Politics All Things Trump

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Barr Is Right About Everything. Admit You Were Wrong.

The American political and media elites that spent the first two years of the Trump administration promoting the Russian collusion hoax have some explaining to do. And not merely explaining: They owe the president an apology.

As Attorney General William Barr said on Thursday before releasing the Mueller report, “After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the special counsel confirmed that the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”

And yet nearly the entire complex of elite media was actively complicit in promoting the biggest political conspiracy theory in American history: that Hillary Clinton lost the election because Donald Trump conspired with Vladimir Putin to — well, that was always a moving target — but to somehow deprive Mrs. Clinton of victory. What we now know definitively is that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and a team of very accomplished, mostly Clinton-supporting, prosecutors were unable to find evidence of a conspiracy that had been taken as an article of faith by Trump haters.

Journalists don’t like being called “fake news,” but too many of them uncritically accepted the Trump-Russia narrative, probably because of their strong distaste for Mr. Trump himself. But that lack of objectivity represents a major professional failure, and it’s Exhibit A in why Mr. Trump’s taunt resonates with so many Americans. Gallup polling shows that for 69 percent of Americans, trust in the media has fallen over the last decade. Among Republicans, it’s 94 percent; for independents, it’s 75 percent and for moderates it’s 66. Only among self-identified liberals and progressives does a majority continue to trust the media. They like what they hear.

I’ve spent countless hours on radio and television since the fall of 2016 explaining to respected journalists why the Russian collusion story doesn’t get much, if any, traction in Middle America. This is because the allegations of collusion are not true and because most people who are not deeply committed to irrational Trump hatred see them for what they are: an inside-the-Beltway story being used as a political weapon to undermine the president and overturn — or at least neutralize — the 2016 election.

The whole ordeal had a detrimental effect on the president and the country. As Mr. Barr put it Thursday morning, “The president was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.”

He was right. And it was obvious in places like Arizona (where I live), but not in Washington or New York.

For nearly four years, members of America’s ruling class, especially those in the media, the academy and government, have operated on one central, unquestioned assumption: orange man bad. This stifling orthodoxy led to a blind, counterfactual faith in the theory that Mr. Trump had somehow colluded with “the Russians” (never well defined) to win the election. Again, the specific charges were always amorphous — plastic enough to change as needed. That’s hardly surprising: That’s the way conspiracy theories always work. The Russian collusion hoax was in fact nothing more than a massively multiplayer coping mechanism for people who couldn’t accept the results of the 2016 election.

But why is it not enough to simply acknowledge that you dislike Mr. Trump and disagree with his policies? What psychological purpose does adding the fiction of a conspiracy serve?

The French philosopher and literary critic René Girard held that such scapegoating and ritual sacrifice is an essential part of group identity and solidarity. That seems to apply here. Mr. Trump ran against American elites and their insular culture. Their response was to load onto him all of the sins they see in American society and attempt to sacrifice him to appease their gods.

Mr. Girard asked a question that is pertinent today: “Why is our own participation in scapegoating so difficult to perceive and the participation of others so easy? To us, our fears and prejudices never appear as such because they determine our vision of people we despise, we fear, and against whom we discriminate.”

But the ritual sacrifice of Donald Trump didn’t work — at least not in the sense of removing him from office. It certainly did have the effect of catalyzing and uniting his opponents. Still, one of the many ironies here is that the Trump-hating media has handed him an incredibly powerful weapon for the 2020 campaign, one that may ensure his re-election.

Again, the operating principle was that of the zealot: Believe the narrative regardless of the lack of evidence, squint to see justifications where there are none and then in an intoxicated frenzy of moral superiority use any weapon at hand to destroy your enemy.

Shortly after Mr. Mueller concluded his investigation without any indictments related to Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, Representative Adam Schiff, now the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not admit he was wrong — far from it. He brazenly doubled down, saying during a committee hearing, “You may think it’s O.K. how Trump and his associates interacted with Russians during the campaign. I don’t. I think it’s immoral. I think it’s unethical. I think it’s unpatriotic. And yes, I think it’s corrupt.”

The problem is that the Mueller investigation, as Mr. Barr explained, “did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”

Mr. Schiff must know this. He must have known it for a long time. But he has persisted in slandering innocent people for personal political gain. His selfishness has led to a level of civil discord and political acrimony not seen since the late 1960s. That is what I call immoral, unethical, unpatriotic and yes, corrupt.

Too many politicians and journalists were eager, whether cynically or gullibly, to take the bait. The list of collusion Truthers is long. The politicians include not only Mr. Schiff, but people like his congressional colleagues Maxine Waters, Eric Swalwell and Richard Blumenthal. The media enablers included Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, Rachel Maddow (who built her show around Russia Trutherism), David Corn, Michael Isikoff, Manu Raju, Brian Stelter and many others. These people represent themselves as straight journalists who are fair, independent, oriented around facts. What a lot of Americans have seen instead is political partisans.

And then, of course, there is the recently arrested Michael Avenatti, who was eagerly embraced by Trump haters. He appeared on CNN and MSNBC an embarrassing 108 times in a 64-day period in 2018. How could they not see him for what he is?

There are three types of people who promoted Russian collusion hoax. First, those who knew it was false all along, but promoted it for money, power, prestige or dopamine hits from Twitter high-fives. Second, the journalists who had a responsibility to dig into this story rather than just repeating what they hoped was true and what the story’s promoters were telling them.

Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide, is emblematic of the problem. “We are not investigators,” he said last month. “We are journalists, and our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did.” Has anyone ever seriously thought that investigation was not a core function of journalism?

And then there is the Kool-Aid brigade. These are the people outside of politics, the people who couldn’t wait to hear what Rachel Maddow had to say, who believed every breathless prediction on cable news that “new revelations could spell the end for Trump,” and who shared these nuggets with a mixture of indignation and ecstasy on social media.

But the collusion truthers were not all on the left. Trump-hating neoliberals at some of the old, legacy conservative publications were eager to believe it too. They believed the worst of Mr. Trump because they wanted to, and it led them astray. And none of them have owned their mistake yet, meaning that, as night follows day, they will be duped again.

To the public figures who promoted the collusion story, I say: Own it. Just admit you were wrong. It won’t feel good at first. But when the initial sting passes you will find it liberating. And people will respect you for it. The media and political elites have a lot of work to do if they want to regain the trust of the American people. Confessing a major error that needlessly turned Americans against one another is a good place to start.
 
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I have not really followed the Trump situation but it did seem from the start that some were out to get him for anything they could find or dream up, the recent Russian collusion allegation seems to offer some credence to that.
I have no idea if he is a good president and is doing the right thing but he seems to tackle difficult issues head on.
On a personal note (has nothing to with his politics) he is one of the weirdest looking individuals I have seen :)
 
What comes out of Barr's mouth I dump into a ceramic bowl every morning. That said if the investigation concludes there was no collusion on a criminal level related to the election then we've to believe it. But there are still questions that have to be answered. Like for example why was Trump so vehemently against prolonging/extending the sanctions against Russia and had to be forced to sign them or what's up with his private meetings with Putin without any records?

The investigators were only allowed to look into a certain period of time (starting with the election campaign) and therefore certain things may simply have gone unnoticed. There are obviously findings that have been refered to other instances of criminal investigation and I think that's where the real problem actually lies when it comes to Trump's Russian connection.

The follwing docu sheds some light on what I'm talking about.

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Anybody that denies that the whole Trump clan and their actions stink to the sky doesn't has all his marbles together, sorry.
 
Anybody that denies that the whole Trump clan and their actions stink to the sky doesn't has all his marbles together, sorry.

I do have all my marbles. In one sock. I do not agree with some of the tactics of the Trump administration. I'm a black man that did vote for him. Yep. And will do so again barring any unforeseen circumstances.

I'm out.
 
If a person payed no attention at all to the Mueller investigation they missed nothing. If they watched the news 24/7 about it they learned nothing and it would have been a better use of their time if they spent it playing with marbles.
 
If a person payed no attention at all to the Mueller investigation they missed nothing. If they watched the news 24/7 about it they learned nothing and it would have been a better use of their time if they spent it playing with marbles.

That about sums it up Mr Rob.

Some members on TheMess (and other politically oriented forums) have literally spent thousands hours of their lives these past two year on vBulletin debating the veracity of the Mueller probe or instead, it’s inaccuracy.

Great job to those who were hoping for 45 impeachment and quite a waste of time there.

Personally Trump doesn’t bother me. He’s done and said stupid S**t but he is by far my preferred POTUS since Reagan.
 
Everybody should read the autobiography of William F Cody. Cody was a shameless self promoter but he was also the real deal, he really did live the life and do the things he said he did. He just told it better than it happened. There's a lot of Buffalo Bill in President Trump and I'm okay with that.
 
Trump to nominate Shanahan as permanent defense secretary

President Trump is expected to formally nominate Patrick M. Shanahan to be his permanent defense secretary as soon as next week, two administration officials tell Fox News. This, after an internal Pentagon investigation concluded that the acting defense secretary did not show any bias in favor of his former employer, aerospace giant Boeing.
Shanahan worked at Boeing for over 30 years before coming to the Pentagon as then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s deputy at the start of the Trump administration.

Shanahan’s nomination had been held up by the White House since the Pentagon inspector general opened an investigation into Shanahan’s conduct following a report in Politico days after taking over for Mattis alleging Shanahan called Boeing-rival Lockheed Martin’s advanced F-35 program “f—ed up” and said the company didn’t know how to run a defense program following years of cost overruns and delays to the fifth-generation fighter jet.

shanahan.jpg

https://www.foxnews.com/us/trump-to-nominate-shanahan-as-permanent-defense-secretary-sources
 
I do have all my marbles. In one sock. I do not agree with some of the tactics of the Trump administration. I'm a black man that did vote for him. Yep. And will do so again barring any unforeseen circumstances.

I'm out.

I know that you unfortunately have a very limited choice when it comes to voting for the president over there and can partially understand why people didn't wanted Clinton but to repeat the mistake to vote for Trump again now is beyond my understanding. Considering your ethnic background it makes it even worse but maybe you're better off and don't face the problems a good part of the ethnic minorities actually face in the USA so it doesn't bothers you.

That about sums it up Mr Rob.

Some members on TheMess (and other politically oriented forums) have literally spent thousands hours of their lives these past two year on vBulletin debating the veracity of the Mueller probe or instead, it’s inaccuracy.

Great job to those who were hoping for 45 impeachment and quite a waste of time there.

Personally Trump doesn’t bother me. He’s done and said stupid S**t but he is by far my preferred POTUS since Reagan.

What "inaccuracy" are you talking about?

The Dems will presumably go for impeachment about obstruction. The chances are rather low that it'll get through but this way it'll at least be in the history books. It'll also be interesting to see what will happen with the things transfered to other instances (the SDNY just being one of them).

Btw, still nothing about his taxes. I wonder why? Nah, I'm actually joking. Everybody and his dog should actually know exactly why by now.
 
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Few points .. .


Nothing more amusing ... baming up the Trump haters on FB .. Bitter losers ..narrow minded haters .. who simply lap the BS Media accusations ..

If you want to see Russian Collusion look at the Barmy Dem's and theere insane Policies . And Thick as Mince Candidates ..

Especially AOC .. That Green New Deal .. even Trump himself would never create such looney tune nonsense . His Figures speak for themselves . And yet you have those Nutjobs who are wanting to reverse the success that he's done .. not forgetting celebrating the loss of the jobs that Amazon would have created .. She is a walking custerfuck

Take you're Nation into Severe Poverty .. Let's not forget CNN giving a platform to Creepy Porn Lawyer who get's arrested ..and his bumchum Brian Stelter ..will be even more gutted after Avenatti was charged again for swindling over 1,2 mil from a sports player .

And let's not forget etheir the treasonous terrorist supporters that are in the Demorat party ... Ilhan Omar .. who famously " Some People Did Something " .. and that other boot ...both should be deported .. It's a disgrace they they haven't been kicked out of the party .. Am suprised nonbody has shot them dead yet .

And let's not forget Bernie .. who famously made an issue of speaking out against Millionaires and Billionaires .. but since he pocketed over a million from his book sales he only hates Billionaires .

And since Mueller report .. the haters in the media and the dems they hatered was so bitter they saw Mueller as the Messiah .. When the report didn't deliver .. you have bitter scum .. still wanting investigate Trump .. Oh the massive Irony .. when it was Hillary that broke the law PLAIN AS DAY . And yet you had people in Positions of Law and Goverment orchestrated a Coverup .. in order that Hillary would win the Election and that failed .. they sought .. to use a BS Dossier paid for by the Clinton mob in order to secure FISA' ..warrants and thus start 2 years false accusations ..

And shifty Schiff who likes to claim he has evidence .. he still ain't presented any ..
 
And let's not forget etheir the treasonous terrorist supporters that are in the Demorat party ... Ilhan Omar .. who famously " Some People Did Something " .. and that other boot ...both should be deported .. It's a disgrace they they haven't been kicked out of the party .. Am suprised nonbody has shot them dead yet .

Yep , you ve the finger on the pulse on this matter . Anyway , this thing is not allowed anymore .

#metoo
 
It sounds like indictments for the coup organizers, Brennan, Comey, et, al, are coming. Joe Degenova stated today, that Brennan shouldn't get one lawyer, he should get five. I hope that arrogant traitor does prison time, with the rest of them.
 
And let's not forget etheir the treasonous terrorist supporters that are in the Demorat party ... Ilhan Omar .. who famously " Some People Did Something " .. and that other boot ...both should be deported .. It's a disgrace they they haven't been kicked out of the party .. Am suprised nonbody has shot them dead yet .

Yep , you ve the finger on the pulse on this matter . Anyway , this thing is not allowed anymore .

#metoo


And that sand dodger .. latest insult to those that that saw service in Somalia ..

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And that sand dodger .. latest insult to those that that saw service in Somalia ..

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So what did she say ? Not 100% up to date with American politics , but I am aware this Omar character is apparently of great danger to the American people . I'm not buying that , but I am interested in all the cerfuffle .
 
Only thing i've not seen the media mention thus far .. is the possible Assassination plan ... orchestrated by those who sought to stop Trump from winning . For some gut feeling reason I view the Dodgy Dossier as plan B .. I suspect Assassination plan was put on the table and overruled .. by ..........

They felt it would serve them best if he was removed from office in there eyes Legally even though they knew there so called fictious evidence was false from the get go .
 
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