All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[pErvinalia]

I'm hoping for a big turnout by people who mightn't always vote, but are driven so this time by the utter embarrassment that Trump is. I still think he can be beat.

[L'Emmerdeur]

No, it's becaues antifa does violence regularly. It's about all I have heard about them.

Not surprising, given where you get your information from.

Strange how a request to the FBI didn't yield this document you are so sure of.

Weird, huh?

The document is already in the public record, with government redactions. I'm sure you've got a stunning explanation ready in which you'll lay out the damning reasons why the FBI didn't disavow the document when it was released and described in so many news outlets. I'd think that if some clowns put out a fake FBI memo and it gained widespread publicity, the FBI would not only state emphatically that it was a fake, but make sure to find and prosecute the fakers. I know that the FBI takes their reputation extremely seriously. It wouldn't just be weird if they ignored some shit like that, it would be outright surreal fantasy land. But I'd be wrong, wouldn't I? Enlighten me, o my lefty brother.

You go ahead and wank furiously over the latest breadcrumb from your bogus prophet, I won't think any less of you for it.

[Cunt]

That seems true. There is a LOT of effort (on each side) to convince everyone that EVERYONE is voting this way.

It's like anything...humans don't want to be in the 'out group'. (just try talking about climate change in anything but the official sanctioned terms)

[Hermit]

Did you see what happened to Trumps popularity after the failed first impeachment?

Yes. According to Real Clear Politics Trump's approval rating jumped from 45.3% on the day the Republican Senators voted against impeachment to 45.2% today. Not much of a jump, I must admit, but every little bit helps

[Cunt]

Other sources said his approval jumped.

I really hope Dems don't continue to think everyone hates Trump, or that even most people do.

As a regular dissenter of almost all ideas, I find that the left is getting less and less tolerant, and the right is more and more.

Lots of people abandoning the Dem ship, especially after being called names for the last few years, while Pelosi fumbles the impeachment so bad it had (at best) a 0.1% down-ding to his popularity.

What the hell is going to happen when the Jussie Smollett thing takes a few down? It's going to look REALLY bad for his high-placed government allies.

[Tero]

The Trump conspiracy / 2016 Campaign:

Stone and the Trump campaign

Trump tweeted Wednesday that the original sentencing recommendation for Stone was unfair -- and added that Stone "was not even working for the Trump Campaign."

Facts First: Stone officially worked for Trump's campaign for two months in 2015, then became an informal adviser after his formal role ended. During Stone's trial, multiple witnesses testified that he had been in regular contact with Trump and senior campaign officials in 2016 to discuss strategy.

Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015. Two months later, Stone either resigned or was fired; there is a dispute about what happened. At trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence phone records that suggested Stone and Trump had spoken in 2016, after Stone's official role with the campaign had ended. Stone's crimes occurred in 2017, during Trump's presidency.

Comparing the Stone and Wolfe cases

Trump repeatedly said Stone was getting unfair treatment by comparing him to James Wolfe, a longtime senior Senate staffer who served two months in prison for lying to the FBI.

On Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted, "Two months in jail for a Swamp Creature, yet 9 years recommended for Roger Stone." The President suggested that the disparity came from "rogue prosecutors." Trump made a similar claim in a tweet on Tuesday, when he said that "a swamp creature with 'pull' was just sentenced to two months in jail for a similar thing that they want Stone to serve 9 years for."

Trump repeated these claims to reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Facts First: The Stone and Wolfe cases have some similarities but also key differences. They were both about national security matters and involved lies to federal investigators. But Stone is in much more legal jeopardy after being convicted of seven felonies, including witness tampering. Wolfe pleaded guilty to just one count of lying to the FBI.

Perhaps the most important difference is how the two defendants handled their criminal cases.

Wolfe reached a plea bargain with prosecutors that resulted in two of the three charges against him being dropped, shaving years from his potential prison sentence. Conversely, Stone fought the charges and was convicted at trial of all seven counts against him, which included lying to Congress, obstructing a congressional investigation and witness tampering.

Prosecutors calculate sentencing recommendations from a framework of regulations, guidelines and laws. In the Stone case, the prosecutors said their seven- to nine-year recommendation was based on the fact that Stone had engaged in a "multi-year scheme" of deception that involved deliberate false statements, a "relentless and elaborate" campaign to silence a witness and the obstruction of an election-interference investigation that was critically important to the country.

Trump blamed prosecutors for Wolfe's two-month sentence. But that ignores the facts of the case. The typical range for his crime, lying to the FBI, is zero to six months in prison. But prosecutors asked the judge to throw the book at Wolfe and send him to prison for two years, a weighty sentence for one count of lying to the FBI. (For comparison, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to the same charge in 2017 and received 30 days in prison.)

Neither the Wolfe case nor the Stone case appears to have involved any "rogue" actions by prosecutors, like recommending a prison term that goes beyond what is legally permissible.

The President is right to note that Wolfe was well-connected in Washington. Many prominent officials asked the judge for leniency, including Republican Sen. Richard Burr and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, who lead the Senate Intelligence Committee, where Wolfe worked for years.

Mueller and Congress

Trump tweeted Wednesday: "Even Bob Mueller lied to Congress!"

Facts First: There is no evidence Mueller lied to Congress, which is a federal crime. There is, however, ample evidence that Stone did. He was found guilty of five counts of doing so.

Trump did not say what lie he was alleging Mueller had told to Congress. But he has previously argued that Mueller wasn't telling the truth when he testified to Congress in July that he was not pursuing another stint as FBI director when he spoke with Trump about the job in May 2017, shortly before he was named special counsel.

Mueller, who served as FBI director between 2001 and 2013, testified that he was not acting "as a candidate" for the job during the May 2017 conversation with Trump. He said that "my understanding (was) I was not applying for that job. I was asked to give my input on what it would take to do the job."

The President's claim was undermined by Trump's former top adviser Steve Bannon, who told Mueller's team that the White House had invited Mueller "to offer a perspective on the institution of the FBI." The Mueller report also said: "Bannon said that, although the White House thought about beseeching Mueller to become Director again, he did not come in looking for the job."

Bannon made similar comments in a 2018 interview with MSNBC, FactCheck.org noted.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/02/12/poli ... index.html

And Stone is a well known conman manipulator for Trump from casino days on.

[Cunt]

TL:DR CNN is less trustworthy than any other news agency.

Unless they arrange a cage match between Rachel Maddow and Don Lemon. That I would check out.

As to their telling of this story, it's too tiring to check every fact. It's easier to remember how they treated Nick Sandman, showing their professionalism.

Nick Sandman is (I think ) the highest paid person at CNN now.

[JimC]

Cunt wrote:

..it's too tiring to check every fact...

Not too tiring for the grown-ups in this world, like Hermit or Brian.

Isn't it time for your nap?

[Cunt]

Cunt wrote:

..it's too tiring to check every fact...

Not too tiring for the grown-ups in this world, like Hermit or Brian.

Isn't it time for your nap?

They are WELL-KNOWN as liars, who deliberately use their network for nefarious purposes. Nick Sandman won a large cash settlement because a Judge thought so too.

Maybe they have time to check every grain of bullshit, but I don't make time for CNN.

Except to laugh my ass off when that fucknugget embarrassed himself by laughing at Trump supporters being called stupid.

Then laughed some more at his shit apology.

But you go ahead and listen to them. They put it on in airports, for when the elderly get tired of watching the weather, or arrivals/departures.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The imperial presidency, in all its gilded glory.

'A Conservative Judge Draws a Line in the Sand With the Trump Administration'

President Donald Trump has defanged Congress’ oversight authority. That became clear when the Senate acquitted the president of obstruction. But one conservative judge isn’t willing to let the executive branch steal power from his branch of government.

In a jaw-dropping opinion issued by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on January 23, Judge Frank Easterbrook—a longtime speaker for the conservative Federalist Society and someone whom the late Justice Antonin Scalia favored to replace him on the U.S. Supreme Court—rebuked Attorney General William Barr for declaring in a letter that the court’s decision in an immigration case was “incorrect” and thus dispensable. Barr’s letter was used as justification by the Board of Immigration Appeals (the federal agency that applies immigration laws) to ignore the court’s ruling not to deport a man who had applied for a visa to remain in the country.

As Washington reels from the surprise withdrawals of Roger Stone‘s prosecutors, apparently triggered by Trump’s intervention in the upcoming sentencing of his long-time adviser, the Easterbrook broadside offers another window into the way the Trump administration is violating the division of power between the executive and judicial branches.

The 7th Circuit case involved an undocumented immigrant, Jorge Baez-Sanchez, who was subject to removal from the United States after being convicted of a crime. Baez-Sanchez applied for a special visa allowing him to remain in the U.S. if he was also a victim of a crime. An immigration judge twice granted Baez-Sanchez a waiver. But the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the immigration judge’s decision, claiming that only the attorney general personally could grant waivers—not immigration judges. Baez-Sanchez appealed to the 7th Circuit, which disagreed and remanded the case with a directive that the Department of Homeland Security comply with the immigration judge’s waiver. When it refused, Easterbrook, a 35-year veteran of the court, had had enough of the willful disregard for judicial authority.

“We have never before encountered defiance of a remand order, and we hope never to see it again,” Easterbrook wrote. “Members of the Board must count themselves lucky that Baez-Sanchez has not asked us to hold them in contempt, with all the consequences that possibility entails.”

Given Trump’s record of defiance, Barr’s maneuver is predictable—but it is a shocking break with more than 200 years of constitutional and legal precedent.

In 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison established the bedrock principle that federal judges review the constitutionality of actions by the other branches of government. With few exceptions—such as Abraham Lincoln’s refusal to abide by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s decision that Lincoln’s 1861 suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional—presidents have adhered to Supreme Court rulings. President Richard M. Nixon famously turned over the Watergate tapes and effectively ended his presidency in dutiful compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling that he must adhere to a subpoena for the tapes.

...

In defying the 7th Circuit, therefore, Attorney General Barr challenged the validity of Marbury v. Madison itself—and thus the federal judiciary’s authority to say what the law is and have it stick.

...

The question looming over the presidency today is not what the law says, but what happens when the executive branch violates established law. As we saw with the impeachment debacle, without consequences, laws lose their force and become optional. In remanding the Baez-Sanchez case for a second time, Easterbrook insisted that the immigration judge’s waiver decision remains “in force,” and that “[t]he Executive Branch must honor that decision.”

...

Trump and his ally in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are notably sanguine over the 187 appointments to the federal bench—including two Supreme Court justices—that they have managed to push through confirmation to date (four of them on the 7th Circuit). The expectation, no doubt, is that Trump appointees will uniformly implement a conservative agenda in lockstep with the whims and desires of Trump and his loyal base. That might well be the case when it comes to hot-button social issues like abortion and substantive immigration law. But federal judges serve for life, and—unlike members of Congress—do not have to worry about reelection. Easterbrook’s decision suggests that when push comes to shove, even conservative judges are unlikely to abdicate their Article III prerogative and destroy what’s left of the separation of powers just because Trump tells them to.

Maybe. I wouldn't count on it.

[Brian Peacock]

"A vote with only one name on the ballot is not an election, it's a coronation." -- Alexander Dumas

[Brian Peacock]

That seems true. There is a LOT of effort (on each side) to convince everyone that EVERYONE is voting this way.

It's like anything...humans don't want to be in the 'out group'. (just try talking about climate change in anything but the official sanctioned terms)

Ah, so your denial of climate science is actually an attempt to set yourself apart from the throng and to express your uniqueness and individuality. You know you can do that without being a science denier, right? And you know the 'out group' is also an 'in group' to itself don't you? The clue's in the word 'group'.

[Cunt]

That seems true. There is a LOT of effort (on each side) to convince everyone that EVERYONE is voting this way.

It's like anything...humans don't want to be in the 'out group'. (just try talking about climate change in anything but the official sanctioned terms)

Ah, so your denial of climate science is actually an attempt to set yourself apart from the throng and to express your uniqueness and individuality. You know you can do that without being a science denier, right? And you know the 'out group' is also an 'in group' to itself don't you? The clue's in the word 'group'.

I'm not a science denier.

You may be (I don't know) but if you only ever press one side of what is a VERY complex scientific issue, I suspect that you aren't as sceptical as you would wish me to be.

So how is that ex-Greenpeace founder? Another science-denier?

[Brian Peacock]

That seems true. There is a LOT of effort (on each side) to convince everyone that EVERYONE is voting this way.

It's like anything...humans don't want to be in the 'out group'. (just try talking about climate change in anything but the official sanctioned terms)

Ah, so your denial of climate science is actually an attempt to set yourself apart from the throng and to express your uniqueness and individuality. You know you can do that without being a science denier, right? And you know the 'out group' is also an 'in group' to itself don't you? The clue's in the word 'group'.

I'm not a science denier.

You may be (I don't know) but if you only ever press one side of what is a VERY complex scientific issue, I suspect that you aren't as sceptical as you would wish me to be.

So how is that ex-Greenpeace founder? Another science-denier?

while one might acknowledge that the 'other side' of a fact is simply called 'a mistake', I suppose I should confess and say that I do only ever press one side of what is a VERY complex scientific issue when it comes to describing a plane change for a massed body under the laws of orbital mechanics, or calculating the electromagnetic resistance of a novel conductor, or predicting the rate of electron transfer during a particular redox reaction. I guess that make me rather closed-minded.

[pErvinalia]

Other sources said his approval jumped.

I really hope Dems don't continue to think everyone hates Trump, or that even most people do.

As a regular dissenter of almost all ideas, I find that the left is getting less and less tolerant, and the right is more and more.

Lots of people abandoning the Dem ship, especially after being called names for the last few years, while Pelosi fumbles the impeachment so bad it had (at best) a 0.1% down-ding to his popularity.

What the hell is going to happen when the Jussie Smollett thing takes a few down? It's going to look REALLY bad for his high-placed government allies.

What's a Jussie Smollett thing?

Or in other words, why are you so obsessed with the goings on in America?

Regarding Dem voters, I read an article this morning about a conservative who caucused (is that the right term?) for Bernie. Bernie and Trump overlap in a particular cohort they appeal to. Will that cohort feel that after 4 years Trump has improved their life? Evidence suggests they shouldn't. But we know that people don't always vote rationally.