Trump, the man with a dream of a Wall

[Seabass]

Well, well, well...

EXCLUSIVE: Fired FBI official authorized criminal probe of Sessions, sources say

Nearly a year before Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired senior FBI official Andrew McCabe for what Sessions called a "lack of candor," McCabe oversaw a federal criminal investigation into whether Sessions lacked candor when testifying before Congress about contacts with Russian operatives, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly accused Sessions of misleading them in congressional testimony and called on federal authorities to investigate, but McCabe's previously-unreported decision to actually put the attorney general in the crosshairs of an FBI probe was an exceptional move.

One source told ABC News that Sessions was not aware of the investigation when he decided to fire McCabe last Friday less than 48 hours before McCabe, a former FBI deputy director, was due to retire from government and obtain a full pension, but an attorney representing Sessions declined to confirm that.

Last year, several top Republican and Democratic lawmakers were informed of the probe during a closed-door briefing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and McCabe, ABC News was told.

full article:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-fire ... d=53914006

[Forty Two]

Do you believe the facts reported in that article?

[Forty Two]

Well, the banned opponent, Navalny, was convicted of fraud and embezzlement, twice, in Russia, and that was what barred him from running. According to the Russian Supreme Court, the bar is in accordance with the law.

Jesus fucking Christ. You've got Russian/Trump cock so far up your colon you're probably chocking on it. Russia is a fascist state nearing an autocracy. How you can think a fascist and nearly autocratic state can hold open and fair elections is beyond me. But then, most of your "thinking" is beyond reasonable explanation. Other than extreme bias.

I haven't expressed any bias. I looked into what Navalny was accused of. He was tried and convicted. Then the European Court of Human Rights stepped in, and decided he had not been fairly tried. So, the Russians retried him, and convicted him again, purporting to follow the directions of the ECHR. Under Russian law, the conviction bars someone from running.

On what basis, besides bias, do you claim Navalny is innocent or that the trials were not fair?

Are you naive enough to think that there is no politics in all of this, both pro and anti-Russian.

I'm happy to consider that Russia faked the charges, or tried him unfairly, to convict him to keep him from running against Putin. However, Putin has had other challengers. Apparently, polling has had Putin wildly popular with the Russian people - to the tune of 80%. Is the polling unfair? Is he really unpopular? If he is popular, then why would he be all that concerned about Navalny? Here is an interesting article showing like 70+% of Russian voters would probably not and definitely not vote for Navalny. https://www.rbth.com/politics_and_socie ... oll_738737

I'm not denying that Russia could be fascist. I am simply not going to assume that it is without studying the issue. Your course is, as usual, different, in that wherever the political winds blow which you favor, you'll voice your agreement. So, if some politicians you favor say he's a fascist, then he's a fascist to you. However, when someone like Obama would say something like, "the 1980s called, and they want their foreign policy back" and your "side" wants to hit the "reset" button with Russia, you'd not call them fascist. You probably think Russia's political system turned fascist some time between 2012 and 2016.

That's not to say people aren't making arguments that Russia is fascist - for example -

In March, Moscow commentator Yevgeni Ikhlov charged Putin with introducing a "left fascism" that, while "anti-market and quasi-collectivist," is "fascism because it is a form of a militant and most primitive Philistinism."

In January 2015, Andrei Zubov, fired from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations for opposing Putin's Ukraine policies, argued that Russia's president was building "a corporate state of a fascist type packaged in Soviet ideology, the ideology of Stalinism," resulting in a Russia that closely resembles Italian fascism with its "nationalism and union with the church."

http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-fascist-325534

I think arguments can be made either way. However, since fascism is a difficult to define term, and means different things to different experts, it really depends a lot on the definition used.

In any case, the one thing I don't do is accept these Russia accusations at face value, whether it be regarding their "hacking" or their fascism. I find it rather interesting that we did not hear anything about Russia in this regard before 2016. That's despite the fact that Russia had been interfering in our elections - according to the intelligence agencies - for decades. When Romney in 2012 tried to say that Russia was a foreign policy threat, all the same people who cry "Russia! Russia! Russia!" on a daily basis today laughed at him as if he was the most naive person on the planet, stuck in the Cold War, like a stodgy Republican is wont to do.

As soon as it became politically expedient, huge machinery of government and political groups was redirected to Russia. Suddenly, everything that happened around the country was potentially a Russian plot. Suddenly, the same party - the Democrats - that laughed for decades at the "paranoia" that the Soviets were infiltrating the US, spying, and committing espionage in the US, trying to disrupt our government -- now, every unknown "intrusion" in a computer system bore the stamp of Russian hackers. The Russians were destroying our democracy. The Russians were stealing all our data. The Russians were in the voter rolls.

Please -- don't be so naive to think that politics doesn't play in this. Russia may still be fascist, but I am not taking any politician's word for that. They lie. Plenty.

[pErvinalia]

Do you believe the facts reported in that article?

I certainly don't, as the "source's" name, address, email and picture weren't included with the article.

[pErvinalia]

Well, the banned opponent, Navalny, was convicted of fraud and embezzlement, twice, in Russia, and that was what barred him from running. According to the Russian Supreme Court, the bar is in accordance with the law.

Jesus fucking Christ. You've got Russian/Trump cock so far up your colon you're probably chocking on it. Russia is a fascist state nearing an autocracy. How you can think a fascist and nearly autocratic state can hold open and fair elections is beyond me. But then, most of your "thinking" is beyond reasonable explanation. Other than extreme bias.

I haven't expressed any bias. I looked into what Navalny was accused of. He was tried and convicted. Then the European Court of Human Rights stepped in, and decided he had not been fairly tried. So, the Russians retried him, and convicted him again, purporting to follow the directions of the ECHR. Under Russian law, the conviction bars someone from running.

On what basis, besides bias, do you claim Navalny is innocent or that the trials were not fair?

Are you naive enough to think that there is no politics in all of this, both pro and anti-Russian.

I'm happy to consider that Russia faked the charges, or tried him unfairly, to convict him to keep him from running against Putin. However, Putin has had other challengers. Apparently, polling has had Putin wildly popular with the Russian people - to the tune of 80%. Is the polling unfair? Is he really unpopular? If he is popular, then why would he be all that concerned about Navalny? Here is an interesting article showing like 70+% of Russian voters would probably not and definitely not vote for Navalny. https://www.rbth.com/politics_and_socie ... oll_738737

Putin bans/imprisons/kills opposition media. Russians don't get to hear about anyone else other than Putin and what a fantastic job he is doing, via his state media. You said something about naivety?

I'm not denying that Russia could be fascist. I am simply not going to assume that it is without studying the issue. Your course is, as usual, different, in that wherever the political winds blow which you favor, you'll voice your agreement. So, if some politicians you favor say he's a fascist, then he's a fascist to you. However, when someone like Obama would say something like, "the 1980s called, and they want their foreign policy back" and your "side" wants to hit the "reset" button with Russia, you'd not call them fascist. You probably think Russia's political system turned fascist some time between 2012 and 2016.

Cool story, bro.

I don't know a single politician that calls Russia fascist. I also was not a supporter of Obama, as I've told you multiple times, Seth.

That's not to say people aren't making arguments that Russia is fascist - for example -

In March, Moscow commentator Yevgeni Ikhlov charged Putin with introducing a "left fascism" that, while "anti-market and quasi-collectivist," is "fascism because it is a form of a militant and most primitive Philistinism."

Oh right, he's a lefty fascist. So me and my lefty buddies actually secretly in love him. It's only because we hate Trump and love Obama and Hillary that we are rubbishing him now. Man, do you have zero awareness of your absolute bollocks? Why does every fucking criticism of the right have to come down to Obama did this, leftists did that, Hillary did and was going to do that?? Seriously, do you have some form of Obama/Hillary Tourettes?

When Romney in 2012 tried to say that Russia was a foreign policy threat, all the same people who cry "Russia! Russia! Russia!" on a daily basis today laughed at him as if he was the most naive person on the planet, stuck in the Cold War, like a stodgy Republican is wont to do.

When you say "people", you actually mean "Democrats". Why not just say it? Why pretend that you aren't biased up the wazoo?

[Seabass]

Well, Bolton's in. There goes the neighborhood...

Trump Replaces McMaster With Bolton as National Security Adviser

Bolton’s appointment marks another step to the right as Trump swaps out foreign policy moderates with far more hawkish advisers. Tillerson, who like McMaster had defended the Iran deal and counseled diplomacy with North Korea, was fired March 13; Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo, who has pushed for a much harder stance against the two countries, is set to replace him.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ty-adviser

[Tero]

BREAKING: House Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, have excluded a measure to fund ObamaCare subsidies for low-income Americans from a must-pass funding bill. RETWEET if you are ready to vote these heartless bastards out of office in November! #BlueWaveComing2018

[Tero]

Now we are back to the same. Trump is SOO boring: DACA
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/23/politics ... index.html

[Woodbutcher]

Can we give 42 and perv their own subforum. These guote×12 answers are a pain in the ass to skim through.

[pErvinalia]

You could always hang out in your own subforum.

[Forty Two]

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Do you believe the facts reported in that article?

I certainly don't, as the "source's" name, address, email and picture weren't included with the article.

Well, if he's an official "familiar with the process" who, as the song goes, heard it from a friend, who, heard from a friend, who, heard it from another Trump's been messin' around, then his word is solid gold, isn't it? What could have been gotten wrong?

[Tero]

Nothing personal, I didn’t mean to hurt you when I fucked your husband!
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43514065

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/22/poli ... index.html

[Seabass]

John Bolton is a goddamn maniac.

[Seabass]

Someone wrote an article about 42 and Tyrannical.

Good People Don’t Defend A Bad Man

At times in this life it can be a challenge to figure out who the bad people are, but sometimes they help you.

Sometimes they do the work for you.

Sometimes with their every vulgar, bitter word from their mouth, they testify to their personal malignancy and they make it easy to identify them.

Generally speaking, there are things that good people do and things good people don’t do.

Good people don’t refer to entire countries as “shitholes”—most notably countries that have given birth to our very humanity; ones that for hundreds of years have been colonized and poached and mined of their riches by powerful white men; countries whose people have been enslaved and sold and forced to come and build your country.

Good people by any measurement we might use—simply don’t say such things.

Of course good people also don’t say they could grab women by the genitalia, either.
They don’t defend racists and nazis and call them “fine people,” days after murdering a young girl and terrorizing an American city.
They don’t brag about their penis size during debates, or suggest protestors at campaign rallies should be roughed up, or crack jokes about captured war heroes, or make fun of the physically disabled.
They don’t.

Good people don’t tweet anti-Muslim rhetoric in the moments immediately following a bombing in order to bolster a position.
They don’t leave American territories filled with brown skinned people without power for months upon months, after publicly ridiculing their public servants and questioning their people’s resolve.
They don’t erase protections for the water and the air, for the elderly, the terminally ill, the LGBTQ.
They don’t take away healthcare from the sick and the poor without an alternative.
They don’t gouge the working poor and shelter the wealthy.
They don’t abuse their unrivaled platform to Twitter-bait world leaders and to taunt private citizens.
Good people don’t prey upon the vulnerable, they don’t leverage their power to bully dissenters, and they don’t campaign for sexual predators.

But this President is not a good human being, and there’s simply no way around this truth.

He is the ugliest personification of the Ugly American, which is why, as long as he is here and as long as he represents this nation, we will be a fractured mess and a global embarrassment. He will be the ever lowering bar of our legacy in the world.

And what is painfully obvious in these moments, isn’t simply that the person alleging to lead this country is a terrible human being—it is that anyone left still defending him, applauding him, justifying him, amening him, probably is too.

At this point, the only reason left to support this President, is that he reflects your hateful heart; he shares your contempt of people of color, your hostility toward outsiders, your ignorant bigotry, your feeling of supremacy.

A white President calling countries filled with people of color shitholes, is so far beyond the pale, so beneath decency, and so blatantly racist that it shouldn’t merit conversation. It should be universally condemned. Humanity should be in agreement in abhorring it.

And yet today (like so many other seemingly rock bottom days in the past twelve months) they will be out there: white people claiming to be good people and Christian people, who will make excuses for him or debate his motives or diminish the damage.

They will dig their heels in to explain away or to defend, what at the end of the day is simply a bad human being saying the things that bad human beings say because their hearts harbor very bad things.

No, good people don’t call countries filled with beautiful, creative, loving men and women shitholes.

And good people don’t defend people who do.

You’re going to have to make a choice here.

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/01/12/go ... nd-bad-man

[Seabass]