US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[em2nought]

There are rumbling$ that many major regular democratic donor$ are not going to be happy if Warren is the nominee.

[Skybird]

I have read Snowden's book now. Imprsssive. I saw him in two long tV interviews and was absolutely sympathtic to the way he got across, and the book supports my intiial impressions of the person behind it all. This is no famehungry poser or attention.craving disloyal knowitall. He is very serious, I see lots of integrity in his character, and a straight mind that knew exactly in advance what he got himself into and what losses he would suffer from doing what he did (with help from strong supporters). He unmasked crimes that are agaimnst law and constitution, and for that I fail to see the moral argument that this turns him into a villain t hat must be prosecuted. When subordunates see their superiors and top of the list commanders violating the law and rules and constitution, it shoukd be regarded as their duty to not stay loyal to them, no matter what, but to help ending the wrongding by calling it out. He did, in a format that wpuld make it impssible for the offenders to hide the evidence in time.



This is a very different character than for example Julian Assange. I wish Snowden well.



And one thing, Mr. Snowden: Thank you. Thank you a lot. We owe you, even if many of the bigot establishment defenders deny that and eye you with foam on their lips, for you threatened their personal power interests.


We now need somebody who unlocks the removed Trump calls from that hidden WH security server. And not only Trump must be helf liable - all those aids who helped him to cover up must be held accountable, too. We had this kind of ever helpful compkices in Germany, too, seventy, eighty years ago. We know this wicked breed all to well. Their loyalty - in truth is nothign els ebut treason against the people, and the nation, and the constitution, and the spirit in which the founding fathers did what they did back then.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

We now need somebody who unlocks the removed Trump calls from that hidden WH security server. And not only Trump must be helf liable - all those aids who helped him to cover up must be held accountable, too. We had this kind of ever helpful compkices in Germany, too, seventy, eighty years ago. We know this wicked breed all to well. Their loyalty - in truth is nothign els ebut treason against the people, and the nation, and the constitution, and the spirit in which the founding fathers did what they did back then.

What was that thing about using nazi comparisons meaning you have lost the argument Comrade?

[vienna]

Here is a link to an annotated text of the whistleblower's complaint:


The whistleblower complaint, annotated
A line-by-line analysis of the report that triggered the Ukraine scandal. --

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019...int-annotated/



...and here is a link to an annotated text of the Trump's phone call:


Trump's Ukraine phone call, annotated --

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019...ipt-annotated/








<O>

[vienna]

<O>

[Mr Quatro]

How can there be two (2) CIA's ... ?

One for you and one against you

The swamp has a spy in it ... That thinks like a chess master.

Who changed the requirement for whistle blowers to have first hand information is the guilty party. Changed just to report the Presidents phone call.

Proof will be forth coming for all those that love the truth.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

How can there be two (2) CIA's ... ?

One for you and one against you

The swamp has a spy in it ... That thinks like a chess master.

Who changed the requirement for whistle blowers to have first hand information is the guilty party. Changed just to report the Presidents phone call.

Proof will be forth coming for all those that love the truth.

"...for those who love the truth."?...


Then, obviously, the real truth lovers must really hate Trump:


All False statements involving Donald Trump --

https://www.politifact.com/personali...yruling/false/


...and that's just the tip of the Trumpberg...


How is it even remotely possible to love truth and defend Trump? The creep lies and then lies about his lying; to Trump, honesty is not a virtue, its a disease to be avoided at all costs. The Trumpetts had better get used to the idea Trump's reign will only last 4 years... or less...

There is a real reason none of the major US banks will do business with Trump, eve before he ran for office; it is the same reason none of the reputable major law firms will take up Trumps's defense: Trump has proven track record of running up unpaid balances on loans and bills and then refusing to pay for the contracted loans and services; sometimes he tries to avoid rightful payments by whelshing out via the bankruptcy laws; more often than not, he simply just does not honor his commitments; in point of fact, Trump's rapacious misuse of the office of the Presidency may be his last ditch attempt to salvage what is left of his erstwhile 'emipire'; it will be interesting to see what will happen to Trump and his mini0ons when the protective cloak of the Presidency is removed and he no longer can hide behind his office's protections...

It's kind of like the paradox of the Christian Far-Right's continued support for Trump: how can they support someone who has, in truth, violated six of the Ten Commandments and appears to be in violation of at least three of the other four? Simple hypocrisy does not even begin to cover a description of how absurd the Evangelicals look when they embrace 'Saint Trump'. Morality, honesty, compassion, self-effacement, and all of the other aspired for basic traits of Christianity are nowhere to be found in Trump. By supporting Trump, aren't they really only lying to themselves and violating the central contract between God and man? ...

You love the truth? Well, the real truth is Trump is not in any sense a paragon and those who claim to love truth and continue to support Trump are only lying to themselves...


... and God...







<O>

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by vienna

"...for those who love the truth."?...


Then, obviously, the real truth lovers must really hate Trrump.


The creep lies and then lies about his lying; to Trump, honesty is not a virtue, its a disease to be avoided at all costs. The Trumpetts had better get used to the idea Trump's reign will only last 4 years... or less...

It's kind of like the paradox of the Christian Far-Right's continued support for Trump: how can they support someone who has, in truth, violated six of the Ten Commandments and appears to be in violation of at least three of the other four? Simple hypocrisy does not even begin to cover a description of how absurd the Evangelicals look when they embrace 'Saint Trump'. Morality, honesty, compassion, self-effacement, and all of the other aspired for basic traits of Christianity are nowhere to be found in Trump. By supporting Trump, aren't they really only lying to themselves and violating the central contract between God and man? ...

You love the truth? Well, the real truth is Trump is not in any sense a paragon and those who claim to love truth and continue to support Trump are only lying to themselves...

... and God...

<O>

Your hate/anger is showing ... You brought it up ... We of the Christian faith forgive even as we have been forgiven. The law doesn't save you, but only the blood Jesus shed on the cross at Ca!vary can save you. It's called faith in a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are not lying to ourselves when we look at the options of a democrats house/senate/white house filled nation ... What they promise and promote would drive us to be against the radical left.

The truth is what you get when you forgive and love ... When you get angry you lose your power this is a universal truth.

You (vienna) can't see the truth due to your hate/angry rhetoric/ but make a great case study in a person that can only see one side.

[JU_88]

Trumps an old ball.

There are many cases where rambles off complete and utter nonsense, and is clearly being disingenuous and purposefully vague when having to talk about something he has no clue about. And of course he Lies, but can anyone name me one World leader that doesn't? When we have so much media that also lies and frames things out of context to suit a narrative, it can be quite hard to identify.

And then There are some issues where he speaks very openly (and bluntly) compared to the typical politician word salad of your Bushes, Clintons and Obamas etc. And its that part of Trump that resonates.
Many people are tired of Politicians who talk for for 10 minutes and seemingly say nothing they can relate to.

I personally find neither level of Admiration or hatred towards trump is really warranted. He is not very' likable' no, but what counts are his policies.
And even without the Leash of the house Democrats, IMO he is not so spectacularly different to past presidents in that area.

But anyway brash actors like Trump and Democrats like AOC are just products of something much bigger, The culture war. Most of the Western hemisphere is undergoing an identity crisis, that is where real problem lies.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

Your hate/anger is showing ... You brought it up ... We of the Christian faith forgive even as we have been forgiven. The law doesn't save you, but only the blood Jesus shed on the cross at Ca!vary can save you. It's called faith in a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are not lying to ourselves when we look at the options of a democrats house/senate/white house filled nation ... What they promise and promote would drive us to be against the radical left.

The truth is what you get when you forgive and love ... When you get angry you lose your power this is a universal truth.

You (vienna) can't see the truth due to your hate/angry rhetoric/ but make a great case study in a person that can only see one side.

What unmitigated Bandini...


I've said it before: I don't hate Trump and really couldn't give a monkey's about him. I knew very, very little about him before he ran for office other than he was the male version of a Kardashian sister: someone of rather limited talent and pretty much famous for just being famous (and that he, like Kim, has a behind big enough to have its own gravitational field). It wasn't until he formally ran for the WH that I actually did any background research on him and the results were not pretty. Virtually all the failngs, shortcomings, flaws, mercenarism, and mendacity had been very well documented, with a substantial amount of the documentation having been published years before Trump began to run, so the claims by some minions and Trumpettes that such reportage is relatively new and intended to oust Trump is, in itself, false; the facts were always out there, its just very few of the Trumpettes had taken the time and effort for due diligence before voting for the swine. Once Trump is gone, I, like a great many others will say "Good riddance" and forget about him and we'l go onw with our lives; basically, didn't care about him before he ran and won't care about him after he's gone; the justice system and the courts will deal with him and I won't care...


I'm also not angry or filled with hate, as you, without even ever having met me or with extremely little knowledge of me, wish to label me. I long, long ago learned that hate and anger really don't accomplish much and there are better ways to use one's limited time on this earth. I don't hold grudges nor do I try to seek revenge; I've witnessed all too often that those who wrong someone most often are themselves upended by their own action, kharma, if you will. It takes two to have a fight, and, if you're not there, there is no fight. This is not to say I am passive or a pacifist; as John Lennon once said "I love peace, but I'm not a pacifist". If someone tries to get unreasonably in my face, I will respond as I see fit, but once the situation is resolved, I forget about it and go on with my life. Things can happen in one's life that give one a perspective of when to act and when to just say "Screw it. Life's too short"...


You say Christian Trump supporters are not lying to themselves, that its just a matter of this or that that party. But the fact is they are lying, not only to themselves, but to the deity they espouse. The Holy Law is "Thou shalt not bear false witness" which covers a lot of ground, but is at its core, not to lie; and its not conditional: there is, by God's own words, no if, ands, or buts. Let's face it: Trump lies at the drop of a hat (or even if doesn't drop) and a goodly number of those lies are totally unnecessary and/or gratuitous. It takes a particular level of hypocrisy and duplicity to proselytize a particular set of morality and then contradict it by condoning, defending, and excusing actions which egregiously fly in the face of the espoused morality set. I don't think God is going to be impressed when the judgement comes for those evangelicals and they try to explain "Well Lord, you see (heh, heh), I had to vote for him and let him keep lying because of worldly politics(heh, heh...gulp!) and I know you were explicit it your Commandments, but I was sure you'd make an exception and..., um, why are you pointing you finger downwards?..."...


As far as forgiveness is concerned, that is fine; forgive and forget is what I try to do; but forgiveness only goes so far: if the person being forgiven shows no sign of remorse on contrition and continues to offend, then forgiveness has its limits. There that old saw: Fool me once, shame on you; foll me twice, shame on me. There comes a time when one has to stand up for their core values and say the flagrant flaunting must end. Far Right Evangelicals have been repeatedly fooled by Trump and his minions and ill-used in order to keep his amoral administration in place. But, I think, the end of the tether is nearing and the voters are seeing how abysmal and degenerate and how counter to the laws of the country and the core morality of the nation the Trump administration has become and are ready to say "We won't be fooled again"...


Remember, Trump never won the popular vote and didn't even get a plurality, with Clinton getting 2% more of the total popular vote than Trump and about 2,868,000 more popular votes than Trump (and Clinton was aver weak candidate). Trump has no real mandate from the American people. Trump actually got his Electoral College win with a margin of fewer than 80,00 popular votes, or 0.00056% of the total popular vote. In the three swing state Trump won, his margin of victory was lees than1% in each of those states, Michigan .02%, Pennsylvania .07%, and Wisconsin .08%; hardly a rousing success. And the biggest point to consider about 2020 is this: since 2017, when Trump took office, his ratings have really increased and has actually shown signs of falling to record lows, so he has no incumbent's poll rise to run on; and, those very same states he won by a whisper are among the states being most affected by Trump's policies of tariffs; in particular, Michigan farmers can't be too pleased with crop sales lost due to tariffs, and Virginia, to whom Trump promised and swore he would revive their coal minig industry, has seen the bankruptcies of four (4) more Virginian coal mining operation since Trump took office; that 0.00056% 'cushion' of 2016 looks to get even smaller...


No hate, no anger but I will call a fraud a fraud, a liar, a liar, a cheat, a cheat, etc. Trump is all that and much, much more. As an Independent, I calls them as I sees them and I don't equivocate or rationalize or compromise my own moral and/or ethical standards to accommodate petty political interests...








<O>

[Jimbuna]

Lawyers acting for the whistleblower at the centre of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s attempts to solicit foreign help for his re-election campaign have warned that their client’s personal safety is in danger partly as a result of the president’s remarks.

Andrew Bakaj, the lead attorney for the unnamed intelligence official who sounded the alarm on Trump’s activities relating to Ukraine, expressed fears on Sunday that the whistleblower could be put “in harm’s way” were his or her identity made public. In a letter to the acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, Bakaj points directly at Trump’s aggressive statements that he said prompted “concerns for our client’s safety”.

The letter, first reported by 60 Minutes on CBS News, quotes Trump’s comments on Thursday to staff at the US mission to the UN in New York. In his remarks, made behind closed doors but reported by the New York Times, the US president made a thinly-veiled threat that showed disdain for the institutional protections afforded to whistleblowers under federal law.

“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information because that’s close to a spy,” Trump said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? With spies and treason, right? We used to handle them a little differently than we do now.”

Bakaj said that the indirect nature of Trump’s comment in referring to the person who fed the whistleblower the information “does nothing to assuage our concerns for our client’s safety”. The lawyer added that individuals were also offering $50,000 rewards for information that would out the intelligence official.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...id=mailsignout

Looks to me like the politics in the UK and the US are currently on a par with each other.

[u crank]

Let's face it, Christians and other people of faith had a stark choice in 2016. And the choice was between Trump and this person who spoke at a human rights awards ceremony on Sept 27 at Georgetown University.

In her own words.

“He has turned American diplomacy into a cheap extortion racket. He has denigrated – and, let’s be honest, stabbed in the back – the career foreign service officers who serve bravely and selflessly no matter the politics of the administration that they are working under,”

Says a person who ran a lucrative pay for play scam while in the employ of the US government.

Now we know that in the course of his duties as president, he’s endangered us all by putting his personal and political interests ahead of the interests of the Ameican people,”

Says a person who used an unsecure email server while conducting diplomacy as the Secratary of State of the USA.

We knew that he and his campaign invited foreign adversaries to tamper with our elections.

Says a person who hired British and Russian agents to gather dirt on her political opponent.

So obviously voters are left with little choice but to vote for a less than honest politician. So what to do? The answer is pretty clear. Vote for a person who promises to do things that the voter wants. Clinton was going to continue Obama's policies and Trump was going to undue them. It was a pretty clear choice.

And then there is this to think about. Had Hillary Clinton won in 2016 all of the corrupt, lying, and shaddy characters that we have seen exposed would still be in power today. Comey, Brennan, Clapper, McCabe, Strzok etc would be there doing what they do so well.

There is a trend within progressive circles to shame Trump voters. Using the 'Christianity ploy' is a prime example. What are we to suggest, that Christians and other Religious people only vote for honest politicians. They would obviously never get to vote. And if they do vote it isn't a choice between the least honest candidate. I don't think anyone is fooled. Clearly it's a choice between the policies of the candidates.

[Bilge_Rat]

so since this whole new mess started, you keep hearing from the MSM that the UKR prosecutor Shokin was fired because he was corrupt and not because he was investigating Burisma, which according to the MSM is a "baseless conspiracy theory".

Well someone just uploaded a affidavit given by former Ukrainian General Prosecutor Victor Shokin where he states expressly that:

1. He was fired because he was leading a "wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings ...and Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden" (par. 8);

2. He was fired because he was refusing to stop the investigation : "On several occasions president Poroshenko asked me to have a look at the criminal case against Burisma and consider the possibility of winding up the investigative actions in respect of the company, but I refused the close the investigation. Therefore, I was forced to leave office, under direct and intense pressure from Joe Biden and the US administration. In my conversations with Poroshenko at the time, he was emphatic that I cease my investigations into Burisma. When I did not, he said that the US (via Biden) were refusing to release the USD$ 1 billion promised to Ukraine. He said that he had no choice, therefore, but to ask me to resign." (par. 9).

link to the affidavit:

https://fr.scribd.com/document/42761...okin-Statement

so the anonymous "whistleblower" complaint based on second-hand hearsay is treated like gospel, but the affidavit from the actual prosecutor is totally ignored. Do we need any more proof that the MSM is totally in the bag for the Dems?

[Bilge_Rat]

How to weaponise polls.

As we all know, even if the House impeaches Trump, he cannot be removed unless 2/3 of Senators vote to convict which would require at least 20 GOP senators.

Part of convincing the GOP to abandon Trump is showing that voters support impeachment. You have had a lot of stories over the past weeks about polls that show a jump in support for impeachment, usually without a link to said poll so you cannot make your own assessment, for example news story on the NPR/PBS/Marist poll:

Early Polling Suggests Opinion May Be Shifting Toward Favoring Trump Impeachment
The latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found 49 percent approve of impeachment, compared to 46 percent who disapprove. Although still just shy of 50 percent, the poll shows a 10-point surge in favor of impeachment compared to the same survey in April

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...peachment.html

However, when you actually dig down into the poll results, you see nothing has actually changed and GOP support for Trump is still rock solid:

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-cont...000.pdf#page=3

-90% of Republicans still approve of the job Trump is doing;
-93% of Republicans disapprove of the House starting an impeachment inquiry;
-85% of Republicans think the House impeachment inquiry is just politics;
-69% of Republicans think it is not a serious matter, just politics that "...Trump asked the President of Ukraine to investigate a potential political opponent, Joe Biden.."(btw, notice that it is a leading question);
-85% of Republicans think it is not worth it for the House to impeach Trump if Senate Republicans will not vote to convict.

It is basically the overwhelming support of Dem voters for impeachment which is bumping up the poll support, but none of them will vote for Trump anyway.

With numbers like these, it is wishful thinking to think the GOP Senators will vote to remove Trump.

[Canonicus]

Just remember that Repubs (or should they change the name to "Trumpists" to reflect their ultimate respect and allegiance to the new found Fuhrer)...
Are a small and shrinking part of the American electorate mostly made up of disaffected white males (white supremisists?) who like to sit on their fat asses and play Admiral.

BTW.. I don't hate anyone, not even trump, even thought I think he's a yellow haired,orange skinned wannabe dictator who cheats on his wife,income taxes,
likes to lock little babies in cages and is probably the Anti-Christ and has fooled a lot of other fools and BTW has contributed to Hillary Clinton's passed campaigns eight times.