The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[Celestia]

2 minutes ago, Speederino: Hero of Hyrule said:

What I don't get is, if these reports of Trump hating this job are true, why on earth he'd WANT to run for a second term.

He might just out of pure stubbornness.

Though it's just as likely he won't run again and claim it was all part of his plan or whatever to only have one term.

[CleverSonicUsername]

He's an unhinged narcissist who probably looks at a second term as affirmation that people actually really really like him. I'm sure the most likely outcome is that Pence will assume more responsibilities while Trump enjoys the perks of being President. I doubt he'll quit since that's tantamount to losing, and by all accounts he cannot even stand to keep company with people who he views as losers. Impeachment would need to come about with a scandal worthy enough to start the process, and with a republican majority, that bar is going to be pretty high.

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

And yet he gave Obama so much flak as president...now he's seeing just what kind of ugly the last Administration had to deal with.

Grass ain't so green now, huh?

[Nepenthe]

Mexico is thinking of introducing a bill next week wherein they will cut off all American corn imports and instead import from Brazil and Argentina. Trade war incoming?

[Kevin]

3 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

Mexico is thinking of introducing a bill next week wherein they will cut off all American corn imports and instead import from Brazil and Argentina. Trade war incoming?

Hoo boy! Shit is really going to go down is they go this route given how widely corn is used.

[Tani Coyote]

Annnnd Michael Flynn resigned as National Security Adviser over revelations regarding his ties to Russia, how he lied to Pence about it, and how there were chances he could be blackmailed by Russia. Icing on the cake: Sally Yates, the acting Attorney General that Trump canned, had warned Trump before that Flynn was a potential legal and security vulnerability to the White House.

His tenure: 24 days.

Holy crap. This administration has its first scandal (ignoring the Yemen Raid as Trump's Benghazi or Black Hawk Down) before the first month is even up.

 

[Johnny Boy]

My god, it's only February and already we have a major scandal. And to make things even better, Flynn was the one who lead a "lock her up" chant during a Trump rally last year. Is anyone expecting this administration to be Nixon part 2?

[Kevin]

There has to be more to this than Flynn simply resigning over ties to Russia. The press is smelling blood and lots of questions are being raised over what Trump knew and when. It wouldn't surprise me if there were more resignations down the road. If this keeps up, it could be our generation's Watergate.

[AxelPrime]

Well someone else just resigned and it's... The Secret Service Director?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/secret-service-director-announces-retirement-spokesperson-tells-cnn/index.html?sr=twtsr0214clancy 

Edited February 14, 2017 by AxelPrime

[Patticus]

11 hours ago, AxelPrime said:

Well someone else just resigned and it's... The Secret Service Director?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/secret-service-director-announces-retirement-spokesperson-tells-cnn/index.html?sr=twtsr0214clancy 

Looks like an innocent retirement, rather than a resignation or a firing.

Anyway:

It's as if he didn't hold a high security briefing, complete with classified documents, in the public restaurant of his Mar-A-Lago golf club, with club members watching and taking pictures of the Nuclear Football and its keeper... and did Trump just reveal that he's making a deal on North Korea?

[AxelPrime]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html

Quote

WASHINGTON — Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.

Holy shit

[Nepenthe]

Is anyone honestly surprised at this point? We've known at least Flynn has had some sheisty-ass Russian ties and communications since a few years ago.

[Patticus]

1 hour ago, AxelPrime said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html

Holy shit

On January 15th, this happened:

Quote

Mike Pence: No contact between Trump campaign and Russia

"Of course not. Why would there be any contact between the campaign?" Pence told Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "This is all a distraction, and it's all part of a narrative to de-legitimize the election and to question the legitimacy of (Trump's) presidency."

Asked again on CBS' "Face the Nation" by John Dickerson, Pence once again said "of course" there had not been contact between the Trump campaign and Russia.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/15/politics/mike-pence-flynn-trump-russia-contacts/

Pence's credibility on the matter is quickly moving southward - either he straight up lied, or was not aware of what the campaign's senior staff were doing. It's a sweet thing to watch happen, as it will probably severely impact his future presidential ambitions, especially should it become known that he knew of all this weeks ago, or during the campaign, as Trump knew of Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador weeks ago.

Meanwhile, earlier today:

Something tells me that Spicer may be joining Flynn pretty damn soon. I can see a big senior staff reshuffle coming closer and closer with every passing day.

Apparently, CNN might actually have the names of some or all of those who were in contact with Russian intelligence officials during the election, and are just waiting for the White House to comment first before they go ahead and reveal them.

Quote

Trump aides were in constant touch with senior Russian officials during campaign

High-level advisers close to then-presidential nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence, multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials tell CNN.

President-elect Trump and then-President Barack Obama were both briefed on details of the extensive communications between suspected Russian operatives and people associated with the Trump campaign and the Trump business, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

Both the frequency of the communications and the proximity to Trump of those involved "raised a red flag" with US intelligence and law enforcement, according to these officials. The communications were intercepted during routine intelligence collection targeting Russian officials and other Russian nationals known to US intelligence.

Officials emphasized that communications between campaign staff and representatives of foreign governments are not unusual. However, these communications stood out to investigators due to the frequency and the level of the Trump advisers involved. Investigators have not reached a judgment on the intent of those conversations.

Adding to US investigators' concerns were intercepted communications between Russian officials before and after the election discussing their belief that they had special access to Trump, two law enforcement officials tell CNN. These officials cautioned the Russians could have been exaggerating their access.

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

The extensive contacts drew concerns of US intelligence and law enforcement officials in part because it came at a time of Russian cyberactivities targeting mostly Democratic Party political organizations.

Post-election intelligence briefings on Russian meddling in the US elections included details of those communications, which included people involved in Trump's businesses.

The communications were gathered as part of routine US intelligence collection and not because people close to Trump were being targeted.

The FBI and US intelligence agencies continue to try to determine what the motive for the communications were.

One concern was whether Trump associates were coordinating with Russian intelligence operatives the release of damaging information about the Hillary Clinton campaign.

"If that were the case, then that would escalate things," one official briefed on the investigation said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/donald-trump-aides-russians-campaign/index.html

[Kevin]

Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen, because the wild ride has just begun. It is now being reported that the Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence. If that wasn't enough, according to a tweet, CNN supposedly has the names of Trump campaign officials who communicated with Russian operatives. Despite needing further verification, it would be huge if those names are released.

This could be one of the greatest if not the greatest political scandals in history if this continues to blow up. The press is practically competing to see who can be the next one to get more information out there.

[Patticus]

It's only a matter of time before Trump decides to really clean house at this point, but even then, the questions about his Russian connections and Putin's influence will probably dog him until the election. This is his Benghazi, his email-gate, his Katrina - this is the one scandal he cannot escape from. Well, not yet anyway.

[Remy]

Don't these scandals normally take more than a month to come out, he's really doing some record time here

[Patticus]

Veteran newsman and former-CBS journalist Dan Rather believes that the Flynn scandal could grow to rival or even exceed Watergate as the biggest political scandal of our time.

Quote

Former CBS anchor Dan Rather on Tuesday blasted the Trump administration’s integrity following former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation.

“The White House has no credibility on this issue,” he wrote on his Facebook page. "Their spigot of lies – can we finally all agree to call them lies – long ago lost them any semblance of credibility.”

“We need an independent investigation,” Rather added. "Damn the lies, full throttle forward on the truth.

"[This] is real and it is serious. Deadly serious. We deserve answers and those who are complicit in this scandal need to feel the full force of justice.”

Flynn resigned late Monday amid scrutiny of his phone conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December after reports that he had misled senior White House officials about discussing U.S. sanctions on Russia before Trump took office.

The retired Army lieutenant general blamed the “fast pace of events” for “inadvertently” giving Vice President Mike Pence and others “incomplete information” about the talks.

Pence had previously insisted Flynn did not discuss sanctions against Russia with Kislyak, but mounting evidence seemingly contradicted that version of events.

Reports emerged last week that Flynn and Kislyak spoke about that topic before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday said Trump ultimately requested Flynn’s resignation once the president’s trust in his former adviser “eroded” following the allegations.

Rather argued Tuesday that the Flynn incident could ultimately eclipse the Watergate controversy.

“Watergate is the biggest political scandal of my lifetime, until maybe now,” he said. "It was the closest we came to a debilitating Constitutional crisis, until maybe now.”

“And we may look back and see, in the end, that it is at least as big as Watergate,” Rather added of Flynn's resignation. "It may become the measure by which all future scandals are judged.”

“It has all the necessary ingredients, and that is chilling. This Russia story started out with an avalanche and where we go from here no one really knows.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/319585-dan-rather-on-flynn-damn-the-lies

Those of you who have studied Watergate will know that it all began as a far smaller incident than this, and grew over time as pieces began fitting together, and as whistle-blowers came forward. Now, nobody's saying that this scandal will become that huge, but the fact that an almost un-impeachably well respected veteran journalist believes that it could, lends the whole idea an element of gravitas that it might otherwise not have had.

More senior heads will roll though, of that we can be quite sure.

 

On the lighter side of things...

XD

[Tani Coyote]

Trump's scandals coming out early is arguably to his advantage. Being so early in his term, they are likely to be buried under scores of other crap that comes closer to Election Day. While Nixon's scandal came early in his second term, he had the disadvantage of a Congress that leaned Democrat. While Republicans are reluctant to embrace Trump, they're not eager to throw him out either, as that could weaken the Party overall.

If he purges all the questionable people in his administration now, he could put together a semi-respectable government that could win him a second term. It will likely be a major screwup in 2019/2020 that ends up costing him re-election.

That sounds awful, but short memories are common. It's the same reason the left worries the anti-Trump anger will eventually give way to distasteful complacency as opposed to active resistance.

On the other hand, enough of these scandals right now might still work in Democrats' favor for the 2018 midterms.

[Patticus]

While this scandal alone (even if it hits Watergate proportions) probably won't kill off Trump's re-election prospects, due in part to the timing of it, and Trump likely reshuffling his White House staff and very soon, it still contributes to an overarching narrative of scandal, untrustworthiness and bad judgment - and perhaps much worse.

It's much the same as Benghazi and the email saga for Clinton; they shouldn't alone or together have killed off her election prospects, but the opposition banging their drums about them for years, combined with drip-fed leaks, seriously eroded the public's trust in her as a candidate for the presidency.

Now apply that scenario to Trump, only instead of Benghazi, it's every bungled military operation in the mold of Yemen for the next (hopefully just) 3 years, and instead of the email leaks, it's anonymous government and White House insiders leaking information, and instead of hackers possibly accessing that email server, it's Flynn, it's the super-shady Russian connections to Trump's campaign, it's the Mar-A-Lago restaurant briefing (and all future ones like it), it's the compromising of Trump's White House and its innermost sanctums by Russian intelligence. And there will likely be other things too - Trump is a target uniquely rich in scandal potential, after all.

So no, this scandal alone probably won't deal a death blow to his nascent political career, but it will dog him for years, and play a key role in building the narrative of a president unfit to serve a second term.

[Rusty Spy]

At the very least, can we at least say that Trump no longer has any right to talk shit about anyone now that we know that he's been pen pals with Russia behind our backs?

[Meta77]

Honestly I'd rather be pen pals with the second country with the most nukes in the world. People these days don't know how powerful those things are and how few it would take to wipe out most all of us. Doesn't mean you need to sleep with them but sure means you don't need to cross them

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

At what cost tho?

[Meta77]

15 minutes ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

At what cost tho?

Not sure. As long as it does not cause them to get mad.honestly it would not be a win win for either but the extent of life those things can take out it be a end game.  it's not even worth trying to enrage that wasp nest. Unlike n.k poor they can actually get them off the ground

 

[Rusty Spy]

2 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Not sure. As long as it does not cause them to get mad.honestly it would not be a win win for either but the extent of life those things can take out it be a end game.  it's not even worth trying to enrage that wasp nest. Unlike n.k poor they can actually get them off the ground

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for de-escalation with Russia and not being so hawkish towards them, but it's becoming increasingly clear that they've been infiltrating and influencing our government on a deeper level than the initial DNC email hacks.

[KHCast]

Not sure if this is the right place to express my feelings on this, but do you guys think institutional oppression is still a thing in this country? It seems that many feel like it's not there, and that it not being as bad as it used to means people shouldn't act like it's a issue anymore. Idk, I feel like the system has on multiple accounts shown favoritism for certain people over others, and statistics have time and time backed those that feel like it is still a institutionalize problem.(geographically, judicially,legally, socially) I mean hell, look at all the hoops Obama had to do and go through to be considered qualified to run.