Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony

Pointing out hypocrisy is fine within reason. Feet to the fire I think it's waaaaaaay over emphasized and manifests... badly in a lot of internet discussions, but that's a personal gripe.

It's the "You have to be perfect before you can say I did anything wrong" thing that bugs me. That's nonsense. Perfect hell I don't even have to be better than (g)you before I judge you. If I'm beating orphans to death with a bunch of kittens wrapped in a burning American flag and I point out that your safety isn't on... your safety doesn't magically go on when you point out I'm being a hypocrite.
 
BobTheCoward said:
The point was about unlimited investigation of the president. Unlimited investigation of someone not the president isn't hypocrisy.
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Talk about blinders.

Why do you think the GOP spent so much time and energy going after the Sec. of State?

Never mind.. it was spelled out for you already.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Pointing out hypocrisy is fine within reason. Feet to the fire I think it's waaaaaaay over emphasized and manifests... badly in a lot of internet discussions, but that's a personal gripe.

It's the "You have to be perfect before you can say I did anything wrong" thing that bugs me. That's nonsense. Perfect hell I don't even have to be better than (g)you before I judge you. If I'm beating orphans to death with a bunch of kittens wrapped in a burning American flag and I point out that your safety isn't on... your safety doesn't magically go on when you point out I'm being a hypocrite.
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That's all probably true. I'd just like to see a tiny amount of intellectual honesty which seems to be increasingly rare these days.

I'm partially concerned that the Democrats may be casting too wide a net and are somehow being unfair because of political reasons. Then I remember all the evidence we have already seen and think "investigate", "investigate", "investigate".
 
The Big Dog said:
and remind your correspondent that tu quoques are utterly terrible arguments. If he was outraged over Benghazi, he ought to be apoplectic over this fishing expedition; he's not of course, take a guess why...
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Repeated, nearly never-ending “Benghazi.”

And it’s not a fishing expedition if the fish are floating on the surface around the boat so thick you can barely see the water.
 
Regnad Kcin said:
Repeated, nearly never-ending “Benghazi.”

And it’s not a fishing expedition if the fish are floating on the surface around the boat so thick you can barely see the water.
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I'll quote this from Liverpoolmiss on Badscience:

liverpoolmiss said:
I've spent some time breaking down the 46 names into separate categories.

I think this will be useful elsewhere. Trump describes these as "innocent people". Trump's claim that it's a partisan attack to harass Republicans has been mimicked by useful idiots here like Username and Backstep - so no doubt it'll be echoed by plenty of others elsewhere.

This proves to anyone with a brain that this is not a list of Republicans under investigation. It is a list of Trump associates, plus some White House Republicans who are potential witnesses. I confirmed that every one of these 10 White House staffers are now out of the administration. Nobody in the current administration is on the list of 81 names (except for Kushner). Backstep's claim that "it's a bit like Theresa May insisting on a court summons for Corbyn, McDonnell, Watson" is ridiculous.

The 81 requests are:

6 Convicted Criminals

27. George Nader
28. George Papadopoulos
45. Michael Cohen
46. Michael Flynn
49. Paul Manafort
78. Rick Gates

2 Awaiting Trial

48. Paul Erickson
56. Roger Stone

4 highly likely to be indicted

11. Carter Page
24. Felix Sater
35. Jerome Corsi
37. Julian Assange

11 from the Trump Crime Family

18. Donald J Trump Revocable Trust
19. Donald Trump Jr.
21. Eric Trump
31. Jared Kushner
65. The White House
66. The Trump Campaign
67. Trump Foundation
68. Trump Organization
69. Trump Transition
72. The Presidential Inaugural Committee
76. Kushner Companies

12 Organisations

10. Cambridge Analytica
12. Columbus Nova
13. Concord Management and Consulting
16. Department of Justice
23. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
25. Flynn Intel Group
26. General Services Administration
4. American Media Inc.
59. SCL Group Limited
71. WikiLeaks
74. Frontier Services Group
77. National Rifle Association

11 Trump Campaign Team

14. Corey Lewandowski - Trump Campaign manager
32. Jason Maloni - Trump Campaign spokesman
44. Michael Caputo - Trump Campaign advisor
58. Sam Nunberg - Trump Campaign advisor
63. Steve Bannon - Trump Campaign manager
64. Ted Malloch - Trump Campaign advisor
8. Brad Parscale - Trump Campaign media director
81. Tony Fabrizio - Trump Campaign pollster
75. J.D. Gordon - Trump Campaign advisor and "friend" of Russian spy Maria Butina
79. Tom Barrack - Billionaire who ran inauguration committee
73. Christopher Bancroft Burnham - was on Trump's transition team

7 Trump Employees

1. Alan Garten - Trump Org's chief lawyer
3. Allen Weisselberg - Trump crime family's money man
33. Jay Sekulow - Trump lawyer who might have been the one dangling pardons
43. Matthew Calamari - Trump Org employee / Trump bodyguard
53. Rhona Graff - Trump Org assistant to Trump
57. Ronald Lieberman - Trump Org's second top lawyer
61. Sheri Dillon - Trump's Tax Lawyer

6 Russians and their Associates

30. Irakly Kaveladze - Russian spy and Agalarov*associate at the Trump Tower meeting
5. Anatoli Samochornov - Russian translator at the Trump Tower meeting
54. Rinat Akhmetshin - Russian lobbyist and ex-spy at the Trump Tower meeting
55. Rob Goldstone - Trump and Agalarov go-between who initiated Trump Tower meeting
6. Andrew Intrater - Cousin of Viktor Vekselberg who ran his US money laundering operation
70. Viktor Vekselberg - Russian oligarch who paid a fortune to inauguration committee

3 Cambridge Analytica

2. Alexander Nix - Cambridge Analytica
38. Julian David Wheatland - Cambridge Analytica
9. Brittany Kaiser - Cambridge Analytica

3 Rat-*******

36. John Szobocsan - Associate of Peter Smith
50. Peter Smith (estate) - Colourful rat-****** who was chasing after Clinton's "missing emails" and then died
51. Randy Credico - Colourful rat-****** who was dealing with Roger Stone and is now feuding with him

3 National Enquirer / Stormy Daniels

15. David Pecker - National Enquirer crook
20. Dylan Howard - National Enquirer editor
39. Keith Davidson - Stormy Daniels former lawyer

10 Former White House staffers who quit/got fired - potential witnesses to obstruction of justice

17. Don McGahn - ex White House Counsel
7. Annie Donaldson - ex White House Chief of Staff to Don McGahn
29. Hope Hicks - ex White House Communications Director
34. Jeff Sessions - ex Attorney General
40. KT McFarland - ex Deputy NSA advisor under Michael Flynn
41. Mark Corallo - ex White House spokesman who quit over Trump's Air Force 1 false statement
52. Reince Priebus - ex Chief of Staff
60. Sean Spicer - ex White House Press Secretary
62. Stefan Passantino - ex Deputy White House Counsel
80. Tom Bossert - ex White House homeland security adviser

3 Others

22. Erik Prince - Blackwater mercenaries billionaire
42. Matt Tait - Cybersecurity expert
47. Michael Flynn Jr. - Another idiot son
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It looks pretty reasonable given the known facts
 
JoeMorgue said:
Who.... the... hell... cares?

I'm going to blow some minds here but "Hypocrisy" isn't a thing in law and politics.

If you murder your neighbor but the Judge drinks too much and one of the jurors beats his wife.... you still murdered your neighbor.

Guilt does not go away because you can find something the person accusing/judging you did wrong.

"You're a hypocrite, therefore I win" exists in one place and one place only two places and two places only, Trump's head and internet discussions.
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FTFY
 
acbytesla said:
This from the guy who had no issue with multi-year investigations into Ben Ghazzi and Hillary Clinton deleting emails. Can someone say "hypocrisy"?

Performing oversight is not a witch hunt. It's just that it appears as if the President has broken campaign finance laws, insurance and or tax fraud/evasion, ran a fraudulent charity as well as conspired with a foreign power to defraud the United States.

Requesting documents is SOP. Perhaps the committee will find nothing. :rolleyes:

But the good news is we will finally get to see those tax returns Trump promised to release. I mean I know you believe in transparency.
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acbytesla said:
That's all probably true. I'd just like to see a tiny amount of intellectual honesty which seems to be increasingly rare these days.

I'm partially concerned that the Democrats may be casting too wide a net and are somehow being unfair because of political reasons. Then I remember all the evidence we have already seen and think "investigate", "investigate", "investigate".
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The Dems appear to be doing a lot now because they have two years worth of oversight to catch up on after the Republicans led congress forgot about oversight and preferred to overlook. Republicans have been derelict in their duties during their time in control, and that is currently being addressed.
 
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smartcooky said:
The Dems appear to be doing a lot now because they have two years worth of oversight to catch up on after the Republicans led congress forgot about oversight and preferred to overlook. Republicans have been derelict in their duties during their time in control, and that is currently being addressed.
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You're being quite generous in your description of the Republican's failure in oversight duties especially given Devin "Member of the Transition Team" Nunes' antics to actively prevent it.
 
Stacko said:
You're being quite generous in your description of the Republican's failure in oversight duties especially given Devin "Member of the Transition Team" Nunes' antics to actively prevent it.
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I've always been a generous person.

NOTE: "Overlook" has a double meaning in the context I have used it.
 
Base tribalism. "When your side does it it's abuse/violation/misuse of power. When my side does it it's because you made us/didn't compromise/for the greater good."

See every veto, Filibuster, rider bill, basically every political trick ever of all time.
 
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jimbob said:
I'll quote this from Liverpoolmiss on Badscience:



It looks pretty reasonable given the known facts
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A lot of those names could go in more than one of the categories. Manafort, for instance, could be in the Trump Campaign category as well as Convicted Criminals. Cohen in Trump employees as well as Convicted. And so on.
 
smartcooky said:
And Trump declaring a National Emergency to make an end run around The House's power of the purse, doesn't?
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No. It's perfectly legal under a law that Congress passed. I agree that's it's wrong and Congress should have never passed the law in that form in the first place, but it's not illegal.
 
Because every check and balance that was put into the setup of the Federal government the assumption that assumption of some level of sanity. It's how we got through 45 Presidents from all across the political spectrum wielding the power without a problem.

"Yeah we gave the President the power to declare emergencies and we didn't think to specifically spell out 'Assume for our purposes a non-man-child raving idiot' because we assumed you dumbasses didn't need to be told that" - The Founding Fathers
 
JoeMorgue said:
Because every check and balance that was put into the setup of the Federal government the assumption that assumption of some level of sanity. It's how we got through 45 Presidents from all across the political spectrum wielding the power without a problem.

"Yeah we gave the President the power to declare emergencies and we didn't think to specifically spell out 'Assume for our purposes a non-man-child raving idiot' because we assumed you dumbasses didn't need to be told that" - The Founding Fathers
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There's a scene in an episode of the West Wing which I think is appropriate.


https://youtu.be/gLoio0Z6jLw]
 
JoeMorgue said:
Because every check and balance that was put into the setup of the Federal government the assumption that assumption of some level of sanity. It's how we got through 45 Presidents from all across the political spectrum wielding the power without a problem.

"Yeah we gave the President the power to declare emergencies and we didn't think to specifically spell out 'Assume for our purposes a non-man-child raving idiot' because we assumed you dumbasses didn't need to be told that" - The Founding Fathers
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Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. -- John Adams

ETA: I'm not claiming that Adams was right, merely supporting your point that that was his view of presidential powers.
 
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