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July 17, 2017 12:21 AM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 37 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Grant us a brief delay; impulse in everything is but a worthless servant.”

–Caecilius Statius

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37 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

  3. It's likely that Donald Trump himself was the eighth person in the room at the Russian meeting. Follow the logic: Secret Service agents were there, and "screened" some people. Donald, Jr. was not under Secret Service protection at that time. So why would the Secret Service have been protecting the attendees at that meeting? Only if Trump, Sr. was there.

    Palmer Report is often right about these things.

    Trolls, let me take you again down your talking point journey for the last 6 months:

    1. There is no Russia story. Dems lost, get over it.

    2. OK, there's a Russia story, but it's insignificant compared to Clinton scandals of yesteryear.

    3. There's a Russia story, but it was just opposition research like every campaign does.  Jane Sanders' loans are a far worse problem.

    4. There were meetings with Russians, but so what? Collusion isn't a big deal. Also Benghazi emails Sanders loans Dems have acceptance issues.

    5. There were Russian meetings with Trump officials, and they may have colluded, but show me the statutes that were violated or this is proof that nothing criminal happened. It may be under investigation by a special prosecutor bringing together evidence from four separate investigations, but I want to see results NOW to admit any wrongdoing.

     

    2. Snowflake.  Come out of your safe space.  It's OK.  You can pretend you are a big girl.

      The First Amendment protects Republicans, too.

      Per the Republican partisan, Alan Dershowitz:

      Saturday on Fox News Channel’s “Justice,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz defended President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., for meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya to do opposition research.

      According to Dershowitz, there is nothing wrong with a candidate getting information on his opponent from any type of source.

      “If it were to be prosecuted, the First Amendment would trump. A candidate has the right to get information from whatever source the information comes,” he argued.

      Dershowitz also pointed out, “If the material was obtained unlawfully, you prosecute, if you can, the people who obtain the material. But there is a First Amendment right of a candidate to use information. You can’t include information under the campaign finance law. That would be unconstitutional.”

      It may be time to accept reality.  You lost.  Your candidate sucked.

      1. Gerbils, you might have missed this post from DaftPunk.  I highly recommend it for you.  Then you might consider taking some time to reflect on just why you do what you do.

        They might listen to Jennifer Rubin, who has been a strong conservative voice for years, but of course she can be easily dismissed because of her employer.

        Let me suggest the real problem is not the Trump family, but the GOP. To paraphrase Brooks, “It takes generations to hammer ethical considerations out of a [party’s] mind and to replace them entirely with the ruthless logic of winning and losing.” Again, to borrow from Brooks, beyond partisanship the GOP evidences “no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code.”

        Let’s dispense with the “Democrats are just as bad” defense. First, I don’t much care; we collectively face a party in charge of virtually the entire federal government and the vast majority of statehouses and governorships. It’s that party’s inner moral rot that must concern us for now. Second, it’s simply not true, and saying so reveals the origin of the problem — a “woe is me” sense of victimhood that grossly exaggerates the opposition’s ills and in turn justifies its own egregious political judgments and rhetoric. If the GOP had not become unhinged about the Clintons, would it have rationalized Trump as the lesser of two evils? Only in the crazed bubble of right-wing hysteria does an ethically challenged, moderate Democrat become a threat to Western civilization and Trump the salvation of America.

        Indeed, for decades now, demonization — of gays, immigrants, Democrats, the media, feminists, etc. — has been the animating spirit behind much of the right. It has distorted its assessment of reality, giving us anti-immigrant hysteria, promulgating disrespect for the law (how many “respectable” conservatives suggested disregarding the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage?), elevating Fox News hosts’ blatantly false propaganda as the counterweight to liberal media bias and preventing serious policy debate. For seven years, the party vilified Obamacare without an accurate assessment of its faults and feasible alternative plans. “Obama bad” or “Clinton bad” became the only credo — leaving the party, as Brooks said of the Trump clan, with “no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code” — and no coherent policies for governing.

          1. The wake up calls from wiser voices in the Republican Party are becoming a steady drum beat for those willing to listen – across the entire political spectrum.

            Fate is a pendulum, forever swinging to and fro.

      2. This has nothing to do with the First Amendment or criminal behavior. This situation goes way beyond either of those issues.

        The question remains, yet unanswered, did one of the Trumps or people working for his campaign collude with a foreign power, Russia in this instance, in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 election? If they did, it doesn't matter whether their behavior violated our criminal statutes and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with the exercise of free speech, but it does put our country at risk of being led by people who have something to hide and therefore could be unduly influenced by a foreign power because that power could blackmail them through threats to expose their activities and thereby extract policy decisions that undermine our country.   

      3. Cornholio, according to you, conservatives are the only ones who do have free speech.  You have only your talking points and your ability to repeat them on rote.  Sometimes repeating yourself because you THINK you're so smart.  Not a small, impotent little troll that thinks it's okay to collude with a foreign, hostile power if he thinks it'll help their side win.  In your heart, you are not an American.

         

        Btw, ready to tell your sad ACA story?

      5. To understand how stupid this "it's not illegal" and "First Amendment" spin is, try changing just a few facts:

        The email Jr. "loved" stated "This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." What if the email said "Syria" or "Iran" or "North Korea" or "Islamic State" rather than Russia? Would that be a problem? 

        What if there was a consensus among the intelligence community at the time that Syria, Iran, North Korea or ISIS was actively hacking computer systems looking for information to use to influence the election? Now, are you concerned?

        I don't care if it is a crime. I don't care if Jr. (and the Trump campaign) have first amendment rights to receive stolen information. What I care about is that the Trump campaign cared more about winning an election even if it meant cooperating with (and becoming beholden to) a hostile state. 

        “[Russia is without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe. They fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors.” – Mitt Romney, 2012

      6. Is calling Dershowitz a "Republican partisan" supposed to enhance his credibility?

        Also, he is defending a situation that is not what occurred. Information from a foreign source can of course be used by a campaign. What a campaign cannot do is accept anything of value from a foreign source.

      7. Oh CarnHolio, you sad, pathetic, desperate little amoral scumbag troll. Paw widdle snowfwake!

        Alan Dershowitz (snicker) on foXXX nOOZE (guffaw)? THAT'S the "source" of your worthless “defense” and faux self-righteous “indignation”?

        I snort derisively in your general direction, wondering for the ten-thousandth time how you could be so utterly stupid and clueless, even after all these previous years of utter stupidity and clueless-ness.

        You're hopeless, Charlie Brownshirt. Simply HOPELESS. And evil.

      8. Sure, AC. I'll show you mine when you show me yours. You really do get more vicious when cornered, don't you?

        Interesting that you continue to quote Dershowitz out of context.  His interview on Fox was that using "words" (hacked DNC info) obtained from Russia was covered by the 1st Amendment. Other legal experts have disagreed, and said that those words used were a quid pro quo in exchange for sanctions relief. This has yet to be proven, though.  Dershowitz is by no means the definitive word on the subject, although of course he is the only one featured on Fox News, or by you in your posts.

        Politico actually interviewed 13 lawyers, including Dershowitz, on the topic of "collusion".  Of the 13, most weighed in on likely avenues of legal accountability, including conspiracy to commit cybercrimes, violation of campaign finance laws, which prohibit foreign sources from providing something of value to a U.S. election campaign (the "something of value" being information hackers stole from the HRC campaign and DNC).

        Of the 13 interviewed, only Dershowitz seemed to state unequivocally that nothing criminal had occured at the meeting at Trump Tower last June.

        Here's what John Dean, Nixon's lawyer, said on the topic:

        ‘Collusion is the perfect word to cover such crimes’
        John W. Dean was Richard Nixon’s White House counsel. He served a four-month sentence for his role in Watergate.

        It was the fake legal analysis by Fox News in June—claiming that “collusion” with a foreign government violated no law—that prompted me to look. Surely Fox knows it fooled only fools. Collusion is the descriptive word the news media has settled on to cover many potential illegal actions by the Trump campaign, which could range from aiding and abetting (18 USC 2) to conspiracy per se (18 USC 371) to conspiring to violate several potentially applicable laws like: 18 USC 1030—fraud and related activity in connection with computers; 18 USC 1343—wire fraud; or 52 USC 30121—contributions and donations by foreign nationals. Also, 18 USC 2381—for, contrary to a widespread belief that there must be a declared war, the Justice Department as recently as 2006 indicted for “aid and comfort” to our enemies, the form of collusion better known as treason. Collusion is the perfect word to cover such crimes, pejorative and inclusive.

  5. Well, now we finally know what the market value of Gerbils' services are:

    “The likely financier of the so-called Internet Research Agency of professional trolls located in Saint Petersburg is a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence,” the report says.

    Trolls were located in other areas, as well, including Macedonia, where an unusual number of pro-Trump websites were registered.

    The number of people involved in the effort is not detailed in the Jan. 6 report, which is an unclassified version of a highly classified assessment. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, in March said there may have been 1,000 such trolls.

    If Putin did have that many people working to elect Trump, his operation was more than twice as large as the Trump campaign’s paid staff in the final weeks before the election. And if each Putin cybersoldier was paid just $10,000 over the course of the year, that would put Russia’s expenditure on its pro-Trump propaganda at $10 million, making Putin one of Trump’s biggest financial supporters.

  6. Have we made it? Are we great white again?  

    One of the first orders of business of the White House’s “Made in America” week is providing companies the opportunity to hire foreign workers under the H-2B visa program – the same workers the President employs at Mara Lago and his golf courses.

    Trump Opens Borders for 15,000 Workers 

  7. Hooray for Colorado! 

    Colorado on Monday said it will become the first state to regularly conduct a sophisticated post-election audit that cybersecurity experts have long called necessary for ensuring hackers aren't meddling with vote tallies.

    The procedure — known as a “risk-limiting” audit — allows officials to double-check a sample of paper ballots against digital tallies to determine whether results were tabulated correctly. The election security firm Free & Fair will design the auditing software for Colorado, and the state will make the technology available for other states to modify for their own use.

    Digital security specialists have long pushed for states to adopt risk-limiting audits, which they say are a fast and inexpensive way to give the public confidence that votes were not altered in any way.

    The law was passed in 2009, and is just now being beta tested.  Not sure why Gessler needed so much time, but at least Williams probably deserves an attaboy for finally getting it out the door.

      1. Seems as though this is a faster, cheaper, scalable technique that will be made freely available to all states.  But not being personally acquainted with the current process, I made the presumption that if the lege thought it was a problem in 2009 warranting a law, this would be an improvement over the current process.

  8. Was it Gerbils or Moldy that used this defense of Little Donny and the Crime Makers attempt to gather dirt on Clinton?

    I heard one response from the bowels of the right-wing internet alleging that the Clinton campaign “did the same thing.” The evidence? A Politico investigation showing the DNC gathered information from a Ukrainian political operative. Conveniently left out, though, is that those efforts were to expose Paul Manafort’s very problematic ties to Russia—information that was released to the public and obtained lawfully by a Ukrainian anti-corruption probe.

    And that’s really the big point. When digging for “dirt,” you should not pursue information obtained illicitly, whether by Russian hackers or Nixonian Plumbers. And if by chance you stumble across it, you do what anyone running for office should do—report it to the authorities.

  9. Because of the long downtime this morning, apparently caused by an attack of Shillstink from Carnholio, the Trumpstink report was delayed this morning.   But rest assured, Trump Stinks!

    Stay upwind, America.

    1. Just relying on "Trump stinks" won't help the Dems in the mid-terms next year. Saw just now on Yahoo News some commentary from Rep. Joe Crowley, #4 Dem in the House. Admits that the Dems don't yet have a consistent national message. Apparently they're being distracted by far left groups that want impeachment as the main priority for the Dems.

      To his credit, Bernie Sanders is focused on health care rather than impeachment, and going about the country talking about it. Makes sense; health care is a tangible issue while impeachment is little more than a crazy "wet dream fantasy" for the far left, at least as of now.

      1. CHB, you'll be happy to know that Dems aren't relying solely on "Trump stinks" to gain in next year's elections.

        I was privileged to be a part of Morgan Carroll's "Listening Tour" in Morgan County last Saturday. She is the Colorado Democratic party chair. She's going all over the state on this mission,  and she says that all over the country, Dem officials are embarking on similar listening tours to forge and refine the Democratic message.

           For most of us, health care  is the issue that resonates the most.  Our little towns depend on hospitals and nursing homes which will be devastated by Medicare and Medicaid cuts. Other critical issues are education, water, and jobs (not necessarily in that order).

        It seems to me that if we (meaning all dems) can craft a  message stressing these priorities, distill it down to a one-pager with bullet points, attach some freaking POLICY PROPOSALS to them, and come up with some catchy little slogans and personal anecdotes / stories, we have a good chance of making some headway next year.

        forgive typos, either the website or my computer is being stupid.

      2. But Trump does stink.  He stinks to high heaven.  Let the word go out to free men everywhere.  Trump stinks.

        But if you want to go downwind of him, chb, be my guest.  But take a gas mask.

        Because Trump stinks.

  10. Breaking on MSNBC 2 R Sens say they will not vote to proceed.  Watch out for the flash flood of me toos to follow … Moran KS and Lee from UT

    Yay!!!!

    laugh

      1. So now that McConnell will have to consider cootie contamination from opening negotiations with Democrats, I'd humbly suggest our opening bid is full single-payer, and the bottomline is no less than a public option.

        Free market principles long touted by Republicans should assure them that the private insurers will not be threatened by a Medicare buy-in, right?  (FYI, seems as though they are doing just fine in that market — private Medicare Advantage plans I've been reviewing are plentiful and very cost-effective.)

        1. Actually, Two Scoops has his own idea before resorting to collaborating (colluding? if I can use that word) with the Democrats.

          The GOP needs to repeal but don't replace. 

      1. Ha! The Great Republican Health Care Bill really never made it to the road. Republicans only ever thought they were getting somewhere because they kept singing "the wheels on the bus go round and round" at the top of their lungs until they believed it. And, of course, everyone has their own facts these days…

    3. That brings the number to "4": stick a fork in it (for now).

      McConnell's statement:

      "Regretfully, it's now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful," McConnell said in a statement. "So, in the coming days, the Senate will vote to take up the House bill with the first amendment in order being what a majority of the Senate has already supported in 2015 and that was vetoed by then-President Obama: a repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered health care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care."

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