Former President Donald Trump's United States of America

[kEiThZ]

As Pelosi says, the electorate will decide what’s ok in 2020. We can’t say the voters are uninformed.

The politics are one thing. Rule of law is another matter. Like I said, letting this slide entirely as a political matters sets an absolutely terrible precedent. Basically, anything shady you do to get elected is okay. As long as you win there are no consequences. Would you want that in Canada, for example?

 

[Admiral Beez]

Basically, anything shady you do to get elected is okay. As long as you win there are no consequences.

Shady is open to interpretation. There is illegal and legal activity, that is all. If in the upcoming Canadian federal election Trudeau got dirt on Scheer from the Moldavians, and knew that they got that dirt through hacking into Conservative Party servers, and the Liberals then used that info to discredit Scheer, so be it.

 

[BurlOak]

If Trump and his campaign staff get away with this, American elections will become a free-for-all with every hostile intelligence service meddling. After all, the reward is high. And the penalties for getting caught negligible. You can’t have rule of law and allow this. Either they impeach (even if conviction in the Senate fails) and prosecute everyone involved, or they accept that America has become a banana republic where laws don’t apply at all to the rich and powerful.

I think you almost have it right.

If Democrats and their inside circle get away with this, American election will become a free-for-all with every President undermining the opposition party. It they don't prosecute everyone involved from the Obama team, America will become a banana republic where the law don't apply at all to the rich, powerful and connected.

 

[BurlOak]

The politics are one thing. Rule of law is another matter. Like I said, letting this slide entirely as a political matters sets an absolutely terrible precedent. Basically, anything shady you do to get elected is okay. As long as you win there are no consequences. Would you want that in Canada, for example?

Would I want a Canadian PM to break the law by threatening the AG. Of course, no.

 

[kEiThZ]

Shady is open to interpretation. There is illegal and legal activity, that is all. If in the upcoming Canadian federal election Trudeau got dirt on Scheer from the Moldavians, and knew that they got that dirt through hacking into Conservative Party servers, and the Liberals then used that info to discredit Scheer, so be it.

We aren't talking about political mudslinging. I'm talking about actions documented by the US intelligence community and detailed in the Mueller Report (which people forget first and foremost is a counter-intelligence investigation).

We've seen past presidents cut deals to get elected. Nixon with Vietnam. Reagan with the Iranian revolutionaries. Or resort to exaggeration like Lyndon Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin. None have gone so far as to have campaign staff directly cooperate with a hostile foreign intelligence service targeting the US and then brag about it to such an extent that it gets Five Eyes partners sufficiently alarmed to start pinging the US IC. This is all documented by the FBI. This is not normal.

Politically, sure. Normal is out the window these days. And the Democrats are unfortunately losing sobriety at the very moment it might serve them well.

But from the perspective of someone who has worked with these kinds of professionals, I take their reports very seriously. And it genuinely has me worried for the long term health of democracy in the US. This is very bad for the rule of law and for democracy, imho.

 

[jje1000]

But from the perspective of someone who has worked with these kinds of professionals, I take their reports very seriously. And it genuinely has me worried for the long term health of democracy in the US. This is very bad for the rule of law and for democracy, imho.

I don't know, I would not trust the FBI and CIA fully, especially considering the power of un-elected officials, the media and the bureaucracy in Washington. This was a system that was instrumental in pushing wars, regime changes and other shady stuff in the last few decades through politicians of different political stripes.

Trump isn't a cause, he's a symptom that democracy in the US has gone badly astray and has gotten as hyper-partisan as it has. My concern is that the US is trending quickly towards tribalism (racial, generational and political) in a time when systems and institutions have gotten so complex (and yet simultaneously fragile) that the average citizen has given up trying to understand it all- people end up wanting someone who says they can cut through the Gordian knot, no matter the damage it causes.

And of course, the US is an exporter of democracy to the rest of the world...

 

[kEiThZ]

I don't know, I would not trust the FBI and CIA fully, especially considering the power of un-elected officials, the media and the bureaucracy in Washington.

It was disgusting when a lot of left leaning 9/11 truthers said nonsense like this. And it's equally disgusting when conservatives start maligning professional public servants because the facts might be inconvenient.

There's plenty of debate over the course of action ahead. There shouldn't be debate over the facts or slander against the professionals who reported them. Especially when the report itself is a straight compendium of substantiated facts with zero judgement.

 

[salsa]

It was disgusting when a lot of left leaning 9/11 truthers said nonsense like this. And it's equally disgusting when conservatives start maligning professional public servants because the facts might be inconvenient.

Sure, however history also shows that US Intelligence Agencies are not always reliable. Putting blind faith in them has let to some bad calls... most notably the Iraq war, under the false pretense that Hussein had WMDs.

 

[kEiThZ]

Sure, however history also shows that US Intelligence Agencies are not always reliable. Putting blind faith in them has let to some bad calls... most notably the Iraq war, under the false pretense that Hussein had WMDs.

It's easy to be vague.

I have yet to see exact criticism against the report that any reported facts were wrong or misconstrued or even unsubstantiated (the list of footnotes and evidence alone is impressive). Do you have any such specific claims? Or just more vague libel? Is there specific facts that you believe aren't adequately backed up?

I'm open to the suggestion that the investigators were wrong. Show me evidence that backs such claims because that is exactly what the report has.

And lest we forget, it was not the professional analysts at the three letter agencies who duped America into the Iraq War. It was Bush appointees at those agencies who did so. And this was among many reasons the DNI was created.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Well, that’s tit for tat.

Smooth Sailing Ahead for Trump in 2020 | National Review

The times are good and his opponents are not.

www.nationalreview.com

Trump pardons ex-media mogul Conrad Black

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a full pardon for former media mogul Conrad Black, who was convicted in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice and spent 3-1/2 years in prison. Black, 74, a Canadian-born British citizen, once ran an international newspaper empire that included the...

ca.news.yahoo.com

 

[Videodrome]

Now every half decent writer hoping for a pardon will start churning out columns and books.

 

[doady]

We aren't talking about political mudslinging. I'm talking about actions documented by the US intelligence community and detailed in the Mueller Report (which people forget first and foremost is a counter-intelligence investigation).

We've seen past presidents cut deals to get elected. Nixon with Vietnam. Reagan with the Iranian revolutionaries. Or resort to exaggeration like Lyndon Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin. None have gone so far as to have campaign staff directly cooperate with a hostile foreign intelligence service targeting the US and then brag about it to such an extent that it gets Five Eyes partners sufficiently alarmed to start pinging the US IC. This is all documented by the FBI. This is not normal.

Politically, sure. Normal is out the window these days. And the Democrats are unfortunately losing sobriety at the very moment it might serve them well.

But from the perspective of someone who has worked with these kinds of professionals, I take their reports very seriously. And it genuinely has me worried for the long term health of democracy in the US. This is very bad for the rule of law and for democracy, imho.

I can't think of a president, past or present, who is more representative of the US people than Donald Trump. Obama, Bush, Clinton, they represented the corporations only. Hillary would have been the same. I'm glad the Democrats got punished for that choice. If they had chosen Bernie Sanders instead, it would have been a different story. Hillary as the nominee instead of Sanders just shows how little control the people of US have over their government. Democracy in the US has always been a lie, and it's only thanks to Trump that democracy has been revived, the control given back to the people. Because for there to be democracy in the US, both the Republican and the Democratic parties need to be destroyed, and that is exactly what Trump did and if he continues doing that, I will continue rooting for him. Go Trump!

 

[TheKingEast]

If I could say what I truly felt about Trump I'd be banned.

 

[kEiThZ]

If they had chosen Bernie Sanders instead,

Only those ignorant of the Electoral College say this. What states would have swung from Trump to Sanders to deliver the EC?

The idea that someone as far to the left would win several battleground states is pure fantasy.

Also, I am sick of this nonsense about Sanders being somehow unfairly suppressed by the DNC. They had ~20 debates. And several million more Democratic party members actually voted for Clinton in the primaries. There's no conspiracy. Just a failure to convince actually primary voters to vote for him. The bullshit excuses, like exceptions for young voter registration or more debates, are just that: excuses for a candidate who failed to live up to the hype from supporters who don't seem to understand that the average Democractic party member is not a 20-year old white college student.

 

[kEiThZ]

I think you almost have it right.

If Democrats and their inside circle get away with this, American election will become a free-for-all with every President undermining the opposition party. It they don't prosecute everyone involved from the Obama team, America will become a banana republic where the law don't apply at all to the rich, powerful and connected.

To criminals, enforcement of the law always look oppressive.

Quite frankly it's disgusting that people think politics should overrule protection of basic democratic principles like the rule of law. History will not be kind to Trump apologists. And unlike the 2000s when Dubya supporters could slink away in shame and deny they ever voted for the guy, social media will document in fantastic detail all who were marks and how easily they were duped.

Would I want a Canadian PM to break the law by threatening the AG. Of course, no.

Indeed. And unfortunately our system does not allow for independent counsels to investigate the executive.