The assailant who attacked Paul Pelosi was searching for Nancy

AG_PhamD said:
And as bad it appears, establishing backchannels to communicate with Russia is not illegal, granted what is said may not me be. Transition parties communicating with foreign governments is common.
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Legality depends on a lot of factors. As I mentioned previously, trump firing acting AG Sally Yates and appointing Jeff Sessions conveniently quashed her investigation.

Kushner lied when completing his application for a security clearance by not listing previous foreign contacts and the scope/nature of those contacts, dates, locations, etc. It states right on the application that failure to disclose such contacts is a federal crime. That it was with the Russian Ambassador to set up a clandestine communications channel with Russian encryption/communications equipment to evade and stymie US intelligence monitoring is especially troubling. That retired general Mike Flynn (likely highly cleared in the past which creates obligations going forward) was also involved is even more problematic.

This is far different than a typical back channel involving the meeting of diplomats representing countries in conflict, say at a cafe or parking garage to deal with something like the Cuban missile crisis with the full knowledge of and on behalf of the sitting American president.
 
Citysnaps said:
Legality depends on a lot of factors. As I mentioned previously, trump firing acting AG Sally Yates and appointing Jeff Sessions conveniently quashed her investigation.

Kushner lied when completing his application for a security clearance by not listing previous foreign contacts and the scope/nature of those contacts, dates, locations, etc. It states right on the application that failure to disclose such contacts is a federal crime. That it was with the Russian Ambassador to set up a clandestine communications channel with Russian encryption/communications equipment to evade and stymie US intelligence monitoring is especially troubling. That retired general Mike Flynn (likely highly cleared in the past which creates obligations going forward) was also involved is even more problematic.

This is far different than a typical back channel involving the meeting of diplomats representing countries in conflict, say at a cafe or parking garage to deal with something like the Cuban missile crisis with the full knowledge of and on behalf of the sitting American president.
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I agree the backchannel situation in the context of everything else that went on is highly concerning. But it’s circumstantial.

The security clearance scandal is rather convoluted. He submitted claiming no foreign contacts, but within 24hrs sent a letter saying he did, but not specifying who. He later followed up with a list, but it was incomplete. There was at least one key omission.

He did have security clearance downgraded as I recall. I have no clue what that means in practical terms though. Given the he omitted the Russian lady who offered dirt on Clinton, I would say that was likely intentional and probably should have had his clearance at the very least revoked. Prosecuting probably not out of the question.

That said, in a sense this is peanuts compared to some of his other corrupt dealings.

But are the results that surprising? How often is it that powerful people ever get prosecuted.
 
One can debate the extent of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, what part of it might be illegal and what effect it had on the election results. That Trump so vehemently denied any collusion raises suspicion, given that he's a pathological liar, he has an unsavory regard of Putin and he long sought to build a Trump Tower Moscow. Putin wanted him to be president, took steps toward that end and the Trump campaign took advantage of his help.
 
Any idiot can see Trump is enamored with Putin, and to this day hasn’t said a single unkind word about him. Does that sound like Trump to you? Holding back? For years? And the one guy Trump has true loyalty for, it’s Vladimir Putin. You can’t make this stuff up, but it’s just one of countless things that are unimaginable that many think isn’t a big deal at all.
 
AG_PhamD said:
Mmmm yes I was waiting for such a response.

That kinda my point. Most normal people don’t believe in most conspiracies.

Where things go off the rails is when you have people like extremely powerful and influential politicians peddling conspiracy theories. Most certainly Donald Trump’s claims about the 2020 election a voter fraud. Apparently 60% of republicans think Biden was illegally elected- I’m not convinced it’s that high. A lot of this depends on the questions asked and their framing, but what is certainly true is many republicans were upset about changes to voter laws due to COVID they deemed as illegally enacted.

Similarly, when you have a bunch of high powered democrat politicians pushing stories about Trump’s deep collusion with Russia, Russia’s tremendous social media influence, etc under the pretext there is no way he could have been fairly elected, to the point in March 2017 57% of people aged 18-30 believed Trump was an “illegitimate president”. Now it’s unclear what exactly that means- referring to my previous comments, but Russia is mentioned in quotes of participants. This of course did not result in the Capitol being attacked, but it result in years of nonsense.

(Frankly, I think Trump was an illegitimate president because he delegitimized himself and his office countless times, culminating on 1/6, making a mockery of what it means to be POTUS.)

And this is the problem with the worst conspiracies. Many politicians and social leaders have no problem spreading conspiracies when it’s convenient for them, which typically means maligning the their opposition. The public far too often are more than happy to believe in a conspiracy if it supports the narrative they want to believe it’s true.

Perhaps I am pointing out sides because I think both sides participate in this reprehensible behavior. And whenever I do this there there is often this conspiratorial feedback from the left that I’m actually supporting Trump or from the right that I’m a democrat. I don’t love labels but I’m probably mostly an independent moderate/centrist. I suppose throwing me in one pile or the other is just a way to write everything negative I say about one particular side is just unfair bias… often completely ignoring everything negative I said about the other party.

What’s also is unfortunate are the inevitable “yeah but” comments. I will say the right is responsible for X Y Z bad behavior / decisions / actions / beliefs and the left A B C. And then then the response is “but the right are worse” or the “the left is worse”, accepting validity in my comments and then absolving one side of any responsibility. Sorry, but that is not excuse.

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And you know what else is probably driving people straight into conspiracy theories? The rapidly diminishing trust in government and government agencies. And perhaps even more impactful, the nearly total loss of trust in media. Not surprising when you have Fox, CNN, and MSNBC shoveling varying degrees of horseshit down viewers mouths 24/7. To a large degree I don’t think that this mistrust is society’s fault, many-most if the problems the entities have brought on themselves particularly over the past 20 years. So people just follow the bias that’s most comforting to them.
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Thank you for the thoughtful reply (seriously, I enjoy reading your posts). But there’s not a lot for me to respond to. I feel your posts “both sides” a lot and you defend doing so by doing it again. There’s nothing wrong with it, if that’s how you feel, but I can’t pretend that one side isn’t contributing more to the decline of politics in America.

Maybe I’m wrong for doing that, or contributing just as much with that attitude. I don’t go in public with it or act out on it. I show the same respect I'm given, and often when I’d be justified for not doing so. But on a message board, where we can be a little candid, I believe the lies and cult of personality that exist on the right are fueling this fire far more than anything else.
 
MTG said Paul Pelosi should’ve shot his attacker.

And it’s like, yeah, I can’t really disagree with that. 🤷‍♂️
 
TBL said:
MTG said Paul Pelosi should’ve shot his attacker.

And it’s like, yeah, I can’t really disagree with that. 🤷‍♂️
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Back to my permanent statement on guns…that means that Paul would have had to have his gun in hand when the intruder broke in. Most of us simply don’t do that. And the older you get, the heavier that pistol gets.

So yea, it would have been nice, but impractical. I’d love to see some crazy person go after MTG and see how it’s one properly.
 
Alli said:
Back to my permanent statement on guns…that means that Paul would have had to have his gun in hand when the intruder broke in. Most of us simply don’t do that. And the older you get, the heavier that pistol gets.

So yea, it would have been nice, but impractical. I’d love to see some crazy person go after MTG and see how it’s one properly.
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I agree with everything except the last line. Were someone to go after her, there would be instant retaliation and only god knows what that would look like.
 
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