RedSpawn

When the oppression, injustice, and violence is against minorities and women—who are classes of citizens whose rights weren't so inalienable upon the birth of this nation—the white male citizenry can forget what occurred. The white male citizenry can remain cocooned in the false reality that they are immune from this type of violence and aggression from the state. The larger public assumes that "those other people's problems" are not our own and the recipients of such violence probably deserved the heavy-handed punishment the state imposed. However, if our government becomes tyrannical and turns against us (white men) by denying our inalienable rights, wrecking havoc, and using violence in a wholesale fashion, we have the 2nd Amendment and 300,000,000 guns in our possession to bust a cap in our government's ass. Source: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20130118/65-see-gun-rights-as-protection-against-tyranny People ignore the terrible realities inflicted upon others by the state because they believe they are protected from such treatment and that these realities don't apply to them. It's a cultural mindset. Glorifying and defending the sovereignty of the Leviathan state is more comforting than defending the personhood of your fellow man when you believe the Leviathan can protect you better.

The firing of Comey makes sense when his agency stonewalls the discovery of evidence regarding the clandestine meeting on the Phoenix tarmac between Clinton and Lynch AND THE VERY strange announcement by Comey that he is reopening the email investigation a week before the Presidential election. The media presented Comey's firing as if it was just a disloyalty matter and that was simply misleading and irresponsible. Both actions taken as a whole demonstrate Comey's inability to lead the FBI in a prudent, unbiased, and disciplined manner. Comey consistently failed to follow protocol in dealing with the email scandal and demonstrated that his judgment was compromised. Trump used the wrong reasoning for Comey's firing. But know this, Comey knew he had fu#$ed up big time and started taking extra contemporaneous notes of conversations with Trump on FBI letterhead to help a wrongful termination lawsuit should he get fired because the knucklehead knew his days were numbered and rightfully so. Comey is a lawyer so he was covering his behind because he unintentionally left FBI $hit stains all over the federal election. Plus Comey was going to take Trump down with him if Trump fired him. That's a game recognize game move in the D.C. swamp. Comey is no saint or victim in this matter. Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/05/james-comey-firing-justified-trump-should-explain-timing/

That is factually correct yet intellectually dishonest. This is the stuff politics is made of.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jan/08/donald-trump/how-accurate-donald-trumps-about-black-hispa/ Black unemployment moved from a high of 16.6% in April 2010 to 7.2% when Obama left office in January 2017; however, it fell to 6.8% during Trump's administration. So who should really get credit here?

Did we play our gunboat diplomacy cards well with North Korea? Will Kim get status as an equal player on the world stage? https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/27/asia/north-korea-kim-jong-un-china-visit/index.html

I agree wholeheartedly. Trump put the cart in front of the horse with the FY18 Department of Defense appropriation. He wanted to keep his base and military leaders happy and LOYAL. Thus, he "hooked them up" and bought their loyalty by giving them MORE $$$ than they asked Congress for!

Please note that I said "banking conglomerates" in my answer. . . which means there was a string of bank mergers that should have NEVER occurred under anti-trust laws. The Department of Justice remained silent and didn't protest the big bank mergers. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase and Citibank (formerly Citigroup) should have NEVER allowed to bust through anti-trust laws and become banking behemoths. I don't consider my answer a pivot once you see that I said "BANKING CONGLOMERATES". Reagan may have provided the "theory" for anti-trust relaxation and deregulation but Robert Rubin and Congressional Democrats provided the "practice" by bending over backwards to accommodate Republicans by voting to repeal the Glass-Steagal Act. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act Source: http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/06/news/economy/robert-rubin-interview-trump-economy/index.html I think it's fair to say that Rubin never learned his lesson about systemic risk to Citigroup and the broader economy. :rolleyes:

I'm thinking it's Richard Rubin's 25 years at Goldman Sachs that clouded his judgment about suggesting that derivatives NOT be regulated by the federal government. He was more worried about transaction costs and keeping the banking lobbyists happy than protecting our markets from unbridled greed and corruption. He served the moneyed interests of Wall Street and provided horrible advice to Clinton that led to the Glass-Steagall repeal and the rise of Big Vegas-style risk taking banking conglomerates that laid the groundwork for the housing bubble boom and bust.

I believe Trump played to voters' F.E.A.R.S. more so than their fantasies. FEAR is a very powerful tool and will make otherwise sane people do batcrazy $hit.

Winston, the actual financial audit of the Department of Defense will occur on Trump's watch so he and Congress can get the credit. And if I were you, I would take a chill pill about propaganda versus conspiracy. You don't hold federal agencies as accountable for their negligence, stonewalling, and corruption when the President in office is left-leaning. This bias is disturbing.

It was in response to the list of accomplishments Trump made per Winston. I can't believe it took this long to get a Department of Defense financial audit. UNREAL....

ABOUT DAYUM TIME! Thank you President Trump for having the RESOLVE TO DEMAND THIS!!!! https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/08/569394885/pentagon-announces-first-ever-audit-of-the-department-of-defense

https://www.vox.com/today-explained/2018/3/20/17143982/stormy-daniels-trump-porn-star-affair-today-explained-podcast Of course it's important even though the swamp of corruption in campaign funds existed in Washington D.C. way before Trump claimed the Executive Office. Again, President Trump changed the political landscape on how you can win the Executive Office through national retail politics and brand marketing. That NEW reality is more disturbing to these game rigging codgers than the run-of-the-mill misuse of campaign funds. Stormy Daniels is just a means to an end. We ALL know Trump is a chauvinist pig who lies at the drop of a dime. So what is exactly NEW in D.C. politics?

If the electoral college can't serve as an adequate checks and balances against a fickle, uninformed nation voting for an allegedly incompetent President why do you expect Congress to be able to fix this?

Of course, which means the chances for graft and corruption and the like is even greater. There is no monolithic federal government but I am not seeing how that reduces the chances for graft, corruption, and conspiracies to occur. It's a function of culture, opportunity, lack of internal controls, and poor/nonexistent enforcement.

You are full of it. The only person living in a bubble is you. I notice when I get in a hair's breadth of showing corruption if not gross negligence in government, you side with government. It's not a conspiracy when the FBI stonewalls with mistruths and then gets caught red-handed with their lies by other sources such as the lawsuit through the Department of Justice? It's just an honest mistake that just so happens to support their narrative that the tarmac meeting is a nothing burger? They went from purporting 0 records about the matter to 30 pages of evidence once they were checkmated through the judicial system. You still give the FBI the benefit of the doubt when they're shown as a liar in a matter that has poor optics and overtones of obstruction of justice? Just wow! It just shows your overly friendly cognitive bias of the Obama administration and these venerated institutions whose ability to tell the truth UNDER OATH, mind you, is lackluster at best. Stop eating the sand at the mirage and thinking it tastes like FIJI water!

Winston, you used https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/liberty-headlines/ to discredit my sources. http://www.businessinsider.com/department-justice-lawsuit-foia-loretta-lynch-bill-clinton-2016-11 BusinessInsider is a left-leaning news site that shows the Department of Justice lawsuit was filed by the conservative watchdog group. The 30 pages released afterwards from the FBI when they said none existed initially doesn't negate what occurred REGARDLESS OF IF IT WAS FROM A LEFT-LEANING OR RIGHT LEANING website. You just don't want to address the horrible optics of this matter. Comey's FBI could be compromised when it gets checkmated through a Department of Justice lawsuit to produce evidence under the Freedom of Information Act about the tarmac meeting that it initially claimed no records existed! Then after the DOJ lawsuit produced 413 pages of information, the FBI all of sudden finds 30 pages of records. Hmmm.

(bold and italics mine) Let's try FOXNEWS and the Washington Examiner. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/13/judicial-watch-says-fbi-has-found-clinton-lynch-tarmac-meeting-documents.html https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/watchdog-fbi-has-located-30-pages-of-documents-related-to-clinton-lynch-tarmac-meeting No matter which way you slice this, James Comey's FBI has a lot of explaining to do about this coincidental "finding" of records that initially didn't exist about the clandestine tarmac meeting between Clinton/Lynch. Why would Comey's FBI stonewall the initial Freedom of Information Act request of records about this "innocent" meeting and say that no records existed? Winston, this is a fair question to ask of our government. . . it's the inconvenient truth and white elephant in the room no one wants to believe. . . so we attack the bloggers and their sources instead of asking our sovereign government the TOUGH questions.

https://aclj.org/executive-power/acljs-files-lawsuit-over-ag-lynchs-secret-meeting-with-bill-clinton-will-hold-obamas-justice-department-accountable Try this source....same problem with FBI and Department of Justice.

Agreed. J. Edgar Hoover is rather dated. Let's focus on the former Director of the FBI, James Comey, and the lies his FBI agency told in reference to what records were available to the general public under the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT for the clandestine LYNCH/CLINTON tarmac meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. Source: https://www.libertyheadlines.com/records-show-comey-fbi-lied-lynchclinton-tarmac-meeting/ Why would the FBI lie about the availability of records and evidence regarding this allegedly innocent meeting involving FBI agents, the head of the Department of Justice, and a Former President who is husband of the accused in the matter of an email server scandal?

Sorry, but you aren't allowed to question the intelligence community's and the federal government's motives because their inherent sovereignty means we give them the benefit of the doubt even when they have shown corruption and flagrant disrespect of our laws and Constitution. It's unthinkable that there could be a conspiracy in the FBI or Justice Department because these venerated institutions are assumed to be beyond reproach even when they are shown to knowingly violate the law for their own purposes. (Sarcasm included)

If I listen long enough to you I'd find the way to believe that it's all true Knowing that you lied straight face While I cried And still I look To find a reason to believe Whatever is so necessary to hide from the past that the creation of all this faux ruckus becomes priority...could it be hiding something of a criminal nature...? Winston, In all fairness, it is quite plausible that the U.S. government will knowingly and willfully violate the public trust to achieve its own objectives (even under President Obama's Administration). Let us not forget that Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA and CIA (along with complicity of the White House) violated the 4th amendment by masterminding a PRISM program that would vacuum e-mail data without federal warrants and maintain copies for future reference in case of terrorist activities. These agencies did not use the judicial system to make the case for their search and seizure of electronic e-mails of certain individuals who could potentially be terrorists. In fact, they saw the judicial system and the process of "proving" the need for a federal warrant burdensome and time consuming, so as per usual they took shortcuts by knowingly violating federal law and even keeping certain high-level Congressional officials in the dark about these electronic surveillance programs. The CIA and NSA also knowingly violated privacy laws to achieve its own ends. Source: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/15/nsa-broke-privacylawthousandsoftimesaccordingtointernalaudit.html Source on NSA and CIA violations: http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-leaks-timeline-2016-9 These agencies violate the public trust because "all's fair in love and war and espionage". . . even the war on TERROR. The NSA and the CIA use the United States Constitution as toilet paper and we, the citizens of the United States, accept these violations without significant protest because we are willing to surrender our liberty and freedom for the illusion of temporary safety. Are we to believe that the FBI and Justice Department are immune to the human frailty of becoming corrupted by absolute power and are thus, beyond reproach for "dirty politics"? Source for Justice Department violations: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/17/judge-kozinski-on-prosecutorial-misconduct/?utm_term=.d7a24f35ec6a

Mmmm hmmm. http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/09/a-brief-history-of-attempted-russian-assassinations-by-poison/ Potentially nothing new under the sun. . .

Agreed, it is a veritable cottage industry. Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/prison-as-a-cottage-indus_b_2813051.html When our government treats prisoners (American citizens) as commodities, it is no longer a democratic government for the people. It is a shareholder of and unwitting accomplice to a criminal enterprise.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/03/11/death-penalty-drug-dealers-count-trump/414535002/ Ummm, the United States has to clean up its legal system first as it relates to prosecutions for drug offenses. Lady Justice peeks through her blindfold to administer "justice". Perhaps President Trump should conduct some research before he paints very broad brushes of the U.S. War on Drugs and the Death Penalty. Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/06/19/race-drugs-and-law-enforcement-united-states ===> See bold & ital.