They haven't uncovered any evidence that shows collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian hacking. If such evidence emerges, that's a different story. That's why you have an investigation first... if by mount a defense you mean not demanding impeachment and half the cabinet being fired over what has thus far amounted to virtually nothing, then sure. Forgive us for not acting hysterical. You've clearly demonstrated how objective and rational you are about all of this.
I don't get this... the dude's a lawyer. So much so that he's the fucking AG. I've NEVER seen a lawyer answer in any solid manner around a question that they weren't sure of. They ALWAYS couch it like "not that I recall" or "I do not believe so", but he responded, "absolutely not". And he was wrong. He made a false statement under oath. Now, the hard part is "why?", and that may never be learned or proven one way or the other. But I'll tell you that when a lawyer answers incorrectly, in such strong and unequivocal language, to me it seems fishy. I don't trust the fucker at all.
The guess is that it's "The Big Lie." The lie so big there's no surviving if you get caught in it, so you might as well go all in on it. Or it could be a genuine brainfart. As I said above, the "best case scenario" is that we merely have a drug warrior AG who was too racist for 80's Republicans.
https://twitter.com/rvawonk/status/837405299833176066 It's just too much and I don't believe in coincidences. Especially at this high of a level of power. And like I mentioned yesterday, my anger and frustration would be just as high if we were talking about a democrat. But they aren't the ones in power right now. And no, I'm not a conspiracy theorist because I'm not pulling shit out of my ass without evidence.
The actual conspiracy theorists are saying that this is a hit on Sessions because he uncovered a shadow slush fund used by the Obama Administration and this is an attempt to hide the truth by the deep state. Now that is a conspiracy theory.
Maybe a lot, maybe nothing. A democrat senator who was on the same committee came out and claimed to have never met with any Russian officials, with the obvious implication being there had to be something fishy about Sessions' meetings. Turns out she forgot she met with the Russian ambassador herself... twice. These senators meet with dozens of people on a given day. He recused himself from the investigation, which is appropriate. The democrats are demanding he resign. Maybe you disagree, but to me that's overkill. So is calling for Trump to be impeached already. There's a big difference between it should be looked into, and just fire everyone you think looks suspicious.
Trump's Russia connections are not proven enough to be impeachable yet, but the Congress should be united in forcing an aggressive investigation on the topic and they have not been. The GOP has been more reluctant than a sober christian girl on prom night to investigate literally anything that might help the country over their party. Russia aside, Trump is presently impeachable for several things, the most prominent of which are: Gross incompetence Failure to divest from his businesses and attendant conflicts of interest. Repeated statements indicating he will order US armed forces to commit war crimes. Repeated statements indicating he will violate the North Atlantic Treaty.
Anyone else think that Ryan has played this Trump thing very well and has positioned himself for a run at some point down the road?
Honestly, not really. If Trumpism wins (and God help us all if it does), Ryan will just be that late-to-the-party "nerd" who is too weak to ever be God Emperor. If Trumpism loses, he'll be branded as a quisling piece of shit coward who will be driven out of town on a rail.
Just read the Fox story this is based on. There's definitely a wonkish argument to be made that the program sidesteps Congress's power of the purse in a way that should be amended, but the piece tries so hard to make money going to groups that provide legal service for the poor seem like some nefarious deep state plot by Obama reaching from beyond the political grave.
I don't know if this has been posted before, but, in the name of conspiracies: https://patribotics.wordpress.com It's good reading. At least interesting.
The scandal part of it is that it wasn't going to the poor, it's going to fringe left wing political groups. Plus it would be a violation of probably a dozen laws. I don't want to indulge it anymore than necessary. It's probably bogus, but if there was a shred of truth to it, I don't think I want to know. On another note, I'm a big fan of Charles Krauthammer's commentary. Here's an interesting read on something that I haven't seen covered much anywhere else. It's essentially about how a new checks and balances system came out of the work.
So I don't even know what to make of this one. Trump is now tweeting that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the election. It's either a lie, in which case it's an insane story. Or it's true, in which case a FISA court saw enough evidence to take the extraordinary step of ordering a wiretap on a major party candidate for US President, which is an insane story. (Trump also took the opportunity during this tweetstorm to shit on Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Apprentice ratings, because of course he did)
Even the most ardent Republican critics of Obama are demanding Trump present proof. I dont know how the people that work in the lower rungs of the White House dont die of embarrassment.
So the government is now caught in this weird spiral. Trump watches/reads some random news report. It has an outlandish claim, like Obama has wiretapped his phone. Then Trump tweets about it. As soon as he does it becomes national news. Now these claims exist in the public sphere and proof is demanded. So now Trump will order an investigation into Obama wiretapping his phones based on some random news report that is probably made up. And so it goes. Government resources are wasted investigating conspiracy theories, all because Trump decides to tweet it. The same thing happened when some random dude on Twitter claimed that 3 million illegals voted for Hillary. Regardless, of your political affiliation everyone has to agree that Trump has to stay the fuck off of Twitter.
I saw this when I lived in Korea: the government would stir up a distracting scandal while passing unpopular legislation. So everytime I see this nonsense, I'm curious what bills are being churned through the machine. And Trump thus far has spent a lot of time at Mar-a-Lago and NY, costing millions....so wasting resources is a valid concern at this point.
After the sloppy roll out of the first order, the travel ban is coming back. Similar to the first with a few changes. Iraq isn't included, and those with green cards and visas are allowed entry. It's also not being implemented for ten days. I really doubt they pass anything this week, but republicans are saying they will put forward a replacement bill for the ACA. I'm split between thinking Trump made this accusation to try to distract the media from talking about Russia 24/7, or he really just read a breitbart article and his immediate reaction was to lose his shit on twitter. It's probably the latter.