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The Old Hack

Political Discussion Thread (READ FIRST POST)

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24 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Because of Trump's efforts to roll back encroachment on the Constitution, the Democrat President will start with a bit less power than Obama ended his term with.

...

...yes, yes. Whatever you say. I may answer later if I can be bothered. I really have better things to do than to argue with someone who firmly believes that one side is the source of all wrongs and hence this justifies the other side in repeating the exact same wrongs only worse.

Enjoy your partisan bubble. I will go on reading both progressive and conservative arguments and attempt to navigate a course from there. It's much less comfortable because I keep having my beliefs challenged and even proven wrong at times, but I prefer that, possibly because I am a masochist.

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15 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Enjoy your partisan bubble.

Sorry, wrong person. I detest the Republican party of the past 40 years almost as much as they dislike Trump. It seems to me that they want to be seen as valiantly - but unsuccessfully - opposing the Democrats, so that when the populace rises up against the Democrats they can take leadership roles and end up in control of the totalitarian apparatus they've carefully allowed the Democrats to build.

(Note: I don't expect this to work - but I don't necessarily expect the Democrats who think they are in charge to end up in control either.)

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1 minute ago, Don Edwards said:

Sorry, wrong person.

Absolutely right person. You are just in Trump's very own bubble. You stubbornly defend Trump, who:

-- defends Nazis. He said there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville.
-- persecutes LGBTQI* people. He ordered trans people out of the military. You know, dangerous threats to society like me.
-- fawns over and kowtows to dictators. Kim Jong Un is grateful for the platform Trump gave him. Erdogan made Trump abandon the Kurds with ONE phone call. Putin has gained SO much from Trump's decisions.
-- is openly disablist, misogynistic, racist and promulgates hatred and distrust.
-- calls the intelligence services of the United States incompetent, untrustworthy and untruthful. You know, well known partisan organisations like DHS and CIA. These have never had Republican leaders ever.
-- engages in smear campaigns against top ranked diplomats who have served the US loyally for decades.
-- Routinely defames decorated war veterans and insults Gold Star families.
-- conversely, he just gave a pardon to a war criminal who had shot down an unarmed not yet fully grown girl in a flower-decorated burkah. Over the objections of the Pentagon.
-- engages in outright witness tampering by tweeting libel and threats at men and women who have been called to Congress as fact witnesses.

And you justify all of this by saying "Democrats are just as bad or at least they would do it if they could do it, too."

None of the above is justifiable. No matter the party the perpetrator pretends to belong to.

 

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6 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

 

6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Sorry, wrong person.

Absolutely right person. You are just in Trump's very own bubble. You stubbornly defend Trump, who:

(cheap fix for breaking up a long quote to reply to parts)

*** is occasionally right, and gets in trouble for it. When he's wrong, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats nor the media seem to care.

-- defends Nazis. He said there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville.

***-- yes, but specifically and explicitly excluded the Nazis. So unless you think that Nazis are so repellent that the presence of one means every good person - even those not aware of the Nazi's presence - will automatically leave the area or turn bad...

-- persecutes LGBTQI* people. He ordered trans people out of the military. You know, dangerous threats to society like me.

*** Military is one area where idealism must give way, to a significant extent, to practicalities, and there are a stack of issues with mixing hormonal young people of mixed genders, physical sexes, and sexual orientations, in a context that includes a necessity of group nudity. One easy way to resolve a lot of these issues is, unfortunately, to boot out the smaller minorities relevant to the incompatibilities. This is not a great solution, but it is a solution, and I've yet to hear an alternative I consider realistic.

-- fawns over and kowtows to dictators. Kim Jong Un is grateful for the platform Trump gave him. Erdogan made Trump abandon the Kurds with ONE phone call. Putin has gained SO much from Trump's decisions.

*** sometimes US interests happen to line up well with interests of foreign dictators.

In the Syria mess, it turns out we had both allies and enemies on all three sides of that conflict - so no matter what we did we were going to shaft an ally (so maybe we shouldn't have gotten do deeply involved?) and getting out may have been the least-bad alternative.

Kim still hasn't gotten what he wanted, Trump is holding the pre-existing line; but the two of them are talking, which is likely a prerequisite to any long-term deal that doesn't involve the resumption of active warfare.

And I keep hearing that Putin has gained a lot from his decisions, but I still haven't heard *what*. Other than an increase in the rate of arms shipments to Ukraine, which is opposing Russia in an armed conflict.

-- is openly disablist, misogynistic, racist and promulgates hatred and distrust.

*** I hadn't heard about this, aside from learning that the most pro-Israel US President in decades, whose son-in-law is Jewish and whose daughter converted to Judaism (without family estrangement in consequence), the guy who finally moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem (Israel's capital) like the last several Presidents had said they would do but then didn't, is - oddly enough - anti-Semetic.

-- calls the intelligence services of the United States incompetent, untrustworthy and untruthful. You know, well known partisan organisations like DHS and CIA. These have never had Republican leaders ever.

*** Based on their conduct in the "Russia collusion" fiasco, Trump's offense is telling the truth. And you're correct that they were acting in a partisan manner.

-- engages in smear campaigns against top ranked diplomats who have served the US loyally for decades.

*** The only such actions I've heard about were in response to these top ranked diplomats smearing him with accusations they were eventually forced to admit they couldn't back up.

-- Routinely defames decorated war veterans and insults Gold Star families.

*** Neither status protects people from the consequences of doing stupid things. Without details, it's hard to respond further.

Criticizing McCain's service record lacked class. There was plenty of legitimate and reasonable stuff to criticize McCain for, Trump didn't need to stoop to that - but still, it wasn't a crime.

-- conversely, he just gave a pardon to a war criminal who had shot down an unarmed not yet fully grown girl in a flower-decorated burkah. Over the objections of the Pentagon.

*** Oddly, the above offense does not appear in the Wikipedia articles describing either of the two men he recently pardoned. (By the way, there's a 50-50 chance you're defaming a decorated war veteran.) One of the pardons was for a man facing charges of murdering an Afghani who was, on the evidence available and the testimony of the Afghan village chief, a local Taliban leader - an enemy combatant out of uniform, which means not protected by the laws of war. The other was for a man convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of two Afghani who were probably Taliban bomb-makers and possibly shot at first by the Afghani military with the American adding his assistance.

-- engages in outright witness tampering by tweeting libel and threats at men and women who have been called to Congress as fact witnesses.

*** You know, the tweet you're referring to happened WHILE the witness in question was busy testifying - and thus couldn't plausibly be aware of it unless someone interrupted the proceedings to inform her of it. As it happens, the chairman of the committee she was testifying before was too busy reading Trump's tweets to pay attention to committee business including but not limited to the witness in front of him, and chose to inform her of it and ask her how intimidated she was. (Obviously, he didn't want to hear that she wasn't.) The content of the tweet was not libelous, and considering that she had already been fired from her job (an ambassadorship, therefore could be fired at the pleasure of the President) and was by then employed in a Civil Service-protected position, it wasn't threatening.

Although I must confess I have no idea what Trump thought that tweet would accomplish. Seems to me like a wonderful opportunity, which he missed, to STFU. (He has a habit of missing those opportunities.)

Oh, by the way, the end result of her testimony was that she has no direct knowledge of Trump doing anything illegal or improper. So far they haven't found a witness who has such direct knowledge.

And you justify all of this by saying "Democrats are just as bad or at least they would do it if they could do it, too."

*** No, I'm saying that a lot of the stuff the Democrats are accusing Trump of - specifically including witness tampering, Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, and offering improper quid-pro-quo to the Ukrainians, among other things - Trump DIDN'T (at least not that anyone has shown to date) but the Democrats DID (and it's been shown). And some of it, the intelligence services that you mentioned earlier DID (and it's been shown) in attempts to implicate Trump.

I'm also saying that expecting the US government to live up to the Constitution, changing policies to comply with the Constitution, and asking Congress to change laws to comply with the Constitution or to bring otherwise-good but unconstitutional policies in line with the Constitution, does not qualify as undermining the Constitution. Rather the opposite, in fact.

(Seriously, I wish Congress would take a copy of Obama's executive order unconstitutionally establishing DACA, cross off the words "Executive Order" and write in "Act of Congress", and vote for it. Evidence suggests Trump would sign that bill into law so fast his pen would start smoking. Would it be perfect? I doubt it. But I suspect that politicians on both sides holding out for whatever their versions of a "perfect" Dream Act might be, back in 2017 when Trump asked them to hurry it up and put a 6-month termination on DACA to urge them along, defeated a bill that a solid majority would have agreed was "good".)

If you want me to blame Trump for doing something wrong, find something he definitely did - not a fabrication - that is clearly wrong. If you also want me to say the Democrats are better, it needs to be something the Democrats haven't been doing.

Oh, and I'll definitely criticize Trump for being impolite - while also criticizing the large majority of leading Democrats for the past 40 years, and particularly their current leadership. But being impolite is undiplomatic and usually unwise, not (in itself) wrong. Considering how easily the Democrats have steamrollered over polite politicians (assuming that said politicians actually wanted to resist), I can't say it isn't time to try a certain amount of impoliteness.

 

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2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

***-- yes, but specifically and explicitly excluded the Nazis. So unless you think that Nazis are so repellent that the presence of one means every good person - even those not aware of the Nazi's presence - will automatically leave the area or turn bad...

That took him two days and he only did it because his spin doctors made him.

This is my opinion of Nazis. If one Nazi and nine other people sit around a table and none of the others around the table object to the Nazi's views, there are ten Nazis at that table.

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

*** Military is one area where idealism must give way, to a significant extent, to practicalities,

Oh, you are a homophobe, too. That's okay then.

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

*** sometimes US interests happen to line up well with interests of foreign dictators.

Name one other US president who fawned over a man like Putin and defended his aggression against smaller countries.

I'll wait.

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

And I keep hearing that Putin has gained a lot from his decisions, but I still haven't heard *what*

-- At the last G7 meeting, Trump argued loudly for Russia's re-inclusion in them. Russia was specifically expelled for its attack on Ukraine. It still hasn't returned the possessions it stole and remains at war with her.
-- There is currently an American base in Syria which now has Russian flags flying because Trump ordered all defense of it heedlessly abandoned when he betrayed the Kurds.
-- The diplomatic position internationally of the US has degenerated to that of laughingstock. President Emmanuel Macron of France recently pronounced NATO on 'life support' because abovementioned betrayal of the Kurds (urged by Erdogan, another dictator) showed that the US cannot be relied on to keep its treaties. Despise him though I may, in this he is unfortunately right. The other G7 countries try to avoid Trump because of his fawning over Putin and he was all but ignored at their last meeting.
-- the situation in the Middle East is immensely improved to Putin's advantage.
-- abovementioned and ongoing destruction of the US' international standing leaves a power vacuum which of COURSE is to the advantage of an opportunistic dictator like Putin.
-- Trump has convinced his entire base, you included, that it is to the advantage of the US to trust in and believe Putin over its own intelligence services.

Not a bad start, and that is just what I can remember off the top of my head.

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

*** I hadn't heard about this

You must be sodding blind and deaf.

When a journalist during the 2016 campaign with a neurological disorder attempted to interview him, Trump openly mocked him and made exaggerated and clownish movements in order to ridicule him.
He attacks Muslim families whose children fight in the US armed forces.
The current government of Israel is itself racist. He is not supporting them because he loves them. He is supporting them because he wants to fan the flames in the Middle East -- which also favours Putin.
He called an American-born judge 'Mexican' because he took a position against him.
For YEARS he insisted that the five young people of colour in New York who were accused of rape deserved the death sentence -- and continued to do so even after they were found 'not guilty'.
He and his father long carried a policy of not allowing Black people to rent apartments or rooms of any kind in Trump property and went to court for it. They lost.
The whole vile 'Birther' mess, which you of course will claim was not at ALL racist.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Criticizing McCain's service record lacked class. There was plenty of legitimate and reasonable stuff to criticize McCain for, Trump didn't need to stoop to that - but still, it wasn't a crime.

I did not say it was a crime. What I say is that it was reprehensible and disgusting. I will stand by that. What makes me wonder is why everybody else in the GOP just tamely either accepts it, supports it or at MOST vaguely mutter that it 'lacked class.' Without noticing that Trump has never, EVER shown class. Tell me, would you have given Obama a pass for doing anything like that? Or even kept it to a mild statement like 'it lacked class'?

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

*** Based on their conduct in the "Russia collusion" fiasco, Trump's offense is telling the truth. And you're correct that they were acting in a partisan manner.

You really do live in a bubble, don't you.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

*** The only such actions I've heard about were in response to these top ranked diplomats smearing him with accusations they were eventually forced to admit they couldn't back up.

Hello? Did you even listen to the direct transmissions from the public hearings in the House of Representatives? I did. I'd learned my lesson from Justin Amash, thank you. Ambassador Yovanovitch was the victim of a smear campaign for months and was removed over the objection of several other career diplomats who had served Republican and Democratic administrations both for decades. Are you REALLY so lost that you actually believe that everybody who ever objected to Trump is part of or the patsies of a Deep State conspiracy?

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

*** Neither status protects people from the consequences of doing stupid things. Without details, it's hard to respond further.

The details are out there. LOOK THEM UP. I refuse to do your work for you because I could quote the bollocking Encyclopaedia Britannica at you and you would call it a Deep State plot.

What I marvel at is that you apparently feel it is okay for Trump to attack someone and then lay the burden of proof on the people he attacked.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

The other was for a man convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of two Afghani who were probably Taliban bomb-makers and possibly shot at first by the Afghani military with the American adding his assistance.

...last I heard, killing someone because he was 'probably' guilty of a crime was still murder. I believe the specific term is 'vigilantism.'

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

You know, the tweet you're referring to happened WHILE the witness in question was busy testifying - and thus couldn't plausibly be aware of it unless someone interrupted the proceedings to inform her of it.

So if I aim a loaded gun at someone, I am not engaged in a reckless and dangerous action as long as they are unaware of it?
And more to the point, HOW DO YOU THINK THAT TWEET WOULD AFFECT SOMEONE ELSE WHO MIGHT BE CONTEMPLATING GIVING EVIDENCE?
Are you really so incredibly dense that you don't recognise the same methods used by the Mafia when they employed public intimidation against witnesses, not just to try and silence them, but also to make an example of them to other potential witnesses? Trump was saying, "I am destroying this woman's reputation and telling my followers to hate her and persecute her. This will happen to anyone else who tries to present evidence I don't like, too."

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

As it happens, the chairman of the committee she was testifying before was too busy reading Trump's tweets to pay attention to committee business including but not limited to the witness in front of him, and chose to inform her of it and ask her how intimidated she was. (Obviously, he didn't want to hear that she wasn't.)

Yeah, for of COURSE he doesn't have, like, staffers to do that for him who might conceivably tug at his sleeve and tell him, "Mr. Chairman, you need to see this."
I mean, Justin Amash has a staff that he can put to work for him for things just like that, but after all, he is a Congressman in the opposition and Schiff is only a committee head.

As to what he wanted or didn't want to hear, that is sodding irrelevant. What matters is what Ambassador Yovanovitch said.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

(He has a habit of missing those opportunities.)

At least there we can agree.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Oh, by the way, the end result of her testimony was that she has no direct knowledge of Trump doing anything illegal or improper. So far they haven't found a witness who has such direct knowledge.

They have the evidence of all the witnesses put together, and I am increasingly convinced that you did not even bother to watch the direct transmissions of the public hearings themselves. Funnily enough it was a Republican who taught me that partisan fervour alone is no substitute for paying attention to what is actually going on.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

** No, I'm saying that a lot of the stuff the Democrats are accusing Trump of - specifically including witness tampering, Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, and offering improper quid-pro-quo to the Ukrainians, among other things - Trump DIDN'T (at least not that anyone has shown to date) but the Democrats DID (and it's been shown). And some of it, the intelligence services that you mentioned earlier DID (and it's been shown) in attempts to implicate Trump.

Witness tampering is obstruction of justice. See above.
Ordering public servants not to testify in spite of Congress subpoenas is obstruction of justice.
As to the rest of it, you clearly have more faith in a Putin narrative parroted by Trump than you have in your own nation's intelligence services. I hope you like your bubble since you refuse to ever poke your head outside of it.

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6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

-- calls the intelligence services of the United States incompetent, untrustworthy and untruthful. You know, well known partisan organisations like DHS and CIA. These have never had Republican leaders ever.

*** Based on their conduct in the "Russia collusion" fiasco, Trump's offense is telling the truth. And you're correct that they were acting in a partisan manner.

I challenge you to hypothesize an alternate point of view, that accommodates professionals with decades of experience in their fields possibly speaking the truth, and a head of state widely held to be less than competent merely attempting to cover his own ass by flinging his feces, so to speak. Try it on for size, see if it at least makes a little sense. Pretend it's an exercise in fiction, if you must.

 

6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

-- engages in smear campaigns against top ranked diplomats who have served the US loyally for decades.

*** The only such actions I've heard about were in response to these top ranked diplomats smearing him with accusations they were eventually forced to admit they couldn't back up.

I challenge you to hypothesize an alternate point of view, that accommodates professionals with decades of experience in their fields possibly speaking the truth, and a head of state widely held to be less than competent merely attempting to cover his own ass by flinging his feces, so to speak. Try it on for size, see if it at least makes a little sense. Pretend it's an exercise in fiction, if you must.

 

6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

-- Routinely defames decorated war veterans and insults Gold Star families.

*** Neither status protects people from the consequences of doing stupid things. Without details, it's hard to respond further.

Criticizing McCain's service record lacked class. There was plenty of legitimate and reasonable stuff to criticize McCain for, Trump didn't need to stoop to that - but still, it wasn't a crime.

Google is your friend. Fox Noise is not going to spell it out for you.

 

6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

-- conversely, he just gave a pardon to a war criminal who had shot down an unarmed not yet fully grown girl in a flower-decorated burkah. Over the objections of the Pentagon.

*** Oddly, the above offense does not appear in the Wikipedia articles describing either of the two men he recently pardoned. (By the way, there's a 50-50 chance you're defaming a decorated war veteran.) One of the pardons was for a man facing charges of murdering an Afghani who was, on the evidence available and the testimony of the Afghan village chief, a local Taliban leader - an enemy combatant out of uniform, which means not protected by the laws of war. The other was for a man convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of two Afghani who were probably Taliban bomb-makers and possibly shot at first by the Afghani military with the American adding his assistance.

This is a very dangerous precedent. '... both the civilian and military leadership of the Department of Defense opposed the pardons. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, and senior military leaders advised against the pardons, worrying they would “damage the integrity of the military judicial system, the ability of military leaders to ensure good order and discipline, and the confidence of U.S. allies and partners who host U.S. troops.” The secretary of defense described “a robust discussion” with the president, wanting to clearly convey the department’s and his own personal disapproval of the pardons.'

Of course, beyond the egregious undercutting his own military, there's the appalling lack of discernment.

 

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10 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Oddly, the above offense does not appear in the Wikipedia articles describing either of the two men he recently pardoned.

If you tried to use Wikipedia as a quoted source in a grade school research paper, the school teacher would flunk you. Come on, you can do better than that.

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12 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

That took him two days and he only did it because his spin doctors made him.

Why can't I find a transcript of the speech where he allegedly committing the impeachable offense of neglecting to explicitly exclude Nazis while correctly noting that there were good people on both sides of a conflict? I find plenty of transcripts of the press conference a couple days later...

Oh hey, I think I found one. August 12, 2017.

Trump:

Quote

They're great people. Great people. But we're closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country.

...

It has no place in America.

So if he didn't explicitly condemn the Nazis by name, I guess the Nazis did not constitute or participate in an egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. No matter what views they hold, people who are peacefully and lawfully expressing those views should not be lumped in with violent rioters and condemned in the same breath.

Or maybe the Nazis were participating in the unruliness - in which case Trump's initial comments did condemn them.

Oh, and by the way, the "great people" comment was explicitly referring to "our incredible veterans", not to those at the mess in Charlottesville.

The comment about "good people" being present on both sides came in the press conference a few days later - where he did explicitly, by name, condemn the Nazis and exclude them from his praise. To treat the "good people" comment as contemporaneous yet the anti-Nazi comments as a delayed reaction is a double standard apparently intended to create grounds for condemning Trump no matter what he says or does.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

This {a couple of Trump pardons} is a very dangerous precedent. '... both the civilian and military leadership of the Department of Defense opposed the pardons.

Actually, it isn't a precedent at all. The precedent is in the US Constitution, and among its least ambiguous provisions. The President is both the first authority and the final authority on the issuing of pardons. Nobody else has a right to have their views considered in the decision, and if the President chooses to consult someone he is not thereby obligated to decide the way they favor.

Thus, the issuing of a pardon cannot be an impeachable offense, no matter how widely it may be condemned.

I read the clemency warrants on both the recent pardons; they are entirely compatible with the Wikipedia articles. One is for a person who was formally accused but still awaiting court-martial; and the other comports with Wikipedia in both the offenses named and the number thereof. If someone wants to claim the Wikipedia article is incorrect, I suggest they cite a better source to back up that claim. I tried, and didn't find any - everything I found is consistent with Wikipedia, and I saw no mention of any girls in flowered burkas.

There is no earlier pardon by Trump that comes even close to matching the description - a person in the military accused or convicted of killing someone they shouldn't have.

Oh - according to some sources there was a third person pardoned. This is incorrect, based on the US Justice Department's not including it in a list of pardons Trump has issued. The person in question was acquitted of murder charges and most other charges in formal court-martial, but convicted on one much lesser misconduct charge (posing for a photo with the body of a person presumably killed by his unit) and ordered demoted plus faced expulsion from the SEALs; Trump reversed the demotion and chose not to approve the expulsion - both would be within his purview as Commander in Chief, without relying on the power to pardon - but not pardoned for the offense. Which probably wrecks (and should wreck) his career prospects in the military.

10 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

 

17 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

-- Routinely defames decorated war veterans and insults Gold Star families.

*** Neither status protects people from the consequences of doing stupid things. Without details, it's hard to respond further.

Criticizing McCain's service record lacked class. There was plenty of legitimate and reasonable stuff to criticize McCain for, Trump didn't need to stoop to that - but still, it wasn't a crime.

Google is your friend. Fox Noise is not going to spell it out for you.

1) I don't watch Fox News. Its news coverage, not including stuff that is explicitly offered as commentary, is the most balanced of the major news networks (15-20 years or so ago a study, which I can't find again, found it was one - the largest by a wide margin - of only two or three news source that wasn't to the political left of Congressional Democrats collectively. In the 2008 election the other news networks' reporting on Obama was over 2/3 favorable while reporting on McCain was only about 1/3 favorable, while Fox's Obama reporting was about 36% favorable and on McCain the fairly-close-to-the-same 40% favorable), but still biased and just as inane and boring as the others.

2) Seriously? You want me to feed "Routinely defames decorated war veterans and insults Gold Star families" to a search engine? You can't be bothered to substantiate your own arguments, you expect me to do it for you?

Okay... yeah, the guy lacks class. Nothing illegal, immoral, fattening, or impeachable - and I don't recall anyone ever saying that Trump was a classy guy; we knew what he was like when we elected him. (By the way, no I did not vote for him.) There's legitimate reason here to not like him, to not vote for him, but not to suggest that he's evil or criminal or needs to be impeached. 

14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Witness tampering is obstruction of justice. See above.

Repeating an accusation doesn't make it true. NOT witness-tampering is NOT obstruction of justice.

 

14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
18 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

As it happens, the chairman of the committee she was testifying before was too busy reading Trump's tweets to pay attention to committee business including but not limited to the witness in front of him, and chose to inform her of it and ask her how intimidated she was. (Obviously, he didn't want to hear that she wasn't.)

Yeah, for of COURSE he doesn't have, like, staffers to do that for him who might conceivably tug at his sleeve and tell him, "Mr. Chairman, you need to see this."

WHY did he need to see it RIGHT THEN? WHY did the witness need to be informed of it RIGHT THEN? WHY did Schiff find it necessary to raise the thing from a possible future issue to a definite immediate issue?

There was no reason - except if Schiff wanted to create a "witness intimidation" situation. In which case the fault is on him.

Oh and as for another strange response to this issue: there's a bit of a difference between pointing a gun at someone from close range and saying something about them from several blocks away. And saying a person's career has gone badly is not a threat no matter where it's said, unless it's part of a threat to fire them - and she had already been dismissed from the ambassadorship before she was identified as a witness in the impeachment investigation.

13 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
20 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

-- calls the intelligence services of the United States incompetent, untrustworthy and untruthful. You know, well known partisan organisations like DHS and CIA. These have never had Republican leaders ever.

*** Based on their conduct in the "Russia collusion" fiasco, Trump's offense is telling the truth. And you're correct that they were acting in a partisan manner.

I challenge you to hypothesize an alternate point of view, that accommodates professionals with decades of experience in their fields possibly speaking the truth, and a head of state widely held to be less than competent merely attempting to cover his own ass by flinging his feces, so to speak. Try it on for size, see if it at least makes a little sense. Pretend it's an exercise in fiction, if you must.

I'm perfectly willing to consider such a point of view. The problem is that such professionals, speaking the truth, would not assist in creating the false Steele dossier for the Democrats, would not then use it as the basis for starting an investigation without telling the relevant courts of its origin, would not leak its contents to the press and then claim the resulting press reports as independent corroboration when seeking court approval to continue the investigation. They would not begin plotting the case against Trump for misconduct in office, before he took office. These things are known to have happened.

Another "professional", later, oversaw the production of a document which shot down the "Russia collusion" thing entirely but listed several possible "obstruction of justice" claims - not explaining why Trump would have wanted to obstruct the investigation, not explaining why he didn't take a much easier and effective and perfectly legal route to do so, and omitting details that would have wrecked the alleged claims. This after including a statement, to which a parallel has not been cited in any previous report of the same nature, that a certain person was "not exonerated". In other words, this statement was deliberately manipulated and twisted to create an appearance that Trump had committed crimes even though they had absolutely no evidence of such.

In another case, it seems that some of these "professionals" delayed the filing of a standard report on a witness interview several days past normal, and then after discussing it among one "professional" who was there for said interview and several who were not, edited it at least three times over several days - at least once with approval from a high-level director. Edits include adding whole sections, moving some of the witness's answers from one question to another, changing a statement of not recalling something to a firm statement that it didn't happen... That isn't professional. And it isn't telling the truth.

So yeah, show me some experienced professionals telling the truth. Unfortunately, the ones going after Trump and trying to find or fabricate a basis or impeachment have utterly disgraced themselves.

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17 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

correctly noting that there were good people on both sides of a conflict?

There is never any good people on the same side as Nazis.

You will forgive me for being rather prejudiced against them merely because they want me, my family and my wife dead, and because they already tried for it once with a good deal of success. Most of my family that didn't move to Denmark... did not make it.

21 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Military is one area where idealism must give way, to a significant extent, to practicalities, and there are a stack of issues with mixing hormonal young people of mixed genders, physical sexes, and sexual orientations, in a context that includes a necessity of group nudity. One easy way to resolve a lot of these issues is, unfortunately, to boot out the smaller minorities relevant to the incompatibilities. This is not a great solution, but it is a solution, and I've yet to hear an alternative I consider realistic.

Since I didn't look at this concern trolling piece of transphobic trash the last time, I will deal with it now. And in fact, I will stop there. Because if you will not concede to my argument, we no longer have any basis to argue on as you will have judged me to be subhuman.

First of all, it is COMPLETE BULL. The US Army already had trans people in it. The nightmare of disciplinary breakdown you posit had not happened. And moreover, several other nations, Denmark included, allow them to serve. Studies made of several of them have found no sign of morale deterioration.

But you don't have to take my word for it. You can look at:

Belkin A., Levitt M., "Homosexuality and the Israel Defense Forces: Did Lifting the Gay Ban Undermine Military Performance?," 27 Armed Forces & Society 4 ( 2001) p. 544; Belkin and Evans, "The Effects of Including Gay and Lesbian Soldiers in the British Armed Forces," 4; Belkin A., McNichol J., "Homosexual Personnel Policy in the Canadian Forces: Did Lifting the Gay Ban Undermine Military Performance?," 56 Canadian International Journal 1 (2000) p. 80

That this was the exact same argument employed against gay and lesbian soldiers is mere proof of the depressing lack of imagination of queerphobes. It is closely related to the argument that trans people should be banned from using the bathroom matching their gender and has the same scientific basis, or rather lack thereof. Because of course the ONLY reason a trans woman has for wearing a dress is so she can enter a women's bathroom to commit sexual violence at will. That's what we trans people do, right? You think that about me?

Second of all, it may be me who can't remember my own time as a soldier properly, but I thought the whole POINT of the Army was to teach hormonal young people discipline. And it is normally pretty good at it, especially among volunteers. Yet somehow the Army can manage to create the necessary discipline to make the majority of these young people march out and risk their lives but NOT make them act like decent human beings toward their brothers and sisters in arms? That is fucking sad.

Third of all, it is not a solution to a problem. It is giving in to hatemongering and bigotry. (Anyone remember the Civil War? Black people were not allowed to serve in the North in the opening years of the war with very similar reasoning behind it. They weren't smart enough, they weren't disciplined enough, they lacked the courage, those were the excuses.)

Fourth of all, I REFUSE TO LET MY HUMANITY BE A CASUALTY TO YOUR FEARMONGERING AND YOUR BIGOTRY. I served in the Danish Army when I was young, long before I knew what I was. I am STILL on the Army Rolls and will stay there till I turn 67. And if I am called to do my duty, I will. EVEN if that duty involves reacting to defend the US if its interests or its allies or itself is attacked... no matter how much the US scorns me for being what I am. Likely? Maybe not. But if it happens? I WILL.

I am trans, I am a woman and I am a human being and a soldier. Do you want to know which hill I am willing to die on? THIS IS ONE.

Monika

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27 minutes ago, ijuin said:

BTW: I'm not 100% certain about what the "I" and the "*" abbreviate for in LGBTQI* . Can you enlighten me?

The ‘I’ is for ‘Intersex’ and the ‘*’ stands for ‘all the other stuff we aren’t yet aware of but don’t want to exclude just because we aren’t yet aware of it.’

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Yeah, we don't want to exclude anybody, but trying to name every group each time you speak of them not only gets tediously long, but also brings paranoia about whether we overlooked anybody. We might need to come up with a non-insulting umbrella term.

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1 hour ago, ijuin said:

Yeah, we don't want to exclude anybody, but trying to name every group each time you speak of them not only gets tediously long, but also brings paranoia about whether we overlooked anybody. We might need to come up with a non-insulting umbrella term.

Some exist, there just isn’t consensus yet. ‘Genderqueer’ seems to be broadly acceptable so far, at least as far as I understand.

But don’t worry. The Trumplings hate all of us no matter what we call ourselves.

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You've got WAY more patience than I do, Hack. I gave up a long time ago even attempting to reason with people who are so obviously drowning in Kool-Aid. Just reading this thread is maddening, which usually makes my responses flippant and unhelpful. Thanks for hanging in there.

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7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
7 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

correctly noting that there were good people on both sides of a conflict?

There is never any good people on the same side as Nazis.

I see. So if there's a debate over preferred foods, and the Nazi likes mashed potatoes, no good people like mashed potatoes.

In the case at hand, the Nazis were there protesting against the removal of a statue. It was being removed SOLELY because the person it commemorated had been a slave-owner. There were also people there protesting against the removal of a statue because they think it's a mistake to wash every reminder of past wrong-doing - such as slavery - from the record, and the statue is part of that record. That sounds like a sensible reason why a good person might object to the removal of the statue, in spite of the fact that Nazis also objected.

7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

You will forgive me for being rather prejudiced against them

I'm also prejudiced against them, but I try to keep that prejudice at a reasonable level.

7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Since I didn't look at this concern trolling piece of transphobic trash the last time, I will deal with it now. And in fact, I will stop there. Because if you will not concede to my argument, we no longer have any basis to argue on as you will have judged me to be subhuman.

First of all, it is COMPLETE BULL. The US Army already had trans people in it. The nightmare of disciplinary breakdown you posit had not happened. And moreover, several other nations, Denmark included, allow them to serve. Studies made of several of them have found no sign of morale deterioration.

On a legal basis, it doesn't matter that/if it's complete bull - it is not grounds for impeachment unless it can be shown that issuing the order violated some law or previous court order that was still in effect.

An executive order reversing a prior executive order is legal in and of itself.  It takes something more to make that order invalid, and a great deal more to make the issuing of it a crime or an impeachable offense. Heck, Obama issued at least one order after publicly declaring that he knew it violated the law, and that wasn't impeachable.

I'm actually happy to see that the order was at least temporarily blocked. Trump's significant misinterpretation of the data (and possibly succumbing to a bias against everything Obama did) is a reasonable basis for placing a restraining order against Trump's order. (Note: I was staying ambivalent earlier because I did not have the data and was unaware of the court order.)

But, sadly, that's all the order Hack linked is - a preliminary injunction partially blocking implementation. Apparently the Supreme Court tossed out the restraining order earlier this year, and Trump's order with a couple minor modifications took effect in April. After that, all I'm finding is that another court has ruled that the plaintiffs against the order have standing to sue and the court in question has jurisdiction to hear the case no decision on the complaint itself, just that it's allowed to go to court. Oh, and the House of Representatives voted in June to block the ban (Democrats in Congress collectively did something right? Weird.) but I'm not finding any follow-on from the Senate and the provision was attached to a spending bill that Trump was already threatening to veto for other reasons.

Aside: there's a reasonable basis for distrusting data from Europe on this subject, as to whether it's applicable to the US, because of a rather different religious environment - a higher percentage of active participants in churches that condemn transgender people or deny they exist. If that were the sole data saying that trans folks in the military won't be a problem, I'd still consider it a not-yet-settled question. But there's data from the US, and from several other heavily-religious countries, and they all say the same.

 

7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

That this was the exact same argument employed against gay and lesbian soldiers is mere proof of the depressing lack of imagination of queerphobes. It is closely related to the argument that trans people should be banned from using the bathroom matching their gender and has the same scientific basis, or rather lack thereof.

I see some rather obvious and possibly important differences between the two situations. Mainly, group nudity is common and compulsory in  military-barracks showers, and sometimes relieving oneself in plain view of one's comrades as well in some military settings, but not in public restrooms.

School and public-gym locker rooms have similar issues to the military, without the expectation of military discipline immediately on hand (and in the school locker rooms, with a lower expected level of maturity), so possibly should be treated differently from public restrooms.

I do suggest that, as a matter of courtesy to others, trans and genderfluid people should use the busy public restrooms that match their current presentation no matter what gender they might be at the moment, and of course treat the other people there with the normally-expected level of respect and courtesy - and close the stall door. Or use the increasingly-common "unisex" and "family" restrooms. If they do that, nobody will know what's going on, and nobody will be threatened, so why bother with a law about it?

(The single-person facilities, particularly the  ones so small that only one adult at a time can even be in there, why does anyone think it matters? I sometimes use whichever one isn't already occupied.)

On the other hand, people who sexually harass or assault others in public restrooms need to be prosecuted. It doesn't matter what their sex or gender is, which restroom they're in, or what the sex or gender of their victim is. We don't need a special law for trans/fluid folks on that subject either. And "I'm feeling {gender} today" should be exactly as much a defense as it would be if the crime was in the middle of the parking lot - again, no special law needed, just consistent application of the existing law against such crimes and a willingness to ignore irrelevancies.

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5 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

So if there's a debate over preferred foods, and the Nazi likes mashed potatoes, no good people like mashed potatoes.

Per the Purdue Writing Lab:

Quote

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: This is a conclusion that assumes that if 'A' occurred after 'B' then 'B' must have caused 'A.' Example:

I drank bottled water and now I am sick, so the water must have made me sick.

Quote

Genetic Fallacy: This conclusion is based on an argument that the origins of a person, idea, institute, or theory determine its character, nature, or worth. Example:

The Volkswagen Beetle is an evil car because it was originally designed by Hitler's army.

Your argument is a cross between the two. Another example of where you'd get flunked. Try again.

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Sorry, Prof, you're mistaken. My argument is a reductio ad absurdum.

But I should have taken it a bit further and concluded that we're all going to hell... or at least that I was for turning it into a reductio ad inferno

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10 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I see. So if there's a debate over preferred foods, and the Nazi likes mashed potatoes, no good people like mashed potatoes.

The Prof already having addressed this, I shall let his explanation stand.

My original statement was:

On 24/11/2019 at 5:23 AM, The Old Hack said:

This is my opinion of Nazis. If one Nazi and nine other people sit around a table and none of the others around the table object to the Nazi's views, there are ten Nazis at that table.

It is important. Please keep it in mind. I will use it to address your argument below.

10 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

In the case at hand, the Nazis were there protesting against the removal of a statue. It was being removed SOLELY because the person it commemorated had been a slave-owner. There were also people there protesting against the removal of a statue because they think it's a mistake to wash every reminder of past wrong-doing - such as slavery - from the record, and the statue is part of that record. That sounds like a sensible reason why a good person might object to the removal of the statue, in spite of the fact that Nazis also objected.

I shall sidestep the issue of the statues here save to say that it is my contention that they are there to glorify past wrongdoers rather than stand as warning examples. Many of these alleged memorials have dedications like 'To our fallen heroes.' Does that seem like a good reference to past wrongdoing?

Also, by the time this arrived at the level of national interest, it was after a self-confessed Nazi had run his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring twenty-eight others. It was no longer about statues at that point. It was about a terrorist attack on peaceful protesters. They had just as much freedom of speech as the Nazis did. Yet a Nazi, true to the spirit of his loathsome ilk, decided that the proper counter to that was violence and first degree murder.

Trump, when confronted with this, elected to say that there were 'good people on both sides', in effect granting the Nazis a pass for having whipped their side into such a frenzy that one of their members felt this was a quite normal and logical act. To be fair, this was a normal and logical act -- always provided that one is a Nazi. And Trump chose to normalise it.

Look up at my original dictum. Trump sat at the same table as the Nazis and when one of them committed an act of terrorism and first degree murder, he nodded benignly. Can you blame me for not being impressed with his integrity and moral fiber?

Also, please do not insult my intellect with a whataboutism cry of 'but antifa.' One, 'antifa' is a media pundit's invention, an attempt to sound clever by shortening 'antifascist.' 'Antifa' are not an organisation following hate ideology in a relentless march against civilisation. They have no historical legacy equal to that of Nazi. The are spontaneously arising grassroots movements that react to fascism and protest against it -- hence the name. For example, I am an antifascist. I am this by virtue of objecting to and presenting arguments against fascist propaganda. And two, I have yet to hear of 'antifa' committing a terror attack causing deaths and dozens of injured. (I have heard of them beating up Nazis and of throwing milkshakes at them, but certainly not of anything to equal Charlottesville -- let alone World War Two.)

10 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I'm also prejudiced against them, but I try to keep that prejudice at a reasonable level.

Possibly you will forgive me for employing a different definition of 'reasonable.' My father suffered lasting harm and trauma from his flight to Sweden in 1943, and so did my late grandparents. My late grandfather-in-law fought at Normandy on D-Day and nearly drowned when the USS Susan B. Anthony struck a mine and sank; he subsequently participated in the entire campaign across Europe until and including the Battle for Berlin, missing only the Battle of the Ardennes due to being on Christmas leave in the US. A dozen and a half family members of mine either committed suicide to escape the Nazis or were captured and killed in the extermination camps. (This last number is admittedly uncertain. At least some of these might well have died at the hands of Soviets when the Nazis retreated from Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Stalin had no great love for Jews either and his troops weren't always, shall we say, at the pinnacle of chivalric behavior on the battlefield.

As an aside, you should have heard my grandfather-in-law speak of the Nazis. The feelings I have expressed for them here? They count as a mere dislike in comparison to how he felt about them. He did not merely hate them. He loathed them. He despised them. He spoke fondly of the days where Nazis were greeted with Garands and thirty-ought-sixes because he lived through them.

And possibly because so many of his friends and brothers in arms did not.

I am convinced I know why the Nazis are finally crawling out from underneath their rocks, and it is because my grandfather-in-law's generation has by now mostly passed away. If they had dared to show themselves in the open only twenty years ago when he was still alive and retained much of his vigor, he would soon have shown them the error of their ways. I do not even intend to speculate on his reaction towards those who 'keep their prejudice at a reasonable level.' I actually wince at the thought, for I do not think my imagination is up to the task of envisioning it.

10 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

On a legal basis, it doesn't matter that/if it's complete bull - it is not grounds for impeachment unless it can be shown that issuing the order violated some law or previous court order that was still in effect.

I believe I owe you an apology here. The original topic was impeachment; I started a separate post without specifying that I was stepping away from impeachment itself to criticise Trump on a moral level. You are of course absolutely correct that issuing or endorsing this kind of executive order is not impeachable -- I can argue that it is morally bankrupt (and intend to do so), condemn it as short-sighted, and essay a number of other outraged reactions, but it is not impeachable. It is merely a matter for the voters to consider at the next election.

10 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I see some rather obvious and possibly important differences between the two situations. Mainly, group nudity is common and compulsory in  military-barracks showers, and sometimes relieving oneself in plain view of one's comrades as well in some military settings, but not in public restrooms.

While I understand this position, I am afraid it is simply not relevant. I shall now explain why.

Both the bathroom problem and the transgender discipline issues came from the same place. Transphobic imaginings. Neither had anything whatsoever to do with reality. I would like to go a step further and say that both came from the active malice of TERFs and similar people, but I cannot. I only have proof of that in the former case.

Yes. I said proof. And I meant it. Here it is. Warning: This links directly to a TERF site and it is not pretty reading. It is hate group propaganda, and frankly speaking it turns my stomach.

Please note a particular paragraph near the bottom. It is highly revealing.

Our side concocted the “bathroom safety” male predator argument as a way to avoid an uncomfortable battle over LGBT ideology, and still fire up people’s emotions. It worked in Houston a few years ago.

They are outright stating that they fabricated this argument out of thin air.

And of course they had. There was no evidence whatsoever for this argument because it did not exist. Look at this Pink News article. Near the bottom it presents research demonstrating that the TERF argument was not empirically founded.

Similarly, the discipline argument against transgender troops is utterly unfounded. In some ways it was even worse. It invoked 'disciplinary issues' that had never actually happened because there was no evidence whatsoever to support their existence. Openly transgender troops had only just been allowed to serve. There was no grounds whatsoever to point out disciplinary issues that had yet to occur and every possible transphobic reason to slam the ban through on no basis whatsoever because it would place the burden of proof on trans people themselves -- a proof they could not possibly deliver because they had just been banned from serving altogether.

It is barely possible to excuse that they did not at least take a look at the eighteen other countries that had allowed transgender soldiers to openly serve since the DSM was changed in 2013. After all, they could argue that the US is not necessarily like the rest of them. But for that exact reason it should first have been investigated whether such issues existed at all. Instead, the EO was issued based on prejudice alone. Or in other words, it was NOT a 'solution' at all. It was a mere act of bigotry addressed at a 'problem' that had not even been determined if it had any real existence at all.

I reiterate my condemnation of that order. It is morally bankrupt. Please note that I am not saying this indicts Trump personally as it is possible he was for some reason stampeded into issuing it rather than doing it out of deliberate ill will. As they say, 'Never attribute to malice what may be adequately explained with incompetence.'

12 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

On the other hand, people who sexually harass or assault others in public restrooms need to be prosecuted. It doesn't matter what their sex or gender is, which restroom they're in, or what the sex or gender of their victim is. We don't need a special law for trans/fluid folks on that subject either. And "I'm feeling {gender} today" should be exactly as much a defense as it would be if the crime was in the middle of the parking lot - again, no special law needed, just consistent application of the existing law against such crimes and a willingness to ignore irrelevancies.

I agree one hundred percent with the above.

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On 11/24/2019 at 5:03 PM, Don Edwards said:

Actually, it isn't a precedent at all. The precedent is in the US Constitution, and among its least ambiguous provisions. The President is both the first authority and the final authority on the issuing of pardons. Nobody else has a right to have their views considered in the decision, and if the President chooses to consult someone he is not thereby obligated to decide the way they favor.

Thus, the issuing of a pardon cannot be an impeachable offense, no matter how widely it may be condemned.

I read the clemency warrants on both the recent pardons; they are entirely compatible with the Wikipedia articles. One is for a person who was formally accused but still awaiting court-martial; and the other comports with Wikipedia in both the offenses named and the number thereof. If someone wants to claim the Wikipedia article is incorrect, I suggest they cite a better source to back up that claim. I tried, and didn't find any - everything I found is consistent with Wikipedia, and I saw no mention of any girls in flowered burkas.

There is no earlier pardon by Trump that comes even close to matching the description - a person in the military accused or convicted of killing someone they shouldn't have.

Oh - according to some sources there was a third person pardoned. This is incorrect, based on the US Justice Department's not including it in a list of pardons Trump has issued. The person in question was acquitted of murder charges and most other charges in formal court-martial, but convicted on one much lesser misconduct charge (posing for a photo with the body of a person presumably killed by his unit) and ordered demoted plus faced expulsion from the SEALs; Trump reversed the demotion and chose not to approve the expulsion - both would be within his purview as Commander in Chief, without relying on the power to pardon - but not pardoned for the offense. Which probably wrecks (and should wreck) his career prospects in the military.

1) I don't watch Fox News. Its news coverage, not including stuff that is explicitly offered as commentary, is the most balanced of the major news networks (15-20 years or so ago a study, which I can't find again, found it was one - the largest by a wide margin - of only two or three news source that wasn't to the political left of Congressional Democrats collectively. In the 2008 election the other news networks' reporting on Obama was over 2/3 favorable while reporting on McCain was only about 1/3 favorable, while Fox's Obama reporting was about 36% favorable and on McCain the fairly-close-to-the-same 40% favorable), but still biased and just as inane and boring as the others.

2) Seriously? You want me to feed "Routinely defames decorated war veterans and insults Gold Star families" to a search engine? You can't be bothered to substantiate your own arguments, you expect me to do it for you?

Okay... yeah, the guy lacks class. Nothing illegal, immoral, fattening, or impeachable - and I don't recall anyone ever saying that Trump was a classy guy; we knew what he was like when we elected him. (By the way, no I did not vote for him.) There's legitimate reason here to not like him, to not vote for him, but not to suggest that he's evil or criminal or needs to be impeached. 

Oh and as for another strange response to this issue: there's a bit of a difference between pointing a gun at someone from close range and saying something about them from several blocks away. And saying a person's career has gone badly is not a threat no matter where it's said, unless it's part of a threat to fire them - and she had already been dismissed from the ambassadorship before she was identified as a witness in the impeachment investigation.

I'm perfectly willing to consider such a point of view. The problem is that such professionals, speaking the truth, would not assist in creating the false Steele dossier for the Democrats, would not then use it as the basis for starting an investigation without telling the relevant courts of its origin, would not leak its contents to the press and then claim the resulting press reports as independent corroboration when seeking court approval to continue the investigation. They would not begin plotting the case against Trump for misconduct in office, before he took office. These things are known to have happened.

Another "professional", later, oversaw the production of a document which shot down the "Russia collusion" thing entirely but listed several possible "obstruction of justice" claims - not explaining why Trump would have wanted to obstruct the investigation, not explaining why he didn't take a much easier and effective and perfectly legal route to do so, and omitting details that would have wrecked the alleged claims. This after including a statement, to which a parallel has not been cited in any previous report of the same nature, that a certain person was "not exonerated". In other words, this statement was deliberately manipulated and twisted to create an appearance that Trump had committed crimes even though they had absolutely no evidence of such.

In another case, it seems that some of these "professionals" delayed the filing of a standard report on a witness interview several days past normal, and then after discussing it among one "professional" who was there for said interview and several who were not, edited it at least three times over several days - at least once with approval from a high-level director. Edits include adding whole sections, moving some of the witness's answers from one question to another, changing a statement of not recalling something to a firm statement that it didn't happen... That isn't professional. And it isn't telling the truth.

So yeah, show me some experienced professionals telling the truth. Unfortunately, the ones going after Trump and trying to find or fabricate a basis or impeachment have utterly disgraced themselves.

The constitution is not a precedent, it's a legal framework. Precedent would be "Prior President so and so did this similar thing."

No one, here or otherwise, has argued that Trump, as president does not have the right to pardon people. It is, as you say, in the constitution, and there is precedents for that. Ford pardoned Nixon, Obama pardoned Manning; both of those were questioned by many folks. The president does not get a free pass to not have his decisions scrutinized and questioned.

President Trump is undermining the military chain of command. He is the Commander in Chief, but he should be making policy, not micromanaging. There is precedence for that, and it does not end well. Carter's micromanaging of the hostage rescue operation cause the op to fail, and cost Carter the following election.

Trump has pardoned more than two, it is always someone whose chain of command has decided has stepped beyond the pale. It is the commanders' right and duty to discipline troops who violate the rules of engagement; and rest assured, this is generally not done unless the case is clear cut.

Seal Edward Gallagher's fellow Seals characterize him as having disregarded the rules of engagement and firing at civilian population.

Navy Times    Times of San Diego (a Navy town)    Wikipedia

None of this happens arbitrarily, NCIS investigates the claims and witnesses are interviewed.

Until Trump steps in, then it all of a sudden becomes arbitrary. And Trump is going to reap what he is sowing, it is inevitable, just as if it were wheat or corn. The smart folks are going to opt out before he gets them killed. 

But, to your point, "So yeah, show me some experienced professionals telling the truth. Unfortunately, the ones going after Trump and trying to find or fabricate a basis or impeachment have utterly disgraced themselves." - that is going to be your answer for everything about ferret haired boy. No level of evidence is sufficient when you are in denial.

Case in point: "I don't watch Fox News. Its news coverage, not including stuff that is explicitly offered as commentary, is the most balanced of the major news networks." I would be curious who, 15 or 20 years ago, claimed that to be true, because I've seen Fox in the 1990s, and it was no more balanced then than it is now. Though for the most part, I wouldn't call their "news" fabricated so much as repeating discredited claims and stories, still there is a reason Rush calls his followers by the demeaning term "ditto heads". I have to ask you, if you are this enamored of Fox News, why don't you watch it?

 

Edited by Darth Fluffy
typo

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26 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

But, to your point, "So yeah, show me some experienced professionals telling the truth. Unfortunately, the ones going after Trump and trying to find or fabricate a basis or impeachment have utterly disgraced themselves." - that is going to be you answer for everything about ferret haired boy. No level of evidence is sufficient when you are in denial.

I am still amazed at how it is possible for every single US and allied intelligence service to all be part of the same Deep State plot to discredit Trump without even a single whistleblower appearing with evidence of what is going on. I guess they must all be Democrats, even those outside the US. Thank goodness we have Trump and his hotline to Putin to keep us all straight about what is really going on.

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2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I am still amazed at how it is possible for every single US and allied intelligence service to all be part of the same Deep State plot to discredit Trump without even a single whistleblower appearing with evidence of what is going on. I guess they must all be Democrats, even those outside the US. Thank goodness we have Trump and his hotline to Putin to keep us all straight about what is really going on.

I believe you pointing to Putin at the bottom of this is spot on. I read an article that Putin has embarrassing photos of Trump taken in Moscow. I didn't think much of it at the time, lack of evidence, but the narrative fits the facts. That is exactly the kind of sting an ex-KGB agent would try, and Trump has a facility in Moscow. Ply him with hookers, and snap away. The only thing that doesn't fit is that would require Trump to have a sense of shame; I haven't seen that.

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2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I believe you pointing to Putin at the bottom of this is spot on.

Given that the 'Russia is innocent and Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election on Hillary's behalf' narrative stems directly from Putin himself, that did not really require the assistance of Gil Grissom to guess. :(

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On 11/24/2019 at 5:03 PM, Don Edwards said:

2) Seriously? You want me to feed "Routinely defames decorated war veterans and insults Gold Star families" to a search engine? You can't be bothered to substantiate your own arguments, you expect me to do it for you?

Yes, this was oh so difficult, I had co click to open another tab, then type in "trump insults goldstar families".

The list of articles. But since it's a search, you may get different results, so here's what I found:

Donald Trump is back to insulting Gold Star families. | The ...

Gold Star father: Trump's words misconstrued - CNNPolitics

(Interesting that flaming liberal CNN has an article defending Trump)

Trump insults Gold Star mom, freaks out U.S. allies - The ...

Gold Star Families Attack Trump Over Comments ... - NBC News

All those times President Trump dishonored U.S. veterans and ...

Donald Trump Criticizes Muslim Family of Slain U.S. Soldier ...

Trump's Gold Star Widow Call Is Just His Latest Insult to ...

Donald Trump & Gold Star Khan Family -- Can Trump Cross the ...

Trump to Father of Fallen Soldier: 'I've Made a ... - ABC News

Donald Trump's Long History of Offensive Remarks About Those ...

There, now you don't have to look it up.

 

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