The Dangerous Game of Smearing a Sitting President of the Most Powerful Country in the World

[candycorn]

I have some sympathy for Jim's position--I too felt the Cohen public testimony was a bridge too far and accomplished nothing. What Jim is NOT seeing is that the Republicans are JUST as bad, just as guilty and just as shameful. It's partisanship run amok.

I disagree completely about calling Michael Cohen to testify.

Michael Cohen was his “fixer” which means he negotiated deals for the blob. Why is that important to the US Congress? Our intel agencies have concluded (both Trump’s and Obama’s) that Russia had state-sponsored interference in our elections in 2016 and that the interference attempts continue to this day. This includes both passive propaganda and criminal hacking.

Donald Trump personally has said the following:

1. July 26, 2016: "I mean, I have nothing to do with Russia. I don't have any jobs in Russia. I'm all over the world but we're not involved in Russia," Trump tells CBS4.

2. July 26, 2016: "For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia," Trump tweets.

3. Oct. 6, 2016: During the second presidential debate, Hillary Clinton says Russia is trying to help elect Trump, "maybe because he wants to do business in Moscow." Trump calls this assessment "so ridiculous," adding, "I know nothing about Russia ... I don't deal there."

4. Oct. 24, 2016: "I have nothing to do with Russia folks, I'll give you a written statement," Trump says at a campaign rally.

5. Jan. 11, 2017: Trump tells reporters that he has "no deals that could happen in Russia because we've stayed away," adding that he could "make deals in Russia very easily" but "I just don't want to because I think that would be a conflict."

6. Jan. 11, 2017: "Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!," Trump tweets.

7. Feb. 7, 2017: Trump tweets, "I don't know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy."

8. May 11, 2017: Trump tells NBC News that he has "nothing to do with Russia," other than the fact that he "sold a house to a very wealthy Russian many years ago" and hosted the Miss Universe pageant there once. Brendan Morrow

According to the NYT, Mr. Cohen has stated that wasn’t true:

"According to the documents, Mr. Cohen pursued the project through June 2016 — as Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign gained momentum. At the time, Mr. Cohen served as executive vice president and special counsel for the Trump Organization, which he joined in 2007; he also was a frequent public mouthpiece for the Republican front-runner’s campaign.”

If the mailroom clerk is making the allegations perhaps that’s a “bridge too far”. Trump’s counsel? No.

Couple that with the following from Trump Campaign Communications Director Hope Hicks:

11 November
Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks denies claims from the Kremlin that Trump officials met with its staff.

“It never happened,” Hicks says. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”

That, of course, has turned out to be completely false as well.

———

Now, if Trump and Hicks (along with the platoons of other Trump campaign officials) have not lied about their involvement…. I could agree with you. They brought this shit storm on themselves. They deserve to be investigated because they have been caught lying time and again.

As to your point of being “a bridge too far”….I do agree with you as far as it goes that we in the US have multiple layers of investigations.

Congress Holds 22 Hearings on the 9/11 Attacks, and 21 on Benghazi

Our system allows for these multiple layers of investigations with committees, special counsels, commissions, departmental investigations, etc… blah blah blah That is something, I wish, would be changed. Let the FBI run all of these investigations. The full findings go to the President and the Gang of 8.

I should have been more clear about what I objected to:
I too felt the Cohen public testimony was a bridge too far
I have no objection to Cohen being called as a witness in the investigation or the closed door sessions, I just think the one on tv for our viewing pleasure was total partisan blood letting, ala Real Housewives. It was a pure set up for the Dems to attack Trump and the Repubs to attack Cohen, and at the end, it still hadn't actually gotten us any further down the road. A lot of people may think "we the American people have the right to know..." and I agree with that, but not this way. If there was no Mueller investigation already going on, and if Mueller had not already had a crack at Cohen, and if Cohen had made any disclosures we were not already aware of, I might feel differently.

I agree with you there are way too many levels of investigations in Congress; most of those investigations are fueled by ego and partisanship, not simple responsibilities.

As usual, there is very little on which we actually disagree.

Just to put a bow on it, I think “that” is a bridge too far—not wanting the testimony to be made in public.

What’s next? Closed door confirmations for the Supreme Court? Attorney General? These have become political theater as well.

I’m reminded by the very good opening remarks Senator Sasse (sp?) (R-NE) gave at the beginning of the Kav hearings. I disagreed with some of it but his general message was that the Congress isn’t doing it’s job when people feel that judges are wearing uniforms instead of robes. It was fantastic. Then when the Ford stuff came up, the Congress turned around and outsourced it’s job to a prosecutor from Phoenix. I’m sure Ben Sasse was pretty upset by that because I think he crystalized a fundamental problem we have in the nation; nobody takes responsibility in government for what they do; the argument is that “everyone does it so nobody is to blame”. I think he gave a good accounting of himself. Likewise, I think Finestein’s gotcha-movement tarnished her star permanently—at least it did with me. I think Harris’s questioning of Kav was great.

So there is value in public hearings. How much? Dunno. But It does give us an insight to just how petty our legislators are and if it sheds some light on the witnesses as well—that’s good too.

Would you want to go through life without knowing Baker’s famous line about “What did the President know and when did he know it?” It may be apropos again very shortly, no?

I think Cohen's testimony gave us some mighty powerful evidence about that.

I guess you could say there are two tracks here;

The content of the hearings
The hearings themselves

I come down on the side of this:

I think we should leave all investigating to the appropriate authorities. If it’s the FBI, cool. If it is the Independent Counsel’s office, cool. If it’s NCIS, cool. But don’t have all three filing reports then have the Congress hold hearings about anything other than, perhaps, if the FBI, IC, or NCIS overstepped their mandate, were incompetent, etc…

But if we’re going to have the multiple layers of investigations and political grandstanding that comes along with it…have them in public as much as you can.

 

[candycorn]

[QUOTE="OldLady, post: 21924206, member: 56127”]

Confirmations are a horse of a different color, Candycorn. I think the folks in D.C. are being held accountable by Mueller (or at least he's giving a pretty good impression of it if he's not) and he will be giving us his evidence. To me, that is enough. It's just my opinion.[/QUOTE]

Again, I respectfully disagree.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Want respect? Give respect.

Respect is earned...
~S~

No, you stupid jack ass, the respect for an OFFICE OF STATE does not have to be earned from its citizens as that office REPRESENTS THOSE CITIZENs.

My GAWD, where do you stupid Chowder heads come from?

 

[JimBowie1958]

/——/ Obozo admitted he was born in Kenya. His grandmother said the same.

Obama while a student was playing up his Identity Politics cred by making those claims then switching away from them when it become inconvenient.

In Truth I believe the hospital records and those of the state of Hawaii till serious contrary evidence comes up.

 

[JimBowie1958]

We have a moron criminal serial compulsive liar in the White House named Donald Trump and his .

Orange MAN BAD!

These idiot Dimocrats think that paying money to a lawyer is an impeachable offense, lol.

And they call us stupid for supporting our duly elected President.

SMDH

 

[deanrd]

The Dangerous Game of Smearing a Sitting President of the Most Powerful Country in the World

Like saying he was born in another country? That he comes from Kenya? That his religion is Muslim?

Why is it OK for the nearly all white party to do it to the first black president but they complain about it with the first orange president?

What they said about Obama was lies, but what we’re saying about Trump is truth. How do we know? We can prove it.

 

[JimBowie1958]

My suggestion is that we create a new Cabinet position, something like Secretary of Getting the President.

The position is held by a person from whichever party is not occupying the White House.

On Day One of each administration, the SecGetPres launches multiple investigations until they find something actionable.

We're disintegrating in real time, and we're doing this to ourselves.
.

Yes, I do kind of agree with your sarcasm though.

I think we do need a new Federal office, and that would be Chief Inspector General of the United States, who would have the authority to call for investigations for any apparent illegal activity WHILE in office of any elected official or any official who clearly demonstrates incompetence while in office that makes them unworthy of office.

They would be part of the DoJ but not subject to the authority of the AG, and they would be appointed by the Supreme Court in a special session. They would serve for ten years and all impeachment proceedings would be initiated in his office, and all other impeachment powers removed from any other official.

It would require a Constitutional Amendment, of course, but it would be worthwhile to depoliticize impeachment proceedings. Dimocrats and Tea Partiers have demonstrated thaat they do not have the objectivity required to handle it.

 

[Kat]

The Dangerous Game of Smearing a Sitting President of the Most Powerful Country in the World

Like saying he was born in another country? That he comes from Kenya? That his religion is Muslim?

Why is it OK for the nearly all white party to do it to the first black president but they complain about it with the first orange president?

What they said about Obama was lies, but what we’re saying about Trump is truth. How do we know? We can prove it.

How funny you doing the old "they did it too". Grow up. Oh, and 2 wrongs do not make a right, right?

 

[JimBowie1958]

2 wrongs do not make a right, right?

True, but three lefts do.

 

[sparky]

No, you stupid jack ass, the respect for an OFFICE OF STATE does not have to be earned from its citizens as that office REPRESENTS THOSE CITIZENs.

My GAWD, where do you stupid Chowder heads come from?

Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

~S~

 

[keepitreal]

the Democrat Party self immolating our national interests and the interests of her people so they can say once again to the whole planet 'ORANGE MAN BAD!' with ZERO political consequences what so ever, only international consequences as we have seen.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Well President Trumps meeting with the Norks went belly up.

No deal: Trump-Kim summit ends abruptly

In the eyes of the world, Trump is being undermined by his own countrymen with calls for impeachment, fake resolutions against his declarations of Emergency that h ave zero chance of actually sticking, and an opposition party that would rather see Americans lose in every negotiation and everything else included rather than to let the President have a single win.

Why should anyone in the world take such a Chief Executive seriously when he cannot achieve the symbolic respect of his own people?

Gone is the ability to talk the Norks into giving up their nukes for concessions, gone is the ability to help guide India and Pakistan away from nuclear war, gone is the ability to negotiate better trade deals for US workers all because Nancy Piglosi and Chucky Schmuker think this is what is required to win in 2020.

This is simply disgusting, disloyal and reckless.

Mike Cohen is a brazen liar, who has been repeatedly caught in perjury and is going to prison for perjury and he has even been disbarred. And the Democrats have turned over the operations of Congress to him and his lawyer Lanny Davis, to try and embarrass Trump with nothing but unsupported claims and unwarranted allegations of wrong doing by a known liar who is obviously wanting to plea deal with his little chip of testimony of betrayal of client privilege.

I have never felt so embarrassed for my country my whole life than I did yesterday with the Democrat Party self immolating our national interests and the interests of her people so they can say once again to the whole planet 'ORANGE MAN BAD!' with ZERO political consequences what so ever, only international consequences as we have seen.

In the meantime India and Pakistan may stumble into nuclear war because these Dimocrats are undermining the probably single man on Earth who can carrot and stick them into peace; and that is our duly elected sitting President, Donald J Trump.

Dimocrats, you are disgusting, you are traitorous, and you are a bunch of fools playing with consequences you cannot fathom all for your political horse shit.

Shame, shame, shame on you, you bloody imbeciles. The sooner you are drubbed into the ash heap of history the better it will be for Mankind.

Wrong.

Trump’s most recent failure in Vietnam was the consequence of his own ignorance, incompetence, and arrogance.

Trump and his ‘team’ didn’t even bother to prepare.

Indeed, the issues that resulted in Trump’s failure should have been worked out before the meeting took place.

Trump is alone responsible for his failures – no one is trying to ‘undermine’ Trump, the notion is ridiculous lie.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

~S~

Do you even realize that quoting the lyrics of a song is not a rational argument, and thus you are conceding that your words are no different from the brayings of a jack ass or the incessant caterwalling of a tom cat in fever?

Why dont you go sing your jack ass braying somewhere else like the Rubber Room where it belongs and leave the adults here to have discussions, mmmk?

 

[Olde Europe]

I guess you could say there are two tracks here;

The content of the hearings
The hearings themselves

I come down on the side of this:

I think we should leave all investigating to the appropriate authorities. If it’s the FBI, cool. If it is the Independent Counsel’s office, cool. If it’s NCIS, cool. But don’t have all three filing reports then have the Congress hold hearings about anything other than, perhaps, if the FBI, IC, or NCIS overstepped their mandate, were incompetent, etc…

But if we’re going to have the multiple layers of investigations and political grandstanding that comes along with it…have them in public as much as you can.

I agree with most of the above, but disagree slightly with your assessment of Congressional hearings. They are part of the Constitutional checks and balances, and they are of major importance. That's not just so because Mueller's mandate is fairly limited (Russian interference, collusion, and related), while Congress investigates what they want. It is, as you rightly note, also because you get to learn a lot about your representatives in public hearings. Weren't you excited about AOC's pointed, pithy, intelligent questioning, and the contrast to the grand-standers, and the smear artists on the GOP side? Isn't it in and of it self an important issue to be discovered that the GOP representatives at that public hearing had no interest whatsoever in their president's (alleged) criminality?

That's to say, Congress very much is an "appropriate" authority to investigate executive wrongdoing, and not just in the legal sense (which would be of interest to the FBI), but in the political sense as well, as in waste, incompetence, failure to follow Congressional mandates, misappropriating funds etc., and that's without even getting to the matter of impeachment. It's an important tool, and the electorate should watch closely, and inflict harsh punishment on those who would abuse it.

 

[Olde Europe]

Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

~S~

Do you even realize that quoting the lyrics of a song is not a rational argument, and thus you are conceding that your words are no different from the brayings of a jack ass or the incessant caterwalling of a tom cat in fever?

Why dont you go sing your jack ass braying somewhere else like the Rubber Room where it belongs and leave the adults here to have discussions, mmmk?

Sparky is one of the finest poster on here, and whenever he's posting lyrics, I found he sheds some, at times unorthodox, light on the issue. The braying jackass would be the one who dismisses him out of hand, and who tries to besmirch and undermine Congress while desperately shifting blame for Trump's spectacular - and very predictable - foreign policy failure on whoever opposes your Dear Leader. Opposition and oversight of the Executive is as American as apple pie; subservience to a Dear Leader is not.

 

[candycorn]

I guess you could say there are two tracks here;

The content of the hearings
The hearings themselves

I come down on the side of this:

I think we should leave all investigating to the appropriate authorities. If it’s the FBI, cool. If it is the Independent Counsel’s office, cool. If it’s NCIS, cool. But don’t have all three filing reports then have the Congress hold hearings about anything other than, perhaps, if the FBI, IC, or NCIS overstepped their mandate, were incompetent, etc…

But if we’re going to have the multiple layers of investigations and political grandstanding that comes along with it…have them in public as much as you can.

I agree with most of the above, but disagree slightly with your assessment of Congressional hearings. They are part of the Constitutional checks and balances, and they are of major importance. That's not just so because Mueller's mandate is fairly limited (Russian interference, collusion, and related), while Congress investigates what they want. It is, as you rightly note, also because you get to learn a lot about your representatives in public hearings. Weren't you excited about AOC's pointed, pithy, intelligent questioning, and the contrast to the grand-standers, and the smear artists on the GOP side? Isn't it in and of it self an important issue to be discovered that the GOP representatives at that public hearing had no interest whatsoever in their president's (alleged) criminality?

That's to say, Congress very much is an "appropriate" authority to investigate executive wrongdoing, and not just in the legal sense (which would be of interest to the FBI), but in the political sense as well, as in waste, incompetence, failure to follow Congressional mandates, misappropriating funds etc., and that's without even getting to the matter of impeachment. It's an important tool, and the electorate should watch closely, and inflict harsh punishment on those who would abuse it.

The more informed the electorate...the better. Having the elected officials on TV only serves to inform both for the good or the bad

 

[rightwinger]

All that is needed to smear our President is to play back his words

 

[WinterBorn]

The Dangerous Game of Smearing a Sitting President of the Most Powerful Country in the World

Like saying he was born in another country? That he comes from Kenya? That his religion is Muslim?

Why is it OK for the nearly all white party to do it to the first black president but they complain about it with the first orange president?

What they said about Obama was lies, but what we’re saying about Trump is truth. How do we know? We can prove it.

How funny you doing the old "they did it too". Grow up. Oh, and 2 wrongs do not make a right, right?

No, but when the same group who spent 8 years throwing shade starts whining about have shade thrown on them, THAT is funny.

 

[JimBowie1958]

No, but when the same group who spent 8 years throwing shade starts whining about have shade thrown on them, THAT is funny.

This isnt shade, this is undermining the President of our Republic during high stakes negotiations.

 

[Butch_Coolidge]

Gone is the ability to talk the Norks into giving up their nukes for concessions, gone is the ability to help guide India and Pakistan away from nuclear war, gone is the ability to negotiate better trade deals for US workers all because Nancy Piglosi and Chucky Schmuker think this is what is required to win in 2020.

Well, if Trump actually understood any of these problems, then it would be a bad thing. Clearly, he doesn't.

Let's look at the Norks, shall we. The Norks have been playing this game since the 1960's. Act a little beligerent, put a good scare into people, and then let the world buy you off with some food aid.

Of course, if we lifted sanctions and let North Koreans see how nice the South Koreans have it, they'd probably get rid of Kim on their own. But no one really wants that kind of upheavel..

So instead of doing the whole diplomatic dance to get the Norks to give up their nukes (which they will never do), Trump thinks he can bully this guy like some old lady whose house is where he wants to build a casino. No wonder it failed.

Mike Cohen is a brazen liar, who has been repeatedly caught in perjury and is going to prison for perjury and he has even been disbarred.

And Donald Trump hired him to be his fixer. Why do you keep leaving that part out?

In the meantime India and Pakistan may stumble into nuclear war because these Dimocrats are undermining the probably single man on Earth who can carrot and stick them into peace; and that is our duly elected sitting President, Donald J Trump.

Trump couldn't find Pakistan on a map, much less guide them into peace. Our influence really isn't all that great, we kind of ran that account out in Iraq.

He should have hired Ray Donovan, or Winston Wolfe, not that pussy. They get the job done right the first time.


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