U.S. Politics megathread (merged)

[Cade]

They're actually calling for the breakup/defunding of the FBI.

 

[trotter]

4 hours ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

 

How many passports does he have?  Should only have one, shouldn't he.

 

 

Unless there is some special reason that he can't because of being President, then no issues. I have two, the other half (US citizen) has two as well. 

Useful for people that do a lot of work travel. Some countries don't (or didn't) let you in if you had stamps from an 'unfriendly' one. Classic example used to be that having an Israeli stamp in your passport would often lead to refusal of entry into the UAE/other Arab countries and vice versa. 

[Jambo-Jimbo]

10 minutes ago, trotter said:

Unless there is some special reason that he can't because of being President, then no issues. I have two, the other half (US citizen) has two as well. 

Useful for people that do a lot of work travel. Some countries don't (or didn't) let you in if you had stamps from an 'unfriendly' one. Classic example used to be that having an Israeli stamp in your passport would often lead to refusal of entry into the UAE/other Arab countries and vice versa. 

 

When you put it that way, then under certain circumstances it could be of some use.

 

[trotter]

25 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

 

When you put it that way, then under certain circumstances it could be of some use.

 

Perfectly legal as well. Like most things, as long as you use them for the intended purpose you'll be OK. For example, using one passport to start a trip, then another to finish it, whilst technically legal, is frowned upon as you start appearing like you entered somewhere and didn't leave, or left without entering and will consequently just get you unnecessary grief. Computer tends to say no to that. This is multiplied if you have passports from several countries.

[The Real Maroonblood]

5 minutes ago, trotter said:

Perfectly legal as well. Like most things, as long as you use them for the intended purpose you'll be OK. For example, using one passport to start a trip, then another to finish it, whilst technically legal, is frowned upon as you start appearing like you entered somewhere and didn't leave, or left without entering and will consequently just get you unnecessary grief. Computer tends to say no to that. This is multiplied if you have passports from several countries.

Probably useful for drug and human trafficking as well.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a rather silly name for a bill with much more important impacts. (The name was to help get foot-draggers like Manchin on board.)

 

For the first time, the US has actually signed onto major, significant, world-altering climate legislation. I honestly wasn't sure I'd ever see the day.

[Unknown user]

10 hours ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

 

How many passports does he have?  Should only have one, shouldn't he.

 

 

 

I read that 2 were expired and 1 was his diplomatic one.

 

My mate's a roadie, he travels the world. He has multiple passports, I have in mind it's 3 just now. Before a tour he has to sort out visas and all that stuff, and it often involves sending his passport off to consulates and embassies. This way he can be getting multiple ones done at once in preparation.

I guess you get them done tactically, maybe with American ones together, etc.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Smithee

[Watt-Zeefuik]

Trump needs a real lawyer and none of the good ones want to work with him.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/16/trump-lawyers-fbi-raid/

 

People have heard that he never does what you tell him then doesn't pay you.

[JFK-1]

1 hour ago, Led Tasso said:

Trump needs a real lawyer and none of the good ones want to work with him.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/16/trump-lawyers-fbi-raid/

 

People have heard that he never does what you tell him then doesn't pay you.

 

And never shuts his stupid mouth when told to say nothing.

[JFK-1]

16 hours ago, Smithee said:

 

I seem to remember Trump never paid him, is that right?

 

Yes I believe that's true. To be fair I might not pay the idiot either. But then I would never have hired the idiot.

[ri Alban]

Liz Cheney unseated.

[JFK-1]

Trump threatening his followers will do "terrible things" if the persecution of him doesn't stop. Yeah, 'persecution' not prosecution.

 

This should be another charge on the rap sheet, incitement to violence, because that's what he's doing just like he did on Jan 6th. The judge who signed the FBI search warrant has had to be put under guard. 

 

It's an ongoing coup attempt. Wonder what the reaction would be if Biden said this.

 

"It would be awful if something were to happen to Trump at this time. First wife just died and all. Like if somebody took an AR-15 and killed him or something because things like that happen all the time you know. Wouldn't that be awful?"

 

Not even saying bad things about him, unlike Trump and co slandering judges and FBI to the point a judge is under armed guard and one of his 'followers' tried to attack an FBI facility and got killed. Think Fox and Republicans would thank Biden for the concern?

 

Trump has to go, he doesn't give a flying about anything but himself, in fact Trump has to be psychopathic to some degree alongside all his other mental disorders.

 

And if these Republican voters who claim to be non racists, just "deeply conservative" continue supporting this insanity that could be a trigger for catastrophe, they're feckin psychopaths too. Every last one of them. 

 

 

[JFK-1]

An insightful breakdown of how desperate the situation really is for the US. This is what Trump has done, and he should suffer for however many breaths he has left.

 

Quote

If donald trump committed crimes on his way out of the White House, he should be subject to the same treatment as any other alleged criminal. The reason for this is simple: Ours is a government of laws, not of men, as John Adams once observed. Nobody, not even a president, is above those laws.

So why did I feel nauseous yesterday, watching coverage of the FBI executing a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate?

Because this country is tracking toward a scale of political violence not seen since the Civil War. It’s evident to anyone who spends significant time dwelling in the physical or virtual spaces of the American right. Go to a gun show. Visit a right-wing church.

Check out a Trump rally. No matter the venue, the doomsday prophesying is ubiquitous—and scary. Whenever and wherever I’ve heard hypothetical scenarios of imminent conflict articulated, the premise rests on an egregious abuse of power, typically Democrats weaponizing agencies of the state to target their political opponents.

I’ve always walked away from these experiences thinking to myself: If America is a powder keg, then one overreach by the government, real or perceived, could light the fuse.

Think I’m being hysterical? I’ve been accused of that before. But we’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans abandon their faith in the nation’s core institutions. We’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans become convinced that their leaders are illegitimate.

We’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans are manipulated into believing that Trump is suffering righteously for their sake; that an attack on him is an attack on them, on their character, on their identity, on their sense of sovereignty. And I fear we’re going to see it again.

It’s tempting to think of January 6, 2021, as but one day in our nation’s history. It’s comforting to view the events of that day—the president inciting a violent mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and attempt to overturn the results of a free and fair election—as the result of unprecedented conditions that happened to converge all at once, conditions that are not our national norm.

But perhaps we should view January 6 as the beginning of a new chapter.

It’s worth remembering that Trump, who has long claimed to be a victim of political persecution, threatened to jail his opponent, Hillary Clinton, throughout the 2016 campaign, reveling in chants of “Lock her up!” at rallies nationwide. (Republicans did not cry foul when the FBI announced an investigation into Clinton just days before the election.) 

It was during that campaign—as I traveled the country talking with Republican voters, hoping to understand the Trump phenomenon—that I began hearing casual talk of civil war. Those conversations were utterly jarring. People spoke matter-of-factly about amassing arms. Many were preparing for a day when, in their view, violence would become unavoidable.

I remember talking with Lee Stauffacher, a 65-year-old Navy veteran, outside an October Trump rally in Arizona. “I’ve watched this country deteriorate from the law-and-order America I loved into a country where certain people are above the law,” Stauffacher said. “Hillary Clinton is above the law. Illegal immigrants are above the law. Judges have stopped enforcing the laws they don’t agree with.”

Stauffacher went on about his fondness of firearms and his loathing of the Democratic Party. “They want to turn this into some communist country,” he said. “I say, over my dead body.”

This sort of rhetoric cooled, for a time, after Trump’s victory. But then came Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and possible collusion. And the subsequent arrests of some of the president’s closest confidants.

Then came the first impeachment of Trump himself. By the time his reelection campaign got under way, Trump was fashioning himself a wartime president, portraying himself on the front lines of a pitched battle between decent, patriotic Americans and a “deep state” of government thugs who aim to enforce conformity and silence dissent.

On December 18, 2019, the day he was impeached for the first time, Trump tweeted a black-and-white photo that showed him pointing into the camera. “they’re not after me … they’re after you,” read the caption. “i’m just in the way.”

As I hit the road again in 2020, crisscrossing the nation to get a read on the Republican base, it was apparent that something had changed. There was plenty of that same bombast, all the usual chesty talk of people taking matters into their own hands.

But whereas once the rhetoric had felt scattered—rooted in grievances against the left, or opposition to specific laws, or just general discomfort with a country they no longer recognized—the new threats seemed narrow and targeted.

Voter after voter told me there had been a plot to sabotage Trump’s presidency from the start, and now there was a secretive plot to stop him from winning a second term. Everyone in government—public-health officials, low-level bureaucrats, local election administrators—was in on it. The goal wasn’t to steal the election from Trump; it was to steal the election from them.

“They’ve been trying to cheat us from the beginning,” Deborah Fuqua-Frey told me outside a Ford plant in Michigan that Trump was visiting during the early days of the pandemic. “First it was Mueller, then it was Russia. Isn’t it kind of convenient that as soon as impeachment failed, we’ve suddenly got this virus?”

I asked her to elaborate.

“The deep state,” she said. “This was domestic political terrorism from the Democratic Party.”

This kind of thinking explains why countless individuals would go on to donate their hard-earned money—more than $250 million in total—to an “Election Defense Fund” that didn’t exist.

It explains why others swarmed vote-counting centers, intimidated poll workers, signed on to shoddy legal efforts, flocked to fringe voices advocating solutions such as martyrdom and secession from the union, threatened to kill elections officials, boarded buses to Washington, and ultimately stormed the United States Capitol.

What made January 6 so predictable—the willingness of Republican leaders to prey on the insecurities and outright paranoia of these voters—is what makes August 8 so dangerous.

“The Obama FBI began spying on President Trump as a candidate,” Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee tweeted this morning. “If they can do this to Trump, they will do it to you!”

“If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you,” read a tweet from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. They followed up: “The IRS is coming for you. The DOJ is coming for you. The FBI is coming for you. No one is safe from political punishment in Joe Biden’s America.”

“If there was any doubt remaining, we are now living in a post constitutional America where the Justice Department has been weaponized against political threats to the regime, as it would in a banana republic,” the Texas Republican Party tweeted. “It won’t stop with Trump. You are next.”

It won’t stop with Trump—that much is certain. The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, all but promised retaliation against the Justice Department should his party retake the majority this fall. 
Investigations of President Joe Biden and his son Hunter were already more or less guaranteed; the question now becomes how wide of a net congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to exact vengeance on behalf of Trump and appease a fuming base, cast in probing other people close to the president and his administration.

Assuming that Trump runs in 2024, the stakes are even higher. If Biden—or another Democrat—defeats him, Republicans will have all the more reason to reject the results, given what they see as the Democrats’ politically motivated investigation of the likely Republican nominee. 

If Trump wins, he and his hard-line loyalists will set about purging the DOJ, the intelligence community, and other vital government departments of careerists deemed insufficiently loyal. There will be no political cost to him for doing so; a Trump victory will be read as a mandate to prosecute his opponents. Indeed, that seems to be exactly where we’re headed.

“Biden is playing with fire by using a document dispute to get the @TheJusticeDept to persecute a likely future election opponent,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted. “Because one day what goes around is going to come around.”

And then what? It feels lowest-common-denominator lazy, in such uncertain times, to default to speculation of 1860s-style secession and civil war. But it’s clearly on the minds of Americans.

Last year, a poll from the University of Virginia showed that a majority of Trump voters (52 percent) and a strong minority of Biden voters (41 percent) strongly or somewhat agreed that America is so fractured, they would favor red and blue states seceding from the union to form their own countries.

Meanwhile, a poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland showed that one in three Americans believes violence against the government is justified, and a separate poll by NPR earlier this year showed that one in 10 Americans believes violence is justified “right now.”

It’s hard to see how any of this gets better. But it’s easy to see how it gets much, much worse.

We don’t know exactly what the FBI was looking for at Mar-a-Lago. We don’t know what was found. What we must acknowledge—even those of us who believe Trump has committed crimes, in some cases brazenly so, and deserves full prosecution under the law—is that bringing him to justice could have some awful consequences.

Is that justice worth the associated risks? Yesterday, the nation’s top law-enforcement officers decided it was. We can only hope they were correct.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/08/trump-fbi-search-mar-a-lago-republicans/671093/

 

[Cade]

1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

An insightful breakdown of how desperate the situation really is for the US. This is what Trump has done, and he should suffer for however many breaths he has left.

 

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/08/trump-fbi-search-mar-a-lago-republicans/671093/

 

 

I said all along that Jan 6th was America's "Beer Hall Putsch".

That coup attempt was amateurish and failed and the leaders were jailed.

Then they spent the next few years undermining and infiltrating the political strata of the state.

Then they won an election.

And we all know what happened then.

[dobmisterdobster]

4 hours ago, ri Alban said:

Liz Cheney unseated.

 

The Bush and Cheney dynasty comes to an end.

[ri Alban]

2 hours ago, dobmisterdobster said:

 

The Bush and Cheney dynasty comes to an end.

And now the dynasty of the fools and their Lego sniffing dementors.

[Maple Leaf]

8 hours ago, ri Alban said:

Liz Cheney unseated.

 

No surprise there.  She has become an outspoken critic of Trump in a state that overwhelmingly supports Trump.

 

She doesn't want him to be President again, despite the fact that she voted with him 93% of the time when he was in the White House.  She's a hard-right politician (like her dad), who has voted for hard-right policies.  She's a stereotypical Republican who made the fatal mistake of leaving the Trump cult.

 

It'll be interesting to see what she does next.  

 

 

[dobmisterdobster]

2 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

No surprise there.  She has become an outspoken critic of Trump in a state that overwhelmingly supports Trump.

 

She doesn't want him to be President again, despite the fact that she voted with him 93% of the time when he was in the White House.  She's a hard-right politician (like her dad), who has voted for hard-right policies.  She's a stereotypical Republican who made the fatal mistake of leaving the Trump cult.

 

It'll be interesting to see what she does next.  

 

 

 

She doesn't like the fact that Trump took the party away from the Bush/Cheney family dynasties.

 

She thinks it is her right of passage to get a shot an the presidency. That won't happen now.

[glynnlondon]

She'll make a shit ton of money from daddy's firm.

She's irrelevant now unless you're stupid enough to think she'll garner support from the republicans and democrats for a presidential run.

[JFK-1]

2 hours ago, glynnlondon said:

She'll make a shit ton of money from daddy's firm.

She's irrelevant now unless you're stupid enough to think she'll garner support from the republicans and democrats for a presidential run.

 

She's far from irrelevant. If she decided to run for president other GOP candidates would have to face off against her. And She's considerably smarter plus more eloquent than any of the GOP trumpets.

 

She would confront them with his criminality which is a nightmare for them.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

 

She's far from irrelevant. If she decided to run for president other GOP candidates would have to face off against her. And She's considerably smarter plus more eloquent than any of the GOP trumpets.

 

She would confront them with his criminality which is a nightmare for them.

 

In the short term, she's irrelevant. The GOP has decided it doesn't care about Trump's criminality.

 

The core of the GOP, and its issue-orientation, is shrinking and too small to win elections on a fair basis. So they're desperately trying to hold onto power, and that's why they're countenancing Trump's nonsense. Without his showmanship, bluster, and cult of personal grievance, whipping the base into a frenzy, they're absolutely ****ing toast. In the short term, this has worked out for them. The "Let's go Brandon!" stuff is enough to whip up the base to turn out in the midterms, and they were counting on that and inflation carrying them back to a Congressional majority this fall. At least, until Dobbs, improving inflation, and the new inflation/climate act got passed. Also Trump backed a bunch of batshit insane and otherwise terrible Senate candidates who, early doors, look like they're going to blow a few very winnable races.

 

So they're damned without Trump in the short term. But in the long term, Trump is old and in not great health, and if he runs in 2024, it currently sounds like it's going to be on zero policy and all "I actually won in 2020 and those traitors stole it." Most of the GOP has decided to take the tact of kissing Trump's arse and "secretly" try to set themselves up as the heir to Trumpism. Most of them are abjectly terrible at this—DeSantis being the only one showing even a little bit of competence at the same sort of grievance/trolling/roadshow politics that Trump has perfected. And if he can pull that off, they might be okay (and God help the rest of us).

 

However, there's a very real chance that there's no such thing as Trumpism without Donald J. Trump (the man himself certainly would think so), and that nobody else can put the same parade together that he has. If that's the case, there's going to be a major GOP implosion and recriminations all around, after which someone will be able to step in and pick up the pieces. Characters like Pence and Haley are trying to finesse it—play along nice with Trump except, you know, for trying to subvert the democratic constitutional order and engage in flagrant lawbreaking and tyrannical behavior. Cheney is trying the, plant the anti-Trump-but-still-super-right-wing flag in the ground that means nothing now, but hopefully becomes valuable in the future. Given her sacrificing her current political career to give the Jan 6 committee some heft, I guess I can say good luck to her, but given the way the GOP treated those who left the party over her father's war crimes and crimes against humanity, I think she's going to be left in a pretty lonely exile.

[Mikey1874]

10 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

No surprise there.  She has become an outspoken critic of Trump in a state that overwhelmingly supports Trump.

 

She doesn't want him to be President again, despite the fact that she voted with him 93% of the time when he was in the White House.  She's a hard-right politician (like her dad), who has voted for hard-right policies.  She's a stereotypical Republican who made the fatal mistake of leaving the Trump cult.

 

It'll be interesting to see what she does next.  

 

 

 

 

[Unknown user]

7 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said:

 

 

She looks like she's using a clown filter 

[jack D and coke]

13 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said:

 

 

What is she talking about? She looks utterly demented incidentally. 

[Unknown user]

5 minutes ago, jack D and coke said:

What is she talking about? She looks utterly demented incidentally. 

 

[A Boy Named Crow]

4 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

 

In the short term, she's irrelevant. The GOP has decided it doesn't care about Trump's criminality.

 

The core of the GOP, and its issue-orientation, is shrinking and too small to win elections on a fair basis. So they're desperately trying to hold onto power, and that's why they're countenancing Trump's nonsense. Without his showmanship, bluster, and cult of personal grievance, whipping the base into a frenzy, they're absolutely ****ing toast. In the short term, this has worked out for them. The "Let's go Brandon!" stuff is enough to whip up the base to turn out in the midterms, and they were counting on that and inflation carrying them back to a Congressional majority this fall. At least, until Dobbs, improving inflation, and the new inflation/climate act got passed. Also Trump backed a bunch of batshit insane and otherwise terrible Senate candidates who, early doors, look like they're going to blow a few very winnable races.

 

So they're damned without Trump in the short term. But in the long term, Trump is old and in not great health, and if he runs in 2024, it currently sounds like it's going to be on zero policy and all "I actually won in 2020 and those traitors stole it." Most of the GOP has decided to take the tact of kissing Trump's arse and "secretly" try to set themselves up as the heir to Trumpism. Most of them are abjectly terrible at this—DeSantis being the only one showing even a little bit of competence at the same sort of grievance/trolling/roadshow politics that Trump has perfected. And if he can pull that off, they might be okay (and God help the rest of us).

 

However, there's a very real chance that there's no such thing as Trumpism without Donald J. Trump (the man himself certainly would think so), and that nobody else can put the same parade together that he has. If that's the case, there's going to be a major GOP implosion and recriminations all around, after which someone will be able to step in and pick up the pieces. Characters like Pence and Haley are trying to finesse it—play along nice with Trump except, you know, for trying to subvert the democratic constitutional order and engage in flagrant lawbreaking and tyrannical behavior. Cheney is trying the, plant the anti-Trump-but-still-super-right-wing flag in the ground that means nothing now, but hopefully becomes valuable in the future. Given her sacrificing her current political career to give the Jan 6 committee some heft, I guess I can say good luck to her, but given the way the GOP treated those who left the party over her father's war crimes and crimes against humanity, I think she's going to be left in a pretty lonely exile.

Given the obvious danger the Trupettes pose to democracy in the US, it'd be cool to see a 'unity candidate' run for president. A moderate Republican with a moderate Democrat running mate, or vice versa. I mean it'd never happen, I don't even know if it would be allowed under the system, and the tribal nature of politics would probably see them die on their arse...BUT things are that bad over there,  it's going to take some serious out of the box thinking to fix it I reckon.

[JFK-1]

 

Cheney is a peculiar one, when Trump was in office she voted in favour of him 97% of the time. She's one of them, she's in there to do exactly what the GOP claim to be opposing but in reality, obvious reality btw, she and they are fighting tooth and nail for the elite.

 

She would tax the poor and give tax breaks to the billionaires with enthusiasm, while blocking any moves to try to give the people real healthcare.

 

The US does not have real healthcare, not in the view of someone like me who grew up in the UK, and didn't quite grasp that in other countries there were sick people who were sick because they couldn't afford to pay for a doctor visit far less any prescription.

 

I saw a guy coughing up blood who said in reply to my question about what the doctor said, haven't seen one yet, it would cost $100 just to see the doctor so i'm waiting to see how it goes first.

 

Waiting to see? Isn't coughing up blood the last straw? Not for him it wasn't. Who knows what is. That's reality for tens of millions in the country and Liz Cheney would happily maintain that indefinitely.

 

But then along comes Jan 6th which she immediately condemned, as did most Republicans. But we know the about turn most did, and we also know she never wavered.

 

What's it about as the GOP go full blown cult and prostrate themselves before the dear leader, who they must know would throw them under the nearest bus without a moments hesitation if it suited him.

 

All I can come up with is despite her other less appealing qualities she has real integrity. Simply not someone who could give up a lifetime of core belief for an obvious wacko who has no belief in anything at all but greed. And not someone who would so assault the core beliefs of the constitution and the democracy.

 

Despite the fact she would with no compunction help to gerrymander an election in favour of the GOP, just another factor that makes her so peculiar. And in her concession speech after the election loss she didn't even go after Trump as such. She took a poke at the voters. A short example of what she said.

 

“To believe Donald Trump’s election lies, you must believe that dozens of federal and state courts who ruled against him, including many judges he appointed, were all corrupted and biased; that all manner of crazy conspiracy theories stole our election from us; and that Donald Trump actually remains president today.”

 

It's basically saying are you that crazy? I believe she's going to run with that and I also believe she could be well capable of whittling down the Trumpet base to little more than the real crazy and I suppose the racists.

 

It's becoming ever more difficult for anyone to try defending Trump without looking insane, and that's going to become more pronounced. they have just raked the coals a little. Now they're exposing the glowing embers within as Giuliani  becomes the first with direct links to Trump to be roped in.

 

Cheney knows shit very few other people do, she chairs the Jan 6th committee which I believe has something like a million documents. We have seen a sampling of it though an important and revealing sampling. But she knows everything.

 

She knows what they're going to be revealing when the committee resumes next month, and you can be as certain as the sun rising tomorrow that the reveal will be nothing but even more damning for Trump. And she knows that. She no doubt also has inside knowledge of many other cases being prepared against Trump. Including Georgia.

 

She's going to run for election on that platform, and she could very well go far with it. A heartless bitch to non Republicans, but she's razor sharp and fast with an eloquent and cutting response to any questioning.

 

Believe me any GOP candidate who had to take her on in any type of debate would be crapping themselves. Because if they're running with fake lection lies, in the face of this super sharp Jan 6th chairwoman no less, she's going to make them look a total idiot. And they will know that.

 

I believe Cheney is having a run at trying to remove the crazy from the GOP, or least this level of crazy, try to take them back to the crazy level of say 10 years ago. Which after Trump would be a relief. And I believe she can water down that Trumpet cult vote to a level that would make it impossible for them to win elections.

 

Even these obsequious pieces of shit bending the knee to Trump right now, every one of whom should never be near office again if the Trump cult is indeed ousted, would also begin to stand up to Trump if it became detrimental to the chances of being elected. Looks as if they would sell their souls for that.

 

Barring that prepare for Vice President Marjorie Taylor Greene, or maybe secretary of state. How much does that thought scare you? Because that's an entirely realistic possibility if Trump were ever to get near office again. Imagine that negotiating with foreign statesmen.

 

Cheney appears to me the current best avenue to guide the nation out of this madhouse built by the maniac Trump.

[JFK-1]

Rudy Giuliani testified for six hours to a grand jury in which he is a target of the investigation into potential election fraud in Georgia. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell details why Trump “cannot be confident” that Giuliani did not give that grand jury some evidence that “moved them closer to the biggest possible target of their investigation, Donald Trump.”

 

 

[Bindy Badgy]

11 hours ago, Smithee said:

 

 

Hokey-cokey pig in a pokey jobseekers.

 

 

[JFK-1]

12 hours ago, jack D and coke said:

What is she talking about? She looks utterly demented incidentally. 

 

These are the type of people Trump would put in high office this time. That crazy could be head of the DOJ or FBI. And that's even before Marjorie Taylor Greene gets an even higher office.

 

It's unthinkable for the entire Western world as well as the US. NATO would be one of the first things they would get out of once the correct crazies to implement it are in place. Right at the time of the greatest geo political upheaval we have seen in Europe since WW2. 

[Maple Leaf]

1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

 

These are the type of people Trump would put in high office this time. That crazy could be head of the DOJ or FBI. And that's even before Marjorie Taylor Greene gets an even higher office.

 

It's unthinkable for the entire Western world as well as the US. NATO would be one of the first things they would get out of once the correct crazies to implement it are in place. Right at the time of the greatest geo political upheaval we have seen in Europe since WW2. 

 

We can be sure that the Russians will be deeply interested in the 2024 elections, doing whatever they can to get Trump back into the White House.  They must be absolutely salivating at the prospect of that cabal of clowns being in charge of the USA.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

I know the Trump dumpster fire is the most fun thing to watch, but the Inflation Reduction Act, a.k.a. the biggest single piece of climate legislation in the US or any country in terms of total expenditures, is really a bigger deal than is getting realized.

 

 

[Mikey1874]

A lot of chat that Trump wanted to publish documents from the investigation into Russian influence in 2016 Presidential election. 

[Jambo-Jimbo]

Is this the net closing in around Trump.

https://news.sky.com/story/former-trump-organization-senior-executive-allen-weisselberg-admits-conspiring-with-company-in-15-year-tax-fraud-12675981

[JFK-1]

On 18/08/2022 at 08:12, Maple Leaf said:

 

We can be sure that the Russians will be deeply interested in the 2024 elections, doing whatever they can to get Trump back into the White House.  They must be absolutely salivating at the prospect of that cabal of clowns being in charge of the USA.

 

A Trump 2 would be infinitely more disastrous than Trump 1. And look at the mess we're in following Trump 1.

 

Trump doesn't hold grudges against just individuals, he holds grudges against entire institutions. Trump would destroy both the FBI and the DOJ by putting full blown crazies in charge of them.

 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg because Trump 1 was just narcissistic and ignorant. Trump 2 would be that and even more malevolent.

[JFK-1]

Political End For Liz Cheney Could Be The Beginning Of A Nightmare For Trump's GOP

 

Mark Leibovich, staff writer for The Atlantic, talks with Alex Wagner about why Liz Cheney's primary loss is likely not the end of her influence on the Republican Party and could be only the beginning of the nightmare she poses to Donald Trump and his acolytes.

 

 

[Jambo-Jimbo]

12 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

A Trump 2 would be infinitely more disastrous than Trump 1. And look at the mess we're in following Trump 1.

 

Trump doesn't hold grudges against just individuals, he holds grudges against entire institutions. Trump would destroy both the FBI and the DOJ by putting full blown crazies in charge of them.

 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg because Trump 1 was just narcissistic and ignorant. Trump 2 would be that and even more malevolent.

 

Without a doubt, Trump get's back in he's there for life, he'll have learnt from the mistakes he made the first time.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

7 hours ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

Is this the net closing in around Trump.

https://news.sky.com/story/former-trump-organization-senior-executive-allen-weisselberg-admits-conspiring-with-company-in-15-year-tax-fraud-12675981

 

Unlikely, given that he refused to cooperate with the investigation into Trump. He's off to do his time for what they rightly nailed him on, although really it should be a longer sentence.

[Maple Leaf]

31 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

Political End For Liz Cheney Could Be The Beginning Of A Nightmare For Trump's GOP

 

Mark Leibovich, staff writer for The Atlantic, talks with Alex Wagner about why Liz Cheney's primary loss is likely not the end of her influence on the Republican Party and could be only the beginning of the nightmare she poses to Donald Trump and his acolytes.

 

 

 

If Cheney decides to run for the Presidency in 2024, can you picture the debates between the candidates for the Primaries?  Trump is a cretin, in addition to his multiple personality flaws, and Cheney would hammer him on all subjects.  She would embarrass him in front of the entire country.  That would be memorable television. 

[JFK-1]

16 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

 

Unlikely, given that he refused to cooperate with the investigation into Trump. He's off to do his time for what they rightly nailed him on, although really it should be a longer sentence.

 

Think he's going to do 100 days. I would do that if there were further hidden millions at stake.

[JFK-1]

3 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said:

Cheney would hammer him on all subjects.  She would embarrass him in front of the entire country.  That would be memorable television. 

 

Exactly and that's why she's a nightmare for them. She could wipe the floor with any of those crazies and they know it. They might try to just dodge debates. Not going to talk to her, traitor.

[Jambo-Jimbo]

11 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

If Cheney decides to run for the Presidency in 2024, can you picture the debates between the candidates for the Primaries?  Trump is a cretin, in addition to his multiple personality flaws, and Cheney would hammer him on all subjects.  She would embarrass him in front of the entire country.  That would be memorable television. 

 

She would embarrass him no doubts about that, but the sad fact is it won't make the slightest difference to Trump's supporters, they'll still vote for him regardless. 

[Maple Leaf]

20 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

 

She would embarrass him no doubts about that, but the sad fact is it won't make the slightest difference to Trump's supporters, they'll still vote for him regardless. 

 

Tragic, isn't it!

 

I could see him walking off the stage in the middle of the debate, then claiming that he won, and all the cultists will agree with him.

[JFK-1]

I'm thinking a public thrashing from Cheney may not effect the dyed in the wool real crazies, but there are some it will effect. I'm beginning to think she will run and not because she thinks she will win.

 

Her entire political focus now is on taking down Trump and trying to drive the extremist crazies out with him. A return to just standard Republican crazy we were accustomed to these past few decades or so.

 

And whoever thought any non Republican would be wishing for that. And I do think many actual Republican voters, not the crazies, are turning against this insanity. It's gone too far already and now they're making it even worse.

 

This rhetoric they have been stirring up against the FBI, already some wacko was shot dead trying to attack an FBI office. I work in Oklahoma City, which also had an FBI office in the Alfred P. Murrah building.

 

On April 18th 1995 another wacko fired up by extremist anger at the government handling of Waco detonated somewhere between 3 and 4 tons of home made explosives packed in 13 barrels inside a rental truck he parked outside the building.  Resulting in this.

 

 

One hundred and sixty eight dead including under six pre school children  in a kindergarten space within the building. That was caused by extremist themselves riling each other up against the FBI. Now we have the actual Republican party doing it?

 

Can no one else see where this is heading? And soon.

 

[Maple Leaf]

3 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

I'm thinking a public thrashing from Cheney may not effect the dyed in the wool real crazies, but there are some it will effect. I'm beginning to think she will run and not because she thinks she will win.

 

Her entire political focus now is on taking down Trump and trying to drive the extremist crazies out with him. A return to just standard Republican crazy we were accustomed to these past few decades or so.

 

And whoever thought any non Republican would be wishing for that. And I do think many actual Republican voters, not the crazies, are turning against this insanity. It's gone too far already and now they're making it even worse.

 

This rhetoric they have been stirring up against the FBI, already some wacko was shot dead trying to attack an FBI office. I work in Oklahoma City, which also had an FBI office in the Alfred P. Murrah building.

 

On April 18th 1995 another wacko fired up by extremist anger at the government handling of Waco detonated somewhere between 3 and 4 tons of home made explosives packed in 13 barrels inside a rental truck he parked outside the building.  Resulting in this.

 

 

One hundred and sixty eight dead including under six pre school children  in a kindergarten space within the building. That was caused by extremist themselves riling each other up against the FBI. Now we have the actual Republican party doing it?

 

Can no one else see where this is heading? And soon.

 

 

The warning signals are in the news every day.  There's a toxic combination of partisan right-wing politics, fanatical militias with a long list of grievances, plus unlimited supplies of guns and ammunition.  The future looks ominous.

[ri Alban]

What happens when if the republicans win the next election and pull support for Ukraine. Where does that leave GB and it's alliance with the US.

[JFK-1]

2 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

The warning signals are in the news every day.  There's a toxic combination of partisan right-wing politics, fanatical militias with a long list of grievances, plus unlimited supplies of guns and ammunition.  The future looks ominous.

 

Yeah. Last week after the raid with rumblings of far right rage some high profile one or other had posted "it's war, starting tomorrow"

 

Then next day nothing happened, there were no mass crowds outside Trumps house protesting, even the high profile who posted it's war was in his basement posting as usual. Fighting war from a chair.

 

i mention this because the like of Lawrence at MSNBC and others across various channels were mocking that war statement and then mocking the lack of any drama.

 

Aside from them perhaps tempting fate, Oklahoma City was one of the first things that came to my mind, I figured there are crazies out there, crazies like Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City, all out Trump nuts, who would see that mockery as a challenge and an opportunity to become a Trump cult legend.

 

And due to the proliferation of the internet since McVeigh there are likely a lot more of them who have been indocrinated by online garbage. And easily accessible means of how to mix explosives and construct a bomb, which McVeigh didn't have but he didn't need it. He had been in the military and had taken an interest in all military manuals concerning explosives.

 

This right wing militia/survivalist isn't as fringe as it was in the time of McVeigh, Republican big hitters are talking about the FBI as if they were the Gestapo, the Bush administration were not.

 

While the same people and right wing media are warning every Tom, Dick, and nobody out there they will be coming for you next. Like everybody has classified documents stashed someplace. This is now mainstream right wing. And if it can't be stopped disaster is certain.

 

Mike Pence has asked them to stop this slander of the FBI, McConnel didn't go that far but he is saying he thinks the Republicans can not only lose the mid-terms, but by an increased margin too.

 

His reasoning? The quality of the candidates being fielded apparently, he's talking about the Trump endorsed faction. To a man/woman an election denier and more. Trump is a saint being assaulted by demons.

 

And maybe he thinks, as i'm beginning to think, people are sick of Trump, burned out. It's been non stop utter shit since day one and it's not just ongoing it's getting worse. Even while he's not in office.

 

How many of us here aren't sick of it? There are potentially many ,millions so sick of it that they just want Trump gone. Liz Cheney is just one of them, and as chairwoman of the Jan 6th committee with all the access to information that affords her she's a devastating weapon against Trump and the Trump faction.

 

I think she has to run for election for the platform to say her piece over and over. Apparently Liz herself thinks all is not lost because obviously she has many friends and acquaintances in the GOP.

 

And, in private, stressing to her this is off the record, tell her they totally agree with her, Trump is a mental case and not even a good liar. But still wont say that in public. Hopefully she can give them a path to "coming out" so to speak.

 

But anyone currently running with this orange piece of crap and these attacks on election workers and FBI right now just to keep a job in DC should be purged if Cheney can save the party.

 

Now I know this is an oft used comparison in many situations since WW2, but in this instance there are simply too many parallels to ignore. Messianic leader who demands utter loyalty to himself, not the state. Has a thing about minorities and other races not just the Jews.

 

Hitler put the brown shirts on the streets to intimidate and commit violence, Trump does it through social media. He only has to whistle for it and it will come. Which is exactly what he did on Jan 6th in his very own version of the beer hall putsch.

 

Both of which failed but then Hitler took power initially legitimately before executing dictatorship for life. The signs are all there, and if Trump isn't taken out of politics by the law things are going to continue getting worse.

 

Aside from maybe mass extermination camps I fully believe a Trump dictatorship would be every bit as draconian on the American population as the Nazi's were in Germany. Racism, xenophobia and more would all get a free ride.

 

Because these people like Trump, would vote for him, and Trump will do or say absolutely nothing against anybody who supports him. Regardless of what they are, Trump wouldn't say a bad word about Satan if he had a vote and supported Trump.

 

Any form of extremism against perceived non Trump supporters in a Trump dictatorship would end up amounting to as little as it meant for a white man to be charged with assaulting a black man back in Jim Crowe times.

 

Dictator Trump would put rabid Trumpets at all levels of the judiciary, just like Hitler Nazified it with his own judges. Do these people see that's the inevitable end result with man like this.?

 

I think on some levels he's even worse than Hitler. Hitler had an ideology, as extreme as it was he and one, and while he liked being Fuhrer it wasn't what he was all about. He was devoted to his ideology, Trump has none but himself.

 

And he was devoted to his country, this mad adventure he initiated was supposed to make them masters of the Earth. Trump doesn't give the proverbial flying about the country or it's people, only his own greed and narcissism. He would sell out to Russia/China for personal business deals.

 

If Trump weren't taken out of the picture and took the WH again do I think there could be a dictatorship by 2028? Yes I absolutely do. This man is insane and as malevolent a piece of shit as has ever been foisted on high office in a leading Western nation, since Hitler.

[JFK-1]

9 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

 

Unlikely, given that he refused to cooperate with the investigation into Trump. He's off to do his time for what they rightly nailed him on, although really it should be a longer sentence.

 

Have a listen to this, I set it to begin at the significant time.

 

 

[ri Alban]

Trump been selling nuclear secrets to the Saudis. Aye but it's only for clean energy purposes.

[Mikey1874]

On 20/08/2022 at 03:59, ri Alban said:

What happens when if the republicans win the next election and pull support for Ukraine. Where does that leave GB and it's alliance with the US.

 

2 and a half years away.

 

At current rate Ukraine will have the biggest conventional arms in the world.