US Political Discussion: Biden/Harris Edition (Rules in OP)

[AngstRiddenDreams]

if you were to assume it was true it still wouldn't make Trumps cabinet ties to Russia and his own obstruction of justice into the investigation any less serious.

 

[flint757]

And yet, I would give alien abduction more credence than the Seth Rich conspiracy stuff -- at least that caters more to our ignorance of the universe.

I'll admit his death has some suspicious details and timing, but any thought of conspiracy seems ridiculous given the dull details of the leaks -- or is there something supposedly more scandalous out there? And what would be the point of murdering someone after they leak the documents? I feel like you should have a really good motive before hopping to a conspiracy with extremely thin bits of circumstantial happenstance.

btw, you're talking about DC at 4am. Not the kind of place you'd catch me walking around alone.

The leak was by no means dull, unless you think collusion and proof of fraud is dull. The leak is in fact one of the stronger pillars in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit case that is moving forward. They stand to lose almost 300 million dollars if the DNC loses the case. During the discovery and testimony phase they stand to lose all of their credibility regardless of the outcome. That's no small potatoes.

There's more credence to the leak being Seth than there is to the murder being linked to the leak. I won't deny that at all, but the story doesn't add up and the police have been told to stand down on investigating the case. Podesta was aware that an internal leak existed within the organization based on his Wikileaks release as well.

I personally think it's naive to think that powerful people don't do this sort of thing. LBJ is responsible for 3 1/2 million deaths during the Vietnam war. Bush and Cheney are responsible for the death of 1/2 million people in Iraq. It's not like these elite power players value life, especially if it threatens their power. Skepticism is healthy, but straight up disbelief is just cognitive dissonance. These people have plenty of motive and plenty of power to make things like this happen even if it winds up not being the case in this instance.

Believe whatever you want to believe though. Your appeal to ridicule fallacy shows that you aren't really interested in anything to do with the story to begin with. I can understand that.

 

[flint757]

if you were to assume it was true it still wouldn't make Trumps cabinet ties to Russia and his own obstruction of justice into the investigation any less serious.

I agree. An independent commission needs to be doing the investigation.

I'm still not entirely sure what the claim is though. I mean Clinton has ties to Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Israel. Ties to a country aren't by default treasonous. Russia isn't being accused of hacking voting machines either, so the 'meddling' falls neatly under doesn't really matter, unless we think that media needs to be censored.

Trump's an idiot regardless though. He's constantly screwing up and sticking his foot in his mouth. There's plenty of minor things he's done that could be considered impeachable offenses (certainly more severe than a blow job), even if nothing comes of the Russia investigation.

This administration is a hot mess and I don't see that changing anytime soon, not even if he's successfully impeached. All we'll have upgraded to is Pence as president and probably Cruz or McConnell or someone similar as VP. If we impeach Pence we'll then get his VP pick as the new president (assuming that's even possible). The problem will not resolve itself until next election either way. If he's not impeached the problem might not resolve itself until 2025.

 

[AngstRiddenDreams]

I think the claim has always been that Russia compromised the campaign by some means and therefore influenced it. Even removing the claim that the DNC leaks were Russia still leaves a lot of questionable things.

 

[flint757]

I think the claim has always been that Russia compromised the campaign by some means and therefore influenced it. Even removing the claim that the DNC leaks were Russia still leaves a lot of questionable things.

Unless they physically changed the votes or hacked the machine any of their claims are pointless. The report I read basically said their media talked negatively about the Democrats and Hillary. My question is, how exactly is that a crime? We do it all the time here. We interject our political opinions on England, #BREXIT, Syria, Israel, etc.. Our leaders have leaned on particular candidates in German and French elections. If it turns out that Wikileaks were leaks and not hacks there's nothing they can be accused of that warrants outright war and impeachment. Even if it turns out that say, for instance, Guccifer was working for Putin; nothing that was leaked was a lie. I imagine you'd have to successfully prove that Trump was aware of it as well. Is there nothing more specific than that being claimed?

It's ultimately not necessary for Russia to play a fault to impeach Trump either way, as he's already done many things wrong he could be impeached over. They don't need Russia to be involved for him to be removed from office if that's the ultimate goal.

 

[AngstRiddenDreams]

Double post

 

[AngstRiddenDreams]

I get what you're saying. But look at through the lens of the claim that Russia has financial leverage over Trump and other members of his cabinet. Foreign influence, especially from Russia, should not be effecting American policies because our leaders are benefitting from it.
Say this doesn't bother you. We still have an administration that has said so many contradictory things about it as well as obstructing justice with regards to figuring out what is going on. So even if the action doesn't rub you the wrong way, the way the administration has been treating it can be looked at as impeachable offenses. They've shown themselves to be incompetent handling things, which I believe reflects even more poorly if they have nothing to hide. If no wrong doing occurred, there should be no reason there are so many contradictory claims and sketchy activity coming from the White House

 

[flint757]

That I agree with. Regardless of the validity of the claim the way Trump has been handling it is impeachable all by itself.

 

[vilk]

Right, it doesn't mean it can't be true. Which bins in it with alien abductions, big foot, skervesens being good guitars, 9/11 as an inside job, scientology, and other such things that are difficult to definitively disprove.

However, what is the point of bringing it up?

Distrusting a gov't narrative isn't really the same as believing in cryptozoological beasts, imo.

Let us not forget that to suggest the North Vietnamese did not "start" the Vietnam War by firing on us at the Gulf of Tonkin was considered a conspiracy theory until 2007 when the military finally decided to admit it.

You act like there's absolutely no reason to ever distrust any narrative fed to us by our government. Surely someone as smart and historically aware as yourself can understand that dismissing anything and everything that could ever be categorized as a conspiracy theory would end up with you being mistaken about some things.

 

[Drew]

*tips tin foil fedora*

He wanted to give the guy a lesson in risotto making he wouldn't soon forget, I'm sure.

EDIT - so, hey, since i tune out Breitbart, Fox, and all that other alt-right garbage, I wasn't aware this was actually a story that broke recently, that this staffer might have leaked info rather than it being a hack, and that someone claimed they had evidence.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/16/med...sponse-claims-of-wikileaks-contact/index.html

Turns out within a few hours of Fox running the story, the investigator in question came forward to say he had no evidence of such contact, the video purported to be proof of evidence was a video of him previewing the Fox story for a local network, and the first he'd heard of any evidence of contact was when the Fox interviewer asked him if he had any. Which he hadn't.

So, one I clearly didn't miss anything of substance, and two, your story is about 18 hours out of date.

 

[Drew]

That I agree with. Regardless of the validity of the claim the way Trump has been handling it is impeachable all by itself.

What I don't get is why we're going back to the DNC primaries in a conversation about Trump potentially commiting impeachable crimes; obstruction of justice by firing Comey to try to block an ongoing investigation into an associate's ties to Russia, and then very likely violating the Presidential Oath of Office by dropping highly sensitive classified information into a conversation with an adversary - the same Russian at the heart of the Flynn investigation, no less - evidently by way of bragging about how he gets "the best intel."

I mean, you go back to Comey's investigation of Clinton's email server potentially holding classified information, and this was *literally* the bogeyman lurking in the corner - "what if the Russians hacked her server, and got their hands on extremely sensitive classified information?" Because evidently a minority of Americans representing a majority of electoral votes thought this was too big of a risk to bear, we instead elected this buffoon who went and casually dropped that same sort of sensitive information in conversation with the Russians, just to brag about how well informed he was. Double-you tee actual eff. "But, her emails."

Honestly, if Trump somehow doesn't get impeached by his own party, if someone gave me better than even odds on him getting impeached after the 2018 midterms, I'd take them.

 

[narad]

Distrusting a gov't narrative isn't really the same as believing in cryptozoological beasts, imo.

Let us not forget that to suggest the North Vietnamese did not "start" the Vietnam War by firing on us at the Gulf of Tonkin was considered a conspiracy theory until 2007 when the military finally decided to admit it.

You act like there's absolutely no reason to ever distrust any narrative fed to us by our government. Surely someone as smart and historically aware as yourself can understand that dismissing anything and everything that could ever be categorized as a conspiracy theory would end up with you being mistaken about some things.

But just in as much as I'm over-exaggerating in one direction, comparing this to military cover-up-ish things over-exaggerates in a different one. The military painting a different picture of foreign affairs is one thing, an American politician having another American politician assassinated on US soil, for leaking documents, ...that's really another.

I mean, I don't know exactly how/why he died, but you know it's BS conspiracy stuff when people are trying to link his death to Podesta via an unrelated email correspondence a year earlier.

 

[USMarine75]

^ Regarding Killary and her Hand, Podesta.... Some people will believe every conspiracy theory they come across...

Now excuse me I have some chemtrails to stare up at.

 

[Spencervmurph]

Anyone wanna take a bet on how long it'll take Trump to get inpeached? After the firing of the FBI director my bet is October.

 

[narad]

Anyone wanna take a bet on how long it'll take Trump to get inpeached? After the firing of the FBI director my bet is October.

Aaaaand thread title becomes relevant again.

 

[EdgeC]

Ok, so as far as I'm concerned the sooner Trump is removed the better. Honestly, the fact that he was even a serious candidate is beyond me.

But...if there is a chance of impeachment the narrative needs to be carefully managed. If not, Trumps supporters will be galvanized in their belief that he went to Washington to 'drain the swamp' and fake news and the entrenched establishment set him up and removed him. Their champion thwarted by a broken system that can never again be trusted.

I'm not suggesting Civil War II, but that's a seriously big block of people likely to be pretty pissed off. And, from what I understand about America, those are the same people that have all the guns.

 

[Science_Penguin]

Ok, so as far as I'm concerned the sooner Trump is removed the better. Honestly, the fact that he was even a serious candidate is beyond me.

But...if there is a chance of impeachment the narrative needs to be carefully managed. If not, Trumps supporters will be galvanized in their belief that he went to Washington to 'drain the swamp' and fake news and the entrenched establishment set him up and removed him. Their champion thwarted by a broken system that can never again be trusted.

I'm not suggesting Civil War II, but that's a seriously big block of people likely to be pretty pissed off. And, from what I understand about America, those are the same people that have all the guns.

Realistically speaking, I think the majority of Trump supporters (including the gun nuts) won't be dedicated enough to start any kind of conflict. Granted the few who would go on solo shooting sprees are something to consider, and I suppose a fringe group might end up going the way of the Branch Dividians, but... all in all, despite the problems they have with the system, a lot of them still live comfortable lives, so starting a war and driving all that into chaos probably won't seem worthwhile.

 

[Explorer]

It was pretty funny to watch conservative news outlets scramble to avoid reporting on the Trump/Russia story. Too bad the Seth Rch story collapsed due to a lack of facts.

Story on DNC staffer's murder dominated conservative media -- hours later it fell apart - CNN

----

Speaking of what they were scrambling to avoid, I like that Trump himself today released a press statement that said a thorough investigation will confirm what he says is already known: that there was no collusion between his presidential campaign and "any foreign entity."

http://www.latimes.com/politics/was...gation-will-show-no-1495064828-htmlstory.html

That means that Trump, if he is not lying, expects Flynn and Manafort to be cleared.

Which makes it even stranger that Trump has been opposing a special counsel on the matter. If he knows it will absolutely clear him, his campaign and his staff, why oppose the idea? Why put pressure on Comey to drop it? Why fire Comey for not doing so?

What's oddest for me is that, for all that my conservative friends told me told me there'd be no more evidence surfacing of a Russia connection, more scum keep rising to the surface of the bog Trump said he would drain.

From October 11 2016, for those who don't remember the two things with which Trump and his staff demonstrated a Russia connection....

I've thought it strange that many Trump tweets have had material from white supremacist sources, as I've never accidentally done so over the years.

Most recently though, there's the weird case of Trump quoting a Russian news story which attributed an altered/falsified quote to Sidney Blumenthal, when the original source of the unaltered quote was Kurt Eichenwald.

http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-benghazi-sputnik-508635

How did Trump get access to a falsified Russian propaganda piece, originating from Putin's circle, which Sputnik had pulled after some further investigation?

I personally find it troubling to combine this current example with not just Trump's pro-Putin stance over the course of his campaign, but even his campaign's successful work to tweak the GOP's party platform at the convention regarding Ukraine in favor of Putin.

I personally don't think Trump is intelligent enough to be purposefully manipulating things in favor of Russia and Putin, but it definitely looks like Russia has influence over parts of Trump's campaign, and has had for some time.

On the plus side, a special counsel with bipartisan support and confidence, as Robert Mueller is, will allow Trump to clear his name, his campaign and his administration of any suspicion. People might look at Trump's long history of lying and judge his future statements based on that history, but Mueller finding innocuous reasons behind what looks like connections, including for Manafort and Flynn as Trump is claiming in his latest press release, will remove the taint.

Why have Trump and Republicans been fighting so hard against the very thing which can settle any possible question of Trump, his campaign and his administration of being guilty of collusion with foreign entities?

And, since so many Republicans have already acknowledged Mueller as being a man of integrity, those who hate the rule of law and the Constitution will just have to suck it up when they're hating America.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Anyone who thinks Trump being impeached is a good thing hasn't taken a look at Mike Pence enough. The guy is, no exaggeration, a monster. I'd much rather a doofus run the country. Trump is has thus far been rather ineffective overall, relying heavily on flimsy executive orders. If Pence is running the show he will get terrible, terrible things done. He's the candidate the GOP really wanted.

 

[oc616]

Called he wouldn't last a year.