Special Counsel for Russia Election Interference: Robert Mueller.

Oralloy, are you forgetting that the last president who was impeached was a Democrat?

Are you forgetting that the Democrats prevented him from being removed from office despite his clear guilt?

I understand where you're coming from but can't agree on all of your points.

Two wrongs don't make a right is a simple but powerful maxim. I agree that to some extent the Republicans need to be more like the Democrats but not in terms of their worst excesses.

When I reference "solid evidence" of collusion, I don't mean a phone call from Trump to the Russian ambassador in which he jokes "You guys would be doing me a big favor if you found Hillary's missing e-mail." That may or may not qualify as a technical violation of an existing law, but it's not the sort of behavior that would disqualify Trump for the presidency.

We'll all have to see what is found (if anything) before we cast our final decisions on what we believe should happen. Although, one way or the other, I hope the investigation results in a clear cut, unambiguous finding, I have a feeling it won't.

I don't see anything good coming from this investigation.

I don't believe evidence of collusion by Trump will be found, and I don't think criminal charges or removal from office will be a result, however I suspect that something, at least, embarrassing to Trump will turn up. Something always does. High stakes politics are never squeaky clean and rationalizations by politicians run rampant.

The embarrassment could run the range of a finding that one of his staffers, unbeknownst to him, was illegally colluding with the Russians to the sort of stupid joke I referenced in my prior post.

Whatever it is, it will give the Opposition the pretext to continue hammering Trump on this matter. I take max and other rational liberals at their word when they state that if Mueller produces a finding of no actionable malfeasance they will consider the matter closed, but I've seen this play out time and time again in the past. Over the months of the investigation certain information will be leaked or manufactured and glib pundits will have dozens of opportunities to make the case that while nothing yet points to criminality, it sure looks like an impeachable offense. The Opposition will be working overtime to create and hone a list of talking points and one or two will become ubiquitous with millions of liberals in America raising them as if they came up with them themselves. In the end there will be enough crap on the bottom of Trump's shoes and one or two arguments that seem convincing and folks like max (although not necessarily him) will go back on their declarations and join the chorus of "It ain't over!" Of course they will provide reasons why the actual situation is materially different than the original hypothetical to which they responded, but the reality will be that when they answered "Yes" to my questions, they were convinced that evidence would be found and so they didn't think there was much risk to, at least, appear moderate and reasonable. Most won't have even considered this consciously, but at the end of the day they will find it impossible to reconcile themselves to the fact that Trump won again and their tribe lost again.

Who knows how this will all impact national or even local elections, but the messier it becomes the more likely it will be that there will be a reflexive backlash against one of the parties. Most likely it will be the Republicans, but we shouldn't dismiss the possibility that the Democrats will so stridently overplay their hand that they suffer an even greater loss of support than they already have.

No matter how it turns out, the desire for revenge will have been burned into a lot of hearts. Even if Trump is exonerated, Republicans will hold onto a desire to pay back the Democrats for creating and pursuing a witch hunt. If it ends his presidency and results in crushing defeats for the GOP in elections, their desire for revenge will burn that much hotter.

At some point in the not too distant future the Republicans will be in a position to return the favor to the Democrats and they will do so with equal or greater gusto (Of course they won't have the considerable advantage of having the MSM on their side, but then they didn't when they managed to impeach Clinton either).

Our national politics, government and private institutions are embroiled in an unending and escalating conflict. Only a catastrophe the scope of which no one should wish for is likely to pause this conflict and enable some level of consensus and cooperation to return.

It doesn't matter who started the conflict or who is more guilty for it's continuance and escalation, both sides have passed on opportunities to bring it under control when it was still possible to do so. Now it is out of their control and, regardless, neither side has any desire to lose anything in the pursuit of detente.

God knows where this will lead America. It's liable to ignite the destiny changing catastrophe itself.

I don't think new political parties are the answer. All of the old faces are not going to disappear and neither are the old ideas and passions. However, I need to give this a lot more thought. Perhaps it is the only "good" choice left to us even if it's an incredibly long shot bet.

I keep returning to the idea of breaking up the Union. I understand fully that it has a tremendous down size and presents all sorts of, possibly insurmountable, hurdles to clear if it were to be done through consensus and not violence, however if the trend for widening division and escalating conflict doesn't turn, the nation is headed towards that end anyway. It's likely an impossibility but it would be far more preferable to negotiate an amenable dissolution than endure a violent one.

Of course an alternative future, and one that is likely to exist before any violent separation occurs is the rise of a truly authoritarian regime. Right now, people on both sides are saying that the solution to the conflict is really simple: Everyone on the other side just needs to start thinking like they do. That isn't going to happen and it sure isn't going to happen organically over anything approaching a reasonable time scale.

At some point the level of strife may be so great and destructive that citizens will be willing to sacrifice freedom for stability and at least a charade of unity.

In any case I am, obviously, not sanguine about the future of this country. It's not just one or two fixes by that one special man or woman, away from righting itself. Turning to a bombastic populist like Trump is a pretty radical medicine for what ails us, but if his election tells us anything it's that at least half of the country wants to see major changes in at least our government but probably our society at large as well. If Trump crashes and burns that desire is not going to fade away. The people who voted for Trump are not going to say to themselves "Well, we tried. I guess we just have to give in now and let the Left fully transform our country and society, and run everything for the next 100 years." They are also not going to return to the Establishment GOP with their tails between their legs and plead, "We're sorry we abandoned you. We should have listened to you. Our experiment is over. Please take us back and lead us."

Somewhere out there is a nascent populist leader who is far more polished and politically skilled than Trump. If Trump fails it's most likely that his supporters will decide it was the man not the message who failed and they will look for that more polished and politically skilled populist to fill the void. He or she will have learned lessons from Trump's failure, but one of them will not likely be how to win over the component groups of the Opposition. The conflict will continue escalating.

Of course this presupposes Trump will crash and burn but that is by no means a certainty. What is certain, though, is that if he survives this current ordeal he is not about to change his agenda to suit the people who sought his downfall and those people are not going to graciously concede defeat and move on to working with Trump to make America great again. The wild ride is nowhere near over.

just because you wish to believe that , doesnt make it so.




Im willing to wait the several years it may take to see what the story is.
Youve gotta really want this because, absent any really good leadership skills that Trump is supposed to have, the constant refreshment of your above opinion, between now and 2020, will do nothing except "cement" the feeling of his base that hes being manhandled unfairly. I think youve got nothing to lose if nothing shows up. In fact, it could be the greatest ad campaign for his re election since CREEP.

Just made this post in another thread, and thought I'd throw it in here, too. There's a kinda interesting video at this site where the left-wing Harvard law professor, Dershowitz explains why he thinks a special prosecutor could help Trump.




http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/05/19/alan-dershowitz-questions-russia-special-counsel-says-theres-no-crime

I'll be interested in the comments made about what Dershowitz said.

There won't be any--not from the cheese-eaters in A2A, anyway.

I'll make a comment, though. Two things he said that especially caught my attention:

1. Colluding with the russians (in releasing Clinton emails) would NOT be a crime--I've actually raised this question myself in the past., but no one has responded

2. Even if Trump flat out ORDERED Comey to drop the russian investigation, it would not be a crime.

1. Dershowitz is right. The results of the investigation could help Trump. I have no problem if this happens.

2. I don't understand what you have against the eating of cheese. I do happen to enjoy cheese, I am not ashamed of that.

As much of a left-winger as Dershowitz is, he seems to respect the constitution, at least.

He has strongly criticized Sally Yates, for example, for improperly refusing to enforce Trump's muslim ban order, saying she was trying to make herself into a "holdover hero" of the left. She should have resigned, instead, he says:

Dershowitz, who says he likes Comey and thinks he was a great FBI Director, also agrees with Trump that Comey is a "showboat" and says he is "cowardly." Not exactly a common way to treat people you "like," eh? He musta been bribed to say that!



Comey, a leaker? Of course.

He uses "cheese eater" as a metaphor. He wants to say that max is " an asshole elitist who eats **** sammiches" but he knows that hed get bounced if he used the s word. So cheese is used metaphorically. Kind of a nyah nyah thing that throws back to name calling in the 4th grade .

I think its precious

where does your paranoid mind scrape up that POS??
You need nothing from me to believe what you wish. All Im calling to your attention is that we dont know the odds of which side is correct.
ALSO, as I stated , DURING the investigation, believeing as you do, you should "were you as minded as Trump himself" continually play up the investigation to "keep the base stirred "

Its rather difficult to maintain passions of our opinions in the USA. You sill note that most political parties (those in power), tend to craft counter factual titles of organizations and ultimate legislation that play pretty much to the opposite of what their titles say they are doing. This is done to keep up the frenzy and reignite the passion that began the search or the legislation or gave the name to the group (OR the commission).
EG, because Trump is street smart and not an intellectual, he knows that stirring up the sediment that claims voter fraud is rampant requires Official Government Help. While he wants to tear down the huge gains weve made in clean air and water by disbanding Fed agencies like epa and bumines, he wants to empower a new shadow govt commission that goes "hunting for voter fraud"
Can you spell Heepocrite?

So you really dont want to believe it but you are being forced to believe????

That's not what he's saying at all. When you know something, you don't need to believe it. You just know it.

Do you know 2+2=4, or do you simply believe that it does?

You seem to have a hard time recognizing sarcasm if not being penned by you.

Now here I can't tell if you are trying to be cute or you simply were unable to comprehend what I wrote.

Let me retrace the exchange on the chance that it's the latter, not the former.

You wrote "you wish to believe"

I wrote that I didn't wish to believe, I believe.

Maybe the italics will help.