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I'm less concerned about partisanship in Congress than I am about Congress being a campaign stop. In general across both parties politicians are a lot more sensible when not worrying about election results.

 feeder wrote:
Has anyone ever suggested otherwise?

All the talk I've heard has been how a compromised Trump is insulated from the consequences of his actions by a sycophantic and complicit House.

Thing is, anything that Mueller would indict Trump over would have to be so clearly established by the evidence and such a terrible crime that even this batch of Republicans would be compelled to impeach over it.

Anything that isn't damning enough to force impeachment won't prompt an attempt to indict a sitting president, and anything that's damning enough to justify trying to indict a sitting president will be more than enough to have already forced impeachment.


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 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, the Senate actually passed the repeal of the net neutrality repeal. Anyone want to take bets on how far it will get in the House and if Trump will even sign it?

Never going to get a vote in the House. It was a procedural miracle it got through the senate.

 sebster wrote:

 feeder wrote:
Has anyone ever suggested otherwise?

All the talk I've heard has been how a compromised Trump is insulated from the consequences of his actions by a sycophantic and complicit House.

Thing is, anything that Mueller would indict Trump over would have to be so clearly established by the evidence and such a terrible crime that even this batch of Republicans would be compelled to impeach over it.

Anything that isn't damning enough to force impeachment won't prompt an attempt to indict a sitting president, and anything that's damning enough to justify trying to indict a sitting president will be more than enough to have already forced impeachment.


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 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, the Senate actually passed the repeal of the net neutrality repeal. Anyone want to take bets on how far it will get in the House and if Trump will even sign it?

Never going to get a vote in the House. It was a procedural miracle it got through the senate.

Keep in mind that impeachment may not necessarily mean a removal from office. Bill Clinton was not removed but he was impeached.

Donald Trump decided to make it clear just in case anyone wasn't quite sure that he is a straight up bigot. Today in a roundtable on immigration he stated “These aren’t people. These are animals.”

Having been fired, Rex Tillersen is now talking quite freely about Trump, "(America faces) a growing crisis in ethics and integrity". He continues "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom." And we're going to see a lot more of this, people suddenly becoming principled again once they leave Trump's circle of power.

And finally, the guy who leaked details about the payments in to Michael Cohen's shell company gave an interview to Ronan Farrow, who published it in the New Yorker. The leaked documents were suspicious activity reports that banks file with government, and leaking them could lead to five years in prison. The leaker says he decided to leak them after observing other suspicious activity reports had been removed from the database, those other reports showed much bigger payments from foreign parties. Hypothetically these reports might be classified, but there is no known instance of this happening before, making the disappearance of these files extremely suspicious, given what they likely indicate about the president and his coterie. The leaker talks about the legal threat he now faces, "To say that I am terrified right now would be an understatement.... This is a terrifying time to be an American, to watch all this unfold."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/missing-files-motivated-the-leak-of-michael-cohens-financial-records

That last one is... just damn. Anyone who still doubts the scale and scope of what is happening right just needs to wise up, real fast.

 sebster wrote:
Having been fired, Rex Tillersen is now talking quite freely about Trump, "(America faces) a growing crisis in ethics and integrity". He continues "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom." And we're going to see a lot more of this, people suddenly becoming principled again once they leave Trump's circle of power.

Yes, you also see it with Mitt Romney since he didn't get that secretary of state gig.

Ideally I'd like to see these people remain unemployable for the rest of their adult lives. No, Sean Spicer, you don't get to rehab your image.

Also, reading that article jfc. Cohen apparently is the stupidest criminal alive.

 thekingofkings wrote:
Keep in mind that impeachment may not necessarily mean a removal from office. Bill Clinton was not removed but he was impeached.

When people talk about impeachment, they don't just mean the House vote, which by itself is meaningless. They also mean it heading to the senate, where it would secure a conviction. Maybe not the correct technical phrasing, but whatever. No-one is talking about the straight vote in the House just by itself.

 Ouze wrote:
Yes, you also see it with Mitt Romney since he didn't get that secretary of state gig.

Ideally I'd like to see these people remain unemployable for the rest of their adult lives. No, Sean Spicer, you don't get to rehab your image.

Sean Spicer leaving the White House and thinking he could play it up as a jokester was incredible. It showed an extraordinary lack of awareness, and almost no understanding that what he was going wasn't just incompetent, it was completely immoral.

Also, reading that article jfc. Cohen apparently is the stupidest criminal alive.

I think living in the bubble of NY organised white collar crime has developed a kind of laziness in Cohen and a lot of the rest of Trump's NY set. You see it in Giuliani as well, the approach he's taken in trying to defend Trump has been a disaster, and I think it's because Giuliani doesn't realise his audience. He's used to talking to investigators who are happy to find an excuse to look the wrong way, because there's just no establishment expectation or support for going after connected people on white collar crimes.

These guys are getting caught because before now they operated in an environment that had no interest in investigating or prosecuting them. By running for and becoming president, Trump drew the attention of the FBI and many private individuals that think crimes should actually be investigated and punished.

But I think the biggest part of the story isn't Cohen, but the disappearing files. That indicates an active cover up by people a lot more important than Cohen.

 thekingofkings wrote:
Keep in mind that impeachment may not necessarily mean a removal from office. Bill Clinton was not removed but he was impeached.

It doesn't, but the senate has a more impeachment-favorable R/D split than the house. If the impeachment case is sufficiently strong that it passes the house vote then the senate confirming it and removing Trump from office is a formality.

(In the case of Clinton it was the other way around: the house had the more favorable split, and everyone knew from the beginning that the senate was going to vote against impeachment. It was pointless political theater to have the house vote at all.)

This is going to slip under the radar, but that letter is the Trump appointed head of the Office of Government Ethics writing to the DOJ stating that Trump may have committed a crime by omitting the debt to Michael Cohen in his financial disclosures, and that should be factored in to already existing investigations in to previous disclosures. It reads like boring administration speak, but the substance is what is effectively a criminal referral that is to be added to an existing criminal investigation. Which is a pretty amazing thing for the acting head of OGE to be sending to the DOJ.

This seems to be the problem with so much of the Trump scandal cutting through - there's no cinema to it. It's just regular people following regular, boring processes. Those processes are steadily building the picture of a criminal network that's shockingly brazen, but the actual day to day development of that picture is just stuff like the letter above.

Watching All The President's Men, the film is effective and brings you in, not really because of the details of the crimes uncovered. Think of the scene in the parking garage, it is the storytelling that gets you in - there's the feeling of danger from the lurking shadows, there's a mystery man you can barely see and he's whispering in cryptic riddles. The scene is exciting and engages you in a mystery, but the scene itself is actually pretty useless, there's no real information given. Imagine if instead of that meeting in the parking garage the reporters just got a letter saying 'to assist in existing enquiries I provide the suggestion that you focus some of your resources on following the money'. People would walk out of the movie saying 'I sort of stopped paying attention, did Nixon do it?'

Then you look at the real world Nixon investigation, Nixon was eventually brought down when the secret tapes were released and they showed he knew of the administration's connection to the break-in and approved of the plan to get the FBI to stop the investigation. Trump's admission in interview over why he fired Comey is already as clear a piece of evidence as Nixon's recording. But Trump's admission didn't have the same effect because it was just something he blurted out in a tv interview, it lacked the cinema of secret recordings rumoured about, partially revealed, and then finally released in full after a Supreme Court case.

At this point we're not really waiting on any more evidence of Trump's crimes. In all honesty we have that about in five ways. We're basically waiting on a moment of big cinema that captures the law breaking in a way that makes people realise the scale of what we know about Trump. Some former aide going before congress and tearfully telling us that Trump did all the stuff we already know he did. Or a secret recording smuggled out of the whitehouse in someone's mouth that has Trump saying he fired Comey to stop the Russian investigation, like Trump has already admitted. That's the thing about the 'smoking gun' - it isn't really about a piece of clear, indisputable evidence that suddenly proves everything. Evidence doesn't work that way. The smoking gun is actually about a piece of big theatre, where the drama of the moment flicks a switch in people's brains and gets them to actually engage with the available evidence.

We may, of course, never get that moment with Trump. But also we might get it, and it will be a strange moment, because very suddenly lots of people will suddenly know Trump's crimes, but they will know it based on actual evidence that was already in place.

It'll be the Pee Tape, proving once and for all that we're in the Dumbest Timeline.

 Spinner wrote:
It'll be the Pee Tape, proving once and for all that we're in the Dumbest Timeline.

That's as likely as anything, and yes.

Well making all those fake goatees out of felt has been a waste then...

 sebster wrote:
Donald Trump decided to make it clear just in case anyone wasn't quite sure that he is a straight up bigot. Today in a roundtable on immigration he stated “These aren’t people. These are animals.”.

To be clear, that comment came in reference to illegal immigrants, in particular violent illegal immigrants and members of transnational criminal organizations, with MS-13 getting a special mention in that exchange. And it wasn’t an immigration roundtable, it was a rally the troops criclejerk focused on sanctuary city laws.

Incredibly dishonest to frame that comment as him referring to immigration in general. The fact that you don’t even bother to post the quote, or a video link that focuses on this brief exchange, despite clearly showing the willingness and ability (as I type this, on this very page even) to post links to support your claims on other subjects, makes me think its deliberate dishonesty. Its like you were afraid to reveal the context, or you only read the Huffpo headlines and take that for gospel.

My question is why? Is there anyone on this board that dislikes Trump based on policy alone but doesn’t believe he’s also bigot that will somehow be swayed to believe otherwise by your paraphrasing? Do you think there is an ardent Trump supporter who will read your doctored quote, have a Grinch that Stole Christmas moment and do some soul searching?

There’s plenty of gak that you can throw at 45. So much so that you don’t need to make gak up. He’s the living breathing font of that gak. In fact, making gak up just makes the real gak less impactful at this point.

Do better, dude.

He made it in reference to undocumented immigrants including violent ones, not in particular is my read on it. And this is coming from the man who called most Mexicans rapists, so I fall more on the side of Sebster's view on this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/trump-undocumented-immigrants-animals.html

IMO the only 'animals' out there are the ones who engage in sexual assault--putting base instinct over conscious thought or morality.

No, those are people too. Nothing good has ever come of claiming the right to define who is human and who isn't.

It's just another Trump dog-whistle to his base.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
He made it in reference to undocumented immigrants including violent ones, not in particular is my read on it. And this is coming from the man who called most Mexicans rapists, so I fall more on the side of Sebster's view on this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/trump-undocumented-immigrants-animals.html

Even that articles very title says he’s only referring to some illegal immigrants. Which illegal immigrants was he referring to as animals than, if not the violent ones? The word “some” implies he’s not referring to the collective.

I’m not arguing that 45 isn’t a goon of the highest order, mind you. Just that he doesn’t need any quotes to be taken out of context or parsed to add to his repertoire of boneheaded comments.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
He made it in reference to undocumented immigrants including violent ones, not in particular is my read on it. And this is coming from the man who called most Mexicans rapists, so I fall more on the side of Sebster's view on this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/trump-undocumented-immigrants-animals.html

Even that articles very title says he’s only referring to some illegal immigrants. Which illegal immigrants was he referring to as animals than, if not the violent ones? The word “some” implies he’s not referring to the collective.

I’m not arguing that 45 isn’t a goon of the highest order, mind you. Just that he doesn’t need any quotes to be taken out of context or parsed to add to his repertoire of boneheaded comments.

His staff was discussing deporting criminal immigrants, which is an awfully broad category. Not all criminals are violent, yet Trump starts ranting about animals. Did you hear what he said, he never used the word violent once in his response.

He considers most Mexicans to be animals by his own standard considering what he said about Mexicans in the past. He just piles them all on the gang/drug cartel groups without facts.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
IMO the only animals put there are the ones who engage in sexual assault--putting base instinct over concious thought or morality.

I see what you did there

Remember, some of them are good people.

 d-usa wrote:
Remember, some of them are good people.

....I assume.

 d-usa wrote:
Remember, some of them are good people.

Yeah, they make his traditional taco bowls at Trump Tower

 nels1031 wrote:
There’s plenty of gak that you can throw at 45.

I wish we wouldn't refer to Trump as "45". I'm not saying it's wrong per se, he is the President and this is a tradition done previously. My issue is that people more commonly associate "45" with the greatest weapon that ever was or ever will be invented, and it's very disrespectful to even think about Donald Trump in a way that might make people think of John Moses Browning's gift to mankind.

45 will always be the best music format.

 sebster wrote:
Donald Trump decided to make it clear just in case anyone wasn't quite sure that he is a straight up bigot. Today in a roundtable on immigration he stated “These aren’t people. These are animals.”

No... he didn't call immigrants "animals"... he was talking about MS-13.

You fell for it man... hook, link, sinker...

You want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump... by gratuitously feeding his #FakeNews mantra.

Frankly, I think Trump ought to apologize to the animals.

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:
Donald Trump decided to make it clear just in case anyone wasn't quite sure that he is a straight up bigot. Today in a roundtable on immigration he stated “These aren’t people. These are animals.”

No... he didn't call immigrants "animals"... he was talking about MS-13.

You fell for it man... hook, link, sinker...

You want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump... by gratuitously feeding his #FakeNews mantra.

Frankly, I think Trump ought to apologize to the animals.

No, you get more Trump by republicans voting for Trump.

Actually iirc he also never says MS-13 either, just as he doesn't say violent. Take that as you will, because the women had a muchh broader question that didn't boil down to MS-13.

“We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — we’re stopping a lot of them,” Mr. Trump said in the Cabinet Room during an hourlong meeting that reporters were allowed to document. “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.”

This is just the latest in years worth of statements on illegal immigrants. We don’t need a spin to know what he thinks and says.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:
Donald Trump decided to make it clear just in case anyone wasn't quite sure that he is a straight up bigot. Today in a roundtable on immigration he stated “These aren’t people. These are animals.”

No... he didn't call immigrants "animals"... he was talking about MS-13.

You fell for it man... hook, link, sinker...

You want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump... by gratuitously feeding his #FakeNews mantra.

Frankly, I think Trump ought to apologize to the animals.

No, you get more Trump by republicans voting for Trump.

Yes...that's true... and even swing voters.

Here is the quote from the article....

“We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — we’re stopping a lot of them,” Mr. Trump said in the Cabinet Room during an hourlong meeting that reporters were allowed to document. “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.”

Now, I think we need a bit more context; you know like 'You didn't build that", "Basket of Deplorables", and "Clinging to their Guns and Bibles" to get at the actual meaning of the President here.

However, since when has anyone let a good sound bite be ruined by context?

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
His staff was discussing deporting criminal immigrants, which is an awfully broad category. Not all criminals are violent, yet Trump starts ranting about animals. Did you hear what he said, he never used the word violent once in his response.

I see where the confusion is. The article that you linked and seem to be getting your info from has the conversation jumbled. The conversation with Sheriff Mims happens before the rant in question, at the mention of MS-13, a violent organization by most sensible standards , Trump sounds off with the rant, as he is want to do. MS-13 is his immigration boogeyman. Seems clear that he's only referring to the violent offenders.
There is video and the Whitehouse.gov transcript that show it in the correct sequence.

Video at this link: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-hosts-california-sanctuary-state-roundtable-live-updates/

White House transcript: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-roundtable-discussion-tax-reform/

For what its worth, the transcript is interesting reading on its own.

I guess its the yanny/laurel thing. Different people hearing different things

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
He considers most Mexicans to be animals by his own standard considering what he said about Mexicans in the past. He just piles them all on the gang/drug cartel groups without facts.

I get that, but at this point do we need to omit wording or parse statements to cement your belief? Who doesn't/does think he's racist at this point that will be swayed by these new comments? There are no fence sitters at this point, imo. Its already baked into the cake.

It was a gak post, plain and simple. Sebsters, not yours, btw.