2018 American Political Scene

[astralis]

AR,

Newsflash....

The US Intelligence Community (CIA, DIA, NSA, etc.) is responsible for finding Bin Laden, not USSOC. Once CIA had confirmation USSOC executed the raid within days.

But I guess that's not important for this "discussion."

well, this was the guy who said he was too busy to visit Arlington National Cemetery even though his schedule was actually empty.

also, in that same interview with Chris Wallace, he dumped on the US intel agencies twice-- once in regards to the Khashoggi affair and the second in regards to NK.

joe,

Jesus fecking CHRIST...does the insanity ever stop?

i have found one quote that has helped me understand. "there are no limits, and there is no bottom."

[tbm3fan]

This "Administration" is a shit stain on the fabric of America. 2 years in and it still feels like a nightmare that I should be waking up from.

Well there is one saving grace courtesy Trump and that is his ego and thank god for that. A large ego is always your worst enemy and always leads to one's downfall. He will double down on that now in the next two years so we will just have to suck it up till the next election.

[tbm3fan]

Just for TH who I know appreciates Trump as much as I do. As a comedian he would have endless stuff to make jokes about but the problem is that he is a comedian, and a bad one, sitting in the WH.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/19/polit...iew/index.html

3. "She was with me for a long time, although I don't know her. She's really somebody I don't know very well. But we're going to move her around because she's got certain talents."

OK, so here's Trump on Mira Ricardel, the NSC staffer removed at the request of Melania Trump: 1) She was with him for a long time b) He doesn't know her c) He doesn't know her very well c) She'll stay within the administration because she has "certain talents." We all clear on that? Good!

39. "I would give myself, I would -- look, I hate to do it, but I will do it. I would give myself an A-plus, is that enough? Can I go higher than that?"

Two things: 1) He doesn't hate to do it 2) The President asked if he could give himself a grade higher than an "A+." So, here we are.

40. "I should have done that, I was extremely busy on calls for the country. We did a lot of calling as you know."

This is Trump's explanation on why he didn't go to Arlington National Cemetery on Veteran's Day. "Extremely busy" on calls. "For the country."

and on that last quote we have nothing but a piece of dung.

[TopHatter]

Well there is one saving grace courtesy Trump and that is his ego and thank god for that. A large ego is always your worst enemy and always leads to one's downfall. He will double down on that now in the next two years so we will just have to suck it up till the next election.

As I said before, just like Colonel Nathan Jessup USMC, it will be Trump's own mouth that causes his ultimate downfall.

A sociopath's brain isn't wired to understand when it needs to the STFU.

[Double Edge]

Well there is one saving grace courtesy Trump and that is his ego and thank god for that. A large ego is always your worst enemy and always leads to one's downfall. He will double down on that now in the next two years so we will just have to suck it up till the next election.

Yes he will and who in the opposition is going to stand a chance against him ?

Any contenders

[DOR]

Yes he will and who in the opposition is going to stand a chance against him ?

Any contenders

Think back to the 1976 election, or 1992: One aspect may be that the other side has a better candidate, which (given the extremely low bar) shouldn't be all that difficult. But, the kicker is that the incumbent simply cannot be tolerated any longer.
Opponents get invigorated and supporters discouraged.
That's the secret formula for success: show up.

[TopHatter]

Trump tries to deflect blowback after attacking admiral

It was a tough week for the commander in chief.

Already under fire being a no-show at a ceremony in France commemorating the end of World War I and at an event at Arlington National Cemetery honoring U.S. soldiers on Veterans Day, President Trump on Monday attempted to deflect criticism of his dismissive remarks about a respected retired naval commander — the man in charge of the daring raid that killed Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

In an interview with Chris Wallace that aired on Fox News on Sunday, the president appeared to mock retired Admiral William McRaven, a Navy Seal who commanded the Joint Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014, for not taking out bin Laden sooner. “Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn’t it have been nice?” Trump asked. He dismissed McRaven as “a Hillary Clinton backer and an Obama backer.”

As a protest against White House policies, McRaven — a frequent critic of Trump — earlier this year wrote an open letter asking the administration to revoke his security clearance. He called Trump’s attacks on the press “perhaps the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.”

Trump’s comments were reminiscent of others he has made in denigrating decorated members of the military, most notably Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war. “He was a hero because he got captured,” Trump said in 2015 of McCain, who died in August. “I like people who weren’t captured.”

In a statement released to CNN, McRaven — whose name was briefly floated in 2016 as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton — disputed Trump’s characterization of him as a political opponent.

“I did not back Hillary Clinton or anyone else. I am a fan of President Obama and President George W. Bush, both of whom I worked for. I admire all presidents, regardless of their political party, who uphold the dignity of the office and who use that office to bring the nation together in challenging times,” the statement read.

The back and forth came at a precarious time for Trump, who bills himself as the most pro-military president ever. He faces criticism not only over his failure to attend the military ceremonies but over the deployment — widely regarded as a political stunt — of over 5,000 troops on the border with Mexico, as well as his call to stop counting votes in Florida’s Senate and gubernatorial races before all military mail-in ballots had been tallied. Opponents have also pointed out that halfway through his term, the president has not visited U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think there’s a certain honesty to what’s happening now,” retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CNN on Monday. “The president didn’t go to Arlington cemetery for Veterans’ Day, and maybe that’s honest, because if you really don’t care, it would be dishonest to pretend that you do.”

Since taking office, Trump has increased military spending, allocating $717 billion for wide-ranging expenditures related to national defense. In June, he signed the Veterans Choice Program Extension, an update of a 2014 law that lets some veterans continue to receive health care through the private sector. Even so, Trump’s support among military personnel continues to drop. In a Military Times poll released in October, 44 percent of active-duty soldiers said they had a favorable view of the commander in chief, while 43 percent said the opposite.

As he campaigned around the country ahead of the midterm elections, Trump regularly boasted about his backing from and support for the U.S. military.

“Nobody has been better at the military,” Trump said in an interview last month with the Associated Press, referring to his policies as president. Before entering politics, Trump did not serve in uniform, avoiding the draft during the Vietnam War with a diagnosis of a “bone spur” in his ankle.

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Just keep talking dipshit...sooner or later, only your most brain-dead supporters will still blindly follow you.

[snapper]

Now the daughter using a private email... they say "she didn't know" she wasn't supposed to. You do not much more ridiculous.

[Albany Rifles]

Locke Her Up chants anyone?

[TopHatter]

Locke Her Up chants anyone?

What, and surrender to the Left?

[Double Edge]

Think back to the 1976 election, or 1992: One aspect may be that the other side has a better candidate, which (given the extremely low bar) shouldn't be all that difficult. But, the kicker is that the incumbent simply cannot be tolerated any longer.
Opponents get invigorated and supporters discouraged.
That's the secret formula for success: show up.

Thing about the midterms is either side can claim a win. Whether they mattered depends on Trump's behaviour in the next two.

Fun fact : Only two presidents since '45 failed to get a second term

[TopHatter]

Thing about the midterms is either side can claim a win. Whether they mattered depends on Trump's behaviour in the next two.

I think we can easily depend on Trump's behavior to remain exactly as it has been, or worse. Probably worse because he gets more and more unhinged as time goes on.

He's sitting in a pressure cooker, AKA the White House, and Cadet Bonespurs clearly cannot handle pressure.

[TopHatter]

Robert Mueller Reveals How He May Use Trump’s Tweets Against Him In Wednesday George Papadopoulos Court Brief


In a seven-page court document filed Wednesday morning, Russia investigation special counsel Robert Mueller sent a clear message that if the targets of his investigation post messages on Twitter, those tweets will come back to haunt them because Mueller’s team is monitoring their Twitter feeds. That message that could spell danger for Donald Trump who has, experts say, posted numerous tweets that could incriminate him, as the Washington Post has documented.

Mueller’s filing Wednesday was a response to an earlier motion by former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, as Buzzfeed News reporter Zoe Tillman reported via Twitter. Papadopolous pled guilty last year to lying to the FBI in connection with the Russia investigation and is scheduled to start serving a 14-day sentence on Monday, November 26. The short sentence resulted from a plea deal the now-31-year-old Papadopoulos struck with Mueller in which he agreed to cooperate with the Russia probe.

Papadopoulos, as Inquisitr reported, was told in April of 2016 by a Russia-linked academic about “thousands” of hacked Democratic, Hillary Clinton emails containing “dirt” on Clinton that were in the Russian government’s possession, a fact about which he lied to FBI investigators.

But even two weeks behind bars is apparently too much for Papadopoulos, who in recent weeks has taken to Twitter to claim that he was “framed,” and that his guilty plea was the result of “entrapment.” Mueller cited Papadopoulos’s tweets specifically in his Wednesday filing in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

In Mueller’s filing, he noted that tweets posted by Papadopoulos since he was sentenced on September 8 “appear to be inconsistent with his stated acceptance of responsibility at sentencing,” as Vox.com writer Andrew Prokop noted on Twitter.

Mueller specifically cited a Twitter post in which the former Trump campaign adviser stated that pleading guilty was his “biggest regret.” That tweet has since been deleted from Papadopoulos’s Twitter account.

But what does Mueller’s willingness to use Papadopoulos’ tweets against him signal for Trump? Experts say that Trump has posted self-incriminating statements on Twitter multiple times — tweets that Mueller can now use as evidence against him. In one such Twitter message posted in August, Trump stated that his son, Donald Trump Jr., met with a group of Kremlin-connected Russians in Trump Tower during the campaign “to get information on an opponent,” an assertion that appears similar to what Papadopoulos was told about Clinton “dirt” in Russia’s hands.

In a Twitter post in December of last year, Trump discussed his firing of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser — a firing that was initially claimed to be related to Flynn’s lying to then-incoming Vice President Mike Pence about his Russia contacts. But in the tweet, Trump appeared to admit that he knew Flynn had also lied to the FBI.

Lying to the FBI, unlike lying to a politician, is a federal crime. The day after he fired Flynn, as New York Magazine recounts, Trump attempted to pressure then-FBI Director James Comey into dropping the bureau’s investigation of Flynn.

If Trump knew that Flynn had committed a crime, his attempt to push Comey into stopping the Flynn investigation could also be a crime — obstruction of justice, as former intelligence community attorney Susan Hennessy stated on her Twitter account.

In April, as Inquisitr reported, a list of questions for Trump drawn up by Mueller’s team in the Russia collusion investigation appeared to have been based directly on a number of Trump’s tweets.

“Perhaps most notably, the questions also suggest that Mueller has been paying close attention to Trump’s Twitter feed,” wrote Quartz reporter Annalisa Merelli at the time. “Trump has already tweeted about many incidents relevant to Mueller’s inquiries, which might make it that much more difficult for Trump (and his lawyers) to skirt the questions.” Link
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Is it any wonder that Trump's consigliere has openly admitted that the Trump borgata will stonewall the living shit out of Mueller from now on?

[Bigfella]

So now we have the spectacle of a President who tried to use his office to prosecute people he didn't like getting into an argument with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I suppose if there is good news here it might be that if SCOTUS has to rule on some major case involving Trump overreaching it may err on the side of limiting his actions.

[zraver]

Here's an easy example. In 2012 the Democrat, Heitkamp, won the Senate race in North Dakota. It seems that she was put over the top by a heavy Native American (Indian) vote. So the Republican legislature basically disenfranchised those voters by requiring a street address since they get a PO Box from the government given the few rare streets on the reservation.

http://time.com/5442434/north-dakota...ican-activism/

Turns out the native vote increased....

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/19/66936...ls-in-midterms