AG Barr, Mueller Investigation and the Future of Politics

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Bowser, May 3, 2019.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Sure.
    Why wait for war?
    They don't "disagree with my politics". They - you - have no idea what my politics are.
    And I'm not interested in "resolving issues" with them - they couldn't resolve an actual issue if they tried, and they will never try.
    You don't think.
    I don't really care all that much about Trump - he's just the inevitable tinpot yammerer that has been coming since Reagan and HW escaped prosecution for Iran Contra. He's embarrassing, of course - I can remember when Americans could laugh at countries with vicious walking jokes representing their government (remember Baghdad Bob? ) but there's a dozen more in the Republican Party and a long history there (W, Cheney, Reagan, HW, Palin, Gohmert, long list). Jailing him and his familia is routine maintenance.

    I care about my country, neighbors, friends, and family. And the threat posed to all four of those by the manipulated mob of bigots that make up the Republican voting base is serious. Those people - like the KKK they directly descended from - have to be driven back under the rocks they crawled out from, or this country is done.
    Republican voters's houses. That's who created the mess - that's who should pay for it, and clean it up. We can keep their kids in the local Humane Society pound, while they make room and sort it out.

    And while they are properly distracted from the issues with Trump by their moral duty toward those they have wronged, we'll have a much easier time enforcing the law and restoring sound governance in Washington. At least, we can get this ridiculous mob out of the White House and into a Federal penitentiary where they have long belonged.
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What you call a straw I call disturbing and unamerican acts, unworthy of the office of president, and deserving to be taken damn seriously. No one is above the law, no matter how high the Dow Jones Industrial Average happens to be that day.
     
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  5. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    1,329
    I don't know if that's fake news until you show where you found the news the '' full text is available in a secure location, '' along with this information ''yet only three members of congress have bothered to look at it''.
    Is it fake news or what??
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    There is a less redacted version, which two lawmakers have seen, both Republicans. Democrats boycotted the offer, saying that an unredacted version should be made available.
     
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  8. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    All reputable news sources are questionable these days. Are they not? The uncensored report availability to congress was stated as fact during the A G hearing.
     
  9. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    American politics is only as good as its voters.
    just like the POTUS is only as good as the voters who chose him
    the republican party is only as good as the leader they chose.

    they dont choose someone with less skills who then starts doing things vastly more technical
    it always goes in the opposite direction.
     
  10. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Are there legal limitation to what can be released? I mean, if you have been part of an investigation, your personal information examined, only to be found innocent, does the AG have a legal obligation to protect your privacy?
     
  11. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    8,828
    The alternative was Hillary, a two-time loser
     
  12. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    Better than criminal Trump and his gang by miles.
     
  13. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    It often seems most likely that the bureaucracy is largely beyond control of the elected government officials.
    Using special prosecutors as politics by/with other means seems to have the effect of diminishing the possibility of finding political solutions within the political arena.

    Are we being done a disservice by introducing non political means into politics?
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Lots of falsehoods were stated as facts during the AG hearing. That's pretty much all we've had from the Trump administration or any other Republican Congressman - falsehoods stated as facts. That's routine.

    You didn't actually take them seriously, did you? Are you trying to tell us you believe what Trump and his PR reps say about stuff?
    Or another candidate, especially in the Dem primaries. Or not voting - perhaps the only honorable choice for a Republican who actually possesses the principles often claimed for that Party.
    Voting for Trump was a free choice - the Trump voter has no excuse, any more than the W voter had in 2004.
    That's not relevant here. Bureaucratic inertia is not what's doing the damage.
    Enforcement of the law is not supposed to be set aside in favor of "political solutions".
    Meanwhile, the Republican Party is and has been blocking all attempts at political solutions, and spiking the political arena whenever possible.
    Sure. But that's what the Republican voter has been voting for - so back to square one.

    Meanwhile, the "we" who is the target of the "disservice" is trying to enforce the laws against organized crime, betrayal of country, and violation of oaths of office. Only the last of those is specifically political, and the means established for dealing with it are not being "introduced" - they are hundreds of years old, written into the Constitution.
     
  15. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    8,828
    sculptor likes this.
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The one that doesn't lie 10 times a day? Or violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution? Or separates children from their parents? Or sides with racists? Or commits felony violations of campaign finance law? Or apologizes for the torture and murder of a journalist? Or falls in love with dictators?
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    You don't need to trust anyone - but if you insist, try the one who did not make their millions by lying and cheating, fraud and crime, ripping people off, betraying their country for money.
    They weren't. So? You need to be sweet-talked and lied to and cozened and praised for your ignorance and meanness and bigotry - that isn't "common folk". Common folk are adults who know their business, and can spot a bunko artist when they see one.
     
  18. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    and that is the full blown infection of the rub.
    the premise of picking a winner to play the odds instead of a measure of public service.
    hilary had all that experience as SOS for one of the most preferred POTUS of all time...
    but that experience meant nothing to those who wanted to grab power.

    personally i would have picked berny because he appeared to be more aligned with the working class and strategically because being a male in the american culture rife with patriarchal dogma hilary could have remained an equal as SOS with Berny leading more change in the barak theme of continued growth of change to adapt the greedy sloth corporate usa culture into a modern Eco-friendly low carbon busines model.
    but alas, greed doesn't care if its steering the ship into the rocks at full speed.

    the cultural ideology in the usa is the opposite, to pick those covered in gold and cash and talking about all their money.
    fake it till you make it greed culture.

    why did the christian conservatives not jump into bernys camp ?
    because they obey following the greed and power idolization of the right... lust greed pride & worshiping money

    usa civil war ideological culture
    pick the winning side at all cost, regardless of what their morals are because the system is all about pay per rights.
    no money, no vote

    ideological social psychology
    what made the usa rich enough to build nasa and land on the moon ?
    a base line socialist model of basic working and paying tax and seeking to hold the mechanism of the social model as a business model.
    instead the usa has seen the process of currency as a vehicle to hijack in any way possible because money buys you everything and only once you get it do you get a voice.

    laws have been made to pretend to make up for the lack of equal rights for the poor and in doing so have given massive power to the courts to sue private persons, make insurance purchase compulsory(compulsory corporate membership)
    etc etc

    most Americans while knowing something is not entirely right, lack the ability to get a clear view of the problem because their lifes are soo closely tangled up in the layers of excuse for corruption of power laws that seek to give fair play to someone with enough for a ticket price(paying for a lawyer to sue someone for something stupid).

    and yet look at the cultural opinion of such ambulance chaser lawyers, they are seen as highly undesirable characters lacking moral fiber.
    yet they in their job maintain a cornerstone crutch to the crippled system.
    irony abound.

    when you apply the "loser" idea, those who lose many many times but never give up are the ones who make it big when the idea is good.
    even with a very good idea, the culture and system set them up to lose.

    when people are crying "no one is good enough to vote for" will they cross party lines to vote for someone who looks good enough if they are on the other team ?
    civil war culture ?
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2019
  19. candy Valued Senior Member

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    1,074
    The children who have died were ill when they were taken by ICE; unredacted disclosure would require also noting the number of people who have been saved because ICE got them medical attention.

    I always think USA politics is amusing; other countries not so much.
     
  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    Nope. The latest child to die had no health issues when he was detained, nor when he was transferred to the holding facility.
     
  21. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    2,119
    That would be a problem? Is this some kind of quid pro quo? 1 murdered infant is OK if you can show another was treated humanely?

    I say" murdered" if resources are not allocated according to need. (not that anyone on the ground necessarily killed them deliberately )
     
  22. candy Valued Senior Member

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    1,074
    No medical evidence has been presented that any actions by ICE caused injury to that child.
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Notes General and Particular

    Well, Bowser does make a certain point about supporting Trump:

    Setting aside the point of the post reading like a farm script: After a bizarre first paragraph, Bowser notes his entire post is written in ignorance: "I've tried to avoid politics these past months, but for some reason I felt a need to tune back in on the topic."

    Something that stands out to me is that one can pretty much straight-up tell us he is full of shit, and as long as it's something someone wants to hear or argue with for whatever reason, it seems there are plenty who are willing to grant that posture some measure of credibility.

    (He's been at this for years; at what point, for instance, does the prospect of searching for information, failing to find a primary source among the myriad available, and only managing to find political discourse given to condemning what one purports to inquire about, start to stand out for its talented ignorance? No, really, he's been at this for years↗.)​

    We might wonder, for instance, how the topic post would read if this thread fails to establish its unique purpose and then, per custom, is folded into the large, pre-existing thread on the same subject. But that's the whole point: Clueless, unsupported, generally insupportable bullshit intended to change the subject.

    Also, in a broader framework, it is easy enough to notice how this goes; it's a difficult prospect, attempting to winnow the dispute to two narrative sides, but inasmuch as we might, a familiar pattern suggests itself all over again: One side requires as much error and omission as possible while appealing to emotion, and the other seeks some valid semblance of the truth while trying to manage in some orderly manner the implications thereof.

    One way to look at it is per the assertion of ceteris paribus, colloquially recited as all things being equal. First, there is a question of what it means in any given circumstance; then there is also the question of what that actually does when applied. All things being equal, for instance, the politicking akin to pro wrestling is what it is, and there is an argument to be made for its merit according to market results. However, ceteris paribus is not necessarily in effect; validating certain arguments requires ignoring history and praxis.

    It's like we all watched the Attorney General walk into the office with the open intention of performing a grift, then watched him do it, and are now expected to pretend there is no grift afoot. All things being equal, sure, it is possible to attend only what one side of a dispute says and assert an opinion, but what, really, is that assertion of opinion worth, and, moreover, to what degree should anyone else be obliged to validate it? However, history demonstrates that not all things are equal. Were Barr's conduct not so extraordinary, sure, maybe pretending we don't see a grift falls within the range of everyday American political reality, but an Attorney General has observably jumped protocol in order to undertake certain extraneous actions, encountered protests from the people he misrepresented, and answered this subect inaccurately in an affecting manner while under oath. For all the controversy people complain of Attorneys General, this is extraordinary behavior and controversy controversy.

    Naturally, someone who, "tried to avoid politics these past months, but for some reason … felt a need to tune back in", emerges perfectly on beat according to both his partisan message and method. The vapidity of it all, the degree to which he poses as desperately ignorant, like #3↑ above, "It's my understanding that the full text is available in a secure location, yet only three members of congress have bothered to look at it. Is this incorrect?" He cannot tell us why that is his understanding, but he can certainly put it on other people to prove a negative. Again at #9↑:

    A truism, an empty sentence, a political assertion of observable reality, a ceteris paribus equivocation, a vapid question without fundamental definition. Furthermore, as you already noted, at least he's getting some laughs.

    It is acceptable, eventually, that people might take consistent behavior at face value: This whole thing is a troll job, part of a perpetual poseur ignorance intended to reiterate fallacy in lieu of informed political discourse. It is acceptable to observe, generally and particularly, who benefits from such obfuscation, distraction, and pretense. Over the long run, normalizing this behavior as many tend to is a problematic prospect. Like Iceaura's assessment in #19↑

    —one can say what they will about his tone, but this has been going on long enough, both particularly and generally, that complaining, "Calling them names for disagreeing with your politics doesn't resolve any issues", as our topic poster did in #20↑, overlooks the accuracy of the assessment itself. If one is distressed by an accurate assessment of particular behavior, perhaps the behavior is in some way problematic. The question is not whether Bowser, in his complaint, is aware that we are in a period during which a particular range of political argument not so much fails to give a damn if it offends with its sloth and wrongness, instead to be offensive and disruptive as such:

    I never had many Trump-supporting friends on Facebook to begin with, but the few I did have spent the last year systemically antagonizing everyone they knew, almost challenging them to sever ties ....

    .... How do you engage with someone who doesn't just not care if their aggressive political stances upset you, but wants you to get upset—someone for whom "this makes people upset" is actually the whole reason to have that stance in the first place?


    (Nelson↱)

    Rather, we can obsserve he is engaging in willfully antisocial behavior, like his post at #12↑; the idea that Bowser, after all this time, is still so ignorant of how the U.S. Constitution works is absurd. He might have been trying to avoid politics for a time, but he most certainly tuned back in long enough to pick up the latest Republican talking points.

    Per your point on getting his laughs, and Iceaura's assessment of particular political discourse, there comes a point at which we can accept our neighbor's posts aren't intended for sincere discourse.

    That's been obvious for years.

    Which, in turn, brings us 'round.

    It does, in fact, say something about supporting Trump.

    Look at what it takes.
    ___________________

    Notes:

    Nelson, K. T. "Trump Fans Are Owning Libs by Losing All Their Friends". Vice. 21 November 2017. Vice.com. 5 May 2019. http://bit.ly/2oXBZwM
     

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