jimjam wrote:I certainly should know by now that if Donald makes a "determination" that is the end of the story. No independent thinking required.
Well, it's nice of you to acknowledge that the president sets foreign policy, not the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, etc.
jimjam wrote:I should also know that treasonous behavior is literally not possible until Congress declares that an official war exists or if Donald decides Russia is a hostile power.
You are coming along just fine now. Congress can impeach the president on their own motion. They don't need to conduct an investigation, listen to the advice of a special counsel or anything like that. They can simply say, "We think the president is colluding with Russia against the interests of the United States. Therefore, we impeach him."
jimjam wrote:(let's see, isn't it oxymoronic to think that a person engaging in treasonous behavior is not really engaging in treasonous behavior until he himself declares his behavior to be treasonous? :?: )
No. An oxymoron is a statement that on its face tends to be false. For example, "reasonable attorney's fees" is an oxymoronic statement. That is why we have a separate process for impeachment that has nothing to do with convictions for a regular crime.
jimjam wrote:I should also know that Russia is really our BFF, videos shown by their President of Russian nukes raining down on Florida is certainly not something a hostile power would do 
.
Your powers of observation are noted. It should be clear then that if Russia's leaders are bragging--in an absurd way with their Mach 20 missiles--about hitting the United States, then Putin and Trump aren't bed buddies at all.
jimjam wrote:In addition to saying unfounded and stupid things, trump’s administration has scrubbed federal websites of factual data. It’s gone, as if it never existed.
Can you elaborate?
Hindsite wrote:Because the so-called independent counsel or special prosecutor is his friend.
I wasn't limiting the scope of my commentary to Mueller. Rather, the apparent hypocrisy of the FBI and DOJ. I think it would be fairly easy to prosecute these people given their actions and statements under oath. The fact that it hasn't been done suggests that they have some sort of non-disclosed immunity agreement in place. I would argue that is probably the case with the Clintons too, because they generally seem to have contempt for the law. In order to restore confidence in public institutions, these agreements need to be exposed and people like the Clintons and Comey need to be publicly shamed for abusing such protections. Their actions clearly are not within the intended scope of what the state offered, even if they are within the black letter of the law with respect to such agreements if they do in fact exist.
We generally do not hear too much about anomalies involving how laws apply to these public officials that is material and relevant. Early in the Trump administration, one of the interesting gripes was that Trump had hired a bunch of extraordinarily wealthy people who would have to divest their interests or direct control of their interests. A consideration for the loss of opportunity is that they get a waiver on capital gains. It's interesting that we don't hear about that when the Democrats or establishment Republicans get that special treatment. It's only when outsiders to the establishment get that kind of treatment that we even hear complaints, usually from people like jimjam who don't seem to complain when it is the Clintons getting that kind of treatment.
Some of the political hay made, in my opinion, is a bunch of bullshit. For example, Gary Cohn just left his position at the White House. The media and others will try to generate the story that Cohn doesn't like Trump's position on tariffs, which is plausible. However, people like Cohn generally don't leave high paying government positions that wield a lot of power unless they are going somewhere more lucrative, which is certainly the case with Cohn. So why would Cohn come on board and only stay a little over a year? That's probably the statutory duration he needed to get a huge break in capital gains and other tax breaks for taking a public position that required him to divest. For guys like Cohn, that can be worth millions--maybe tens of millions.
To attract talent, I have to assume that there must be some prosecutorial immunity in place that has some wide ranging coverage, but not completely plenary. For example, it is a crime for Comey to take classified FBI documents and leak them to the press. In fact, it's a felony. I don't think Comey will be prosecuted. I don't believe it is because Comey and Mueller have some steamy homosexual love affair like that depicted--potentially contrived--in texts between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. If a common sailor gets a year in prison for taking a selfie in a submarine engine room, Hillary Clinton should be facing 20 years. Yet, Comey tells the truth under oath about leaking classified information to the press. If he lied about that exchange, then he would be subject to prosecution. That is why I think people are making hay about Comey telling Congress that the dossier was salacious and unverified, but he used it in a FISA application anyway. There is simply no fucking way a low level FBI functionary could get away with something like that so boldly. Comey all but said to Congress, "Yeah, I broke the law. Fuck you. What are you going to do about it? I've got my 'get out of jail free' card right here."
When I was a Republican, I knew that the charges against Tom Delay were totally false and politically motivated. I knew he would eventually be exonerated. Yet, people I argued with in those times really thought he was guilty, because he was a Republican. Now, I would concede that the monetary exchanges taking place strain the bounds of ethics, but he was within the law--Bill Clinton is the same way with the Clinton Foundation, which is far shadier than anything Tom Delay ever did. Yet, I also knew that other Republicans were guilty, like Randy "Duke" Cunningham. He was a great American, and he ended up selling his seat and vote in Congress. I'm saddened to see something like that, but we do have to keep them honest. Jack Abramoff was simply a crook. He got what he deserved. With the Clintons, they just don't seem to give a fuck about the law at all or the public appearance of double standards. People like the Clintons, Comey, et. al. are not really serving the interest of the state. I would argue that their actions render the non-prosecution agreements, if they exist, unconscionable.
If you worked in intelligence, you already know that any sort of CIA style wet work is covered by those non-prosecution and non-extradition agreements, and some of those activities result in fatalities, serious injuries, and collateral damage.
Hindsite wrote:Their relationship was made stronger during an incident in 2004. At the time, the Los Angeles Times reported, Comey, Mueller and a number of other law enforcement officials were on the verge of resigning in opposition to a Bush administration plan to reauthorize a domestic surveillance program that was launched after the terror attacks of 9/11. President Bush eventually agreed to modify the secret program after both men jointly intervened — an experience that is suspected to have drawn them even closer.
Well, I think that is more than "friends." That is a political alliance.
When I was a Republican, I supported George W. Bush. I maxed out contributions for him, walked precincts... the whole deal. He had his hands full after 9/11. So he didn't exhibit the voyeuristic tendencies of Obama, and tended to punish those who misused surveillance powers. However, I do think he riled a lot of feathers within the establishment. Here's why. I think the UK's agreement to enter the Iraq War on the side of the US was conditioned upon the United States draining funds from US sources to the IRA anywhere in the world. It probably also included allowing British intelligence to operate in the United States to stem funding to the IRA. I distinctly remember William F. Buckley, Pat Buchanan and Ted Kennedy all being on the same side of the debate on surveillance, and the commonality was that they were all Irish Catholics. I remember of bunch of others being for it and suggesting it was bi-partisan, and noting that those saying that were all Jews. Naturally, when you point these anomalies out, you get called a bigot. Calling someone a racist, sexist, homophobe, xenophobe or otherwise seems to be the last refuge of a scoundrel these days.
"We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."
-- Joe Biden
) I should also know that Russia is really our BFF, videos shown by their President of Russian nukes raining down on Florida is certainly not something a hostile power would do 
- By Rich
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