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Author Topic:   When did Republicans learn to hate Democrats more than Russia?
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 18 of 68 (867690)
12-01-2019 1:26 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by RAZD
12-01-2019 8:26 AM


It seems that Mueller could not find evidence of collusion because the Trump campaign was incompetent, not because they didn't want to.
But Mueller did find a very large number of instances of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and he reported on them in some detail.
Mueller never stated that he didn't find evidence of collusion. Instead, he could not find sufficient evidence of conspiracy to be able to bring an indictment.
In the summary for Volume I, Mueller explained this in some detail. There are no laws against collusion nor is there even a proper legal definition, but rather there are laws and legal definitions for conspiracy. Therefore Mueller chose to concentrate on investigating conspiracy and not collusion.
Now, while you cannot prosecute someone criminally for collusion, you can base articles of impeachment on collusion with a hostile foreign power. I'm not sure whether you can count the instances of collusion during the campaign, but there's little doubt that Trump's collusion with Russia has continued and still continues.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by RAZD, posted 12-01-2019 8:26 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 45 of 68 (867915)
12-04-2019 7:09 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Faith
12-04-2019 6:57 PM


Re: Weasel words, not justice
MAY ALL THE TRUTH COME OUT.
Oh, it will all come out! After all Trump's frantic attempts to obstruct the investigations have been thwarted.
I'm especially looking forward to Congress finally getting Trump's financial and tax records, which will show where his money is coming from.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Faith, posted 12-04-2019 6:57 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by Faith, posted 12-05-2019 2:22 AM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(4)
Message 47 of 68 (867928)
12-05-2019 4:14 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by frako
11-30-2019 3:05 PM


They dint lie, if Donny does not get reelected he will be indicted.
Not only do I agree, but I think that that is one of the primary reasons why Trump is so desperate to be re-elected. The extra money he's getting by laundering campaign contributions is only secondary (ignoring his golfing and hotel emoluments and whatever streams of foreign income he's keeping hidden).
I'm sure I've seen this comment that I have arrived at (don't remember where), but Trump becoming President was perhaps the single shtupidest mistake that he has ever made in his entire life. All his life, he's been a small-bananas crook who didn't draw enough interest from the authorities for them to bother to go after him. Now that he's hit the big time and has caused enormous damage to many people, he is drawing a lot of interest from everyone around him. His standard defense had been to bury his critics and opponents under tons of litigation (eg, subcontractors that he refused to pay and other of his victims). That had always worked for him before because nobody who went up against him had pockets deep enough to spend the enormous amount of money needed and to survive the years of legal wrangling that it would take -- if Trump had cheated you out of $100,000, then it wouldn't be worthwhile for you to spend $1,000,000 in order to collect that $100,000, so you would settle out of court for a much smaller figure. Now it's the government that will be going after him and the government has very deep pockets and can slug out a legal battle for many years. Trump will find himself grossly outmatched this time.
I don't think that Trump ever expected to win that election (nor am I alone, though I can cite no sources). There was an account of Trump's party watching the returns on election night in which Trump just sat there in shock, Melania started crying angrily, Pence tried to approach his wife who rebuffed him sternly (¿angrily?) saying "You got what you wanted!" I remember how, leading up to the final days before the election, Trump was starting to spread the narrative that the election was fixed. Since he was anticipating losing, he was trying to set up the next big publicity show. I think that we can see him trying or planning to resort to that trick again for 2020.
During the 2016 campaign, a radio commentator's comment drew my attention to part of Trump's scams, one which becomes increasingly evident as you examine it. The Trump Campaign offices were housed in Trump properties, serviced by Trump services, fed by Trump catering, etc. Virtually all the campaign expenses paid by the Trump Campaign was paid to Trump's own businesses, and therefore to Trump. In addition, investigative reporters tracked down various Trump properties getting money for campaign operations and found that the offices in those properties were empty and had been for a long time (according to local people living and working there).
So then I was not very surprised when Trump registered for running for re-election as soon as possible. What that did for him was to allow him to keep his campaign operations "cash cow" alive and giving for as long as possible.
Then there's Trump's Presidential transition. That is described in the Guardian's article, 'This guy doesn’t know anything': the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team by Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball and The Big Short), 2018 Sep 27.
The primary source for that article was Chris Christie who had joined the Trump team and who tried to run the transition. It's a hoot of a read with a lot of insider observations of the early stages of this train wreck. IOW, read it.
One of the things we walk away from that article with is that Trump had absolutely no concept of what must be handled in a presidential transition, such that he thought you could hash it all out in a couple hours.
The other major thing was Trump's attitude towards the money allocated to the transition and his reaction to that money being spent. Read the article. Barring that, after a paragraph describing Christie's transition work:
quote:
The first time Trump paid attention to any of this was when he read about it in the newspaper. The story revealed that Trump’s very own transition team had raised several million dollars to pay the staff. The moment he saw it, Trump called Steve Bannon, the chief executive of his campaign, from his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, and told him to come immediately to his residence, many floors above. Bannon stepped off the elevator to find Christie seated on a sofa, being hollered at. Trump was apoplectic, yelling: You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?
Seeing Bannon, Trump turned on him and screamed: Why are you letting him steal my fucking money? Bannon and Christie together set out to explain to Trump federal law. Months before the election, the law said, the nominees of the two major parties were expected to prepare to take control of the government. The government supplied them with office space in downtown DC, along with computers and rubbish bins and so on, but the campaigns paid their people. To which Trump replied: Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money. Bannon and Christie tried to explain that Trump couldn’t have both his money and a transition.
Shut it down, said Trump. Shut down the transition.
So then, Trump's driving attitude has been that all money streaming in is his by right. All that he sees is various streams of revenue for him personally.
All his golfing trips always to his own golf resorts, never ever to any competitors' (as would be required according to considerations of conflict of interest) nor any neutral party's (eg, the many golf courses on military bases which is where Obama had gone golfing with absolutely no personal benefit to himself, unlike Trump)!
And then of course there's Trump awarding the contract for the next G-7 Summit to his own property of Doral. He immediately withdrew that award in face of the reaction of everybody who is even remotely sane, though he still grouses about it. What he did is the most characteristic definition of corruption, which is directing public contracts (AKA "money") to your own pocket because of the office that you hold.
Secondary example is Trump's superfluous "golf trips". It seemed that every single time Obama went golfing, the Fake News Network would become apoplectic about it, yet in just two years Trump's own time on the courses has exceeded all eight (8) years of Obama's own golfing.
Let us also note that Obama's own golfing never benefited him financially. He would go to a local military golf course (I am not a golfer, far from it, but I have noticed that a number of military bases, even reserve bases, have golf courses). A side benefit of that would be that all it took to get Obama and his retinue to the golf course and back was a simple motorcade.
Now Trump! He will only allow his golf trips to be to his own properties (id est, corruption up the ying-yang! ). He has to transport all his retinue and all their equipment to his own private property in Florida (Mar-A-Lago, usually but not always) -- at government expense. All his retinue, every single troop, has to be quartered and fed and all that has to be paid for. The resort bills the government and the government pays the bill. And after all the expenses, the remaining profit still flows into Trump's own pocket.
And the only reason why Trump is making a profit from his golf trips is because he uses his office to select his own resorts for his golf trips. Classic and inescapable corruption.
 
When Trump is finally removed from office such that the corrupted DOJ can no longer protect him from indictment, he is, as per the standard Chinese curse about living in interesting times, going to have some very interesting times as he faces one indictment after another.
Personally, I feel that there are many sealed indictments out there, indictments based on much evidence, but which cannot be presented until certain conditions are met. The first obvious one is the case of Stormy Daniels in which Trump was named as the "unindicted co-conspirator". OK, you cannot indict a sitting president, but can't you still indict him in a sealed indictment that can then be released later under certain circumstances?
Trump is desperate to use any and all tricks for protection against answering for his actions.
His only hope of accomplishing that is to remain immune from answering for his actions. The only way he can maintain that is by being reelected. That is the primary reason why Trump absolutely needs to be reelected.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by frako, posted 11-30-2019 3:05 PM frako has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 48 of 68 (867932)
12-05-2019 5:21 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by Faith
12-05-2019 2:22 AM


Re: Weasel words, not justice
Hey. Trump could have provided all the information he could want in order to show that there's nothing at all wrong with what he's been doing. Yet he not only refuses to do so, but he is going to very extremely legalistic extremes to avoid doing so. Gee, why would that be?
That information exonerating Trump has been asked for, repeatedly, and has been withheld because of ... Trump. So why would he ever block evidence that would exonerate him? Because all evidence condemns him?
In order to show that he is innocent, Trump needs to be completely open and transparent, including showing his taxes and all other financials.
Instead, he is completely closed and opaque about his finances. Which means that he is showing that he is guilty.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Faith, posted 12-05-2019 2:22 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by Faith, posted 12-05-2019 5:34 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
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