Trump

[poorpete]

[Mike]

Don't forget...
Pretty much every close Trump associate (including immediate family) with Russian contact lied about said contact on their security clearance forms.*
Several close Trump associates (including immediate family) demonstrated not only a willingness but an eagerness to collude with Russia.


*There is no doubt that the omission of Russian contact from those forms was intentional. Jared's excuse of "a subordinate accidentally submitted the form early" is either a flat out lie or it's irrelevant. After you fill out those forms, agents from the appropriate bureaus follow up by interviewing you personally to go over all these questions. They also interview several references to cover all of these questions. I've been one of those references, and they are incredibly thorough. If you accidentally filed the form early, you would still then have to lie to the interviewer AND have all of your references lie.

Again, a lot of this is circumstantial, but even if it's not collusion, prior to this administration, errors/lies on your security clearance form have always been grounds for immediate termination of security clearance and usually removal from your position until an investigation is complete. But those rules have not applied to this administration.

[Zen]

In case you hadn't heard...

[FlameBlade]

On the first day of Christmas, we have a Flynn....

'tis Treason's Greetings.

[mimekiller]

ok I know I've been beating the drum pretty hard on nothing will happen/this means nothing but that FLYNN perp walk was pretty amazing.

[Phoebe]

Pete I'm feeling intrigued by 7c, 7d, etc............

[FlameBlade]

[FlameBlade]

[Phoebe]

I just find it astonishing that no matter how bad the thing is, people seem happy to make it a partisan tu quoque. Watching all of this play out, one just wants to scream, Who gives a damn what Hillary did? She's not the President! She was never my candidate! I'm sure she's done all kinds of bad s*** - she was the US Secretary of State for Chrissake and we don't get by in the world on being all nicey-nice to everyone! You don't survive for that long in the political machine of this country while being a gentle flower of love! If we want to play the tu quoque game of virtue in politics, the people who really want the child molester to get into the Senate are going to lose it every single time from here to Eternity. The problem is that they no longer care. I'm sitting here getting ready for church and I'm wondering how people can go through this life and not care on that level. All the people who complain about relativism and liberal corruption... Their values are the most relativistic and least morally absolute of all! Thank God all the abortions have ended.

[bralbovsky]

I'm not certain when I first mentioned Trump knew, but here in NY we've known he was a grifter from his first appearance in the news.

What offends me at this point (amazing that that's still possible) is that people whom I used to have a modicum of respect for still take his word that he will follow through on any promises he's made, ever. I'm looking at you Susan Collins.

He will likely be indicted, but will they get Pence as the accessory after (optimistically) the fact that he is? Doubt it.

Seriously contemplating a kickstarter to run for Congress, or even WH. I suggest as many folks as possible declare for 2020 so that someone has standing when they try to delay or cancel the election because of - shocking - conveniently discovered voting irregularities. I've been worried about this for some time, and there has been polling on it, so I'm not the only one.

[mimekiller]

[Zen]

[FlameBlade]

Amateur hour, Manafort.

[mimekiller]

-The Supreme Court allows travel ban to take full effect
-FBI agent dismissed from Mueller team for bias and letting Clinton off

Trumps having a good day

[Stan]

Mueller is requesting Trump's bank records at Deutsche Bank - the bank that floated him money after American banks considered him too high of a risk. And the same bank which had to pay a big fine for its role in laundering billions of dollars for the Russians. Much of the laundered money was used to by real estate, included places owned by Trump, at inflated prices, dating back to at least 2008.

[bralbovsky]

It floated for W because of the shenanigans in Florida. It floated for Obama at Fox.
Regardless of this, elections are a state matter, and despite being toadying cowards, neither congress, nor the executive, for that matter, can unilaterally suspend or cancel a presidential election.

I think it's clear however that this is a different time.
I think establishing standing is a conservative hedge against something that hopefully won't be an issue, especially when the parties involved have demonstrated a disdain for any rules they don't like.

What's concerning is the push, intentional or otherwise, to de-legitimize any nexus of power that might balance overreach in the executive.

Perception is reality, because it influences how people react.
The courts, the press, legislating, the census, voting - these are all messy businesses when you're dealing with 300 million people. You hope most of your folks do their jobs in good faith, and wake up every morning trying to do their best.

It's arguable that the perception of fairness and objectivity in voting , and the census, and the judiciary is more important than actual fairness.
It's arguable that the perception of neutrality in the press is more important than actual neutrality.

It sets a tone that makes such things possible where they would not have been possible before.

[Stan]

My newest conspiracy theory: Tillerson is working mostly for Russia. They have serious dirt on him and want him to weaken the state department so it's less capably of annoying Russia by forming coalitions against them.

[mimekiller]

Honestly if the democrats can't beat a child molester they should disband as a party smh

[mimekiller]

lmao https://politics.theonion.com/time-trav ... lMarketing

[Bonefish]

Man. I love watching this shit. The same folks who told me I was wrong when I complained that the political process is broken, are now the same people running around like their heads was on fire and their asses are catching.