A Deeply Fractured US

[Lumber]

If Trump is a cult, Joe Biden is Jim Jones.

This comparison couldn't be more inaccurate.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Well given what Trump continues to do and admit to doing, I’m not sure why you think that is a partisan issue.

He’s a traitor several times over, as well as a rapist and general douche bag.

Public prosecutors shouldn't be campaigning on promises to get specific individuals. War on political corruption, fine. War on John Doe, unacceptable.

 

[FJAG]

Public prosecutors shouldn't be campaigning on promises to get specific individuals. War on political corruption, fine. War on John Doe, unacceptable.

In the US it's been a function since before Al Capone and John Dillinger. The people want to know that the prosecutors they employ play no favourites and go after all criminals.

 

[Kirkhill]

So don’t worry about the 8m USD he got from the Chinese Government while President?

- he has also admitted to that, as well as he made a statement about not doing anything for nothing…

I think you were missing Dimon's point.

Regardless of your opinion of Trump you are not going to "sell" Biden or the Democrats or rifles to anybody by calling them assholes.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

That's fine, let's stick to Biden. Let's say, hypothetically, Biden commits some serious offences. Say he sexually assaults three women in the span of two years. They all come forward, give police statements, and commit themselves to their willingness to testify in court.

The House holds an impeachment inquiry and, quite rightly, impeaches him. The matter moves to a senate trial. Some Democrat senators vote to convict, but, on largely partisan lines, Biden is not convicted in the senate, notwithstanding very convinving evidence that he committed sexual assault. In a criminal trial he would very, very likely face conviction.

Your position would hold that Biden would never face criminal culpability, simply by virtue of winning in the senate. Your position would hold that, say Biden were to steal classified documents and get caught selling them to China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, a subsequent Republican administration DOJ could not prosecute.

Take an even more extreme - a ridiculous - example: Biden is defeated in the 2024 election, Trump wins. A day before the inauguration, he pulls out a gun and shoots Trump dead live on camera. The House and Senate are not sitting. Impeachment proceedings are commenced on an emergency basis, but Biden succesfully runs the clock, and his term expires before he can be impeacehd. Your position would hold that, since he was not impeached by Congress, he is immune from criminal culpability for murder.

They're deliberately extreme examples, but they have to be to highlight how absurd the position is. A hundred less extreme, yet still egregious examples would be easy to conceive. Given the threshold needed in the senate, it would be exceptionally difficult for any impeachment of a president to be successful in anything but the most egregious case.

I agree that you and I will likely never agree on whether Trump ought to be indicted for crimes committed while in office. But that's not the same as being unable to discuss and come to agreement on whether any president ought to be able to be indicted for crimes committed while in office, after their term expires.

You have a point. I hadn't considered something like rape or murder or a Senate that would be so biased that they could support a heinous crime, especially to do it publicly.

However I just recalled the Congressional slush fund to make sexual complaints disappear, $18+ million paid out in 21. So anything is possible, I guess.

Congrats, you convinced me.

Finally.

 

[KevinB]

You have a point. I hadn't considered something like rape or murder or a Senate that would be so biased that they could support a heinous crime, especially to do it publicly.

However I just recalled the Congressional slush fund to make sexual complaints disappear, $18+ million paid out in 21. So anything is possible, I guess.

Congrats, you convinced me.

Finally.

Hey no need to bring Hockey Canada into this discussion

If I was Galactic Space Emperor, anyone who voted to fund that would be executed summarily.

Both parties down here have forgotten “of the people, for the people”.

 

[IKnowNothing]

@Fishbone Jones , so would then you say that the McConnell led Republican Senate erred when they did not impeach?
Their reasoning was that despite believing he was guilty impeachment was pointless since he was leaving office, and that it should be left to the criminal courts.

Under your paradigm, if it was clearly and universally understood that impeachment was a prerequisite to post-Presidential criminal liability then their reasoning would be invalid, and they would/should have voted to impeach, rendering your own arguments in support of his immunity (that he wasn't impeached) moot.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

@Fishbone Jones , so would then you say that the McConnell led Republican Senate erred when they did not impeach?
Their reasoning was that despite believing he was guilty impeachment was pointless since he was leaving office, and that it should be left to the criminal courts.

Under your paradigm, if it was clearly and universally understood that impeachment was a prerequisite to post-Presidential criminal liability then their reasoning would be invalid, and they would/should have voted to impeach, rendering your own arguments in support of his immunity (that he wasn't impeached) moot.

Hey! Don't push it, OK?

I've already admitted my thinking was flawed and that brihard had changed my mind.

As far as McConnell, he's another one that needs to take his rocking chair out to the porch and spend his day waving at cars. I have zero care for neocon RINO's like him, Cheney, Romney, Halley or the rest. Those that back forever wars and defense contractors, over peace and prosperity. It's been 16 years since Bush. If Trump proved anything, it's that the country and citizens can make things work without setting the world on fire or being isolationist.

 

[brihard]

Hey! Don't push it, OK?

I've already admitted my thinking was flawed and that brihard had changed my mind.

Yeah guys, let’s all just maybe suck back for the weekend and figure out just WTF we’re supposed to do now.

 

[Good2Golf]

Yeah guys, let’s all just maybe suck back for the weekend and figure out just WTF we’re supposed to do now.

…watch Poland launch groundwork to punt Hungary from the EU?

 

[Remius]

Yeah guys, let’s all just maybe suck back for the weekend and figure out just WTF we’re supposed to do now.

I thought this was the final boss level and the forum would close.

 

[Brad Sallows]

In the US it's been a function since before Al Capone and John Dillinger. The people want to know that the prosecutors they employ play no favourites and go after all criminals.

Oh? That makes it right, so everyone should just carry on making the same mistake?

 

[FJAG]

Oh? That makes it right, so everyone should just carry on making the same mistake?

It's only you that thinks its a mistake. Many down there think its a feature. Democracy is a two-way street. It doesn't only work for one side. FAFO cuts both ways.

 

[QV]

It's only you that thinks its a mistake. Many down there think its a feature. Democracy is a two-way street. It doesn't only work for one side. FAFO cuts both ways.

If you were referring to Al Capone, then sure. But 50 million people don't think the Jan 6 allegations or most others against 45 were/are legit... so that's a problem.

 

[CountDC]

In the US it's been a function since before Al Capone and John Dillinger. The people want to know that the prosecutors they employ play no favourites and go after all criminals.

After all criminals may be the catch there when people just see them continuously trying to get one person over and over again and ignoring or going soft on others.

 

[Remius]

If you were referring to Al Capone, then sure. But 50 million people don't think the Jan 6 allegations or most others against 45 were/are legit... so that's a problem.

Al Capone was a divisive figure in his day and he did enjoy a lot of public support.

Surprisingly, a large segment of the public seemed to share Capone’s view of himself as the pleasurable benefactor. Though on one day Chicagoans might read with horror of the latest atrocity linked to his mob, on the next they might cheer his waving arrival at Charlestown Racetrack. In Evanston once, during a Northwestern University football game, an entire troop of Boy Scouts startled the crowd with the rousing cry “Yea, Al!” (He had bought them their tickets.) His fan mail was heavy. By some accounts, he was Chicago’s greatest philanthropist. At the pit of the Depression, he was said to have financed a South Side soup kitchen dispensing 20,000 free meals a week. People liked to remember things like that—and liked to forget just exactly what it was the big fellow did to afford such beneficence.

Link for ref.

Said Chicago’s Al Capone:“I Give The Public What The Public Wants…”

What the public wanted, it seemed, was a vice and bootleg business netting sixty million dollars a year-and many gangland funerals

www.americanheritage.com

 

[FJAG]

If you were referring to Al Capone, then sure. But 50 million people don't think the Jan 6 allegations or most others against 45 were/are legit... so that's a problem.

50 million Russians think what Putin is doing in Ukraine is right. What a biased population comes to believe from what passes today as social media doesn't determine what is right or wrong. But I do agree - it creates a problem.

The fact that 5.5 million southerners believed that it was right and proper to hold 3.5 million blacks as slaves wasn't right. The fact that they were prepared to fight for that system was a problem. There are hundreds of such examples across the world.

After all criminals may be the catch there when people just see them continuously trying to get one person over and over again and ignoring or going soft on others.

There are compelling cases that he's broken the laws many times. Does he just get a pass on all of those because he's someone's darling of the moment?

I don't hate Trump. I hate that he's exploiting the gullibility of the masses for his own purposes and stoking the fires under what were fundamental and long standing, and IMHO legitimate, differences between the two political parties into a fissure a mile wide and a mile deep from which there can be no return.

I've been a long-time fan of Americans. I'm sad to see what's happening there. Not only to them but because of the knock-on effect this will have in our own country and other democratic countries.

Here's the real problem. Trump's an old man and one day Trump will die and that will be the end of him. What Trump has started, or rather elevated to what it is today, (let's call it MAGA for lack of a better term) won't die with him. This cultism that is MAGA now will find a new darling to fawn over. You probably will deny it, but what MAGA is is a form of anarchy which wants to tear down the social fabric that has developed slowly over two and one half centuries and has absolutely nothing of real substance to offer in exchange. That anarchy will survive Trump's passing and IMHO will either tear the US apart or make it vulnerable to being torn down. I look forward to neither of those. My only hope is that those that reside in the middle will finally put paid to the extremists at either end and take back their country. Unfortunately moderate majorities do not have a good record getting rid of screeching extremists.

 

[Brad Sallows]

a form of anarchy which wants to tear down the social fabric that has developed slowly over two and one half centuries and has absolutely nothing of real substance to offer in exchange.

Which also describes the modern left in America. That leaves "MAGA" as the one that is still mostly anchored to the constitution.

 

[CountDC]

There are compelling cases that he's broken the laws many times. Does he just get a pass on all of those because he's someone's darling of the moment?

I don't hate Trump. I hate that he's exploiting the gullibility of the masses for his own purposes and stoking the fires under what were fundamental and long standing, and IMHO legitimate, differences between the two political parties into a fissure a mile wide and a mile deep from which there can be no return.

I've been a long-time fan of Americans. I'm sad to see what's happening there. Not only to them but because of the knock-on effect this will have in our own country and other democratic countries.

Here's the real problem. Trump's an old man and one day Trump will die and that will be the end of him. What Trump has started, or rather elevated to what it is today, (let's call it MAGA for lack of a better term) won't die with him. This cultism that is MAGA now will find a new darling to fawn over. You probably will deny it, but what MAGA is is a form of anarchy which wants to tear down the social fabric that has developed slowly over two and one half centuries and has absolutely nothing of real substance to offer in exchange. That anarchy will survive Trump's passing and IMHO will either tear the US apart or make it vulnerable to being torn down. I look forward to neither of those. My only hope is that those that reside in the middle will finally put paid to the extremists at either end and take back their country. Unfortunately moderate majorities do not have a good record getting rid of screeching extremists.

There are compelling cases against many others too that are getting little to no attention from those same prosecutors. Sorry I don't buy into some of the actions that are happening for the sake of nailing one bad man while others are getting a pass.

MAGA along with all the other groups that have popped up on both sides are in the same category - wanting their way and the hell with everyone else. All of them are like spoiled kids that need a good wake up shake. At the rate the country is already going you don't have to worry about MAGA tearing the US apart, the massive open border policy is doing a great job of that already.

If I could select the new leader of the country I would toss Kennedy in there and see what he does. Can't imagine he could do much more damage.

Biden is an old man too, more likely by the looks of it to die first and they will find a new darling to fawn over. Maybe his son can take over.

 

[Lumber]

Which also describes the modern left in America. That leaves "MAGA" as the one that is still mostly anchored to the constitution.

Why is defenders of Trump can't help but contrast him against the left, democrats, and/or Biden? It's like you're saying his objectionable behaviour and the dangerous cultishness of MAGA somehow gets a pass because (in your opinion) the left/Democrats/Biden are just as bad (hint; they're not).

By the way, the majority of the people calling out Trump aren't the woke left, they're the majority center left and center right.