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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I know people whose only source of information is the local evening news who will believe or disregard the political stories at will based on whether the story says something good or bad about Trump. They'll even agree with Democratic positions until they hear Trump say something to the contrary. For them, Trump is a political position on himself, only he speaks the truth.
I mean, I remember something posted awhile ago that said like 80% of Trump supporters are perfectly fine disregarding things they already believe, if Trump says the opposite. Trump could say "the wall is bad and never going to happen." and they'd be absolutely fine with it because Trump is the one who said it.
At this point, it's almost like a cult.
edited 9th Apr '18 4:13:51 PM by LSBK
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Yeah, I have a few acquaintances (I can't, in good conscience, actually call them friends) who are die-hard Trump supporters. They're all like: "Oh, he's like your best friend; he'll do anything for you."
Jeezus F***ing Christ, no he's not!!! Wake the F*** up, you shitheads! Trump isn't your best friend, he only cares about himself! How stupid can you possibly be!?
Unfortunately, you can't reason with these people. They've been conditioned for decades to oppose anyone who isn't a life-long Republican.
edited 9th Apr '18 4:18:09 PM by pwiegle
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.Did Trump just admit to intent to Obstruct Justice on live television?
It certainly sounded like it to me.
This is very relevant I think.
edited 9th Apr '18 5:50:28 PM by megaeliz
I knew it was the absolute truth and not hyperbole the instant he was voted in as president after advocating rape.
I don't think that really works logically, he barely won by a few thousand votes. That doesn't mean that he's invulnerable to losing votes, if anything if just 1/10 of his people decide to stay home (which is more than possible) then he would be doomed come 2020.
To be perfectly frank I think it would be a bad idea to take anything Trump says seriously from a factual perspective (considering the source).
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangCohen's page on the GOP site is now pulling a 404 error.
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Wouldn't be new, considering he claimed that threatening Comey affected his testimony.
Someone asked if there was any response from Congressional Republicans yet.
Well, it's not quite that, but Gov. Mike Huckabee has tweeted this response...
Sean Spicer has told Fox News that Trump should let Mueller's investigation play out and I'm hearing that the judge who approved the warrant for Cohen's raid was the person Trump picked to replace Preet Bahara, but I can't confirm it.
And the Washington Post has done an annotated response to Trump's rant on television.
Trump’s tirade after the Michael Cohen raid, annotated
Apologies for the lack of quotation here, but the article really needs to be read to see the annotations, which are basically fact checking what Trump has just said. For example, right at the start of Trump's rant where he claims the FBI has broken into Cohen's property, the annotation is as follows:
The U.S. attorney’s office did not “break in”; it got a warrant. And in fact, as Philip Bump notes, getting permission to raid an attorney’s office is much more onerous:
The U.S. Attorneys’ Manual details six additional safeguards when raiding an attorney involved in a case:
- Before obtaining a search warrant, investigators had to try to obtain the evidence in another way, such as by subpoena.
- The authorization for the warrant had to come from either the U.S. attorney or an assistant attorney general. (Rosenstein is deputy attorney general, a higher position than assistant attorney general.)
- The prosecutor had to confer with the criminal division of the department before seeking the warrant.
- The team conducting the search had to “employ adequate precautions” to ensure that they weren’t improperly viewing privileged communications between the Cohen his clients.
- The search team would have included a “privilege team” including lawyers and agents not working the case which would work to ensure that investigators conducting the search didn’t see privileged communications.
- The investigators had to develop a review process for the seized material.
edited 9th Apr '18 6:12:20 PM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Yeah, there's a reason Spicer was something of a Woobie back when he was Press Secretary - you could tell that he initially thought it'd be like other Press Secretaries' tenures, and was woefully unprepared for just how loudly, overtly, and often his boss would lie through his teeth and he'd have to try picking up the pieces.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"An excerpt:
“The hell with it,” Trump said, recounting the scene with his aides to a West Virginia crowd last week. Trump tossed the staff-prepared remarks on tax cuts in the air and ducked as the paper fluttered to the floor. “I said, ‘This is boring, come on.’ Tell it like it is.”
This president has never been one to stick to a script, but that abandoned speech illustrates a new phase in Trump’s presidency. He is increasingly at odds with his staff — and growing wise to their tactics.
One favored staff strategy: Guide the president to the right decision by making the conventional choice seem like the only realistic option. Except now, 14 months into his administration, Trump is on to them, and he’s making clear he won’t be boxed in.
That was the message that an irritated Trump delivered to his national security team last week in a classified meeting about U.S. involvement in Syria.
What should we expect from now on?
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.Meanwhile, this is also going on...
Warning of ‘repercussions,’ Trump company lawyers seek Panama president’s help
The law firm, Panama-based Britton and Iglesias, wrote in Spanish to President Juan Carlos Varela on March 22 to “urgently request your influence in relation to a commercial dispute regarding the Trump hotel.”
At the time, the majority owner of the Trump hotel — Cypriot-born investor Orestes Fintiklis — had kicked out the Trump Organization as the hotel’s manager, after a ruling from a low-level Panamanian judge. The president’s company was seeking to retake control.
The request was extraordinary: The U.S. president’s company was asking the leader of a U.S. ally to intercede on its behalf, disregarding Panama’s separation of powers.
It is the first known instance of the Trump Organization asking directly for a foreign leader’s help with a business dispute since Trump was elected.
In their letter, the Trump Organization’s lawyers did not say explicitly how they wanted the Panamanian president to help. Varela, through a spokesman, has said he has not yet taken any action.
The letter, obtained by The Washington Post, does not explicitly reference President Trump or threaten any actions by the U.S. government. The letter refers to his company as the “well-known Trump Organization.”
A spokesman for Varela, Vladimir Rodriguez, said that the president had seen the letter and was “evaluating the issue” but had made no decisions about whether to take action. Rodriguez said the issue is “in the hands of the corresponding authorities” but did not elaborate.
A spokesman for Panama’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Post that “this is about differences between businesses, a case already attended by the court. This is not a bilateral matter between governments and not even a political issue.”
On Monday, Panama’s foreign secretary, Isabel de Saint Malo, told the Associated Press that her office had also received a copy.
He's got the White House counsel and his subordinates....but there are limits to how they can be used.
I seriously think that Trump is going to try and fire Mueller, and damn the consequences, in the next few days. And elected Republicans aren't saying a word, we don't even have the token "don't do it, please" from Lindsay Graham yet.
Rule of law in the US is about to get put to a serious stress test. If it fails (which, in the long-term, I do not think is likely), you are well on your way to becoming the next Poland or Hungary.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

I've been waiting for Renato Mariotti's thread:
1/ Today the @nytimes reported that the FBI executed a search warrant at Cohen's offices, seizing a computer, phone, and personal financial records. The @washingtonpost reports that attorney-client communications were seized, which is not surprising.
2/ The @washingtonpost also reports that Cohen is under investigation for bank fraud and campaign finance violations. That is consistent with the original @nytimes reporting that records relating to Stormy Daniels were seized. Cohen was responsible for that agreement and payment.
3/ So what does this tell us? Many things. First, federal prosecutors in Manhattan presented evidence to a federal judge who concluded that there is good reason to believe that Cohen committed a crime and that evidence of that crime was located in Cohen's office.
4/ That means that Cohen is under investigation and that there is substantial evidence that evidence of a crime was at his office. It also means that federal prosecutors believed that they could not obtain the same records via subpoena. That's unusual and interesting.
5/ The United States Attorneys' Manual (DOJ's guidelines for federal prosecutors) disfavors search warrants of attorneys' offices. Section 9-13.420 states that "prosecutors are expected to take the least intrusive approach" and should consider subpoenas instead of a warrant.
6/ Section 13.420 requires authorization by the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, consultation with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, a search warrant that is as narrow and specific as possible, and procedures to safeguard privileged materials.
8/ The fact that federal prosecutors obtained a search warrant tells us that they believed that they would not obtain the same records if they used a subpoena. That's not only what 9-13.420 requires, but it's also common sense—the prosecutors had an incentive to use a subpoena.
9/ Cohen is an attorney who has his own lawyer. If the prosecutors used a subpoena, Cohen's attorney would be obligated to go through all the documents and materials himself and produce only what's relevant to the prosecutors. He would be responsible for organizing them as well.
10/ Instead, prosecutors and FBI agents decided to take upon themselves the hefty task of seizing these documents, setting up complicated procedures to weed out privileged materials, and organize and digitize the documents. They wouldn't have done that if they didn't have to.
11/ This suggests that they have some information about Cohen that suggests that he would destroy evidence, hide evidence, or otherwise deceive the prosecution team. So what does this mean for Trump? It's an issue for him for at least two reasons.
12/ First, his relationship with Cohen appears to go beyond a typical lawyer-client relationship, by Cohen's own description. Communications between Cohen and Trump would be reviewed by a "taint team" that is separate and walled off from the investigators.
13/ If the taint team found communications between Trump and Cohen that were not privileged, those communications could be used in the investigation. An example would be communications that are completely unrelated to legal advice, or communications furthering an ongoing crime.
14/ Second, Trump should be concerned because Cohen appears to have significant potential criminal liability. He could potentially cooperate against Trump, although he appears unlikely to do so. Trump could pardon Cohen for any federal offense, but he cannot pardon state crimes.
15/ Most importantly, because the search warrant was required to be "drawn as specifically as possible," the fact that the FBI seized Trump's communications with Cohen suggests that the FBI believed that those communications may provide evidence in their criminal investigation.
16/ That should worry Trump. It doesn't necessarily mean that investigators believe Trump committed a crime, but it suggests that they believe that his communications would have potentially contained useful evidence. He was, at least, in close proximity of a crime.
17/ One question that is raised by this news that we cannot answer is why Mueller chose to refer this case to Manhattan prosecutors instead of handling it himself. Perhaps we will learn more in the days to come that could shed light on his decision. /end