The Next President is...

[brickhistory]

On 5/14/2020 at 9:03 AM, Sua Sponte said:

Well, he allegedly perjured himself to the judge in question by pleading guilty, which he did twice under oath, to lying. Now he's saying he never lied. So, he's either lying then (that he never lied) or he's lying now. That's what the judge wants to know by appointing a former federal judge to investigate if there's probably cause to charge him with contempt/perjury. Considering arguendo, if the FBI interview "had no basis" then why would he:

1. Talk to them

2. Lie to them

If the lie doesn't matter legally, then why is the judge considering a contempt/perjury charge? And as for the "de facto prosecutor" you mean retired federal judge? He seems about as a disinterested party as the AG who was appointed by a president, confirmed by the majority of the president's political party in the Senate, who then dismissed criminal charges against the president's former pick as the National Security Council, even though the accused plead guilty twice in federal court to lying.

 

Exactly.  The official prosecutor, DOJ, says that the investigation wasn't based on anything factual, therefore it's a invalid investigation.  If so, then any alleged lie to the FBI (the agents involved didn't think he lied according to the now missing 302 - edited to remain in the original FBI agent's voice but with a different slant by corrupt Stryck and Page), is immaterial and moot legally.

So why is the judge trying to act as a prosecutor?  Both sides of the criminal case are saying, "Never mind."  Yet the judge isn't letting it go.  Why?

 

As to your Trump tweet post - news yesterday is that the FBI and DOJ have NEVER produced a recording or transcript of the call in question.  Not once.  They briefed Pence on a paraphrased version of the call.  So if they said Flynn lied, Pence was led to believe Flynn did so.  But what if the FBI lied to Pence?  Certainly reason to believe that the senior FBI folks at the time were capable of doing so - bogus, repeated FISA warrant applications, a bogus CI investigation of the incoming administration, leaking to the press, etc, etc.  The FBI has removed itself from me giving it the benefit of doubt as to its integrity.  Not most rank and file, I believe.  But as an institution?  Yeah, I'm squinty-eyed at it.  Which as naïve on my part, since I, and believe most of us, will acknowledge Big Blue as behaving the same.  Why would any other government leviathan be different?

On the political side of this, Flynn being fired by a President is something I could care less about.

Weaponizing the IC and justice system to settle political scores and/or screw your replacement President is a big deal.  Because if allowed to stand, it will happen again.  Regardless of party.

And if it happens again to the big dogs, what does mean for the peons like us?

 

I'm agin that.

[Lord Ratner]

A little story about lying to the authorities:

When I was being investigated for sexual assault, they wired my accuser in an attempt to record a confession. Since I didn't assault her, there was no confession. However when the summary of the recording was given to the commanders who decided to proceed with my case, it referenced three separate admissions of guilt, with partial quotes as evidence of wrongdoing. Slam dunk, jail time for sure. That's what they told my commander.

it wasn't until the trial when the tapes were played in their entirety. Those confessions? Turns out they weren't exactly what they were portrayed as. In fact, they were so supportive of my case, the lead prosecutor, who hadn't reviewed the tape thoroughly, stumped himself without me saying a word.

 

My point? Even I didn't remember what was on that tape. I had no idea that I was being recorded at the time, and by the time I was asked about it months had passed. So when I was told that my words were on that tape, essentially admitting guilt, it was very difficult to answer any questions about it. Fortunately for me, and not so fortunately for Flynn, I was smart enough to know that there's no point in talking to the authorities. I have no doubt they would have tried to do exactly the same thing they did with him, and had I fallen for it, I would have undone my own innocence. Memory is a tricky thing.

nNw imagine if OSI had already known, via a video recording, that I was completely innocent of sexual assault. And then imagine that they had still pulled me in, lied to me about what was on the tape, in the hopes that they would get me to incorrectly recount  a 2-month-old conversation from memory, then get me for lying to them about the conversation. Not the assault, which they already knew didn't happen.

 

People need to go to prison for this.

[brickhistory]

Hopefully, the unmaskings keep being an uncomfortable subject for the left and the news (but I repeat myself), and will also hopefully result in some indictments.

Politically, Biden is going to have to address, over and over again, why he, specifically, unmasked Flynn six days prior to being out of office.

He's not an intel analyst.  He's not a cop.  He was the Vice-President.  Why did he make such a request?

Given his mental acuity due to age, it will be funny/sad to hear him answer.

 

Not to mention, Joe's gonna have to explain why he was against Obama's decision to go get Osama.  Which I give credit to that Administration for doing so.

So Joe was against Gulf War I.  He was for Gulf War II.  And he was against taking out Osama.  Helluva foreign policy track record.  Not to mention the shadiness of China and Ukraine lucrative deals for Biden's son.  While he was in office.  Indeed, the son rode on AF2 and did business in those countries while Joe was "the portfolio manager" for them according to Obama.

 

Edited

Edited May 17, 2020 by brickhistory

[brickhistory]

In response to a joint filing by the defendant's lawyer AND the former prosecutors (DOJ) essentially asking "Dafuq?" regarding Judge Sullivan's highly unorthodox ruling to seek his own investigator and potentially prosecutor for crimes Flynn wasn't charged with, the District Court of DC yesterday issued an order to Sullivan to explain himself NLT 1 June.  This beats his 10 June ruling for his investigator cum prosecutor's finding.

 

Will be interesting to see this play out.

[Sim]

On 5/14/2020 at 9:03 AM, Sua Sponte said:

Well, he allegedly perjured himself to the judge in question by pleading guilty, which he did twice under oath, to lying. Now he's saying he never lied. So, he's either lying then (that he never lied) or he's lying now.

 Here's the answer. Not from fake news (aka authoritative sources) so I'm sure it will be ignored by leftists on this board. 

[brickhistory]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/barr-taps-top-prosecutor-to-probe-unmasking-by-obama-officials/ar-BB14IqLo?ocid=spartanntp

 

Quote

Attorney General William Barr has tasked a top federal prosecutor in Texas with reviewing episodes of "unmasking" by Obama administration officials before and after the 2016 presidential election, a Justice Department official said Wednesday night.

I will say it again, IF the power of the law enforcement/intelligence communities were used against opposition political entities, it's not good for any of us.

If no one is held accountable with indictiments, then it will be done again and, likely, even more egregiously. 

Regardless of your political leaning, this appears to have been a bad thing and needs to be cleaned up.  Otherwise it will, eventually, be used against your side.  Then it won't be ok.

[alwyn2d]

Does General Flynn have a tax problem with IRS? I rather go to court dealing with the Russian issue, than IRS. They play for keeps.

[Sua Sponte]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/

[SocialD]

Man there are going to be a lot of pissed off people when he is reelected.  

[dream big]

1 hour ago, SocialD said:

Man there are going to be a lot of pissed off people when he is reelected.  

No different than last time.  There will also be a lot of relieved people; also known as the silent majority.  They aren’t as loud because they get shouted down by the so called tolerant left and groups like BLM.

[17D_guy]

13 minutes ago, dream big said:

also known as the silent majority. 

He didn't win the majority of votes?

[Sua Sponte]

1 minute ago, 17D_guy said:

He didn't win the majority of votes?

Electoral votes, yes. Popular vote, no.

[17D_guy]

Just now, Sua Sponte said:

Electoral votes, yes. Popular vote, no.

Yea fair...don't know why I didn't write that, I knew it, stupid me. 

 

Still...don't think you can call it the "silent majority."  Hillary was the worst...everything ever.  So, I do not expect the same thing unless Biden has a fucking stroke on stage and they forgot to tie his hand to a line so some staffer off stage can wave it up and down.

[dream big]

1 hour ago, 17D_guy said:

Yea fair...don't know why I didn't write that, I knew it, stupid me. 

 

Still...don't think you can call it the "silent majority."  Hillary was the worst...everything ever.  So, I do not expect the same thing unless Biden has a fucking stroke on stage and they forgot to tie his hand to a line so some staffer off stage can wave it up and down.

In a conventional “popular vote” sense, no, not “majority.”  But we don’t elect presidents based off of that otherwise Cali and NY would heaven forbid decide every national election.  However, silent majority is a generic term used for an unaccounted number of people that support something or someone (Trump) that isn’t blatantly obvious in the echo chamber of social media.  Not to mention the social ramifications of speaking up in defense of Trump these days. 
 

Joe “you ain’t black” Biden may not be as corrupt as Hilary but holy s$$$, the guy can’t put two sentences together.  If his strategy is to just stay low and let Trump tweets get the best of him; he’s in for a rude awakening.  One of the biggest mistakes Hilary made was refusing to put out ANY policy proposals and just play the “well I am not Trump” card.  That doesn’t work.  Like him or hate him, Trump is backed by action and policy and he will obliterate Biden in the primary if he continues his dementia plagued rants and/or fails to explain what his actual policies will be. 

[SurelySerious]

I’m pretty surprised that all of Biden’s strategy so far has been “At least I’m not Trump” (which is about the only paraphrase I can make of his speeches) after Hillary’s lack of success with “But I’m not Trump.”

[drewpey]

1 hour ago, dream big said:

silent majority is a generic term used for an unaccounted number of people that support something or someone (Trump) that isn’t blatantly obvious in the echo chamber of social media.  Not to mention the social ramifications of speaking up in defense of Trump these days. 

I'm not sure anyone every considered Republicans to be silent, let alone a majority.  We have seen that higher voter turnout generally benefits democrats, but most democrats don't give enough shits to actually vote, and just enjoy losing so they can keep whining about things not going their way.  This is particularly seen in the younger vote, which has always been unreliable come election day, despite leaning heavily left.  Republican voters will vote come hell or high water on election day, and are generally much more reliable.  The battle isn't about the decided voters...people like me who think Trump is unintelligible, or people like you who think Biden is incoherent...it's about those in the middle gray largely deciding the race.  That's where you see trolls trying to alienate Berniebros from the Democratic party, pushing people towards the green party, etc. all to whittle the left-leaning undecideds away from the primary democratic candidate until we get more widespread ranked choice voting to allow people to truly vote with their hearts without throwing their vote away.  Incumbents typically strategize to expand their base to be more appealing to the middle, but Trump being Trump, never passes an opportunity to double down on a bad decision, and has slowly whittled away at those on his fringe to feed his core base.  Will it pay off?  Who the fuck knows, but in traditional politics it doesn't seem like he is doing himself any favors trying to win on hardmode.  I'm personally waiting for Taylor Swift to save the democratic party by getting the youth out to vote.  Come on Tay Tay!

[dream big]

6 hours ago, drewpey said:

I'm not sure anyone every considered Republicans to be silent, let alone a majority.  We have seen that higher voter turnout generally benefits democrats, but most democrats don't give enough shits to actually vote, and just enjoy losing so they can keep whining about things not going their way.  This is particularly seen in the younger vote, which has always been unreliable come election day, despite leaning heavily left.  Republican voters will vote come hell or high water on election day, and are generally much more reliable.  The battle isn't about the decided voters...people like me who think Trump is unintelligible, or people like you who think Biden is incoherent...it's about those in the middle gray largely deciding the race.  That's where you see trolls trying to alienate Berniebros from the Democratic party, pushing people towards the green party, etc. all to whittle the left-leaning undecideds away from the primary democratic candidate until we get more widespread ranked choice voting to allow people to truly vote with their hearts without throwing their vote away.  Incumbents typically strategize to expand their base to be more appealing to the middle, but Trump being Trump, never passes an opportunity to double down on a bad decision, and has slowly whittled away at those on his fringe to feed his core base.  Will it pay off?  Who the fuck knows, but in traditional politics it doesn't seem like he is doing himself any favors trying to win on hardmode.  I'm personally waiting for Taylor Swift to save the democratic party by getting the youth out to vote.  Come on Tay Tay!

Tay Tay should stick to shitty country music! I see your points...Trump is abrasive but you don’t win the republican presidency by being dumb.  His tweets do make me cringe and just give so much ammo to his haters but, maybe it’s calculated? Maybe it does fire up his base more than it disenfranchises voters in the middle? They are just stupid tweets after all.

[FLEA]

58 minutes ago, dream big said:

Tay Tay should stick to shitty country music! I see your points...Trump is abrasive but you don’t win the republican presidency by being dumb.  His tweets do make me cringe and just give so much ammo to his haters but, maybe it’s calculated? Maybe it does fire up his base more than it disenfranchises voters in the middle? They are just stupid tweets after all.

Trump's election followed by the Kavanugb debacle and then the silence over the Biden / Tara Reade debacle has confirmed for me what I always suspected. People don't really care if the president they vote for is in their perception moral. They care about policy. Trump had a platform, Hilary was "more of the same." The opposite ends of the spectrum are going to vote by the candidates policy whether or not they are perceived as moral. It's indifferent to them. Better an evil liberal in office than a good conservative or vice versa. As for the people in the middle, if given two options and only one actually has a platform, a lot are going to swing by default. 

[drewpey]

4 hours ago, dream big said:

Tay Tay should stick to shitty country music! I see your points...Trump is abrasive but you don’t win the republican presidency by being dumb.  His tweets do make me cringe and just give so much ammo to his haters but, maybe it’s calculated? Maybe it does fire up his base more than it disenfranchises voters in the middle? They are just stupid tweets after all.

She tried to stay apolitical, but the white supremacists of the alt-right made her their Aryan darling.  It's literally their fault she was forced into the political spotlight because they had projected it onto her.  That's why I think it would be karmic justice if she were to actually mobilize her millions of young followers to vote in a sort of karmic loop.

His tweets are him unfiltered, so to not like his tweets do you really like Trump himself?  Firing up your base is good, ultimately the return on investment is less for the right since they vote regularly in all elections.  We saw this in 2018 when trump was beating the drums over the migrant caravan that everyone forgot about after election day, and it didn't really pay off for them.  "Orange man bad" is the equivalent for the left, and it works because any time trump has a chance to score an easy win he passes it up to benefit his base.  Trump had several opportunities to draw in the middle...for example scuttling McCain's legacy...He could have buried the hatchet and wooed the republicans who liked McCain, or the middle who voted for him in 2008, but instead he doubled down in Trumpian fashion and alienated the handful of folks who really liked McCain, and looked petty feuding with a corpse.

Yes it is possible, and historically likely Trump will win...but I think he may just shoot himself in the foot enough times in the next 6 months to lose.  Being from rural flyover america I have friends and family who were diehard republicans turned off by trump by one thing or another over the last 3 years.  It was never one specific event, but slowly he would attack something they held dear and they would stop and rethink things.  Will they vote?  Probably but the margins are slim and I think the left is still gathering momentum we saw in 2018.  We'll see what happens.

[Waingro]

12 hours ago, dream big said:

In a conventional “popular vote” sense, no, not “majority.”  But we don’t elect presidents based off of that otherwise Cali and NY would heaven forbid decide every national election.  

It's been 16 years since the Republican nominee won the popular vote in the general election. But something the electoral college purists never concede is that the Permanent Apportionment Act capped house seats and thus electoral college votes, effectively diluting the power of a vote in a populated state. If they were truly purists about the electoral college, they would demand electoral college representation in line with actual population distribution, versus a representation artificially cuffed by a 90 year old law. 

[herkbum]

She may be apolitical wrt current situation, but Taylor Swift is not apolitical overall. She was all over the place here in TN promoting Democratic candidates during the last elections.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

[drewpey]

Agreed...she had tried to avoid most the fray and just support general causes, but was kind of dragged into it.  They go over it in her recent documentary.  Basically everyone in her circle was telling her to STFU and not become the next dixie chicks, but she did anyways and somehow not to the detriment to her career.

[jrizzell]

Our country appears to be in crisis. Some legit issues, some manufactured. We’ve been force fed 4 years of “Trump is a Russian agent and a Fascist”. Do we really expect things to improve if he would win again; the anti Trump faction would become even more unhinged. I do wish he would rise to the occasion and try to act as a voice of Unity, but he thrives on the chaos. And I don’t know if that’s what the country is looking for right now...

[brickhistory]

6 hours ago, drewpey said:

She tried to stay apolitical, but the white supremacists of the alt-right made her their Aryan darling.  It's literally their fault she was forced into the political spotlight because they had projected it onto her.  That's why I think it would be karmic justice if she were to actually mobilize her millions of young followers to vote in a sort of karmic loop.

His tweets are him unfiltered, so to not like his tweets do you really like Trump himself?  Firing up your base is good, ultimately the return on investment is less for the right since they vote regularly in all elections.  We saw this in 2018 when trump was beating the drums over the migrant caravan that everyone forgot about after election day, and it didn't really pay off for them.  "Orange man bad" is the equivalent for the left, and it works because any time trump has a chance to score an easy win he passes it up to benefit his base.  Trump had several opportunities to draw in the middle...for example scuttling McCain's legacy...He could have buried the hatchet and wooed the republicans who liked McCain, or the middle who voted for him in 2008, but instead he doubled down in Trumpian fashion and alienated the handful of folks who really liked McCain, and looked petty feuding with a corpse.

Yes it is possible, and historically likely Trump will win...but I think he may just shoot himself in the foot enough times in the next 6 months to lose.  Being from rural flyover america I have friends and family who were diehard republicans turned off by trump by one thing or another over the last 3 years.  It was never one specific event, but slowly he would attack something they held dear and they would stop and rethink things.  Will they vote?  Probably but the margins are slim and I think the left is still gathering momentum we saw in 2018.  We'll see what happens.

So she's a victim?  Riiiight...a simple statement like "I reject the association of my music with any political viewpoint or ideology" wouldn't have worked.  Instead she's forced to campaign for the left.

Damn, that's some powerful logic she's using.

As to her being "country," she sure seems to have forgotten 'who brung her to the dance' including at least one video mocking those "country folk."

My money is on Ms. Swift deciding to get woke.

Made a boatload of money so good on her.  Why would any guy hit that knowing he's gonna be a follow-on hit song....

[Danger41]

48 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

Why would any guy hit that knowing he's gonna be a follow-on hit song....

Lol, have you seen her?