Not to mention the fact that an incoming president IS NOT PRESIDENT and has no business WHATSOEVER making or suggesting foreign or domestic policy on behalf of the US. Trump and his team could and should have waited until he was inaugurated.
Imagine a scenario where a major conflict arises between Election Day an Inauguration Day and Russia or China or any other major international power breaks a treaty or responds differently, thereby pulling the US into the conflict, all because the President Elect made back-channel agreements without the knowledge of the sitting president or US policy makers and military leaders.
Between Election Day and Inauguration Day is when the US is most vulnerable. Trump and/or his transition team must be held accountable for undermining official US foreign policy during that time.
What on earth are you talking about? Gerrymandering? You are being absurd. Have you forgotten the great compromise? We are not a democracy, we are a republic, and from the very beginning not every vote has had an equal impact. That’s not ever going to change.
The idea that first amendment rights are or ought to be suspended because you or the person you work for has been elected president is insane. Talking to Russians, telling them current US policies are idiotic and we will change them when/if we are in power isn’t a crime, it’s a position statement. Don’t agree? Try to prosecute the Logan act and see where it gets you in the SC.
You quite clearly acknowledged that gerrymandering was a disenfranchisement of voters, but that you supported doing it anyway because those people wanted to kill you and thus denying them power was beneficial.
Based on things you used to stand for, this was disturbing to me, to see you voice such anti democratic views so openly… but you said it, and you send to understand what you were saying. It was… dark.
I agree that the Logan act has not been tested often, despite being on the books for over two centuries. Part of it is that it’s never really needed to be, but your potential constitutional argument based on the first amendment is potentially sound.
However, it’s also somewhat beyond the point.
It’s unlikely that the Logan act is what will do anyone in at this point… Just like getting a blowjob isn’t what did Clinton in.
It’s going to be obstruction of Justice that cracks things open… And the question you should be asking yourself now, is “why did they lie about this stuff to the FBI?” Because lying to the FBI is a felony… and two guys have already pleaded guilty to it now.
If, as you say, the Logan act is nothing… Then why are these guys committing felonies to try and hide that?
If that’s all there was, I doubt Mueller would have the leverage that he clearly has.
Believe it or not, there are laws on the books regulating interactions between US nationals and foreign powers other than the Logan Act and the Constitution.
In other news, Trump’s lawyer is now lying about Trump’s tweets.
Given how the tweet establishes that Trump knew Flynn had committed a crying when he fired him, and more importantly, when he took numerous steps to stop investigation of that crime… This is bad for Trump.
So now his lawyer is saying that Trump didn’t write the tweet, but instead the lawyer did.
But that’s absurd, when you read the tweet:
That’s clearly not a tweet that a lawyer wrote. A lawyer wouldn’t say plead rather than pleaded. That’s pure Trump.
Do you actually think Democrats would be trying to get rid of gerrymandering if it hurt them politically? Of course not. The hypocritical appeal to “principles” that liberals do not actually possess or believe in themselves are simply a political weapon and don’t deserve a hearing, Same deal with the “don’t your christian values say you should be for X” appeals coming from people who mock and have contempt for Christianity and Christians. Turnabout is fair play, sorry if you were thinking hypocrisy as a political strategy was going to work.
Reasonable questions. I don’t know why Flynn lied. Maybe to spare embarrassment to Pence who had denied any contact? Maybe because he’s a habitual liar? Maybe something darker? Who knows, but nothing of any significance to Trump has come out to date, and we are talking about well over a year of investigations.
LOL So pre-emptive undemocratic policies are justified based on your own partisan projections of behavior from the opposition party. Same goes for your screed on Christianity. You don’t get to claim some moral high ground based on your religion and then fail to abide by any of its tenets. It doesn’t work that way. And if the general public has an increased negative viewpoint of Christianity, it’s most likely because of the degree to which it’s yoked itself to the Republican party.
So the Dems have disenfranchised millions of white evangelicals from the polls in recent years? And they’ve gerrymandered to the same degree the GOP have this decade?
Your argument is based on the false equivalence that if I bump into you while standing in a grocery line, you’re justified in shooting me.
Who specifically drafted it is irrelevant. If the lawyer wrote and posted it with Trump’s knowledge and consent, then it’s just as if Trump had written it himself. That’s what lawyers do, act as their client’s agents.
If the lawyer posted it without Trump’s knowledge or consent, then he’s committed an ethical breach that he can get him disbarred, and what kind of lawyer admits that? A totally incompetent one.*
The whole “the lawyer actually wrote the tweet” thing is just an attempt by Team Trump to distract from what Trump did in those tweets, which is attempt to change the terms of the debate. Trump said he didn’t tell Comey to stop his investigation into Flynn. But note what Trump doesn’t say. He doesn’t say “I never told Comey to stop his investigation in general,” or “I never told Comey to stop his investigation into me, or Kushner, or Manafort” etc. etc. He’s denying one extremely specific instance of obstruction of justice, while conspicuously not denying other ones.
Though part of me wonders if the Trump’s defense team’s entire plan is to paint themselves as incompetent. Take Trump lawyer Ty Cobb. I can easily imagine him strolling into court the first day and saying, “Your honor, I call for a mistrial on the grounds that defendant did not have competent counsel. Take me, for example. I’m named after an old-timey baseball player. I have a handlebar mustache and wear bow ties. I tell my client misleading and obviously false things like, ‘The Mueller investigation will have blown over by Thanksgiving.’ I loudly discuss my client’s case in public places where reporters are sure to hear me.I post press releases in Comic Sans. In short, I am a cartoon stereotype of an inept lawyer. Is it possible that the President of the United States - the most powerful man in the world! - could be adequately represented by a bumbling buffoon such as myself? Obviously not!”
This is completely immaterial, because you are just engaging in some lame imagined world where your crimes are justified based upon your own imagination that others MIGHT commit the same crimes that you know you are engaging in.
This is nonsensical in the extreme, and you know it. Not only is it based upon an imagined, not real, action taken by others… but even if it were real, it’d just be whataboutism. Even in that case, it wouldn’t actually be a justification for doing something you already admit is wrong.
But you are failing to even meet the level of a logical fallacy here, instead just justifying your doing the wrong thing based upon nothing more than a presumption that someone else might do the wrong thing.
This is beneath you.
Following the word of Christ is not contingent upon others being Christian. You are supposed to be doing those things because you believe them to be right.
Christ himself spoke of this on multiple occasions, and specifically told his followers how to act in the face of persecution. That’s where the whole turn the other cheek thing came from.
If you don’t file the teachings of Christ, you aren’t Christian. And that’s fine. But don’t embarrass yourself by saying the only reason you’ve abandoned your faith is because other folks made fun of you. Because if that’s the case, you were never actually a Christian. You never actually had any faith. It was just, at most, a habit.
Except that he himself has mentioned, multiple times now, that he took specific actions to try and stop the investigation.
Let justice be done though the heavens fall. If the investigation turns up impeachable wrongdoing, then he should be impeached. If not, then he can serve out his term, as for some bizarre reason 60 million Americans decided it would be a good idea for a sociopathic narcissist of low intelligence, reprehensible morals, and zero political or foreign policy experience, to take a turn at being the most powerful person in the world.
Unless it really looks like he’s about to start a nuclear war, in which case I’m not sure procedural niceties will matter as much.
I really think a lot of people who voted for him thought he was his scripted character from The Apprentice. I would be shocked if he is elected again, unless the Dems pick a bowl of rotting shark flesh for a candidate.
