Steely_D wrote:

 kcar wrote:
 
Crazy Russians. They should just have created some stealth-NGOs or, like everybody else who tries to influence U.S. policy, paid lobbyi$t$...

 Top Russian Officials Discussed How to Influence Trump Aides Last Summer

WASHINGTON — American spies collected information last summer revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers, according to three current and former American officials familiar with the intelligence.

The conversations focused on Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman at the time, and Michael T. Flynn, a retired general who was advising Mr. Trump, the officials said. Both men had indirect ties to Russian officials, who appeared confident that each could be used to help shape Mr. Trump’s opinions on Russia.

...

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
And as long as he is bumbling around and you have people in power fawning over him or trying to curry favor with him, that's 2 years to store up ammo against those people.
 

Speaking of which, I just heard Gianforte on NPR doing just that. He'll win tomorrow, but him saying Oct. 2016 Trumpian talking points should make him easy to beat in a real election.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Agreed.

I also agree concerning impeachment verses leaving the moron in place. Pence and Ryan are seasoned politicians who know how to use the system to implement their horror show of an agenda. Donnie is a wrench in the works.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Yes. If they smell victory, they won't bother trying to improve the structure of the party, or do any of the many things they should to re-create the party to serve the 21st century America.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Clarify, please - you're referring to the effed up Democratic Party, yes?

Trump ain't getting impeached, his "base" still loves him and every GOP Senate and House member that is up for re-election in 2018 is afraid of being challenged in the primaries by an Alt-Right and/or TEA party-pooper,

I'm with Scott; I think the GOP would be in better position to enact their Reaganomics-based agenda the sooner they get Trump out of the way. For the Democrats, They have a much better chance of strengthening their hand particularly in the mid terms by keeping Mr. negative relative approval rating right where he is for now. So if anybody in a political leadership position is seriously pushing for impeachment at this point, I would think it would be on the GOP side.

EDIT: Which is worse: Having a child molester in line for the presidency, or having a woman molester as president?

 miamizsun wrote:

i don't mean to ruffle any feathers, but you should read this entire article when possible

(not his best work but some solid points in there)

Among other things, the impeachment push indirectly led to the ouster of Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House, which eventuated in an actual child molester being way high up in the presidential line of succession.

 
Not clicking through because this one point is ridiculous. That Hastert, among many in Congress I'm afraid, turned out to be a sick bastard says absolutely zero about whether or not Gingrich deserved to be toppled. For all we know, Gingrich and probably 500+ members of Congress are equally sick bastards.
 
And I don't want impeachment. The line of succession post-Trump gives way to the kind of evil I never want to have complete power: they hate me, literally would rather I just snuffed it quickly so they don't have to deal with my kind, and are skilled enough politicians to see that it happens. No, I prefer they be bound up for a couple of years. The huge downside is that the opposition is sensing an opportunity where on November 8 there was none: ergo, they're not going to bother changing anything. 

i don't mean to ruffle any feathers, but you should read this entire article when possible

(not his best work but some solid points in there)

All This Impeachment Talk Is Pure Trump Derangement Syndrome

That man in the White House is vulgar, disrespectful, self-involved, maybe even dangerous. So?

Nick Gillespie| May. 17, 2017 5:00 pm

Assuming the worst about Trump at this point, his behavior doesn't come close to rising to that level or the actions undertaken by, say, Ronald Reagan during Iran-Contra. If anything, Trump is such an idiot that he is sealing his own fate by forcing congressional Republicans, most of whom don't particularly care for him anyway, to call for bigger and better investigations about Russian influence in the 2016 election. Short-termers such as Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz are already subpoenaing whatever memories James Comey jotted down during his generally mediocre-to-awful tenure as head of the FBI. Comey is the guy, we should recall, who tried to strong-arm Apple into undermining its phone encryption even though it was able to crack the San Bernadino's phone just fine, who gave Hillary Clinton aides immunity and allowed them to destroy their laptops, and recently attacked the First Amendment because it gave Wikileaks space to publish authentic-if-purloined documents. The best thing you can say about Comey is that he's no Louis Freeh or J. Edgar Hoover, which is the textbook case of damning with faint approbation. 

Needless to say, none of this absolves Donald Trump of any wrongdoing. But impeachment talk this soon and this thick is coming not from a place of seriousness but pure partisanship and ideology masquerading as disinterested belief in the public good. When the Republicans moved to impeach Bill Clinton back in the 1990s, it was the same thing and it didn't exactly work out that well for many of the main conspirators, or for the country at large. Among other things, the impeachment push indirectly led to the ouster of Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House, which eventuated in an actual child molester being way high up in the presidential line of succession.

The sequel...

I cannot possibly begin to understand anyone who thinks this man belongs in The White House. Nope. He is an utterly incompetent fool.

A Call With A Killer

In a phone call from the White House late last month, U.S. President Donald Trump heaped praise on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, one of the world’s most murderous heads of state, for doing what Trump called an “unbelievable job” in his war on drugs. Trump offered an unqualified endorsement of Duterte’s bloody extermination campaign against suspected drug dealers and users, which has included open calls for extrajudicial murders and promises of pardons and immunity for the killers.

“You are a good man,” Trump told Duterte, according to an official transcript of the April 29 call produced by the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs and obtained by The Intercept. “Keep up the good work,” Trump told Duterte. “You are doing an amazing job.”

Trump began the call by telling Duterte, “You don’t sleep much, you’re just like me,” before quickly pivoting to the strongman’s drug war.

“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Duterte at the beginning of their call, according to the document. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

“Thank you Mr. President,” replied Duterte. “This is the scourge of my nation now and I have to do something to preserve the Filipino nation.”

The transcript, which contains numerous typographical errors, was authenticated by well-placed sources in the Palace and the Department of Foreign Affairs by reporters at the Manila-based news outlet Rappler, which collaborated with The Intercept on this story.

Since Duterte took office in June, Filipino national police and vigilante death squads have embarked on a campaign to slaughter drug users as well as drug dealers. “Hitler massacred three million Jews < sic >, now, there’s three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” he said in September. Last month, he told a group of jobless Filipinos that they should “kill all the drug addicts.” Police have killed over 7,000 people, devastated poor areas of Manila and other cities, and used the drug war as a pretext to murder government officials and community leaders.

The new details on Trump’s call with Duterte come on the heels of the Philippine president’s announcement that he is imposing martial law on the autonomous island of Mindanao, where government forces are battling Islamist rebels. “If I had to kill thousands of people just to keep Philippines a thousand times safer, I will not have doubts doing it,” Duterte said. (...)

Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence

President Trump asked two of the nation’s top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government, according to current and former officials.

Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.

Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president.


...

Current and former senior intelligence officials viewed Trump’s requests as an attempt by the president to tarnish the credibility of the agency leading the Russia investigation.


...

“The problem wasn’t so much asking them to issue statements, it was asking them to issue false statements about an ongoing investigation,” a former senior intelligence official said of the request to Coats.


...

In addition to the requests to Coats and Rogers, senior White House officials sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop its probe of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. The officials said the White House appeared uncertain about its power to influence the FBI.

“Can we ask him to shut down the investigation? Are you able to assist in this matter?” one official said of the line of questioning from the White House.


...


Trump’s effort to use the director of national intelligence and the NSA director to dispute Comey’s statement and to say there was no evidence of collusion echoes President Richard Nixon’s “unsuccessful efforts to use the CIA to shut down the FBI’s investigation of the Watergate break-in on national security grounds,” said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former general counsel at the CIA. Smith called Trump’s actions “an appalling abuse of power.”

 Red_Dragon wrote: 

The Trump Documents

 black321 wrote: 




lol!

 sirdroseph wrote: 
I've got a special spot in the basement...even the wife cant find me there.