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Trump administration 2024-2028

QV said:
Ah.. so innocent then.
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Innocent and not guilty are not the same thing. The obstruction from the defendants would have been considered contempt in any normal criminal trial. Too bad we'll never know what happened.
 
MrWhyt said:
Read the Mueller report, they found multiple contacts between the trump campaign and russian agents, they just couldn't establish that a crime occurred, due partially to obstruction of the investigation. There was smoke, they investigated the smoke, they couldn't prove the fire was a criminal act.
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They couldn't prove "collusion" because the contacts didn't amount to much. The Trump Tower meeting was a contact with Russians. Steele's research for his dossier (authorized and funded by Clinton's campaign) led to contacts with Russians. One cannot be a crime if the other is not. If they are both crimes, both should have been prosecuted equally vigorously. I don't care which way they land, but I care that they both land the same way.
 
QV said:
Innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental tenant of a free democratic society. Are you saying it doesn't apply to those you detest?
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Well that was a leap lol. I didn't say that. I said there is a difference between not guilty and innocent. Perhaps you should google the difference. Theres a reason a judge never says "the court finds you innocent".
 
MrWhyt said:
but it was not a "bogus" investigation or "hoax", they had legitimate reasons to investigate.
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The pre-text of the investigation was in fact illegitimate (based off of the bogus Steele dossier paid for by Clinton).
 
QV said:
The pre-text of the investigation was in fact illegitimate (based off of the bogus Steele dossier paid for by Clinton).
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but they still found contacts between the trump campaign and russian agents. The trump tower meeting did occur, Manafort did meet with a russian intellegence agent.
 
MrWhyt said:
but they still found contacts between the trump campaign and russian agents. The trump tower meeting did occur, Manafort did meet with a russian intellegence agent.
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Manafort has a long history of lobbying and political consulting dating back to the Reagan era. Trump ultimately minimized his role once concerns were identified immediately after his first security briefing, then a short while later let him go.
 
QV said:
Manafort has a long history of lobbying and political consulting dating back to the Reagan era. Trump ultimately minimized his role once concerns were identified immediately after his first security briefing, then a short while later let him go.
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so a Trump campaign official had contact with a russian agent. Sounds like something worth investigating. Surely if a Biden campaign official met with a chinese agent you'd want the same?
 
PrairieFella said:
Well that was a leap lol. I didn't say that. I said there is a difference between not guilty and innocent. Perhaps you should google the difference. Theres a reason a judge never says "the court finds you innocent".
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The court doesn't try to establish innocence, the prosecution tried to establish guilt. Innocence is presumed until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore with a not guilty verdict he remains innocent.
MrWhyt said:
so a Trump campaign official had contact with a russian agent. Sounds like something worth investigating. Surely if a Biden campaign official met with a chinese agent you'd want the same?
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So investigate the official. They went way beyond that and characterized it so. For political reasons. Egregious behavior.
 
MrWhyt said:
but it was not a "bogus" investigation or "hoax", they had legitimate reasons to investigate.
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They had pretexts, sure, but as some people with DoJ and FBI and other customary practices pointed out long ago, as contradictory evidence mounted two things happened: investigators tended to emphasize militating aspects and de-emphasize or ignore mitigating aspects. Their lead-in was Papadopolous, and the third-hand information - Mifsud told Papadopolous told Downer told the FBI - should have been properly corroborated, especially since the FBI knew Mifsud was thought to be an agent of either Russia or a western power. Later when the Steele Dossier emerged, enough people thought it was facially bogus that it should never have been used to support a request for a FISA warrant without proper corroboration, or any other line of investigation.

If customary protocols had been followed, the lines of investigations would have terminated a lot sooner. The continuations are what made it "bogus".

As usual, my beef is that things should land the same way. If those pretexts were enough to launch investigations and thin evidence was enough to keep them going, the evidence that suggested Joe Biden might be involved in corrupt dealings through his son Hunter should have triggered equally vigorous investigations. Instead the refrain was, "No investigation is warranted; you have no proof". But an investigation is undertaken on suggestion in order to seek proof.
 
MrWhyt said:
so a Trump campaign official had contact with a russian agent. Sounds like something worth investigating. Surely if a Biden campaign official met with a chinese agent you'd want the same?
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As I've written, if that is the position then Hillary Clinton's campaign should have been investigated. They paid (through a chain of cut-outs) Steele to continue his investigations to dig up dirt on Trump - specifically, to seek Russian connections. To do that he would have to have contact with Russians, and would be a risk point for injection of disinformation.

[Add: regarding Biden, with respect to Biden meeting with Hunter's business cronies, I do feel the same]
 
Its funny, yet sad, to read about all of this back and forth about a US President. I've been lucky enough to live in 5 countries, 3 in Europe and in Canada and the US. In all of this and all of my travels, I'm certain that no country obsesses more about another country than Canada does with the US. I understand that geographically we are located right next to each other, I understand that culturally we have been similar in the past (though some significant differences are appearing, I understand that are are dominated by them in both population and economy - but Ireland doesn't obsess with the UK in the same manner, Holland doesn't obsess with Germany in the same manner, Austria doesn't obsess with Germany in the same manner, Switzerland doesn't obsess with France/Germany/Italy in the same manner. We have an dependency issue that we need to address.
 
Czech_pivo said:
We have an dependency issue that we need to address.
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The issue isn't dependency, it's peer competition. We have a parliamentary democracy and are disposed to behave like subjects rather than citizens, a continuation of a mix of British and French influence. Next to us is a republic which made a clean break with Europe and much of European governance, with very strongly written constitutional provisions for individual rights and a lot of voting. Despite not following our path, it succeeds and often overachieves. We lag badly behind Americans in consuming power, but we comfort ourselves with a handful of other things (chiefly, public health care, and a vague notion that we are more caring). But public health care is, if stakeholders are to be believed, in crisis, and caring seems mainly to consist in agreeing to more publicly-funded programs offering increasing levels of service.

We tell ourselves we're more virtuous, but our virtue isn't being rewarded and we are clearly falling behind. Dissonance. As consolation, some of us take every opportunity to gloat at their misfortunes. I don't think that really makes the gloaters happier.
 
I still cant believe that people can look at the system to the South which has been buckling for at least 2 decades domestically and internationally and say "ya, I want me some of that". Its insanity to be a critic of the middle east wars on one side of the mouth and claim some sort of political or moral superiority on behalf of the same system that created those wars and the untold chaos and suffering they generated.
 
PrairieFella said:
I still cant believe that people can look at the system to the South which has been buckling for at least 2 decades domestically and internationally and say "ya, I want me some of that". Its insanity to be a critic of the middle east wars on one side of the mouth and claim some sort of political or moral superiority on behalf of the same system that created those wars and the untold chaos and suffering they generated.
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You sound very Trumpian.
 
Czech_pivo said:
Its funny, yet sad, to read about all of this back and forth about a US President. I've been lucky enough to live in 5 countries, 3 in Europe and in Canada and the US. In all of this and all of my travels, I'm certain that no country obsesses more about another country than Canada does with the US. I understand that geographically we are located right next to each other, I understand that culturally we have been similar in the past (though some significant differences are appearing, I understand that are are dominated by them in both population and economy - but Ireland doesn't obsess with the UK in the same manner, Holland doesn't obsess with Germany in the same manner, Austria doesn't obsess with Germany in the same manner, Switzerland doesn't obsess with France/Germany/Italy in the same manner. We have an dependency issue that we need to address.
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Your lense may be too narrowly focused. While the European countries that you cite as examples may not be "obsessed" with neighbours in your experience of living abroad (apologies if my assumption of you being there is abroad, instead of you being here is abroad), if you go back an extra generation or two, their obsessions (fears) makes the Canadian preoccupation of our relationship with the USA seem like high school dating dynamics. Prior to 1939 (or 1914, or 1870, or . . .) any of the mismatched pairs focused similar significantly greater attention on the more powerful/obnoxious/threatening neighbour than Canada does toward our southern border.

Their solutions were wars. When that got too expensive in blood and treasure, they went the alliance route (economic and defense). So far that has been a reasonably stable experiment. Though the "obsession" of the UK about what its neighbours wanted did lead to BREXIT. North America's history is still in the juvenile stage.
 
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