General US Politics

[Tryhard]

I honestly heard that this memo was going to prove criminal wrongdoing by Obama and Hillary from the week it's been hyped up for. Some people.

[eclipse]

I will give credit to Sessions for bowing the fuck out ASAP.  That's about the only good thing I can glean from this mess.

[Excellen Browning]

Cliff notes version of the Nunes memo: DOJ signed off an extension of a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page based on the Steele dossier aka the Trump-Russia dossier, which is a dossier of 17 memo's by ex-MI6 Christopher Steele. According to the FBI there were several other justifications. Then it goes on to state that private investigation/research company Fusion GPS was hired by the Clintons and DNC to investigate the Trump-Russia ties, who in turn hired Steele as a researcher(june 2016). The results of that were the pisstape dossier and a bunch of other documents, all of which were handed over to the DOJ. And Steele was fired as an informant in october 2016 BUT HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN TERMINATED IN SEPTEMBER and might have said he didn't want Trump to be president. All of this has been known for 3-4 months now.

Basically the memo alleges that the Trump-Russia investigation is TAINTED OH MY GAHD BY DEMOCRATIC INTERFERENCE. But the truth is that the FBI were already investigating Russian meddling well before the release of the Steele dossier, it just corroborated a bunch of stuff that they had already dug up.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Excellen Browning

[Lord Raven]

6 hours ago, Excellen Browning said:

All of this has been known for 3-4 months now.

and it creates this half-truth

6 hours ago, Excellen Browning said:

Then it goes on to state that private investigation/research company Fusion GPS was hired by the Clintons and DNC to investigate the Trump-Russia ties, who in turn hired Steele as a researcher(june 2016)

for instance, the DNC picked up opposition research from the RNC after Trump won the primaries. They always make this point to make the dossier look like a Clinton smear.

it's intentionally supposed to be misleading or wrong. like the FISA warrant happened because papadopoulos was drunk at a bar and tipped off some guy in Australia who ended up reporting it to the FBI.

[Excellen Browning]

18 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

and it creates this half-truth

for instance, the DNC picked up opposition research from the RNC after Trump won the primaries. They always make this point to make the dossier look like a Clinton smear.

it's intentionally supposed to be misleading or wrong. like the FISA warrant happened because papadopoulos was drunk at a bar and tipped off some guy in Australia who ended up reporting it to the FBI.

yup. it's blatant obstruction.

[Tryhard]

Although I think he's very unlikely to win in this Illinois district to say the least, the Republicans have a literal former Nazi political leader running for them now.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/393595/holocaust-denier-will-be-gop-nominee-in-illinois-congressional-race/

“Well, first of all, I’m running for Congress, not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Jones, a former leader of the American Nazi Party, has a campaign website containing a section called “Holocaust?” in which he calls the genocide of six million Jews “the biggest blackest lie in history.”

In his speech, Jones said he was sorry he voted for President Trump, who “surrounded himself with hoards of Jews” like presidential advisor/son-in-law Jared Kushner.

[eclipse]

34 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Although I think he's very unlikely to win in this Illinois district to say the least, the Republicans have a literal former Nazi political leader running for them now.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/393595/holocaust-denier-will-be-gop-nominee-in-illinois-congressional-race/

What in the actual fuck?

I want to see the numbers at the end of this race.  This is just. . .mind-boggling.

[Tryhard]

18 minutes ago, eclipse said:

What in the actual fuck?

I want to see the numbers at the end of this race.  This is just. . .mind-boggling.

He's really only in it because there's no other Republicans running. As that article says, he has ran since the 70's and apparently lost pretty much every campaign he's tried. He only got 11% of the vote in the Republican primary for that district in 2012.

https://ballotpedia.org/Arthur_Jones

The Illinois Republican Party condemned Jones. “We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District,” party chairman Tim Schneider told the Sun-Times.

He has also been condemned by the Illinois Republicans, but honestly I think they would remain silent if they believed he had any chance of winning. They were all talk about removing Moore if he was to become a senator, but I don't think Republicans would actually do it when push came to shove and if he won.

The thing I'm wondering if I was part of the Illinois Republican party is why you didn't/don't fill out the paperwork for some random Republican intern to run that you can officially endorse over him. It just makes the Republican name look bad even if you think he has no chance of winning (which thankfully, I believe I can say fairly confidently despite being in the post-Trump era)

[Excellen Browning]

10 hours ago, Tryhard said:

Although I think he's very unlikely to win in this Illinois district to say the least, the Republicans have a literal former Nazi political leader running for them now.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/393595/holocaust-denier-will-be-gop-nominee-in-illinois-congressional-race/

 

Peak Southern Strategy. The pubbies sure are diversifying.

(it's good thing he really has no chance of winning.)

[Shoblongoo]

On 2/5/2018 at 6:56 AM, Excellen Browning said:

(it's good thing he really has no chance of winning.)

You wanna say "A guy like this can't win. lol sure--let the Republicans nominate him. Easy win for the Democrat." And 9 times out of 10, that's correct.

But that onnnnnnnnnnnne time. 

...that's how you with up with a President Trump...

Like between The Roy Moore race and the 2016 presidential election, this much should be clear by now. It doesn't matter how bad a candidate is.

...40% of the population will vote for whoever you put the (R) next to, because they believe that anything is better than a Democrat. 
...40% of the population will vote for whoever you put the (D) next to, because they believe that anything is better than a Republican.

And the margin of victory is somewhere in-between. (Alabama--a state of 4.8 million people--was 22,000 votes away from sending a Child Molester to the United States Senate)

Sooooooooo; yeah. Lets not play Russian Roulette with Nazis.    

Edited February 9, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Slumber]

The only way I'm playing Russian Roulette with Nazis is if I can get another Nazi to take my spot, and there's a bullet in each chamber. 

That metaphor is dumb doesn't really make any sense, but a goddamn Nazi is running in Illinois, so I'm a little addled right now. 

Edited February 9, 2018 by Slumber

[The Geek]

On 2/4/2018 at 4:59 PM, Tryhard said:

Although I think he's very unlikely to win in this Illinois district to say the least, the Republicans have a literal former Nazi political leader running for them now.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/393595/holocaust-denier-will-be-gop-nominee-in-illinois-congressional-race/

 

 

Illinois Nazis?  Where are the Blues Brothers when you need them?

[Excellen Browning]

18 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

You wanna say "A guy like this can't win. lol sure--let the Republicans nominate him. Easy win for the Democrat." And 9 times out of 10, that's correct.

But that onnnnnnnnnnnne time. 

...that's how you with up with a President Trump...

Like between The Roy Moore race and the 2016 presidential election, this much should be clear by now. It doesn't matter how bad a candidate is.

...40% of the population will vote for whoever you put the (R) next to, because they believe that anything is better than a Democrat. 
...40% of the population will vote for whoever you put the (D) next to, because they believe that anything is better than a Republican.

And the margin of victory is somewhere in-between. (Alabama--a state of 4.8 million people--was 22,000 votes away from sending a Child Molester to the United States Senate)

Sooooooooo; yeah. Lets not play Russian Roulette with Nazis.    

This is good and fine and all but Alabama is Alabama and mr. god fearing, blackie-Jew-commie-hispanic-irish-etc hating nazi scumbag is trying to get elected in one of the most Dem leaning areas of the country. So I think we'll be alright.

[Lord Raven]

fwiw I agree that saying "they're gonna lose, psh" is a bad mentality and that everyone should go out and vote.

But he's definitely going to lose. People -- especially in Virgnia, which is blue-purple -- will not vote for him.

[Tryhard]

You mean Illinois? In that case, even less of a chance since it's democrat leaning.

In other news, the White House last night refused to release the rebuttal to the Nunes memo that Democrats wanted released, supposedly until changes are made. Really, that whole situation is a mess becuase the Nunes memo honestly doesn't even need a rebuttal.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-denies-democratic-request-to-release-memo-seeks-revisions-1518224387?tesla=y&mod=breakingnews

Someone summarised pretty succintly:

Quote

Trump couldn't have played this worse if he'd tried. This screams obstruction of justice, and makes Trump look guilty as hell. Just like with Nunes' complete dud, the Democrat memo is much more powerful in the abstract than it'll probably be in reality.

The correct play would have been having Republicans hype up the Nunes memo and then for Trump to refuse to release it citing national security concerns. Trump gets to look presidential, innocent, and impartial, and the memo gets to continue to be hyped up by the Trump cultists without reality getting in the way. Instead, a complete nothingburger of a memo is hyped up to laughable extremes, Trump releases it despite the overwhelming concerns of his own intelligence agencies, it's an embarrassing dud that is widely debunked, and then Trump refuses to release the countermemo citing the exact same national security he didn't give a single shit about days earlier. In one fell swoop, Trump portrays himself as not caring about national security, obstructing justice, and having something to hide, and gives the Dems a pertinent talking point. 

Edited February 10, 2018 by Tryhard

[BrightBow]

Of course at this point it probably doesn't matter how guilty Trump acts. As the man himself said: "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."

The people who would have been turned off by this kind of behavior would have done so a long time ago. For example on his very first day in office where he waged war on reality on the subject of his inauguration crowd size, a topic that couldn't have been any more pointless and petty. It was a day that should have removed any shadow of doubt about his true character, that he was every bit the narcissistic and selfserving liar that he looked like. The naked emperor has been in plain sight ever since. So if people still don't want to see it what's right in front of them, I'm not sure what could possibly convince them.

Although it does seem that his support erodes slowly but surely. Still, there is probably nothing that he can do to speed up the process by a significant degree.

[Lord Raven]

6 hours ago, Tryhard said:

You mean Illinois? In that case, even less of a chance since it's democrat leaning.

yes i have no idea why i was thinking virginia

apparently the nunes memo was a flop on FNC lol that's pretty fucking impressive

[Tryhard]

So on that Trump budget:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/12/16996832/trump-budget-2019-release-explained

Vox, but the important part is the quoted:

• A 42.3 percent cut to all “non-defense discretionary” spending, from the currently planned level of $756 billion in 2028 to $436 billion. This category includes funding for government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department, certain safety net programs like Head Start, law enforcement spending at the FBI and Department of Justice, and scientific research through the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.
• A 33.7 percent cut to the EPA, a 29.5 percent cut to the National Science Foundation, a 22.2 percent cut to the Army Corps of Engineers (a major infrastructure program), a 21.4 percent cut to the Labor Department, and a 26.9 percent cut to the State Department, among many other discretionary spending cuts.
• A $777 billion boost to defense spending over 10 years, paid for partially by reducing “overseas contingency operations” spending (also known as the war budget). By 2028, total defense spending will be lower, but over the next few years it will be significantly higher (7.9 percent higher in 2020, for instance).
• A 7.1 percent cut to Medicare by 2028, due to reforms meant to cut payments to providers and reduce wasteful treatment without limiting access to health care. The Affordable Care Act in 2010 included many similar provisions with related goals.
• A 22.5 percent cut to Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies by 2028, through repealing and replacing Obamacare.
• A 27.4 percent cut to SNAP (food stamps) and a 20.1 percent cut to Section 8 housing assistance by 2028.

Once again, a proposed cut to Medicare and Medicaid and an increase of the defense spending.

Trump promised he would not cut medicare and medicaid unlike other Republicans, and once again he is a liar.

[Time the Crestfallen]

7 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

<Snip>

So cutting basically everything except for military spending, which gets a huge increase.

On the topic of Medicare, Trump has made lots of promises and broken almost all of them. If none of the others made any of his supporters turn away, than I doubt this will be the one to do it.

[Excellen Browning]

That budget is some amazing shit.

In other news, it appears Robert Gates is finalising a plea deal and will be joining hands with Papadopoulos and Flynn as co-operator in the Russsia investigation.

This all of course means that the piss tape is real.

[Shoblongoo]

2 hours ago, Excellen Browning said:

the piss tape is real.

I don't know about that, but Trump's lawyer accidentally violated the terms of his nondisclosure agreement by publicly confirming that he paid $130,000 for Stormy Daniels to not talk about their affair.

...which means the pornstar doesn't have to keep quiet anymore. And she's talking:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-a-playboy-model-and-a-system-for-concealing-infidelity-national-enquirer-karen-mcdougal

[Tryhard]

Developing story...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/mueller-indicts-13-russians-for-hacking-during-u-s-election-jdq8fyg0

https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download

Edited February 16, 2018 by Tryhard

[Shoblongoo]

22 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Developing story...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/mueller-indicts-13-russians-for-hacking-during-u-s-election-jdq8fyg0

https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download

*skims criminal complaint*

COUNT II: Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud and Wire Fraud

...there it is...

The "Piss Tape" is a salacious distraction, but the heavier (and largely ignored) accusation that came out of the Steel Dossier was "widespread evidence of Russian Money Laundering through the Trump Organization."

[Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud]. That's  where big-name players are going to jail, if Mueller has obtained evidence of collusion on the American side.

 

Edited February 16, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Sias]

Quote

“If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go to Phase 2,” Trump replied. “Phase 2 may be a very rough thing. May be very, very unfortunate for the world.”

Yes, there's really nothing like starting another war when the Russia investigation gets a little too close on your track. (Source)

[Lord Raven]

Quote

“If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go to Phase 2,” Trump replied. “Phase 2 may be a very rough thing. May be very, very unfortunate for the world.”

so why do it you moron