The president is a criminal

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realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
12,337
898
126
It seems? It is. Even worse, there are no clear remedies in order to correct someone corruptly gaining office and executing their agenda albeit closest and practical to a solution would be court packing.



A lot of this crap stems from conservatives feeling strongly about a few issues. As long as things like abortion aren't enshrined, many of them would never consider voting Democrat.

Is it the passion that they feel about a few issues? I think its more about the conservative nature that makes them push back against what they think is normal and right. Passion is not what I see as the problem personally.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,685
136
I have said in the past it would be better to censure Trump and Move On to more pressing matters of state.

Liberals want to erase the 2016 election, this "Resist" movement is getting old.

OJ Simpson was an open and shut case too.

OJ? Really?

If Libs are furious with our Conservative brethren for making Trump president it's completely understandable. I get that it's sometimes difficult to admit to having made a yuuge mistake but this is beyond obvious. We tried to warn them in a thousand ways but no, they had to have Trump. Couldn't live without him.

Other than keeping the govt running, there is no more pressing matter of state than removing him from office, one way or another. He disgraces us all.
 
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momeNt

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2011
9,290
352
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It seems like a bad precedent to accept that people can commit felonies in order to win the presidency. Remember that Trump's entire margin of victory was ~70,000 votes across 3 states. It's certainly reasonable that it going public how he paid off a porn star to conceal his affair with her could have affected that many votes in those states. One of the biggest bright lines we should ever have is that criminal conduct to win an office should not be excused if you succeed. If you do that then you create massive incentives for further criminal conduct. What's getting really old to me is conservatives ignoring clearly criminal and/or corrupt behavior by saying liberals are mad about losing an election. Maybe instead conservatives should be mad about criminal and corrupt activity, no?

It appears highly likely Trump committed one or more felonies in order to win the presidency and so he should pay the price the same as anyone else would. If you think this conduct shouldn't be punished then change the law to make secret contributions to your campaign legal. Otherwise, Trump isn't special.

Also, trying to equate this to Bill Clinton's conduct seems wrong because his conduct had nothing to do with his gaining the office or official conduct in it.



It seems bad to equate this to a case where the person was clearly guilty. If the idea is maybe a jury will end up acquitting Trump in the future well, that's life. Doesn't mean we shouldn't prosecute though.

I wont disagree that it is a bad precedent, I am just saying that the likelihood he gets found guilty of criminal charges is almost nonexistent.

He has a better chance of being taken down over RICO than campaign finance fraud.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,663
6,726
126
It is truly baffling, I agree. I mean look at the facts:

1) Trump has been plenty public about his infidelities in the past when he wasn't running for office, showing at best a minimal regard for concealing them from his wives.
2) Before the election Trump talked to the head of the National Enquirer about paying women he had affairs with for their silence in order to aid his campaign.
3) Trump then paid a woman he had an affair with for her silence and the person most intimately (har) involved with this payment besides the principals said it was to influence the election.
4) We are now supposed to believe there's no way to really know Trump's intent.
5) Come the fuck on.

I also agree, sadly, that whatever moral center American conservatism had is completely gone at this point. I firmly believe in some part of their hearts and brains they know Trump is a criminal but they view their tribe being in power as more important than preventing criminals from attaining power. This preference for tribe over country is the sickness at the heart of America's political problems.
I think even Trump didn't realize how little he needed to hide his infidelity from the Family Values Frauds and that's why he wasted his time trying to cover that up. But I don't think conservatives are any less obsessed by morality than they ever have been. It's just that they rationalize anything that would reflect badly on them away. They refuse to see where they are hypocrites. The whole motivation for their kind of morality isn't the self satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing. It is the self satisfaction of ego that depends on a sense of gratification in being better than other people. They depend on moral condemnation of others and it is that they fear happening to them. Their morality can never be questioned by them.
 
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pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
22,284
4,951
136
I'm pretty sure the people who experience waterboarding would define it as torture.


No, actually many of our own service members have been waterboarded in the course of training. SERE ( Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) Training. A required training for pilots and air crews and many others that do service related missions behind enemy lines.

I see they stopped between 2002 and 2007 after it was determined that it was too effective and did not help the students build up a defense against interrogation.

It could be used as torture, but it can be used to obtain information.
 
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ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,449
16,901
136
No, actually many of our own service members have been waterboarded in the course of training. SERE ( Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) Training. A required training for pilots and air crews and many others that do service related missions behind enemy lines.

I see they stopped between 2002 and 2007 after it was determined that it was too effective and did not help the students build up a defense against interrogation.

It could be used as torture, but it can be used to obtain information.

Just stop. There is nothing wrong with admitting when you are wrong. In fact I think being able to admit when you are wrong is a quality personality trait. You should try it and I can almost guarantee the level of respect you'd get would increase dramatically.
 
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pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
22,284
4,951
136
Just stop. There is nothing wrong with admitting when you are wrong. In fact I think being able to admit when you are wrong is a quality personality trait. You should try it and I can almost guarantee the level of respect you'd get would increase dramatically.


Shocked, We disagree.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,663
6,726
126
No, actually many of our own service members have been waterboarded in the course of training. SERE ( Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) Training. A required training for pilots and air crews and many others that do service related missions behind enemy lines.

I see they stopped between 2002 and 2007 after it was determined that it was too effective and did not help the students build up a defense against interrogation.

It could be used as torture, but it can be used to obtain information.
I think you are able to think in this cold and sterile manner, devoid of normal human feeling, because you lack imagination. You see waterboarding in terms that can help you feel safe from imagined fear but lack an expansive view that would include waterboarding being applied to yourself or your loved ones unjustly as a means, say, to self incriminate you or them. The road down which the ends are used to justify the means is fought with far more dangers than advantages and must not become the new normal. I believe your kind of thinking is dangerous for the human race. There are lines one can cross that make oneself no different than the enemy. Waterboarding is banned as torture internationally and legally for very good reasons. You are morally too backward to personally be declaring exceptions. Sorry!
 
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fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
87,871
55,091
136
No, actually many of our own service members have been waterboarded in the course of training. SERE ( Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) Training. A required training for pilots and air crews and many others that do service related missions behind enemy lines.

I see they stopped between 2002 and 2007 after it was determined that it was too effective and did not help the students build up a defense against interrogation.

It could be used as torture, but it can be used to obtain information.

The US government has prosecuted people for torture because they waterboarded people.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,663
6,726
126
Fundamental to conservative thinking is the fear that people are basically evil and that only whatever torture they endured as children to conform to whatever sick morality they were conditioned by can make a person possibly safe to be around. The fear of the other is caused by being conditioned to hate yourself as a deviant, and to hide that deviancy behind the mask of public morality as one has been conditioned to accept it. And since there is one truth, that we are all the same, and a million lies about what is other, the conditioned live in a constant state of terror. The unconscious goal of the fearful is the extinction of all other threats and the loneliness of one single surviving ego. Death to all but me.

By Percy Bysshe Shelley


I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
 

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
17,604
15,765
146
Oh give me a break. Trump could hold a press conference tomorrow and admit to each element of the crime in turn and he would not be gone tomorrow.

As for the article, it’s simply saying that Trump could have had a different understanding of the purpose of the payoff than Cohen did. This is undermined by later reporting by the Wall Street Journal that said Trump explicitly discussed catching and killing exactly these type of stories with the National Enquirer in order to help his presidential campaign. That was in fact the impetus for this thread. (read the linked article in my OP)

So now we have the president saying he wants to pay people off to cover up affairs to help his campaign. Then his personal lawyer does just that at his direction and says it was to help the campaign. That’s kind of the end of it, no?

But even if he admitted it during a press conference and he is actually guilty doesn’t it feel more true that he isn’t guilty? Like these other Feel Facts. (Courtesy of SNL)

FE329DED-8747-4652-9362-2C9E224C4BBF.png

And isn’t how it feels the important part?
 
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Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,663
6,726
126
Are you referring to the Japanese and there many many war crimes they were charged with?
Do you realize how much time effort and money could be saved by the Muller investigation in getting the obvious evidence of criminal guilt everybody with two brain cells knows must obviously exist on Trump if we all thought as you do and had long ago waterboarded him? That bastard would have squealed like a pig.
 

pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
22,284
4,951
136
There is a huge difference in waterboarding a terrorist and a US Citizen who is the President.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,663
6,726
126
There is a huge difference in waterboarding a terrorist and a US Citizen who is the President.
Of course there is. That is why waterboarding a President is so much more appropriate than just some common terrorist because a criminal President is so much more dangerous to the nation. You are just too stupid to understand the nature of real threat. You talk like a person who is on his terrorist team trying to protect him from justice. You should definitely be in line for questioning.
 
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interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,026
2,879
136
I find it self-evident that, more likely than not, the payments were made for the purpose of influencing the election regardless of Cohen's or Pecker's testimony or any other evidence toward motive. Why?

The payment to Stormy Daniels would not have been made if not for the impending election. This is self-evident because not only did the affair occur in 2006 but she published about it in 2011 and other than that of lawsuit for publishing back in 2011, there was no known activity by Trump, a well-established public figure throughout those 10 years, to do anything to keep the story suppressed. That is until he was moments away from becoming President.

Similarly, McDougal was paid by AMI which we learned was really paid by Trump and through AMI for shade. But, again, this occurred in late 2016 as candidate-Trump and never before as public figure Trump when the affair occurred across 2006-7. In that case, there was a new trigger for the payment as McDougal met with reporters at the time. What is of note here is the odd relationship with AMI which seems a way to make sure the hush money works as McDougal was inappropriately led to believe they were interested in publishing the story. It also means that Pecker has a whole host of information of relevance here. If the agreement was made for catch/kill in the run-up to the election or Trump discussed with Pecker doing this in relation to the election, things become crystal clear.
 

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,026
2,879
136
Shocked, We disagree.

I'd really like to hear your thoughts on why it is bad to own up to your mistakes? I think reality is quite complicated and there are multiple potential goods and bads of each choice. Overall, I skew good for admitting error, as otherwise how could we learn from our mistakes?

For what it's worth, I have been heartened at the ways in which you have shown adaptation to different perspective here. I hope that experience makes it easier for the same to happen in reverse.

I don't think I personally would enjoy life without a continual exchange in learning from another's perspective. I react strongly to the barriers we place in society from doing so.
 
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Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,663
6,726
126
I'd really like to hear your thoughts on why it is bad to own up to your mistakes? I think reality is quite complicated and there are multiple potential goods and bads of each choice. Overall, I skew good for admitting error, as otherwise how could we learn from our mistakes?

For what it's worth, I have been heartened at the ways in which you have shown adaptation to different perspective here. I hope that experience makes it easier for the same to happen in reverse.

I don't think I personally would enjoy life without a continual exchange in learning from another's perspective. I react strongly to the barriers we place in society from doing so.
As I see it everybody except for rare exceptions believes and acts for the good. The problem is that we are conditioned by our childhood environment to believe what we are taught is the good really is. I believe, also, that depending on how that idea of good was inculcated, whether by love or by fear, determines how willing we will be to hear the opinion of others. That tells me, then, that the only way out of the bias we have that makes us assume we are right at an unconscious level, can't happen by means of logical argument owing to the fact the bias exists as an automatic assumption below the level of awareness, which means in turn, that the process of awakening to self awareness must in part require an intention of will. The ways that can be done, as far as I can see, are a tentative suspension of self judgement and accompanied by an intention to work toward self acceptance of oneself as a fucked up bigot. One of the thoughts that used to drive me crazy as a young seeker of truth was contemplation of the odds that my world view out of billions might be the one that is correct just because I knew it was. Eventually, I learned to see myself humorously as a world class idiot. Of course there was a lot of pain involved in rejecting everything I was taught, and not only from the people who taught me, but the disciplinarian within myself.

So the enemy I see is the feeling that deviance is evil which amounts to a terror of breaking ones conditioning. And since contempt for difference is what put us in chains, contempt for our prisoner state offers the opposite in hope for change.

The point of all this, then, is to tell you how pleased I am that you are in my world. I see in you the offer of the gift of acceptance and I think that is a very great treasure.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,807
31,255
146
No, actually many of our own service members have been waterboarded in the course of training. SERE ( Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) Training. A required training for pilots and air crews and many others that do service related missions behind enemy lines.

I see they stopped between 2002 and 2007 after it was determined that it was too effective and did not help the students build up a defense against interrogation.

It could be used as torture, but it can be used to obtain information.

This is what you put forth as your argument that it isn't torture?

lol. you might be dumber than we think you are.
 

jman19

Lifer
Nov 3, 2000
11,225
664
126
No, actually many of our own service members have been waterboarded in the course of training. SERE ( Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) Training. A required training for pilots and air crews and many others that do service related missions behind enemy lines.

I see they stopped between 2002 and 2007 after it was determined that it was too effective and did not help the students build up a defense against interrogation.

It could be used as torture, but it can be used to obtain information.

In other words - it's torture. Which is typically used to "obtain information" - that doesn't make it acceptable. What low standards you have.