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Justice Department Appoints Former FBI Director Robert Mueller As Special Counsel For Russia Investigation (thehill.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: The Justice Department has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russia's involvement in the U.S. election. Mueller, a former prosecutor who served a 12-year term at the helm of the bureau, has accepted the position, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. "In my capacity as acting attorney general I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for the matter," Rosenstein said in a statement. "My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination. What I have determined is that based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place this investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from the normal chain of command." UPDATE: President Trump has released a statement: "As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know -- there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country."
So
Much
Winning
We didn't know the extent of the Nixon atrocities until more than a year after the break in. It's quite likely lots of evidence exists, but is being used in an ongoing investigation and will not be disclosed publically anytime soon. If trump asked Comey to back of Flynn, and we know he admitted to firing Comey over Russia issues, that is likely enough on its own. Not to mention the overwhelming list that grows by the day. If we see Paul Ryan buckle, it's all over.
I don't believe there is any "Deep State" but if there is any this is evidence that it is composed primarily of people who care more about the rule of law than partisan politics. I for one welcome our globalist overlords.
You're misinformed:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Do you really need to have it explained why this in the stuff that matters category?
Even up until this afternoon I was certain the Republicans would wait until the fall or early next year, due to wanting to take the pulse of the voters, and in particular the base and any tight House races (there are only a handful of tight Senate races, or so I understand). But I think matters are quickly accelerating beyond any ability of the Republicans to control. While Trump's popularity with the base still seems fairly strong, he's shedding support elsewhere, and I suspect, unless things can quiet down for a bit, the base will begin to erode as well, and at that point, then so will loyalty for Trump among lawmakers.
This was inevitable, if for no other reason than Trump just cannot keep his mouth shut. He's like Richard Nixon's idiot brother, all of the same paranoia and deceit, but with half the brains. How can his defenders keep up his defense, when they'll deny the report or rumor against him in the morning, and then he'll fucking confirm the truth of the report that night? At some point, and I expect that point is coming soon, he's just simply going to start shedding supporters, simply because they don't want to be tied to the anchor when it's finally pitched overboard.
I waffle between Trump either being one of the stupidest human beings to ever get elected to high office, or him really not wanting to be there but too arrogant to just walk away, and wanting to be pushed so he can claim he was the subject of persecution. Certainly that's the way it's going if today's Coast Guard commencement is any indication.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Uh, how do you think he determines if there's evidence of wrongdoing without any investigation?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Whatever the Democrats may be screaming, it's irrelevant to this. The Republicans control Congress. It's in their hands, and thus far every attempt they've made to support Trump has been thrown back in their face by his inability to keep his mouth shut. For chrissakes, the man is such an arrogant blowhard he was showing off to the fucking Russians in the Oval Office with a Russian journalist in the room. Whether he let slip any classified data or not, the fact is not only has he once again, within the space of a few days, made himself look like a big mouthed ass, he's now pissing off Israel, which means Israel and other allies, not to mention the State Department itself, are going to start holding crucial intelligence closer to their chests lest the Braggart-in-chief decide to show off to any other foreign powers.
Don't you see that it is Trump himself that is going to be forcing Republican lawmakers' hands? The opposing minority party always makes frequent demands for removals and impeachments and judicial proceedings. Christ, that's been the way Washington has worked since the day after George Washington walked off into the sunset. The difference here is that this is a man who seems bound and determined to make his supporters and allies look like idiots, and seems to want to hand his opponents, both Democrat AND Republican (because he has no lack of critics in the GOP) all the ammunition they could ever need.
At this point you even have some Democratic strategists hoping he doesn't get impeached and removed, because the longer he's in the White House, the worse the Republicans look.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Have you been watching Fox News? They have been commiting slander, libel and other things against the dnc staffer yet haven't said a peep against the fact that trump is leaking secrets to Russia. Fox and republicans don't care that trump is commiting treason. They are such hypocrites that if Hillary did half of what trump has done they would be hanging her.
But if one of their own does it ? It isn't a big deal. Republicans. Hypocrites to the core. Do as they say not as do.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
He was chosen as G.W.B.'s attorney general on 09/04/2001, so he has a hot week in office before the WTC fell.
Director Mueller, along with Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, threatened to resign from office in March 2004 if the White House overruled a Department of Justice finding that domestic wiretapping without a court warrant was unconstitutional.
Obama kept him on for two years after he was elected, and Comey was not only his assistant, but his successor.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It took over a year for the Watergate investigation to (almost) reach the House Floor. It strikes me that your demand for immediate answers is more of you intentionally moving the goal post.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
it could be worse, it could be Hillary
Really? Worse? Really? She'd have allowed the massive amounts of pollution that the Liar-in-Chief already has via executive orders? She would've embarrassed all of us with brains? You're out of your fucking mind or dumb as a brick if you really think this.
I don't respond to AC's.
So you will ignore what the CIA says quite explicitly in their report:
"Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression
of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these
activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort
compared to previous operations.
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We
have high confidence in these judgments."
From https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
If you are willing to put your head in the sand and ignore this by coming up with excuses like "it is being controlled by the liberals" or something of the same manner then you are unfit to argue politics.
even though there's no evidence that Russia had any influence in the way it turned out.
That's a lie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I don't respond to AC's.
I'd also like to say that the CIA has directly and explicitly stated that they have high confidence that Russia had both intent and success with interfering in the election. Here is the excerpt:
"Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression
of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these
activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort
compared to previous operations.
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We
have high confidence in these judgments"
and here is the link to the report: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
If you can respond to this I'll be impressed
I would agree it was just Democrats shouting in the dark... if there didn't keep being problems. See here's the thing: The issue isn't with the e-mail leaks. That's not what is being talked about, it is if any of Trump's associates had illegal ties to the Russians and more importantly if Trump tried to cover it up.
Trump was told that Flynn was likely compromised and he shouldn't hire him. Had he not, well that story would end there. But he did hire him. He then pressured the FBI director to drop the investigation in to Flynn, and only fired Flynn when it leaked that he had this conflict of interest. He then implied the problem, and the reason he fired Flynn, was the leak not the compromise. Then he later fired the FBI director which his people claimed was related to the e-mails but he came out and said was because of the Russia investigation.
Guess what? That shit starts to look a lot like obstruction of justice. That's why this thing continues to have legs.
Oh an impeachment of a president? That's not "corrupt politicians" "overthrow[ing] of an elected President," it is constitutional, and is what is supposed to happen if the president breaks the law. Article one section 1 states that "The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment." Article two section four states "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
So ya, if it turns out he obstructed justice, which you'd need an investigation to determine (and that is what is going on), accepted bribes, or other illegal acts then the House would be within its constitutional power to impeach him and the Senate to try him. That's not some covert scheme to subvert the Constitution, it is written right in the original text.
Point of fact, I still don't know what's so terrible about what the Russians supposedly did..
Attempting to interfere with a US election, according to both the CIA and the FBI. Not only that, what's now being investigated are evidences of collusion with the Trump campaignâ - ostensibly, to hurt HRC.
I don't even live in the US and I knew that much for a while now.
At least one significant member of Trump's administration had to resign almost as soon as he was appointed because he was found to be working with the Russians, and he's being investigated. I'm not sure where you're getting it from that anyone independent at all in a position to know has suggested there's no links between the Trump campaign and Russia - if that were known, there wouldn't have been multiple FBI investigations to begin with.
And if there weren't multiple FBI investigations into Trump's team's connections with Russia, Comey would still have a job.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
My prediction is that, while Trump remains popular amongst people who voted for him, he will be safe from impeachment. Impeachment would likely turn these voters against the Republicans.
But once his base starts to turn away from supporting him, then impeachment becomes likely as Trump will be a liability to the Republicans instead of an asset.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Per Order No. 3915-2017 (pdf), Mueller has been authorized to prosecute federal crimes, and given a fairly broad scope of investigation - any links between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and any matters arising from these investigations (such as obstruction of justice).
Forget power to investigate, this guy has powers to prosecute. He's going out loaded for bear.
Misinformed or minimizing the reality, yes.
From the article:
"Mueller’s authority under Rosenstein’s appointment is broad. Mueller is empowered to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.” He may also prosecute federal crimes uncovered in this investigation."
https://thinkprogress.org/two-...
Waiting for evidence and being skeptical is intentionally moving the goal post?
Right... Meanwhile all journalistic integrity has gone out the window. Goldwater rule gone. Relying on unverifiable claims from anonymous sources too much. Too much personal opinion injected into news pieces. Narrative crafting is common.
Journalists understand you cannot interview someone you love or family members because your reporting would be biased nor honest because of your emotions. Someone you hate and have absolute contempt for? No problem, your emotions wont' get in the way of honest reporting...
This is both sides. You would be an idiot not to wait for actual verifiable evidence because there is no one that is reporting anything with any shred of integrity. I keep reading articles how the Russians hacked this or that and then a few paragraphs down; "we have no evidence the Russians are involved.".
Winning
And this is not going to make anybody forget about Seth Rich, murdered by the DNC for releasing the Podesta emails to Wiki leaks.
Notice leftists, democrats will kill their own to cover up their crimes. Don't put yourself in a position to become a target.
People like you make a case for there being no intelligent design.
At any rate, for the people too lazy to google, here is the link
Yet another lie.....
That new US Prez sitcom is better than anything I've ever watched. At first I was skeptical because it looked like a cheap Spin City knockoff or a weak rehash of That's my Bush, and, well, basically it is, but they really manage to spice it up and get to new heights week after week.
Though I have to admit, it slowly starts to get a wee bit unrealistic.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Was the data released incorrect? Was it relevant?
It largely wasn't relevant...
Lots of the internal emails where people calling other people stupid or using in-elegant wording...
Besides most people don't know anything more than "emails and leaked" and assume that there must have been something... When it in fact there wasn't much.
Timing and smear, was effective, whether it was the deciding factor is hard to tell. But for foreign agents to secretly interfere with an election is not cool.
If a foreign state have information that they need to share with the American electorate, they should do so publicly.
None for Obama or for George W. Bush, unless my memory is completely failing me. Is it?
Have you been watching Fox News? They have been committing slander, libel and other things against the DNC staffer ...
Ya, but they haven't groped him yet, so their lawyers said it's okay.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
it's meant that all our checks and balances have collapsed
No it doesn't. Just because "people that think like me" didn't win elections does not mean ALL checks and balances are gone. They are still being eroded away slowly with bipartisan support.
Did you say we lost ALL our checks and balances after 2008 when the Democrats controlled the Congress and Executive? No? Ok then, stop the hyperbole.
Bueller, Bueller, (you read that in Ben Stein's voice), won't find shit, he didn't find shit about US war crimes, he didn't find shit about Cheney's war profiteering, and he didn't find shit about the US engagement in torture--even after it was posted on the internet.
He is going to continue to cover the POTUS's ass and make sure that nothing is found.
And like the voting machine tampering in the 2016 election, he will make sure that any evidence that is found relating to the Cheeto is tainted to give reasonable doubt in case there is an impeachment.
Indeed. Even though Comey was the only one there to hear what Trump said, it's up to anonymous pundits on the Internet to interpret what it meant.
Don't underestimate the number of gridlock voters.
Having those bastards at each other's throats is about the best we can do. Perhaps hand them all antipersonnel grenades, knowing their feeble old arms can't throw it far enough to be outside the kill radius...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Let me give you some advice the next time you want to criticize Wikipedia. Go click on that link above to the Wiki article. Now, look at the text, notice how it has various numbers in brackets in superscript. You can hover over them and some text will pop up. That's called a "reference". Those "references" are where the claims in the article come from. If you click on one of those, or scroll allllll the way down to the bottom, you'll see the list of references for the article, all 283 of them. Those are what you need to attack the credibility of, because the Wikipedia article itself is really just a collection of claims given in those references. Just go ahead and start at #1 and work your way down, debunking each of those references. Make sure not to skip #4, which quotes a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and National Intelligence Council:
We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
Make sure not to skip this one, either. You wouldn't want it to seem like you're cherry-picking.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
This is the point that causes me the most uncertainty in what I hope for. (Not that my hopes have any causal efficacy, but still).
Trump is possibly the first president in my lifetime who I've felt really viscerally disgusted by, however much I may have disagreed with others' policies. For that reason, it's kind of enjoyable to watch him failing so spectacularly. Until I remember that his failures are our failures as he represents the whole American nation. Then I want something done about it. But the only thing I can really see possibly being done about it is removing him from office, which only puts Pence into the same seat. That replaces the incompetent buffoon pushing all the wrong policies with... a (presumably) more competent professional pushing no better policies. Maybe it makes America more respectable and restores some sense of trust in our political process that Trump may be undermining. But is it a good thing to have someone every bit as despicable when it comes to the actual dry concrete policy content, who merely looks more respectable and is more trusted? Mightn't it be better if the villain were obviously evil than able to pretend to be good? I just don't know.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." -- Gerald Ford in 1970
If we are talking about hypocrisy -- whoever leaked the story to WaPo out of "concern" about the danger to the sources certainly knew that it's much more likely ISIS would find out what happened by reading the story about the secrets on the front page of WaPo.
I'd say the report from The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is pretty clear:
https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
I don't respond to AC's.
Takes all the fun out being a Democrat
The difference between a Republican and a Democrat is which way the guns point when they form up a firing squad.
Republicans form up a circle and face outward, killing everybody.
Democrats form up a circle and face inward, shooting themselves.
In the end, everybody dies. Which is no fun at all.
So, as a Liberal (not necessarily a democrat) what do I stand for?
Equal protection under the law. No one is above it, no one doesn't have the protections it recognizes. This means if a cop breaks the law, the police force shouldn't pay their legal bills to get them off. That means if someone that is not a citizen is arrested, they have all the rights of everyone else.
Social safety net. No kid should starve because his parents are drug abusing bums. No one with a legitimate inability to work should starve.
Basic education.
Armed forces that don't spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined.
Fair taxation. No more Burger King or Apple sending their profits to another country to avoid paying US taxes. They made the profit here, pay the taxes here. We can talk about reforming tax rates after folks are paying their fair shot. No more billionaires that pay less tax in absolute terms than I do. (Some get millions of dollars back they never paid in.)
Regulation of monopolies such as telephone companies. No more sweetheart laws to protect their profits and eliminate competition. They don't want regulation? Fine. Eliminate their government monopoly and remove barriers to market entry by others. Free markets don't always work, but usually they are better than anything else.
Government keeping it's nose out of my crotch. What I do and with whom I do it is none of your business, nor what medical procedures I may want or drugs I wish to enjoy. (But not while driving, flying an aircraft, that sort of thing.)
How about if I have to have an ID to drive, cash a check, or vote, that I have to show an ID when I buy ammunition?
How about we get rid of Citizens United law and learn how is paying for our representatives?
That'll do for a start. Let's not talk about what we disagree with - let's find common ground and work together.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I'd genuinely like to know. What am I missing. I just don't see how this is _not_ obstruction of justice. You can argue that Comey lied, I suppose. But otherwise Trump told Comey to drop an investigation into one of his people. That's pretty much a textbook example of Obstruction of Justice AFAIK. Then again, IANAL so take that with a grain of salt. Bill the Clinton perjured himself and managed 8 years. But what he did was a _lot_ less serious. Lying about a side piece isn't remotely in the same boat as doing favors for a semi-hostile nation in exchange for money...
Again, am I missing something? Is there any way for this to end without impeachment? I suppose if the speaker is a Republican he can just decline to bring impeachment. That's his prerogative, but the last time that happened (Nixon) they were afraid of losing the House over it. Are they safe now? There's been a lot of Gerrymandering. Maybe they just don't care. But if that's true it's frightening. It means we're no longer a nation of laws, but of men...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
After spending hours each day studying the Trump nightmare, I now wonder if a real criminal conviction will put Trump in prison. It is hard to look into anything Trump has touched and not find serious criminal activity. The obstruction of justice charge alone is sufficient to demand a prison sentence as are his numerous violations of the Foreign Powers Corruption Act. But we all pretty much know that after being tossed out of office and fined there will be no prison time as the sick truth is that we never have equal justice for all. At this point numerous Trump properties have been placed in the names of family members. I suggest that all Trump's assets, including those transferred be seized and frozen so that the numerous crimes and injuries can be taken from those funds. Besides, if he spends the rest of his life in prison he won't need money anyway.
Putin thought Hillary would win just like everyone else.
And no a single gram of evidence to back up those ridiculous accusations. What else did we expect from Clinton appointees in the security agencies?
They broke the story about Jessie Jackson's love child. They ended John Edwards' political career by breaking the story of his affair with a campaign staffer. They broke the story about Tiger Woods' affairs, too. They were also the first to report on the divorces of both Mel Gibson and Billy Joel.
If they published a document purporting to be Trump's tax return, I wouldn't trust them. If they reported on what was said at a political meeting, I wouldn't believe them. But if they reported that Trump had a love child with Bad Boy's accountant, I'd believe it.
Not while he is President - kind of a flaw in the system at the moment.
So all those weirdos who pretend to be colonials at political events rejoice - you've got yourself a King who is above the law - so that's a worse situation than the King that George Washington fought against. So long as enough Senators are on his side he's untouchable.
People with 6 month old accounts or Anonymous Coward = "this is nothing"
People with actual accounts who have been around for awhile = "we should at least look into this".
No, it's not, I've read that report several times. It doesn't give any convincing evidence to support its conclusions.
If you disagree, please point me to the paragraph or section you find most convincing.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Because Russians have no incentive to burn an Israeli source in Syria? Are you sure?
WaPo didn't print the sensitive portion of the leak.
Play Command HQ online
I keep reading articles how the Russians hacked this or that and then a few paragraphs down; "we have no evidence the Russians are involved.".
If you can't discern fact from fiction, then read primary sources and quit listening to biased news. Here is a link to the report released by the intelligence agencies:
https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...
Here's a spoiler:
We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
Enigma
If Murdoch flips, we'll have to endure Trumpeters for the rest of their lives telling us how they never liked the guy. He's not a real conservative etc.
Play Command HQ online
Right! "Working with the Russians." Which isn't even vaguely related to "colluding with Russians to manipulate the election." I know, the truth isn't nearly as fun because it forces you to think about why the Democrats ACTUALLY lost so many legislative seats and governorships along with both houses of congress and the White House. But your instinct to deliberately mis-represent the very thing you're citing as some sort of evidence tells us all we need to know about what your real agenda is: deflection and distraction. OK, at least it's consistent with the way the Ds ran their entire election season into the ground and shows you still haven't grappled with the fact that continuing with that narrative isn't actually effective (except in turning even MORE Democrat voters away from the party).
I personally don't think that President Trump is directly or knowingly involved in collusion. I just think that he doesn't know how to be President and that he isn't putting in the effort to learn (i.e. not receiving daily intelligence briefings). This puts him on weak footing when it comes to the Russians.
You will admit, I hope, that the reason for Flyn being fired was because he lied about meetings with the Russians to the VP and others. If there wasn't anything to it other than friendly meetings, why did he lie? It's quite possible that people around President Trump were involved in some way. The most simplest way would be to have coordinated the release of the hacked DNC emails. But that's pure speculation. Hopefully we'll start getting some facts out of the investigations.
"Telling the FBI director that you hope a long-running investigation that has produced zero evidence of collusion will wrap up soon"
That's a lie.
He told Comey "I hope you can let this go." That's expressing a desire for Comey to stop the investigation. Not the same thing as hoping it comes to a conclusion.
Comey didn't stop the investigation, then Trump fired him for it.
Then the administration lied about why he fired Comey, but Trump blabbed to the press.
That the investigation will continue anyway is just one more bit of evidence of Trump's total incompetence. From all accounts, they he was caught off guard by the outrage.
Play Command HQ online
Whatever the Democrats may be screaming, it's irrelevant to this. The Republicans control Congress. It's in their hands, and thus far every attempt they've made to support Trump has been thrown back in their face by his inability to keep his mouth shut. For chrissakes, the man is such an arrogant blowhard he was showing off to the fucking Russians in the Oval Office with a Russian journalist in the room. Whether he let slip any classified data or not, the fact is not only has he once again, within the space of a few days, made himself look like a big mouthed ass, he's now pissing off Israel, which means Israel and other allies, not to mention the State Department itself, are going to start holding crucial intelligence closer to their chests lest the Braggart-in-chief decide to show off to any other foreign powers.
My favorite part is Putin has a transcript of the entire meeting he wants to use to help clear trump. Obviously at least one of the visitors had a recording device going at all times.
You're saying Liberals don't want a bright, articulate, politician who happens to disagree with them on a handful of issues, and would rather have someone completely incompetent whose politics are beyond most definitions of extreme?
Assuming Pence doesn't take the fall with Trump, I see no reason to fear him more. We're less likely to get into a Nuclear War. We're more likely to see humane immigration policies. We're less likely to swell the ranks of terrorist groups with people convinced we're at war on their religion.
With Pence we'd be back, essentially, to having George W. Bush in charge. Nobody likes Bush, but I'd have him back in a heartbeat if it meant Trump was out of power.
The problem with you Trumpists right now is you have no idea what liberals believe because you've spent your entire lives in echo chambers and refused to listen to us or even believe what we say about us. Some other idiot in this thread is actually claiming liberals were upset not over Trump getting the presidency, but over Clinton losing it. Do you guys have any idea how unpopular Clinton was with liberals? Some of us talk about her winning the popular vote, but she was unpopular enough that she only got a plurality, she didn't even get 50% of the vote. We voted for her because it was her or Trump. At best we could at least say we voted for the first woman president, and we knew she was qualified, but we also knew she was essentially a neo-con with a few centrist views on social issues.
Her real defining quality was that she wasn't blaming vulnerable minorities for all of America's problems, she wasn't advocating violence against those who protested against her, she wasn't advocating abusing the law to imprison her opponents. Insofar as she was corrupt, it was no more than any other politician, she didn't boast about being corrupt. And she wasn't stupid and impulsive.
That's it. That's something you can say about almost every politician who's won office in the last 100 years. It's not exactly a ringing endorsement. But here we are.
Yes, if Pence isn't tainted by Russian involvement, let him be President. Nobody's going to like it, but the country at least can survive his presidency.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
And with a history like Trump's (even before he became president), the last thing you want is someone like Mueller digging through the closets where you keep all your skeletons.
~X~
Actually he got less votes than Hillary... but still got i
Irrelevant. The E.C. is a good thing IMO. She lost a majority of popular votes in a majority of states. There is no such thing as a national vote.
That indicates a problem with the system
No it doesn't'. The point of the E.C. is to ensure the Executive has the interest of a majority of states. We are a union of states not a mob. The same idea for the Senate (equal representation of the states to give smaller states power) is the idea for the E.C. There is nothing wrong with balancing the interest and needs of different states. The constitution was ratified with the distinction of rural and urban states and compromised to each of their needs in the form of a bicameral congress (with both equal and proportional representation) and the E.C.
Just because Clinton won huge majorities in a few large states does not mean she should dictate to the other states. We are a union of states not a mob.
Unless you have irrefutable evidence of foul play
Likewise.
No, I'm pretty sure that Trump can't pardon himself, and he's just about the only person that he can't pardon. He would have to step down from the Presidency to be pardoned, and then he's have to trust Pence (presumably his successor) to pardon him after he steps down. I think Trump is highly unlikely to step down, unless it really, really looks like he's going to do hard time.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I keep seeing people bring up the 3/5ths compromise as if trying to make a point but it is obvious they haven't read the history and only see snippets that they don't like and their blind rage make moral judgments.
You do understand that the compromise was to limit the southern slave owning states power in the House and E.C., right? Believe if or not slavery was a contentious issue, even in 1787 and there were many people that sympathized with the slaves and wanted its abolishment. Hell, the British by 1783 began an anti-slavery movement, do you think colonists didn't share the same sentiment?
They were left with a choice, give the slave owners what they wanted, which would give the slaveholder interests increased representation in the House and Electoral College. Or compromise to limit their power in the fledgling nation. The 3/5ths compromise in effect gave southern states a third more seats in Congress and a third more electoral votes in the college than if slaves were counted equally.
You use that as an example of "racist history" but don't understand that it was there to oppose slavery. It was put in there by people that opposed slavery and you bemoan their name because you don't understand what they were trying to do.