Trump Thread

[Husar]

It doesn't matter why Russia poisoned the Skripals (btw, "skripal" is a Ukrainian name signifying "violinist"). What matters is that chemical weapons were used by another country to kill YOUR people on YOUR territory.

Yeah, well, I'mnot British and they're leaving the EU, they don't want to be my people.
That aside, you're right, you basically have to do a striptease to get on a plane and despite all these measures and the existence of counter esqionage, somehow the Russians seem to feel right at home in the UK, killing people left and right and buying half the country (other half is bought by arab oil sheikhs apparently).

I'm just glad this will be happening outside the EU soon...

[Gilrandir]

Yeah, well, I'mnot British and they're leaving the EU, they don't want to be my people.

I didn't mean you personally, impersonal "one" would have suited better, but it didn't seem so emphatic as "you".

you basically have to do a striptease to get on a plane...

That was because you had a woman guard at the airport.

I'm just glad this will be happening outside the EU soon...

There's no guarantee. It may happen anywhere, having pushed Britain out won't solve the problem.

[Shaka_Khan]

[HopAlongBunny]

It is not a good sign when your lawyers office is raided by the FBI.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1HG336

Among the items seized were apparently confidential client/lawyer documents.
While Cohen and his lawyer think that's a bit much, it could be justified if any of that material was used to commit or obscure a crime...

[Hooahguy]

I read somewhere that this raid wasnt under the purview of Mueller (even if he might have a big hand in this) but under New York state law enforcement. This is so if Trump fires Mueller, the information obtained in this raid would be safe from Trump.

[drone]

My understanding is that Mueller referred this to the NY southern district attorney's office, so it's not under the special investigation's scope (just an added bonus from turning over the rocks), but it's still federal. The FBI did the raid, and Rosenstein signed off on the warrant process. I'm sure NY state attorneys are interested though...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I read somewhere that this raid wasnt under the purview of Mueller (even if he might have a big hand in this) but under New York state law enforcement. This is so if Trump fires Mueller, the information obtained in this raid would be safe from Trump.

I do not believe that evidence would disappear were Trump to fire Mueller. Not the way the system is set up.

[drone]

Paul Ryan is a coward. Won't stand up to Trump regardless of how unhinged he gets, and now won't face the consequences of his legislative "agenda". I didn't think Pelosi's feebleness would be outdone so soon by a Speaker, but how wrong I was. When he comes back in for the 2024 presidential campaign he will get laughed off the stage (if the GOP still exists at that point).

[rory_20_uk]

Paul Ryan is a coward. Won't stand up to Trump regardless of how unhinged he gets, and now won't face the consequences of his legislative "agenda". I didn't think Pelosi's feebleness would be outdone so soon by a Speaker, but how wrong I was. When he comes back in for the 2024 presidential campaign he will get laughed off the stage (if the GOP still exists at that point).

Coward? He is a self-serving politician. He is staying around until he meets the minimum requirement to have all 3 years of being the Speaker work out his pension for his 20 years of "service" then will be off earning more money from being NEDs on the very company he's helped with the tax decrease.

I find it amazing how much hope people attach to a politician as though the next one will somehow magically be the one to selflessly fight for all the issues that they want.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Coward? He is a self-serving politician. He is staying around until he meets the minimum requirement to have all 3 years of being the Speaker work out his pension for his 20 years of "service" then will be off earning more money from being NEDs on the very company he's helped with the tax decrease.

I find it amazing how much hope people attach to a politician as though the next one will somehow magically be the one to selflessly fight for all the issues that they want.

Ryan got the first tax reform bill since Reagan through the Congress and did so by dragging Trump along and keeping the reactionary wing of the GOP under check. What more of a mark could he make as Speaker (especially having to work with THIS President) than that? It is not as though Gingrich, Hastert, or Boehner accomplished anything more significant or of greater appeal to GOP voters.

If he bows out now he has options politically and otherwise. If he remains, he is tied to the current administration. If Trump suddenly becomes a President of legend (cannot calculate the odds against that, cannot count that high) then Ryan is done politically. As an outsider, presuming Trump does not become a legendary President, Ryan has options.

[Sarmatian]

He can make a comeback a few years down the road, if he so chooses. Paul Ryan to the rescue!

In fact, this can just be a possible set up for his presidential nomination in 7 years.

[Husar]

Paul Ryan is a coward. Won't stand up to Trump regardless of how unhinged he gets, and now won't face the consequences of his legislative "agenda". I didn't think Pelosi's feebleness would be outdone so soon by a Speaker, but how wrong I was. When he comes back in for the 2024 presidential campaign he will get laughed off the stage (if the GOP still exists at that point).

Coward? He is a self-serving politician. He is staying around until he meets the minimum requirement to have all 3 years of being the Speaker work out his pension for his 20 years of "service" then will be off earning more money from being NEDs on the very company he's helped with the tax decrease.

I find it amazing how much hope people attach to a politician as though the next one will somehow magically be the one to selflessly fight for all the issues that they want.

[drone]

I find it amazing how much hope people attach to a politician as though the next one will somehow magically be the one to selflessly fight for all the issues that they want.

I think you have mistaken me for someone who actually believed Ryan's BS about fiscal responsibility, I never had much hope for the man in the first place. But for someone who railed against the overpowered executive, he acted like a freshman rep in one of the most powerful positions in the country.

Ryan got the first tax reform bill since Reagan through the Congress and did so by dragging Trump along and keeping the reactionary wing of the GOP under check. What more of a mark could he make as Speaker (especially having to work with THIS President) than that? It is not as though Gingrich, Hastert, or Boehner accomplished anything more significant or of greater appeal to GOP voters.

He got a tax cut, not a reform. Tip O'Neill got a tax reform bill passed, Ryan just raided the treasury.

[rory_20_uk]

Ryan got the first tax reform bill since Reagan through the Congress and did so by dragging Trump along and keeping the reactionary wing of the GOP under check. What more of a mark could he make as Speaker (especially having to work with THIS President) than that? It is not as though Gingrich, Hastert, or Boehner accomplished anything more significant or of greater appeal to GOP voters.

If he bows out now he has options politically and otherwise. If he remains, he is tied to the current administration. If Trump suddenly becomes a President of legend (cannot calculate the odds against that, cannot count that high) then Ryan is done politically. As an outsider, presuming Trump does not become a legendary President, Ryan has options.

Dragged Trump along to give himself a massive tax cut to his personal empire? Tough journey I'm sure! Was A Republican Congress and President ever not going to award themselves a massive tax cut?

Yes, he's got options - and the ability to make probably millions in the meantime.

I think you have mistaken me for someone who actually believed Ryan's BS about fiscal responsibility, I never had much hope for the man in the first place. But for someone who railed against the overpowered executive, he acted like a freshman rep in one of the most powerful positions in the country.

Fair enough.

[HopAlongBunny]

Cohen never went to Prague; that's his story and he's stickin' to it.
The Steele Dossier makes the accusation and it seems the assertion might have backing.
The Prague visit has something to do with meeting Russians and shady dealings (perhaps to the benefit of Trump) If it happened it could leave a mark, so to speak:

https://wonkette.com/632560/hey-mich...passport-again

If the cats out of the bag, he's a fool to continue denying the trip.
The story is one that we'll have to wait for everyone to "show their work":

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/13/172366...steele-dossier

[drone]

Hannity. Please, please, please let there be something he would have needed a "lawyer" like Cohen for...

[Hooahguy]

I've been reading Comey's new book and enjoying it greatly. The man has a very interesting life story, plus a healthy amount of sass:

pg.87

I sympathized with him and told him so, but added that the 2001 opinion was so bad as to be "facially invalid." I said, "No lawyer could rely upon it."

From the windowsill came Addington's cutting voice: "I'm a lawyer and I did."

I didn't break eye contact with the vice president [Cheney]. "No good layer," I added.

[Montmorency]

His Trump memos.

TLDR

[HopAlongBunny]

While Trump's circus is interesting to watch, more important is the bill this administration will leave behind:

https://www.motherjones.com/environm...-coal-country/

The regulatory rollback will take along time to fix. Even worse, the effects on water, air and soil will require decades of recovery and clean-up.
Who will pay? Rarely the polluters, more often the gov't ie: the taxpayer. Even if dumping coal sludge doesn't harm you directly, you will end up paying for the clean-up.
All that sweet money generated from the "right to pollute"? As usual the bulk of it will go to a small number of people.
Hurray for the free-market! (?)

[HopAlongBunny]

In addition, we might ask "What's to come?"
In this vein, how prepared is the ballot system (counting and reporting) for the attack that's coming?
Not very:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...term-election/

Replacing machines and operating systems is expensive and time consuming. Good thing the USA has been focused with laser-like attention on this problem!
Usually, "it ain't a problem 'til it actually happens"; this time: "recognizing the problem might jeopardize the feelings of the current President, so we'll let it slide..."
Good luck in 2018.

[Montmorency]

The Tragedy of James Comey

Trump and Comey are polar opposites in virtue. But they are doppelgangers of ego. Neither can bear that the world might see him other than as he sees himself. As loathsome as Trump may seem to him, Jim Comey needs to understand that he, too, is hurting the Republic.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Young lawyers become prosecutors because they want to be the good guys ... Young prosecutors who make it a career begin to see themselves as members of a kind of warrior priesthood, paladins of light in an ethically murky and sometimes blackly malign world.

As a federal prosecutor, you are empowered to hunt those suspected of crime, but you are obligated to wield the immense resources at your disposal with restraint and in strict accordance with the rules. You are granted many tools to unearth evidence, but you must analyze what you find dispassionately. While an investigation is ongoing, you may not speak about its details publicly, no matter how high-profile the target and how intense the interest of the public, the press, or elected politicians.

You are commissioned to prosecute the guilty, but may not ethically subject anyone, however dodgy you personally may think them, to the risk of criminal conviction unless you believe the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, if at the close of an investigation you indict, you announce the fact and thereafter do your talking in court, not on the courthouse steps or in private leaks to reporters.

If the evidence you collect does not merit indictment, you don’t proceed. Then, whatever your personal feelings about that may be, you say nothing, or at most make an unadorned announcement of the fact. Your job is to prosecute crime, not to make public assessments of personal character.

In short, the job is about justice. It’s not about you.

Prosecutors can be heroes. But it is the self-abnegating heroism of the warrior-monk, not the self-promoting heroism of the solo knight errant who rescues maidens and slays dragons in the hope of having bards compose ballads extolling his fame. Unsurprisingly, however, people drawn to prosecution by the promise of action in the service of virtue can be seduced into seeing themselves as the second kind of hero.

One of the risks of becoming a career prosecutor is that, because you are so often in the right and so often confront people who obviously did wrong, in time you can begin to mistake the perpetual obligation to be right with inevitably being right. And as one rises in rank, filling offices in which one commands the resources and speaks with the voice of the United States Department of Justice, the deference that comes with such roles is immense.

It requires great discipline, deep self-awareness, and a strong measure of humility to keep remembering that the job is about justice and not about you. And that doing the job means following the rules, formal and informal, of the prosecutor’s code, even if doing so may seem unwise to you personally in the heat of the moment.

Comey’s first error, now somewhat obscured by later ones, was the choice to hold a press conference in July 2016 to announce and explain in detail the conclusions of the FBI about the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email practices while Secretary of State, including its decision not to recommend an indictment. Note what I just said — “conclusions of the FBI.”

Comey candidly admitted at the beginning of his press conference that he had not consulted the Attorney General about the recommendations he was about to discuss or the opinions he was about render. And he knew perfectly well how aberrational this behavior was.
[...]
Therefore, when Comey chose to march up to the microphones and provide a dog-and-pony show about the Clinton investigation, complete with his personal opinions about her “extreme carelessness” and the like, he committed two cardinal sins: First, he ignored the fact that, as FBI head, he was a cop, and no longer a prosecutor — that the Attorney General, not the FBI decides who gets indicted. Second, he ignored the norm that the Justice Department doesn’t “explain” decisions not to indict when the effect of the explanation will be to smear the person not indicted.

The senior leadership of the Justice Department would surely have concurred in the recommendation not to prosecute, but would probably have issued a much more conventionally terse explanation of the decision. Instead, Comey got out front with a statement that simultaneously took credit for what, given the evidence, was the only sensible prosecutorial choice, while at the same time including enough tut-tutting disapproval of Secretary Clinton’s behavior to deflect the ire of Clinton critics on Capitol Hill and beyond from the FBI and James Comey, Esq.

But you don’t get to ignore chains of command or defining norms of prosecutorial behavior because you think it will make the FBI, or you personally, look better. The job is about justice, not about you.

Comey’s later decision to send his infamous letter to Congress mere days before the election saying that some unexamined Clinton emails had been found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, and that the Clinton investigation might be reopened depending on what was in them, was even less excusable. In that case, he violated yet another important Justice Department norm, which is not to comment on the status of pending investigations immediately prior to elections.
[...]
Comey’s explanations of this decision are wholly inadequate. He poses his choice as between disclosure and “concealment,” as if there is some obligation on the part of federal law enforcement to update the public or congress on every unsubstantiated lead in an investigation. But the norm is precisely the reverse. The Department and subordinate law enforcement agencies like the FBI don’t comment on the status of investigations until they are complete and they don’t comment on unsubstantiated leads at all. Particularly not less than two weeks before an election in which the subject of an investigation is a candidate.

[N.b. Comey likely gave this notice because he was being threatened by pro-Trump leakers, although of course his aim could still then be to preserve his own/the FBI's reputation.]

Comey’s real reason was the worry that, if he had not disclosed before the election and something important was found on the laptop, then he would have been criticized by Republicans for hiding important information. To which the only possible response is — tough! Either disclosure or non-disclosure of uncorroborated allegations about a candidate can affect an election. The Justice Department policy against disclosure was created with full understanding of that dilemma. But it enjoins disclosure because only nondisclosure protects a candidate — like Hillary Clinton — whose electoral prospects will definitely be damaged by the release of information that may in the end prove baseless.

The mission of the Department of Justice is to convict the guilty, yes, but also to protect the innocent. Another part of its mission is to ensure that the process of winkling out truth does not warp the democratic process. If you work in the Department of Justice, or for its subordinate agencies, then no matter how high you climb, the job is still about justice. It’s not about you.

Rod Rosenstein has been sharply criticized, and not without reason given the timing, for writing the memo about Comey’s errors that Trump used to justify firing Comey. But everything in the Rosenstein memo — the facts and the judgments — was correct. Comey should have been fired. The only thing that makes his firing remotely controversial is that Mr. Trump sacked him for an unwillingness to do wrong in the future, rather than for the wrongs he’d done in the past.

Jim Comey is an honest man. Or at least as honest as any inevitably flawed human can be. But his basic honesty comes with two intertwined flaws. First, he knows he is honest, and on balance probably more honest than many people in public life. And that leads to a level of sanctimony dangerous in a man granted great public authority.
[...]
Second, although Comey is honest, he also has an irrepressible need to be seen as honest, indeed as more honest, and more forthrightly, courageously honest than anybody else. He thirsts, it would seem, to be publicly acclaimed as the the spotless hero of his own saga. And that is an especially dangerous trait in a law enforcement official.

By choosing to publish a book and embark on an endless round of self-promoting interviews while the Mueller investigation is ongoing, Comey, tragically, confirms that his need for self-affirmation is stronger than his loyalty to the rules and norms of the justice system he purports to be defending. He knows that he is a central witness in a potential obstruction of justice case against the president, whether that case is made in the courts or in an impeachment inquiry. And surely he remembers that the very last thing any prosecutor wants is for his star witness to be parading around the country giving interviews and creating all the little inconsistencies and toeholds for cross-examination that can undercut the credibility of any witness. And yet he seemingly cannot help himself.

[Sarmatian]

I must admit I didn't think of it that, but it does make a lot sense. Comey might also be, colloquially speaking, an attention *****.

[Sarmatian]

Double post.

[Fragony]

Narcists tend to not get along all that well wiith fellow narcists

[rory_20_uk]

How he is hurting the Republic is something I've missed. Loudly stating the truth is not defamation.

[Montmorency]

How he is hurting the Republic is something I've missed. Loudly stating the truth is not defamation.

The Comey memos declassified recently are notable not for their new content, but in how they corroborate the narratives of the past year. As well as the contents of Comey's new book. Well, if there is nothing much new in his book, what's the use (besides, as always, pissing off Trump personally)?

Trying to rehabilitate yourself in the public eye when you should be sitting tight and preparing to testify in the biggest trial(s) of American history could be seen as a needless distraction.

[Fragony]

Don move too much when you are shaved as we say here

[rory_20_uk]

The Comey memos declassified recently are notable not for their new content, but in how they corroborate the narratives of the past year. As well as the contents of Comey's new book. Well, if there is nothing much new in his book, what's the use (besides, as always, pissing off Trump personally)?

Trying to rehabilitate yourself in the public eye when you should be sitting tight and preparing to testify in the biggest trial(s) of American history could be seen as a needless distraction.

Sorry, I completely disagree. I'm not sure if he is trying to "rehabilitate" himself. Those who are avid Trump supporters are never going to change their point of view and others would probably back a career FBI official over a serial liar. I imagine he is more than capable of testifying.

He is entitled to undertake activities as a free citizen. What's the use? Like the "Art of the Deal" and the other books Donald has put his name on - money. Is Donald;s clan the only ones are allowed to gain money from activities? At least in his case he tends to be speaking the truth - normally conversations would be rather dull but at the moment we're on to the President refuting pee tapes since he'd of course not pay for prostitutes.

To stop refuting what is happening is to allow it to become "normal".

[Montmorency]

Sorry, I completely disagree. I'm not sure if he is trying to "rehabilitate" himself. Those who are avid Trump supporters are never going to change their point of view and others would probably back a career FBI official over a serial liar. I imagine he is more than capable of testifying.

He is entitled to undertake activities as a free citizen. What's the use? Like the "Art of the Deal" and the other books Donald has put his name on - money. Is Donald;s clan the only ones are allowed to gain money from activities? At least in his case he tends to be speaking the truth - normally conversations would be rather dull but at the moment we're on to the President refuting pee tapes since he'd of course not pay for prostitutes.

To stop refuting what is happening is to allow it to become "normal".

Point taken, but we don't and can't rely on Comey to continue 'refuting the abnormal'. See the rest of the article, by the way, on why Comey has this reputation and what he did wrong in 2016 professionally.

[Gilrandir]