pacino wrote:

Rhona

“I go through Rhona,” said Stone. “She’s a woman of excellent judgment who reflects her boss’ views.

the "boss" is a turnip. He has no discernible "views"

By the way, the use of the term "collusion" in the legal context is a bit of a misnomer. The better legal term is "conspiracy." If a crime was committed -- for example, computer hacking, whether by the Russians or anyone else for that matter -- and someone knew of those illegal acts and aided, abetted, encouraged, etc., those illegal acts, that person would be guilty of conspiracy to commit those acts and would be subject to up to 10 years in prison.

Even if the aiding and abetting occurred after the fact, it would still be subject to up to five years in prison. It also doesn't matter whether that person is in the government or a private citizen.

Once you add in the fact that the conspiracy may have involved an agent of a foreign adversarial state then you move closer to the threshold of a treasonous conspiracy.

yeah, i'm not sure why collusion has become the word everyone uses.

for some fucking reason DJT Jr is going on Hannity tonight

pacino wrote:for some fucking reason DJT Jr is going on Hannity tonight

mutual hand jobs

pacino wrote:yeah, i'm not sure why collusion has become the word everyone uses.

even though they happen all the time, conspiracy has come to mean something that didn't really happen but nutjobs think did.

JFLNYC wrote:Once you add in the fact that the conspiracy may have involved an agent of a foreign adversarial state then you move closer to the threshold of a treasonous conspiracy.

"But there's no evidence!" cried every R congressperson, or "works for me!", or some other disgraceful evasion/idiocy

pacino wrote:yeah, i'm not sure why collusion has become the word everyone uses.

mostly because it's descriptive. No one with any sense is getting hung up on legal niceties at this stage. drumpf's mob is dripping guilt, it's plain to anyone; as with the making of laws, lawyers come in and "codify" what everyone else has already figured out.

in the case of the drumpf mob trash, lawyers come in and shovel it into a garbage bag - or in the case of this mob's mess, a dumpster

Here's the real problem to me. I've said before that I believe that Trump & Co. are more stupid and inexperienced in government and foreign relations than they are treasonous in the sense that they wanted to help the Russians undermine the US and our elections. The Trumps have always been about two things: Money and power. And if encouraging and/or aiding and abetting the Russians helped the Trumps get more money and power, it's all good.

The problem is our Founders foresaw a lot of things which could go wrong: Espionage, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, etc. But they really didn't foresee such gross incompetence, stupidity, ignorance and naïveté ascending the Presidency. So it's possible that Trump & Co. did unwittingly and naively dance through the legal rainsdrops.

All of this would leave us with whatever political remedies there might be. The problem with those remedies is, of course, we've got a Congress controlled by Republicans who are more worried about their jobs and their party than they are about the country.

So the real problem is we've got an administration which is so inexperienced, naive, gullible, ignorant and downright stupid that they have no business leading this country, but there may well not be anything we can do about it, at least for the next 3 1/2 years.

if drumpf up & dies of a broken heart, convinced his spawn has betrayed him & his whole traitorous mob not by being devious and sociopathic like the old man, but instead merely because he's a colossal dipshit, would that be irony, or just really fucking great?

Has anyone found Sen. McMaverick to see if he's "deeply troubled" yet?

JFLNYC wrote:Here's the real problem to me. I've said before that I believe that Trump & Co. are more stupid and inexperienced in government and foreign relations than they are treasonous in the sense that they wanted to help the Russians undermine the US and our elections. The Trumps have always been about two things: Money and power. And if encouraging and/or aiding and abetting the Russians helped the Trumps get more money and power, it's all good.

The problem is our Founders foresaw a lot of things which could go wrong: Espionage, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, etc. But they really didn't foresee such gross incompetence, stupidity, ignorance and naïveté ascending the Presidency. So it's possible that Trump & Co. did unwittingly and naively dance through the legal rainsdrops.

All of this would leave us with whatever political remedies there might be. The problem with those remedies is, of course, we've got a Congress controlled by Republicans who are more worried about their jobs and their party than they are about the country.

So the real problem is we've got an administration which is so inexperienced, naive, gullible, ignorant and downright stupid that they have no business leading this country, but there may well not be anything we can do about it, at least for the next 3 1/2 years.

nah, there is some serious indications that Russian money laundering has passed through Trump real estate
turn over enough rocks in the investigation and they are going to find a lot more than what is being reported so far

a big problem is our system is not set up for the checks and balances to stop checking and balancing

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Here's the real problem to me. I've said before that I believe that Trump & Co. are more stupid and inexperienced in government and foreign relations than they are treasonous in the sense that they wanted to help the Russians undermine the US and our elections. The Trumps have always been about two things: Money and power. And if encouraging and/or aiding and abetting the Russians helped the Trumps get more money and power, it's all good.

The problem is our Founders foresaw a lot of things which could go wrong: Espionage, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, etc. But they really didn't foresee such gross incompetence, stupidity, ignorance and naïveté ascending the Presidency. So it's possible that Trump & Co. did unwittingly and naively dance through the legal rainsdrops.

All of this would leave us with whatever political remedies there might be. The problem with those remedies is, of course, we've got a Congress controlled by Republicans who are more worried about their jobs and their party than they are about the country.

So the real problem is we've got an administration which is so inexperienced, naive, gullible, ignorant and downright stupid that they have no business leading this country, but there may well not be anything we can do about it, at least for the next 3 1/2 years.

nah, there is some serious indications that Russian money laundering has passed through Trump real estate
turn over enough rocks in the investigation and they are going to find a lot more than what is being reported so far

I don't disagree but those events, if proven, constitute criminal activity independent from Russian meddling in the election with or without the assistance of Trump & Co. And, even if there was illegal money laundering that again distills down to the quest for money and power rather than some idealogical sympathy with the Russian government.

JFLNYC wrote:

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Here's the real problem to me. I've said before that I believe that Trump & Co. are more stupid and inexperienced in government and foreign relations than they are treasonous in the sense that they wanted to help the Russians undermine the US and our elections. The Trumps have always been about two things: Money and power. And if encouraging and/or aiding and abetting the Russians helped the Trumps get more money and power, it's all good.

The problem is our Founders foresaw a lot of things which could go wrong: Espionage, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, etc. But they really didn't foresee such gross incompetence, stupidity, ignorance and naïveté ascending the Presidency. So it's possible that Trump & Co. did unwittingly and naively dance through the legal rainsdrops.

All of this would leave us with whatever political remedies there might be. The problem with those remedies is, of course, we've got a Congress controlled by Republicans who are more worried about their jobs and their party than they are about the country.

So the real problem is we've got an administration which is so inexperienced, naive, gullible, ignorant and downright stupid that they have no business leading this country, but there may well not be anything we can do about it, at least for the next 3 1/2 years.

nah, there is some serious indications that Russian money laundering has passed through Trump real estate
turn over enough rocks in the investigation and they are going to find a lot more than what is being reported so far

I don't disagree but those events, if proven, constitute criminal activity independent from Russian meddling in the election with or without the assistance of Trump & Co. And, even if there was illegal money laundering that again distills down to the quest for money and power rather than some idealogical sympathy with the Russian government.

not if it's a quid pro quo agreement or even blackmail/being compromised
ie
"get sanctions released, downplay Nato, etc if we help you win and we'll kill some of those pesky loose ends too"

VP bailing ass

JFLNYC wrote:The problem is our Founders foresaw a lot of things which could go wrong: Espionage, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, etc. But they really didn't foresee such gross incompetence, stupidity, ignorance and naïveté ascending the Presidency.

Well, they apparently intentionally imposed, in Article 2 Section 1, ridiculously few qualifying standards for the office. It's hard to imagine NONE of them raised issues about just what those standards ought to be, nor suggested that maybe officeholders should satisfy some competence standard. They formed their rebellion against the Brits under a guy they all had probably heard was cuckoo. In other words, my feeling is they foresaw a lot of stuff, and probably this, too - and decided trying to establish a defensible standard would be too difficult, too hard to obtain consensus about.

If you didn't see it, you need to watch O'Donnell's 7/3/17 bit on this particular region of Constitutional wizardry by our founders. Sure, discount Lawrence & his affectations all you like - but he kills this:

When the President is Tried....

start at around 3:10

if you're still convinced they didn't anticipate drumpfian levels of dipshittery afterwards, fine

JFLNYC wrote:
The problem is our Founders foresaw a lot of things which could go wrong: Espionage, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, etc. But they really didn't foresee such gross incompetence, stupidity, ignorance and naïveté ascending the Presidency. So it's possible that Trump & Co. did unwittingly and naively dance through the legal rainsdrops.

actually the electoral college was supposed to have solved that -in case the public was too stupid to elect someone like Trump....