The Trump Administration (just Trump) Thread

[The Human Q-Tip]

View: https://twitter.com/wsj/status/880536341431406592

If the Trump campaign actually had colluded with the Russians, wouldn't they'd have gone straight to their buddies in the Kremlin to get those emails, rather Flynn, on his own, asking a GOP consultant to try to get a hacker to find them?

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

The GOP/RNC has cheated, knowingly, publicly, with "Rule 40" which prevented Ron Paul from potentially winning the nomination at the convention.

The Rule 40 change had absolutely nothing to do with Ron Paul "potentially winning the nomination at the convention."

When Rule 40 was changed literally one day before the Convention, it was months after Romney had acquired enough legally-bound delegates to be guaranteed the nomination. The second and third place finishers (Santorum and Gingrich) had both long ago released their delegates and encouraged them to vote for Romney, who ended up with more than 2000 delegates compared to Paul's less than 200 and was going to be the GOP nominee. It is a universe away from what the DNC did to Bernie.

The Rule 40 change had to do with who got to speak at the Convention. Ron Paul was asked by the party if he was going to endorse Romney in his speech, and he said he wouldn't. Given that the primary purpose of the Convention is to select the nominee to run in the general election, the Party leadership decided that having a speaker undermine that nominee wasn't the way things were supposed to work.

So, the party changed the number of states required to have your name placed in nomination at the Convention, which deprived Paul of any automatic speaking slot. That was the effect and purpose of the Rule change -- not to deprive Paul of "potentially winning the nomination." What's kind of funny about this is that Paul actually one a majority of votes in only one state. It was after the fact wrangling of delegates that got him up to 5 states.

It's reasonable to debate whether or not that was wise or fair -- I personally think they should have let him speak anyway. But it's not reasonable to claim that it had anything to do with who actually won the nomination, or who was going to win it. That was decided by bound delegates and the overwhelming support Romney had locked up long before the Convention.

@David.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Again as a sharp Lawyer, would you go for the jugular if this administration was opposing counsel or you would throw up your hands here and say "no evidence I guess, let's get some sodi pop!"

Depends if I'm getting paid by the hour.

 

[Maximus]

This is the thing that really sucks about what is going on. People like Russia because they hate democrats. They really think that Democrats are so evil that they want to side with some straight up anti-democracy assholes. Russia specifically stands in opposition to our way of life.

Wanting tax cuts for all the richest people in the country while they take away the lifetime limits protections and pre-existing conditions I can understand. It sucks you are callous because of it, but you want to keep your tax money and you want rich guys to buy more jet skis. It is selfish, but understandable because lots of people are selfish and immature and only care about short term gain.

Siding with Russia is just wrong and anti-american. Even if you like the effect like Qtip, you should not be wanting this Russia interference. It is unamerican, and if you like Russia you hate America and the free exchange of ideas point blank.

I am not sure there was straight up collusion, but I am sure when the administration met Russian officials they were psyched and laughing like Trump in the oval office with his comrade bros.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Nobody is letting Hilary or the DNC off for anything. They suffered a huge amount of absenteeism at the poles by democrats because of it, and were already losing Bernie supporters before it came to light because the primary was already seen as rigged by the very rules.

An argument that Trump is somehow delegitimized is necessarily an argument that Hillary should have "rightfully" won instead. Which means that it is somehow a more just result if the DNC had successfully concealed its actions from voters rather than having those actions exposed. Obviously, the preferred reality is that the DNC doesn't do what it did, and the Russians do nothing. But that's not what happened.

That's the linkage between the substance of the DNC leaks, and whatever political advantage is trying to be gained by delegitimizing Trump. The politics of how the substance of those leaks should be balanced against the Russian hacking of the DNC is a political question rightfully decided by voters. And to the extent it actually changed any voter's decision, that would have been reflected in the ballots cast on Nov.8.

 

[ajz20]

I refuse to believe anyone, regardless of political leaning, thinks this is acceptable.

 

[AZ_]

SO what if he did?

 

[Huber.]

"I have texts"........then release them if they're so bad

Has Matt Laslo released the audio yet of Perdue?

 

[-Akronite-]

"I have texts"........then release them if they're so bad

I would not be surprised if Joe actually does produce records to prove his story.

You know what WOULD surprise me, Trump actually following through on any of his bullshit, like the Comedy tapes or the illegal voter proof or the evidence of Obama's lies in Hawaii. Literally anything.

Also, I guess I'm surprised that his little tantrum lash-out at Mika, which I sure is mostly bullshit if not 100%, is actually a story and a problem now.

 

[-Akronite-]

How so? That's what I'm trying to get at. You say it "wouldn't make a difference in terms of his standing as President", but it's still relevant information that "pertains to his presidency." So I'm not understanding it.

My belief is that a lot of people are pushing this simply so that it can weaken him politically as much as possible because they don't like him, and/or his policies. In other words, while openly claiming "it doesn't delegitimize him as President", they are actually trying to use it to do exactly that.

1) The fact that he's clearly been lenient in both rhetoric and action when it comes to responding to the Russian threat is related to the results of the election being effected by Russia. Collusion or no, that's relevant.

2) That doesn't mean it that it will unseat him, but not all relevant info is impeachable offenses.

3) The fact that Hillary won the popular vote means that people will see him as essentially illegitimate and without mandate regardless. And so what if people use that to weaken him politically? He shouldn't even be in politics, he's a fucking nutcase asshole.

 

[David.]

I would not be surprised if Joe actually does produce records to prove his story.

You know what WOULD surprise me, Trump actually following through on any of his bullshit, like the Comedy tapes or the illegal voter proof or the evidence of Obama's lies in Hawaii. Literally anything.

Also, I guess I'm surprised that his little tantrum lash-out at Mika, which I sure is mostly bullshit if not 100%, is actually a story and a problem now.

I think there was a study on illegal voting that's been performed.

 

[Huber.]

I think there was a study on illegal voting that's been performed.

Seems like every week we find more and more democrat voting fraud from the November election (from non-fake news networks). But lets focus on tweets because of ratings.

 

[AZ_]

I think there was a study on illegal voting that's been performed.

Yes, Kris Kobach is currently trying to get the names, social security number, party affiliation and voting history of every voter roll.

Because freedom and privacy.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

3) . And so what if people use that to weaken him politically? He shouldn't even be in politics, he's a fucking nutcase asshole.

Okay, that's what I thought.

 

[CommD]

An argument that Trump is somehow delegitimized is necessarily an argument that Hillary should have "rightfully" won instead. Which means that it is somehow a more just result if the DNC had successfully concealed its actions from voters rather than having those actions exposed. Obviously, the preferred reality is that the DNC doesn't do what it did, and the Russians do nothing. But that's not what happened.

That's the linkage between the substance of the DNC leaks, and whatever political advantage is trying to be gained by delegitimizing Trump. The politics of how the substance of those leaks should be balanced against the Russian hacking of the DNC is a political question rightfully decided by voters. And to the extent it actually changed any voter's decision, that would have been reflected in the ballots cast on Nov.8.

Of course, for the linkage you suggest to be valid; you would have to believe that similar targeting, acquisition, and public deployment of RNC internal communications would not reveal similar shady political machinations.

It goes without saying that one would have to be incredibly naive about the nature of politics to believe something like this (or purposely manipulating the argument as the case may be).

A good basic example of Ugly Political Equivalence is the Trump Dossier which was originally funded by Republican Trump opponents, then subsequently by Democrats post-nomination.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump–Russia_dossier