*

TheZookie007

  • L Cup
  • 53281
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6585 on: February 07, 2018, 02:46:20 PM »

Even now, erosion is visible. Republican partisans and policy makers routinely accept insults to constitutional norms that, under Barack Obama, they would have condemned as outrageous. When Trump tweeted about taking “NBC and the Networks” off the air (“Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked”), congressional Republicans were quick to repudiate … left-wing media bias. In a poll by the Cato Institute, almost two-thirds of Republican respondents agreed with the president that journalists are “an enemy of the American people.” How much damage can Trump do in the next three years? We don’t know, but we see no grounds to be complacent.

So we arrive at a syllogism:

    (1) The GOP has become the party of Trumpism.
    (2) Trumpism is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.
    (3) The Republican Party is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.


If the syllogism holds, then the most-important tasks in U.S. politics right now are to change the Republicans’ trajectory and to deprive them of power in the meantime. In our two-party system, the surest way to accomplish these things is to support the other party, in every race from president to dogcatcher. The goal is to make the Republican Party answerable at every level, exacting a political price so stinging as to force the party back into the democratic fold.

We can only hope this call is heeded. But I have my doubts. For a recent example, consider that the man who is almost certainly going to be the Republican candidate for US House of Representatives from the Third Congressional District of Illinois is a literal Nazi.
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

*

StrikezOne

  • 1260
  • In Need Now More Than Ever
    • Email
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6586 on: February 07, 2018, 06:34:24 PM »
About that Mueller Trump/Russia investigation,

Fruit of the poisonous tree anyone?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
Dark Brandon quietly doing his job:

Highest Inflation in 40yrs
Highest Gas Prices Ever
Forced Vax on Millions of healthy Americans
Highest Mortgage rates in 15yrs
Most Illegal Border Crossings in US History
Loss of Energy Independence
High Taxes
High Crime
Afghanistan Disaster
Nordstream 2 Pipeline
Hunter Corruption/Treason
Vacations > Ohio Train Derailment, Maui Fires
WW3
America LAST

*

TheZookie007

  • L Cup
  • 53281
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6587 on: February 07, 2018, 06:48:30 PM »
Washington Post: "'Tanks, but no tanks' DC officials pan Trump's proposed grand military parade"
The Pentagon and White House are planning a miltary parade requested by President Trump, breaking with US tradition

..."I don't think anyone believes this would be about trying to honor men and women who serve our country. This would only be about feeding one man's ego," said Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6). "We repave Pennsylvania Avenue every four years just for the inaugural parade. Now imagine tanks and all the [treads] that go with them and all the heavy equipment. It will do a lot of damage to our local streets, and I don't know if the federal government is ready to write a check to do that."

Trump had long mused about an American military parade similar to the Bastille Day celebration in France he witnessed that featured uniformed troops, armored vehicles, tanks and fighter jets flying overhead. It apparently turned into a presidential directive when Trump met with top Pentagon generals in January, officials told the Washington Post.

…Although she chairs the transportation committee [Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3)] said any worries about impacts to city roads paled in comparison to the message sent by such a parade. "I don't want to be in Russia or North Korea, I don't want to be a totalitarian state and this is straight from their playbook."


. . . . . . . . . . .


TIME: "President Trump's Military Parade Is Likely to be a Logistical Nightmare for Planners"
...Getting a wide-array of military equipment from across the nation — in some cases, the world — into Washington, along with the technicians, mechanics, and support staff, will not be easy. It may also prove difficult to choose which units to showcase, what uniforms they should wear, what equipment they should carry, and when they’re available.

The last time the U.S. had a large-scale military parade was 1991 when the U.S. military overran Saddam Hussein’s forces in Iraq after just 43 days of combat. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Desert Storm, led the pageantry and later joined President George H.W. Bush behind a bulletproof glass partition to watch battle-clad troops march past. The event featured Patriot missiles, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, M1-A1 Abrams tanks, and a flyover by four F-117 stealth fighters.

Streetlights had to be removed. The 67-ton tanks punched deep tread marks into the pavement. An army of 1,000 workers picked up heaps of trash left behind by the crowd of 200,000 (later estimates said crowds swelled to 800,000.)

The parade cost $12 million, which amounts to about $22 million adjusted for inflation in 2018....

The idea for the parade came after Trump attended a national event in Paris for Bastille Day, a July 14 holiday marking the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789. The event is widely considered the beginning of the French Revolution, so the French carry out an annual military parade that features marching troops and high-tech weaponry.

“To a large extent because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July 4th in Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue,” Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron in September before a bilateral meeting as part of a series of United Nations events. “I don’t know, we’re gonna have to try to top it,” he said. “But we had a lot of planes going over, we had a lot of military might. It was a really beautiful thing to see.”


. . . . . . . . . . .


TIME: "'Put Me Down as a No.' These Retired Generals Are Not Happy About President Trump's Military Parade"

...A number of retired high-ranking military officials have spoken out about Trump’s orders for the Pentagon to begin planning a big parade, likely in Washington, D.C., since it was reported Tuesday evening by the Washington Post.

Among their objections: Military parades have traditionally been the hallmarks of totalitarian regimes, appearing in the parade would be an unwelcome distraction for rank-and-file servicemembers and it would make it seem like the military is promoting the president and not serving the Constitution.

Other military officials found troubling Trump’s desire for a parade, reportedly sparked after viewing a Bastille Day celebration in France, especially since it came just days after he declared — jokingly, his advisers argued — that Democratic lawmakers who did not clap for him at the State of the Union were “treasonous.”

“Donald Trump has continually shown himself to have authoritarian tendencies and this is just another worrisome example,” said Retired Major General Paul Eaton, a Senior Adviser VoteVets, a progressive political organization devoted to electing veterans to office. “For someone who just declared that it was ‘treasonous’ to not applaud him, and for someone who has, in the past, admired the tactics of everyone from Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin, it is clear that a military parade isn’t about saluting the military — it is about making a display of the military saluting him.”

“I used to watch them in Bulgaria,” retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and National Security Agency, said on Twitter of these type of parades, another reference to the association of these events with totalitarian regimes. “Put me down as a no,” he added.
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

*

TheZookie007

  • L Cup
  • 53281
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6588 on: February 07, 2018, 06:59:01 PM »
Mother Jones: "The Justice Department Has Apparently Debunked the GOP’s Phony Uranium One Scandal"
A bad week for Republican talking points.

Just days after the infamous “Nunes Memo” was greeted with widespread ridicule, another GOP talking point took a major hit Tuesday. Democratic lawmakers revealed that a “whistleblower” who congressional Republicans once suggested would reveal damning evidence against Hillary Clinton had actually never even mentioned Clinton to the FBI.

At issue is the 2010 sale of a uranium company with extensive US holdings to a Russian firm. Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have charged that as secretary of State, Clinton authorized the deal in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation. The allegations are misleading for a number of reasons, but Republicans have nonetheless sought to use them as a counterweight to the Trump-Russia probe.

Democrats now say that senior Justice Department officials told House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staffers in a December 15 briefing that the whistleblower had offered no evidence about Clinton. The Justice Department officials also said during the briefing that they considered the whistleblower, who has been identified in media reports as William Campbell, too unreliable to use as a witness due to inconsistencies in his story, according to a letter sent Tuesday by Reps. Elijah Cummings (Md.) and Adam Schiff (Calif.)—the top Democrats on the House oversight committee and the House intelligence committee—to the Republican chairmen of those panels.

After hyping the Uranium One case throughout much of 2016 and 2017, Republicans have grown relatively quiet about the issue in recent weeks. Instead, they’ve sought to focus attention on the controversial memo written by staffers of House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), attacking the process through which FBI agents sought a warrant to surveil Carter Page, a Trump campaign aide suspected of acting as a Russian agent. Tuesday’s letter may help explain why Republicans have largely stopped talking about the Uranium One whistleblower after raising the matter repeatedly last fall...

[W]e now know that in a December 15, 2017, briefing to House oversight committee staff, Justice Department officials apparently knocked down this claim. The officials said that “at no point did [the individual] provide any allegation of corruption, illegality, or impropriety on Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, President Clinton, the Uranium One deal, or CFIUS,” Cummings and Schiff wrote. “They also confirmed that there were ‘no allegations of impropriety or illegality’ regarding Secretary Clinton in any of the documents they reviewed.”

The officials also revealed in the briefing that “career attorneys initially planned to build their case against Mikerin based on evidence provided by this individual.  However, they began to have ‘serious credibility concerns’ because of ‘inconsistencies’ between the individual’s statements and documents they obtained as part of the investigation,” the letter says.
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

*

rtpoe

  • Old Fart
  • 12022
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6589 on: February 07, 2018, 07:29:53 PM »
If Trump wants to ogle our military might (and see all the BIG GUNS as if he were trying to compensate for something), what's to stop him from going on a formal inspection tour of our military installations?

He'll have the red carpet rolled out for him, all the highest brass will bow and scrape and make him feel important, and maybe they can arrange a few demonstrations / tests so he can OOOH and AAAH like the little boy that he is?

If he wants a parade like the one for Bastille Day, maybe we should give him a real "Bastille Day" first....
rtpoe

The last fling of winter is over ...  The earth, the soil itself, has a dreaming quality about it.  It is warm now to the touch; it has come alive; it hides secrets that in a moment, in a little while, it will tell.
-  Donald Culross Peattie

*

Pendejo

  • A Cup
  • 2704
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6590 on: February 07, 2018, 09:28:52 PM »
 :)

*

rtpoe

  • Old Fart
  • 12022
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6591 on: February 09, 2018, 10:00:54 PM »
Two more people are being shown the door from the WH.

Rob Porter, staff secretary, is leaving because it (finally, after it was known for months) became known that he beat both his ex-wives. Speechwriter David Sorensen is departing for similar reasons (and trust me, you don't want to know what they did).

Rachel Brand, the #3 at the DOJ, has said "Screw this shit, I'm outta here", and is quitting to (apparently) go work for Wal-Mart.

Add to this all the people in the administration who have left for various Not Good reasons....

And let it be known that the International Olympic Committee has slapped more sanctions on Russia this year for their cheating at sports than the Trump administration has for their hacking into state's voter registration databases - AND THEY ARE ALREADY TRYING TO INTERFERE IN THE MIDTERMS......(SOURCE)

And the GOP seems perfectly content with all of this.

You have to ask the Republicans (and any Trump supporter you can find):

What do you stand for?

What in God's name do you stand for?
rtpoe

The last fling of winter is over ...  The earth, the soil itself, has a dreaming quality about it.  It is warm now to the touch; it has come alive; it hides secrets that in a moment, in a little while, it will tell.
-  Donald Culross Peattie

*

3deroticer

  • Oh My God Cup
  • 8613
    • CyberLee
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6592 on: February 10, 2018, 11:40:22 AM »
Looks as Trump can only fill the seats with like minded abusive power seeking liars into his cabinet. Its an odd thing that each member of the cabinet have their own personal press secretary to spin every damage control lies. Makes me wonder if all of the press secretary have their own weekly meetings to get their lies straight?
"Yesterday, Reince Priebus called this whole story a 'nothing burger,'" he said. "Well these emails have turned it into an all-you-can-prosecute buffet."

Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6593 on: February 10, 2018, 01:59:49 PM »
:)

May I help you?
The funny politics thread is not this one! Please go post over there ...
Anti-social behaviours lack consideration for the well-being of others. Any types of conduct that violates basic rights (human rights is one of them) of another person. It can show as covert or overt hostility.

Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6594 on: February 10, 2018, 02:06:39 PM »
Only the guilty actually supress reports over themselves when they have the power to stopp it ... see Trumpelstilsken stopping the counter memo of the democrats.

And he adviced the department of justice to modify the memo ...

Yeah we know he loves generating FAKE NEWS...

I'm pretty sure I know what will be in the memo at the end. The memo will after the modifications sound like everthing his minions and GOP generate. It will sound like "asshole licking".
Anti-social behaviours lack consideration for the well-being of others. Any types of conduct that violates basic rights (human rights is one of them) of another person. It can show as covert or overt hostility.

*

StrikezOne

  • 1260
  • In Need Now More Than Ever
    • Email
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6595 on: February 10, 2018, 08:27:33 PM »
Washington Post: "'Tanks, but no tanks' DC officials pan Trump's proposed grand military parade"
The Pentagon and White House are planning a miltary parade requested by President Trump, breaking with US tradition

…Although she chairs the transportation committee [Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3)] said any worries about impacts to city roads paled in comparison to the message sent by such a parade. "I don't want to be in Russia or North Korea, I don't want to be a totalitarian state and this is straight from their playbook."

. . . . . . . . . . .

TIME: "President Trump's Military Parade Is Likely to be a Logistical Nightmare for Planners"
...Getting a wide-array of military equipment from across the nation — in some cases, the world — into Washington, along with the technicians, mechanics, and support staff, will not be easy. It may also prove difficult to choose which units to showcase, what uniforms they should wear, what equipment they should carry, and when they’re available.

. . . . . . . . . . .

TIME: "'Put Me Down as a No.' These Retired Generals Are Not Happy About President Trump's Military Parade"

...A number of retired high-ranking military officials have spoken out about Trump’s orders for the Pentagon to begin planning a big parade, likely in Washington, D.C., since it was reported Tuesday evening by the Washington Post.

Among their objections: Military parades have traditionally been the hallmarks of totalitarian regimes, appearing in the parade would be an unwelcome distraction for rank-and-file servicemembers and it would make it seem like the military is promoting the president and not serving the Constitution.

If Trump wants to ogle our military might (and see all the BIG GUNS as if he were trying to compensate for something), what's to stop him from going on a formal inspection tour of our military installations?

He'll have the red carpet rolled out for him, all the highest brass will bow and scrape and make him feel important, and maybe they can arrange a few demonstrations / tests so he can OOOH and AAAH like the little boy that he is?

If he wants a parade like the one for Bastille Day, maybe we should give him a real "Bastille Day" first....

Chuck Schumer calls for Military Parade in 2014

Next?
Dark Brandon quietly doing his job:

Highest Inflation in 40yrs
Highest Gas Prices Ever
Forced Vax on Millions of healthy Americans
Highest Mortgage rates in 15yrs
Most Illegal Border Crossings in US History
Loss of Energy Independence
High Taxes
High Crime
Afghanistan Disaster
Nordstream 2 Pipeline
Hunter Corruption/Treason
Vacations > Ohio Train Derailment, Maui Fires
WW3
America LAST

*

3deroticer

  • Oh My God Cup
  • 8613
    • CyberLee
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6596 on: February 10, 2018, 11:53:04 PM »
Do you not know the difference between a ticker tape parade vs driving a tank and rockets into the street of a city?!?!?
"Yesterday, Reince Priebus called this whole story a 'nothing burger,'" he said. "Well these emails have turned it into an all-you-can-prosecute buffet."

*

Pendejo

  • A Cup
  • 2704
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6597 on: February 11, 2018, 01:32:22 PM »
 :P

*

Pendejo

  • A Cup
  • 2704
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6598 on: February 13, 2018, 03:05:42 AM »
Where's Waldo

*

3deroticer

  • Oh My God Cup
  • 8613
    • CyberLee
Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #6599 on: February 14, 2018, 02:13:10 AM »
Pendego! I think you misplace your post here. There is a funny politics thread for that!
"Yesterday, Reince Priebus called this whole story a 'nothing burger,'" he said. "Well these emails have turned it into an all-you-can-prosecute buffet."