After the best week ever for @realDonaldTrump – no obstruction, no collusion, NYT admits @BarackObama did spy on his campaign, & the economy is soaring. I now support reparations-Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup
— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) May 5, 2019
Now if you take Trump at his word, he (and apparently Falwell) believe that this is how the coup was supposed to work: The Deputy Attorney General, Republican Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee, appointed Republican Robert Mueller to be a special counsel in a scheme to remove Trump and install Republican Mike Pence as President.
And the mastermind behind that is … ?
Captain Obvious said: “YOU think Trump is no good, but the economy and the rest of the evidence (when you ignore the ranting on Twitter) points to the opposite conclusion.”
This sentence sums up everything you need to know about Captain Obvious. He thinks Trump has made the economy good, and he thinks there is even a scrap of evidence that Trump is NOT human garbage. Both of these are things he wishes were true, but they are not. I will say IMO, because unlike Captain Obvious and Trump, I realize I am quite capable of being wrong. They, on the other hand, have minds like steel traps….you know, rusted shut.
I think you may have to make an apology to rusted steel traps.
Ok, I forgot to elucidate… Nixon was NOT impeached but it was looming on the horizon, which is one of the main reasons he resigned. Yes, Watergate was his doing. He was a little man in a big position, overcome with the power he had as President.
And Roger… “Clinton was no saint (it is stupid of the American people to expect presidents to be saints). But he seems like one compared to Trump, IMO”… that IMO at the end is the telling point. YOU think Trump is no good, but the economy and the rest of the evidence (when you ignore the ranting on Twitter) points to the opposite conclusion.
And anybody who says this roaring economy is the result of Obama is flat out crazy and dining only on the Democrat Kool-Aid.
Besides empty rhetoric do you have any support for your statement regarding the economy not being primed by Obama? By the way, when there is a downturn, there’s very little the Fed can do to create a soft landing given the current low interest rates supported by Trump…it’ll be ugly when it hits. Time to celebrate like it’s 1929.
Once again, you seem to never have read anything about Nixon’s looming impeachment. It was NOT political. He committed a major crime, and he did so on tape. After the tape became public, the House was about to vote at least one article of impeachment either unanimously or almost so. (The members of the judiciary committee stood 38-0 to uphold the charge if it had gone to the House floor.) Republicans also did not want to be seen supporting a criminal damned by his own recorded words. That particular article of impeachment was a criminal charge serious enough to have resulted in lifetime imprisonment without the Ford pardon. We had a criminal in office, and the entire Congress chose to replace him with an all-American boy scout from the same party.
Captain Obvious said: “So, Roger, you think Trump needs to be impeached. You are a member in good standing of a very large club. There has been since the early days of the 20th Century groups of people who are thoroughly pissed off that their candidate lost (It’s NOT FAIR!) and they resort to calls for impeachment.”
Captain Obvious, unfortunately for you, I am old, and I remember the past I have lived through, and the past I have read about, like the presidencies of FDR, Truman, Ike, and so on.
Except for Nixon, there were NO significant calls for impeachment for any of them. You are the one claiming there was; if so, prove it.
Impeachment as a political weapon only came in after the Republican Party had gone rotten and tried it on Bill Clinton, for trivial reasons. It is comical to watch the recordings of Lindsay Graham bloviating about Clinton and the absolute necessity of impeaching him, and compare that to what he is perfectly fine with Trump doing today.
You want to know why Trump should be impeached? To that, I can only point to the Foreign Emoluments Clause, for one thing, and also note that there are none so blind as those who will not see.
BTW, Captain Obvious where DID you stand on the Clinton impeachment? Just curious.
As for Clinton, I was not really all that interested in that debacle. I wasn’t all that interested in politics at the time, only watching from the sidelines. I personally think Clinton was a scumbag of a human but as a President, he did a few good things.
The Foreign Emoluments Clause was not written to keep a President or other elected official from running a business – regardless of who the customers were. It was written to keep Presidents from accepting outright gifts from foreign officials in exchange for preferential treatment.
To say that a President should not own or operate a business is ludicrous, and many in the past have done so, starting with George Washington, who owned the largest whiskey distillery in the new country and profited quite well from it.
There have been too many Presidents with business interests to list, but the standout was Jimmy Carter. He continued to run his peanut business while he was President. Maybe not on a day to day basis, but he maintained control, just as Trump is doing with his. The Emoluments Clause is a non-starter.
And finally, according to the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, all high-ranking federal officials are required to disclose their financial holdings and recuse themselves from any **government business** in which they, their families or close associates have a financial interest. All federal officials, that is, EXCEPT the president, the vice president, members of Congress and federal judges.
I’m probably not older than you, since you remember Ike but I am right up there. I remember many calls for impeachment from both parties against the other party simply because they lost. While those calls may not have been from official sources, they were still newsworthy. But like in Trump’s case, none were worth considering.
Your claim about Clinton being the first President impeached for a political reason is invalid. Nixon was the most notable victim of that madness.
The fact that you think Nixon was (almost) impeached for political reasons, and state it as fact, says all that needs to be said about your relationships with facts, truth, decency, government, and the world in general, Captain Obvious. You believe lies or at least spout them as fact, you “remember” things that did not actually happen, and you are capable of splitting hairs to the nth degree when it comes to your own side.
For another example, you are capable of calling Bill Clinton a scumbag, while apparently believing Trump is a far superior human being and president. Clinton was no saint (it is stupid of the American people to expect presidents to be saints). But he seems like one compared to Trump, IMO. And he actually knew what he was doing as chief executive. Trump has yet to get even a clue.
Oh, and Don? The good economy we have now – if indeed it is so – is no more Trump’s fault than the Great Depression was Herbert Hoover’s fault. It started before he got here, and his tax cuts have mainly the made the rich richer, which is what the Republican Party exists to do these days. Presidents don’t affect the economy much, if it all. Political parties can, for instance by deregulating savings and loans (if you are old enough to remember the early 1990’s) or by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act and letting banks and insurance companies implode themselves.
What are you talking about?
First of all, Nixon wasn’t impeached at all.
Second, he was guilty of a serious crime, thus the infamous Ford pardon. Not only had he ordered criminal activity, but he had done so on tape!
Third, there was no partisanship involved. Republicans wanted him out just as much as Democrats. He was an embarrassment and a liability. The article of impeachment for using the CIA to obstruct an FBI investigation passed 28-10 in the judiciary committee BEFORE the Smoking Gun tape. But after the tape was made public, all ten of those dissenters said they would vote to impeach if the vote came to the House floor. There was an outside possibility that he would have been impeached BY UNANIMOUS VOTE! That was certainly not political. He was a major criminal.
However, you are right that Clinton was not the first. If you read about the Andrew Johnson impeachment, you’ll see that was completely political. They actually impeached him for trying to make America a better place, and for ridiculing Congress for not wanting that!
(Inspired by Lincoln, he wanted to rebuild the South rather than to punish it. He had been a hard-liner before joining Lincoln’s ticket, and his fellow hard-liners thought he had betrayed them).
If you carefully study the articles of impeachment against him, you’ll see that in each case where there is a clear-cut solution, he was right and the Congress wrong!
In regards to Andrew Johnson, it was all political. He overcame being convicted in the U.S Senate by one vote. But, several Senators who voted for conviction said that if others who voted ‘against’ had been in favor, that they would have voted against. The purpose was never to convict him and remove him from office, but to rebuke him by having him survive by one vote.
I thought the United States had touched bottom during the Presidency of Bush the Younger. Now it seems like there IS no bottom. This seems to make a surprisingly large number of people, like Captain Obvious, very happy.
Trump needs to go, either by impeachment or by leaving office after failing re-election, and then big changes need to be made in our government, our politics, and our society, or we are headed for disaster. I don’t know how long it will take, but going down the path of Trump and the Republican Party as it is currently constituted spells the death of democracy in favor of oligarchy, at best.
I wish this crisis had come upon us when I was still a young man. I don’t know what to do, besides to contribute to opposition candidates and organizations.
PS – I should have included Jerry Falwell, Steve Bannon, and Mitch McConnell along with Captain Obvious.
Stop watching cnn. You are being brainwashed. Trump is a scumbag as a human being but the country is doing better than ever. On ALL fronts.
So, Roger, you think Trump needs to be impeached. You are a member in good standing of a very large club. There has been since the early days of the 20th Century groups of people who are thoroughly pissed off that their candidate lost (It’s NOT FAIR!) and they resort to calls for impeachment.
Here’s your chance on a very large stage, Roger: Lay out your charges and specifications for why Trump should be impeached. Let’s hear what you have to say and I hope you have some proof to go with it.
Apologies Roger, I never could resist a hanging curveball.
First: No one is sorry Hillary lost. She is garbage and deserved to lose. With just about any other Republican against her, this would have been cause for celebration.
Second: “Very large stage”…?
Right then.
Emoluments clause: every foreigner who spends money at a Trump business is a violation. Duh.
Obstruction: Before the Mueller report was half-done, he said on national TV that he fired Comey to curtail investigation into himself.
…and nine more instances from the Mueller report.
That’s enough just based on what he’s deliberately showing. I’d be interested (in a “flip over a rock and see what’s under there” sort of way) to see what’s in the hole: mainly those tax returns that he works so hard to conceal. Not because there’s a shortage of charges, just to know whose pocket he’s in.
But!
Like Scoopy has said, it’s a political process. In real life, they’re not going to remove him from office.
Like I’ve said, we’d be worse off with the competent evil of a Pence administration than with a blithering (though evil) doofus who couldn’t find his ass with both hands, a flashlight, and GPS.
At this point I don’t think Pence could be any worse. For good or ill, Trump has now assembled a fairly capable group of people at the top to carry out an agenda (I don’t know whose agenda it really is) Mick Mulvaney on economic/domestic matters, Mike Pompeo on foreign policy and really defense as well and William Barr on legal matters/Trump’s water carrier.
I suspect a President Pence would keep these same people in place (unless Barr was also impeached and convicted) although a President Pence would likely have different priorities he’d want them to carry out.
375 former federal prosecutors say Trump would be indicted if he weren’t president.
Their case is detailed in their statement. This group runs the gamut of political persuasions.
Is this crime an impeachable offense? Who knows? Indictment is a legal process and impeachment is a political process, so the House determines what is impeachable and the Senate determines what is sufficient to convict. The law is fundamentally irrelevant.
I do know that an impeachment trial would result in no conviction, and therefore would be a PR victory for Trump. “Totally exonerated.”
The one thing Dems have to gain from an impeachment investigation is that the process overrides executive privilege. Because the President would be formally under investigation, he cannot withhold evidence, so all of his dirty laundry would come out. But so what? He’s Teflon Don. No matter what the investigators find, the Senate will vote to acquit.
This is an area of fundamental disagreement, and I’d like to know Scoopy where you bought your crystal ball from:
“I do know that an impeachment trial would result in no conviction, and therefore would be a PR victory for Trump.”
I don’t know what it would do to Trump’s popularity one way or the other, but the one thing that would have to happen is that it would force every Republican Senator to go on the record explaining why they opposed convicting Donald Trump.
And they will say, “Because he was not guilty, and justice has finally prevailed. No party can claim a victory today, but the American people have won a great victory, perhaps their greatest victory, even greater than the victory over Fascism in the previous century. A great and noble American, so long maligned by a hostile left-wing press and a bitter socialist minority, has finally been cleared of all the false charges brought against him. The great cloud over America has finally dissolved, and the sun can shine on us once again. May God bless America and may America always bless God for having given us such a man as Donald Trump, who is now free to bring us the prosperity we have earned.”
“Now, about those tax breaks for the rich … “
Trump survives because a sizable part of the American voter hasn’t a clue about their supposed form of government.
566 and counting…
Since I referenced George Lucas in my original post, I know the loudest voices anyway don’t like the prequels, but in Revenge of the Sith Lucas certainly showed an awareness of history with the line “This is how democracy dies…with thunderous applause.”
A little paranoid this morning, are we, Adam?
You’re experiencing normalcy bias, Captain Oblivious.
No, I’m not. Jerry Falwell Jr, like his Dad, when it comes to politics, is an idiot, always has been, always will be. Nobody (except Obama) will ever think the President’s term(s) should be extended on some sort of “penalty adjustment”, least of all Donald Trump, who has already aptly demonstrated his love of this country and it’s laws and procedures.
I’m relatively certain Trump was re-tweeting that piece because of the praise for his accomplishments, not Falwell’s uninformed call for ‘extra innings; because the other side cheated.
I’m sure you are certain of that. You are, after all, Captain Oblivious.
You know, Adam, as a debater, you suck. You are incapable of arguing the post without insulting the poster. ObLivious vs Obvious? Yeah, that’s original.
You should try the other way, leave off the personal insults. You sound like a reasonably intelligent person but your approach robs you of any credibility for your position.
Fine:
1.Did Trump reply with ‘thanks for the compliment, but don’t believe the two stolen years can be got back’ or anything like that? He did not disavow that.
2.Not quite the same thing, but Trump has made mention of extending his stay as President beyond two terms.
3.Where except in the fevered imagination of Captain Oblivious and likely other idiot Trump cultists did President Obama ever suggest extending his Presidency?
Now, how about being even handed and ask Brobonk what evidence he has that backs up his loony conspiracy theory?
I want to expand on this, there is this need for some Trump supporters to be taken seriously.
On the one hand we know, even leaving out Mueller, that Donald Trump publicly asked for Russian interference, we know that Donald Trump Jr met with Russian officials and admitted that he initially lied about it. We know that Donald Trump stating during the campaign that he had no continuing business interests in Russia and then admitted later that he did but that it wasn’t illegal.
On the other hand, we have this loony conspiracy mentioned by Brobonk. One thing about this, given what Mueller actually wrote and not the false impression that William Barr wanted to leave of what Mueller wrote, is that for this loony conspiracy to be true, Mueller would have to be part of it.
What evidence is there of that? Part of this is the always wonderful: “anybody in this is part of the ‘deep state’ the lack of evidence is evidence itself.”
So, the idiot Trump cultists like Brobonk want me to believe that everything involving Trump is a ‘fake news witch hunt’ despite what Trump and his syndicate family have admitted to. On the other hand, they want me to believe that everybody against Trump is part of some large conspiracy despite not presenting a single logical shred of evidence.
And yet, I’m expected to discuss or debate things with idiot Trump cultists as if they deserve to be taken seriously. No, all they deserve is to be mocked and to be told that they are idiots.
However The Gent (or the Bent) if that’s what you want, then please explain to me why 2 +2 can’t also equal five.
i don’t think we can conclude why Trump retweeted it, but the fact that he did essentially endorsed it.
Clearly Trump endorsed it. To suggest otherwise is pure fantasy.
I disagree. Trump may have been endorsing the compliments in the tweet without necessarily endorsing the idea of “extra innings”. Trump is a realist at heart who knows there are Constitutionally imposed limits on the President’s terms. Sure he runs off at the mouth and retweets stuff that probably can and will be misinterpreted by people looking for ANY reference that can be twisted into a diagnosis that he is unfit.
I do not listen to him or read his tweets (I don’t even have a TWITter account), I look at what he has done for this country in the past 2 and half years and that is nothing short of a miracle considering the downright disaster left to him by Obama.
Legally, a reTweet of a political message is an endorsement, as Nikki Haley found out when one almost got her arrested for violating the Hatch Act. If you reTweet, you had better agree with the entire contents unless you include a disclaimer of some kind. I suppose Trump’s eventual disclaimer will be that he was just kidding around. (And I think that is probably true, but I wouldn’t swear to it.)
I don’t join with the nervous nellies like Bill Maher who think that Trump will not step down when removed or defeated, but he clearly has a motivation to refuse to leave. Based on the Cohen conviction for sure, and possibly based on elements of the Mueller report, it seems very possible that Trump will be indicted on criminal charges when he leaves office. Based on existing Justice Department policy, he can avoid this by not leaving office as long as he lives.
These are the sorts of things why I don’t take Captain Oblivious seriously: “that is nothing short of a miracle considering the downright disaster left to him by Obama.”
Except as I have partly shown in another comment here, the U.S economy based on real GDP per capita was the best it had been in the history of the United States.
Contrary to what some say about the economy of the 1950s or 1960s, this isn’t even close: real GDP per capita was around $15,000 in 1960 and $25,000 in 1980. This is perfectly consistent with other data as Real GDP grows has grown at just over 2% per year, so at 2% per year it would double every 36 years, and this is exactly what we see.
I’m sure there may be other ways some can believe Obama left Trump a disaster, but the economy, the best it had been in the history of the United States, certainly isn’t one of those ways.
I’m sorta tired of repeating the point because it should be self-explanatory, but “the other side” never had anything to do with Trump’s Russia woes. Trump’s own appointee, Rod Rosenstein, a Republican, nominated Robert Mueller, a Republican, to begin an investigation which, if it had somehow resulted in Trump’s removal, would have made Republican Mike Pence President.
Exactly how was “the other side” involved in that?
Who was the mastermind?
There is only one person in America who could benefit from this “coup” – Mike Pence, and I feel pretty sure that he wasn’t behind it.
Putting this post and the ‘post’ on the #1 second week at the box office of all time (The Force Awakens) I read just a couple days ago in Cass Sunstein’s book on Star Wars a quote from George Lucas regarding Richard Nixon. Nixon was part of Lucas’ inspiration for Emperor Palpatine and Lucas said something like “Nixon was one of these would-be dictator types who wanted to extend his term in office beyond the (two term) legal limit.”
Sunstein corrects the record on this that Nixon never even mused that.
More seriously, these things just get darker and darker as here is a President who is worse than Richard Nixon ever dared to be and this re-tweet could certainly be seen as Trump trying to lay the groundwork for refusing to step down as President should he lose in 2020.
We certainly wouldn’t want to see a sore loser in a presidential race who can’t accept the results.
Trump might even invent a fake scandal involving another country, and even plant undercover spies in his opponent’s campaign. Then Trump’s cronies who still hold much power in D.C., along with the far-right leaning media will make the elected President’s first term a nightmare as they interfere at every turn. Let’s hope no President ever stoops that low!
The only person who would ever stoop that low is Donald Trump. This is an idiotic conspiracy theory that only mindless Trump cultists could ever believe. The stupidity is strong in those ones.
You should be glad this is all coming out. If Trump had lost in ’16 this would have been swept under the rug by Hillary. The deep state is being exposed and it will be good for everyone in America who wants free and fair elections.
Maybe they’d do something really deranged like spread a bullshit story about him being born in Kenya.
Here you go, Comrade Tondowsky. You probably missed this from last Thursday:
In a month we should have the Inspector General’s report on Obama’s Justice Dept FISA abuses. In a week we should have a separate report on FBI misconduct, written by U.S. Attorney John Huber.
I understand you don’t want to admit it, but Comey, Clapper, Brennan, and McCabe are all more likely to be indicted than Trump.
This looks proper to me.
F.B.I. action was based on information from Aussie intelligence that Papadopoulos had mentioned a Russian offer to help the Trump campaign by releasing thousands of hacked Democratic emails. Their job was to investigate that. They did. They had to keep the investigation secret in order to protect Trump’s campaign. They did.
What do you think they should have done instead, after the report from Aussie intelligence.
Thankfully I don’t live in your delusion filled mind of hate and divisiveness. I am loving this economy. Loving the cracking down at the borders. Love pulling out of international trade agreements that sound nice and do nothing. Love the strong stance on Iran and Cuba.
The only problem I see is overeducated “people of entitlement” demanding we stop our nation’s progress to give some lip service to people who want unisex bathrooms and reparations for activities that have nothing to do with any living person.
Get a better job, a girlfriend, a house, maybe even a dog. Your cheap talk(whining) is getting very old.
Of course, you are regurgitating the mindless Trump cult chants since that’s all your capable of doing. There is nothing original and hardly anything factually accurate in anything you wrote. However, one thing you wrote is pretty fascinating:
“we stop our nation’s progress to give some lip service to people who want unisex bathrooms ”
even conceding that some large number of people want unisex bathrooms, how exactly would they stop our nation’s progress?
since that’s all you’re capable of doing.
I’m confused by your statement. This is the best economy in 40 years by any metric. At some point you might recognize that “regurgitated talking points” are facts you don’t like hearing. Unisex bathrooms are an example of the pettiness of the liberal agenda.
1.Your initial point is not what you are claiming now regarding unisex bathrooms. First you said it ‘would stop the nations progress’ now you merely claim ‘it’s petty.’
2.In regards to the best economy, I’m not sure if ‘by any metric’ is accurate, but it doesn’t actually mean as much as some people seem to think it does. An economy normally grows, as long as real GDP grows faster than population growth, that means the economy is very likely “the best its ever been.”
For example, the quarter prior to the Great Recession (December 2007), real U.S GDP per capita peaked at $52,049. It then bottomed out in the 2nd quarter of 2009 at $49,318. However, by the third quarter of 2013, real GDP per capita had never been higher at $52,201, and ever since then real GDP per capita has been growing. So, every quarter since then, the U.S economy is the strongest its ever been.
So, (some) Trump supporters were complaining about the economy in the 4th quarter of 2016, but the economy then was the best it had ever had been with real GDP per capita of $54,858.
In regards to your specific comment of ‘best economy in 40 years by any metric’ I honestly highly doubt you could name any metrics and explain them.