Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Zelandakh]

Also, we have stronger and more coordinated networks courtesy of our technology so our ability to gain access to previously "private" information is tremendously larger.

If by "private information" you mean made-up stories and outright lies then you are indeed correct. The previous American election showed that for large swathes of the country, their ability to access accurate, independent information and be able to recognise it for that is close to nil.

 

No one was supposed to know about the tarmac meeting (regardless of what was actually discussed between AG Lynch and Former President Bill Clinton).

Whatever else you believe about Bill Clinton, one thing he most certainly is not is stupid. He has enough experience to know that the chances of a meeting between two such high-profile characters going unseen during an election cycle were negligible. If you serious think that this was meant to be a secret rendezvous invisible to the media then you really are quite clueless of the way this game works I think.

[kenberg]

Exactly what has changed and what hasn't is worth thinking about. Clearly we all get far more news now than we used to. Some pages back there was a reference that noted the innovation of a nightly 30 minute television program devoted to news. See https://en.wikipedia...BS_Evening_News

 

Growing up I read the paper, morning and evening, from when I was quite young. The landing at Inchon was when I was 11, for example, and I don't need the internet to tell me this. Otoh, I also delivered papers, also both morning and evening, and I remember the Saturday paper as being 14 pages. Including sports, comics, want ads, crosswords, etc. Wednesday was much larger, but this was because of the ads. So we got news, but limited news.

 

Now we are flooded. We could spend all our waking hours reading news. But most of us don't. Most of the grandkids seem to me to spend far less time than I did reading/watching the news. So there is more stuff out there, but whether people are better informed is far from clear.

 

Skepticism is real, and probably growing. People understand that politicians shade the truth, or at least try to frame it to benefit them, but they react strongly when these politicians act as if the people will believe anything. Of course some people will believe anything. Those people are in the bag, They are going to vote for the candidate no matter what. But other people react badly if Bill and Loretta explain that since they were at the same airport they just thought it would be neat to get together and talk about their grandkids for a while. If Bill and Loretta could not see that this might not look right, then they are total morons. And they are not total morons. So it looks bad. And it hurt Hillary badly. Self (or in this case spouse)-inflicted injury. This reaction hasn't changed, although I agree that in an earlier era people might not have learned of it. Bill and Loretta were aware that this was 2016, were they not?

 

It is some sort of arrogance, where the principals simply convince themselves that they can do whatever they wish, and so they will. They are then amazed when it goes badly. The Betty Grable comment "If this is Innocent it's the first time I have ever encountered it in similar circumstances" occurs to just about everyone, and they don't need to have seen the movie for them to think this way.

 

As for using a well-worn playbook, I offer the full version of the cited song.

If nothing else, it might be a fun glimpse into another era.

[Winstonm]

Fair enough. The missing links regarding Brazile, Wasserman Schultz, and the Clinton tarmac scandal are as follows:

 

http://thegrio.com/2017/03/20/donna-brazile-emails-dnc-clinton

http://www.CNN.com/2016/07/24/politics/debbie-wasserman-schultz-dnc-chair-career/index.html

http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/07/01/how-was-local-reporter-tipped-clinton-lynch-meeting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretta_Lynch

 

I think the 1st two links solidly establish that the Democratic National Committee loaded the political dice in Hillary's favor.

 

It sounds like we are focusing on what conclusions, if any, we can draw from the Phoenix tarmac rendezvous. I think we agree that at a minimum an "ex-parte communication" appears to take place while the AG is still investigating Hillary. This action seems both unethical and professionally irresponsible. And as a result, AG Loretta Lynch recused herself from the investigation and agreed to blindly accept the recommendations of the FBI probe of Hillary Clinton's email server scandal.

 

Please click the link to get a better legal explanation of "ex parte communication" http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/criminal-defense-case/what-ex-parte-communication .

 

So we have to look at motive. What motive would a Former President have to arrange an unscheduled rendezvous on a Phoenix tarmac at night with the Chief Prosecutor of the U.S. when his wife is under investigation and could face criminal indictment? What would compel him to do this under the cover of darkness and in a clandestine way with no official record taking place?

 

It creates the appearance that he is about to interfere with, influence, or obstruct judicial matters to protect his wife from pending criminal charges. That is not a quantum leap of supposition, but it is definitely a more plausible explanation than the one AG Lynch provided. Are we to believe that Former President Clinton went through this rigmarole to discuss family matters and children with the AG for 30 minutes? That explanation insults the public's intelligence.

 

And why would other FBI agents on the tarmac clarify that the rules of engagement are "no photos, no pictures, and no cell phones" as reported by Christopher Sign of ABC-15? Was FBI Director James Comey aware of this clandestine meeting and how it casts a shadow over the entire FBI investigation? What did he know and when did he know it? His integrity is on the line now that the AG's integrity and independence seem compromised.

 

There is too much at stake here to let government officials provide weak, Dr. Seuss explanations for unethical behaviors. The scales of justice should not be for sale to the highest bidder or to individuals with significant political clout.

 

By the way, you are right. Neither Bill nor Hillary are in office but yet the AG decides to delay her schedule for 30 minutes to meet with the Former President anyway. The fact that the AG didn't end the meeting abruptly shows the political gravitational pull Bill Clinton has on people and his former subordinates. And I refuse to disassociate Bill from Hillary because both have significant political currency in the D.C. establishment. They have an seemingly unbreakable union that is stronger and deeper than marital ties. It survives and thrives despite family, financial, legal, and political turmoil. They are One.

 

First of all, just a correction, is that the link you provide shows that the Clinton/Lynch meeting was not legally ex parte, as no judge or juror was present.

 

Now, as to your argument, let me propose a simple experiment followed by a question: assuming that the meeting was as Lynch-Clinton described, i.e., innocent, what could falsify that claim? I would say a witness, a tape of the conversation, or a video would all disprove the claim of innocence.

 

Now, as to the claim that this was a conspiracy to protect Hillary from prosecution: what would you say could falsify a conspiracy idea? Would you accept the same proofs that a conspiracy did not occur?

[RedSpawn]

If by "private information" you mean made-up stories and outright lies then you are indeed correct. The previous American election showed that for large swathes of the country, their ability to access accurate, independent information and be able to recognise it for that is close to nil.

 

 

Whatever else you believe about Bill Clinton, one thing he most certainly is not is stupid. He has enough experience to know that the chances of a meeting between two such high-profile characters going unseen during an election cycle were negligible. If you serious think that this was meant to be a secret rendezvous invisible to the media then you really are quite clueless of the way this game works I think.

 

I think you missed what the American election was about. It's always about the economy as the global economy is making American jobs evaporate faster than they can be replaced. People who have worked their whole lives and watched their jobs evaporate before their very eyes feel that they have been sold a false bill of goods. They feel the rules of the game have been changed midstream and the American dream is now a moving target.

 

Further, the explosive growth of the internet is vertically integrating a lot of industries and ruthlessly decimating others. It is eliminating certain parties in the distribution chain so retail and "middle man" jobs are drying up as retailers close some of their retail outlets and opt for a regionally located warehouse with a small complement of staff to ship goods via internet.

 

Also, the populace is upset about the child-like infighting and political dysfunction of our government where politicians appear more beholden to lobbyists and special interests than governing of the people, by the people, and for the people. If you look at the last 16 years, both Democratic and Republican Presidents have run up our federal public debt by $13.8 trillion!

 

Yet we have repeated war mongering, ambiguous immigration enforcement, an all-out assault on the financial stability of the middle class, out of control military spending with annual unreliable DoD financial statements to conceal potential savings opportunities, increased mandatory entitlement spending for Social Security & Medicare as the biggest generation begins to retire from the work force, and the turtle-paced replacement and reinvestment in critical infrastructure. The Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank have misplaced priorities as they assume we can "quantitatively ease" and deficit-spend our way into economic prosperity. Silly rabbit, financial magic tricks are for kids.

 

Both sides of the aisle are having problems keeping appearances with their constituents. The Tea Party movement on the Republican side was born from the out of control spending by George W. Bush, the Iraq War intelligence failure, and the housing bubble massacre before the November 2008 election. In this last election, the media cast Bernie Sanders as the inexperienced anti-establishment hero on the Democratic side and Trump assumed the same role on the right--even though he was an alleged billionaire who fraternized with the D.C. establishment.

 

The election of Trump was a sordid way for the populace to give the middle finger to the establishment since the nomination process to the Presidency is fundamentally flawed and broken. They want more than the predictable career politician who caters to lobbyists and deficit spends to oblivion. But its very possible Trump will give us more of the same if we can get past the political kabuki theater of the last five months.

 

Finally, my main premise about the tarmac rendezvous is that one of the parties appears to be obstructing justice; therefore, we should reject the propaganda-like explanation provided by the AG. The rabbit hole on this matter may be even deeper than what I have provided and may involve planned leaks as well, but I am not required to reveal my entire line of thought on this matter. I just know the one supplied by our government doesn't pass the smell test; thus, we must do our due diligence and dig deeper.

[kenberg]

First of all, just a correction, is that the link you provide shows that the Clinton/Lynch meeting was not legally ex parte, as no judge or juror was present.

 

Now, as to your argument, let me propose a simple experiment followed by a question: assuming that the meeting was as Lynch-Clinton described, i.e., innocent, what could falsify that claim? I would say a witness, a tape of the conversation, or a video would all disprove the claim of innocence.

 

Now, as to the claim that this was a conspiracy to protect Hillary from prosecution: what would you say could falsify a conspiracy idea? Would you accept the same proofs that a conspiracy did not occur?

 

 

Red can answer for himself and you probably can guess my answer, but I'll lay it out anyway.

 

1. With nobody monitoring it, there it is no way to know what they talked about.

 

2. If it was all innocent they would have to be a couple of morons to not realize that it would look bad.

 

3. If they wanted to discuss the email investigation it is possible, although really stupid, that they thought that they could get away with it.

 

 

So we are left with two choices. The did something reckless although there was no purpose but they were just too stupid to know better, or they did something reckless because there was a purpose to it and they hoped that they could get away with it.

 

It's true that we will never know. We do know that it hurt her, and if Bill and Loretta did this on a whim, there are not words to describe how dumb it was.

[Winstonm]

 

I could choose to believe the misrepresentations I am told from government officials about this matter, but I'd rather believe a much simpler answer. We have just witnessed a sneak preview of how dirty the politics can get in the D.C. establishment!

 

Describing belief in "a much "simpler answer" is actually pretty funny when you break down what that means:

 

A) "Official version": Two old friends met on a runway and visited for 30 minutes about family and old times.

 

B) "Coonspiracy version": Two old friends, one beholding to the other, planned a clandestine meeting by arranging to land two large aircraft at the same airport in order to hide from view, when any number of truly secret methods of communicating were available, and in 30 minutes concocted a plan to protect Hillary from prosecution regardless of what the FBI investigation found, knowing that the head of the FBI was rigorously straightforward and unafraid to back down powerful people who tried power plays, and these two people who were so smart to be able to compromise the FBI and Justice Department were too stupid to keep their meeting a secret, knowing that if came to light that it would probably cost Hillary dearly.

 

Yet B is the simple answer? :P Also, the use of the typical conspiracy website close: how can we trust the government? doesn't help the argument :o

 

Now, with that said, I agree that the was a monumentally stupid thing to do - and it looks quite suspicious on its face. And it was the one act that probably did cost Clinton the election. None of that rises to the level of conspiracy.

 

If you have listened to John Dean, you would know that he time and again talks about Watergate being a series of blunders by the White House - not the well-orchestrated cover-up it is sometimes presented as. Smart people do stupid things all the time - there is no reason to believe that Clinton/Lynch were any less susceptible to random stupid acts than anyone else.

[Winstonm]

Red can answer for himself and you probably can guess my answer, but I'll lay it out anyway.

 

1. With nobody monitoring it, there it is no way to know what they talked about.

 

2. If it was all innocent they would have to be a couple of morons to not realize that it would look bad.

 

3. If they wanted to discuss the email investigation it is possible, although really stupid, that they thought that they could get away with it.

 

 

So we are left with two choices. The did something reckless although there was no purpose but they were just too stupid to know better, or they did something reckless because there was a purpose to it and they hoped that they could get away with it.

 

It's true that we will never know. We do know that it hurt her, and if Bill and Loretta did this on a whim, there are not words to describe how dumb it was.

 

Ken, I think you are falling into a trap that easily gets all of us now and again - that this is a binary problem. But maybe it is something else, not right, but not concerning Hillary - so they could have deniability and not be lying. Maybe he wanted to know if there was anything new on the Russia-Trump collusion front. Maybe he wanted information about another investigation. Maybe he was asking for a job for someone he owned a political debt to. Perhaps he wanted to know the status of Hillary's investigation - secure in his belief in her innocence - but wondering why it was taking so long.

 

You get the point. It probably cost Hillary the election. He probably doesn't know why he did it.

 

But to say if it was not A then it had to be B is clearly wrong.

[PassedOut]

It's true that we will never know. We do know that it hurt her, and if Bill and Loretta did this on a whim, there are not words to describe how dumb it was.

There are other times too that Bill Clinton did stuff that I found unbelievably stupid. On the other hand, I've done stuff myself that I immediately realized was unbelievably stupid (like ruffing prematurely when I could beat the contract by discarding). Of course, I've never been interested in running for office...

 

When it comes to doing unconscionable things and unbelievably stupid things, Donald Trump beats out the presidents before him by a quite a bit. Seems that's not really a bar to being elected.

[kenberg]

There are other times too that Bill Clinton did stuff that I found unbelievably stupid. On the other hand, I've done stuff myself that I immediately realized was unbelievably stupid. Of course, I've never been interested in running for office...

 

When it comes to doing unconscionable things and unbelievably stupid things, Donald Trump beats out the presidents before him by a quite a bit. Seems that's not really a bar to being elected.

 

I also have dome unbelievably stupid things. No debate on that score. But I imagine the following.

Becky is being investigted by the FBI and the Justice Department.

I am at an airport.

My old friend Lorreta Lynch is at the airport. gee, I wonder ow het grandkids are. I think I will have a private chat with my friend Lorreta.

 

No. As the old expression goes, I may be dumb but I am not stupid.

 

I can only offer one actual experience. At one time I held a position in the math department that gave me considerable influence over what textbooks would be used for which courses. Shortly after assuming this position someone came around from a text book company and offered me a good fee for reviewing a new text. Without thinking, I said sure. Within hours, I came to me senses and called him back. I explained that I would be happy to accept such an offer as soon as my term in this position ended. Of course I could render an impartial decision about texts to be used, . But you might or might not believe this, and that's the point. I did not want anyone wondering how my decisions were made. It took me a few hours to realize this because such an event is rare for me, I rarely have power over anything. It is not at all rare for a person with political power to encounter such a conflict. It is inconceivable to me that such a thing did not occur to someone as experiences as Bill Clinton. I regard this as impossible.

[kenberg]

Ken, I think you are falling into a trap that easily gets all of us now and again - that this is a binary problem. But maybe it is something else, not right, but not concerning Hillary - so they could have deniability and not be lying. Maybe he wanted to know if there was anything new on the Russia-Trump collusion front. Maybe he wanted information about another investigation. Maybe he was asking for a job for someone he owned a political debt to. Perhaps he wanted to know the status of Hillary's investigation - secure in his belief in her innocence - but wondering why it was taking so long.

 

You get the point. It probably cost Hillary the election. He probably doesn't know why he did it.

 

But to say if it was not A then it had to be B is clearly wrong.

 

See my response above to PassedOut

[RedSpawn]

First of all, just a correction, is that the link you provide shows that the Clinton/Lynch meeting was not legally ex parte, as no judge or juror was present.

 

Now, as to your argument, let me propose a simple experiment followed by a question: assuming that the meeting was as Lynch-Clinton described, i.e., innocent, what could falsify that claim? I would say a witness, a tape of the conversation, or a video would all disprove the claim of innocence.

 

Now, as to the claim that this was a conspiracy to protect Hillary from prosecution: what would you say could falsify a conspiracy idea? Would you accept the same proofs that a conspiracy did not occur?

The Prosecutor and Judge are both Department of Justice agents of the principal which is the sovereign entity of the United States of America. Ex parte applies to both. But let's move beyond mere conjecture.

 

Please click the following link http://congressionalresearch.com/RL30060/document.php for information about the McDade-Murtha Amendment, 28 U.S.C. 530 B which contains a "no contact rule" for state and federal prosecutors. This federal law was passed by Congress to hopefully curtail prosecutorial misconduct.

 

Under the no contact rule, they suggest that the Attorney General should only be talking to Hillary Clinton's lawyer not Bill Clinton even if the contact occurs pre-arrest and pre-indictment. Again, the judge and prosecutor are to avoid even the slightest appearance of impropriety. The Department of Justice doesn't like this amendment, but those are the ethical standards and federal laws by which we must abide. We picked a very contentious area of the law.

[Winstonm]

See my response above to PassedOut

 

You are still missing my point, Ken. Does (A) being impossible automatically mean (B), a conspiracy, occurred? That is my point.

[nige1]

Updated proverb: Be sceptical of ascribing to unlikely coincidence what you can, instead, attribute to stupidity, ignorance, deadly sin, or (usually) all of these. .

[kenberg]

You are still missing my point, Ken. Does (A) being impossible automatically mean (B), a conspiracy, occurred? That is my point.

 

Of course not. We will never know if a conspiracy occurred. This means that if it comes to a jury trial I will acquit. If saying I would acquit if on a jury suffices, then yes, I would acquit.

[Winstonm]

The Prosecutor and Judge are both Department of Justice agents of the principal which is the sovereign entity of the United States of America. Ex parte applies to both. But let's move beyond mere conjecture.

 

Please click the following link http://congressionalresearch.com/RL30060/document.php for information about the McDade-Murtha Amendment, 28 U.S.C. 530 B which contains a "no contact rule" for state and federal prosecutors. This federal law was passed by Congress to hopefully curtail prosecutorial misconduct.

 

Under the no contact rule, they suggest that the Attorney General should only be talking to Hillary Clinton's lawyer not Bill Clinton even if the contact occurs pre-arrest and pre-indictment. Again, the judge and prosecutor are to avoid even the slightest appearance of impropriety. The Department of Justice doesn't like this amendment, but those are the ethical rules and federal laws by which we must abide. We picked a very contentious area of the law.

 

Now find a reason for Jared Kushner to clandestinely meet with the Russian Ambassador, have a second clandestine meeting with a representative from a Russian bank that is sanctioned in the U.S., and then for Kuchner to suggest to the Russian Ambassador that they allow Kushner a clandestine back channel contact with the Kremlin using Russia's communication systems.

[rmnka447]

Describing belief in "a much "simpler answer" is actually pretty funny when you break down what that means:

 

A) "Official version": Two old friends met on a runway and visited for 30 minutes about family and old times.

 

B) "Coonspiracy version": Two old friends, one beholding to the other, planned a clandestine meeting by arranging to land two large aircraft at the same airport in order to hide from view, when any number of truly secret methods of communicating were available, and in 30 minutes concocted a plan to protect Hillary from prosecution regardless of what the FBI investigation found, knowing that the head of the FBI was rigorously straightforward and unafraid to back down powerful people who tried power plays, and these two people who were so smart to be able to compromise the FBI and Justice Department were too stupid to keep their meeting a secret, knowing that if came to light that it would probably cost Hillary dearly.

 

Yet B is the simple answer? :P Also, the use of the typical conspiracy website close: how can we trust the government? doesn't help the argument :o

 

Now, with that said, I agree that the was a monumentally stupid thing to do - and it looks quite suspicious on its face. And it was the one act that probably did cost Clinton the election. None of that rises to the level of conspiracy.

 

If you have listened to John Dean, you would know that he time and again talks about Watergate being a series of blunders by the White House - not the well-orchestrated cover-up it is sometimes presented as. Smart people do stupid things all the time - there is no reason to believe that Clinton/Lynch were any less susceptible to random stupid acts than anyone else.

I think the operative word that describes why all these "smart" people do stupid things is "hubris". To some extent, it applies to President Trump. It certainly applied to the Nixon White House, and definitely to the "entitled" Clintons.

 

I would ask you to compare the approach of the Lynch DOJ to the Sessions DOJ in these investigations. And in doing so, I think you have to consider that the DOJ under Jeff Holder, and, subsequently, under Loretta Lynch had clearly become politicized.

 

When Jeff Sessions was linked with some meetings with Russians, he promptly recused himself from the Russian investigation. Subsequently, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, who has a pretty squeaky clean reputation of being apolitical, took over the oversight of the investigation. After only 2 weeks in his job as Deputy Attorney General (due to the Dems slow walking all Trump appointments), Rosenstein decided a Special Counsel was appropriate to remove all doubts as to the integrity of the investigation and whatever resulted from it. His choice was former FBI Director Mueller who also has a strong reputation of being apolitical. Whatever transpires going forward, it will be hard to attach any political motive/influence to what happens.

 

When her dubious meeting with Bill Clinton became public, Loretta Lynch did not officially recuse herself from the Clinton investigation. Instead, she said she would leave the decision on what to do with any findings to the DOJ's "career prosecutors". That might be OK, but with no way to make it apparent that whatever followed was without any political influence, it made whatever followed very problematic.

[RedSpawn]

Describing belief in "a much "simpler answer" is actually pretty funny when you break down what that means:

 

A) "Official version": Two old friends met on a runway and visited for 30 minutes about family and old times.

 

B) "Coonspiracy version": Two old friends, one beholding to the other, planned a clandestine meeting by arranging to land two large aircraft at the same airport in order to hide from view, when any number of truly secret methods of communicating were available, and in 30 minutes concocted a plan to protect Hillary from prosecution regardless of what the FBI investigation found, knowing that the head of the FBI was rigorously straightforward and unafraid to back down powerful people who tried power plays, and these two people who were so smart to be able to compromise the FBI and Justice Department were too stupid to keep their meeting a secret, knowing that if came to light that it would probably cost Hillary dearly.

 

Yet B is the simple answer? :P Also, the use of the typical conspiracy website close: how can we trust the government? doesn't help the argument :o

 

Now, with that said, I agree that the was a monumentally stupid thing to do - and it looks quite suspicious on its face. And it was the one act that probably did cost Clinton the election. None of that rises to the level of conspiracy.

 

I want you to look at what we discussed from my original e-mail about almost everyone surrounding Clinton being mired in controversy:

 

1) Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC Chairwoman, fell from grace by claiming objectivity on national TV but clearly showing favoritism towards the Clinton campaign in her e-mails.

a) she had to recuse herself from the DNC convention as she had become a distraction.

b) she had to eventually resign from the DNC because her leadership and fundraising efforts became bad for political business.

 

2) Debbie Wasserman Schultz' staff sent brainstorming emails on how to sabotage Bernie by religious affiliation

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html?_r=0

 

3) Donna Brazile, DNC Vice Chairwoman, presided over the DNC convention since Schultz had to recuse herself. see 1)a)

a) Donna Brazile had funneled debate questions to the Clinton campaign ahead of the CNN debates with Bernie Sanders.

b) Donna Brazile had to resign as Commentator from CNN because she had violated her employer/client relationship in her zeal to assist the Clinton campaign.

 

4) AG Loretta Lynch's unscheduled meeting with Bill Clinton compromised her integrity and independence in the investigation of the Clinton e-mail server scandal.

a) AG Lynch had to recuse herself from the investigation.

b) She went on a public apology tour on the news networks trying to explain it as an innocent rendezvous between old work buddies.

c) She agreed to accept whatever recommendations the FBI would make.

 

I have to ask this question, because it gets to the heart of "conspiracy theories":

 

HOW MANY ISOLATED COINCIDENCES CONSTITUTE REALITY OR (EQUAL A PATTERN)?

 

Granted A+B+C≠D. True enough, correlation doesn't equal causality.

 

Am I to believe instead that each and every one of these events are isolated coincidences that warrant no further consideration? Why does Hillary Clinton seem to have the worst of luck with her associates?

 

The government is known to release propaganda. See link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

Propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view. Propaganda is often associated with the psychological mechanisms of influencing and altering the attitude of a population toward a specific cause, position or political agenda in an effort to form a consensus to a standard set of belief patterns."

What the government calls propaganda I call programming. Why? When any series of "isolated incidences" conflict with the government's programming efforts (or narrative), the government can use its reputation, 241 year history, and information obtained from its intelligence gathering services as a shield against dissenters.

 

The government has the upper hand because the burden of proof is always on the dissenter. The government doesn't have to release evidence that could implicate itself; it could classify that information, deny its existence, destroy evidence, fabricate evidence to smear the reputation of the dissenters, or delay addressing the concern to "stall" the momentum. The dissenters revealing the glaring inconsistencies are ostracized and relegated to "nut job" realm because the programming is THAT good and THAT repetitive and THAT continuous. A conspiracy has little downside risk for governments because as long as the government provides physical security and ample public goods to its citizens, the public will almost always grant the government official the benefit of a doubt even when there is growing evidence showing something amiss.

[RedSpawn]

Now find a reason for Jared Kushner to clandestinely meet with the Russian Ambassador, have a second clandestine meeting with a representative from a Russian bank that is sanctioned in the U.S., and then for Kuchner to suggest to the Russian Ambassador that they allow Kushner a clandestine back channel contact with the Kremlin using Russia's communication systems.

 

Processing. . . .Processing. . . .Processing. . .LOL.

 

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/images/data-positronic-brain.jpg

[cherdano]

Subsequently, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, who has a pretty squeaky clean reputation of being apolitical, took over the oversight of the investigation. After only 2 weeks in his job as Deputy Attorney General (due to the Dems slow walking all Trump appointments),

rmnka447, meet reality.

 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said last month he would hold up the vote on Rosenstein until FBI Director James B. Comey briefed his panel about probes into alleged ties between the Trump administration and Russian officials — a matter that was then out of Rosenstein’s control.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-confirmed-as-deputy-attorney-general/2017/04/25/e59bc3a8-29dc-11e7-be51-b3fc6ff7faee_story.html?utm_term=.b34c6763ed2b

 

You should really reconsider the sources you are relying on...

[Winstonm]

Some it seems are waking up to the importance of fact-checking sources: (emphasis added)

 

Here’s neoconservative writer Max Boot tracing the arc of his attitudes toward Fox News:

 

Although Ailes had been pushed out of Fox News by the time of his death due to a raft of sexual harassment scandals and had no hand in the latest Seth Rich hoax, this is nevertheless the unfortunate culmination of his efforts to create an alternative news source. It was an ambition that I and many other conservatives sympathized with when Fox News went on the air in 1996. We had long chafed under what we viewed as the stifling liberal orthodoxy propagated by the major broadcast and print outlets. While not exactly “fair and balanced” — Ailes always meant the channel’s slogan to be taken with a wink and a nod — Fox was supposed to provide some ideological balance within the larger media universe. That was a laudable ambition, but what Fox has become is far from laudable.

 

Not only is it a toxic workplace where the harassment of women is rampant; it is also a no-fact zone. The Pulitzer Prize-winning website PolitiFact found that nearly 60 percent of the statements it checked on Fox News were either mostly or entirely false. Another 19 percent were only half true. Only Fox News viewers are likely to believe that climate change is a hoax, that there is a “war on Christmas,” that Obamacare would create “death panels,” that there is an epidemic of crime committed by immigrants (they actually have a lower crime rate than native-born Americans), that President Barack Obama forged his birth certificate and wiretapped Trump with the aid of Britain’s signals intelligence agency, and that the accusations bedeviling Trump are a product of “Russophobia.” FNC might as well stand for Fake News Channel, and its myths have had a pernicious, indeed debilitating, effect on U.S. politics.

[RedSpawn]

Now find a reason for Jared Kushner to clandestinely meet with the Russian Ambassador, have a second clandestine meeting with a representative from a Russian bank that is sanctioned in the U.S., and then for Kuchner to suggest to the Russian Ambassador that they allow Kushner a clandestine back channel contact with the Kremlin using Russia's communication systems.

 

Before we get to the Kushner/Russian angle, I think you should know that Donald Trump is in violation of 5 U.S.C. §3110. He can't hire his daughter and son-in-law into executive branch positions. :blink:

 

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2010-title5/pdf/USCODE-2010-title5-partIII-subpartB-chap31-subchapI-sec3110.pdf

 

(a) For the purpose of this section—

(1) “agency” means—

(A) an Executive agency;

(B) an office, agency, or other establishment in the legislative branch;

( C ) an office, agency, or other establishment in the judicial branch; and

(D) the government of the District of Columbia;

(2) “public official” means an officer (including the President and a Member of Congress), a member of the uniformed service, an employee and any other individual, in whom is vested the authority by law, rule, or regulation, or to whom the authority has been delegated, to appoint, employ, promote, or advance individuals, or to recommend individuals for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement in connection with employment in an agency; and

(3) “relative” means, with respect to a public official, an individual who is related to the public official as father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, or half sister.

(b) A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official. An individual may not be appointed, employed, promoted, or advanced in or to a civilian position in an agency if such appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement has been advocated by a public official, serving in or exercising jurisdiction or control over the agency, who is a relative of the individual.

( c ) An individual appointed, employed, promoted, or advanced in violation of this section is not entitled to pay, and money may not be paid from the Treasury as pay to an individual so appointed, employed, promoted, or advanced.

(d) The Office of Personnel Management may prescribe regulations authorizing the temporary employment, in the event of emergencies resulting from natural disasters or similar unforeseen events or circumstances, of individuals whose employment would otherwise be prohibited by this section.

(e) This section shall not be construed to prohibit the appointment of an individual who is a preference eligible in any case in which the passing over of that individual on a certificate of eligibles furnished under section 3317(a) of this title will result in the selection for appointment of an individual who is not a preference eligible.

 

Two questions:

1. 
    
   
2. Where the hell is Trump's White House legal counsel because they are asleep at the wheel? I am NOT on the federal payroll and found this in short order. Trump can NOT hire his son-in-law into a federal government position as Senior White House Advisor.
   
3. How did the Office of Personnel Management not catch this violation of federal law? Did they miss Ivanka Trump's last name before they added her to the payroll register as Assistant to Trump. Just messy!
   

[RedSpawn]

You are still missing my point, Ken. Does (A) being impossible automatically mean (B), a conspiracy, occurred? That is my point.

 

Agreed. A+B+C does not equal D. We just have more questions than our government is able or willing to answer on the matter even when the fact pattern indicates that several things are askew. That is so frustrating!

 

We also have a government mired in $20 TRILLION in debt who has intelligence services from the rooter to the tooter and yet we can't get straightforward convincing answers on this matter. It's only natural to wonder is this political stonewalling or another poor example of our tax dollars at work?

[Zelandakh]

A) "Official version": Two old friends met on a runway and visited for 30 minutes about family and old times.

 

B) "Coonspiracy version": Two old friends, one beholding to the other, planned a clandestine meeting by arranging to land two large aircraft at the same airport in order to hide from view, when any number of truly secret methods of communicating were available, and in 30 minutes concocted a plan to protect Hillary from prosecution regardless of what the FBI investigation found, knowing that the head of the FBI was rigorously straightforward and unafraid to back down powerful people who tried power plays, and these two people who were so smart to be able to compromise the FBI and Justice Department were too stupid to keep their meeting a secret, knowing that if came to light that it would probably cost Hillary dearly.

There are a few middle options here too. One obvious possibility is that the meeting was not planned but that BC, after finding out that LL would be at the same airport, thought he could pull in a favour and make some problems go away without the backlash being too damaging. That is, no full conspiracy but a simple miscalculation from BC. I think the campaign season showed that his political instincts are not as sharp as they were back when he was in office, so such a scenario seems eminently plausible to me.

 

 

Before we get to the Kushner/Russian angle, I think you should know that Donald Trump is in violation of 5 U.S.C. §3110. He can't hire his daughter and son-in-law into executive branch positions. :blink:

There are ways around most regulations. If he were to delegate the choices for those roles to his chief of staff and he were to choose Trump's relatives as "the best person for the job", that would presumably be legal, just about. Nepotism happens - when the Chief of Police in Haven dies and the successor in the role just happens to be his son, well that is just a normal thing out there in the real world. Whether Trump bothered to go through such steps to comply with the letter of the regulations I do not know. But it would be a brave/foolhardy person in the HR department to say "no" to the POTUS on such a technicality. The only reason I could think of for someone taking that action would be because they wanted to hear him say "You're fired!" up close and personal. :lol:

[cherdano]

I would ask you to compare the approach of the Lynch DOJ to the Sessions DOJ in these investigations. And in doing so, I think you have to consider that the DOJ under Jeff Holder, and, subsequently, under Loretta Lynch had clearly become politicized.

 

When Jeff Sessions was linked with some meetings with Russians, he promptly recused himself from the Russian investigation. (...)

 

When her dubious meeting with Bill Clinton became public, Loretta Lynch did not officially recuse herself from the Clinton investigation.

It is also worth pointing out how ridiculous this comparison is on the merits.

Sessions was part of the main organisation under investigation (the Trump campaign), he had contacts with Russia, and he did not disclose them until news media found out about them. He would be potential witness, and even possibly a target of the investigation.

Lynch had an half-hour chat with the husband of the person under investigation.

 

The thing that gets me about rmnka447 is that he is clearly intelligent and eloquent. Yet he uses his eloquence to reproduce non-sensical spin from right-wing websites. You can win a real-life debate like that. But in a forum like this one, where most (except for the few how are already on your side) are able to check and verify facts, people may just end up pointing at you and laughing - you certainly won't convince anyone.

 

rmnka447 - how about you try to make one argument here where you try to argue on the merits, rather than reproducing nice-sounding spin with no substance whatsoever? It'd be a much better use of your time.

 

I am completely aware that I may live my life in a left-wing bubble. It would be good to get some reality checks, and to have someone occasionally burst the bubble by pointing out inconvenient facts that would be more convenient for me to ignore. But reading the kind of non-sense presented by Trump supporters in this thread just reinforces the impression that everybody in my left-wing bubble gets everything about Trump 110% right.

[Zelandakh]

I am completely aware that I may live my life in a left-wing bubble. It would be good to get some reality checks, and to have someone occasionally burst the bubble by pointing out inconvenient facts that would be more convenient for me to ignore. But reading the kind of non-sense presented by Trump supporters in this thread just reinforces the impression that everybody in my left-wing bubble gets everything about Trump 110% right.

It is a strange twist that reading the articles from American right-wing sources always seems to provide much stronger arguments for leaning left than anything produced by European politicians such as Corbyn or Schulz. My natural politics is Tender (politic-speak for non-authoritarian) and very slightly to the right of centre on the radical-conservative axis but American influences makes me feel increasingly social democratic rather than liberal. That said, I would probably vote for the FDP here if I had the option tomorrow, so perhaps it is more a matter of perception than anything of substance.

 

Hmmmmm, lack of substance? Perhaps this post has more to do with Trump than I thought! :lol: