The FBI raids Mar-A-Lago.

[GoAU 1,600]

2 hours ago, AU9377 said:

#1 did not happen for the reason you are implying.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/21/fact-check-joe-biden-leveraged-ukraine-aid-oust-corrupt-prosecutor/5991434002/

Most wealthy guys I have known would have been fighting for space under that bridge but for their parents.

If you notice in the article you linked, it didn't dispute that the prosecuter was investigating Hunter's company, it just said that he "supposedly" had a different motive.  How exactly was the "fact checker" able to prove Biden's intent?  Sorry, but this is far from a "Fact check".

[homersapien 11,413]

2 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

He is part of the establishment, and by that I mean he is a lifelong politician that honestly has passed his expiration date. I am pretty sure he is corrupt, just like his friends Pelosi, McConnell, Clinton's, Graham, Schumer et al. 

Trump got elected because he was not the same ole corrupt. 

Some are just better at hiding it than others. 

Sounds like you haven't read much about Trump's past. He's been a narcissistic, sociopath grifter his entire life.   And he doesn't hide it.

But like most sociopaths, he is very good at figuring out what people want - even need - to hear emotionally and then tailoring his rhetoric to deliver it.

A lot of it is pretty much the same theme the Nazis used against Jews, only in this case it's Democrats/liberals.   Everything in our government - the "deep" state" - is controlled by these enemies of "freedom".   Nothing is as it appears.  The Department of Justice is corrupt.  Laws and due process don't exist and should be ignored.   Nothing is true - everything's a lie. ("Fake News").   If you are not with us, you are the enemy.

It's literally insane.  

[homersapien 11,413]

2 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

I guess you are right, those that I named are pure as the driven snow. SMDH.

You say our government is bought by corporate America, but also say they aren't corrupt. LOL

You do understand our government is composed not only of politicians but career professionals in the various agencies, right?

The fact than many - if not most - politicians are "bought by corporate America (or in other words, "money") doesn't mean the career professionals are corrupt.

[homersapien 11,413]

2 hours ago, Auburnfan91 said:

Garland, Wray Must Be Impeached for Unconscionable Trump Raid | Opinion

Mike Davis
On 8/15/22 at 6:30 AM EDT

 

For over a year, we've heard Democrats wailing about existential threats to "democracy!" Curiously, this has happened while these same Democrats in Congress have worked hand-in-glove with their fellow Democrats in the Justice Department to disregard all norms to hunt down and attempt to destroy President Joe Biden's chief political rival, former President Donald Trump, as well as Trump's top aides and even his political supporters.

Last Monday, the Biden Justice Department crossed a red line by ordering an unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful FBI raid of Trump's home and offices in Mar-a-Lago. The purported purpose of the highly controversial home raid with a brigade of 30 FBI agents—a raid Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted he personally ordered after his aides initially denied it—is related to 15 to 25 boxes of presidential records, some of which bureaucrats at the National Archives claim are classified and which Trump took to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House over 18 months ago.

All presidents take mementos and other records when they leave office. They don't pack their own boxes. The National Archives takes the position that almost everything is a "presidential record." And the federal government, in general, over-classifies almost everything.

Even if Trump took classified records, that isn't a crime. The president has the inherent constitutional power to declassify any record he wants, in any manner he wants, regardless of any otherwise-pertinent statute or regulation that applies to everyone else. The president does not need to obtain Congress' or a bureaucrat's permission—or jump through their regulatory or statutory hoops—to declassify anything. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this in the 1988 case, Department of the Navy v. Egan : "The President, after all, is the 'Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.' U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security...flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant."

Thus, if Trump left the White House with classified records, then those records are necessarily declassified by his very actions. He doesn't need to label that decision for, or report that decision to, any bureaucrat who works for him. It is pretextual legal nonsense for the Biden Justice Department to pretend Trump broke any criminal statute. Indeed, it is noteworthy that Attorney General Garland apparently did not seek an opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—the de facto general counsel for the executive branch—before ordering this home raid of his boss's chief political enemy. Perhaps Garland knew OLC wouldn't give him the answer he wanted.

In 2012, former President Barack Obama secretly told the Russian president he'd have "more flexibility" to negotiate with Russia after the 2012 presidential election. To convey that message is to clearly transmit highly classified information. So why not an Espionage Act violation? Well, because Obama was the president—period.

All former presidents also get a federally funded office, called the Office of the Former President. They get lawyers and other staff, security clearances, Secret Service protection, and secure facilities (SCIFs) for the maintenance of classified records. Even if Trump had classified records, then, they were protected and secure.

At best, then, this amounts to a dispute over the Presidential Records Act. If the boxes sought by DOJ contain presidential records, then the National Archives "owns" them—but they'll almost certainly stay with Trump in his eventual presidential library.

That's the bureaucratic dispute. That's it. This is not any crime (the Presidential Records Act is not a criminal statute), let alone one requiring a 30-person FBI brigade and unprecedented raid of a former president's home and office.

It is routine for any Office of the Former President to negotiate with the National Archives. The Archives could have also alerted Congress. The Biden Justice Department could have filed a civil lawsuit. Or the Biden Justice Department could have sought more subpoenas. Instead, DOJ went nuclear, with its unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful home raid—even knowing Trump had already been holding these records at Mar-a-Lago for 18 months. So why now?

To put this in perspective, former President Bill Clinton stole more than $190,000 in china, flatware, rugs, sofas, and other personal gifts from the White House. The Clintons eventually caved to public pressure and paid $86,000 for the items. There was no FBI raid.

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set up an illegal home server containing some of our nation's most classified records. She openly admitted to stealing and destroying records herself, putting our national security at risk. There was no FBI raid. In fact, the FBI never even questioned her.

To add insult to injury, the Biden Justice Department obtained this unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful home raid warrant from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart of West Palm Beach. Reinhart had just recently recused himself on June 22, 2022, in Trump's civil lawsuit against Hillary Clinton. What's more, in 2017, Reinhart blasted Trump's integrity on Facebook: "Donald Trump doesn't have the moral stature to kiss John Lewis's feet." So, what changed over the last two months to make Reinhart's clear judicial bias (somehow) go away?

FBI Director Christopher Wray recently testified that the FBI was too busy to stop dangerous and illegal intimidation campaigns outside Supreme Court justices' homes. This was after an attempted assassin was thankfully arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home. The FBI apparently didn't have the time to investigate actual threats to the lives of constitutional officers, but it had plenty of time to raid the home of a former president over an 18-month-old records dispute—with which Trump publicly stated he was fully cooperating.

Attorney General Garland attempted to defend the indefensible in his political press conference last Thursday. Garland left more questions than answers. As a former federal judge and prosecutor, he should be ashamed of himself for so recklessly politicizing the Justice Department. And the politicized, highly inappropriate, inaccurate leaks out of the Justice Department about the underlying grand jury investigation further demonstrate the Biden regime is out of control in its pursuit of punishing a past and likely-future political rival of President Biden.

House Republicans must impeach Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray for their unprecedented and destructive politicization of the Justice Department, when they reclaim power in January. And over the long term, House and Senate Republicans must dismantle and rebuild the FBI, so political raids like this never happen again. We cannot allow our law enforcement agencies to become third-world political hit squads.

https://www.newsweek.com/garland-wray-must-impeached-unconscionable-trump-raid-opinion-1733523

They call Trump and Trump supporters fascists but cheer using law enforcement agencies to carry out political hit jobs on their political opponents.

That's the biggest crock of bull s*** lies I've seen do far.

[Leftfield 2,626]

1 hour ago, Auburnfan91 said:

The president’s classification and declassification powers are broad

Experts agreed that the president, as commander in chief, is ultimately responsible for classification and declassification. When people lower in the chain of command handle classification and declassification duties — which is usually how it’s done — it’s because they have been delegated to do so by the president directly, or by an appointee chosen by the president.

The majority ruling in the 1988 Supreme Court case Department of Navy vs. Egan — which addressed the legal recourse of a Navy employee who had been denied a security clearance — addresses this line of authority.

"The President, after all, is the ‘Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States’" according to Article II of the Constitution, the court’s majority wrote. "His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security ... flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant."

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, said that such authority gives the president the authority to "classify and declassify at will."

In fact, Robert F. Turner, associate director of the University of Virginia's Center for National Security Law, said that "if Congress were to enact a statute seeking to limit the president’s authority to classify or declassify national security information, or to prohibit him from sharing certain kinds of information with Russia, it would raise serious separation of powers constitutional issues."

The official documents governing classification and declassification stem from executive orders. But even these executive orders aren’t necessarily binding on the president. The president is not "obliged to follow any procedures other than those that he himself has prescribed," Aftergood said. "And he can change those."

Indeed, the controlling executive order has been rewritten by multiple presidents. The current version of the order was issued by President Barack Obama in 2009.

The national-security experts at the blog Lawfare wrote in the wake of the Post’s revelation that the "infamous comment" by President Richard Nixon — that "when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal" — "is actually true about some things. Classified information is one of them. The nature of the system is that the president gets to disclose what he wants."

Two caveats

So Risch’s comment holds water when it comes to the extent of the president’s powers. But some experts said that Risch’s formulation leaves out some notable aspects of the particular case involving Trump.

The first caveat: While Trump has the power to declassify information, he doesn’t appear to have done that in this case, at least at the time the story broke.

"There’s no question that the president has broad authority to declassify almost anything at any time without any process, but that’s not what happened here," said Stephen I. Vladeck, professor at the University of Texas School of Law. "He did not, in fact, declassify the information he shared with the Russians, which is why The Washington Post did not publish that information."

Instead, Vladeck said, Trump "took it upon himself to authorize officials from a foreign government to receive classified national security information that was itself derived from a different foreign government’s intelligence gathering. That’s just not the same thing as what Sen. Risch described, and the law on this topic is far murkier."

Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty & National Security Program at New York University’s Brennan Center, agreed that Risch’s point speaks to general presidential authority but not what happened in this particular case.

"Trump surely would not concede that the information in question is now ‘unclassified’ and available to anyone who files a (Freedom of Information Act) request," she said. "The relevant question, therefore, is not whether the president can spontaneously declassify information, but whether the president is permitted to disclose sensitive national security information to anyone he wishes."

Turner noted, however, that this isn’t necessarily a big distinction, since the president is ultimately the decider of what is classified and not. If his appointees disagree with his actions, "he can overrule their decisions," Turner said. "Within the Executive Branch the president is the boss."

The second caveat: Just because something is legal doesn’t mean that it’s a smart idea.

"The important caveat is that ‘legal’ and ‘sensible’ may be different things," said John Pike, the director of globalsecurity.org. "It may be legal, but it may fail to avoid the appearance of impropriety."

Setting aside ethics, doing what Trump is alleged to have done could have negative practical consequences for the United States. "It could wreck the underlying intelligence-sharing agreement and place the U.S. at a disadvantage," Aftergood said.

That said, the line between wise and unwise is a judgment call.

On the one hand, Turner agreed that alienating an ally by not following their orders "could have very serious consequences."

On the other hand, he said, it’s not outlandish to argue that sharing closely held information with Russia could advance, rather than hurt, national interests.

Turner said it may be "in America’s interest to cooperate with Russia in the struggle against ISIS, including sharing intelligence information that may help save Russian lives and seeking information that may save American lives and those of other potential victims of ISIS attacks. Obviously, in the process we will want to safeguard sources and methods that might weaken our ability to keep track of what President Putin is up to--as he is potentially a greater threat to our security than is ISIS.  But the struggle against ISIS is an area where the United States and Russia have a shared interest."

In a statement to PolitiFact, Risch’s office said that criticism of the wisdom of Trump's action would be a personal opinion, but such sentiments would not speak to "the letter of the law."

"Sen. Risch can tell you that all former presidents of the United States spoke regularly with heads of states and discussed classified matter, if they determined it to be in the best interest of the American people," the statement said.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/may/16/james-risch/does-president-have-ability-declassify-anything-an/

 

 

Presidents have the authority to declassify anything.

It sure is great that Trump has lowered the bar once again. I mean, in the past, this would have been a career-ender for other politicians, yet now a huge portion of the Republican Party is defending him by saying a President can declassify anything he damn well wants to. So now, because Trump can't behave like a normal human being, we're going to have to put new guardrails up for future Presidents. 

We are living in bizarro world.

[autigeremt 6,660]

The two groups in this “game” need to be neutered. Unfortunately too few care enough to do anything about them. 
 

It’s like Mussolini on one side and Stalin on the other. What this administration is doing to “disarm” their opponents is on the verge of desperation and just wrong. We’re in unprecedented times. 

[TexasTiger 12,974]

14 minutes ago, autigeremt said:

The two groups in this “game” need to be neutered. Unfortunately too few care enough to do anything about them. 
 

It’s like Mussolini on one side and Stalin on the other. What this administration is doing to “disarm” their opponents is on the verge of desperation and just wrong. We’re in unprecedented times. 

🧐 huh?

[Leftfield 2,626]

 

[jj3jordan 2,058]

3 hours ago, Didba said:

I definitely remember zelensky saying stuff that contradicts you. 
 

also I never called you a cultist so you may be thinking of someone else. 
 

I don’t namecall on here. 

Apologies to you. Seems like most of you do consider any Trump supporter a cultist but no worries.

You definitely did not hear Zelensky say he felt pressured to do the investigation in order to get the money. He absolutely did not say that.

[AU9377 5,017]

16 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

He is part of the establishment, and by that I mean he is a lifelong politician that honestly has passed his expiration date. I am pretty sure he is corrupt, just like his friends Pelosi, McConnell, Clinton's, Graham, Schumer et al. 

Trump got elected because he was not the same ole corrupt. 

Some are just better at hiding it than others. 

The man that craps in golden toilets understands the common man... right?  It still stuns me that so many can be hypnotized, willing to defend the indefensible, and maintain the illusion of greatness surrounding a man that has demonstrated time and time again that his only concern is himself.  Without blinking, they criticize the current First Lady for continuing to work and for being referred to as Dr. Jill Biden, while ignoring the soft porn past and current position as a trophy wife held by Melania Trump. The hypocrisy brigade has no limits to their depravity and willingness to mischaracterize any set of facts.

[AU9377 5,017]

13 hours ago, autigeremt said:

The two groups in this “game” need to be neutered. Unfortunately too few care enough to do anything about them. 
 

It’s like Mussolini on one side and Stalin on the other. What this administration is doing to “disarm” their opponents is on the verge of desperation and just wrong. We’re in unprecedented times. 

The use of a system of justice and the imploring of a grand jury is the farthest thing from being fascist like in any way.

[AU9377 5,017]

12 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

Apologies to you. Seems like most of you do consider any Trump supporter a cultist but no worries.

You definitely did not hear Zelensky say he felt pressured to do the investigation in order to get the money. He absolutely did not say that.

That is hardly a defense to what occurred. That reminds me of a prison warden being accused of mistreating an inmate and the defense being that when the inmate was asked, by the warden, he said he was treated well.  Does that negate the fact that multiple deputies testified to the mistreatment and the fact that there is a video of the beat down?

Edited August 16, 2022 by AU9377

[wdefromtx 3,159]

4 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

The man that craps in golden toilets understands the common man... right?  It still stuns me that so many can be hypnotized, willing to defend the indefensible, and maintain the illusion of greatness surrounding a man that has demonstrated time and time again that his only concern is himself.  Without blinking, they criticize the current First Lady for continuing to work and for being referred to as Dr. Jill Biden, while ignoring the soft porn past and current position as a trophy wife held by Melania Trump. The hypocrisy brigade has no limits to their depravity and willingness to mischaracterize any set of facts.

Who said he understands the common man? He got elected because he wasn't the status quo. 

[Cardin Drake 1,851]

Yep, the fact that the DC establishment hates him so much is enough for a lot of us. Shoving a giant stick up their ass has a lot of appeal.

[Leftfield 2,626]

19 minutes ago, Cardin Drake said:

Yep, the fact that the DC establishment hates him so much is enough for a lot of us. Shoving a giant stick up their ass has a lot of appeal.

Yep, tearing down democracy to give 'em what 'fer! You sure showed them!

[Didba 5,256]

14 hours ago, autigeremt said:

The two groups in this “game” need to be neutered. Unfortunately too few care enough to do anything about them. 
 

It’s like Mussolini on one side and Stalin on the other. What this administration is doing to “disarm” their opponents is on the verge of desperation and just wrong. We’re in unprecedented times. 

Multi-party proportional representation electoral system alongside the abolishment of the electoral college. 

[Didba 5,256]

14 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

Apologies to you. Seems like most of you do consider any Trump supporter a cultist but no worries.

You definitely did not hear Zelensky say he felt pressured to do the investigation in order to get the money. He absolutely did not say that.

You are right, I looked it up. I misremembered. Zelensky said he felt no pressure and was not blackmailed, whilst sitting across from Trump. I don’t blame him for saying that even though Trump did apply pressure, not blackmail, though. Zelensky needed to keep Trump happy so it makes sense he would say that. 
 

What I was remembering was the transcripts of the phone call between the two which, imo, does show clear pressure applied to zelensky by Trump.
 

I’ll link it here so you can see for yourself and make your own conclusions. 
 

https://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2019/09/24/ukraine-call/assets/amp.html

[icanthearyou 4,463]

5 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

Yep, tearing down democracy to give 'em what 'fer! You sure showed them!

Sadly, that is exactly where we are.  Cultivate irrational anger.  Exploit irrational anger. 

 

 

[TexasTiger 12,974]

51 minutes ago, Cardin Drake said:

Yep, the fact that the DC establishment hates him so much is enough for a lot of us. Shoving a giant stick up their ass has a lot of appeal.

It’s your core principle. 

[autigeremt 6,660]

[autigeremt 6,660]

2 hours ago, icanthearyou said:

Sadly, that is exactly where we are.  Cultivate irrational anger.  Exploit irrational anger. 

 

 

Hah! Mirrors are illegal in the Democratic Party. 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

4 minutes ago, autigeremt said:

Hah! Mirrors are illegal in the Democratic Party. 

 

[AUFAN78 3,926]

This is what it sounds like when doves cry:

https://sashastone.substack.com/p/the-raid-that-red-pilled-america#details

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/attorney-general-garland-s-stature-shrinks-as-he-doggedly-pursues-trump/ar-AA10EJNv

 

 

[W.E.D 11,070]

For the "why didn't they just ask" crowd.  

 

[icanthearyou 4,463]

2 hours ago, autigeremt said:

A cartoon understanding of politics is very appropriate.