Depends on how you wanna define letdown. If you think tomorrow will be the end for Trump, yeah prepare to be letdown. But it shouldn't shock me at all if Comey spends tomorrow laying traps for Trump to walk into, and given that there are few individuals in human history worse at getting out of their own way, I suspect Trump falls into most of them down the line. Might be weeks or months later that tomorrow really matters, but I suspect it will. So basically if you want instant gratification tomorrow, don't watch.
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"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
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I'm not a democratic or republican supporter. I'm a centrist.
See I'd like to believe you, but then I pop over to the Canadian politics thread and then there's this....
Quote:
Originally Posted by northcrunk
I'm so glad our safety is in the hands of the professionals at CSIS and not some prick globalist politician.
....and yeah. There are few, likely zero, centrists who hate globalism. Centrists like free trade and improving access to markets, which is what globalism is mostly about (and if you choose to try and define it as something else, you'll likely out yourself as not a centrist). Globalist is a term primarily used by the alt-right, generally in concert with conspiracy theories aimed at enslaving the world or eliminating large chunks of the population (like white genocide as an example). Maybe you'll hear it a few times on the far left, but centrists using this term? Noooope. Good effort though.
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James Comey’s seven-page written statement, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee this afternoon in connection with Comey’s impending testimony tomorrow, draws no conclusions, makes no allegations, and indeed, expresses no opinions. It recounts, in spare and simple prose, a set of facts to which Comey is prepared to testify under oath tomorrow. Despite this sparseness, or maybe I should say because of it, it is the most shocking single document compiled about the official conduct of the public duties of any President since the release of the Watergate tapes.
Last edited by direwolf; 06-07-2017 at 07:15 PM.
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Depends on how you wanna define letdown. If you think tomorrow will be the end for Trump, yeah prepare to be letdown. But it shouldn't shock me at all if Comey spends tomorrow laying traps for Trump to walk into, and given that there are few individuals in human history worse at getting out of their own way, I suspect Trump falls into most of them down the line. Might be weeks or months later that tomorrow really matters, but I suspect it will. So basically if you want instant gratification tomorrow, don't watch.
Trump could walk into every trap like he's Sideshow Bob at a rake festival and I still don't think anything will happen. 2019 ... maybe.
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My bet is that the testimony won't incriminate Trump but it will VERY CLEARLY show that he is incompetent and unable to run the country. From that perspective it may be a turning point in that the GOP will have to decide if they unhitch from this horse.
My bet is that the testimony won't incriminate Trump but it will VERY CLEARLY show that he is incompetent and unable to run the country. From that perspective it may be a turning point in that the GOP will have to decide if they unhitch from this horse.
Reading through the memo to congress and the commentary in the link you once again have Trump not doing anything illegal but certainly against the norms of all previous presidents. I think the level of nuance required to read that memo and understand the implications of it is to complex for a sound bite. Instead the sound bite will be
Did Trump directly ask you to end the investigation of Flynn.
No, Not directly
Did Trump to anything that contravened any laws
No,
Were you investigating Trump
No
Did you tell Trump on 3 occasions that you weren't investigating him.
Yes
And with that sound bite being over Trumps skates through this one with his support relatively undamaged or even improved as there is backlash against the media for hyping this into the super bowl.
What's lost in this is that Trump didn't do anything illegal. He could walk up to Comey and say "I command you to stop investigating Flynn because you'll find something I don't want" and it's not illegal. He has the constitutional authority to do that. Only Congress can find him guilty of "high crimes and treason", and that could be jaywalking if Congress deems it so.
The legal definition of obstruction isn't as important as the political one: will there be enough in the testimony to convince Republicans that if they don't act their seats are at risk? It's the electorate that will decide this.
We keep hearing that it does or doesn't constitute obstruction of Justice depending on who's telling the story. It's all irrelevant because it's the American people who will decide that by forcing the Republican's hand. They have a lot at stake because their legacy will be attached to him for years after he leaves regardless of impeachment or finishing the eight years. If they agree to impeach, they'll suffer ramifications. If they wait and he turns out around even slightly, they may be better off and can maybe make some policy in the meantime.
As you can see, all of this is a set of political calculation. None of it is legally defined, so the simple answer is that impeachment is only the outcome when the Republican's see their future better with Trump impeached. I think the special election in Georgia 6 (deep red seat that's currently a toss up) will scare them more than Comey.
Last edited by Street Pharmacist; 06-07-2017 at 08:39 PM.
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All quiet from Trump this morning, which is strange considering all the commotion over Comey's statement yesterday. I fully expected to wake up this morning to his usual series of rage-tweets. Did somebody take his phone away?
Well Trump hasn't made any statements yet. Once he wakes up and starts tweeting, the carnival will be in full force.
In all seriousness though, people have taken the day off, bars are opening early this morning, and there are line ups to get in to the Capitol. Washingtonians love their politics. I didn't really get it until I moved here. This, to the locals, is like game 7 of the NHL finals to Calgarians.
What's lost in this is that Trump didn't do anything illegal. He could walk up to Comey and say "I command you to stop investigating Flynn because you'll find something I don't want" and it's not illegal. He has the constitutional authority to do that. Only Congress can find him guilty of "high crimes and treason", and that could be jaywalking if Congress deems it so.
So, something like 2 minutes in, he's accused the administration of lying and defaming the FBI.
Well, substance or not, this ought to fuel a few column inches...
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
So Comey replied directly to Trump literally "there was no active counter intelligence investigation" against him because there was no individual file on Trump but there was an active investigation against his campaign which would touch on it's leader.
