Crazy comments here. Trump is better looking than Putin? Pence is wonderful? Whut he's just another old white dude in an administration of old old white men. And he's afraid to have a meeting with a woman who's not his wife, why? You guys want to trust this guy, who can't control himself around 50% of the population?
And this troll is photogenic?
Anyway, back to Russian investigation, so there's no independent prosecutor and the House and Senate investigations are either a joke (house) or barely more than a joke (senate) and Trump fired the only guy doing his job and looking into it. Seems really really shady.
Last May: Comey admits that the FBI is investigating the Clinton e-mail server issue. Last July: The FBI decides not to press charges against Clinton; some people got upset because making that sort of decision is not up to the Director. Last October (late): Comey announces that the FBI is reopening the Clinton e-mail server case
This April: Rosenstein confirmed as the new Deputy Attorney General after the previous one got fired for not throwing her support behind a travel/immigration-related executive order. This May (several events): ___Clinton admits that the reopening of the e-mail investigation the previous October was likely a major factor leading to her loss in the subsequent election. ___Comey admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that the idea that his investigation might have influenced the outcome of the election made him "mildly nauseous". It was also during this meeting when Comey "misspoke" about the amount of e-mail messages which may (or may not) have been forwarded to a laptop formerly owned by Huma Abedin's former husband Anthony Weiner. ___Federal prosecutors issued subpoenas to various associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in connection with suspected Russian influence in last November's election. This happened only a few hours before.... ___Rosenstein and Session both write letters recommending that Comey be dismissed, advice Trump followed. In his official notice of termination one of the key factors said to lead to that decision is the way in which the Clinton e-mail server investigation was handled.
The probability that this firing was not politically motivated is exactly zero. The probability that Trump will resign over all this mess is also exactly zero. The probability that a special investigator is appointed to look into the entire matter is small but greater than zero. The probability that Trump winds up being impeached is extremely small but still greater than zero.
The only reason your last two scenarios have only a small chance is because Republicans are in control, and you can count the ones who will stand up to Trump on one hand. They are ling up behind this. Drunk with power, and only interested in keeping it. Again, the center cannot hold when one party utterly abandons all pretense of political norms and even any modicum of integrity and decency. This is going to end up being one of the greatest, if not THE greatest test of the American experiment and whether it can hold. It may not.
Dispense with all notions false equivalency from here on out. Obama had the POWER to fire Comey in July, or October, or after the Election if he choose to do so. He did not. Because whatever your thoughts about him, he valued the Office and country more than that. Even if you believe Obama is the spawn of Satan and not firing Comey was simply nothing but nakedly political, he STILL wasn't THAT DAMN STUPID to do so. I don't agree with @Mathsorcerer on everything, but at least he can see the forest for the trees. The firing of Comey is not happening in a vacuum.
This is from the end of an editorial by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. Yes, he is a liberal. Yes, it is a liberal news site. But he is almost always very sober in his analysis of the day to day machinations in National Politics. He is not prone to hyperbole or jumping the gun. And he has been reporting on Trump's deep Russian ties since last summer. Here is what he wrote last night:
In criminal trials there are certain actions defendants can take from which judges will tell juries they can infer guilt. In a political context, this is one of those moments. We are now hearing word from White House officials that the White House is stunned at the backlash at Comey’s firing. Didn’t Democrats think he was doing a bad job? We’re even hearing commentators speculate that maybe this may have been a huge miscalculation. The White House didn’t realize how big a deal this was. In the final analysis I think this will be judged a major miscalculation – just not in the sense they mean. Frankly, no one is that naive. It doesn’t wash.
There is only one reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the decision to fire Comey: that there is grave wrongdoing at the center of the Russia scandal and that it implicates the President. As I write this, I have a difficult time believing that last sentence myself. But sometimes you have to step back from your assumptions and simply look at what the available evidence is telling you. It’s speaking clearly: the only reasonable explanation is that the President has something immense to hide and needs someone in charge of the FBI who he believes is loyal. Like Jeff Sessions. Like Rod Rosenstein.
I don't agree with @Mathsorcerer on everything, but at least he can see the forest for the trees.
No one should ever agree with me unless the evidence causes them to arrive at the same conclusion I might have. Any person agreeing with me simply because I say something is a person who is wasting both our time.
Yes, it is because Republicans control both the House and Senate at this time that I concluded that those last two probabilities were "greater than zero" albeit small. That being said, you are going to start seeing some Republicans begin to quietly distance themselves from Trump in an effort to keep their political careers mostly intact. He will be a one-termer and they are starting to look at the long game.
Recall that multiple Presidents never fired Hoover and he routinely violated both national laws and the Constitution during his tenure as Director of the FBI.
I don't agree with @Mathsorcerer on everything, but at least he can see the forest for the trees.
No one should ever agree with me unless the evidence causes them to arrive at the same conclusion I might have. Any person agreeing with me simply because I say something is a person who is wasting both our time.
Yes, it is because Republicans control both the House and Senate at this time that I concluded that those last two probabilities were "greater than zero" albeit small. That being said, you are going to start seeing some Republicans begin to quietly distance themselves from Trump in an effort to keep their political careers mostly intact. He will be a one-termer and they are starting to look at the long game.
Recall that multiple Presidents never fired Hoover and he routinely violated both national laws and the Constitution during his tenure as Director of the FBI.
It's generally assumed that Hoover was never fired by Kennedy, Johnson, or Nixon because he knew where all the bodies were buried (so to speak). At least two of them (Kennedy and Nixon) absolutely wanted to, but saw no way where he wouldn't destroy them in retaliation.
I watch the Comey situation with great amusement as the partisan tides shift yet again. First it was "Comey's a hero!" when he wouldn't prosecute then it was "Comey should be fired!" when he sent that letter and now it's back to "Comey's a hero and shouldn't be fired!" I can't even keep up anymore.
This was an interesting watch and it's my opinion that Cruz really crushed Yates during his segment. Getting her to all but admit but that not only does Trump have the authority to restrict migration as he so pleases and that her argument requires her to "see beyond the document" aka inject her own partisan interpretation into it in order to justify a racist discrimination argument. Total meltdown on her part if you ask me, exposing her as someone putting her political ideology above what is actually legally justifiable. Her termination, totally justified imo.
Coupled with Susan Rice's spying on Trump's team and her refusal to testify on the matter and lawyering up you really have to wonder about all of these Obama holdovers. Rather scheme and try to throw monkey wrenches into the system than do their job and put the interests of the country first.
I watch the Comey situation with great amusement as the partisan tides shift yet again. First it was "Comey's a hero!" when he wouldn't prosecute then it was "Comey should be fired!" when he sent that letter and now it's back to "Comey's a hero and shouldn't be fired!" I can't even keep up anymore.
This was an interesting watch and it's my opinion that Cruz really crushed Yates during his segment. Getting her to all but admit but that not only does Trump have the authority to restrict migration as he so pleases and that her argument requires her to "see beyond the document" aka inject her own partisan interpretation into it in order to justify a racist discrimination argument. Total meltdown on her part if you ask me, exposing her as someone putting her political ideology above what is actually legally justifiable. Her termination, totally justified imo.
Honestly? It baffles (and frankly, terrifies me as I believe the twisted perception of the right to be a danger to democracy and the world) me how someone can perceive it like this. She clearly demonstrated that there were both newer and higher (i.e. the Constitution) laws that effectively limit the authority. That Cruz is reported to have slunked away from the hearing right afterwards points to the fact that he felt the same. Not to mention how Cornyn managed to embarass himself.
As for Comey: are there reasons to fire him? Maybe - I certainly did not like everything he did. However, timing matters! Removing any FBI director during an ongoing investigation into the President and/or his campaign is a very serious matter. Also, there was an ongoing investigation into how Comey managed the email affairs and it would have been appropiate to wait for it to conclude. There is also the fact that we lauded for how he handled it by both Sessions and Trump.
I personally am convinced that this was due to the investigation of the Trump campaign. It coincides too neatly with the requests for more money and the Flynn subpoenas.
Even if you disagree, it is a bad decision, because it creates the appearance of corruption. It also widens the partisan gap in US politics. Both of these effects have the potential to cause lasting harm to a democracy.
My "twisted perception that is a danger to democracy" on the matter is that you can't make a claim of racial discrimination or even religious discrimination unless all nations of primarily that race or religion are included. This was not the case, so either it's a deliberately ineffective means of achieving this goal of racial discrimination, or...the law is motivated by a different impulse altogether. Say...national security or the lack of a proper vetting process in areas with armed and dangerous factions with a mind to kill us.
But no, this wasn't up for discussion for Yates, her mind is made up that Trump's just a racist bigot whose motive purely discriminatory in nature, an unprovable claim that can't be defended on the basis of what the law says, a tacit admission Yates made.
Yeah that didn't happen. Alternative reality. Here's what really happened.
Cruz said (all paraphrased) why didn't you follow this order the doj lawyers found lawful cause statute xyz says the president has power to control immigration? Yates said that's true he has that power but this other statute says you can't restrict based on place of birth and that the doj lawyers were not allowed to interpret the context.
So Cruz got owned.
And even more so when Durbin spoke he made further context of how "so you didn't follow that executive order that several federal courts found unconstitutional? That EO that Donald Trump was forced to withdraw. Ok make sense."
And going of Trump's campaign and rally speeches he is a bigot who wants to push one religion while banning another one. This is brought up in his court cases that he keeps losing as to the intent of his Muslim bans.
you can't make a claim of racial discrimination or even religious discrimination unless all nations of primarily that race or religion are included.
Not necessarily. You could also make the claim if "nations of primarily that race or religion are disproportionately included"--not necessarily all of them.
My opposition to the travel ban is more basic: Trump wanted to restrict travel from countries whose terrorists haven't attacked us (Syria), but not the countries that actually have (Saudi Arabia). On top of that, we have yet to suffer any terror attacks from refugees in general--since 9/11, terror attacks on the United States have only come from home-grown terrorists, people who were born here.
If we had suffered any attacks from the countries that Trump wants to restrict travel from, then we could debate whether it's constitutional or if it's worth the cost. But you can't make the country more secure by fighting a problem that does not exist.
You can't claim to be preventing Syrian refugee attacks when none have actually happened. When's the last time somebody died from a poisoned Skittle?
In other news, South Korea has a new president, Moon Jae-in, who might take a more Sunshine policy-esque approach to North Korea.
I respect the positive motive, but I do not think it will be successful. North Korea has refused to limit its nuclear program regardless of the leadership or the policies of South Korea, the United States, or China. North Korea might be willing to make some concessions during negotiations, but not on its nuclear program.
But no, this wasn't up for discussion for Yates, her mind is made up that Trump's just a racist bigot whose motive purely discriminatory in nature, an unprovable claim that can't be defended on the basis of what the law says, a tacit admission Yates made.
This sentences hardly parses, as it make it sound like Yates tried to argue that the law says Trump is a racist bigot. Yates decision was based on the executive order and not the personality of Trump, otherwise she would hardly have agreed to stay on as deputy AG.
She made the claim (and defended it very well) that the executive order was unlawful -a claim that has since been confirmed repeatedly in different federal courts. And yes, the intent behind the order matters - Trump promised a muslim ban during his campaign and also promised to prioritize Christians refugees. That promise is especially troubling, as the other justifications given in the EO are factually wrong.
But even beyond the matter of the order discriminating on the basis of religion, there was a boatload of other problems with it.
My "twisted perception that is a danger to democracy" on the matter is that you can't make a claim of racial discrimination or even religious discrimination unless all nations of primarily that race or religion are included.
To show why I find it frightening: this argument is very similar to the arguments used to justify voter literacy tests.
You can't just look at whether a particular race or religion is specifically called out, you always need to look at who is affected and what is the intent.
It also can start with a handful of Muslim dominated nations and once people give the "it's a no big deal, security before liberty" argument, they expand the list of countries until their is a total muslim ban.
Remember, during this ordeal, Canadian Muslims holding Canadian passports were turned away at the border. There was racial discrimination taking place because of this EO.
~
Now if the Deputy Attorney General is legitimately firing Comey for how Comey handled the Clinton case, his next priority should be to appoint an independent investigator to take over thd Trump probe and give them the funding Comey asked for.
Without this, it's optics, from the outside, look like this administration is attempting to take over all federal agencies to give it carte Blanche to do what it wants for the next 4 years and beyond.
One aspect of this topic which is not yet being discussed is that of future ramifications. Let us presume, for the sake of argument, that a special investigator is appointed and finds insufficient evidence of Russian involvement in last year's Presidential election. There will be two immediate pieces of fallout in this situation: 1) some people will still believe the Russians meddled but that investigator failed to uncover the correct evidence because a) they didn't ask the correct questions, b) the evidence was destroyed, c) the investigator is a Trump sympathizer, etc. and 2) the next Presidential election will be viewed as tainted and/or corrupt regardless of its outcome--people who disagree with the result will immediately claim "Russian hacking" as to why they lost. Genies never go back in the bottle.
On the other hand, let us presume that evidence is found and is sufficient to cause Federal warrants to be issued. Wouldn't that result in Trump tweeting pardons for anyone mentioned in those warrants, followed by putting it in writing? (Presidential pardons may be issued not only to someone who has not been convicted of a crime but to someone who has merely been charged with a crime.) Again, even in this case the evidence collected would have to be wide-ranging and sufficiently severe before the House considers impeachment (unless the Democrats retake control of the House in 2018, which seems highly improbable at this time). Again, in this case the next Presidential election will immediately be suspected of having been tainted.
To believe this has nothing to do with Russia you have to believe that it is just a magical coincidence that a.) it came less than 24 hours after Yates and Clapper testified before the Senate b.) it came merely hours before confirmed reports of Grand Jury subpoenas dropping all over the place in regards to Michael Flynn and c.) comes less than a week after Comey requested more resources from the Deputy AG on the Russia probe.
In addition to ALL of that, you have to ignore everything Trump said about the Clinton email probe during the later parts of the campaign, AND you have to somehow convince yourself that Donald Trump thinks Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly during the campaign. And it's hard to decide what is more disturbing. The blatant obstruction of justice, or the people who are falling for this bullshit hook, line and sinker.
Not necessarily. You could also make the claim if "nations of primarily that race or religion are disproportionately included"--not necessarily all of them.
Trump didn't select those countries in the ban, He took a list from the Obama administration, So the argument would have to extend that the Obama administration hates Muslims.
Coupled with Susan Rice's spying on Trump's team and her refusal to testify on the matter and lawyering up you really have to wonder about all of these Obama holdovers. Rather scheme and try to throw monkey wrenches into the system than do their job and put the interests of the country first.
I watched the congressional hearings. The complete partisanship in the discussion of MUH RUSSIA is pretty evident.
No evidence was found of Russian and Trump administration collusion.
That's a pretty final statement that conveniently everyone pushing the RUSSIA angle forgets to talk about.
It does amuse me that were still chasing election controversies.
Here is an interesting video, While i don't think highly of 'Face the Nation' I always support the media trying to ask regular joe's their thoughts on politics (For some reason Face the nation took the video down from youtube) Might try to find the full video but in the meantime here are clips.
This shouldn't be taken as representative of anyone but its interesting to hear.
There was criticism of both the Republican and Democrat party and the points (from the full video)
-Trump should tweet less and worry less about media coverage of him -His opening of Veterans to medical help was a good move -Nation feels divided -Democrat party is completely lost -DNC blames Russia and Wikileaks when all it showed was the Democratic party were liars and did everything to get Hillary to win -Completely sick of Russian story -Democrats used to be the party for the people, But in the election they didn't have any message for the working class and their notion on helping the working class doesn't make jobs (tax the rich, raise minimum wage).
This is why i say Trump probably wants the Russian story to keep going, he knows the Average American doesn't care and is tired of it. No one listens to the people.
No evidence was found of Russian and Trump administration collusion because Trump has fired anyone looking into it and also the House is uninterested in investigating a Republican. The Senate at least pretends about a bipartisan investigation but then doesn't assign any staff or money for a real investigation.
The investigation had not found anything because the investigation has not yet happened again mainly due to direct interference by Trump and also Republicans sabotaging the investigations.
If there was nothing to hide Mitch McConnell would not be afraid of an independent prosecutor. But he refuses to appoint one because then he wouldn't be able to hide the truth and sabotage the investigation.
Don't know what you mean by no investigation, It's pretty common knowledge Trump was under (very questionable) surveillance by the CIA during the election.
More then a year is a long time to turn up nothing while having the full power of the intelligence agencies spying network to use with no real oversight.
It is also now common knowledge that improper unmasking of intercepted communications was widely shared in the Government and so far i have heard no one say there was something bad in them (which i thought someone would).
@vanatos yeah, I bout can't watch regular news anymore, but I do like to hear the folks in the street and the call ins to CSPAN, esp. the drunk sounding ones.
@vanatos yeah, I bout can't watch regular news anymore, but I do like to hear the folks in the street and the call ins to CSPAN, esp. the drunk sounding ones.
One big show show, for sure.
Is that the one where the callers talk more crap about whats going on? i remember watching a clip of CSPAN (I think) and it was hilarious what the callers would say.
Don't know what you mean by no investigation, It's pretty common knowledge Trump was under (very questionable) surveillance by the CIA during the election.
More then a year is a long time to turn up nothing while having the full power of the intelligence agencies spying network to use with no real oversight.
It is also now common knowledge that improper unmasking of intercepted communications was widely shared in the Government and so far i have heard no one say there was something bad in them (which i thought someone would).
Common knowledge Trump was under surveillance by the CIA? What .. No, that's not common knowledge how do you come up with these conspiracy theories?
Let's think this through
If anything the CIA would not be monitoring US citizens in the USA that would be the FBI. So if Trump was caught red-handed talking to the Russians by the CIA then it would be because he was talking to someone the CIA was tracking. Like a Russian criminal or foreign intelligence agent.
I'm starting to hear even some on the moderate left say enough is enough on the Russia thing. I still find it mildly entertaining myself but that's fading fast. I don't think people voted for Trump because they were brainwashed zombies. I think they were pissed off and didn't see what the Democrats offered as anything other than more of the same...
The genie that's been let out of the box is social media being used to sway votes. I don't see that changing anytime soon after it worked so well for Trump.
Just out if curiosity, how does firing Comey shut him up? If anything it frees him of any need to keep things quiet. I don't think he's a big fan of Trump and now he has no more strings. He should be chomping at the bit to talk to all of the reporters at Politico now!
Oh, I hear he has a job offer from Wikileaks too. That's an even better opportunity to spill the beans.
Just out if curiosity, how does firing Comey shut him up? If anything it frees him of any need to keep things quiet. I don't think he's a big fan of Trump and now he has no more strings. He should be chomping at the bit to talk to all of the reporters at Politico now!
Oh, I hear he has a job offer from Wikileaks too. That's an even better opportunity to spill the beans.
No idea. One would think he'd be free to talk now. Maybe the information is classified and he can't talk about it or he'd be going to jail. I don't know.
No sane upright person who tries to do the right thing, such as Comey, is going to work for WikiLeaks.
And I don't agree that enough is enough with Russia by far since as I've said Trump has fired everyone looking into his campaigns ties to Russia. But I do agree that probably people did not see enough distinction between Democrats bought off by big corporations and Republicans completely bought off by big corporations.
I'm excited for Justice Democrats who won't be representing big companies and taking corporate cash, instead they'll be representing just us.
Comments
And this troll is photogenic?
Anyway, back to Russian investigation, so there's no independent prosecutor and the House and Senate investigations are either a joke (house) or barely more than a joke (senate) and Trump fired the only guy doing his job and looking into it. Seems really really shady.
Dispense with all notions false equivalency from here on out. Obama had the POWER to fire Comey in July, or October, or after the Election if he choose to do so. He did not. Because whatever your thoughts about him, he valued the Office and country more than that. Even if you believe Obama is the spawn of Satan and not firing Comey was simply nothing but nakedly political, he STILL wasn't THAT DAMN STUPID to do so. I don't agree with @Mathsorcerer on everything, but at least he can see the forest for the trees. The firing of Comey is not happening in a vacuum.
This is from the end of an editorial by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. Yes, he is a liberal. Yes, it is a liberal news site. But he is almost always very sober in his analysis of the day to day machinations in National Politics. He is not prone to hyperbole or jumping the gun. And he has been reporting on Trump's deep Russian ties since last summer. Here is what he wrote last night:
In criminal trials there are certain actions defendants can take from which judges will tell juries they can infer guilt. In a political context, this is one of those moments. We are now hearing word from White House officials that the White House is stunned at the backlash at Comey’s firing. Didn’t Democrats think he was doing a bad job? We’re even hearing commentators speculate that maybe this may have been a huge miscalculation. The White House didn’t realize how big a deal this was. In the final analysis I think this will be judged a major miscalculation – just not in the sense they mean. Frankly, no one is that naive. It doesn’t wash.
There is only one reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the decision to fire Comey: that there is grave wrongdoing at the center of the Russia scandal and that it implicates the President. As I write this, I have a difficult time believing that last sentence myself. But sometimes you have to step back from your assumptions and simply look at what the available evidence is telling you. It’s speaking clearly: the only reasonable explanation is that the President has something immense to hide and needs someone in charge of the FBI who he believes is loyal. Like Jeff Sessions. Like Rod Rosenstein.
This is a very dark and perilous moment.
Yes, it is because Republicans control both the House and Senate at this time that I concluded that those last two probabilities were "greater than zero" albeit small. That being said, you are going to start seeing some Republicans begin to quietly distance themselves from Trump in an effort to keep their political careers mostly intact. He will be a one-termer and they are starting to look at the long game.
Recall that multiple Presidents never fired Hoover and he routinely violated both national laws and the Constitution during his tenure as Director of the FBI.
Coupled with Susan Rice's spying on Trump's team and her refusal to testify on the matter and lawyering up you really have to wonder about all of these Obama holdovers. Rather scheme and try to throw monkey wrenches into the system than do their job and put the interests of the country first.
As for Comey: are there reasons to fire him? Maybe - I certainly did not like everything he did. However, timing matters! Removing any FBI director during an ongoing investigation into the President and/or his campaign is a very serious matter. Also, there was an ongoing investigation into how Comey managed the email affairs and it would have been appropiate to wait for it to conclude. There is also the fact that we lauded for how he handled it by both Sessions and Trump.
I personally am convinced that this was due to the investigation of the Trump campaign. It coincides too neatly with the requests for more money and the Flynn subpoenas.
Even if you disagree, it is a bad decision, because it creates the appearance of corruption. It also widens the partisan gap in US politics. Both of these effects have the potential to cause lasting harm to a democracy.
But no, this wasn't up for discussion for Yates, her mind is made up that Trump's just a racist bigot whose motive purely discriminatory in nature, an unprovable claim that can't be defended on the basis of what the law says, a tacit admission Yates made.
Cruz said (all paraphrased) why didn't you follow this order the doj lawyers found lawful cause statute xyz says the president has power to control immigration? Yates said that's true he has that power but this other statute says you can't restrict based on place of birth and that the doj lawyers were not allowed to interpret the context.
So Cruz got owned.
And even more so when Durbin spoke he made further context of how "so you didn't follow that executive order that several federal courts found unconstitutional? That EO that Donald Trump was forced to withdraw. Ok make sense."
And going of Trump's campaign and rally speeches he is a bigot who wants to push one religion while banning another one. This is brought up in his court cases that he keeps losing as to the intent of his Muslim bans.
My opposition to the travel ban is more basic: Trump wanted to restrict travel from countries whose terrorists haven't attacked us (Syria), but not the countries that actually have (Saudi Arabia). On top of that, we have yet to suffer any terror attacks from refugees in general--since 9/11, terror attacks on the United States have only come from home-grown terrorists, people who were born here.
If we had suffered any attacks from the countries that Trump wants to restrict travel from, then we could debate whether it's constitutional or if it's worth the cost. But you can't make the country more secure by fighting a problem that does not exist.
You can't claim to be preventing Syrian refugee attacks when none have actually happened. When's the last time somebody died from a poisoned Skittle?
In other news, South Korea has a new president, Moon Jae-in, who might take a more Sunshine policy-esque approach to North Korea.
I respect the positive motive, but I do not think it will be successful. North Korea has refused to limit its nuclear program regardless of the leadership or the policies of South Korea, the United States, or China. North Korea might be willing to make some concessions during negotiations, but not on its nuclear program.
She made the claim (and defended it very well) that the executive order was unlawful -a claim that has since been confirmed repeatedly in different federal courts. And yes, the intent behind the order matters - Trump promised a muslim ban during his campaign and also promised to prioritize Christians refugees. That promise is especially troubling, as the other justifications given in the EO are factually wrong.
But even beyond the matter of the order discriminating on the basis of religion, there was a boatload of other problems with it.
You can't just look at whether a particular race or religion is specifically called out, you always need to look at who is affected and what is the intent.
Remember, during this ordeal, Canadian Muslims holding Canadian passports were turned away at the border. There was racial discrimination taking place because of this EO.
~
Now if the Deputy Attorney General is legitimately firing Comey for how Comey handled the Clinton case, his next priority should be to appoint an independent investigator to take over thd Trump probe and give them the funding Comey asked for.
Without this, it's optics, from the outside, look like this administration is attempting to take over all federal agencies to give it carte Blanche to do what it wants for the next 4 years and beyond.
On the other hand, let us presume that evidence is found and is sufficient to cause Federal warrants to be issued. Wouldn't that result in Trump tweeting pardons for anyone mentioned in those warrants, followed by putting it in writing? (Presidential pardons may be issued not only to someone who has not been convicted of a crime but to someone who has merely been charged with a crime.) Again, even in this case the evidence collected would have to be wide-ranging and sufficiently severe before the House considers impeachment (unless the Democrats retake control of the House in 2018, which seems highly improbable at this time). Again, in this case the next Presidential election will immediately be suspected of having been tainted.
In addition to ALL of that, you have to ignore everything Trump said about the Clinton email probe during the later parts of the campaign, AND you have to somehow convince yourself that Donald Trump thinks Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly during the campaign. And it's hard to decide what is more disturbing. The blatant obstruction of justice, or the people who are falling for this bullshit hook, line and sinker.
Preet Bharara, NY AG, was looking into Trump Russia in NY and was fired by Trump.
James Comey was investigating Trump Russia and was fired by Trump.
The complete partisanship in the discussion of MUH RUSSIA is pretty evident.
No evidence was found of Russian and Trump administration collusion.
That's a pretty final statement that conveniently everyone pushing the RUSSIA angle forgets to talk about.
It does amuse me that were still chasing election controversies.
This shouldn't be taken as representative of anyone but its interesting to hear.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/05/07/pa_voter_the_democratic_party_seems_to_be_lost_have_let_republicans_define_them.html
There was criticism of both the Republican and Democrat party and the points (from the full video)
-Trump should tweet less and worry less about media coverage of him
-His opening of Veterans to medical help was a good move
-Nation feels divided
-Democrat party is completely lost
-DNC blames Russia and Wikileaks when all it showed was the Democratic party were liars and did everything to get Hillary to win
-Completely sick of Russian story
-Democrats used to be the party for the people, But in the election they didn't have any message for the working class and their notion on helping the working class doesn't make jobs (tax the rich, raise minimum wage).
This is why i say Trump probably wants the Russian story to keep going, he knows the Average American doesn't care and is tired of it.
No one listens to the people.
The investigation had not found anything because the investigation has not yet happened again mainly due to direct interference by Trump and also Republicans sabotaging the investigations.
If there was nothing to hide Mitch McConnell would not be afraid of an independent prosecutor. But he refuses to appoint one because then he wouldn't be able to hide the truth and sabotage the investigation.
More then a year is a long time to turn up nothing while having the full power of the intelligence agencies spying network to use with no real oversight.
It is also now common knowledge that improper unmasking of intercepted communications was widely shared in the Government and so far i have heard no one say there was something bad in them (which i thought someone would).
One big show show, for sure.
Let's think this through
If anything the CIA would not be monitoring US citizens in the USA that would be the FBI. So if Trump was caught red-handed talking to the Russians by the CIA then it would be because he was talking to someone the CIA was tracking. Like a Russian criminal or foreign intelligence agent.
The genie that's been let out of the box is social media being used to sway votes. I don't see that changing anytime soon after it worked so well for Trump.
Oh, I hear he has a job offer from Wikileaks too. That's an even better opportunity to spill the beans.
No sane upright person who tries to do the right thing, such as Comey, is going to work for WikiLeaks.
And I don't agree that enough is enough with Russia by far since as I've said Trump has fired everyone looking into his campaigns ties to Russia. But I do agree that probably people did not see enough distinction between Democrats bought off by big corporations and Republicans completely bought off by big corporations.
I'm excited for Justice Democrats who won't be representing big companies and taking corporate cash, instead they'll be representing just us.