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  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    Meanwhile in Canada:

    Caitlin Coleman is going back to the United States.

    Who?

    She is the Wife of Joshua Boyle. The couple were held captive by the Haqqanis after they decided to go backpacking in Afghanistan(!!) when she was 7 months pregnant.


    She and her three kids who were born in captivity, (with another on the way) asked a judge if she could return to the states as Boyle is being held on 15 charges , and was granted leave. She is now allegedly attempting to get full custody of the kids.


    Why is this important? Well now that she is away from Boyle, she maybe able to open up more freely on what they were doing in Afghanistan in the first place as there is a lot of unanswered questions revolving around Boyle.
    ThacoBellTakisMegas
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037

    Oh my the Koch brothers Freedom Caucus are trying to impeach Rod Rosenstein for having the gall of allowing criminal investigations by Mueller into the President.

    Open treason by Republicans. This will not end well.

    Once again, just because you don't like something doesn't make it treason. Congress could have passed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein last year, if they had wanted to. I highly doubt this goes anywhere, in any event--it is nothing more than pre-election grandstanding.
    WarChiefZeke
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    edited July 2018

    Oh my the Koch brothers Freedom Caucus are trying to impeach Rod Rosenstein for having the gall of allowing criminal investigations by Mueller into the President.

    Open treason by Republicans. This will not end well.

    Once again, just because you don't like something doesn't make it treason. Congress could have passed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein last year, if they had wanted to. I highly doubt this goes anywhere, in any event--it is nothing more than pre-election grandstanding.
    It is a stunt showing that they will use their power to try to punish the people investigating the President.

    It shows that the Republicans in Congress consider the President and themselves above the law. It is treason.

    trea·son
    ˈtrēzən
    noun
    the crime of betraying one's county


    They are betraying America by putting party over country. They are subverting the rule of law. They are saying the President is above the law and his political enemies must be silenced.

    The website below has rapid response plans for just this scenario if these guys are successful.

    https://www.trumpisnotabovethelaw.org/survey/mueller-firing-rapid-response-plan/

    See #3
    Actions that would prevent the investigation from being conducted freely, such as replacing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Mueller’s current supervisor, or repealing the regulations establishing the office.
    FinneousPJThacoBell
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037

    It shows that the Republicans in Congress consider the President and themselves above the law. It is treason.

    trea·son
    ˈtrēzən
    noun
    the crime of betraying one's county

    The official, legal definition of treason may be found here; the dictionary definition does not suffice in a court of law.
    In Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, treason is specifically limited to

    levying war against the US or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

    Conviction requires two witnesses or a confession in open court. Penalty: U.S. Code Title 18: Death, or not less than 5 years imprisonment and not more than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (minimum fine of $10,000, if not sentenced to death).
    It is not treason.

    Are you, perhaps, implying that Congress does not have the legal or constitutional authority to impeach Rosenstein for appropriate reasons? If we look up impeachment we will discover the following:
    At the Federal level, Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 of the Constitution grants to the House of Representatives "the sole power of impeachment", and Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 grants to the Senate "the sole Power to try all Impeachments". In considering articles of impeachment, the House is obligated to base any charges on the constitutional standards specified in Article II, Section 4: "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors".
    Congress has the ability to define what "high crimes and misdemeanors" means. Unfortunately, this definition may change over time and does not appear to be explicitly defined. If the current Congress decides that "high crimes and misdemeanors" means "Rosenstein is not giving us everything we want when we ask for it" then they may impeach him, and they may do so constitutionally. The SCOTUS *might* issue an opinion about a weak definition but I don't think they can tell Congress "no" about it. Recall that Clinton was impeached on perjury, which is actually a pretty low bar--any misstatement or inaccuracy made while under oath is technically perjury.

    I must reiterate--this is a molehill being made into a mountain. The measure to impeach him probably isn't even going to come up for a vote so I wouldn't spend any more time worrying about it. You may continue to call it "treason" if you so desire...but you would be incorrect to do so.
    WarChiefZeke
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited July 2018
    To be perfectly blunt about this subject, I think one of the main reasons liberals are throwing around the word treason like confetti is that for YEARS (basically the entire Bush Administration) they were accused by the right of hating their country and engaging in treasonous activity for actively opposing the Iraq War (which they just so happened to be 100% right about). Now those same people have thrown their support behind a President who seems to have literally sold out the country for his own personal gain and is now a pawn of the Russian government, a President who abjectly REFUSES to even admit Russia attacked the US election. Which many would construe as a violation of his oath of office.

    So why is the word treason being thrown around?? Honestly, alot of it is fighting fire with fire. This is how Republicans have talked about liberals for DECADES, and to be frank, it's long past time they got a taste of their own medicine in this regard. Even if it's just a tactic, I still support it from a rhetorical point of view. My side has been on the receiving end of this kind of rhetoric as long as I have been aware of politics, and it's time to stop bringing a feather-duster to a gun fight.
    MathsorcererTakisMegasThacoBell
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    I was telling people back then that "disagreeing with the Iraq War is *not* treason", just like I was telling people that things Obama did were not treasonous. The charge of treason needs to be reserved for *actual* instances such as selling military secrets to a foreign power, etc. The Bundys taking over that Federal land a few years ago comes closer to the legal definition of treason than anything either Obama or Trump did--they took up arms against the Federal Government.
    Grond0
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850

    I was telling people back then that "disagreeing with the Iraq War is *not* treason", just like I was telling people that things Obama did were not treasonous. The charge of treason needs to be reserved for *actual* instances such as selling military secrets to a foreign power, etc. The Bundys taking over that Federal land a few years ago comes closer to the legal definition of treason than anything either Obama or Trump did--they took up arms against the Federal Government.

    I agree with you on all technical points (at least so far anyway). I also absolutely agree that what the Bundys did was both treasonous and was basically open sedition on national TV as some kind of right-wing performance art, and also one of the starkest examples of how messed up our justice system is when it comes to black vs. white. I'm simply stating that at this point, repeating the word "treason" in regards to Trump and his lackeys in Congress is more of a rhetorical strategy, based on both the absolute fact that repeating something enough times solidifies the idea in people's heads, and the fact that many on the left just can't stand the hypocrisy. It's an emotional response to the opposition party that has sold themselves as the sole defenders of patriotism and national pride being monumental hypocrites. Alot of people just can't handle that in their heads anymore. It pisses them off, and I understand why.
  • SethDavisSethDavis Member Posts: 1,812
    Grond0 said:

    If someone told you that they had sneaked into a store at night and robbed it, would you really insist that they use the word burgled as they had not used actual or threatened violence while stealing from the shop?

    Personally, I might initiate a sneaked vs snuck debate which, upon googling, appears to be more of a debate than I had thought.
    Zaghoul
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    I guess you're from the US if you like the sound of snuck. If you were from the UK there would have been no question about which to use :p.
    SethDavisZaghoul
  • SethDavisSethDavis Member Posts: 1,812
    it's one of those weird things, being from canada both sound normalish, but hearing either will make me think "isn't the other one more correct"
    Grond0
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850

    Even if this is 110% true, the idea that Twitter (a private company) would face an accusation of illegality for banning anyone from using their information platform is preposterous on it's face. In similar news, Alex Jones has had his live-streams pulled from Youtube. Likely because that company doesn't want to be associated with batshit crazy conspiracy theorists. Where does the cognitive dissonance in the conservative ideology kick in where you believe in a world where it is perfectly acceptable for gay people to be denied services, but you ALSO believe there is some kind of inalienable right to use Twitter and Youtube??
    ThacoBell
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    Grond0 said:

    @Mathsorcerer I know we've had this conversation before, but I still can't see the problem with someone using words as defined in a dictionary, i.e. using their common meaning rather than a very specific legal definition. There are lots of words which have those sorts of dual meanings and the intended meaning is made clear by the context. If someone told you that they had sneaked into a store at night and robbed it, would you really insist that they use the word burgled as they had not used actual or threatened violence while stealing from the shop?

    No, because I am not in a position of authority over anyone to enforce using the correct word in all instances. Besides, I am not *that* much of a stick in the mud. I just thought that "treason" should be one of those words which people don't throw around carelessly, like "marriage".

    1. Last I checked, this is an internet forum, not a court of law. If there is a guy in black robes hanging around, it's just Alveus Malcanter.

    2. Trump himself used the word "treasonous" to describe those who didn't applaud his every utterance at the State of the Union speech, which fails the U.S. legal definition as well. If the President of the United States can use "treason" in a non-legal sense, then private citizens can use it in that sense as well.

    3. These forums are run by a Canadian company. So, any legal definitions of treason used should be those against the Queen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason#Canada :wink:

    All excellent points.

    I give @smeagolheart full credit for being passionate about the issue, though. That is the sort of commitment which many people lack these days.
    semiticgoddesssmeagolheartThacoBellGrond0
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited July 2018
    Bombshell:

    One of the 3 bylines on the piece is none other than......Carl Bernstein.

    Cohen is a ticking time-bomb for Trump. I don't know that he can diffuse it. In this instance, he may pay the price for his propensity to only view loyalty as a one-way street.
    ThacoBellBallpointMansmeagolheart
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    edited July 2018
    Trump must have misspoke he meant "yes collusion" not "no collusion". He misspoke, an honest mistake, 14,336 times.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited July 2018
    Giuliani went on CNN immediately after the report and said that Michael Cohen has been lying for years. Yeah......lying for whom?? It's been made abundantly clear over the past year that Michael Cohen basically only had one client. So Rudy's defense boils down to "this guy has been lying for Trump for years, but you can totally trust Trump himself". In what alternate universe does that pass any kind of test?? I have always hated this guy, but Rudy Giuliani has to be one of the worst defense attorneys I have ever seen. Every time something comes out, he basically goes on national television and admits it, then walks it back 12 hours later. Trump and Giuliani don't have a legal strategy, they have a media strategy.
    BallpointMan
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659

    Trump and Giuliani don't have a legal strategy, they have a media strategy.

    I think this is pretty much completely accurate. However, you have to hand it to them - they know they're playing their cards pretty well. Impeachment (the only legal matter that can really affect the president) is more politics than it is law. So as long as he can keep even 35% of the country on his side, he's pretty much safe from this turning into anything.

    Nixon had 20 to 25% approval rating when he was impeached.
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963

    Trump and Giuliani don't have a legal strategy, they have a media strategy.

    And crickets on Fox News. Until they figure out how to spin it, they don't say anything. Their brains must be in overdrive trying to invent the spin on this one. It must be tough generating that much fiction every day to cover for the orange one's corruption, lies, and illegalities.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    About half of the city councillors in my city just found out they likely won't have a job this fall. It's basically going to throw our election into chaos.

    https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/07/26/ford-to-slash-toronto-city-council-to-25-councillors-from-47-sources-say.html
    Grond0ThacoBelldeltagoTakisMegas
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    There's a 2016 election map on the Times where you can look up the voting patterns for each area. Apparently my neighborhood was 60% Trump and 30% Clinton. I assumed it was majority Clinton because San Antonio overall went for Clinton, but I do live in a rich neighborhood, which would explain why my neighborhood is an exception.
    ThacoBell
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    elminster said:

    About half of the city councillors in my city just found out they likely won't have a job this fall. It's basically going to throw our election into chaos.

    https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/07/26/ford-to-slash-toronto-city-council-to-25-councillors-from-47-sources-say.html

    Wow. I doubt that will fly.

    I do agree that close to 50 councillors is too much to get things done though. I just think this should have been tabled after the elections.

    I also don’t agree with the vote parity thing that the article mentions though. High populace areas should not dominate what things are spent on or what is taxed. Ottawa, with a very rural outline is a good example of this. Rural areas do not get the same services that urban and suburban wards do, but still pay for them. If it was by populace, public buildings in these areas may even get neglected over areas that supply more votes for both mayor and councillors.
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963

    Trump and Giuliani don't have a legal strategy, they have a media strategy.

    And crickets on Fox News. Until they figure out how to spin it, they don't say anything. Their brains must be in overdrive trying to invent the spin on this one. It must be tough generating that much fiction every day to cover for the orange one's corruption, lies, and illegalities.
    I guess they've figured out the strategy.

    Trump tweeted that Michael Cohen is lying, so Trump will look even worse when corroborating evidence comes out later but he is taking the chance. Supposedly there were several people there when Trump told Don Jr to go for it to the Russian hacking meeting. Any of those people might have texted or emailed about it afterwards, or might tell the truth. Trump just has to hope it's his word against Cohen's and that lordy there are no tapes.

    The other strategy is to get Trump's TV lawyer Rudy Guilianni to go on TV and say that we can't trust Trump's other lawyer because Trump only hires terrible liars to be his lawyers.
    Grond0ThacoBell
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    For all the talk of Trump being Putin's puppet, I still have yet seen a plausible set of policy benefits Russia has gained for their alleged Game of Thrones style control of the White House. Assuming this tangled web is all true, their handful of twitter bots and facebook ads, as well as providing the public with access to important information, tipped the election for Trump, and in return they gain...close to nothing. Trump did not concede to Putin on Ukraine. His policy on Syria last year caused enough problems with Putin for him to say they were on the verge of fighting American troops. I don't support military interventionism in general and I am glad he ultimately did not escalate that further but point is, there simply isn't close to enough actual evidence in the political sphere to point to the conclusions so many want to jump to.

    So what was gained, again, assuming this whole accusation is true? A lot of vital evidence about the criminal and corrupt behavior of some of the most powerful public figures in the country that we would have never known otherwise and which since then has been mostly swept under the rug. I would call that the most benevolent "hack" in modern history. Just a few of the most important ones:


    "It resulted in the mass resignation of the entire leadership of the Democratic National Committee, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention— leading to raucous protests and internal dissent at the convention.


    It revealed that Donna Brazile, a DNC vice chair, was feeding debate and forum questions to her favored campaign, thereby providing Hillary Clinton with an undue strategic advantage over Bernie Sanders. CNN colleagues such as Jake Tapper subsequently condemned Brazile, and she was forced out of her position as an on-air contributor.

    It revealed that the DNC and the Hillary campaign had merged operations long before the conclusion of the primary campaign, which directly contradicted assurances from DNC officials that they were to remain completely neutral in the primary race. That was a lie; they devoted material resources to their preferred candidate while the race was underway.

    It revealed that various ostensible “concessions” made to Bernie Sanders over the course of the platform-drafting process were completely hollow, and intended solely to placate disaffected Sanders voters.

    It revealed the true operations of the Clinton Foundation, which functioned as a political patronage machine for Bill and Hillary’s lackeys, and which was used as proxy to enrich the power couple, despite their longtime insistence that they never profited personally from its endeavors. That was a complete lie.

    It revealed that the highest-ranking officials at the DNC mused about spreading anti-Semitic innuendo to electorally damage Bernie Sanders in various Southern state primaries."

    https://medium.com/mtracey/russian-hackers-provided-vital-information-to-american-voters-d7fb0f9ec50b


    Of course, when Blue Team subverts critical election events and processes in our democracy, we don't call that treason. Such is the nature of rhetoric, I suppose.

    And i'm quite convinced that if Wikileaks produced documents from inside the RNC and Trump's inner circle that revealed wrongdoing and cost him the election it would have been viewed as a heroic act performed by Wikileaks (Russia would likely never be mentioned) similar to when they released documents showing crimes during the Iraq War.

  • JoenSoJoenSo Member Posts: 910
    edited July 2018
    As I've said before in this thread, if Russia helped Trump it isn't because he is friendly to Russia - it's because he's unfriendly to everyone else, including NATO and other old allies that are too strong for Russia's taste. It is a strange perspective, but Russia seems to have this pattern where they aim to weaken others without really gaining anything themselves. Because weakening someone else is the gain. An example would be Russia's chopped up neighbors, like Ukraine and Georgia. I'm not sure how many partially recognized states like South Ossetia and Donetsk People's Republic there are along the Russian border now.
    semiticgoddessThacoBell
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited July 2018

    For all the talk of Trump being Putin's puppet, I still have yet seen a plausible set of policy benefits Russia has gained for their alleged Game of Thrones style control of the White House. Assuming this tangled web is all true, their handful of twitter bots and facebook ads, as well as providing the public with access to important information, tipped the election for Trump, and in return they gain...close to nothing. Trump did not concede to Putin on Ukraine. His policy on Syria last year caused enough problems with Putin for him to say they were on the verge of fighting American troops. I don't support military interventionism in general and I am glad he ultimately did not escalate that further but point is, there simply isn't close to enough actual evidence in the political sphere to point to the conclusions so many want to jump to.

    So what was gained, again, assuming this whole accusation is true? A lot of vital evidence about the criminal and corrupt behavior of some of the most powerful public figures in the country that we would have never known otherwise and which since then has been mostly swept under the rug. I would call that the most benevolent "hack" in modern history. Just a few of the most important ones:


    "It resulted in the mass resignation of the entire leadership of the Democratic National Committee, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention— leading to raucous protests and internal dissent at the convention.


    It revealed that Donna Brazile, a DNC vice chair, was feeding debate and forum questions to her favored campaign, thereby providing Hillary Clinton with an undue strategic advantage over Bernie Sanders. CNN colleagues such as Jake Tapper subsequently condemned Brazile, and she was forced out of her position as an on-air contributor.

    It revealed that the DNC and the Hillary campaign had merged operations long before the conclusion of the primary campaign, which directly contradicted assurances from DNC officials that they were to remain completely neutral in the primary race. That was a lie; they devoted material resources to their preferred candidate while the race was underway.

    It revealed that various ostensible “concessions” made to Bernie Sanders over the course of the platform-drafting process were completely hollow, and intended solely to placate disaffected Sanders voters.

    It revealed the true operations of the Clinton Foundation, which functioned as a political patronage machine for Bill and Hillary’s lackeys, and which was used as proxy to enrich the power couple, despite their longtime insistence that they never profited personally from its endeavors. That was a complete lie.

    It revealed that the highest-ranking officials at the DNC mused about spreading anti-Semitic innuendo to electorally damage Bernie Sanders in various Southern state primaries."

    https://medium.com/mtracey/russian-hackers-provided-vital-information-to-american-voters-d7fb0f9ec50b


    Of course, when Blue Team subverts critical election events and processes in our democracy, we don't call that treason. Such is the nature of rhetoric, I suppose.

    And i'm quite convinced that if Wikileaks produced documents from inside the RNC and Trump's inner circle that revealed wrongdoing and cost him the election it would have been viewed as a heroic act performed by Wikileaks (Russia would likely never be mentioned) similar to when they released documents showing crimes during the Iraq War.

    In the course of this debate, the metrics and goalposts you have used to either brush off or justify the Russian attack on the election have changed about 5 or 6 times. First it was a conspiracy theory. Then it was unlikely. Then it became "is this really that bad??". Of course, inevitably, we reach "who cares if it was illegal, it was for the greater good".

    Wikileaks DIDN'T hack documents from Trump and the RNC. Or, worse, if they did, they didn't use them. You are arguing about something that didn't take place. Also, Wikileaks was about 4 or 5 years late on what most of us at the time knew about the Iraq War. Wikileaks didn't even exist for the early part of the Iraq War. I knew the Iraq War was a disaster before it started.

    You also continue to talk about the Democratic Party and it's internal rules and politics as if they are somehow either the interest or the province of people who aren't in the party. The Democratic Party is not an official part of the government. Each party has it's own rules and set-ups for how people get nominated. I also don't fall for concern trolling. You have stated multiple times how you would have never supported Hillary, and how you viewed certain statements Sanders made during the campaign as disqualifying. You were never going to support either one of them. Why should I believe you actually care about the process for choosing a Democratic candidate, rather than that you may be using the Hillary/Bernie tension to excuse the actions of the Trump campaign, the Russian government, and Wikileaks?? I don't agree with you politically, so would it be perfectly ok if I just STOLE your private communications and shared them with everyone in the name of transparency?? Would it be doubly ok if I used agents of a foreign government to disseminate that information?? In the end, the argument on the right about Russia always boils down to "who cares, Hillary was a corrupt bitch".
    Ammar
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    edited July 2018
    I agree with very little of your points, @BallpointMan. Fully half of his actions you cite as evidence the Russians are influencing him, such as his antagonism towards the EU, wishing to pull out of military conflicts, and his "America First" nationalist ideology, can be explained by his own political beliefs, plainly stated on the campaign trail, and can be explained entirely on that basis alone. There is no reason, for those issues, to even assume Russia is a factor without evidence.

    To put it another way, these were already things that were in line with his statements long before any hack or anything useful provided by the Russians. I can find him promoting these sorts of policies 5 years ago. Is that how long the conspiracy lasts? Doubtful.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/346063000056254464?lang=en

    For others, such as his words on Crimea, I fail to see the issue. All the article is quoted Trump as saying is "We will talk about Crimea, the election, everything". They talked, and our stance hasn't changed. We do not recognize their hold on it. The Russians clearly didn't see any results here. If they had some agreement or influence over him, this would seem to contradict it.

    Now I do agree that the Russians benefit from Trump's presidency as a side effect of his general belief in non interventionism as opposed to Clinton's hawkishness and pattern of negotiation rather than war, but all of this can be explained and in fact makes more sense without some sort of secret Trump/Putin agreement or collusion.
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