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1 hour ago, Phoenix Wright said:

hmm, right, but i suppose my question was a direct response to your assertion that trump is either stupid or compromised. the question was: shouldn't the fbi be competent enough to prove that? why do you still feel he's compromised when the evidence (or lack thereof i guess) says otherwise? why is your conviction so strong?

I'm not sure I entirely understand what you're getting at, but...

Trump is either dumb-as-bricks or compromised because those are the only plausible explanations for the course of conduct uncovered by Mueller's Investigation.

The FBI's job isn't to prove that Trump is stupid or compromised, because those aren't crimes. The FBI's job was to investigate whether or not Trump was party to a criminal conspiracy.

Facts showing just how dumb and/or susceptible to blackmail Trump really is came out incidental to that investigation.
______

I mean just think for a moment about what has to be true for the collusion narrative to be false.

Trump--without any collaborative purpose or intent to conceal same--hired an unregistered foreign agent working for Russian proxies in occupied Ukraine to be his campaign manager during the 2016 election. Publicly called for the Russians to "find Hillary's emails," as the Russians were in the ongoing process of conducting espionage and cyber-theft against her campaign. Repeatedly told the American People that the Russians never did this, after they did it and his top brass kept telling him that they did it. Then tried to shutdown the Russia investigation  + invalidate its findings, at the same time he was also trying to conceal that his campaign team had hosted a meeting with a Russian spy promising "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.

If that really was all just one big Whoopsies, thats the special kind of stupid that bankrupts a casino. 

 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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3 hours ago, Phoenix Wright said:

hmm, right, but i suppose my question was a direct response to your assertion that trump is either stupid or compromised. the question was: shouldn't the fbi be competent enough to prove that? why do you still feel he's compromised when the evidence (or lack thereof i guess) says otherwise? why is your conviction so strong?

Bearing in mind that Barr's letter is not the report itself and is very likely misrepresenting the findings in subtle ways, consider this line quoted from the report:

Quote

“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” 

  • "Did not establish [x] happened" is different from "established [x] did not happen" in that the former says they can't confirm it happened, whereas the latter says they can confirm it didn't happen.
  • "Conspiracy" and "coordination" are terms being used under the scope of criminal liability. "Stupid", "compromised", or even "colluded" do not have that same legal significance.

Combining these two points, a more careful reading of that line says that the investigation did not find enough evidence for the legal prosecution of those specific criminal actions. It does not dispute Trump's stupidity or whether or not he was/is compromised, however. We'd have a more concrete understanding about it all if we could read the full report, of course.

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Yeah New York Times reporting today the full Mueller Report is over 300 pages long in main-body text, before you even get to the attached exhibits. (i.e. DoJ employees are starting to leak to the press) 

Nothing fishy at all about that 4 Page summary + refusal to let anyone outside the White House see the actual report. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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On 25/03/2019 at 1:37 PM, Shoblongoo said:

Friendly reminder Mueller was 1 of 17 active criminal investigations into Trump World, and DJT was narrowly absolved on the issue of colluding with a hostile foreign government to defraud the United States.

Money Laundering through the Trump Organization, Tax Evasion, and any other incidental crimes discovered along the way are unresolved + in the hands of the Southern District of New York

The problem is that a lot of Democrat politicians and a fair swath of voters have not settled for a rhetoric less than Trump is literally Putin's puppet.

If this was partly about the emoluments cases currently progressing in the courts against Trump, or similar allegations of money laundering or conflicts of interests with countries like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, UAE, Turkey, etc, then perhaps it wouldn't look so bad.

Edit: I don't often give credit to Pelosi, but she walked back the possibility of impeachment a few weeks ago and I think she was right to.

Edited by Tryhard
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21 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

The problem is that a lot of Democrat politicians and a fair swath of voters have not settled for a rhetoric less than Trump is literally Putin's puppet.

Less won't settle for anything less.

More death by a thousand cuts--attack him anywhere he looks vulnerable.

At the height of this particular scandal (i.e. the Comey Firing, the Helsinki Summit, and everything in between): the 'Trump is literally Putin's puppet' tag was looking like his biggest point of vulnerability. 

And if that storm has passed--well--goodness, there's no shortage of other vulnerabilities to pick at. (His new thing now post-Mueller is that he wants to pivot back to Obamacare repeal and the GOP 'healthcare plan' again. Ohhhhhh Yes please. Make that an issue going into 2020) 

That about-face on Mueller though from The Right has been something though, eh?

2x9gvv.jpg
 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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True, there are many other things to attack Trump on. I'll wait until the final report comes out but it just seems like too much emphasis has been placed on this. I believe it's simply been a detriment in terms of political capital. It's not that I never thought that Trump was suspicious regarding this sort of stuff - I figured he was on Russian, among other countries, oligarch's bankrolls. Probably is even without this conclusion.

Still, I'm glad the Mueller investigation happened regardless because:

a) it has brought in more assets than it has cost
b) it has indicted Flynn, Manafort, Cohen and Roger Stone for legitimate reasons.

19 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

That about-face on Mueller though from The Right has been something though, eh?

2x9gvv.jpg

Yes, it is rather sad. But there was also a decent amount of people who thought Mueller had betrayed them/is covering for Trump because he's a Republican, which is sort of a laughable concept as well, from liberals who aren't known to be the most trusting of intelligence agencies due to past events.

Political commentators aren't generally known to care much about consistency.

Edited by Tryhard
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In the wake of the Mueller report vs Barr summary, Lindsey Graham's video of impeaching Clinton pops up again, further highlighting the massive hypocrisy. If only you could have this clip played to every Trump supporter (specially those in Congress) every single day from now on.

EDIT: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/28/tech/trump-twitter-rules-label/index.html

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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23 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

I'm not sure I entirely understand what you're getting at, but...

Trump is either dumb-as-bricks or compromised because those are the only plausible explanations for the course of conduct uncovered by Mueller's Investigation.

The FBI's job isn't to prove that Trump is stupid or compromised, because those aren't crimes. The FBI's job was to investigate whether or not Trump was party to a criminal conspiracy.

Facts showing just how dumb and/or susceptible to blackmail Trump really is came out incidental to that investigation.
______

I mean just think for a moment about what has to be true for the collusion narrative to be false.

Trump--without any collaborative purpose or intent to conceal same--hired an unregistered foreign agent working for Russian proxies in occupied Ukraine to be his campaign manager during the 2016 election. Publicly called for the Russians to "find Hillary's emails," as the Russians were in the ongoing process of conducting espionage and cyber-theft against her campaign. Repeatedly told the American People that the Russians never did this, after they did it and his top brass kept telling him that they did it. Then tried to shutdown the Russia investigation  + invalidate its findings, at the same time he was also trying to conceal that his campaign team had hosted a meeting with a Russian spy promising "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.

If that really was all just one big Whoopsies, thats the special kind of stupid that bankrupts a casino. 

 

i'm not really trying to get at anything, i'm genuinely curious because this is a subtle legal procedure and i am not trained in any sense of the word. i think me trying to make sense of this would be like having you do an assignment in how density perturbations grow in the early universe leading to overdense pockets, yielding galaxies.

having said that: why must those be the only explanations? we are simply unaware of the evidence--how can we make any conclusions from that?  if the fbi's job was to investigate whether trump was party to a criminal conspiracy, i would consider the investigation incomplete, no? at the moment, it seems the conclusion is "we don't know," which is as good an answer as before the investigation began.

it's fishy for all of those things to happen, but it isn't proof. at least not to me and i can't see why my opinion on that should change. what's making evidence so hard to find? what resources should be provided to get the answers we need?

21 hours ago, Johann said:

Bearing in mind that Barr's letter is not the report itself and is very likely misrepresenting the findings in subtle ways, consider this line quoted from the report:

  • "Did not establish [x] happened" is different from "established [x] did not happen" in that the former says they can't confirm it happened, whereas the latter says they can confirm it didn't happen.
  • "Conspiracy" and "coordination" are terms being used under the scope of criminal liability. "Stupid", "compromised", or even "colluded" do not have that same legal significance.

Combining these two points, a more careful reading of that line says that the investigation did not find enough evidence for the legal prosecution of those specific criminal actions. It does not dispute Trump's stupidity or whether or not he was/is compromised, however. We'd have a more concrete understanding about it all if we could read the full report, of course.

i am paying no mind at all to barr's letter.

as above, that seems to me that the investigation is incomplete...

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1 hour ago, Phoenix Wright said:

i am paying no mind at all to barr's letter.

as above, that seems to me that the investigation is incomplete...

The investigation is "continuing", seemingly into other crimes relating to Trump/his campaign/his organization, so yeah incomplete wouldn't be inaccurate.

Edited by Johann
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There's no inherent advantage or disadvantage to having the electoral college over just using the popular vote, and I'm not sure why you'd think along those lines. You can reach the same practical outcome by assigning more weight to votes from the less populous states in a popular vote system just as well.

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DISADVANTAGE:  When you use the electoral college, you sometimes get "elected" leaders that aren't actually representative of who voters elected to lead.

DISADVANTAGE: When you use the electoral college, your vote doesn't matter unless you live in a swing state.

******

ADVANTAGE:  [???]

(None that I'm aware of)

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Supposedly, it's to avoid "Tyranny of the Majority".

On the other hand, "Dominant Minority" is a also a thing that can happen, so...

In my opinion, the moment the voter to vote ratio stops being 1:1, it defats the purpose of being an election. That's just me, though.

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5 hours ago, Azure in a Roundabout said:

Ok... I just want to know the pros and cons  for each of both the electoral college and the popular vote. Just so I can make a decision with the facts given. Or can I just look that up somewhere?

 

4 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

DISADVANTAGE:  When you use the electoral college, you sometimes get "elected" leaders that aren't actually representative of who voters elected to lead.

DISADVANTAGE: When you use the electoral college, your vote doesn't matter unless you live in a swing state.

******

ADVANTAGE:  [???]

(None that I'm aware of)

Check out the discussion starting at 9:45 to get the perspective of a former GOP governor. The advantage people like him desire by having the Electoral College remain is marginalize minorities and whites that don't agree with the racists.

There are white folks in the US that see the thought of people of different color having equal rights and playing field as oppression towards them. Those in power need to acknowledge this and address it.

4 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Supposedly, it's to avoid "Tyranny of the Majority".

On the other hand, "Dominant Minority" is a also a thing that can happen, so...

In my opinion, the moment the voter to vote ratio stops being 1:1, it defats the purpose of being an election. That's just me, though.

Shoblongoo has already talked about why the Electoral College was created but here's another article to supplement it

Quote

The second as part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the smaller states.

It's ironic that the real tyrants are currently in the minority (Republican) and the Electoral College itself is what has allowed the so-called "tyranny of the majority" to lose twice and have them subjected to enrichment of the elite with a side helping of incompetent governance of the country. 

Removal of the electoral college has been tried several times and apparently, it was almost done during Nixon's era. Nowadays you just have conservatives like Charlie Kirk  defending the Electoral college with bullshit arguments like "we don’t live in a democracy" and it's just not going to happen until you got rid of the corruption in DC.

It is certainly possible to keep the Electoral College but there's problems with it beyond the "Winner Take All" aspect of it. Being mindful of the smaller states is a good thing but as recent times have shown, you even up leaving greater numbers behind if the president lies to the small states and neglects the people in the big states.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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Incidentally, as of like two days ago, New Mexico is the latest state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which are state approved agreements to automatically give their EC votes to the popular vote winner, assuming enough states are signed up to reach 270. So far, it's up to 189, though it's not even going to be close to 270 anytime soon since it's more of a blue state thing.

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I want to add something that I came up with after I made my previous post, and which hasn't been addressed by other posters. One disadvantage of the electoral college is that your vote becomes worthless if the majority of your state goes the other way. In a popular vote system your vote gets added to the total and can still contribute to a win.

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That's been addressed, it's literally the biggest problem people outside the swing states have with the system. I do wonder how many people believe that the way we elect our president extends to local, congressional and senate elections because that's where it gets so much worse.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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On 3/12/2019 at 2:34 PM, Shoblongoo said:

Oh I've thought about it.

I'd definitely wanna be further along in my career and have a larger reservoir of life experience to tap into before I attempt it.

But like 15-20 years from now? Absolutely. I'd give it a shot. 

________
I'm not a stupid guy. If I today at 29 years old wanted to attempt to unseat my sitting Congressman and launch a bid for office--I couldn't do it. I don't even think I could get my name on the ballot. I don't have the drive, I don't have the networking skills, and I don't have the social platform or the popular support.

She's 29 years old. She did it. 
  
You gotta respect that. 
 

I've been heavily contemplating it since I spoke with you two.  I've clocked more than 3 days accumulatively reading nothing but documents and better understanding what credentials are required and what the title/job looks like. Kind of like how to apply. I've even visited the house/Senate sites to watch live feed to see what is in store for someone interested in joining them. I've been watching the kind of stuff they do and have to admit it looks boring but there are some inspirational and fun things too. Like my Rep for our area brought a college student to Capital Hill to give her a chance to talk with others so they can see a hard working Dreamer who graduated in paralegal. That was moving.

But the job is also intimidating in various ways. Like if you don't get along with others, you'll get shut down and not be able to make any changes or do anything meaningful for the people you want to help. You need support and it's like a team effort to get things done. It isn't a job you can do on your own. Plus you need to help bring awareness and enlighten people but that hinges on if people even want to learn or become proactive in changing the process. They also need to commit by exerting effort and that falls into the lap of the people. Basically it isn't a job you can do using your own two hands. It's all teamwork. I don't know how to inspire people like that. To help them understand and then participate in change all while toppling any obstacles that stand before you. Obstacles which exist just because it appears being happy and sensible isn't allowed or has to be approved by others that aren't even affected. 

I'm only 27 so I don't know if I'd be taken seriously but I'd love to try my hand at this job. I'm pretty sure it's simple enough.

On 3/12/2019 at 8:58 PM, Dr. Tarrasque said:

Me in Congress? I always figured I wouldn't be worthy given how I'd support something as extreme as execution of corrupt politicians.

My residence is currently in Texas and given how I am Hispanic and my district's recent history, it seems like a battle lost before the fight begins. But of course, I haven't done much research when it comes to running for congress so who knows, might be easier than I suspect.

Oh man, you can do it. From what I've researched it isn't that hard to meet the qualifications. The part that might stump you is getting numbers behind you. No joke, you need thousands of people to vote for you. You should look into it. I had fun learning about it. You can win if you are willing to exert a whole bunch of effort. And have some money. Not the kind of money that can you get you a brand new 2018 car but more like what your typical semester at college costs. 

Also I don't think being young or getting fired up over something is a bad thing. You just need people by your side that can help reign you in. Kinda like a safety net. I can't tell you how many times I was ready for it to come down to trading blows and drawing blood but then had someone I respect or care about be near me to remind me there are better ways to solve things. I had this cousin I hadn't seen in like 5 years and he said I mellowed out a whole bunch. That was this February he said that to me. Corruption is a problem and I'd be furious with uncontrollable rage if I knew they turned and looked the other way after getting money while someone suffered. But I've learned and been reminded that they are people too and the more civil and humane thing to do would be to simply strip them of their power and let them live in shame when it becomes public they were crooked. I used to think prison was philosophically implemented to help rehabilitate people but another perspective is to also humiliate them by making it public they were caught and guilty of a crime. Shame and humility make people modest quite effectively. It's almost like neutering them. Maybe while they reflect on their actions they'll decide they want to earn forgiveness and turn a new leaf. Just maybe. I only think that way because someone I respect keeps saying that. I feel like it probably is the right choice. After all, I trust the person saying it and if they think it's a good idea, I have to at least give it a chance. As active as you are here, you should look into it.

 

Also I know I'm quoting like month old posts, but I felt it was still relevant because we keep talking about candidates and qualifications recently.

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10 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

I'm only 27 so I don't know if I'd be taken seriously but I'd love to try my hand at this job. I'm pretty sure it's simple enough.

Part of being a politician is balance.  You're going to have sides that want two different things, and you can't wholly please everyone - how do you do it such that you don't kick anyone in the face?  Is it even possible?

Second, you have to be an effective communicator.  You must be able to express your ideas in such a way that you don't irritate others.  Case in point:

10 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

As active as you are here, you should look into it.

Who are you to tell anyone what to look into?

If being a politician is your dream, go for it.  But you have a lot of work to do.

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8 hours ago, eclipse said:

Part of being a politician is balance.  You're going to have sides that want two different things, and you can't wholly please everyone - how do you do it such that you don't kick anyone in the face?  Is it even possible?

Second, you have to be an effective communicator.  You must be able to express your ideas in such a way that you don't irritate others.  Case in point:

Who are you to tell anyone what to look into?

If being a politician is your dream, go for it.  But you have a lot of work to do.

Not realistically. Furthermore trying to promise something that you can't uphold would be a lie and it isn't ethical to do that or mislead people for whatever reason. The balance will be found in trying to compromise or find ground where everyone can agree to move forward. If that can't be done, then I'll figure out how to cross that bridge when I get to it.

Do you know if my words irritated him? If they did, I'd like him to tell me so I can apologize to him directly so he can hopefully feel my sincerity being conveyed. Otherwise, it was just a suggestion. I'm not quite sure what tone you perceived when reading my post but it wasn't supposed to be felt as if I was issuing a demand or order to him. Just like before in our PMs, I like talking to you. The level of thinking I have to do is a great exercise. Responding to you makes me feel like I'm practicing. 

4 hours ago, Excellen Browning said:

So, before anything, which party are you joining?

I actually haven't gotten to the stage where I decided if I want to run. I'm still wondering if I can handle the position with my current level of maturity and my known flaws in character. I need more peace within before I can contemplate jumping in. I need to learn to accept things I can't control. Otherwise I'll make myself lose sleep and suffer not being able to solve problems. There is more I could mention but I think that is sufficient enough for the basis of this post. 

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