The tiny difference being, during Watergate the Democrats controlled Congress. Does anyone think for second that Ryan or McConnell are going to confront Trump? Trump is now basically above the law and is probably untouchable.
No, he is not.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2014/0807/Richard-Nixon-s-...
If there had been something to charge Clinton with, the Republicans would have seen her charged.
The Republicans did hate her and they were able to go after her in committee over things like Benghazi, but they were never in a position to be able to charge her with anything.
But no matter how hard they pushed it, there wasn't a prosecutable offence.
Not a prosecutable offense doesn't mean there was no offense or wrongdoing done.
Can we please move the fuck on?
I would love to move on. Unfortunately the Clinton wing of the party is not only refusing to learn any lessons on why they lost to Trump, but they are deflecting blame on everyone else and doubling down on the very same errors that caused them to lose to Trump, and that if continued will not only see them lose ground in the 2018 mid-terms but also the 2020 Presidential election. (More on that below.)
In this instance, the DNC was hacked and its information disseminated.
The information that was disseminated showed that the DNC was conspiring not only within its own organization to give one candadate an advantage over the others but with major media networks to ensoure favourable news coverage to one particular candidate. That kind of distortion and manipulation should be public knowledge anyways.
Russians wanted to defeat Clinton.
When Clinton chastized Trump for warning the Russians that he was about to bomb Syria, thereby allowing the Russians to remove their troops out of harms way and prevent an already tense situation from boiling over into WWIII, I wonder why.
But it's not just about Trump. People are watching the shitshow that is coverage and analysis of Trump and faux outrage about the fact that he got two fucking scoops of ice cream and it's making them question everything. The same people who push "Trump is a buffoon" and "Russia hacked the election" are the traditional promoters and defenders of climate change science, equality of the races, equality of the sexes, LGBT rights, and other important issues. As they lose credibility with respect to Trump, they enable those who would work to stop or even reverse progress on these other issues. After all, if the default assumption is that anything the media promotes about Trump is either false or insignificant, then what else that the media promotes might be false or insignificant?
It's much worse than that, Cody. You have Democrats screaming about how bad Trump is and that his election marked the end of the world (I was quite worried when I didn't see the sun in the eastern sky on the morning of January 21, then I noticed that it was cloudy that morning and that explained why I couldn't see the sun) and then Democratic Senators actually voting to confirm Trumps Cabinet picks. Even Saint Elizabeth of Warren (who deserves to be defeated by Jill Stein in the 2018 Senatorial election) voted in favour of Ben Carson. And when Tulsi Gabbard stood up to actually resist Trump's reckless bombing of Syria, she was maligned and smeared by Democrats. This is "The Resistance?" I'm sorry, count me out. You're not "resisting" anything, you are acting like spoiled children throwing a temper tantrum in the grocery store because Mom or Dad won't buy you Oreo cookies. Learn how to talk to people and communicate with them. Which leads me to:
As for the resistance to trump there is a major problem, who speaks for the resisitance? I know Bernie is going after trump and Hillary let people know she is the resistnace. Hillary has an opportunity and Democracts have and opporuntiy. We know both Hillary and Democracts have issues with the public and trust, polling shows Trump is more popular the Hillary and Democracts as a party. Both Clinton and DNC letting the opportunity go to dust, is not enough be critical of trump. How are going to improve the lot of the average citizen after trump. You supposed working on removing trump as political force but comes next. I am a bernie supporter that is my bias. My advice to Clinton and DNC reperesent hope, spell on what will you do for the average citizen. Please head of DNC, are for single payer health care, 15 mimumum, thats Bernie is a about. Mr. Perez please where do democracts stand, and please no more platitudes about leading by our hearts. The first politican or group to harness that anti trump anger will become a very powerful player indeed.
If you make Trump out to be this horrible person and the incarnation of all evil, you have already lost. For all the scandal he is under, he is very adept at manipulating his audiences, as evidenced not only by his victory but his previous role on "The Apprentice." I'm convinced that even if Trump had lost the election, that the anger would have built up to make Trump 2.0 in 2020 an inevitability.
No, you focus on the issues, and more importantly, you have to be prepared to not only praise your opponents when they do something right (Trump pulling out of the TPP) but call out those on your team when they do something wrong (Obama expanding on Bush's surveillance state before handing it off to Trump). I find it interesting that with all of Trumps appointments, that his first Labor Secretary had to resign under popular pressure. Why was that? Because Trump supporters and Clinton supporters agree that trying to live on less than $15 an hour is next to impossible. It's the same reason that the people are going to win the upcoming battle for Net Neutrality, because right-wing born-again Christans don't want cable companies and ISPs forcing a secular world view on their Internet surfing habits. So some people decided to cheer for a different team than you did? Fine, let that go, set that aside, and try and find agreement on issues, whether it's $15/hour minimum wage, the right to join unions, renewable energy, decent public and early childhood education, breaking up big banks, medicare for all, or any other number of things.
Trump's Firing of Comey: A Breakdown of Constitutional Government
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/15/pers-m15.html
"...The world is confronting a crisis of historic proportions in the center of global capitalism. What is unfolding is a breakdown of the entire framework of constitutional government. There is no way out of this crisis through the existing political framework..."
Three Russian Spies Meet in the Oval Office - by Andy Borowitz
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/three-russian-spies-meet-...
"Three men alleged to be prominent Russian spies inexplicably gained access to the Oval Office last week and held a high-level meeting there, according to reports. Eyewitnesses to the meeting said that the three Russian agents spoke at length and shared intelligence material, at times laughing uproariously. After approximately an hour, the meeting broke up, with two of the spies leaving the Oval Office and the third remaining behind..."
"If Trump's information sharing is outrageous, why did the sources offer that same information to the global media? Why did WaPo and others publish it...?"
One Day, Three Serious News Stories that Turn Out To Be False
re: the Trots claim that Thomas Friedman called for a military coup against Trump...
His plea was directed at individuals, including Tillerson, who is not part of the military. Furthermore, this is what he actually wrote:
I’m not asking you to quit; I’m asking you to act — to collectively or individually sit the president down and make clear that you can’t effectively advance our national security unless he does the right thing and apologizes to President Obama, and unless he releases his tax returns to eliminate any questions regarding what we now know is already an eight-month-old F.B.I. investigation into possible collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s campaign to hack our last election.
Suggesting that people already working in the administration give the president some particular bit of advice is a few degrees less dire than calling for a military coup, I'd say.
I really dislike Friedman, and have no particular interest in defending his typically overwrought neo-liberal rhetoric, but these continued attempts to make Trump out to be some sort of Allende-style victim of the American military-intelligence establishment are just slightly ridiculous.
triple post
triple post
Comey has the reputation of making a paper trail on everything to cover his ass.
I believe that would be true of every Director of the FBI, it certainly was for the first.
Okay you have all convinced me that Trump is an illegitimate President who is colluding with enemies. So where are the calls for sanctions against the US? Where is the call for bombing Washington to get rid of this dictator? Why is the world standing still for this and not collectively seeking regime change?
Comey has the reputation of making a paper trail on everything to cover his ass.
I believe that would be true of every Director of the FBI, it certainly was for the first.
No, he had a paper trail on everybody else.
Okay you have all convinced me that Trump is an illegitimate President who is colluding with enemies. So where are the calls for sanctions against the US? Where is the call for bombing Washington to get rid of this dictator? Why is the world standing still for this and not collectively seeking regime change?
Well, since I don't advocate doing that against other dictators, there's no logical reason I would advocate doing it against Trump.
Okay you have all convinced me that Trump is an illegitimate President who is colluding with enemies. So where are the calls for sanctions against the US? Where is the call for bombing Washington to get rid of this dictator? Why is the world standing still for this and not collectively seeking regime change?
Well, since I don't advocate doing that against other dictators, there's no logical reason I would advocate doing it against Trump.
That is how I feel as well but many people on this board and across Canada including our politicians are quick to the R2P mantra when it concerns other peoples countries but are strangely silent now.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is appointed special counsel to the investigation into the Russia-Trump scandal.
our politicians are quick to the R2P mantra when it concerns other peoples countries but are strangely silent now.
..also much is being made about the president being controlled by another country, russia in this case. will that possibility even cause a hiccup of concern to the us government as a whole about what they do around the world to sovereign states.
Aristotleded24 - well said. I have nothing to add. Except that the fans of Hillary and her ilk must really invest in mirrors. They will do nothing to save this world.
Putin Ready to Provide Records of Trump-Lavrov Talks To Prove No Secrets Were Leaked
"We are seeing in the US a developing political schizophrenia,' Putin said."
Putin Offers Washington Red Pill. Washington Takes The Blue One
"Putin said the internecine politics was far from amusing and actually portended a dangerous development...such delusional thinking represents a real threat to global security matters in the future, said Putin."
Lone Congressman Calls to Impeach Trump on House Floor: Does It Matter? (and vid)
" I rise today...to call for the impeachment of the President of the United States of America for obstruction of justice..."
Trump campaign had 18 undisclosed contacts with the Russians.
Putin Ready to Provide Records of Trump-Lavrov Talks To Prove No Secrets Were Leaked
"We are seeing in the US a developing political schizophrenia,' Putin said."
Putin Offers Washington Red Pill. Washington Takes The Blue One
"Putin said the internecine politics was far from amusing and actually portended a dangerous development...such delusional thinking represents a real threat to global security matters in the future, said Putin."
The article says if Russia provided transcripts it would be "easy to determine if they were bona fide." Now, I obviously don't believe the Russia hysteria in general but when I heard about Russia offering transcripts even I thought "as if anyone would take Russia's word for it when the allegations, if true, benefit them."
So, is there some reason why a transcript (written, as I understand it from other articles I've seen) would be easy to verify for accuracy?
It's just trolling. He isn't exactly sticking up for Trump after all. The message is about how screwed up the situation is.
It's also not the first time they have released contradictory stories and just waited to see what sticks to the wall. Not surprising since it has worked just fine so far. So I don't think he expects people are going to even bother to check.
Trump in Comey's China Shop
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/17/trump-in-comeys-china-shop/
"...Trump's conversations with Comey that amounted to a bribe, Tribe argues, also constitute an impeachable 'high crime or misdemeanor' of greater significance than the speculation about Russian collusion with Trump's 2016 campaign. Indeed it is important to separate the signficance of Trump's attempted influence on Comey from both the dubious merits of the 'Russian Hacking Fiasco' - for which no credible evidence has yet been made public - and also from the considerable merits of firing James Comey.
Trump could be absolutely right about the 'Russian thing' being a 'total hoax' and a Democratic Party 'excuse for having lost the election.' But that would not affect his attempted bribe of Comey's loyalty plus his exemption of Trump from the investigation of the empty election hacking charges..."
The Special Council Inquisition - Bad For Trump - And All of Us
"The Trump administration made a huge mistake by not preventing the just announced special council investigation into the alleged but likely non-existing investigation into the alleged 'Trump-Russia' connections. The attempts to smear Trump and those around him over foreign connections have entered absurd territory..."
All ready for President Pence?
As was pointed out in an article I posted in the other thread, in some ways Trump is better for the Democrats at this point, and Pence would be better for the Republicans, because he would be able to rubberstamp their agenda with no drama and screwups.
quote:
Trump’s firing last week of FBI director James Comey has many screaming “Nixon.” That Trump nixed the man heading up an investigation into his activities has troubling implications, whether Comey was in fact closing in on Trump or Trump was merely acting as a “petty, tantrum-throwing child.”
Either way, however, the prevailing discussion around Comey’s departure suffers from an extreme ignorance about the basic structure of the FBI.
The FBI cannot plausibly be considered a check on the imperial presidency — of Trump or anyone else — for the simple reason that it is, even for an executive agency, the heavy product of unilateral executive power. Its predecessor organization was founded over the objection of Congress. To this day it has no congressional charter. Its internal rules and safeguards are set by — and changed at will by — the attorney general.
Through its one-hundred-plus year history, the FBI’s power has tracked with the ebbs and flows of executive power more broadly. Imperial presidencies have beget imperial bureaus, buttressing and reinforcing one another.
If someone’s going to curb Trump’s authoritarian tendencies it won’t be the FBI, an agency that embodies domestic authoritarianism more than any other.
So a President gets impeached. Big deal!
Clinton was impeached and yet he stayed in office.
No President ever has had to step down due to being impeached.
And even if Trump has to step down does Pence replace him? Isn't that basically just as bad?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States
And even if Trump has to step down does Pence replace him? Isn't that basically just as bad?
Pence represents the Establishment wing of the Republican Party that Trump painted himself as opposing in his Primary run for nomination.
Even if Trump has to go Pence will just be more of the same only a bit smoother perhaps.
From NorthReport:
So a President gets impeached. Big deal!
Clinton was impeached and yet he stayed in office.
No President ever has had to step down due to being impeached.
Impeachment is only the first step in the process. It is comparable to being charged with an offense. Those charges are drawn up and presented to the House of Representatives. If approved the president is impeached (charged), but they move on to the Senate for trial. If the charges are proven to the satisfaction of a two-thirds majority in the Senate, the charged person is removed from office. Obviously it's a pretty difficult process.
President Clinton was impeached, but was found not guilty by the Senate. Andrew Johnson, the only other president to be impeached was also not convicted in the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned before he was impeached.
So it's true that impeachment by itself is not enough to force a president out of office. However, if the Senate 2/3's majority votes 'guilty', then the person is removed from office.
@AnissaNow
https://twitter.com/IntheNow_tweet/status/864946166504583168
"Comey memos, ISIS secrets, Russians - the perfect recipe for impeachment is bullsh*t. No matter what side of Trump you're on."
Fast and Furious: Now They're Really Gunning for Trump
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/18/fast-and-furious-now-theyre-reall...
"Fast and furiously, in the course of a single news cycle, the game has changed: Donald Trump has been accused of betraying Israel. Impeachment is possible."
After reading the Counterpunch article by Jim Kavanagh (posted by NDPP above), I can only conclude that he knows absolutely nothing about espionage, or he deliberately ignores what he does know in order to defend Trump.
One of the reasons for secrecy of information is that one never knows whether that information was fed to someone to see where it turned up. In other words, if an organization suspects someone of spying or leaking, they feed that person some information in such a way as to make that person the sole source. Then they wait to see if it turns up somewhere. If it does, they know they have a mole, and they know who it is.
The information itself doesn't have to be anything special. Just special enough for some to pass along. It doesn't even have to be true, as long as the person it's fed to thinks it's true. Even taking action based on some intelligence is fraught with peril. Once you do, you've let someone know that you have hacked their security.
In the strange world of espionage, the less the other side thinks you know, the better off you are. Unfortunately, Trump is not a person with the level of acuity required to understand that.
So a President gets impeached. Big deal!
Clinton was impeached and yet he stayed in office.
No President ever has had to step down due to being impeached.
And even if Trump has to step down does Pence replace him? Isn't that basically just as bad?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States
In terms of policy, yes. Maybe worse. But Trump has both a personality disorder and a psychiatric disorder. In short, he's nuts. Do you want someone like that with power and with his finger on the nuclear button? Not to mention his efforts to obstruct justice.
A senior White House official is a "person of interest" in the Russia investigation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russia-probe-reac...
Trump brags to Russians that firing "nutjob" Comey eased the pressure.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/us/politics/trump-russia-comey.html?s...
Jared Kushner is the person of interest.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jared-kushn...
Seth Rich, Craig Murray and the Sinister Stewards of the National Security State - by Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47082.htm
" Why is it a 'conspiracy theory' to think that a disgruntled DNC staffer gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails, but not a conspiracy theory to think the emails were provided by Russia?
The Russian hacking fiasco is a regime-change operation..."
Don’t Believe That Pence Was “Out of the Loop”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dont-believe-that-pence-was-out-of-t...
What's this about they are grooming Senator Hatch for the Presidency - where is he in the pecking order for replacing a president?
Oh, my!
It's gonna make Watergate seem like a parking ticket!
https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/865664103490109441
Hillary Clinton 'Onward Together!'
http://www.voltairenet.org/article196389.html
"Hillary Clinton has announced the creation of Onward Together, an association aimed at displacing President Trump and replacing hin with the former Secretary of State..."
What's this about they are grooming Senator Hatch for the Presidency - where is he in the pecking order for replacing a president?
Third in line as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, after Pence (VP) and Ryan (Speaker of the House).
Seth Rich, Craig Murray and the Sinister Stewards of the National Security State - by Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47082.htm
" Why is it a 'conspiracy theory' to think that a disgruntled DNC staffer gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails, but not a conspiracy theory to think the emails were provided by Russia?
The Russian hacking fiasco is a regime-change operation..."
Fox News and American Thinker? Really? What's next: Ben Garrison cartoons?
Not to worry. There's a nice bit of Louise Mensch upthread that may be more your style...
From an article posted by NDPP:
"Hillary Clinton has announced the creation of Onward Together, an association aimed at displacing President Trump and replacing hin with the former Secretary of State..."
I read the short piece, but there wasn't any explanation of what sort of scenario would be required to replace Donald Trump with Hilary Clinton.They're just talking through their hat.
Or perhaps you have a scenario in mind, NDPP?
Manafort and Flynn being squeezed.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/heres-why-legal-experts-think-manafort-a...
