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2 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

And as Excellen Browning mentioned, they got children's health insurance. It's not a total loss by any stretch, and it's remarkable they got that in the first place.

This is true.

But again, it's a bit frustrating that the democrats had to fight for CHIP last year, and now the republicans are holding it over their heads.

"DEMOCRATS DON'T WANT TO HELP SICK KIDS, THEY WANT TO HELP ILLEGALS!"

It feels like everything is a lose-lose situation.

A lot of the frustration comes from me not wanting the democrats to take this bullshit laying down, when history has shown time and time again that they will.

Edited by Slumber
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19 hours ago, Slumber said:

Yeah, this will be the topic where the republicans finally follow up on good faith and promises. Not the million other times before this where they've gotten democrats to vote for them by doing the same thing that they never followed up on.

Then the government shuts down in february and the majority of the nation still blames Trump and the pubbies, despite the best efforts of Fox news.

The only reason the dems have any say right now is because the pubbies can't whip their senators into passing legislation.

Edited by Excellen Browning
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21 hours ago, Slumber said:

This is true.

But again, it's a bit frustrating that the democrats had to fight for CHIP last year, and now the republicans are holding it over their heads.

"DEMOCRATS DON'T WANT TO HELP SICK KIDS, THEY WANT TO HELP ILLEGALS!"

It feels like everything is a lose-lose situation.

A lot of the frustration comes from me not wanting the democrats to take this bullshit laying down, when history has shown time and time again that they will.

Well it helps the democrats that their effective filibuster was over both CHIP and DACA/DREAMers and if they got one and merely pushed the other off then clearly the Republicans somehow can engage in some good faith and the issue isn't put to rest. The good faith is way better than Fox news would engage them on, anyway.

I don't think democrats care about Fox news tbh because Fox news is basically Republican Pravda anyway.

Edited by Lord Raven
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3 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

Well it helps the democrats that their effective filibuster was over both CHIP and DACA/DREAMers and if they got one and merely pushed the other off then clearly the Republicans somehow can engage in some good faith and the issue isn't put to rest. The good faith is way better than Fox news would engage them on, anyway.

I don't think democrats care about Fox news tbh because Fox news is basically Republican Pravda anyway.

I believe one of the bigger underlying issues here is that the Democrats managed to get CHIP funding, but there has been very little messaging about it. It was actually a little shocking to see Schumer make his concession speech on the floor of the Senate without any real mention of something so significant.

The Republicans are clearly the most consistent in their messaging right now and the Democrats still seem to either be throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, or are still internally torn on what they should be focusing on. Of course, that is partially due to the current administration's strategy of inundating the political system with a vast quantity of questionable decisions. Normally, there are pollsters that measure the outrage towards specific decisions. From that data, a party can tell what plays best with people and proceed in the most statistically viable way. You know, because there is usually enough time to gauge all that. Though when a new controversy is always around the corner, that becomes a lot trickier to do, especially when outrage fatigue sets in with the voters.

Honestly, I have no idea how this plays out in the long term. At least it looks like a bunch of Senators are actually talking to each other for once, though who knows how long that will last.

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There has been a lot of messaging about CHIP from the dems. The big problem is that it's getting overshadowed by dissent within the dems about the abandonment of the dreamers, and for working with the pubbies instead of letting them burn.

Mind you that we very rarely get the news from the horses' mouth, but instead it has to pass through a(at least one) filter before being presented to us. 

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The attention span of the average voter is remarkably short.

When Trump goes in for his sit-down interview with Mueller and the next set of indictments start coming down, it will be like the shutdown never even happened. 

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1 hour ago, Tryhard said:

So apparently Trump did want to fire Mueller... back in June, according to the NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/us/politics/trump-mueller-special-counsel-russia.html

Thank goodness he didn't, the type of potential constitutional crisis this could (have) create could shake the Republic.  If he does fire Mueller and the Congress forgoes an investigation, the investigation basically ends, not a good precedent to set.  

This is the kind of action he will feel more emboldened to do if the GOP retains control of both houses of Congress next year, strange things may be afoot.  

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Remains to be seen what they've found in terms of underlying crimes to be covered up (I still believe the main focus of the investigation has moved from this ambiguous term of "collusion" to a theory-of-the-case that the Trump organization was engaging in money laundering through the Russians. Mueller has Andrew Weismann--the top financial crimes expert in the country, best known for prosecuting the corporate criminals in the Enron scandal--working the case. You have the allegations in the Fusion GPS memo. You have the subpoenaed IRS records and Trump very obviously having something to hide in those tax returns he never released. Everything points to money laundering). But it now appears very likely that Mueller believes Trump committed obstruction of justice.

_______

Trump asks Sessions to sweep everything under the rug; Sessions refuses, recuses himself, and puts Rosenstien in charge. He flips out on Sessions, calls him an idiot, and tells him he never would have made him Attorney General if he knew he was going to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

He asks Rosenstein to write a letter firing Comey from his position as FBI director. After Comey refuses to pledge personal loyalty to the President, refuses to publicly declare that the president is not under investigation, and opens an investigation into potential crimes committed by the President and his associates.

Rosenstein refuses. The Asshole still lies, fires Comey, and says Rosenstein wrote the letter. Rosenstein denies it. Turns out, Stephen Miller wrote the letter.


The next day he meets with Russian nationals in the oval office and tells them: "The Pressure is Off."

Rosenstien appoints Mueller as special counsel to investigate.

He then asks Don McGahn to fire Mueller. McGahn not only refuses, but threatens to quit.

He then pushes the Justice Department to open an investigation into the FBI's handing of the Clinton email investigation, tweets that the FBI is in shambles and the least respected its ever been, and starts publicly floating the idea that the Mueller Team cannot produce a reliable set of investigative findings because it has a pro-Clinton bias.

Just how many ways can you spell "obstruction?"

Edited by Shoblongoo
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In regards to the Dems seemingly caving into the "evil" Republicans, I think that the Democrats need to put on the persona of being the good guys. I think that Democrats will win "bigly" in the 2018 midterms because of this, and then we will see actual Democratic and progressive agenda being pushed through, or have a stalemate situation where Dems will bind time and not work with the Repubs at all (just how the Repubs refuse to listen to Dems demands) until 2020.

Edited by Dandee Leone
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I don't (to anything else apart from them likely doing well in the midterms). I wouldn't trust the Democrats, even if they are ten times better than the Republicans. 

I'm not going to put my faith in them starting to push for a progressive agenda when they have power when they have shown no signs of doing so previously. Now slightly more reasonable socially liberal, fiscally conservative policies are about all I can hope on the Democrats for.

Now them starting to blow off compromising with the Republicans, that I would like to see. People do say it and I'm having a hard time arguing against the Democrats being "weak". Because honestly, they are, even if they are trying to be the adult in the room.

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The Democrats seeking compromise and bipartisanship would be a great thing in if the party they were trying to compromise with were the GOP. Not to mention that more often than not, it seems that Democrat 'compromise' just seems to be them rolling over and letting the GOP.

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State of the Union Address is tomorrow night, for anyone interested in watching the drama speech.

Joe Kennedy is going to give the official democratic response. (ehhhhhhhh)

Maxine Waters is going to be giving her own response on BET, and Bernie Sanders will be delivering his own response via social media. 

Something to talk about. Give it a look if you guys get a chance. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Banon has been kicked out

 

33 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Banondorf has been exiled


...and the slow motion trainwreck continues.

Its almost like Trump doesn't need any outside influence to be awful.

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tbh I was just making fun of the misspelling because me and a few friends say GAME OVER RETURN OF BANNON

But -- and this is a marginal defense -- the white house has been less leaky and chaotic since he left.

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...I'm going to amend a post I made a few days ago--because literally just in the past week alone--the Obstruction of Justice timeline has gotten substantially bulkier.

The big story all week has been this House Committee memo, supposedly detailing widespread corruption at the FBI and conspiracy against Donald Trump. Here's what we now know:
______
1) Trump wants Sessions to publicly absolve him of any and all wrongdoing, with no investigation into Russian Collusion. Sessions refuses, recuses himself, and puts Rosenstien in charge of investigatory oversight. Trump flips out on Sessions, calls him an idiot, and tells him he never would have made him Attorney General if he knew he was going to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

2) The FBI opens an active investigation into the Trump campaign's contacts with the Russian. Comey--previously given high accolades and praised by Trump during the 2016 presidential election, for publicly reopening the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton in the final days of the campaign--oversees the investigation.

3) Trump asks Rosenstein to write a letter firing Comey from his position as FBI director, after Comey refuses to pledge personal loyalty to the President, refuses to publicly declare that the president is not under investigation, and refuses to close the investigation into potential crimes committed by the President and his associates.

4) Rosenstein refuses. The Asshole still lies, fires Comey, and says Rosenstein wrote the letter. Rosenstein denies it. Turns out, Stephen Miller wrote the letter. The purported rational for the firing publicly given within the first 24 hours is that Trump was unhappy with how Comey handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton.

5) The next day Trump privately meets with Russian nationals in the oval office and tells them: "The Pressure is Off." Alarmed White House staffers leak the meeting to the associated press.

6) The House Intelligence Committee launches an investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 election. Republican Committee Chair Devin Nunes is forced to recuse himself from the investigation by his colleagues after he is caught leaking investigatory information to the White House + working with Trump to craft talking points discrediting the information, and the investigation goes off the rails.

7) Rosenstien thinks this all reeks to high heaven and appoints Mueller as special counsel to investigate any and all crimes arising out of Russian Interference in the 2016 election, and any incidental crimes that may be uncovered pursuant to the investigation.

8) Trump  asks White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. McGahn refuses and threatens to resign if Trump pushes the matter.

9) Trump then makes repeated public statements that Mueller and the FBI and the Justice Department have been politically compromised, that their investigation is a Deep State conspiracy against his presidency, and that there is corruption at the highest level of federal law enforcement.

10) Devin Nunes--who has supposedly recused himself due to prior misconduct in working with the White House to sabotage the House Intelligence Committee investigation into Donald Trump (i.e. he's frozen out; he's not supposed to have any further involvement in the investigation)--drafts a committee memo alleging that the FBI abused the FISA process and obtained an illegal warrant to open its investigation into Trump. The Nunes Memo further alleges widespread bias and corruption in the FBI. Nunes presents the letter to Trump, who threatens to release it. Trump's handpicked FBI chief disputes the memo and says that it is inaccurate.

11) Devin Nunes says the memo was signed off on by his Republican colleague on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Trey Gowdy, who can attest to the memo's accuracy and the seriousness of its contents. Within 48 hours Trey Gowdy announces that he is retiring from Congress, will not be seeking reelection, and issues a scathing public statement that he is disgusted with House politics.

12) An anonymous Trump aide leaks to the press that Trump is privately telling his inner circle: "This memo will discredit the Mueller investigation."

--------

Individually you might be able to look at any one of those occurrences and say it was just an innocent misunderstanding, or a non-credible accusation from an enemy of the president. However, the totality of the circumstances is pointing to clear criminal intent to commit Obstruction of Justice with repeated, purposeful acts. 

I have to believe a criminal indictment against The President is coming down in the near-future. This is insane. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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6 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

I have to believe a criminal indictment against The President is coming down in the near-future. 

I think that's a little hopeful, but Trump's out there saying the FBI and Justice Department is biased for favouring Democrats over Republicans today. The FBI, really? The one full of Republicans, just after you made your speech about respecting law enforcement in the state of the union?

The one thing is that they are trying to launch a campaign to discredit the FBI and specifically Mueller's investigation as much as they can. By muddying the waters, they seek to bring it down to people's "words".

Edited by Tryhard
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5 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

The one thing is that they are trying to launch a campaign to discredit the FBI and specifically Mueller's investigation as much as they can.

He was the president who was going to restore respect for law enforcement. Obama didn't respect law enforcement. Democrats don't respect law enforcement. Democrats support Black Lives Matter and Illegal Mexicans; cop-killers and drug dealers and rapists. Law enforcement in America is going to be great again--so great--we love law reinforcement. Nobody respects law enforcement more than Donald J. Trump.

...that was the talking point at every rally...

The bullshit that comes out of this man's mouth is unreal.  

Edited by Shoblongoo
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So, I confess to not being sure as to what's going on with this stuff about the memo. It appears that both ends of the spectrum are obviously making the case that the memo will do good for their side, but what's it actually on about and is it likely to work?

Seeing what's already known on the obstruction case is a bit mindblowing. Like, what the fuck is my immediate response to reading the parade of bad choice made, especially point 11.

Can the USA actually recover from this, or will changes have to be made in the system?

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10 minutes ago, Dayni said:

So, I confess to not being sure as to what's going on with this stuff about the memo. It appears that both ends of the spectrum are obviously making the case that the memo will do good for their side, but what's it actually on about and is it likely to work?

Seeing what's already known on the obstruction case is a bit mindblowing. Like, what the fuck is my immediate response to reading the parade of bad choice made, especially point 11.

Can the USA actually recover from this, or will changes have to be made in the system?

Eh, the Republic is always simultaneously in need of systemic changes and in a state of being fine, it's a pretty flexible beast all things considered. 

This memo is really just a statement to how mouth-foamy partisan Washington has become.  The House Intelligence Committee has released memos like this before, now they've tended to be bipartisan and not so controversial, but this is mostly controversial because the President has pitted it as his salvation from the Mueller investigation.  In terms of the content, it's mostly going to say that at times the FBI and the CIA violate the civil liberties of American citizens by obfuscating the truth when they apply for FISA warrants.  Is anyone really surprised by that admission or statement? I'm not, of course the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world violate civil liberties, that's the very nature of their existence.  Now, this is gonna be a whole bunch of noise because Fox is gonna say, 'this violation of civil liberties is unparalleled in it's political scope' and CNN is gonna say 'this seems pretty much par for the course', so it's mostly uninteresting.  

In terms of President Trump getting indicted, I still don't see it; I'm not even sure he can be indicted in the traditional sense, but I still have yet to see him do anything beyond being incompetent and blustery, two traits the American voting public were aware of, or should have been, when we elected him to the most esteemed office in the land.  All the talk I've seen so far of his Russian collusion and obstruction are mostly just missteps of a political novice, I don't think that's enough to drum him out, and I have no desire to see him stay.        

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37 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Can the USA actually recover from this, or will changes have to be made in the system?

...well lets look at the historical precedent. The historical precedent is whats going on right now is the Impeachment of Richard Nixon, over obstruction of justice in the Watergate Investigation.  

At the time Watergate was seen as this crisis of confidence in government and taint of criminality in the White House from which the nation would never recover.  Today we view it a bit differently.

Watergate was a stress-test for a system of government based on democratic principles, separation-of-powers, and rule of law. The Founding Fathers had contemplated the possibility that a man of unsound moral character and criminally corrupt intentions may one day be elected to the presidency. They put Constitutional safeguards in place to ensure that in such an event, he could be checked by lawmakers and the independent judiciary and the free press.  They had an idea of how the system should work, but until Watergate, we never really had an active scenario to see how it worked in practice.

...Watergate was proof that the system worked...

A criminally corrupt president was exposed by a free press, that he could not silence.
There was a formal investigation by the judiciary, that he could not shut down.
And when the judicial investigation exposed his wrongdoing, lawmakers had the votes to remove him from office in impeachment proceedings if he did not resign from office.

Nixon left office in disgrace. There was no coup or extrajudicial use of violence against the disgraced or purging of ranks--there was a peaceful transition of power to the next administration.

And the whole sordid affair stood as a testament to the efficacy and durability of American Democracy.  When all was said and done, it was a triumphant moment.
_______

So what happens with Trump, and what does it mean for the USA?

....well now that depends entirely on the final disposition of the matter...

If it goes the way of Nixon. If for all his cockswagger and sense of invulnerability Trump is nevertheless ends with Trump being removed from office in disgrace, then it is a triumphant day for Democracy.

If Trump is protected by a Congress that values having a White House that will move conservative agenda items on taxes and immigration and the like over removing a blatantly corrupt president from office. Over protecting our justice department and our intelligence services and our free press from Trump's ongoing efforts to tear down every institution charged with reigning in a Nixon-like creature.

Then yes--this is a black mark against our system of government from which we will never recover.    
 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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Making this a follow-up post rather than an edit, because [Breaking News].

...They just released The Memo....

Here it is. 6 Pages. (2 Page authorization to release classified information from The White House + 4 Pages of declassified Memoranda from Chariman Nunes)
Viewable in full at the below link:

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/372022-read-the-controversial-memo-just-released-by-republicans



 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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