The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns. - Page 964 - Politics and Economics

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

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04-04-2017 , 12:52 PM

#24076

raradevils

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 8,189

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huehuecoyotl

Sure, but let's be grownups here. Why didn't Obama get to replace Scalia with Garland? It' wasn't because of any procedural issue or whatever Republicans want to say it was. Let's be honest, they were scared that a more liberal judge would tilt the Court more liberal and they controlled the Senate so they stalled hoping for a long shot that a Republican would win. And a Republican won, and now they want to install a more conservative judge. Democrats do not.

The take away from this is the "we've never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee" or "no Supreme Court Justice nominees during election years" are just ploys. They're not what's really going on.

What's really going on is the Supreme Court isn't some neutral arbitrator and who sits on it isn't just a matter of qualifications. It's a political entity and who sits on it determines the slant of American law for years.

The meta issue is that we treat the law as some kind of moral arbitrator, a kind of playground where everyone knows the rules, and if followed then the "process" is deemed "fair". But here the curtain gets pulled back and we realize that the "process" is really made up of who has the power. A more liberal court means workers get more power "fairly" while a more Republican court means companies gain more relative power "fairly".

I don't disagree with anything you posted. The level to which Washington has become is no different than what it was leading up to the Civil War.

04-04-2017 , 01:06 PM

#24077

kerowo

lolcat

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 37,190

Quote:

Originally Posted by microbet

The only thing wrong with that argument is how it gets used and who uses it. Chomsky, unlike people who will trumpet that argument, has no problem railing against Trump without a hint of whataboutism.

Calling someone a hypocrite is often a rhetorical diversion, but hypocrisy is still a thing. Russia messing up our elections is something we should certainly fight, but Hillary "I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake. And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win." Clinton isn't the right person for that fight.

#smhwhatpassesforcentrism #foreignpolicyexpertisewtf #okiwillstop

It's false equivalency writ large. It assumes all goals are the same and that there is no difference between the US and Putin's government.

04-04-2017 , 01:14 PM

#24078

microbet

Solar Powered

Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 57,105

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerowo

It's false equivalency writ large. It assumes all goals are the same and that there is no difference between the US and Putin's government.

In general I don't see that as a false equivalency. The US has consistently supported or installed horrible dictators who were absolutely at odds with the interests of the people of their country and in line with the economic interests of the United States - primarily those of large powerful industries. To some degree this goes all the way until Clinton's support as SoS of the coup in Honduras. And beyond of course. Trump is super buddies with every authoritarian leader in the world.

04-04-2017 , 01:22 PM

#24079

suzzer99

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 100,229

3 Susan Rice threads in the top 10 on Chiefsplanet. None in top 30 about internet privacy or Syria gassing.

04-04-2017 , 01:27 PM

#24080

Trolly McTrollson

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 37,851

To be fair, the Internet thing isn't getting much play anywhere. I was surprised to see cp pushing back on it a little.

04-04-2017 , 01:29 PM

#24081

champstark

aka starkwired

Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 14,838

Trump proposing a carbon tax and a VAT is hilarious stuff.

04-04-2017 , 01:30 PM

#24082

suzzer99

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 100,229

Warning, extremely graphic images from Syria in this German article: http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/s....html#fromWall

04-04-2017 , 01:36 PM

#24083

microbet

Solar Powered

Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 57,105

I have yet to pay much attention to a VAT. I was listening to someone talk about it, and other tax issues, on the radio (T.R. Reid on Fresh Air) yesterday and he said 176 countries have a VAT.

04-04-2017 , 01:45 PM

#24084

kerowo

lolcat

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 37,190

Would it replace Federal, State, County, and local taxes?

04-04-2017 , 01:45 PM

#24085

bobman0330

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 24,234

Quote:

Originally Posted by champstark

Trump proposing a carbon tax and a VAT is hilarious stuff.

This is a very impressive delayed April Fool's joke

04-04-2017 , 01:55 PM

#24086

Rococo

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 19,559

Quote:

Originally Posted by microbet

Rococo, I'm not saying you had to vote for Bernie. I'm just saying there were several people who actually did vote for Bernie (maybe some who now would have) who either said nothing during the primaries or were hostile. I'm not saying they had to be in love with Lestat either, but joining in on the lols with dessin, bobman, campfirewest, seattlelou et al wasn't necessary and a word or two about how being a New Dealer isn't in and of itself insanity, repeating Bernie's positions didn't mean HRC was sincere, campaigning on wonkiness isn't necessarily astute, a million years in congress isn't exactly the description of a wildman who has no idea what government does etc, might have been comforting and might even have swayed a vote or three.

Whatever. I'm comforted enough that dvault sort of acknowledges this. What we need going forward is solidarity, er sorry, unity.

I don't hate Bernie, and I don't think it's fair to saddle him with the baggage of some of his less mature supporters. In a weird way, it's the comparison of guys like Bernie to the far right of the GOP that convinces me to vote Democratic every election. Bernie is fundamentally well intentioned, even if he wasn't my first choice for President. His mirrors on the far right of the GOP are hateful people.

04-04-2017 , 02:08 PM

#24087

Huehuecoyotl

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 29,296

Quote:

Originally Posted by suzzer99

3 Susan Rice threads in the top 10 on Chiefsplanet. None in top 30 about internet privacy or Syria gassing.

Quote:

Which is why conservatives have been waiting so desperately for something, anything they can use to turn the story around to their advantage, no matter how ludicrous the arguments they make might be. And now they’ve found it.

And boy, are those arguments ever ludicrous. At this moment, the right wing media is going bonkers over reports that Susan Rice, who was national security adviser at the time, in 2016 requested the “unmasking” of certain U.S. persons who had been picked up in surveillance of foreign intelligence targets. Because those persons turned out to be associates of Donald Trump, conservatives have managed to twist this into the allegation that the Obama administration was “spying” on Trump and his campaign. Over at foxnews.com I count 11 separate articles about Rice on the home page. You can find similar screaming headlines at Breitbart, the Daily Caller, and all the other conservative sites — and don’t ask what’s happening on Twitter (if you want to get a taste of the lunacy, search #SusanRice).

Why the gleeful eruption of accusations? Certain conservative media already had their basic storyline, which is that the problem isn’t Russian meddling in our election, the problem is that somebody revealed Russian meddling in our election. That’s why, along with President Trump, they’re so outraged (or are at least pretending to be outraged) about leaks of the various investigations. But what they lacked was a single villain, and now they have one, someone they hated already and on whom they can focus all their considerable venom.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...=.f853e4a66833

04-04-2017 , 02:16 PM

#24088

th14

old hand

Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 1,460

https://twitter.com/DomenicoNPR/stat...20263250583552

04-04-2017 , 02:16 PM

#24089

suzzer99

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 100,229

Trolly please post that WaPo thing on CP.

04-04-2017 , 02:19 PM

#24090

iron81

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 17,730

Checked whether he was kidding about the 11 front page Fox stories. He wasn't.

04-04-2017 , 02:20 PM

#24091

Majik19

confirmed pervert

Join Date: Aug 2013 Posts: 7,598

Here's just a taste of the twitterverse.

04-04-2017 , 02:21 PM

#24092

Dominic

Tripod

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 74,654

ProPublica destroying Spicer after he said they were a "left-wing blog" today

04-04-2017 , 02:24 PM

#24093

otatop

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 12,721

Quote:

Originally Posted by th14

https://twitter.com/DomenicoNPR/stat...20263250583552

See look, it was all those ****head Dems in 95 with 82 filibusters right after the Republicans only filibustered 80 times that started this whole thing off.

04-04-2017 , 02:39 PM

#24094

.Alex.

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 5,672

Quote:

Originally Posted by HastenDan

Chomsky: With U.S. History of Overthrowing Govts, Outrage over Russian Hacking Claims is Laughable

Ze russians have compromised Chomsky! Quick, someone post the wiki link to whataboutism!

Your enthusiasm for Chomsky and Greenwald would be believable if you didn't only cite them when referencing right-wing talking points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyWf

Oh, also, we actually regard homophobia as a societal ill, not just some weird internet point scoring device. How are you so bad at this? Has your act fooled a single person on 2p2?

Unfortunately he has fooled a few, which is why it's important to keep shaming him.

04-04-2017 , 02:41 PM

#24095

13ball

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 12,912

Quote:

Originally Posted by hornbug

It looks like the Trump administration has been a lot more ethical than the Obama administration.

1- Trump Nat Sec Adv Flynn resigned for failing to disclose information to the VP.

2- Obama Nat Sec Adv Rice lied about a video causing the Benghazi violence and was not fired.

3- Obama Nat Sec Adv Rice unmasked political opponents and was not fired.

Kudos to the Trump administration. At least in the area of National Security Advisors they demand they be ethical and do not use our national security apparatus to attack their political opponents.

lol.