US Politics Mega-thread - Page 228

On May 26 2018 09:21 GreenHorizons wrote:


Don't be disingenuous, it's not "foreign governments" that's really the issue either. It's "Russia" specifically. Israel and the US have had publicly unhealthy relationships with each others elections for at least a decade.

On May 26 2018 09:27 KwarK wrote:

While I don't want to dismiss the Israel lobby I also think it's important to distinguish the degree to which this is not normal. McCain wouldn't have taken the Russian meetings, nor openly called for Russia to illegally obtain Obama's emails. Romney wouldn't have discussed sanction relief. Obama would have forwarded the offers of assistance to the FBI.

Everything wasn't perfect before, but that doesn't make this just another day.

On May 26 2018 09:46 WolfintheSheep wrote:
And this is why I say that there's not point in creating newer laws if the current ones can't be enforced. If you think it's going to be bad when Trump sets the standard for how low you can go until you get caught, it's going to be a lot worse if he shows that there are no standards at all.

On May 26 2018 09:46 Plansix wrote:
The way govement functioned and how the public viewed government changed drastically after Nixon left office. It is very had to predict how it will play out this time. The majority of Americans are not following the investigation and won’t until the very end.

On May 26 2018 09:48 a_flayer wrote:
How does it tangibly benefit anyone if Manafort is locked up? Tell me what notable gains are made in politics when Gates is bankrupt? It's some weak form of justice, sure, but there's nothing changing about the situation. It doesn't delegitimatize the withdrawal from Paris, Iran, Korea. Trump remains president. Bolton will still be in charge. I was happier with Flynn quite frankly (didn't he have the same job?). I can only hope Pompeo will be less... effective than Hillary during her stint as SoS.

All those crimes are just piles upon piles of standard fare bribery and chikanery. It's just cause you guys are paranoid about the Russians that this is problematic somehow. And it's not going to help one lick to remove Manafort and Gates from that equation.

On May 26 2018 09:58 Plansix wrote:

I’m confused, are you saying people should only be charged if there is an immediate, tangible benefit?

And if you were happy with Flynn, you don’t know enough about Flynn. He is just as bad as Bolton.

On May 26 2018 09:48 a_flayer wrote:
How does it tangibly benefit anyone if Manafort is locked up? Tell me what notable gains are made in politics when Gates is bankrupt? It's some weak form of justice, sure, but there's nothing changing about the situation. It doesn't delegitimatize the withdrawal from Paris, Iran, Korea. Trump remains president. Bolton will still be in charge. I was happier with Flynn quite frankly (didn't he have the same job?). I can only hope Pompeo will be less... effective than Hillary during her stint as SoS.

All those crimes are just piles upon piles of standard fare bribery and chikanery. They may have plead guilty to "conspiring", but they were just looking to make money. It's just cause you guys are paranoid about the Russians that this is problematic somehow. And it's not going to help one lick to remove Manafort and Gates from that equation.


Also, just for absurdity's sake, imagine the backlash amongst conservatives when Trump isn't impeached. 'Two years of "Russian collusion" from the liberal media and Trump isn't impeached! Fake news!!!' The game is practically over at that point. You'll never get them back into the thing you define as "reality".

On May 26 2018 17:47 iamthedave wrote:


I love how it's Democrats' fault that Conservatives are so unhinged and dedicated to win at all costs that they can't see Trump for what he is.

Look, this shit isn't paranoia. I fully agree that nothing is going to happen, me and GreenHorizons have agreed on this point for months. But the argument 'nothing is going to happen so nothing should be done' is silly. That's literally how the rule of law collapses. Things become so corrupt that people just don't bother trying.

Do you think corrupt actors are going to look at that and go 'we won, guys, let's all go straight now!' No, they get worse, and worse, and worse, and nothing is done because of the argument you are advancing.

Something happened that deserved investigating. So it's getting investigated.

On May 26 2018 20:24 Longshank wrote:
But don't you want to shatter that illusion? If an investigation is more detrimental to the illusion, you should be all for it no?

On May 26 2018 17:57 GreenHorizons wrote:



I think the part you're missing is that going through the motions of an investigation only to conclude nothing will be done is even more detrimental to the illusion than just not doing the investigation (or at least not centering it in the media and political Conversation) in the first place.

How can people maintain the illusion that our system works when it determines there is nothing criminally prosecutable about Trump's behavior and that the worst consequence for anyone involved won't even be worse than people get for stealing from walmart?

It takes an impressive amount of mental gymnastics and delusional denial to conclude with all we know, that what Trump is, has, and will do is beyond being corrected/addressed/punished within the completely rigged system we have but he's the problem. We are at the mercy of wholly incompetent geriatrics without a moral center and people are still focused on Trump as if he's the problem and not the glaring symptom that finally sends you to the emergency room after you refused to go to the doctor for decades.

On May 27 2018 04:12 iamthedave wrote:


No, it isn't.

If no investigation is done, people will assume nothing wrong happened. This conversation is only occurring because that investigation happened. If it had not, nobody would give a shit about Trump/Russia collusion and it wouldn't be a national talking point period. I mean, the Benghaaaaaaaaaaazi investigation was bullshit after a certain point, but it made sense that it happened, and it's a good thing that it was done. This Russia investigation, at least, keeps turning over some new stones and revealing some new things. At this point, sure, Trump is safe. That doesn't mean that every bad actor other than Trump should just be let off the hook, which is what just shutting it down would amount to. Mueller is at this point undoubtedly not going to get Trump. There are too many things in his way, and probably not enough evidence. He might get someone else though. We don't know how far it goes or who did what or who knew what. For the history books at least, it's worth knowing.

It is vastly more detrimental not to launch the investigation, it's the most appalling political apathy of all, where you actively advocate for the very structures designed to try and stop this stuff from happening to not even make the attempt. It's politics via apocalypse, because once the system is rotted to that degree, you're essentially waiting for the country to sink into complete corruption and collapse. Which maybe you are, since that's the only chance anarchy ever has of coming to the US.

But still, if you have the faintest hope that things might one day get better... you want the investigation to happen. And some people will likely see some jail time. That means something, at least.

And there is also the problem - which I'm sure Danglars would be happy to observe - that half of your country likes the job Trump is doing, within some degree of argumentation (hate Trump but love party, love Trump hate party, hate Trump but prefer party to Democrats... you know the variations).

This isn't a systemic problem; the system created Trump the candidate, voters created Trump the President. The argument that Trump is somehow better than Hilary has always been bullshit. Trump should - in a healthy, functioning electorate - be so utterly toxic that he can't get past the first ballot. It is a uniquely American problem that a President such as Trump is even possible, let alone one that enjoys massive support, even if it is historically low (isn't it only historically low by 2 or 3 per cent at this point?).

Well, I say uniquely, I don't know if candidates like him do well on the european continent. I just know they wouldn't get anywhere in the UK. Nigel Farage is our closest example but the parallels don't last long; he'd never have had a chance at actual government. And Nigel can at least string a coherent sentence together without people having to have serious debates about whether Trump was talking about the thing he was asked when he answered the question put to him, as seems to happen regularly, and not without reason.

As it is, you'll have to wait until whoever comes next to see how much damage Trump has really done, and whether or not he's the wake up call he really should be.

On May 26 2018 09:46 Plansix wrote:
The way govement functioned and how the public viewed government changed drastically after Nixon left office. It is very had to predict how it will play out this time. The majority of Americans are not following the investigation and won’t until the very end.

On May 27 2018 14:46 A3th3r wrote:


Ye. George HW Bush was more of a "nerd" but also had a much more sound grasp on the political process & the matters of governance. He was a life-long political mind so maybe he had a better understanding of the various interest groups & the system of checks & balances

On May 27 2018 18:19 iamthedave wrote:


Perhaps more importantly, he had genuine principles. You might not have liked them, but he did, and he knew how to behave with dignity and respect. He was a bit of a goober at times and obviously had trouble with marble-mouthing, but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with him being President.

Trump denigrates the entire office by virtue of holding it.

On May 27 2018 19:36 GreenHorizons wrote:



I feel like you're mistaking the slightest shred of empathy for competence. GWB was the worst president in our living memory only after Trump (with Obama not far behind).

On May 27 2018 20:31 iamthedave wrote:


I didn't use the word competence.

Why do you think Obama is - I assume by implication - the third worst President in living memory? (Assuming your rank from worst to least worst would be Trump/Bush/Obama)

It seemed to me he got a lot done for a President with both houses of government against him, led by a man who said it was his life mission to make Obama a one-term President. In other words: "Fuck the will of the people and good governance, we gotta get this uppity black guy out of the WHITE house. SEE, IT'S IN THE NAME!"

President Trump on Saturday falsely accused the New York Times of using an unnamed source “who doesn’t exist” in a story on negotiations between the United States and North Korea, but the official cited spoke to reporters Thursday in a briefing arranged by the White House.

“The Failing @nytimes quotes ‘a senior White House official,’ who doesn’t exist, as saying ‘even if the meeting were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be impossible, given the lack of time and the amount of planning needed,’” Trump tweeted Saturday morning. “WRONG AGAIN! Use real people, not phony sources.”

The senior White House official cited by the Times spoke to dozens of reporters Thursday at the White House and on a conference call to brief them on Trump’s decision earlier that day to cancel his June 12 summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The Washington Post, which participated in the briefing, agreed to the rules as laid out by White House press officials at the time, which were to refer to the briefer as a senior White House official. The Post also used information from that briefing in subsequent stories and continues to abide by the agreed upon ground rules.

When an Associated Press reporter asked Thursday why the briefing was not on the record, the official noted that Trump had already spoken on the topic through his letter to Kim, as well as at a bill-signing event earlier that day. The White House wanted to “let the president’s remarks stand,” the official said.

The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment Saturday on why Trump was accusing the Times of falsifying the source when it arranged the briefing for reporters and insisted that the official not be named.

“Best way to alleviate the President's concern about anonymous sources would be for WH to name the official,” David Sanger, one of the two Times reporters who wrote the story referenced by Trump, said on Twitter on Saturday.