Cont: Mueller Investigation pt3

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River said:
Hahaha! That's awesome. Fitting too IMHO. Not so much that he broke any conditions of the interview. Perhaps his contract should've stated something about double pay if that happened. I have a hard time taking anything Avenatti says seriously. I'm going to go look up that episode for the lols.
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Wow. Honesty and oaths are worthless to you. You cannot possibly have said that any clearer.

Merlin would be very disappointed with you. When a man lies he murders some part of the world.
 
acbytesla said:
I never liked him but he's not dumb. I read some articles that Carlson wrote about 10 years ago. They were thoughtful although I didn't agree with some of his conclusions. He's basically a whore.but not a good whore. By this, I mean he sold his soul to the Fox News narrative where truth and integrity is sacrificed every day to promote the Fox News Republican narrative. He's a phony, not a moron.
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Good point. He might be playing a gibbering addled idiot because that is what will appeal to his core audience.
But IMHO cynically exploiting bigotry for personal gain is just as morally despicable as being a bigot.
 
acbytesla said:
This is also why I am no longer a Christian. I still remember the discussion I had with my pastor when I left the church. His final argument why I should believe was Pascal's wager. That I should choose to believe something I didn't because I lose nothing if there isn't a God and if there is a God, I get to go to heaven not hell. I thought of this as lying. If there was a God and he knew my heart and mind he would see through that insincerity.

I don't see the civil war. And yes the stakes may be high, but I remain optimistic. Trump is ABSOLUTELY DESPISED by 55 percent of the public. Maybe half of the hard core Trump supporters actually likes this guy and I may be overestimating that number. Everyone has made a deal with the devil. What happens when the deal sours? What happens when the boom economy goes bust? The farm states are getting killed by the tariffs. The number of coal jobs hasn't materialized and are highly unlikely to.
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What I fear is that all this means nothing because the GOP will corrupt elections to the point where they are meaningless exercises. Throwing the GOP out of office by legal means becomes impossible. We have elections I nthe same way a number of despotism have elections. When that happens I see no course but resistence by any means necessary, including armed resistence. I hope I am wrong, but I fear I am right.
 
Belz... said:
And you know what the bitch of it is? That's the traditional, convervative position.
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As someone who would probably be considered a conservative on a number of issue..primarly fiscal I think Trump and the GOP have betrayed many conservative principals for political power.
That line from "A Man For All Seasons" has been used by many Never Trump Conervatives (many have out and out quit the GOP) about the Republican Party.
It is the line when Thomas More confronts Richard Rich, who has perjured himself in a oath before God to convict More of Treason, ( a mortal sin deserving of Damnation in Traditional Catholic Doctrine )and has received a lucrative government office t in Wales as a reward:

"To gain the world and lose your soul is bad,Richard, but for Wales?".

I note that more and more people are referring to themselves as Libertarians rather ten Conservatives nowdays.
 
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dudalb said:
What I fear is that all this means nothing because the GOP will corrupt elections to the point where they are meaningless exercises. Throwing the GOP out of office by legal means becomes impossible. We have elections I nthe same way a number of despotism have elections. When that happens I see no course but resistence by any means necessary, including armed resistence. I hope I am wrong, but I fear I am right.
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I'm worried about that too. The problem of course is real opposition is needed and believe it or not there are Republicans that feel that way too.

The beauty of our system is The checks and balances. There are few irreversible errors. It's always been 2 steps forward and one backwards. I was afraid of someone like Trump following Obama even before I saw Trump as a political possibility. A backlash against progress. It was almost bound to happen.

Trump is too big a moron to hold power.
 
acbytesla said:
I'm worried about that too. The problem of course is real opposition is needed and believe it or not there are Republicans that feel that way too.

The beauty of our system is The checks and balances. There are few irreversible errors. It's always been 2 steps forward and one backwards. I was afraid of someone like Trump following Obama even before I saw Trump as a political possibility. A backlash against progress. It was almost bound to happen.

Trump is too big a moron to hold power.
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Personally, I was expecting a much smarter white supremacist plutocrat. It's...telling how many elected GOP leaders have decided that it's cool to separate kids from their parents and lock them in cages, how many are proud champions of state violence against black people using century-old stereotypes, and the like - but I was expecting more in the way of concentration camps by now, as well as a far better federal move towards suppressing nonwhite voters than Kris Kobach's asinine attempt.

Guess I didn't notice quite how many grifters there were in the GOP. From Rubin to Shapiro, there's really nothing here at all behind conspiracy theorists and repackaged sugar pills, even at the think tank level. Turns out these guys, in addition to their hatred, are also almost entirely incompetent and barely able to look at the real world and put much into action.

Keep in mind, at this point they can still do immense damage, beyond what they have, and pretty much every pseudoconservative (meaning: everyone with an R next to their name) elected or appointed to federal office as of today needs to leave government in disgrace (I'll accept "drop dead of disease or old age", and then being seen as disgraceful, but we're not at violence now). So I'm not saying we're good here. And I do see many who served full *careers* in the government as a separate group.
 
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Mumbles said:
Personally, I was expecting a much smarter white supremacist plutocrat. It's...telling how many elected GOP leaders have decided that it's cool to separate kids from their parents and lock them in cages, how many are proud champions of state violence against black people using century-old stereotypes, and the like - but I was expecting more in the way of concentration camps by now, as well as a far better federal move towards suppressing nonwhite voters than Kris Kobach's asinine attempt.

Guess I didn't notice quite how many grifters there were in the GOP. From Rubin to Shapiro, there's really nothing here at all behind conspiracy theorists and repackaged sugar pills, even at the think tank level. Turns out these guys, in addition to their hatred, are also almost entirely incompetent and barely able to look at the real world and put much into action.

Keep in mind, at this point they can still do immense damage, beyond what they have, and pretty much every pseudoconservative (meaning: everyone with an R next to their name) elected or appointed to federal office as of today needs to leave government in disgrace (I'll accept "drop dead of disease or old age", and then being seen as disgraceful, but we're not at violence now). So I'm not saying we're good here. And I do see many who served full *careers* in the government as a separate group.
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I'm well aware that Trump and his gang of kooks and incompetents could do a great deal of more damage. I shall never forget that Americans entrusted an unstable narcisstic ignorant con man with the nuclear codes.
 
LSSBB said:
Your words:
I probably won't see you call out Obama for his meeting with Farrakhan or others in the DNC that call him a friend or associate with him. Does that make Those people antisemitic or racists?​
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Right, I asked the question: Does that make those people antisemitic or racists? (does it?) What I did not do is assume anyone's guilt by association, like you're trying to imply.
 
River said:
This forum seems to be very left leaning. I remember it being more about critical thinking in the past.
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that is one explanation.

the other is that Republicans have moved sharply to the right as a reaction to the Obama presidency.

There is plenty evidence for the latter.
 
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River said:
People need to start realizing that yes -- many people have differing opinions and differing views of all kinds. We can all still have fun and laugh, and live, love together.
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Get back to me when the GOP stops putting people in power who seriously push conversion "therapy."

With that said, I do have a number of Republican friends and family who I get along with just fine, despite their faults. One of my best friends is actually one of the actual grassroots people who helped out with the Tea Party. He's also a guy who, when we talked about political things, frequently did things like try to use an article about an elderly woman who encountered a voting machine that had a problem with its calibration, but managed to vote for the candidate that she wanted anyways, as proof that an entire rural county in Pennsylvania was on the record as voting 100% Democrat, when it came to the topic of voter fraud. Most of the other Republican friends and family that I have aren't that bad, but when it comes to matters touched by partisanship, their critical thinking also seems to effectively vanish. Personally, I'm far more concerned about the reasoning used to get to a position than the specific position, so that's the part that annoys me the most.

acbytesla said:
Pretending that there was another reason. As for Trump being guilty, let's be honest.... at least with ourselves. Trump ASKED that the Russians go after Hillary's emails. He did that during a campaign speech. And that they did try immediately following that speech.
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And, to be clear, even if one still tries to claim that it was a joke, it's worth remembering that Trump was informed (repeatedly, really) that Russia was pointedly and underhandedly trying to help him. That alone puts his statement in the realm of things where it doesn't matter whether it was a "joke" or not. He did wrong there. Indefensibly.

The Great Zaganza said:
that is one explanation.

the other is that Republicans have moved sharply to the right as a reaction to the Obama presidency.

There is plenty evidence for the latter.
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"To the right" is plenty in evidence. It doesn't properly address River's statement there, though. Rather, pointing out that a critical mass of the GOP has bought into GOP propaganda that tosses critical thinking out the window in favor of facts taken out of context that are then horrendously twisted into something that confirms the biases that they've been nurturing with similar propaganda for decades would be more relevant. It's not that the left has changed much, but rather that the right has become more irrational.

Seriously. Some people here may remember when the Texas Republican Party platform outright stated that they opposed teaching critical thinking because critical thinking undermines parental authority. It really wasn't all that long ago, and all they needed to do to sell it to their people, given the reactions of my Republican friends, was to invoke Democrats supporting teaching critical thinking.
 
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smartcooky said:
OK, so you are fine with agreeing to something to get what you want, then breaking that agreement once you have it.

This establishes your integrity level at gutter level; right down there with Giuliani, Carlson, Hannity, Trump and the vast majority of the GOP in congress.
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You make a mistake assuming I'm fine with something because I find it entertaining. I think breaking contracts should mean you pay penalties that were in the contract. It doesn't make me like the guy any more, or support his views. I think it's funny Carlson did that. Sounds like he should've had a better attorney write up his show appearance contract.
 
Aridas said:
Get back to me when the GOP stops putting people in power who seriously push conversion "therapy."

With that said, I do have a number of Republican friends and family who I get along with just fine, despite their faults. One of my best friends is actually one of the actual grassroots people who helped out with the Tea Party. He's also a guy who, when we talked about political things, frequently did things like try to use an article about an elderly woman who encountered a voting machine that had a problem with its calibration, but managed to vote for the candidate that she wanted anyways, as proof that an entire rural county in Pennsylvania was on the record as voting 100% Democrat, when it came to the topic of voter fraud. Most of the other Republican friends and family that I have aren't that bad, but when it comes to matters touched by partisanship, their critical thinking also seems to effectively vanish. Personally, I'm far more concerned about the reasoning used to get to a position than the specific position, so that's the part that annoys me the most.
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I agree there has been too much of a push (from both sides) on divisive politics. It has helped lead us to what we see right now in a world spectrum. People are becoming more polarized than ever. Not just here.
 
River said:
I agree there has been too much of a push (from both sides) on divisive politics. It has helped lead us to what we see right now in a world spectrum. People are becoming more polarized than ever. Not just here.
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How do you see the comparison between Trump and Obama on this?
 
River said:
I agree there has been too much of a push (from both sides) on divisive politics. It has helped lead us to what we see right now in a world spectrum. People are becoming more polarized than ever. Not just here.
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Stop it with the "bothsidesism" BS. Nobody is buying it.
 
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