Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Ripster42]

Just wanna say, if there is a movie made about the election/trump presidency soon, I want vincent d'onofrio to play dejoy.

[Paranoid Android]

After 2016 Trump Tower meeting Ivanka talked w/participants + later “discussed with her father how to conceal details from the press” but Mueller didn’t interview her because of concerns of the right-wing press + Trump, per write up of @AWeissmann_’s book https://t.co/4pSl0Esed0

https://twitter.com/abigailtracy/sta...397254657?s=19

New book from Andrew Weissman, special counsel in the Mueller investigation does not paint a good picture of Mueller. Basically Mueller was a pussy cat and did not actively pursue interviews and a thorough investigation.

Take it as you want and yes reinforces my opinion that Mueller was a failure.

[Thekri]

Do we count more eugenics shit as a scandal?

Well it might be a scandal if Trump hadn't been a public advocate for Eugenics going back to the 70s. So it is about as much of a scandal as Tom Cruise saying something about Scientology, not much of a scandal, because we already knew he believed that stuff.

Doesn't make it less crazy or evil, just not surprising. I mean when you elect Trump president, you get Trump as president. This isn't a surprising development. You want someone that isn't a crazy, racist, narcissistic asshole? Don't elect someone who has 5 decades of track record of being those things.

[ati87]

I know what you mean, but the US was a weird thought experiment from the start.

Which has nothing to do with fighting against equality in 2020.

[DingDongKing]

Which has nothing to do with fighting against equality in 2020.

I agree, but my point is there is an annoying section of the population that has never shed his its disdain for equality. Amongst both rich and poor.

[Adam Jensen]

I don't know if it counts as a scandal, but Trump says you won't see him again if he loses. Not surprising since he'd be likely running from the dozens of lawsuits coming his way.

im_okay_with_that.gif

[Monster Hunter]

Be careful what you wish for.

It's not all flowers and happiness over here either, parliamentary democracy with bazillion parties slows down and waters down effective decision making at the time of need.

Locally our 2nd wave coronavirus response is pretty atrocious - we seen it coming months ago, it was already apparent we're in a month ago and because of various populist crap religious parties in coalition, the PM could not do shit about it, despite trying hard. Only now we have entered a lockdown and it's a pretty damn watered down one because of coalition members populist crap.

Eh, I've heard this argument but tbh when I looked into things it didn't hold water, the cons have such a majority and its almost a single fsction of the cons that have party control after the purge before the last election that Boris has as much power as a single priminister can possible have, atm the other partys are essentialy a meaningless formality till things change in the next election, you are right that it does cause issues, for example everything you said there did play out before the last election with the brexit situation but if argue is that really a bad thing that we had the full diversity of political views argued for in our halls of power? That to me just sounds like democracy in action, if people want quick government then democracy is not the system that delivers that.

The corona issue is more down to legalities and limits on what a pm and even the parliament can do. I had this argument on Facebook with a brexiteer who believed now were leaving the eu, bojo can do what ever he wants, but the reality is laws aren't created equal and there are some laws for example ones adopted via the UN like rights legislation that are supreme and Parliament cannot legally remove them and thats kind of what the virus legislation runs up against, as such the guidance and new legislations for covid have to be delicately balanced against them because the last thing any one wants is a high court challenge from a member of the public and the legislation being ruled illegal.

So for example the pm could order every one has to stay indoors 24/7 and all the boarders to be shut and we would be free of covid in a couple weeks, job done. And he could even pass that bill through Parliament if he wanted but it would likely immediately be met by a high Court challendge on human rights grounds.

Then it also has to be balanced against the economy, which when I bring that up people often jump to the "so you care more about money than lives" which is not the case, what is the case is that poverty has killed more people than covid ever will and there's no point surviving covid only to face the deaths and hardship economic depressions bring on, I think every one has read about 1920s america, the bread lines and the starvation, its almost unimaginable in a modern first world nation but then so to was a global pandemic started because one guy ate an endanged animal.

[Dontrike]

Yup, totally what happened. She couldn't possibly have said it herself, because that would go against what he and Republicans want....

The Deep State caused her to used pen and ink!

[Pannonian]

Yup, totally what happened. She couldn't possibly have said it herself, because that would go against what he and Republicans want....

I saw an interview with a Qanon woman who explained how Trump only befriended Epstein 30 years ago knowing he would be president and the media was out there to get him, so that if Epstein was arrested 3 decades later the media would report about it because they could connect it to trump (because otherwise they'd protect Epstein) - the same "reason" why he had Acosta as labor secretary: to give the media a target, because otherwise they'd sweep everything under the rug.

If you believe that, then this seems almost rational.

[DingDongKing]

The GOP is just the what’s what of political grievance. ‘Nyaaaah we want it our way cos we never get it our way even though we always get it our way but in case we don’t get it our way we’re gonna complain about it’. Tiresome load of shit.

[Thekri]

GE won't be building any new Coal Power Plants. Trump is not doing a fantastic job of saving coal. If GE isn't building them, there is really only one company in the world that can do that, Simmons (Which an EU company, not a US company).

So the only US power generation manufacturer is officially out of game (And going broke due to unrelated issues), and the only company that can do it really doesn't want too. Tell me again how Coal is totes going to come back?

[cubby]

Only example i can draw from is gay rights in the UK, and it takes generations of education but its does lead to a more stable political outlook for those rights, sexuality hasn't even been talked about political since I think the late 80s, where as its still seems to be a topic in the states.

The last right that was given was gay marriage and I actually see it as a mark of pride and a testament to the better aspects of UK society that gay marriage stood as a Conservative manifesto pledge, but that's the result of decades and generations of education

Our gay rights and gay marriage legislation and legalization is one of the hopes I hold onto in regards to the future of the United States. But even then, those rights are just five votes away from being removed (vis a vis the Supreme Court).

[Adam Jensen]

I saw an interview with a Qanon woman who explained how Trump only befriended Epstein 30 years ago knowing he would be president and the media was out there to get him, so that if Epstein was arrested 3 decades later the media would report about it because they could connect it to trump (because otherwise they'd protect Epstein) - the same "reason" why he had Acosta as labor secretary: to give the media a target, because otherwise they'd sweep everything under the rug.

If you believe that, then this seems almost rational.

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[Gorsameth]

I don't know if it counts as a scandal, but Trump says you won't see him again if he loses. Not surprising since he'd be likely running from the dozens of lawsuits coming his way.

I'd be willing to bet money on Trump getting into a plane heading for Moscow on Jan 19th if he loses.

[Justank]

I saw an interview with a Qanon woman who explained how Trump only befriended Epstein 30 years ago knowing he would be president and the media was out there to get him, so that if Epstein was arrested 3 decades later the media would report about it because they could connect it to trump (because otherwise they'd protect Epstein) - the same "reason" why he had Acosta as labor secretary: to give the media a target, because otherwise they'd sweep everything under the rug.

If you believe that, then this seems almost rational.

How the fuck do you get to the point where you believe someone is powerful enough to plan and execute national level events decades in advance, and somehow this person isn't part of their feared 'deep state elites'. This is insanity.

[Eviscero]

How the fuck do you get to the point where you believe someone is powerful enough to plan and execute national level events decades in advance, and somehow this person isn't part of their feared 'deep state elites'. This is insanity.

Eat nothing but lucky charms, mountain dew, and lead paint for the first three years of your inbred life?

[cors8]

How the fuck do you get to the point where you believe someone is powerful enough to plan and execute national level events decades in advance, and somehow this person isn't part of their feared 'deep state elites'. This is insanity.

Well, these same morons believe that's how Obama became President. It's a vast conspiracy.

[Pannonian]

How the fuck do you get to the point where you believe someone is powerful enough to plan and execute national level events decades in advance, and somehow this person isn't part of their feared 'deep state elites'. This is insanity.

It's less a question of "can" and more a question of "want" - they want to believe it, because if they believe it they're not racist, they're not hypocrites, they're not stupid idiots.

If they believe it, then they're the heroes of the story.

Sadly it's a very human thing to do...

[Draco-Onis]

GE won't be building any new Coal Power Plants. Trump is not doing a fantastic job of saving coal. If GE isn't building them, there is really only one company in the world that can do that, Simmons (Which an EU company, not a US company).

So the only US power generation manufacturer is officially out of game (And going broke due to unrelated issues), and the only company that can do it really doesn't want too. Tell me again how Coal is totes going to come back?

Bringing back coal was as laughable as Mexico paying for the wall unless Trump had access to a time machine it wasn't going to happen. It's sad there are people stupid enough to buy into this.

[DingDongKing]

This isn't a massive surprise. Robert Mueller — and special counsel’s office — let the American people down on Trump probe, prosecutor says.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller and his office let the American people down with their probe into President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election, a prosecutor who served in the special counsel’s office says in a new interview.

Andrew Weissmann, a former top deputy to Mueller, in his forthcoming book “Where Law Ends, Inside the Mueller Investigation,” faulted the special counsel and the office for not doing enough to fully investigate potential criminality and to push back on Trump’s efforts to undermine the investigation.

George Packer of The Atlantic, during an interview with Weissmann, asked “if Mueller had let the American people down.”

″‘Absolutely, yep,” Weissmann said, according to Packer, before quickly adding: “I wouldn’t phrase it as just Mueller. I would say ‘the office.’”

″ There are a lot of things we did well, and a lot of things we could have done better, to be diplomatic about it,” Weissmann said in the interview.

When asked if the probe was a historic missed opportunity, Weissmann tersely replied, “That’s fair,” according to Packer.

“There’s no question I was frustrated at the time,” Weissmann told The Atlantic. “There was more that could be done that we didn’t do.”

One of the key things that Mueller did not do was seeking to compel Trump, with a subpoena, to answer questions from the special counsel’s team in person, while under oath.

“In Where Law Ends, Weissmann reveals that the real reason for not compelling the president to be interviewed was Mueller’s aversion to having an explosive confrontation with the White House,” Packer wrote.

Mueller’s investigation led to the successful prosecutions of multiple people in Trump’s orbit, including his one-time campaign chief Paul Manafort, top campaign aide Rick Gates, and the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as well as to indictments against Russians for interfering in the 2016 election.

But Weissmann, echoing others before him, criticizes the probe that he worked on for not being aggressive enough at times to obtain evidence, and from failing to state conclusively whether Trump obstructed justice by interfering in the investigation.

Mueller’s report issued last year had said that the investigation “does not conclude that the president committed a crime,” referring to obstruction of justice, but also “does not exonerate him.”

Packer notes that “Where Law Ends describes numerous instances, large and small, when Mueller declined to pursue an aggressive course for fear of the reaction at the White House.”

“For example, the special counsel shied away from subpoenaing Don Trump Jr. to testify about his notorious June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. Ivanka Trump, who didn’t attend the meeting but talked with participants afterward in the lobby, and later discussed with her father how to conceal details from the press, was never even asked to speak with Mueller’s investigators,” Packer wrote.

In his book, Weissmann wrote that Mueller’s investigators “feared that hauling her in for an interview would play badly to the already antagonistic right-wing press—Look how they’re roughing up the president’s daughter—and risk enraging Trump, provoking him to shut down the Special Counsel’s Office once and for all.”

Elsewhere in the book, Weissmann wrote, “Part of the reason the president and his enablers were able to spin the report was that we had left the playing field open for them to do so.”

Mueller tried being in impartial investigator, but didn't realise he had to push way harder with an administration that was more corrupt than any other. It's running theme of not realising how low Trump and the GOP can actually go, so they're underestimated.