Matt Taibbi

Wait, we have evidence?

When you are being kicked repeatedly while lying on the ground, the response isn't "be better than them, the punches will stop hurting"

Xpost circumstantial evidence is still evidence. Just because there isn't a magical smoking gun to tie together an explosive conspiracy atm doesn't mean it's only mediocre innuendo

If anything the evidence probably looks weaker because minor details are being leaked in retaliation for Trump's weird offensives. Anything bigger would be too big to reveal (or doesn't exist)

I don't think Putin's stupid enough to leave behind any smoking-gun-level evidence tbh

pee tape or gtfo

Yeah I don't expect anything big to come out either but the fact that Flynn resigned and Sessions recused himself, and Roger Stone openly bragging about colluding means we're past a point where we say things like "there's evidence?"

that's gen called smoke, in legal environments

Still not past that point :P
xpost

...for me

Interested to know what classified info you've seen

It depends on what you want evidence for. The evidence for Russia hacking the DNC was already pretty strong last summer, and Trump-people repeatedly were in contact with Russians anyway, and lied about it. That's scandalous in and of itself.

But evidence of actual collusion... I haven't really seen any.

xpost yeah I don't even know if everybody agrees on what the 'endgame' is likely to be. evidence of what? minor collusion? impeachable offenses?

meanwhile there's an assload of smoke and Trump admin is saying "that smoke is coming from Obama's house, probably some Islamic reefer smoking ceremony or something"

None of this seems anywhere near as scandalous as running a fake university boiler-room scheme that bilked thousands of people out of their life savings. Or running a phony foundation that has been proved to be self-dealing. Or being on tape talking about assaulting women.

Ugh this is why I removed bookmarks on all of the politics threads. Sorry everyone.

None of this seems anywhere near as scandalous as running a fake university boiler-room scheme that bilked thousands of people out of their life savings. Or running a phony foundation that has been proved to be self-dealing. Or being on tape talking about assaulting women.

― DJI, Tuesday, April 4, 2017 5:30 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all of which the Left talked about at length and still didn't stop him from getting elected.

Exactly.

I don't think you can have a senate investigation into those things, though.

Theoretically, the Senate can investigate anything it damn pleases.

That sounds really scary...

It probably would be good if a figure of influence within the party publily cautioned against conspiracy theories in general, given that that sort of thing became a problem during the primary. You don't want a particularly ridiculous idea to take on a life of its own and distract from substantive but less salacious findings should they come about. YET it is fun to insist that the pee tape is probably real so idk

Could they even impeach him over that? They'd have to demonstrate that he knew he was vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians and didn't tell anyone.

"High crimes and misdemeanors" can be stretched to mean almost anything that the public accepts as being politically fatal to the president.

the Founding Fathers created this as a guarantee that nobody could usurp absolute power but didn't exactly create clear guidelines for its utilization as if they didn't expect Articles to ever be drafted

Impeachment was envisaged as a political solution to an otherwise insoluble political problem within the presidency. Such as Nixon refusing to resign when most of the nation viewed him as having engaged in criminal activity while president, specifically through misusing his powers of office. Without impeachment, Nixon could have thumbed his nose at everyone, or else the Congress and SCOTUS would have been forced to improvise some extra-constitutional response.

The Russian scandal is much more political in nature, though. It's easier to defend investigating Sessions lying under oath during confirmation hearings than it would be looking into whether Trump assaulted women.

But I would agree that Trump assaulting women and bragging about it is much worse than anything Russia-related that we know about.

"misdemeanors" is sufficiently vague enough to include lying to a grand jury

Correct. But in Clinton's case, it was not seen by the public as sufficient cause to overturn his tenure in office, because it was not material to his conduct of office, in contrast to almost all of the Watergate crimes.

I'm aware of that, having lived through the period when Clinton's poll numbers during the crisis were one of the wonders of the world -- I'm noting the word's delicious elasticity.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-on-the-new-book-that-brutalizes-the-clinton-campaign-w477978

I think we get it at this point with the Clinton-bashing. Still, it's crazy that actual campaign workers couldn't answer the basic question of why she was running.

Part of me felt like I'd been unfair to Clinton - Maybe she WAS clear about her intentions/motivations, that she DID run on issues other than "I'm not Trump!" That maybe she did try to talk about other stuff, but that the media was only interested in Trump and reactions to Trump. Then I read this, and it sounds like all that was driving her campaign was clueless, tactics-driven nonsense, without any real thought about who she wanted to help or what she was trying to fix.

If you can't figure out who the first woman candidate ever was going to help, or why that message might have backfired, then I really don't know what to say. The slogan 'It's her turn' has a few more connotations to it than Taibbi realizes...

dude he realizes them, all of us realize them here in the united states, it was drummed into our heads for months of media barrage and not just on the web

"does Matt Taibi not realize 'It's her turn' is a phrase meaning it could be time for a well-qualified woman? and that people who are well-qualified deserve a promotion? it's such a double entendre of electability!"

Hey, I was trying to be generous. Ok, he realizes it, but just ignores it and shits on her for trying it out? Is that better?

Either way, he is an asshole.

Or assumes his audience is intelligent enough to know there are two meanings, that he agrees with the fact it's time for a woman president, and it's completely irrelevant to the tone of the campaign's failures?

Although the "it's time for a woman president" still doesn't answer the question of "why this woman?"

And he's an asshole for writing a relatively positive review of a book?

"In the Clinton run, that problem became such a millstone around the neck of the campaign that staffers began to flirt with the idea of sharing the uninspiring truth with voters. Stumped for months by how to explain why their candidate wanted to be president, Clinton staffers began toying with the idea of seeing how "Because it's her turn" might fly as a public rallying cry."

Nah, fuck that asshole.

That's a summary of content as presented in the book! He did a book report!

love tautologies for slogans.

The Dense Dane is entitled to his own facts

clinton should be president because it was her turn to be president

That's a summary of content as presented in the book! He did a book report!

― a landlocked exclave (mh 😏), 20. april 2017 23:43 (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol

Book reports is something you do in seventh grade. If you're paid to do a review, and you just do a book report that doesn't question even the most obviously bullshit information, you're a bad reviewer. Or, like, an asshole.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7ctYByB2IMM/TrYLDE3T_XI/AAAAAAAAACE/p_1FWksJQkg/s1600/its-my-turn.jpg

aw jill could have played a good hill, rip

taibbi feels burned by not seeing comrade combover winning the election. it's the main theme in his latest book. appreciating retrospectives clarifying the clinton campaign's fucks ups (like what the fuck, hillary, fly to wisconsin! madison, milwaukee, something!!) is not unreasonable

I'm in Iowa. My friends are pretty involved in campaign politics, one is a lobbyist for PP and sat a couple seats away from HRC during a couple rallies, and that is literally the message that was floated among loyal democrats here -- that an experienced politician who had been in the business for decades, been both a senator and secretary of state, would be a great candidate. That she is a woman had huge appeal as well, especially among my friend's cohort

I'm in the exact audience that Taibbi, paraphrasing the book, says this message was used on. And I'm confirming it.

like it completely burns my ass that I witnessed this personally (and bought it, I caucused for Clinton and have repented in some ways multiple times here and elsewhere) and it's accurately reported and you're sniping

"That she is a woman had huge appeal as well, especially among my friend's cohort"

This is the part that is left out. So no, it's not accurately reported.