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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

fruitpork Since: Oct, 2010
#238151: Apr 9th 2018 at 11:20:30 PM

Seriously, where is that site with the contingency plan for protests when mueller is fired?

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#238152: Apr 9th 2018 at 11:31:18 PM

[up]https://www.trumpisnotabovethelaw.org/event/mueller-firing-rapid-response/search/

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#238153: Apr 10th 2018 at 3:42:41 AM

Does this count as as admittance of Intent to Onstruct Justice?

The Attorney General made a terrible mistake when he did this, and when he recused himself. The Attorney General made a terrible mistake when he did this, and when he recused himself.

The Attorney General made a terrible mistake when he did this, and when he recused himself.

[down] part of a speach actually.

edited 10th Apr '18 4:00:09 AM by megaeliz

BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#238154: Apr 10th 2018 at 3:49:39 AM

Did Trump repeat the same thing in a tweet three times?

[up]Oh.

edited 10th Apr '18 4:27:00 AM by BearyScary

Do not obey in advance.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#238156: Apr 10th 2018 at 4:50:35 AM

So I take it we're counting the hours until Mueller gets fired then?

"Yup. That tasted purple."
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#238157: Apr 10th 2018 at 4:55:59 AM

[up] who knows. He can't fire Mueller directly, and it might take him some time to actually find someone's willing.

Good morning Donald.

Attorney–client privilege is dead!

A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!

Remember how Trump told people to ask Micheal Cohen to ask his lawyer? Well, the FBI was like, okay.

edited 10th Apr '18 5:27:13 AM by megaeliz

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#238158: Apr 10th 2018 at 5:20:52 AM

Hasn't Cohen been one of the major voices restraining Trump from attempting to fire Muller?

edited 10th Apr '18 5:21:03 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#238159: Apr 10th 2018 at 5:36:22 AM

[up] yeah, he was before he left at least.

And a new song parody!

edited 10th Apr '18 6:30:28 AM by megaeliz

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#238160: Apr 10th 2018 at 6:30:39 AM

Also, I may as well put this here, just to set the record straight.

People are spreading misinformation about a research organization that Facebook is working with to come up with a new privacy policy.

In response to the scandal, Zuckerberg is going to hand over regulatory power on the use of data for academic research to, and I'm not making this up, the Charles Koch Foundation.

"Facebook" and "Kotch" in the same sentence, I know!

It's not nearly as bad as this makes it out to be. The organization that there are working with, The Social Science Research Council, is very highly reguarded as a legitimate research organization, and is funded through both Liberal and Conservative sources, and shouldn't be feared.

You can read the press release about the project here.

edited 10th Apr '18 7:05:36 AM by megaeliz

BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#238161: Apr 10th 2018 at 7:11:03 AM

The organization that there are working with, The Social Science Research Council, is very highly reguarded as a legitimate research organization,
I didn't know the Koch's funded legitimate research.

[down] Yes, thank you, I'm an idiot and their names are too close together.

So it looks like the raid on Cohen's office isn't just about Stormy, but about other payments from foreign sources that Trump took during the campaign season - including $150k from the Ukraine, solicited by Comey Cohen. Full article text 

WASHINGTON — The special counsel is investigating a payment made to President Trump’s foundation by a Ukrainian steel magnate for a talk during the campaign, according to three people briefed on the matter, as part of a broader examination of streams of foreign money to Trump and his associates in the years leading up to the election.

Investigators subpoenaed the Trump Organization this year for an array of records about business with foreign nationals. In response, the company handed over documents about a $150,000 donation that the Ukrainian billionaire, Victor Pinchuk, made in September 2015 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute appearance by Trump that month through a video link to a conference in Kiev.

Michael D. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer whose office and hotel room were raided on Monday in an apparently unrelated case [Page 3], solicited the donation. The contribution from Pinchuk, who has sought closer ties for Ukraine to the West, was the largest the foundation received in 2015 from anyone besides Trump.

The subpoena is among signs in recent months that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is interested in interactions that Trump or his associates had with countries beyond Russia, though it is not clear what other payments he is scrutinizing.

Mueller also ordered the Trump Organization to turn over documents and communications about several Russians, including some whose names have not been publicly tied to Trump, according to the three people, who would not be named discussing the ongoing investigation. The identities of the Russians were unclear.

The payment from Pinchuk “is curious because it comes during a campaign and is from a foreigner and looks like an effort to buy influence,” said Marcus S. Owens, a former head of the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees tax-exempt organizations.

Cohen did not respond to a request for comment. Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for the president, did not return several messages seeking comment, nor did a lawyer for the Trump Organization.

The inquiry into the Trump Organization’s payments from foreign nationals underscores how diffuse Trump’s sources of income have been over many years. And the destination of Pinchuk’s donation — the Trump Foundation instead of the president’s personal coffers — raised fresh questions about how the president handled the entity he set up to deal with charitable giving.'

And according to at least one poll, likely voters are more focused on health care - and Republicans have the rest of the year to try and destroy it. Full article text 

Front pages continue, understandably, to be dominated by the roughly 130,000 scandals currently afflicting the Trump administration. But polls suggest that the reek of corruption, intense as it is, isn’t likely to dominate the midterm elections. The biggest issue on voters’ minds appears, instead, to be health care.

And you know what? Voters are right. If Republicans retain control of both houses of Congress, we can safely predict that they’ll make another try at repealing Obamacare, taking health insurance away from 25 million or 30 million Americans. Why? Because their attempts to sabotage the program keep falling short, and time is running out.

I’m not saying that sabotage has been a complete failure. The Trump administration has succeeded in driving insurance premiums sharply higher — and yes, I mean “succeeded,” because that was definitely the goal.

Enrollment on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges has also declined since 2016 — with almost all the decline taking place in Trump administration-run exchanges, rather than those run by states — and the overall number of Americans without health insurance, after declining dramatically under Obama, has risen again.

But what Republicans were hoping and planning for was a “death spiral” of declining enrollment and soaring costs. And while constant claims that such a death spiral is underway have had their effect — a majority of the public believes that the exchanges are collapsing — it isn’t. In fact, the program has been remarkably stable when you bear in mind that it’s being administered by people trying to make it fail.

What’s the secret of Obamacare’s stability? The answer is that the people who designed the program were extremely smart. They managed to create a system that’s pretty robust to shocks, including the shock of a White House that wants to destroy it.

From the beginning, Republicans hated Obamacare not because they expected it to fail, but because they feared that it would succeed, and thereby demonstrate that government actually can do things to make people’s lives better. And their nightmare is gradually coming true: Although it took a long time, the Affordable Care Act is finally becoming popular, and the public’s concern that the G.O.P. will kill it is becoming an important political liability.

What this says to me is that if Republicans manage to hold on to Congress, they will make another all-out push to destroy the act — because they’ll know that it’s probably their last chance. Indeed, if they don’t kill Obamacare soon, the next step will probably be an enhanced program that lets Americans of all ages buy into Medicare.

So voters are right to believe that health care is very much an issue in the midterm elections. It may not be the most important thing at stake — there’s a good case to be made that the survival of American democracy is on the line. But it’s a very big deal.

edited 10th Apr '18 7:20:22 AM by BlueNinja0

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#238162: Apr 10th 2018 at 7:12:46 AM

[up] Comey? I think you mean Cohen.

Disgusted, but not surprised
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#238163: Apr 10th 2018 at 7:22:06 AM

Here's the SSRC's Wikipedia page.

The organization has a long history, going back to 1923, and traces it's root's back to the progressive era idea of having independent research organizations of experts that could provide objective information and solutions to policymakers about social problems, especially one's brought on by the industrial revolution. It also had people like Franklin Roosevelt on it's board of directors, and helped lead the push for social security.

edited 10th Apr '18 7:25:40 AM by megaeliz

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#238164: Apr 10th 2018 at 7:35:38 AM

We finally got a response from a Congressional R (Adam Kinzinger of Illinois) mildly rebuking Trump's response to the search on Cohen.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/politics/adam-kinzinger-donald-trump-michael-cohen-mueller-cnntv/index.html

Also, Tim Bossert (who I've never really heard of before) has resigned as homeland security advisor to Trump. No reason given but apparently Bolton all but forced him out.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/trumps-top-homeland-security-advisor-tom-bossert-to-resign.html

Another response from Congress, Senator Grassley (R-IO) said that it would be "suicide" for Trump to fire Mueller. He's pretty senior to.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/politics/chuck-grassley-firing-mueller-suicide/index.html

Maybe the GOP is just praying that Trump cools down so they don't have to make a stand one way or the other?

edited 10th Apr '18 7:55:15 AM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#238165: Apr 10th 2018 at 7:57:09 AM

[up]

Maybe the GOP is just praying that Trump cools down so they don't have to make a stand one way or the other?

If they really are hoping for this, they're even dumber than I thought. And I think they're fucking idiots.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#238166: Apr 10th 2018 at 7:59:00 AM

I imagine it's less stupidity driving them (though that's absolutely present) and more desperation, they see that this isn't sustainable for them but the base is still with him so they can't come out against it more forcefully.

They're trapped between a rock and a hard place grin

edited 10th Apr '18 7:59:14 AM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#238167: Apr 10th 2018 at 7:59:28 AM

So you would find evidence of them being that stupid not just disgusting but also surprising?

tongue

edited 10th Apr '18 7:59:51 AM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#238168: Apr 10th 2018 at 8:03:24 AM

[up][up]They need Trump's base to preempt or mitigate a Blue Wave, but if they go too far in protecting him, they turn off moderates, demoralize other parts of their base, and get Democrats even more hyped up to vote.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#238169: Apr 10th 2018 at 8:06:46 AM

[up]Quite right, this is a no-win situation for them.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#238170: Apr 10th 2018 at 8:08:17 AM

Republicans are in an impossible political bind.

  • They have to achieve something noteworthy in the party's "lower taxes, cut entitlements" agenda or they lose the donor class. However, by executing this agenda, they're losing the working class.
  • They have to take a hard line on immigration to appease the working class, but they can't actually kick out the immigrants or the donor class will be mad, since much of that class makes a lot of money off of exploiting illegals.
  • They need to appease Trump to keep the hardcore Trump-supporting base (and all the Fox News pundits) from abandoning them, but appeasing Trump is clearly insane and will lead to massive defeat at the hands of moderates and energized Democratic voters.
  • They can't fall back on their "Republicans as the party of responsible government" thing any more, because the Trump administration is clearly anything but responsible and they're doing nothing to stop it. Further, their anti-deficit rhetoric rings hollow given that their tax plan blows it up.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#238171: Apr 10th 2018 at 8:08:37 AM

[up][up][up][up] The GOP's malice doesn't surprise me. Only its stupidity has the potential to shock me. Slightly.

[up] Which probably explains why their campaign strategies consist of such gems as "But Hillary!" and "Vote for us or they'll impeach Trump!"

edited 10th Apr '18 8:10:18 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#238172: Apr 10th 2018 at 8:28:44 AM

Also, Tim Bossert (who I've never really heard of before) has resigned as homeland security advisor to Trump. No reason given but apparently Bolton all but forced him out.
That's not a good sign.
Maybe the GOP is just praying that Trump cools down so they don't have to make a stand one way or the other?
The GOP is down to sending themselves Thoughts And Prayers?

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#238173: Apr 10th 2018 at 8:50:50 AM

Double posting for an article. In yet another chip away of our Fourth Amendment rights, the Supreme Court ruled that police are fully entitled to "shoot first and think later." Full article text 

The Supreme Court just ruled that a police officer could not be sued for gunning down Amy Hughes. This has vast implications for law enforcement accountability. The details of the case are as damning as the decision. Hughes was not suspected of a crime. She was simply standing still, holding a kitchen knife at her side. The officer gave no warning that he was going to shoot her if she did not comply with his commands. Moments later, the officer shot her four times.

“Shoot first and think later,” according to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is what the officer did.

As Sotomayor argued in dissent, the court’s decision means that such “palpably unreason­able conduct will go unpunished.” According to seven of the nine Justices, Hughes’ Fourth Amendment right to not be shot four times in this situation is less protected than the officer’s interest in escaping accountability for his brazen abuse of authority. According to Justice Sotomayor, “If this account of [the officer’s] conduct sounds unreasonable, that is because it was. And yet, the Court [] insulates that conduct from liability under the doctrine of qualified immunity.”

Worse yet, this decision wasn’t a surprise. And it certainly isn’t an aberration.

In fact, it is just the latest in a long line of cases in which the Supreme Court has decimated our ability to vindicate constitutional rights when government actors overstep. And when law enforcement oversteps, as was the case with Hughes, the consequences can be devastating.

As Professor William Baude explains, “[t]he doctrine of qualified immunity prevents government agents from being held personally liable for constitutional violations unless the violation was of ‘clearly established’ law.” If any reasonable judge might have deemed the action permissible, the law is not “clearly established.” Essentially, if you want to sue a police officer who you think violated your constitutional rights, you first have to convince the court that what happened to you was so outrageous that no reasonable person could have thought it was okay.

This makes excessive force cases a steep uphill battle. Such cases turn on the Fourth Amendment — a constitutional right that is notorious for its murky and context-specific contours. So proving a Fourth Amendment violation is hard enough on its own. When you have to prove a “clearly established” violation, the task becomes all but impossible because the Supreme Court keeps raising the bar. This further disempowers those injured or killed by police, and their surviving families.

Let’s examine the evolution of the term.

In 1982 it meant that “a reasonable person would have known” an action was unlawful. Fast forward to 2010 and “clearly established” meant that “every ‘reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.’” The difference between “a” and “every” may seem technical, but, as Dean Chemerinsky and the late Judge Stephen Reinhardt explained, this change marks the difference between a measured fair notice standard under which it was possible to hold law enforcement accountable and what we have now: a system that “protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”

Qualified immunity has become a misnomer. It should be called what it is, as Justices Sotomayor and Ginsberg did in their dissent from last week’s opinion. It is an “absolute shield.”

This absolute shield subverts the basic principles of our legal system. It’s supposed to be harder to hold someone criminally liable than civilly liable, but is it? If you unknowingly commit a crime and the government wants to put you in prison for it, you can’t use your ignorance of the law as a defense. But if an officer makes “a mistake of law” by unreasonably gunning you down in your own backyard, that officer gets to use the defense of qualified immunity to avoid paying damages in a civil case.

It doesn’t take a law degree to know this is absurd.

Furthermore, it turns out the doctrine of qualified immunity has no legal basis in the first place — the courts simply made it up. So how can it possibly be justified?

The Supreme Court has told us that the doctrine “balances two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.” That maybe sounds okay in theory, but Hughes’ case is just the latest to show us that in reality, there is no balance and there is no accountability.

The court’s qualified immunity doctrine contributes to the deep deficit in police accountability throughout our country, which disproportionately threatens and ends the lives of people of color, people with mental or physical disabilities, and members of LGBTQ communities. We are collectively holding law enforcement to the lowest standard of performance, when we should instead incentivize better, smarter, and more humane policing.

The result of the court’s decision is clear. Our right to not be unreasonably shot by the police is less protected, and therefore less important, than the court’s interest in shielding police officers from civil liability for their abuses of authority.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#238174: Apr 10th 2018 at 8:58:25 AM

Eh, give it a few hours and he'll probably have forgotten all about this in favour of screaming about not getting an invite to next month's royal wedding.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#238175: Apr 10th 2018 at 9:14:18 AM

[up]X4 See their stupidity doesn’t surprise me, it’s when they’re smart that I’m surprised, that’s why the White House putting people on fox so as to get info to Trump surprised me, becuse that’s kinda smart.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

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