The Next President is...

[Azimuth]

9 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

 

 

That was all fine and dandy until Strzok and Page were outed (by a leak, no less) as trying to arrange a secret meeting with a FISA judge, and the FBI felt it was appropriate to hide this fact from Congress through redaction.

Oh, and another professional, Andy McCabe, did such a good job that even the FBI felt he should be fired and lose his pension.

And Comey, that paragon of blind justice, looks worse by the day with his scheming and leaking and inconsistency.

They're making it pretty damn hard to trust the "professional career lawmen."

 

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/us/politics/andrew-mccabe-fbi-firing-explained.html

Who exactly in the FBI thought McCabe should be fired?

[Lord Ratner]

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/us/politics/andrew-mccabe-fbi-firing-explained.html
Who exactly in the FBI thought McCabe should be fired?

The FBI

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/andrew-mccabe-firing-recommended-fbi-deputy-director/

[Azimuth]

1 minute ago, Lord Ratner said:

The FBI

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/andrew-mccabe-firing-recommended-fbi-deputy-director/

Ah, the National Review. I’m sure it’s as fair and balanced as Fox News claims towards a guy who’s wife ran as a Democrat in Virginia.

[Lord Ratner]

Ah, the National Review. I’m sure it’s as fair and balanced as Fox News claims towards a guy who’s wife ran as a Democrat in Virginia.

Agreed. But the facts in the article are not in dispute. There FBI recommended one of their own gets fired, Sessions agreed, and obviously so did the president.

[Azimuth]

7 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

10 minutes ago, Azimuth said:

Ah, the National Review. I’m sure it’s as fair and balanced as Fox News claims towards a guy who’s wife ran as a Democrat in Virginia.

Agreed. But the facts in the article are not in dispute. There FBI recommended one of their own gets fired, Sessions agreed, and obviously so did the president.

Well, the President’s opinion on the issue has no bearing since McCabe’s not an appointed official, like Sessions is. Sessions did it because he wants to keep his job.

[drewpey]

10 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Andy McCabe, did such a good job that even the FBI felt he should be fired and lose his pension.

 

So you honestly think that he did such a bad job they rushed an IG investigation to fire him 1 day prior to his retirement while he was burning his last bit of leave?  Sure...nothing to see there.

I'll wait until the dust settles, read the IG report and listen to what everyone has to say about this before making my own decision about it, but it smells of petty vindictiveness.

 

[Lawman]

2 hours ago, drewpey said:

So you honestly think that he did such a bad job they rushed an IG investigation to fire him 1 day prior to his retirement while he was burning his last bit of leave?  Sure...nothing to see there.

I'll wait until the dust settles, read the IG report and listen to what everyone has to say about this before making my own decision about it, but it smells of petty vindictiveness.

 

Is the FBI division charged with investigating their own and the Obama appointed IG who came to the same conclusion not capable of conducting an impartial a-political investigation? Because that’s been the charge by Democrats this whole time, that even though Strzok’s texts, Comey and Muellers friendship, all the other politics of it show a whole lot of non impartial bias towards Trump, nothing touched by those matters taints the investigation. 

 

And the whole thing has been intentionally stretched to try and make this Trump’s Saturday Night Massecre with deliberate distortion like “he won’t get his pension” when he does, but not as peak high as it could be. 

Edited April 8, 2018 by Lawman

[drewpey]

3 hours ago, Lawman said:

Is the FBI division charged with investigating their own and the Obama appointed IG who came to the same conclusion not capable of conducting an impartial a-political investigation? Because that’s been the charge by Democrats this whole time, that even though Strzok’s texts, Comey and Muellers friendship, all the other politics of it show a whole lot of non impartial bias towards Trump, nothing touched by those matters taints the investigation. 

 

And the whole thing has been intentionally stretched to try and make this Trump’s Saturday Night Massecre with deliberate distortion like “he won’t get his pension” when he does, but not as peak high as it could be. 

I think most of the FBI are pretty good at resisting internal forces impacting their investigations.  The appearance here is that there was external influence on the investigation which complicates things.  We have to trust the system has worked as intended, until the details emerge and we can make our own educated decision...just like the Mueller investigation.

[brickhistory]

1 hour ago, drewpey said:

I think most of the FBI are pretty good at resisting internal forces impacting their investigations.  The appearance here is that there was external influence on the investigation which complicates things.  We have to trust the system has worked as intended, until the details emerge and we can make our own educated decision...just like the Mueller investigation.

And therein lies the problem.

The senior levels of the FBI appear to have been tainted.  Strzok certainly is/was.  Mueller is a past Director of the FBI as well as a close friend of fired Director Comey's whose leak of classified self-memos to the NYT triggered the call for the special investigation.

Appearances do matter.

 

[Azimuth]

7 hours ago, brickhistory said:

And therein lies the problem.

The senior levels of the FBI appear to have been tainted.  Strzok certainly is/was.  Mueller is a past Director of the FBI as well as a close friend of fired Director Comey's whose leak of classified self-memos to the NYT triggered the call for the special investigation.

Appearances do matter.

 

You keep saying saying this, but what proof are you offering that Mueller is “tainted?” Because he was a former director? Then why did Rosenstein (via Congress) appoint him? Strozk was a low level member of the Mueller’s team, not some major decision maker.

And if appearances matter, then who does Sessions actually work for? Is he the Executive branch’s personal counsel and watch dog for things Trump just doesn’t like? Or is he part of the Judicial branch as AG?

Edited April 8, 2018 by Azimuth

[Prozac]

Fox News says he’s tainted. The prez seems to think that anything that outlet says is gospel and appears to set national policy based on what he sees on that network. If it’s good enough for the president many Americans will assume it’s good enough for them. Sad....

[HeloDude]

21 minutes ago, Prozac said:

Fox News says he’s tainted. The prez seems to think that anything that outlet says is gospel and appears to set national policy based on what he sees on that network. If it’s good enough for the president many Americans will assume it’s good enough for them. Sad....

Fox News is biased?  Wait...I agree with you.  As is CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, WSJ, Wash Post, NY Times, etc.

There is no such thing as an unbiased news source these days...and I don't think it has ever existed.  Today it's just much more apparent due to the extreme polarization on all sides of the political and philosophical spectrums.  Not to mention that each "news" outlet needs to write stories/report on what their readers want to see, because if not, they quickly go somewhere else.  So anyone who makes fun of Fox News without likewise making fun of all the other news outlets (and vice versa) only goes to show that person's own bias. 

That all being said, in terms of money, viewership, etc do you think there are more people following "news" sources biased more to the left or biased more to the right?

[Prozac]

I don’t want my president making policy based on sound bites whether they come from Fox, CNN, MSNBC, RT, or the dark side of the fucking moon.  There is evidence that suggests President Trump does exactly that with scary regularity. Militarizing the border is the latest example.  The leader of the free world ought to be able to make well thought out policy de isions on his own, backed up by the expert opinions of a well vetted and highly qualified cabinet and corps of advisers. Sean Hannity and the gang at Fox and Friends don’t qualify in my book. I never argued any media source wasn’t biased. My argument is that the guy in the White House is, in the words of one of his recently departed experts, a fucking moron. 

[drewpey]

14 hours ago, brickhistory said:

Strzok certainly is/was.

[citation needed]

 

14 hours ago, brickhistory said:

Director Comey's whose leak of classified self-memos

[citation needed]

[HeloDude]

5 hours ago, Prozac said:

I don’t want my president making policy based on sound bites whether they come from Fox, CNN, MSNBC, RT, or the dark side of the fucking moon.  There is evidence that suggests President Trump does exactly that with scary regularity. Militarizing the border is the latest example.  The leader of the free world ought to be able to make well thought out policy de isions on his own, backed up by the expert opinions of a well vetted and highly qualified cabinet and corps of advisers. Sean Hannity and the gang at Fox and Friends don’t qualify in my book. I never argued any media source wasn’t biased. My argument is that the guy in the White House is, in the words of one of his recently departed experts, a fucking moron. 

Yep, you're not biased at all LOL.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret:  The current president is no more or less of a moron than his predecessor, his predecessor's predecessor, his predecessor's predecessor's predecessor, etc.  I know you don't like Trump, but I'll let you determine the level of moron he and others before him have risen to.

[mcbush]

[busdriver]

Didn't the last two presidents also "militarize the border?"

[tk1313]

19 hours ago, drewpey said:

[citation needed]

 

[citation needed]

Strzok compromised: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/12/texts-between-ex-mueller-team-members-emerge-calling-trump-loathsome-human-idiot.html
NOTE: I honestly tried to find a left-leaning site with the story, but they all seem to want to downplay every single negative text about Trump... Obviously Fox is trying to play into the conspiracy theorists, but you're free to interpret the texts as you wish. Bottom line: a bunch of negative texts about Trump and his family (and the idiot American voting public for voting for him), and a lot of positive texts about the Obamas.

Comey's leak: https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/trumps-unfounded-leak-claim/
1. Comey acknowledged that he had “asked a friend of mine [later identified as Columbia University professor Daniel C. Richman] to share the content of the memo with a reporter.” Comey testified that after the president had tweeted that Comey had better hope there were no “tapes” of their conversation, Comey gave the memo to the Columbia Law School professor to provide to the media so that it “might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”
2. “It was a classified briefing and so I wrote that on a classified device,” Comey said in response to a question on whether all the memos were unclassified. “The one I started typing … in the car — that was a classified laptop that I started working on.”But Comey said the memo he shared with a friend was unclassified. In his written testimony, Comey says of the Feb. 14 memo: “I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership.”
“So you didn’t consider your memo or your sense of that conversation to be a government document?” Sen. Roy Blunt asked in the June 8 Senate hearing. “You considered it to be, somehow, your own personal document that you could share with the media as you wanted to through a friend?”
“Correct,” Comey said. “I understood this to be my recollection recorded of my conversation with the president. As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I thought it important to get it out.”The Hill noted that when the memos — which Comey said he had turned over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller — were recently shown to Congress “the FBI claimed all were, in fact, deemed to be government documents.”

It seems as if Comey is trying to make the case that he decides which info is unclassified and which info isn't (don't know the answer to this one)... and that meeting with the President when he was the FBI director was a meeting he had as a "private citizen", and therefore his notes are his property and not government documents (which the FBI seems to disagree with).

20 hours ago, Prozac said:

I don’t want my president making policy based on sound bites whether they come from Fox, CNN, MSNBC, RT, or the dark side of the fucking moon.  There is evidence that suggests President Trump does exactly that with scary regularity. Militarizing the border is the latest example.  The leader of the free world ought to be able to make well thought out policy de isions on his own, backed up by the expert opinions of a well vetted and highly qualified cabinet and corps of advisers. Sean Hannity and the gang at Fox and Friends don’t qualify in my book. I never argued any media source wasn’t biased. My argument is that the guy in the White House is, in the words of one of his recently departed experts, a fucking moron. 

"A fucking moron"... bit of a stretch for a guy that beat out "the most qualified Presidential candidate in history"... Abrasive on twitter? Absolutely. A fucking moron? Highly doubtful. But what do I know, I'm a fucking deplorable

[Vertigo]

On 4/7/2018 at 7:25 PM, Lawman said:

show a whole lot of non impartial bias towards Trump, nothing touched by those matters taints the investigation. 

Just as impartial as any other cop is towards a murder suspect when they've seen the evidence.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Vertigo

[Azimuth]

1 hour ago, tk1313 said:

Strzok compromised: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/12/texts-between-ex-mueller-team-members-emerge-calling-trump-loathsome-human-idiot.html
NOTE: I honestly tried to find a left-leaning site with the story, but they all seem to want to downplay every single negative text about Trump... Obviously Fox is trying to play into the conspiracy theorists, but you're free to interpret the texts as you wish. Bottom line: a bunch of negative texts about Trump and his family (and the idiot American voting public for voting for him), and a lot of positive texts about the Obamas.

Comey's leak: https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/trumps-unfounded-leak-claim/
1. Comey acknowledged that he had “asked a friend of mine [later identified as Columbia University professor Daniel C. Richman] to share the content of the memo with a reporter.” Comey testified that after the president had tweeted that Comey had better hope there were no “tapes” of their conversation, Comey gave the memo to the Columbia Law School professor to provide to the media so that it “might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”
2. “It was a classified briefing and so I wrote that on a classified device,” Comey said in response to a question on whether all the memos were unclassified. “The one I started typing … in the car — that was a classified laptop that I started working on.”But Comey said the memo he shared with a friend was unclassified. In his written testimony, Comey says of the Feb. 14 memo: “I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership.”
“So you didn’t consider your memo or your sense of that conversation to be a government document?” Sen. Roy Blunt asked in the June 8 Senate hearing. “You considered it to be, somehow, your own personal document that you could share with the media as you wanted to through a friend?”
“Correct,” Comey said. “I understood this to be my recollection recorded of my conversation with the president. As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I thought it important to get it out.”The Hill noted that when the memos — which Comey said he had turned over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller — were recently shown to Congress “the FBI claimed all were, in fact, deemed to be government documents.”

It seems as if Comey is trying to make the case that he decides which info is unclassified and which info isn't (don't know the answer to this one)... and that meeting with the President when he was the FBI director was a meeting he had as a "private citizen", and therefore his notes are his property and not government documents (which the FBI seems to disagree with).

"A fucking moron"... bit of a stretch for a guy that beat out "the most qualified Presidential candidate in history"... Abrasive on twitter? Absolutely. A fucking moron? Highly doubtful. But what do I know, I'm a fucking deplorable

You’re right, he’s a rich fucking moron.  And being rich allows him to be a bigger fucking moron.  Of course this is the same guy who wants to sit down and be deposed by the Mueller team. Not normally a wise thing to do when your personal counsel is telling you otherwise, but who gives a shit right? #MAGA

Speaking of other fucking morons, there’s Nunes. Of course he’s such a fucking moron no attorney would ever probably call him for testimony because of being annhilated by the opposing counsel.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/irony-nunes-memo

Edited April 9, 2018 by Azimuth

[HeloDude]

42 minutes ago, Azimuth said:

You’re right, he’s a rich fucking moron.  And being rich allows him to be a bigger fucking moron.  Of course this is the same guy who wants to sit down and be deposed by the Mueller team. Not normally a wise thing to do when your personal counsel is telling you otherwise, but who gives a shit right? #MAGA

Speaking of other fucking morons, there’s Nunes. Of course he’s such a fucking moron no attorney would ever probably call him for testimony because of being annhilated by the opposing counsel.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/irony-nunes-memo

See my post above--Trump is no more/no less a moron than his predecessors.  Yet the bias we all have shows one guy to be a genius and one guy to be a moron...just depends on your point of view who is who.

[tac airlifter]

46 minutes ago, Azimuth said:

You’re right, he’s a rich fucking moron.  And being rich allows him to be a bigger fucking moron.  Of course this is the same guy who wants to sit down and be deposed by the Mueller team. Not normally a wise thing to do when your personal counsel is telling you otherwise, but who gives a shit right? #MAGA

Speaking of other fucking morons, there’s Nunes. Of course he’s such a fucking moron no attorney would ever probably call him for testimony because of being annhilated by the opposing counsel.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/irony-nunes-memo

This is over the top.  Chill out.

[Azimuth]

16 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

This is over the top.  Chill out.

Don’t go into detail with your counter argument. I’m on pins and needles waiting for your response.

[tac airlifter]

8 minutes ago, Azimuth said:

Don’t go into detail with your counter argument. I’m on pins and needles waiting for your response.

Ironic reply, since your “counter argument” to TK’s very detailed post was simply to call POTUS a moron. 

Disagree as much as you please, but calling POTUS a “fucking moron” is unsat behavior.  More info available here.  cheers

[tk1313]

1 hour ago, Vertigo said:

Just as impartial as any other cop is towards a murder suspect when they've seen the evidence.

You're really not a huge fan of any even-numbered amendment... 0/3 so far

31 minutes ago, Azimuth said:

You’re right, he’s a rich fucking moron.  And being rich allows him to be a bigger fucking moron.  Of course this is the same guy who wants to sit down and be deposed by the Mueller team. Not normally a wise thing to do when your personal counsel is telling you otherwise, but who gives a shit right? #MAGA

Speaking of other fucking morons, there’s Nunes. Of course he’s such a fucking moron no attorney would ever probably call him for testimony because of being annhilated by the opposing counsel.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/irony-nunes-memo

Alright I had the displeasure of reading that whole thing. I honestly don't know enough about Nunes to care one way or the other... So Nunes is upset that the Steele dossier was used in the FISA application because Steele is biased. The FISA courts knew Steele was biased, but there was no mention of his connection with Clinton/DNC (same thing, right?). They also knew about Carter Page's pro-Putin "tendencies" so the courts used the Steele dossier, which they "took with a grain of salt" to unmask Carter Page. Carter Page has yet to be accused of or charged with a crime. So Nunes questions the Steele dossier's relevance to the FISA application and the author makes the claim that it wasn't relevant but it was used anyways, so Nunes is an asshole? I'm seeing circular logic...