Trump Presidency

[XtremeJibber2001]

Like I said, if Gump can keep up his bigly pace set during his first 100 days, we'll all rejoice. No major legislation to speak of and all those EOs can be instantly undone by the next guy/gal.

Those fires though, so hot, and so many. If he could just squeak out tax reform while putting out all his fires, I'd be happy.

[madhatter]

so while the depiction of the D's first 100 days is about spot on with only the exact number of buildings being burned of possible question, the other two cartoons depict oblivious misunderestimating and portrayal of how one imagines things are, not as they actually are......like imagining anyone who is not a Gump sycophant is busy burning down cities while wearing a costume that offends fragile conservative sensibilities.but both of those things actually happened, whereas again neither of the things in the two cartoons about trump exist anywhere but fantasyland...and I bet more people in your house are offended by those costumes than in mine...honestly I don't think conservatives are all that offended and in fact most of us hope it continues, no surer way to attract new followers...

that's what happens when one believes with near religious fervor that left is right and right is wrong despite the consensus agreement from the right that the opposite of left is right and that the opposite of right is wrong...

I don't even think you actually imagine this $hit is real but simply post it cuz ya know the barely useful idiots will eat it up...it's really the only plausible explanation...

Like I said, if Gump can keep up his bigly pace set during his first 100 days, we'll all rejoice. No major legislation to speak of vs the lilly ledbetter act and two spending bills signed by obama when he had carte blanche to do anything he wanted...and all those EOs can be instantly undone by the next guy/gal.

works for me, ya looking 8 years ahead to that already?

so the left disagrees with "the opposite of left is right and that the opposite of right is wrong...
" it's purely right wing consensus? no surprise there...

man I thought you;d be way better at this...all yer doing is parroting lame MSM talking points that are easily dispelled... it's a whole bunch of conjecture and false equivalencies whipped together to create a barely plausible narrative that ( barely) useful idiots will hopefully buy...ya finding any takers?

[freeski]

Comey is proving he doesn't have the moral fortitude to be the FBI director. He's too much of a political animal. Bigly douchbag...

[rogman]

The important thing to keep in mind is that impeachment is not a legal process but rather a political process. It took two years until Nixon resigned after the Watergate burglary. I doubt Trump will last that long. Support in the Senate is evaporating; it is over.

[Mister Moose]

The important thing to keep in mind is that impeachment is not a legal process but rather a political process. It took two years until Nixon resigned after the Watergate burglary. I doubt Trump will last that long. Support in the Senate is evaporating; it is over.

That's quite a prediction. There must be both legitimate charges and the political will. I'll take the over.

[XtremeJibber2001]

The important thing to keep in mind is that impeachment is not a legal process but rather a political process. It took two years until Nixon resigned after the Watergate burglary. I doubt Trump will last that long. Support in the Senate is evaporating; it is over.

That's quite a prediction. There must be both legitimate charges and the political will. I'll take the over.

I'll take the over, too. However, I suspect he'll become a lame duck if the impeachment process begins.

[madhatter]

impeachment for what?

James Comey was lying in wait.

His gun was cocked, he took aim and fired. But his weapon was empty.

Three months ago, the then-FBI Director met with President Trump. Following their private conversation, Comey did what he always does –he wrote a memorandum to himself memorializing the conversation. Good lawyers do that routinely.

Now, only after Comey was fired, the memo magically surfaces in an inflammatory New York Times report which alleges that Mr. Trump asked Comey to end the Michael Flynn investigation.

Those who don’t know the first thing about the law immediately began hurling words like “obstruction of justice”, “high crimes and misdemeanors” and “impeachment“. Typically, these people don’t know what they don’t know.

Here is what we do know.

Under the law, Comey is required to immediately inform the Department of Justice of any attempt to obstruct justice by any person, even the President of the United States. Failure to do so would result in criminal charges against Comey. (18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361) He would also, upon sufficient proof, lose his license to practice law.

So, if Comey believed Trump attempted to obstruct justice, did he comply with the law by reporting it to the DOJ? If not, it calls into question whether the events occurred as the Times reported it.

Obstruction requires what’s called “specific intent” to interfere with a criminal case. If Comey concluded, however, that Trump’s language was vague, ambiguous or elliptical, then he has no duty under the law to report it because it does not rise to the level of specific intent. Thus, no crime.

There is no evidence Comey ever alerted officials at the Justice Department, as he is duty-bound to do. Surely if he had, that incriminating information would have made its way to the public either by an indictment or, more likely, an investigation that could hardly be kept confidential in the intervening months.

Comey’s memo is being treated as a “smoking gun” only because the media and Democrats, likely prompted by Comey himself, are now peddling it that way.

Comey will soon testify before Congress about this and other matters. His memo will likely be produced pursuant to a subpoena. The words and the context will matter.

But by writing a memo, Comey has put himself in a box. If he now accuses the President of obstruction, he places himself in legal jeopardy for failing to promptly and properly report it. If he says it was merely an uncomfortable conversation, he clears the president of wrongdoing and sullies his own image as a guy who attempted to smear the man who fired him.

Either way, James Comey comes out a loser. No matter. The media will hail him a hero.

After all, he gave them a good story that was better than the truth.


Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News Anchor and former defense attorney.

Anyone else noticing a trend here? We're almost certain that Trump could announce that he'd found a cure for cancer and 90% of Hillary voters would be opposed to using it.

good luck w that partisan witch hunt...a witch hunt that started well before he even took office...sore losers indeed...

[Coydog]

So now Gump apologists are down to parsing whether Comey believed Gump had “specific intent” at the time and reported it to Grump’s pal Jeff Sessions. Who knows? Perhaps at the time Comey felt Gump was sufficiently ambiguous or vague, but now, given all the subsequent events, his beliefs may have changed. I suspect we’ll know soon enough. I wonder if those “tapes” Gump threatened Comey about show up?

And from that data table, it appears Gump supporters are so blindly loyal he “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, ok? It’s, like, incredible.”

Meanwhile:

The 25th Amendment Solution to Remove Trump

…

There is, as my colleague David Brooks wrote Tuesday, a basic childishness to the man who now occupies the presidency. That is the simplest way of understanding what has come tumbling into light in the last few days: The presidency now has kinglike qualities, and we have a child upon the throne.

It is a child who blurts out classified information in order to impress distinguished visitors. It is a child who asks the head of the F.B.I. why the rules cannot be suspended for his friend and ally. It is a child who does not understand the obvious consequences of his more vindictive actions — like firing the very same man whom you had asked to potentially obstruct justice on your say-so.

A child cannot be president. I love my children; they cannot have the nuclear codes.

But a child also cannot really commit “high crimes and misdemeanors” in any usual meaning of the term. There will be more talk of impeachment now, more talk of a special prosecutor for the Russia business; well and good. But ultimately I do not believe that our president sufficiently understands the nature of the office that he holds, the nature of the legal constraints that are supposed to bind him, perhaps even the nature of normal human interactions, to be guilty of obstruction of justice in the Nixonian or even Clintonian sense of the phrase. I do not believe he is really capable of the behind-the-scenes conspiring that the darker Russia theories envision. And it is hard to betray an oath of office whose obligations you evince no sign of really understanding or respecting.

Which is not an argument for allowing him to occupy that office. It is an argument, instead, for using a constitutional mechanism more appropriate to this strange situation than impeachment: the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows for the removal of the president if a majority of the cabinet informs the Congress that he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” and (should the president contest his own removal) a two-thirds vote by Congress confirms the cabinet’s judgment.

The Trump situation is not exactly the sort that the amendment’s Cold War-era designers were envisioning. He has not endured an assassination attempt or suffered a stroke or fallen prey to Alzheimer’s. But his incapacity to really govern, to truly execute the serious duties that fall to him to carry out, is nevertheless testified to daily — not by his enemies or external critics, but by precisely the men and women whom the Constitution asks to stand in judgment on him, the men and women who serve around him in the White House and the cabinet.

Read the things that these people, members of his inner circle, his personally selected appointees, say daily through anonymous quotations to the press. (And I assure you they say worse off the record.) They have no respect for him, indeed they seem to palpate with contempt for him, and to regard their mission as equivalent to being stewards for a syphilitic emperor.

It is not squishy New York Times conservatives who regard the president as a child, an intellectual void, a hopeless case, a threat to national security; it is people who are self-selected loyalists, who supported him in the campaign, who daily go to work for him. And all this, in the fourth month of his administration.

…

[XtremeJibber2001]

So to summarize, the majority wants him impeached?

Wonder if there's a law asserting violation of 18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361 precludes any obstruction of justice charge? Doubt it.

The 25th Amendment Solution to Remove Trump

Read the same article this morning. Can't see it happening unless support for Trump by the base starts eroding. However, they're so vindictive that his supporters will never waiver.

[deadheadskier]

Riiight..... because there was no witch hunt on Obama by many Republicans including Trump who are birthers and wanted Obama impeached because they were convinced​ he was a Kenyan born Muslim.

I don't particularly care for Occupy Democrats as they mostly spew hyperbole, but every once in awhile something comes across my Facebook feed and this couldn't be more true, especially concerning hardcore trumpers like you hatter. You melted down over Obama for 8 years for far less sketchy behavior.

[madhatter]

let us know how your impeachment fantasies play out guys...

[Coydog]

Read the same article this morning. Can't see it happening unless support for Trump by the base starts eroding. However, they're so vindictive that his supporters will never waiver.

What makes the idea interesting is that it is proposed by a conservative. And now this from another conservative source:

Trump’s Defense of His Russia Leak Is Not Reassuring

…

Trump’s disclosure was allegedly dangerous enough to trigger a scramble within the government to “contain the damage” by, among other measures, “placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.” Officials asked the Post not to publish the full details of the leak. Earlier today, The Resurgent’s Erick Erickson wrote that he knows one of the sources for the media’s stories and that the reality is even worse than the reports:

I am told that what the President did is actually far worse than what is being reported. The President does not seem to realize or appreciate that his bragging can undermine relationships with our allies and with human intelligence sources. He also does not seem to appreciate that his loose lips can get valuable assets in the field killed.

It doesn’t take a 3,000-word explainer to describe how this allegation is alarming. But let’s note this — Hillary Clinton lost the presidency in part because her own mishandling of classified information meant that Russia could have had access to American secrets. According to this report, Trump gave Russia dangerous secrets, impulsively, perhaps as part of an effort to impress his guests.

And what is Trump’s defense? Yesterday one of the most respected members of his administration, national-security adviser H. R. McMaster, issued a terse statement claiming that the Washington Post story, “as reported,” was false. After denying that “sources and methods” were compromised, he said, “I was in the room. It didn’t happen.”

The statement was carefully crafted to create the impression of a blanket denial while still giving the administration some wiggle room on the details. Then, this morning, Trump not only refused to deny giving Russia classified information but, in two tweets, said this:

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining [. . .] to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

In other words, he undercut the blanket denial.

Today, McMaster took questions and clarified his earlier statement. Here are his key assertions:

1. He stood by his statement yesterday but said the “premise” of the Post article was false.

2. It wasn’t inappropriate for Trump to disclose the information, and his doing so did not undermine national security.

3. The disclosure was “consistent with the routine sharing of information” between the president and foreign leaders.

4. Trump “wasn’t even aware of where this information came from.”

5. The disclosure occurred in the “context of the conversation” and apparently not as a result of a deliberative process.

In other words, congratulations America, you got lucky. Despite not knowing the source of the information and apparently making a spur-of-the-moment decision, Trump (allegedly) didn’t hurt our national security.

McMaster is perhaps Trump’s best spokesperson, presenting Trump’s best case, and it’s still unsatisfactory. There is no such thing as “no harm, no foul” in this context. This is not the way we want presidents handling classified information — especially during conversations with a hostile foreign power.

...

[XtremeJibber2001]

Yesterday one of the most respected members of his administration, national-security adviser H. R. McMaster, issued a terse statement claiming that the Washington Post story, “as reported,” was false. After denying that “sources and methods” were compromised, he said, “I was in the room. It didn’t happen.”

One of the most respected may quickly change to was once one of the most respected.

[madhatter]

Read the same article this morning. Can't see it happening unless support for Trump by the base starts eroding. However, they're so vindictive that his supporters will never waiver.

What makes the idea interesting is that it is proposed by a conservative. And now this from another conservative source:

Trump’s Defense of His Russia Leak Is Not Reassuring

…

Trump’s disclosure was allegedly dangerous enough to trigger a scramble within the government to “contain the damage” by, among other measures, “placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.” Officials asked the Post not to publish the full details of the leak. Earlier today, The Resurgent’s Erick Erickson wrote that he knows one of the sources for the media’s stories and that the reality is even worse than the reports:

I am told that what the President did is actually far worse than what is being reported. The President does not seem to realize or appreciate that his bragging can undermine relationships with our allies and with human intelligence sources. He also does not seem to appreciate that his loose lips can get valuable assets in the field killed.

It doesn’t take a 3,000-word explainer to describe how this allegation is alarming. But let’s note this — Hillary Clinton lost the presidency in part because her own mishandling of classified information meant that Russia could have had access to American secrets. According to this report, Trump gave Russia dangerous secrets, impulsively, perhaps as part of an effort to impress his guests.

And what is Trump’s defense? Yesterday one of the most respected members of his administration, national-security adviser H. R. McMaster, issued a terse statement claiming that the Washington Post story, “as reported,” was false. After denying that “sources and methods” were compromised, he said, “I was in the room. It didn’t happen.”

The statement was carefully crafted to create the impression of a blanket denial while still giving the administration some wiggle room on the details. Then, this morning, Trump not only refused to deny giving Russia classified information but, in two tweets, said this:

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining [. . .] to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

In other words, he undercut the blanket denial.

Today, McMaster took questions and clarified his earlier statement. Here are his key assertions:

1. He stood by his statement yesterday but said the “premise” of the Post article was false.

2. It wasn’t inappropriate for Trump to disclose the information, and his doing so did not undermine national security.

3. The disclosure was “consistent with the routine sharing of information” between the president and foreign leaders.

4. Trump “wasn’t even aware of where this information came from.”

5. The disclosure occurred in the “context of the conversation” and apparently not as a result of a deliberative process.

In other words, congratulations America, you got lucky. Despite not knowing the source of the information and apparently making a spur-of-the-moment decision, Trump (allegedly) didn’t hurt our national security.

McMaster is perhaps Trump’s best spokesperson, presenting Trump’s best case, and it’s still unsatisfactory. There is no such thing as “no harm, no foul” in this context. This is not the way we want presidents handling classified information — especially during conversations with a hostile foreign power.

...

[Coydog]

As far as I know, chariots as the source of solar movement was never the scientific consensus. but a geocentric view was for a long time. It was gradually rejected in favor of the heliocentric view because even though the geocentric model works well, it required ever more complicated corrections as more data came in. The heliocentric view explains the same motions more simply.

If the statisticians had known about Russian meddling into our election process and possible collusion, perhaps their projections would have been adjusted as well.

OK that of course is politics...which doesn't belong in this thread but...it is a perfect exemplar (in political form) of how silly and imprecise your thought patterns are.

Be PRECISE.

Precisely what is "Russian meddling?" We NEED DETAILS...not vague allusions. Did they hack voting machines? Did they leak Podesta's emails to WikiLeaks ( which Assange denies and US intelligence officials confirm & the mysteriously murdered Seth Rich seems the likely source to some right wingnuts)? Did they just post stories on line that you didn't like, so that they could try to discourage the election of a candidate that virtually promised to start a war with Russia? What beasts!!

Just like "climate change" as an IMPRECISE term allows ridiculous narratives..."Russian meddling" is an equally imprecise term which allows ridiculous narratives that strike fear in Grubers everywhere.

I will monitor Political Discussion for a response ...because it belongs there.

Yes, agreed, we need to know precisely what is “Russian meddling” without political spin or bias. Unfortunately Gump sacking the lead FBI guy during the ongoing investigation doesn’t seem particularly unbiased.

Now I’m sure in your quest for precision and given the current political hyper-partisanship we can all agree the best course of action would be for independent counsel to investigate the matter fairly and thoroughly.