CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
He banged a pornstar and talked about grabbing the pussies of groupie sluts, arrest that man.
The Political & Philosophy Thread
- Thread starter End of Glory
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HamburgerBoy
Active Member
- Sep 16, 2007
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CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
The Ozzman
Melted by feels
Dak
mentat
Einherjar86
Active Member
The odds that he's obstructed justice are also 100%.
As far as criminality between Trump and the Clintons, Trump's probably worse. And he's president, so I think it's safe to start there.
As far as criminality between Trump and the Clintons, Trump's probably worse. And he's president, so I think it's safe to start there.
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
Einherjar86
Active Member
Trump's basically done everything people have accused Clinton of; and on top of that, he's obstructing justice. So I rate him worse.
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
You said "the Clintons" which is why I laughed. Thinking Trump is worse than both of those cretins combined is just ridiculous.
Dak
mentat
While it's laughable to claim Trump is worse than Clinton, you're right in that she's less of a problem now that she is out of office (and probably one bad day from life support).
You can't obstruct what isn't there.
Mueller is specifically investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election (which Obama said was impossible!) based on no credible evidence to even begin the investigation. So far all he has found is finance/tax fraud in short time Trump associates. Where's the justification even for these discoveries?
This is why the term "witch hunt" is appropriate. This is why we are supposed to have a search warrant process. Cops can't just start snooping in your shit without probable cause, and there's been no probable cause provided other than the Steele dossier. Strzok said it's not the reason, but his private texts leave no reason to believe him, and there's no other reasons provided. The FBI began the investigation (for "collusion") under Obama, which looks quite dirty.
It does appear possible Russian agents approached a member of the Trump team with alleged dirt on Hillary. Meanwhile an Brit ex-spook provides the FBI with alleged dirt on Trump. Lets invetigate the FBI and Obama for colluding with Britain (while the DNC was colluding with Hillary, and we never got the alleged Russian dirt on Hillary, and she still lost).
Greatest political upset ever.
Einherjar86
Active Member
How's that kool-aid? Nice and artificial tasting?
Actually that's not true. Intervening in and affecting the process of the investigation can be construed as obstruction, whether there's anything "there" or not.
There's actually a lot of evidence and probable cause. If you're asking for proof, then no--there's no proof. But that's why an investigation's being done.
This isn't even conspiratorial because it's ridiculously plain. Trump has publicly promised Russian favoritism in exchange for their help (and he likely got it). You probably approve of this for its "stir the pot" mentality; but your approval doesn't vaporize the illegality in question.
Trump has two things on his side: a) plausible deniability, which is a great thing in a case like this. And he'll continue denying even if irrefutable proof is discovered; and b) semantic ambiguity (i.e. "I wasn't being serious when I said that"--but it doesn't matter if he wasn't being serious when he asked for Russia's help; if he got help, then that's on him).
I'm going to say something that most people probably won't believe: I hope there was "no collusion." Because if there was, then I'm not sure what kind of protocol there is. And I know that Trump won't stroll willingly toward impeachment. It will be much easier to maintain a hyper-critical front to all the other asinine (if legal) things he does/says, and hope democrats get a little power back over the next four to six years.
Thank goodness it began that early. If it hadn't it probably would have been obstructed into oblivion.
Dak
mentat
What I meant was there's nothing just about the investigation or its proceedings, so there's no justice to obstruct. If Trump fires Mueller, there'd be a plausible argument for obstruction in the technical sense. "Affecting" is far too broad of a word.
You mean this?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/13/poli...s-they-immediately-started-trying-/index.html
You mean thank goodness for dirty politics because you don't like Trump. If I were to be a mindful Democratic voter I would be very concerned at harm done to the party, and by extension to the country, by Obama, Hillary, and the DNC. Trump is a symptom, not a cause, and not merely a symptom of staunch Republican voters (9-12% of Obama voters flipped to Trump, and millions stayed home).
I agree that if one could somehow find something that we could all agree was "collusion", it would create a procedural crisis because we haven't had to deal with something publicly like that. It won't create much of a crisis of faith in our processes or DC institutions because they rank so low in confidence/opinion polls anyway.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Dak
mentat
And Democrats wanted Comey's head over his handling of the Clinton emails, even though he saved her bacon by giving her an "oopsie!". No pleasing some people.
If that's what you meant, there is literally nothing there. Unless Trump was "dog whistling" by saying "press". That's a massive leap with no supporting evidence, since a dump of Clinton email contents would get massive media play by Fox at a minimum.
Trump's real estate work was probably as dirty as it gets. I don't see it in the politics, ie, he isn't shown working tons of dirty deals. He just tweets, badgers the crappy leaders of other countries, and has a patchy record of hires.
I'm sort of fine with a Machiavellian approach to dirty politics, just don't act like there's a moral/ethical component.
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
HamburgerBoy
Active Member
- Sep 16, 2007
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To Dems it is.
The whole thing is silly anyways. Leaking Dem emails is no different than leaking NBC hot-mike footage for Pussygate. The Democratic Party is a private organization, even if Trump directly paid the Russian government, it's not treason, just some kind of aiding & abetting + hacking case.
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
Dak
mentat
Einherjar86
Active Member
No, it's not "key proof." As I already said, there's no proof (yet, but who knows if there is).
I'm saying that it can't be insignificant when a candidate running for presidency makes promises to a foreign government on live television, even if he can turn right around and say "But I wasn't being serious--I can't help it if they wanted to interfere!" That shouldn't matter, but Trump says things in a way that's semantically ambiguous (that is, it's so ridiculous that his claims to insincerity actually work). He basically just makes the promise in the open, and so it can't be questionable because he's not trying to hide anything! Pretty incredible strategy (in more sense than one).
And it's not treasonous, but it just might be interfering in an election.
Dak
mentat
What did he promise from himself? What's ambiguous about saying the press will reward them? It can't be what "reward" means; it must be what "press" means!
Nevermind that the interference in the election is finding the emails that probably weren't a big deal and probably weren't unsecured cause nothing Clinton did was bad anyway. If I were more interested I'd go back and dig up all that pre-election apologizing you did for those emails which now are so important that their retrieval could have interfered in the election, yet were not a big enough deal for the FBI to press charges, and even mentioning them was reason enough to fire Comey for interfering in the election, unless Trump does it because Comey was investigating him for interfering in the election, which he did by suggesting that someone find those emails since the FBI wouldn't.
Your groupthink "logic" is so convoluted it's past warranting a tuckerface meme.
Nevermind that the interference in the election is finding the emails that probably weren't a big deal and probably weren't unsecured cause nothing Clinton did was bad anyway. If I were more interested I'd go back and dig up all that pre-election apologizing you did for those emails which now are so important that their retrieval could have interfered in the election, yet were not a big enough deal for the FBI to press charges, and even mentioning them was reason enough to fire Comey for interfering in the election, unless Trump does it because Comey was investigating him for interfering in the election, which he did by suggesting that someone find those emails since the FBI wouldn't.
Your groupthink "logic" is so convoluted it's past warranting a tuckerface meme.
