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Author | Topic: The Trump Presidency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
The amount of detail Trump included in his description of Baghdadi's last moments defies belief, and it turns out Trump's own staff doesn't believe it either: Trump Officials Had No Clue Where He Got ‘Whimpering’ Detail in His Baghdadi Raid Account.
The video feed Trump watched had no audio, and he'd had no known contact with those conducting the raid. The article describes the officials as confused and trying to think of scenarios where Trump might have gained such information, but they're avoiding the obvious answer: Trump made it up, just like he makes everything up. He's a successful television personality, and much of what he does is based on how he thinks it will look in the media. He just couldn't help himself describing Baghdadi as cowering and whimpering like a dog, specifically, "whimpering and crying and screaming all the way...He died like a dog. He died like a coward." The Daily Beast relates two Trump officials describing how this is just the way Trump is, what he likes to do, truth be damned:
quote: What's most sad is the gullibility of Trump supporters. Trump said it, they believe it, and you can't talk them out of it. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Typo.
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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RAZD writes: He has lost over a billion dollars since becoming President. Don't sound like he is making a profit to me. Evidence for this claim is ...? His tax returns? You can lose money in one business and make a profit in another. Emoluments aren't just profits. They're payments, profits, benefits, services, advantages, etc. Any emolument is prohibited by the Constitution, unless Congress consents:
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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RAZD writes: So I sometimes look back to find the first message of a certain subtitle that keeps popping up even though the posts no longer have any relevance to it. Yeah, I keep running into that, too.
Perhaps subtitles should expire after a certain number of replies.... ... or a person replying should have to click a "RE:" button to have it used. When replying the cursor is placed in the Subtitle box, but that doesn't seem to help the problem much. I think many people just hit TAB and skip forward to the Message box. Another possibility to the ones you mention is a popup asking if you want to RE the subtitle. If you click yes it fills in the RE subtitle and places the cursor in the message box. If you click no it positions the cursor in an empty subtitle box. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Coragyps writes: Those who love the law and sausages should never watch either being made - Bismarck, I think...... I'd never heard this quote before, and it didn't sound to me like something Bismarck would say. I suspected an unknown origin but tried to look it up. It's not in Bartlett's under Otto von Bismarck, and it isn't in the Bartlett's index, but I did find a webpage about it: Laws are Like Sausages. Better Not to See Them Being Made. Though the quote is widely attributed to Bismarck, it concludes John Godfrey Saxe as the more likely author. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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If one is to win at trial, such as might take place before the Senate, then it helps to frame events in the proper terms. Representative Jim Himes (D-CT) made several things absolutely clear yesterday on Meet the Press, among them that quid pro quo is the incorrect term for what took place. A quid pro quo is a mutually agreed upon exchange, and there was absolutely no quid pro quo. Trump has been right about this all along.
What Trump did is more accurately described as extortion, which is using threats to force some action, often paying money, but it could be anything of value. Trump held the threat of withholding military aid over Ukraine's head in order to force them into a publicly announced investigation of his political rival for his own political advantage in the 2020 election. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Earlier today I added my thoughts to the comments section of the NYT article you linked to. The article isn't very clear about what it means to make the raw data available. If it means making public the actual names of people along with their information then that would have a chilling effect and this is awful.
But if anonymity is maintained (e.g., by referring to "patient 237" and such) then I'm in favor of it. Science is very complicated and involved today, and the more the raw data is reviewed and analyzed the more accurate the science should be. Part of the article said that the law would require the EPA to expend a great deal of effort on redactions, but it wasn't specific about what was being redacted. If the redacted material includes people's identities, meaning personal identification data is being passed around, then that greatly increases the possibility that the information could become public and this is, again, awful. It's also inconsistent with the right's paranoid attitudes about maintaining privacy and keeping the government out of their business. Speaking of scientific transparency, I watched a NYT video last night titled Guilty by Machine about breathalyzers. It was one episode of a weekly program called Weekly produced by the NYT that airs on Sunday nights on FX and is also available on Hulu. The companies who make breathalyzers don't want to reveal much about their technology for competitive reasons, and they're SLAPP happy. The programmers who analyzed one of the machine's code were legally not allowed to talk about their results or conclusions, and when the reporter produced a copy of their report one of the programmers said that he was legally required to request that they destroy it. The reporter said she wasn't going to destroy it, and that was followed by a segment where she described the report's content. Which was, of course, damning. Making matters worse, the police don't maintain the machines very well or provide adequate training. When pressed the companies say that their machines offer an approximation that can be affected by a host of variables, but the police and legal system have transformed breathalyzer results into gospel. I only offer this as an example of a scientific area that should have a lot more transparency. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Yeah, that was pretty weak. That wasn’t the regular Hardtalk host - I forget his name, but I have a feeling he would have challenged the fallacies and lies better.
Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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On one of these occasions Trump is lying. This is from the White House transcript of the Trump/Zelensky phone call where Trump tells Zelensky he wants him to talk to Giuliani about initiating some investigations Trump wants:
quote: And this is Trump in an interview last night. In response to a direct question about whether he directed Giuliani to work with the Ukraine on investigations Trump denied telling Giuliani to do anything:
quote: Testimony from diplomats before Congress repeatedly stressed the involvement of Giuliani. Mick Mulvaney, the president's chief of staff, defended the president's directing Giuliani to get involved in Ukrainian affairs at a press conference last month. US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, testified that Trump ordered him to work with Giuliani on extracting a commitment to investigations from the Ukraine. The president is lying. Again. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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It’s disappointing to read this from the Washington Post article https://www.washingtonpost.com/...81-ebe89f477d1e_story.html:
quote: Democrats have to do what’s right for the nation instead of what’s right for their re-election, otherwise they just become the same as those who have lost their moral compass while caught in Trump’s apparently mesmerizing glare. Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
RAZD writes: Democrats have to do what’s right for the nation instead of what’s right for their re-election, otherwise they just become the same as those who have lost their moral compass while caught in Trump’s apparently mesmerizing glare.
I agree, but also with dwise1 that it is important to gain the Senate and keep the House. Politically, sure. Morally, no.
If they don't include items from the Mueller report, then we might as well forget about any future special prosecutors investigating presidents -- in essence giving them special privileges that don't apply to anyone else. Yes, the obstructions of justice from the Mueller report should be considered for inclusion as articles of impeachment.
Personally I think they can only do that if they stand on a united firm ground of pursuing documented infractions of obstruction of justice, abuse of power, endangering national security, intimidating witnesses, and possibly of lying to people/congress with his twitter comments (not made under oath) during the hearings, and letting the Senate determine which if any of them are grounds for dismissal. Yes, that's a good list. I would like to see the Republican members of the Senate have to weigh in on every offense of these types. In addition to witness intimidation I would add witness tampering.
They should also be vocal about Trumpty wining and dining Senators before the trial being improper and an abuse of power (tampering with the jury) Yes. The other kind of witness tampering I was thinking of was holding out the possibility of a pardon.
They should also be vocal about Trumpty discussing how the Senate trial should proceed with #MoscowMitch being improper and an abuse of power. Again, yes. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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RAZD writes: Morally because the House and Senate do not truly represent the people when gerrymandering and voter suppression laws and massive amounts of money determine race "victories" not votes. If the current system of voting is immoral, then we need to fix that, and that means bipartisan agreement of enough politicians to do that, and voting out those that don't or won't agree. I agree with this. What I can't accede to is any type of "your immoral act justifies my immoral act" reasoning. I don't believe "the ends justify the means." --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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The House Intelligence Committee just released its report on the findings of its investigation: The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report
Significant excerpts from the introduction: Pages 7-8:
quote: Page 8:
quote: Pages 8-9:
quote: Pages 9-10:
quote: Page 11:
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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The aforementioned report, The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report, Page 257, details Trump's intimidation of witnesses (the link is prepositioned at the right page):
Page 257:
quote: Detailed accounts of each incident follow. I'm a bit surprised that Trump's holding out the possibility of pardons didn't receive any attention. The word "pardon" appears only once in the report, in Section II Endnotes (this link is positioned to that page):
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Today the Judiciary Committee will begin hearing the testimony of four witnesses, all lawyers from academia, three called by Democrats, one called by Republicans. Each has filed an opening statement, and Democrats would do well to heed the advice of the Republican witness, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University:
quote: More directly, we must have the testimony of Bolton, Giuliani and Mulvaney (and I would add Perry and McGahn and others), no matter how long it takes for subpoena challenges to wend their way all the way up to the Supreme Court. Trump has chosen a path of maximum delay and resistance as well as a scorched earth policy of insult, attack, impugnment, obfuscation and misrepresentation. There is no way to change that. But as Turley reminds us, principle demands we follow an honorable course no matter the obstacles. Turley's opening statement: Written Statement, Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law, The George Washington University Law School --Percy Edited by Percy, : Fix typo in message title.
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
I'd never heard of him before, but there's no hint of right-wing nonsense on his Wikipedia page (Jonathan Turley - Wikipedia) and I liked what I read in his opening statement. I think the Democrats are making a mistake by not pursuing subpoenas for all persons who should testify all the way up to the Supreme Court.
--Percy
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