Yeah, but that was because Nixon fired the special prosecutor, preventing the finding of any additional wrongdoing. In this scenario, Mueller would have completed the investigation and found squat.
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PoliGAF 2017 |OT3| 13 Treasons Why
- Thread starter RustyNails
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Yeah, but that was because Nixon fired the special prosecutor, preventing the finding of any additional wrongdoing. In this scenario, Mueller would have completed the investigation and found squat.
And this is why the Democrats (and media) messaging has been pretty much horseshit. Full on collusion shouldn't be the bar. I feel like at this point unless we have tapes of Trump and Putin sitting down together planning things then no one is going to care about anything. It shouldn't be that at all. Obstruction of justice is a big deal, especially because Flynn is very likely to face some big consequences himself and that's what Trump was trying to obstruct. It's not nothing if no collusion is found. It's still very very likely no real definitive collision will ever be found. It doesn't need to be, though.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
If he doesn't at least wind up prosecuting Flynn I'll be very surprised.
AntraxSuicide
Banned
Actually it's been good for this reason. We can't change reality; if he did something wrong, good! If he didn't, drag him around for years over it anyway.
They do this all the time. Ask Hillary.
ErasureAcer
Banned
Quoting for the hillarity. There are a lot of wizkids here yet none seem to run, not even for dog catcher.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
PolGAF is probably responsible for a lot of how I've recalibrated around politics and idealism just for sort of consistently exposing me to the nitty gritty electoral stuff that's going on all the time
This is not at all correct. The smoking gun was a tape of Nixon discussing asking the FBI to slow down or halt their investigation -- which is something we already know Trump did.
In addition, though, in terms of firing people, Trump has already fired the FBI director to try to stop the investigation!
I'm saying drag him around for doing something wrong. Definitely keep that strategy. The problem is that people are harping on the only thing he could possibly be doing wrong is collusion and how we must find that out. No, we must find out everything he's done wrong or is doing wrong and what's happened with Russian interference.
The Chosen One
Member
Trump really is illogical.
Wow.... If that's true, everyone else is playing some variation of chess or checkers, while Trump is playing Chutes and Ladders.
I have been learning a shitton of stuff here and on the PennyArcade boards, which oddly enough also have a politics-heavy off-topic that runs about as blue as GAF.
Edit: funny thing is i went to Penny Arcade based on the quality of the community recommended by a friend, i kind of don't like the comic strip (though it has its moments)
Trump really is illogical.
Does he think Mueller's scared of being fired? The dude left a better and more well-paying job for this if I remember right.
JesseEwiak
Member
Welcome to "Team We'll Become Denmark Via Crushing Inch-by-Inch Pragmatic Progressivism."
shinra-bansho
Member
Why would anybody want to run for dogcatcher?
RustyNails
Member
Pigeon is running for Tulsi Gabbard's seat. IT IS WRITTEN.
shinra-bansho
Member
Oh St Birdie, patron saint of crankiness, has an op-ed in the failing NYT. Kisses of death for all.
Not everyone is only obsessed with money, okay? Some just want to make a difference any way possible, and rounding up some dirty, dirty dangerous dogs is a way to do it.
Seriously, WaPo 4 Lyfe.
AntraxSuicide
Banned
Yeah it's kinda creepy. Like back in high school, there was a guy who's ambition was to be a funeral home director/mortician. Valuable job, needed service for grieving families, but I always got the creeps being around a teenager who wanted to grow up and embalm corpses.
fredrancour
Member
Raise a glass to freeeeeedom
The Chosen One
Member
I probably would have said the same thing in April when there was a lot of smoke around Trump's "satellites" but nothing overt coming from Trump directly.
But after Trump fired Comey and asked multiple intelligence directors to "lay-off" the Michael Flynn investigation, literally committing obstruction of justice, I'm now of the belief there is some real fire somewhere in all the smoke. The common adage is that "the coverup is bigger than the crime". Yes that adage is a bit cliche but the reason prosecutors/investigators go aggressively after the coverup is because the vast majority of people don't engage in a coverup if there was no crime. There are many instances too where the crime itself may be difficult to investigate and come to a clear conclusion but the coverup can be revealing because people often get sloppy and behave erratically over time when they have something to hide.
Someone is definitely going down from Trump's campaign. The question will be how close does it touch Trump directly. Trump might still be able to escape the scandal if the troubles stay exclusively to Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, and none the business dealings touch Trump's interests whatsoever. Trump might be able to escape by throwing them under the bus. But the more Trump talks and tries to intimidate the prosecutors and officials running the investigation, the more he drags himself into whatever sweeping net they're going to use to catch wrong-doings from his administration and campaign.
This is going back, but someone remind me why Johnson was impeached - just because he was a Democrat?
ostensibly because he defied an unconstitutional law regarding cabinet appointments
but also for talking shit about Congress (article x)
https://www.nps.gov/anjo/learn/historyculture/the-articles-of-impeachment.htm
seriously, read this while thinking of Trump
Civil War Reconstruction shenanigans
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Andrew_Johnson
And I do mean shenanigans.
BlastProcessing
Member
Way better paying. He probably makes an order of magnitude more in his private gig.
neurosisxeno
Member
I've been considering it at a local level, but I don't have the requirements necessary to realistically win in my town. I live in like the 2nd or 3rd wealthiest town in VT, that ends up being strangely conservative, and odds are they don't want to vote for a 27 year old liberal with no college degree who has worked in nights in manufacturing for the past ~7 years. If you're going to get involved you basically need to have your own personal savings which is why people with high paying jobs, inherited wealth, or business owners tend to get their shot at things. On top of that, a lot of states make things like city council seats and local level position essentially volunteer jobs--so unless you have a good source of income you can barely or outright can't survive on the pay you would get from your political position alone.
Plus I don't think I would weather opposition research well.
Yeah but that all stemmed from the firing of the special counsel, which changed the focus of the investigation from the break-in to obstruction. Besides that, plenty of people in Nixon's adminstration were eventually implicated and charged in connection to the break-in. Like I said, in a hypothetical scenario where Mueller finds no evidence of collusion, I really don't care about an obstruction accusation based mostly on Comey's testimony.
RustyNails
Member
Besides I dont think Mueller is assembling a team of Mafia, FinSec, Enron and other specialized government lawyers just to bring an Obstruction of Justice charge.
You ought to.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Yeah, I was going to say either Dem candidate would start out as the favorite. I suspect Perriello might have been able to better tap into an antiestablishment sentiment, but that might not be super helpful in a state like Virginia either.
neurosisxeno
Member
It doesn't necessarily mean he's going for Treason either. When you're dealing with an investigation that has a lot of publicity and potentially implicates the President of the United States, you assemble an all-star team of lawyers and investigators so there's little to no doubt you got the verdict right. If he assembles this team and they push for any charges, you can almost rest assured that they're gonna stick.
Let us remember that Trump said, explicitly, on camera, that he intended to obstruct the investigation.
Ossoff is heavily running an ad here against Handel's attempt to strip funding from Planned Parenthood. I see it now at the near total expense of his positive ads. I don't think it's working for him, people liked the sunny, youthful, agenda-driven ads he was running earlier. The ones where he spoke to the camera and said 'here's what I want to do'.
adamsappel
Member
At some point, Trump will be called to testify in secret about why he fired Comey, and he's going to have to swear that he did it because Comey was unfair to Hillary Clinton. Does anyone think he will be able to keep this up for more than two minutes?
VendettaRed07
Member
Anyone think dogcatchers ever feel bad about being made an example of all the time?
AntraxSuicide
Banned
Good move. Like someone here usually says, it'll be death by a thousand cuts with Trump, and so we just have to keep throwing out sharp stories.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Wonder if Perriello might consider another run for Congress in the future.
Orbis Tabula
Member
I don't know why you would lead any article with "nearly 200 Democrats" when you could use the more accurate, and pleasing "14 Democrats squared" instead.
ShironRedshift
Member
Yeah, one of my big takeaways from 2016 is that negative advertising is even more worthless than I thought it was. No matter how bad or damning the content, people don't care. They want to hear what you'll do for them if elected, not what your opponent did wrong.
It works, but can't be the only thing you are doing.
Also that she supports Trump is already the biggest negative advertising.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Btw, seems like the PPP internals for Northam were the only polls in Virginia that were on the mark. Had him up near double digits.
This is what I'd expect. Though I do imagine the campaign (or pacs) still need to hit the right negative notes in any given race, and that it can be completely misapplied.
Same reason you would run for anything else: it's about the guy who would be doing it if you didn't run.
shinra-bansho
Member
It's a dog catching job. Like why would there even be an election for it. Bizarre.
Also why assume strays are dangerous.
Also why assume strays are dangerous.
Autodidact
Banned
Would you trust Liberal Icon to be a dogcatcher?
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