Moose & Squirrel v Boris & Natasha: what's the deal with the rooskies and trumpland?

[LadySkinsFan]

I'd like to see mass arrests for Contempt of Congress, like all those traitors. 

[Springfield]

It would be nice to have a speaker who could lead the party properly and not just tuck their tails.

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

 

[mistertim]

7 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

 

So the article says "One former official said the communication was a phone call." and then "White House records indicate that Trump had had conversations or interactions with at least five foreign leaders in the preceding five weeks." including a call with Putin, a couple of letters from his boyfriend Kim Jon Un, and then meetings with leaders of Pakistan, the Netherlands, and Qatar. So only one of those is a phone call, the Kim Jong Un communication was ostensibly one-way, and I don't see what sort of promises he'd be making to leaders from Pakistan and the Netherlands. Qatar maybe, but still probably not. 

 

Seriously, that sounds like it was definitely to Putin. This could get really really interesting. No wonder the WH is doing everything they can to keep the whistleblower from talking to Congress. 

[gbear]

Did anyone else watching lewandowski when he admits lieing to the press hear in their heads, "you can't handle the truth!" As if spoken by somebody with a moral authority the questioner could not begin to understand like Nicholson's character. However, like Nicholson's character, Lewandowski seems not to imediately recognize his answer admits that which he has been denying ever happened. His lieing to protect the president from what the president asked the him to do is evidence of obstruction...and I hope that clip shows up repeatedly when he runs for Senate.

Edited September 19, 2019 by gbear

[mistertim]

1 minute ago, gbear said:

Did anyone else watching lewandowski when he admits lieing to the press hear in their heads, "you can't handle the truth!" As if spoken by somebody with a moral authority the questioner could not begin to understand like Nicholson's character. However, like Nicholson's character, Lewandowski seems not to imediately recognize his answer admits that which he has been denying ever happened. His lieing to protect the president from what the president asked the him to do is evidence of obstruction...and I hope that clip shows up repeatedly when he runs for Senate.

'

They don't care. None of them do. There have been zero repercussions for any of them for lying repeatedly, blatantly, and openly. Same goes for criminal conduct. They simply have no real accountability so they see no reason to not do it. I actually think at this point all of the lying is partially an intentional thumbing of their nose at everyone because they know they won't get in trouble and they know everyone else knows it too. Lewandowski even said out loud "I have no obligation to be honest with the media" which is more or less saying "I have no obligation to be honest with the American public". 

 

They don't care, and they have no reason to care. Nothing will happen to any of them. All I can hope for is that if hell is a real place they have special spots reserved for all of these people. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

 

[NoCalMike]

I am not saying I have any actual clue why a Trump call with Putin might have involved a "promise" that was found to be very troubling, but.......

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-military-aid-to-ukraine-878607/

 

Quote

Days after blaming former President Obama for Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, President Trump is reportedly considering blocking $250 in military aid intended for the nation that has for years been the target of Russian military aggression.

 

Bigger question is, what did Putin promise in return?

[Larry]

I ain't holding my breath for this thing to bring the scum down.  

 

It's too much like cheering for the Redskins.  

 

And in a way, if it does bring him down, I'll be rather disapointed.  I want something that brings down all of the co-conspirators that have been actively obstructing justice since the day he took office.  I put Skippy, and Devin Nunnes, very high on that list.  Bill Barr.  

 

Still, I confess, I do keep wondering if maybe this time the rest of the GOP is gonna decide that President Pence has a better shot at reelection than President Trump does, and it's to the party's advantage to push the big red "He was never one of us" button.  

 

 

[No Excuses]

4 hours ago, Larry said:

Still, I confess, I do keep wondering if maybe this time the rest of the GOP is gonna decide that President Pence has a better shot at reelection than President Trump does, and it's to the party's advantage to push the big red "He was never one of us" button.  

 

Won’t happen until he loses the base. The party dumping him will lead to the voters dumping them. And I can’t think of any scenario where at least 80% of GOP voters will stop backing him.

[tshile]

10 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

Won’t happen until he loses the base. The party dumping him will lead to the voters dumping them. And I can’t think of any scenario where at least 80% of GOP voters will stop backing him.

 

I had a couple

 

then he did them, and they still support him

 

so

 

🤷‍♂️

[DogofWar1]

Smart money for the phone call is with Putin, but given how Trump and co ignore all the normal security measures, on purpose, and don't document things well, on purpose, it would not surprise me if we do not have an exhaustive list of everyone he spoke to by phone.

 

Putin vs. the field is pretty close.

 

I'd say MBS or some other Saudi royal family member are 2nd place.  Bibi is probably in 3rd.

 

 

If it is Putin, I'm guessing it has to do with the extracted spy, and some promise to expose him or something.

If it's MBS or Bibi or someone in their governments, it probably has to do with Iran.

[No Excuses]

53 minutes ago, tshile said:

 

I had a couple

 

then he did them, and they still support him

 

so

 

🤷‍♂️

 

The most accurate statement from Trump so far is his “shoot someone on 5th avenue and my followers wouldn’t care”. 

 

I always wondered how dictators developed cult followings. Trump is a living example of how feeble minded millions of humans collectively can be. 

[mistertim]

Guys, Phil Mudd is MAD about this!

 

Oh, you thought he was mad that the President may be making quid pro quo promises to foreign leaders or that he could be engaging in behavior that is a national security threat or violates his oath of office or is even illegal?

 

No, he's angry that someone snitched on Trump. Apparently it's not a national security official's job to report on national security threats when the threat is a POTUS.

 

This is really odd coming from a guy who has criticized Trump so much in the past. He seems to be assuming that what Trump said was not illegal or against US national security, but why? What has Trump done or said to deserve any benefit of the doubt on that front? Obviously the intel professional thought it was alarming and urgent enough to file a formal whistleblower complaint and the IG not only agreed with him/her but when the DNI tried to block it the IG reported it to Congress. That sounds pretty damn serious to me. 

 

Also...how do whistleblower laws suddenly apply to everyone but POTUS? Mudd says that instead of filing a formal whistleblower complaint, as the law says is proper in those situations (under certain circumstances), the person should just quit and then talk about it. But if it's a national security issue then they can't just "talk about it". 

 

This whole thing is stupid.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by mistertim

[tshile]

1 hour ago, No Excuses said:

 

I always wondered how dictators developed cult followings. Trump is a living example of how feeble minded millions of humans collectively can be. 

 

The weird thing is that they picked him. 

Someone that has never been a conservative, with a history of supporting and donating to Democrat’s including the infamous Clinton’s. That was born into wealth and made his real estate name by screwing over small business contractors. 

 

He’s not religious and holds no strong beliefs on anything the hard-right can identify with. 

 

Theres seemingly zero appeal. 

 

Except he says what what they want to hear and attacks the people they don’t like; almost exclusively in the way an immature 13 year old struggling to understand the world while going through puberty would. 

 

And they eat it up. 

 

The far right has exposed themselves as the simpletons they are with this whole Trump experiment. Any objective person that held out that there was at least some logic and well intentioned if misguided beliefs behind their political views has since dropped that. 

 

Its going to be a crazy story for the kids one day

[skinsmarydu]

6 minutes ago, tshile said:

Its going to be a crazy story for the kids one day

It's already in print...The Revelation of John. 😉

[No Excuses]

15 minutes ago, mistertim said:

This whole thing is stupid.

 

 

Old school people in the IC don't like snitches.

[Llevron]

1 hour ago, No Excuses said:

 

The most accurate statement from Trump so far is his “shoot someone on 5th avenue and my followers wouldn’t care”. 

 

I always wondered how dictators developed cult followings. Trump is a living example of how feeble minded millions of humans collectively can be. 

 

I still dont really understand exactly how he did this. I feel like Fox did alot of the work for him years in advance but that doesn't explain all of it. 

 

Its going to be an amazing lesson in history and psychology one day. People will study this **** for decades i bet. 

[Mooka]

Even on this particular whistle blower issue.... it still boils down to what Trump said to someone else.

 

Trump can just say he lied. (after he says he didnt do it)

 

Trump can just lie to the American people about it as well. He is 100% free to tweet or whatever and just say he didnt do it. Its not a crime.

 

All he can't do is lie to Congress in an actual hearing/investigation. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[youngestson]

1 hour ago, tshile said:

 

The weird thing is that they picked him. 

Someone that has never been a conservative, with a history of supporting and donating to Democrat’s including the infamous Clinton’s. That was born into wealth and made his real estate name by screwing over small business contractors. 

 

He’s not religious and holds no strong beliefs on anything the hard-right can identify with. 

 

Theres seemingly zero appeal. 

 

Except he says what what they want to hear and attacks the people they don’t like; almost exclusively in the way an immature 13 year old struggling to understand the world while going through puberty would. 

 

And they eat it up. 

 

The far right has exposed themselves as the simpletons they are with this whole Trump experiment. Any objective person that held out that there was at least some logic and well intentioned if misguided beliefs behind their political views has since dropped that. 

 

Its going to be a crazy story for the kids one day

I don't think they reacted to what Trump is/was. Rather they reacted to the way he treated those considered outside the tribe. He mocked, bullied, harassed, and verbally assaulted all the "libtards."

 

The content didn't matter. Raw visceral emotions mattered. Tribal identity. Perceived strengths. An ability to render complex issues and problems as easily fixed. 

 

That's what Trump ran on. 

[tshile]

1 hour ago, Llevron said:

 

I still dont really understand exactly how he did this. I feel like Fox did alot of the work for him years in advance but that doesn't explain all of it. 

 

Its going to be an amazing lesson in history and psychology one day. People will study this **** for decades i bet. 

 

I actually think it's very easy to explain... but for my explanation to work, you have to have (or be wiling to entertain) some ideas about our country, meaning our people, our political parties, our economy, and our recent history... and those ideas are not things people like. 

 

1 - i believe social change, meaningful social change, is a function of time. it takes time for sexism, racism, etc to actually work its way out of society. we can do things to help, but ultimately people will think what they think and time is required for people that hold onto hateful ideas to first start to lose power, and second start to die out so they can't spread their hateful ideas

 

2 - The economic recession/crisis we just got out of was very, very damaging to the middle and lower classes. Depending on what data you're looking at, many of these people are just getting back to where they were before the crisis (which means they effectively lost 13 years of financial growth, since this started in 2007, which means they are *****really***** behind the rest of society and are at a ***huge*** loss. They're back to where they were, 13 years ago. That's huge.) I think there's a lot of underlying anger revolving around that, especially when these people hear the rest of us talk about how great the economy is doing. Anger like that is easily manipulated and easily fueled to make them angry at a scapegoat.

 

3 - Clinton was unpopular. The democrats in general had a problem with rust-belt types, as blue collar labor union workers started to ask themselves why they're continuing to support the people that got them where they are. Trump was an outsider with big promises to them. I'll leave this part at that, we've hashed it out enough.

 

4 - There has always been a very strong underlying hatred for the rest of the world and globalization. Outsourcing of jobs, China's tricks in stealing manufacturing (currency manipulation, no labor/environment protection laws, etc). The UN and us paying for all their missions with our people and our equipment and our money. Trump taped into that.

 

Trump appealed to all that anger, and was able to tap into enough people to win the election. He was able to convince them he was their savior.

 

Their anger, as well as general lack of education on certain things, blinded them (some, willfully) to who Trump has always been and really was. It allowed him to be the outsider savior that would clean up the mess in washington that was responsible for their problems.

 

Trump checked all the right boxes and even had fame to boot with his previous runs, his time in the UFL (I think it was the UFL?), his TV shows, and his appearances at political events and on Fox News. It just so happens he's an incompetent, racist, sexist, moron and his part isn't interested in checking him on it all, instead they're embracing it and the respectable ones have left the party.

 

I think the grand scheme of things we're seeing the yo-yo affect of social progress. For all the complaining we see from the left about 'being pulled to the right', a lot  has change din the last 15 years. Gay marriage, LGBTQ stuff, Women's place in society, racism and xenophobia, there's been a lot of improvement. We had our first black president. It seems normal that we'd take a step back or two as the people holding on the 'old way of doing things' find some courage to step out and be loudly angry at the rest of us.

 

 

What's disconcerting to me is not the policy changes and the foreign policy relationship issues, as I think those can be fixed by a new president next time (If he's there for 2 terms then my mind changes on that... but this is where I am for now.) 

 

I'm concerned about his judgeship appointments.

 

But I'm more concerned about the polarization and the hatred he's fueled. We need a leader, but we also have to be willing to embrace one. It feels like whether Trump wins or not, there will be about 40% of the country that is pissed at the result, pissed at their country, pissed at their countrymen, and pissed in irreparable ways. If that's the case, then Trump becomes a symptom not a cause, of a problem that must be fixed but looks like can't be fixed. It means it's a snowball rolling down hill and eventually we're going to have to deal with it and it's not going to be good...

 

We are seeing a large portion of the left talk about people who aren't on their side in very nasty ways. Ways that are alarming. Suggesting things that are more in-line with revolt and civil war, than they are with productive social discourse. The problems on the right are hard enough to deal with as is, combining this issue with people on the left to the mix makes it seem damn near impossible.

 

It feels like we're looking at a marriage with two people who hate each other, and divorce isn't an option. So they're just going to be mean to each other and hate each other, which will just make the hatred grow. Eventually something is going to happen, if they can't split and go separate ways, then there aren't any good options left...

Edited September 19, 2019 by tshile

[NoCalMike]

30 years of right wing media telling rust belt and southern folks that brown people are stealing their jobs, black people are murdering them, and liberals are trying to control their lives.  That was the sentiment bubbling up with these people.  Then Trump comes along being a candidate with a loud microphone actually saying verbatim what these people have been hearing on right wing radio for all these years.  A candidate who didn't use codes, or passive-aggressive language like establishment GOP.  Establishment GOP knew that a lot of their base had these feelings, but also felt some kind of obligation to tone things down when speaking to the masses.  Trump didn't and spoke the same language as Rush Limbaugh.  This made him a hero to these people.    

 

Meanwhile Trump's actual policies is the same ol' nonsense that has been screwing these people over this entire time. 

[visionary]