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Before going through this, let me point out that we are discussing Trump having a nightmare week.
By whose standards
I posted an insane list of negative exaggerated and out-of-context headlines
Fixed your post.
and your defense for many of them was just "not impeachable" or "but Obama."
Illustrating a double standard, denouncing hypocrisy, and calling out 'manufactured' outrage is not the same thing as a "defense"
If Trump had made any indications whatsoever from Nov. 8th to Jan 20th, or most especially, from in January, February, or hell I'll even spot you March that he was looking into the grave misconduct of Comey's letter, we very well might have bought it. How long does it take to investigate a 3-paragraph letter?!
I don't know. There are ZERO paragraphs of anything connecting Trump to Putin. And that investigation has been going on for over a year. Maybe Trump is a genius for closing this one out so fast! In any event, I really don't care what the official statement is in regards to why Comey was fired. Trump is the president, and he can hire and fire who he wants.
If your'e going to impugn Trump for firing Comey for nefarious reasons, then cite some evidence. Or, if you just want to believe that Comey was fired for illegal, or even unethical reasons without a shred or inkling of proof, then fine, be stupid.
1) As I referenced above, the law you're citing was scribed and passed through the bicameral recesses of your brain and is enforced nowhere in reality.
(18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361) Look it up fuck face.
2) Even if your logic is valid, you are only proving that Trump did nothing expressly illegal. Can we both agree that what he did was highly inappropriate and questions the integrity of the investigation to a grave degree?
Maybe. I'm not gonna get riled up though every time a politician says something fuzzy. I'm not even mad about Obama's statements regarding Hillary. What I am mad about is that the same people (e.g. YOU) who dismiss Obama's statements as innocuous are all running around with their hair on fire over Trump.
Here's the thing about taking my bullet points one at a time. Barring US media from the meeting was bad optics. It's what resulted from it that was the bombshell.
Seems that it's only a bombshell to Trump haters.
1) This conversation all rests on news reports. If you disregard the sources and reports of every major news outlet, then there's no such thing as bad news, so there's no point in having this lengthy argument. Just whenever anyone says, "There was a lot of bad news for Trump this week," just get the whole thing over with by saying up front, There's no such thing as news.
You're being a real dick here. Some news reports say that something was leaked. Other news reports, which are backed by NAMED SOURCES WHO WERE IN THE ROOM AT THE TIME, refute those news reports. Consumers of information have to choose which news sources to believe. On one hand, there are heavily biased media outlets with a clear agenda citing anonymous sources and speculation. On the other hand, are facts. Believe whatever you want.
2) Trump himself defended his decision to divulge intelligence to Russia. Damn Trump always getting in the way of the WH's official line.
It was never in question whether the intelligence was shared. Everyone agrees that it was. Where there is disagreement is whether the information was sensitive and classified, and clearly it wasn't.
I agree this isn't explicitly bad news for Trump. It is, however, huge news.
Not really. It seems like the logical outcome after every media outlet and political activist group in the country has bolstered an entirely fabricated narrative about a Putin-Trump connection. By doing so, they've manufactured questions in the public's mind. Whether those questoins are manufactured or not, they must be answered. If there is any fainding in this whatsoever other than "Trump's clear", THEN that would be huge news. Until then, all we have is a dusted off DOJ antique who decided that retirement sucks.
You realize this is scoring a point in my favor, right? Just saying, Sure he sucks, but it's not immediately impeachable, so you can't do anything about it for 3 years is not a defense of a politician's actions. It's juvenile sports trash talk.
That's not what I'm saying at all shitbrain. If Trump made a mistake, or a bad decision, so what? Fine, put a blemish on his scorecard. And if he accumulates too many blemishes for your taste, then don't vote form him. End of story. But you seem to be asserting A) That only an unblemished scorecard should ever be allowed to be president, unless it's a democrat, in which case, mistakes happen. And B) This was more than a mistake. You're saying that Trump was at least grossly negligent, and at worst a nefarious Russian conspirator.
And again, this is the best possible interpretation of what he did: that he was almost criminally negligent in selecting and defending his national security advisor. There are potentially far worse implications of why he was so defensive of Flynn's connections and actions.
See, you're forming your opinion of Trump based entirely on speculation. You're saying that if it's PLAUSIBLE that something bad happened, then we have to assume the worst until he can disprove it. In America, people are innocent until proven guilty fuck face.
It's a bad look to have one of the top five leaders of your party "swear to god" that you're paid by a foreign adversary, and then to have a top three leader in your party interject to tell everyone to shut up and keep the conversation a blood secret. Obviously I don't think it's smoking gun evidence; again, it's a matter of perspective on how bad something has to look before you call it a nightmare week.
Has it occurred to you that it really was just a joke? Do you really believe that all these people are keeping nefarious secrets like this and discussing it during a conversation they know is being taped? Has it occurred to you that a perfectly normal week can be spun into a 'nightmare' when simple topical humor is taken out of context and presented as evidence of an evil conspiracy?
And you realize the FBI is leading a major investigation into this exact subject of whether or not this is happening, right? Do you plan on taking a trip down to DC and walk around telling all of the top intelligence officials there that they're wearing tinfoil hats?
Whether or not what's happening?
“It’s rare to have that many phone calls to foreign officials, especially to a country we consider an adversary or a hostile power,” Richard Armitage, a Republican and former deputy secretary of state, told Reuters.
You still don't even know what those phone calls were about. There's not even any proof that they were related at all to the campaign. Also, numerous officials other than Mr. Armitage have claimed that it IS entirely appropriate for campaign staff to have contacts with foreign entities and diplomats.
How old do you think this news is? Do you think it predates just a couple of months ago when the WH's official line is that they did not make contact with Russia during the election?
What "official line" are you citing? I don't remember exactly how old this is, but I wanna say I remember the NY times disclosing multiple Russian contacts with at least before the inauguration.
From your country's *own* security armature? You can't just drop a line like that and provide no support for it. If my recollection of college history is correct (it might not be), I believe the WH establishing back-channel communications were considered alarming in the Iran-Contra scandal.
You should probably brush up on your Iran Contra stuff. And news flash, the government does ALOT of shit that the public would consider 'alarming'. That doesn't mean it's illegal, wrong, or even unnecessary.
That's a doozy I'm not sure how to approach.
Translation: you agree with me.
I mean, it's the first thing anything like this has happened since the Plame affair a decade and a half ago, but again, major scandals aren't a big deal when talking about Trump's administration. Yawn. Call me when there's a smoking gun that he broke the highest laws in the land.
That's right, major scandals that are contrived out of nothing, with no evidence, and set forth as part of a partisan agenda to discredit a sitting president that you just happen to find contemptible..... ARE NOT A BIG DEAL.
Also, I didn't say anything about collusion. Is it not massive news that Trump's former campaign manager's fundraising HQ is being investigated by the FBI? There's a number of ways that could be a big deal. I will, of course, wait to see what comes of all of it, but this is a huge deal.
Manafort was campaign manager for like....two days, all before Trump was even the nominee. If Manafort did something bad, then I hope he's brought to Justice. But I don't see how Trump becomes culpable for any of that just because he worked with Manafort for a couple of weeks. That's like saying Leslie Nielson should be investigated for Nicole Brown's murder because one time, he was in a movie with OJ.
You can argue it's inappropriate all you want, but it doesn't dismiss what Trump did, both because someone else doing something bad is irrelevant to whether this is bad, and because what Trump did was a much bigger deal. If saying, "She didn't do it," influences the subordinate's investigation, then how much do you think saying, "Don't investigate this at all," influences it?
That's not what Trump said you idiot!! You're making up quotes. Also, there is a lot of wiggle room in Trump's statements to conclude that they were vague, ambiguous, or hyperbolic. These seem like totally logical conclusions given the person making the statements. On the other hand, a sitting president giving a press conference on national television and making definitive statements of guilt and innocence has a lot LESS wiggle room for interpretation.
I've been noticing this trend a lot: conservative media thinks something Obama's administration does is the worst thing anyone has ever done, Trump comes into office and does something spectacularly worse, and then conservative media--instead of holding him to the same standard--bitches and moans about there being a double standard to be both try and prove that what they had said before was appropriate AND gloss over the much worse thing that is currently going on.
NO butt-licker. You've got it all wrong. The conservative media isn't using a double standard, they are simply calling out the double standard held by the liberal media. They are denouncing the manufactured outrage against Trump. No one in conservative media is saying that Trump's statements to Comey are a geat thing. NO one is going around saying "I wish he said that shit ten more times!"
Everyone agrees that he shouldn't have said it. The disagreement comes in how strong the response should be. Obama took heat for his comments about HIllary, and he should have. He was wrong, and he shouldn't have done it. He had a "nightmare week" (if thats what you wanna call it). Then the world moved on. However, the double standard comes into play when Trump does something similar, but definitively less bad, and the liberal world WON'T move on after the 'nightmare week'. Instead, if you put on any major news network right now, I will be anything you'll have to wait less than 10 minutes before hearing the word "impeachment".
After tan-suit-gate, I'm waiting for Trump to show up in Saudi Arabia in cutoff jeans and a Slayer t-shirt, and for Fox News to be like, "Oh, so when Obama wears a tan suit, MSM acts like it's not big deal, but now suddenly what you wear to meetings matters?!"
I don't even remember this incident. This is entirely new to me, and I watch a lot of FOX. So maybe it really wasn't as big a deal as you're pretending it is. These cable news outlets are on 24 hours a day. They have to fill that time with stuff. So if they end up splitting hairs over suit colors, so be it. Just change the channel if you don't like it. Fox obviously moved on from their suit-color outrage, yet the other side, after over a year, is still claiming, without an inkling of proof, that the election was stolen
You haven't heard or read much. The quotes have little to do with finishing anything in an efficient manner: " I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."
Vague, elliptical, ambiguous, could easily be interpreted as "Get this done so it's not a distraction".
And an FBI's agent contemporaneous notes of conversations isn't "hearsay."
Fair enough. I agree. So....shouldn't his notes be enough to be a 'smoking gun' then? Courts have upheld FBI agents notes as evidence in the past. Certainly the director of the FBI carries extra credibility. So....that kinda proves Trump's innocence. If what Trump did was illegal, then Comey already has all the evidence he needs to prosecute. He's obligated, under the law, to report it IMMEDIATELY. See the actual laws I cited above. No report = No crime
According to the procedures of the FBI that you made up in your head. You speak very confidently about things that you know very little about. That isn't to say I'm an expert on any of this, but 1) I don't assert logic like x is definitely the case because the FBI operates like y, and 2) I at least do some Google Fu before opening my mouth rather than bragging about how half-tuned-in I am.
Here's what Google says
Comey is required to immediately inform the Department of Justice of any attempt to obstruct justice by any person, even the President of the United States. Failure to do so would result in criminal charges against Comey. (18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361) He would also, upon sufficient proof, lose his license to practice law
You misunderstand what I mean about Flynn potentially being "compromised." I mean that he had conflicts of interest with foreign powers and that he was sharing US secrets with Russian officials.
Gross exaggeration.
Whether or not he was "compromised" by the unmasking process of NSA is another discussion, and even Republicans have backed off on that story holding any water.
WRONG!!! Pay attention shit-wit. The story was stone-walled by Rice's refusal to testify.
Flynn was unmasked because (shocker) he was doing illegal shit, and when US citizens are caught doing illegal shit in the course of incidental intelligence collection, their name gets revealed.
FALSE. Has Flynn been charged with any crime?
Flynn didn't lose his job until weeks after the WH was informed of what he had done. They didn't fire him until the press caught wind of it, and *even then* the president himself continued to defend Flynn's actions, showing zero remorse whatsoever for what was done. So no, I don't think he did care. I'm sorry if I'm being repetitive, but you're yet to address this.
Why do I have to address it? You and the President disagree on what's a fireable offense. Take it up with him. Flynn was fired for lying to Pence. Obviously what Flynn does matters to Trump. I don't think Trump is convinced that Flynn's statements to the Russian Ambassador constitute wrongdoing. It's a really flimsy accusation for which there are still no charges.
If the discussion is, "Can handling classified information on a private device be compared to straight up telling a foreign adversary highly classified information," then that's not end-of-discussion. Because one of those is immensely worse than the other. Also, if the discussion is, "Did Clinton leak classified information," then there would be more to it than what you say.
The bolded part above is a hyperbolic exaggeration that you're embracing as fact because it fits your narrative. Here in real life, that didn't happen.
Putting aside the extremely semantically sticky issue of referring to "Democrats" but implicitly excluding democratic politicians,
Typical liberal point-of-view. "If you're not entirely with us, you're entirely against us". It's that attitude that got Trump elected in the first place. Well played libtards.
the comparison has no legs to begin with. Whistleblowing on the government over actions that you disagree with by leaking classified information to the press (who then edits out any information that they believe compromises immediately sensitive information like military positions)
First of all, the press isn't qualified to determine what should, and should not be redacted.
is not the same as sharing sensitive information with a foreign adversary for seemingly no reason other than to brag about your access to classified information.
Exactly what classified information are you suggesting was shared? If I recall, the accusations against Flynn stem from pretty ambiguous statements regarding whether or not recent diplomatic sanctions would be reviewed or revised.
You make it sound like Flynn gave away launch codes or something. Jesus.
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