and I take issue with some of things he's moderate on, but I think he'd make for a fine stability candidate and he may actually have somewhat of a shot. His experience is mostly local/regional, but that could serve him well enough.
On April 11 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote: Not to say that he's a bad candidate or that he won't ultimately get the nomination, but Buttigieg feels somewhat astroturfy to me. He's being pushed onto voting public in a way that other candidates are not. We'll see how well he's able to leverage this initial advantage.
It's quite reminiscent of 2016 to me. Except it's Democrats that are trying the flavor of the month thing and Sanders is in Trumps role electorally (as a social Democrat).
It's certainly in stark contrast to 2016 on the Democratic side in my view when the media and much of the public treated the primary as a forgone conclusion for months before they entertained the idea Sanders might be competitive.
One thing that's the same on the Democratic side is pretending candidates with no chance have a comparable chance at the nomination as Sanders. That fell off fast as soon as the fundraising and polling came in though.
Yes, Sanders is the frontrunner and should be acknowledged as such by the media. The candidate whose polling I don't trust at all is Biden's. I don't see him getting any traction in this race if he formally enters. He's more likely to flame out as badly as Jeb did in 2016.
On April 11 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote: Not to say that he's a bad candidate or that he won't ultimately get the nomination, but Buttigieg feels somewhat astroturfy to me. He's being pushed onto voting public in a way that other candidates are not. We'll see how well he's able to leverage this initial advantage.
It's quite reminiscent of 2016 to me. Except it's Democrats that are trying the flavor of the month thing and Sanders is in Trumps role electorally (as a social Democrat).
It's certainly in stark contrast to 2016 on the Democratic side in my view when the media and much of the public treated the primary as a forgone conclusion for months before they entertained the idea Sanders might be competitive.
One thing that's the same on the Democratic side is pretending candidates with no chance have a comparable chance at the nomination as Sanders. That fell off fast as soon as the fundraising and polling came in though.
Yes, Sanders is the frontrunner and should be acknowledged as such by the media. The candidate whose polling I don't trust at all is Biden's. I don't see him getting any traction in this race if he formally enters. He's more likely to flame out as badly as Jeb did in 2016.
Agreed and I see that instead of switching which candidates the media was asking for tax returns, once they realized they were getting Bernie's, they went immediately into this thing about him being a millionaire as a sign they've finally admitted that (couple reporters on twitter said as much and got grilled by the h8%) imo.
Biden is 100% 2020's Jeb. He's got until his first fundraising report goes public at best imo.
EPT
