Omnibus Politics Thread: Campaign 2016 EditionFollow

It's called setting the stage. Let's see. Outgoing officials in the Obama administration make a deal of publicly cautioning Israeli intelligence not to share stuff with Trump (cause you know, narrative says he's besties with Putin, right?). Israeli intelligence recognizes this as the political silliness it is, and continues business as usual. The Obama supporters/Trump opposers, then wait until Trump says anything remotely connected to sharing intelligence with the Russians and pounce on it.

Never mind that the intelligence folks in the room didn't think it was a big deal, and the Israelis don't think it's a big deal. To the left leaning news... It's a Big DEAL!!!!. Sigh...

How hard to you have to try to make reality fit your narrative here?

No.

Because even an unpolished turd should be criticized for his actual failings and not made up ones. There's this whole tale out there. You might have heard of it? Something about a boy and a wolf?

If you spend all your time and effort howling at every single thing, no matter how minor, and attempting to convince the entire population that it's the biggest thing ever, and it's totally a horrible thing, and we must fight against it with all our might, over time, people will tune it all out. Yeah yeah, yet another scandal. Another claim about this, or that, or the other thing.

What's really happening is that in their rush to pile on Trump, the media is desensitizing the public to such things. My concern is that when/if something bad/illegal/immoral/whatever actually happens, no one will take the media seriously when reporting it. And no, I'm not just talking about Trump here. I'm talking about any such thing going forward, and any leader at any level going forward.

By all means, criticize our political leaders. It's healthy. But criticize them for what they [i]actually do[/]. What I'm seeing right now is massive criticism based on speculation about what might be, or what might happen, or what foul secret motives might be behind something, but not what actually is happening. Attack him on his economic policy. Attack him on his immigration policy. Question his foreign policy if you want. Education? Fair game. But this ridiculous nonsense about the election? Get the heck over it.

Nothing you do or say is going to undo the results of the election. Period. Accept that. Move on. The problem is that it appears as though the left thinks that by building up so much smoke around this unprovable (and un disprovable, which is the more important aspect) allegation, that they'll be able to mire his administration or something. But the more attention on this meaningless stuff, the less on other things, many of which (all of which) are far far more important.

What do any of you think will actually come of these allegations? This is not a Nixon moment, no matter how hard some are trying to make it so. There is no (domestic) crime at the center of it all. No cover up because there was no crime. Yet everyone is chasing after the cover up aspect hard. They're parsing every word said, every conversation had, every political or financial connection. But at the end of the day, unless you can find proof of someone close to Trump actually communicating with someone in the Russian government and planning out how to use their resources to win the election, you have nothing at all. And even if you manage to find that, unless you can show that Trump knew about it, or found out about it later and attempted to cover it up (as Nixon allegedly did with the whole Watergate break in), you still have nothing.

Given that the nearly immediate reaction of Trump upon finding out that Flynn merely had a phone conversation with the Russian ambassador, didn't say or do anything illegal in that conversation, but was dishonest to Trump (Pence actually) about the content of that conversation, was to fire Flynn, I think you'll have a hard time even suggesting that he's trying to cover up and protect anyone. If anything, Trump appears more than willing to throw anyone under the bus for the mere perception of doing something wrong. But despite this, the allegations continue, the speculations get wilder and wilder, and the whole thing is spinning into nonsense land.

So yeah. I'm going to defend against such allegations, right up until I see even a shred of evidence that the allegations have merit. I don't have to like someone to defend them, when I think they're being attacked for something they didn't do. And so far, all I've seen is allegations and rumors, repeated over and over. Has anyone here seen anything more? I mean, like an actual statement from any sort of official and reputable source that they have hard evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians? I don't mean vague correlations (the Russians hacked the DNC, and later Trump won the election, so they must have been in cahoots!). I'm asking about real hard evidence. A recording of a conversation maybe? I mean, we know that the Obama administration did capture some communications, right? There was a whole thing about that (and what got Flynn fired). Um... Wouldn't you think that if a single one of those communications showed collusion that it would have been made public by now?

The absence of hard evidence (or anything even close to that) is astounding, given the disproportionate screaming about this going on. It's a cart that's like 10 miles ahead of the horse. And yeah, I find that to be ridiculous. And yes, I'd say the same thing no matter who was being targeted in this manner.

Doing things for the betterment or defense of your country/men is patriotic. Doing what a leader says because a leader says isn't. What has he actually done that has changed your opinion from his being the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to the country to the point that you'd vote for Clinton to earn your "principled" vote of confidence? That's a really weird thing to insist when you spent so much energy to defend the guy that didn't want to deploy because the person he wanted to win an election didn't. Years after the fact. And when they do tune it out "someone" complains about how they're not actually just bored of all the howling and tuning them out but they simply must not be able to argue their points. Can you just imagine how annoying that would get? At least you're pretending to feel a fraction of how we actually felt with your howling at every single thing, no matter how minor, and attempting to convince the entire population that it's the biggest thing ever, and it's a totally horrible thing, and we must fight against it with all our might. Obama bows too low and it's the absolute worst insult to this country, yet 45 doesn't salute during a national anthem and not even a peep.

Is this a Dread Pirate Roberts thing? Did the original gbaji give you his codes and you're just trying to continue the tradition? The original was never good with keeping track of his stories either but this is just beyond inconsistent. It's like you've never even seen a gbaji post.

Edited, May 17th 2017 9:12am by lolgaxe

Bookies have Trump impeachment at 33%. Granted, bookies had T losing to H by a fair amount, but normally they tend to estimate risks well.. normally.

Edited, May 17th 2017 10:40am by angrymnk

Well, Pence would certainly be a step up (not exactly a high hurdle all things considered). Not a particular fan of far edge religious people in government.

Edited, May 17th 2017 12:59pm by lolgaxe

Trump 2017: "No politician in history has been treated worse or more unfairly."

1. "Why doesn't he show his birth certificate? There's something on that birth certificate that he doesn't like."
- March 23, 2011, on "The View"
2. "He's spent millions of dollars trying to get away from this issue. Millions of dollars in legal fees trying to get away from this issue. And I'll tell you what, I brought it up, just routinely, and all of a sudden a lot facts are emerging and I'm starting to wonder myself whether or not he was born in this country."
- March 28, 2011, on Fox News
3. "He doesn't have a birth certificate, or if he does, there's something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now, somebody told me -- and I have no idea if this is bad for him or not, but perhaps it would be -- that where it says 'religion,' it might have 'Muslim.' And if you're a Muslim, you don't change your religion, by the way."
- March 30, 2011, on The Laura Ingraham Show
4. "I have people that have been studying [Obama's birth certificate] and they cannot believe what they're finding ... I would like to have him show his birth certificate, and can I be honest with you, I hope he can. Because if he can't, if he can't, if he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility ... then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics."
- April 7, 2011, on NBC's "Today" show
5. "His grandmother in Kenya said, 'Oh, no, he was born in Kenya and I was there and I witnessed the birth.' She's on tape. I think that tape's going to be produced fairly soon. Somebody is coming out with a book in two weeks, it will be very interesting."
- April 7, 2011, on MSNBC's "Morning Joe"
Note: On April 27, 2011, President Obama made public his long form birth certificate. The Trump campaign in his statement portrayed this as the event that resolved the situation.
"Having successfully obtained President Obama's birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States," Miller said.
But as the following comments demonstrate, whatever he thought personally, Trump continued to gin up birther issues for years after.
6. "He didn't know he was running for president, so he told the truth. The literary agent wrote down what he said ... He said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia ... Now they're saying it was a mistake. Just like his Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya, and she pointed down the road to the hospital, and after people started screaming at her, she said, 'Oh, I mean Hawaii.' Give me a break."
- May 24, 2012, interview with The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove, responding to an erroneous report about Obama
7. "A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate. ... Many people do not think it was authentic. His mother was not in the hospital. There are many other things that came out. And frankly if you would report it accurately I think you'd probably get better ratings than you're getting."
- May 29, 2012, to CNN's Wolf Blitzer
8. "An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud."
- August 6, 2012, in a tweet more than a year after Obama released his longform birth certificate
9. "Was it a birth certificate? You tell me. Some people say that was not his birth certificate. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I'm saying I don't know. Nobody knows."
- August 2013, to ABC News
10. "How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama's 'birth certificate' died in plane crash today. All others lived."
- December 12, 2013, in tweet about the death of Loretta Fuddy.
11. "Well, I don't know -- did he do it? ... Well, a lot of people don't agree with you and a lot of people feel it wasn't a proper certificate."
-May 2014, in an interview with TV3's Colette Fitzpatrick in Ireland, Trump first contested whether Obama had released his birth certificate, then questioned whether its legitimacy.
12. "There are three things that could happen. And one of them did happen. He was perhaps born in Kenya. Very simple, OK? He was perhaps born in this country. But said he was born in Kenya because if you say you were born in Kenya, you got aid and you got into colleges. People were doing that. So perhaps he was born in this country, and that has a very big chance. Or, you know, who knows?"
- May 27, 2014, in remarks at the National Press Club
13. "Who knows about Obama? ... Who knows, who knows? Who cares right now?... I have my own theory on Obama. Someday I will write a book, I will do another book, and it will do very successfully."
- January 6, 2016, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
14. "I'll answer that question at the right time. I just don't want to answer it yet ... I don't talk about it anymore. The reason I don't is because then everyone is going to be talking about it as opposed to jobs, the military, the vets, security."
- September 15, 2016, in an interview with The Washington Post.

Also, Trump has not noticeably been shot, beaten nearly to death on the Senate floor, or hung on a meat hook by a screaming mob. Yet.

Yeah, Jake Tapper immediately pointed out that (a) all of Trump's wounds are self-inflicted and products of his own action and (b) four presidents have been literally assassinated, not counting those who survived failed active assassination attempts. Plus the whole Trump is a racist who spent years claiming that the first African-American president was really born in Kenya thing.

Sounds... about par for the course.

There's more Weiner in the news, as Carlos Danger is expected to plead pled guilty to sending dick pics to at least one underaged teenager.

Edited, May 19th 2017 2:55pm by lolgaxe