The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns. - Page 1588 - Politics and Economics

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The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns.

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06-09-2017 , 10:16 AM

#39676

bobman0330

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Quote:

Originally Posted by JPantz

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/09/politi...int/index.html

So they are going to go after Comey as the leaker? I don't think Trump wants to take it to the streets like that. But anything that could lead to Trump be questioned under oath is a good thing.

Don't forget that Trump and all of his cronies are habitual liars. This will never happen because it's absurd. Media just reports it credulously because it gets clicks.

06-09-2017 , 10:28 AM

#39677

Huehuecoyotl

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Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 29,296

Quote:

Originally Posted by campfirewest

Trump definitely going with the leaker thing:

If anyone knows about leaking it's Trump

06-09-2017 , 10:33 AM

#39678

danspartan

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 3,851

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huehuecoyotl

If anyone knows about leaking it's Trump

I don't leak, its the best stream. You've never seen such a stream. All the best Russian hookers say so.

06-09-2017 , 10:39 AM

#39679

jjshabado

Carpal Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 22,732

Quote:

Originally Posted by microbet

The idea that Russia wanted to interfere just for the sake of interfering and wanted it enough to do it risking more sanctions and conflict in Europe is dumb imo. They wanted Trump to win very badly in hopes that he would lift sanctions because that means billions of dollars for Putin and his cronies.

Not to mention it opens up a TON of options for them in Eastern Europe.

06-09-2017 , 11:08 AM

#39680

Huehuecoyotl

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Quote:

In 2015, Grover Norquist, who has successfully defined unconditional opposition to taxes as the defining tenet of party orthodoxy, waxed enthusiastic about one state in particular that was leading the way for the nation. “Kansas is the future,” he told an interviewer. “Kansas is the model.” Kansas was the state where Sam Brownback, the former congressman who mentored a young staffer named Paul Ryan, implemented supply-side tax cuts that, Brownback promised, would usher in prosperity and fiscal stability.

Now Brownback’s tax cuts have failed so dramatically and incontrovertibly that the state’s Republican legislature overrode Brownback’s veto to eliminate them. Incredibly, a majority of the Republicans in both chambers of the state legislature voted against the tax cuts. In a new interview with Russell Berman, Norquist insists the failure in Kansas does not tell us much at all about anything. “If you’re a Republican looking for a model,” he says, “Kansas is not the model.”

Quote:

The pattern on display in Kansas has recurred over and over in Republican politics for more than a quarter century. (In this sense the state is, like Norquist said in 2015 but now denies, a model.) The pattern has four steps:

1. Demand a program of regressive, debt-financed tax cutting.

2. Deny or minimize the first-order effects of these tax cuts (reducing revenue available to the government, and increasing the incomes of rich people) and instead emphasize second-order effects: the tax cuts will trigger faster growth, and perhaps inspire legislators to reduce spending. Both these speculative effects will, the tax cutters assure the skeptics, prevent the predicted deficits from materializing.

3. Deficits in fact materialize when the predicted second-order effects fail.

4. Insist the tax cuts only failed because weak-minded legislators did not do their part to cut spending as required. Continue advocating regressive, debt-financed tax cuts.

As the saying goes, Voodoo Economics cannot fail, it can only be failed.

Quote:

What enables Republicans to persist in this charade is that duping themselves is not completely necessary. Many, perhaps most, conservative elites believe as a matter of principle that taxing the rich at higher rates is morally wrong. They consider the first-order effects of regressive tax cuts — the transfer of resources from the public fisc to “the makers” — desirable. Since most Americans do not approve of tax cuts for the rich, this requires them to focus on the alleged second-order effects. And it explains why they continue to support the policy even when those second-order effects continuously prove ephemeral.

The entire identity of Republican politics has followed this same four-step pattern. The GOP made the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 the centerpiece of its domestic policy platform. When the economic and fiscal goals of the tax cuts failed, and a cycle of miserable job growth culminated in a massive speculative collapse, the party rebranded itself as a new, austere rebooted version of the old thing. The failures of the Bush-era party turned out to be its deviation from conservatism. It had been corrupted and seduced by big spending. And now the Trump-era party is right back to where it was under Bush, following the same policies and insisting the result will be different.

Though Republicans won't say it, the logical conclusion of this is ACism or maybe mini-anarchism.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...-national.html

06-09-2017 , 11:12 AM

#39681

ScreaminAsian

For President

Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 33,333

Quote:

Originally Posted by simplicitus

No. This is not close. Your question is not sane.

Trump (alone): so crazy that it just... might... work.

06-09-2017 , 11:42 AM

#39682

m_reed05

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Lol going after Comey as a leaker is going to backfire hard.

06-09-2017 , 11:45 AM

#39683

MrWookie

Don't Call Me Meredith

Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 94,159

Quote:

Originally Posted by m_reed05

Lol going after Comey as a leaker is going to backfire hard.

Why? I doubt Trump would actually bother to try prosecuting Comey as a leaker, but he can call him one on Twitter, and his supporters will eat it up.

06-09-2017 , 11:47 AM

#39684

tomdemaine

Just tries harder

Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 20,065

Yeah, 70% dismiss it instantly as ridiculous 30% accept it unquestioningly as fact. Downside?

06-09-2017 , 11:52 AM

#39685

master3004

Revisionist Historian

Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 56,462

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrWookie

Why? I doubt Trump would actually bother to try prosecuting Comey as a leaker, but he can call him one on Twitter, and his supporters will eat it up.

Because him showing concern that Comey is a leaker is also corroborating Comey's information. If he sticks to calling him a liar, who gives a **** what information Comey leaked? It's lies, not leaks.

06-09-2017 , 11:55 AM

#39686

MrWookie

Don't Call Me Meredith

Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 94,159

Quote:

Originally Posted by master3004

Because him showing concern that Comey is a leaker is also corroborating Comey's information. If he sticks to calling him a liar, who gives a **** what information Comey leaked? It's lies, not leaks.

You are a level above the average Trump supporter (and a level above Trump).

06-09-2017 , 12:14 PM

#39687

bigt2k4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by MrWookie

Why? I doubt Trump would actually bother to try prosecuting Comey as a leaker, but he can call him one on Twitter, and his supporters will eat it up.

Ya, there will be no lawsuit filed, just one threatened in the public eye. Last we hear about this I bet.

06-09-2017 , 12:16 PM

#39688

Huehuecoyotl

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Quote:

Originally Posted by bigt2k4

Ya, there will be no lawsuit filed, just one threatened in the public eye. Last we hear about this I bet.

Kind of like the tapes that never surfaced.

06-09-2017 , 12:17 PM

#39689

bigt2k4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by MrWookie

You are a level above the average Trump supporter (and a level above Trump).

I'm sure if Trump's lawyer went after Comey's statement about how his mother raised him, it would have worked with Trump's base. Morans don't care whether anything makes sense, they just want some statement that comes across as strong so they can continue their blind faith.

06-09-2017 , 12:27 PM

#39690

Loki

binary duo

Join Date: Nov 2015 Posts: 12,772

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huehuecoyotl

Kind of like the tapes that never surfaced.

And the evidence of massive voter fraud, and the tax returns trump promised to release, and...

06-09-2017 , 12:27 PM

#39691

Namath12

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Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 55,849

Quote:

Originally Posted by master3004

Because him showing concern that Comey is a leaker is also corroborating Comey's information. If he sticks to calling him a liar, who gives a **** what information Comey leaked? It's lies, not leaks.

This is the correct level to be on

Last edited by Namath12; 06-09-2017 at 12:28 PM. Reason: My pony was busted down to level 1

06-09-2017 , 12:40 PM

#39692

Namath12

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White House social-media guy Dan Scavino violates Hatch Act

06-09-2017 , 12:40 PM

#39693

RV Life

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2016 Posts: 1,935

Quote:

Originally Posted by dagger9

Look at the replies to that tweet. One good thing about Trump is how he's exposing how mentally ill the left is. Being blocked by the president is the biggest achievement of their life.

All I see are a bunch of people calling Trump a pathological liar. But it's nice to know you think that makes people mentally ill.

06-09-2017 , 12:49 PM

#39694

Namath12

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Former GOP congressman Bob Inglis ripping Paul Ryan a new one

06-09-2017 , 12:53 PM

#39695

Our House

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Trump, his lawyer, the WH, the administration, and the Republicans are all over the place with this Comey testimony.

NOT the behavior of innocent people who are telling a single true story.

06-09-2017 , 01:14 PM

#39696

Our House

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Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 28,109

Quote:

Originally Posted by master3004

Because him showing concern that Comey is a leaker is also corroborating Comey's information. If he sticks to calling him a liar, who gives a **** what information Comey leaked? It's lies, not leaks.

This is important. Not because it's going to convince all Trump supporters (Lordy knows some of them are several levels below 1) but because it will affect a bunch of them who DO realize it, and Mueller + committees aren't stupid so they will be able to use it to determine Trump's guilt in some areas.

After yesterday, this is no longer about just ONE crime, and no longer about just ONE investigation. Thanks Comey!

06-09-2017 , 01:24 PM

#39697

RV Life

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2016 Posts: 1,935

I bet Trump is dying to pull a Col. Jessup and take the stand. He thinks this whole thing is a reality show anyway. I bet he mulls it over the weekend and sometime next week he announces he'll testify. It's not like he'll listen to anyone that tells him it's a bad idea. He craves the attention.

06-09-2017 , 01:31 PM

#39698

Our House

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Quote:

Originally Posted by RV Life

His lawyer's horrible statement will land him on the witness stand. Not to mention Huckabeast saying what she said yesterday about lying. Someone will subpoena the "tapes" and force Trump to lie to the Congress or the court.

06-09-2017 , 01:33 PM

#39699

jjshabado

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Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 22,732

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrWookie

Why? I doubt Trump would actually bother to try prosecuting Comey as a leaker, but he can call him one on Twitter, and his supporters will eat it up.

I already read an article from a left-of-centre Canadian media outlet about how Comey came out looking not that great and they focused a bunch on the "leaking" aspect.

This world is bull****.

06-09-2017 , 01:35 PM

#39700

jjshabado

Carpal Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 22,732

Quote:

Originally Posted by master3004

Because him showing concern that Comey is a leaker is also corroborating Comey's information. If he sticks to calling him a liar, who gives a **** what information Comey leaked? It's lies, not leaks.

This doesn't even make the top 50 cognitive dissonances that a Trump supporter has to deal with.

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