Much of the impetus for the current Special Counsel investigation can be attributed to two equally disastrous decisions: the decision to fire FBI Director James Comey in the midst of the Russian Investigation and the meeting of Donald Trump Jr. with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. While I continue to doubt that the meeting (or the later misleading statement issued by Trump Jr.) constituted any type of crime, I have previously written that it was an astonishingly dumb decision to go (with both Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort) to this meeting. I have little doubt that the Clintons would have eagerly accepted the same information, but they would have used surrogates as they did with the Steele dossier. Now Trump Jr. is dismissing the very idea that his father would sit down with Mueller. While this is certainly a good-faith disagreement among lawyers, Trump Jr. is wrong again about a meeting. There are perfectly good reasons for his father to go to such a meeting and interview, but it should have been done months ago as I previously discussed.
Trump Jr. stated on “Fox and Friends” that “I wouldn’t do it. I think it would be stupid.” He added
“I don’t think any proper lawyer would say, ‘Hey, you should go do it,’ because it’s not about collusion anymore.’ It’s about, ‘Can we get him to say something that may be interpreted as somewhat off or inaccurate, and after 50,000 questions, maybe you make a mistake, and that’s how we get you, and that’s ridiculous.”
Putting aside the towering irony in the advice on stupid meetings, the President’s legal team has been split on the issue because the refusal could well lead to a subpoena fight that Trump would lose. He would have create bad precedent and the image of being forced to answer questions — thereby fueling narratives of obstruction and the appearance of guilt. The question is what will be achieved and at what cost. It is possible to prep a witness, including Trump, for such an interview if there is an agreement on well-defined areas of questioning.
In the end, there are clearly good reasons not to go to the interview, which is without question a risk. However, lawyers often opt for advising witnesses from not taking the stand or going into such interviews. You cannot be blamed for something that goes wrong if you advice against taking any risk at all. However, there is a failure to consider how this would playout in the various scenarios. Precisely the failure that led to the Trump tower meeting.
ZH msbb bb,
Vote down!
1
Profile picture for user Wild Bill Steamcock
Wild Bill Steamcock Thu, 06/14/2018 – 21:09 Permalink
*Cue that song by Creed* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxjciv7ZcHI
“Hooold me nah, how! I’m a six foot- eight piece of shit and I’m stinkin’! Won’t someone, flush me dowhown?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-14/turley-comey-can-no-longer-hide-destruction-caused-fbi
Prof. Turley:
I believe we’ve already crossed that bridge and torched it.
BTW: What are your thoughts on WH Counsel Don McGahn’s recusal, and his staff, from Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation? https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/13/mcgahn-mueller-russia-probe-recusal-white-house-counsel-643709
Or, the Trump Foundation impropriety of using charitable donations as in-kind campaign donations? https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4515572/Underwood-v-Trump.pdf
This WH is a real stinker.
I noticed Prof. Turley has published nothing about WH Counsel McGahn’s and his staff’s recusal in the special counsel investigation, the Trump Foundation improprieties, nor that Paul Manafort was sent to jail today. Crickets can be heard in the Republican gallery.
OBAMA LIED
Bill Plante interviews Obama:
Plante, March 7: Mr. President, when did you first learn that Hillary Clinton used an email system outside the U.S. government for official business while she was secretary of state?
Obama: The same time everybody else learned it through news reports.
___________________________________________________________
“FBI analysts and Prosecutor 2 told us that former President Barack Obama was one of the 13 individuals with whom Clinton had direct contact using her clintonemail.com account,” the report says in a footnote on page 89. “Obama, like other high level government officials, used a pseudonym for his username on his official government email account.”
IG Report Shows Obama Lied When He Said He Knew Nothing About Hillary’s Secret E-mail Scheme
‘The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency,’ Obama told CBS News during the same interview in which he lied.
June 14, 2018 By Joy Pullmann
In 2015, President Obama told America he only learned that his secretary of state Hillary Clinton was illegally using a private email server to conduct public business after The New York Times published a story saying so. Today’s release of a Department of Justice inspector general report shows that was a lie.
“FBI analysts and Prosecutor 2 told us that former President Barack Obama was one of the 13 individuals with whom Clinton had direct contact using her clintonemail.com account,” the report says in a footnote on page 89. “Obama, like other high level government officials, used a pseudonym for his username on his official government email account.”
The report also says Obama Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey knew that Obama had lied. It was in 2015 that Obama had disclaimed knowledge that Clinton used a private, rather than government, email address. In 2016, while drafting a public statement explaining why the FBI wouldn’t prosecute Clinton during her run for the presidency, Comey changed the statement’s wording to hide that Obama had communicated with Clinton through her private email address, the report says.
“A paragraph [in Comey’s statement] summarizing the factors that led the FBI to assess that it was possible that hostile actors accessed Clinton’s server was added, and at one point referenced Clinton’s use of her private email for an exchange with then President Obama while in the territory of a foreign adversary,” the IG report says. “This reference later was changed to ‘another senior government official,’ and ultimately was omitted.”
Here’s Obama in March 2015, telling CBS News the opposite, that he had no idea Clinton was breaking the law using a private, unsecured email server to conduct public business.
CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante asked Mr. Obama when he learned about her private email system after his Saturday appearance in Selma, Alabama.
‘The same time everybody else learned it through news reports,’ the president told Plante.
Mr. Obama’s comments follow a long week of media scrutiny surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private email address and the ‘home-brewed’ server that hosted it.
‘The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency, which is why my emails, the BlackBerry I carry around, all those records are available and archived,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘I’m glad that Hillary’s instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.’
Despite widespread criticism from Republicans who believe Clinton acted inappropriately, the president continued to defend his former Cabinet member’s record.
“Let me just say that Hillary Clinton is and has been an outstanding public servant. She was a great secretary of state for me,” Mr. Obama said.
George,
It seems you copied and pasted this from a particular source. You should list that source so we know here it’s coming from.
Peter, it is obvious you don’t know a lot of things that should be in the news but aren’t. I’m glad you are becoming curious about the things that happen which are left out of your sources of the news.
George:
In case you haven’t noticed, former President Obama is no longer in office. And, Hillary Clinton lost to 45.
Mueller has been impeached.
Mueller must be prosecuted for egregious abuse of power and malicious prosecution.
The 7th Floor and Obama are complicit and have also been impeached.
Sessions is absent without leave, complicit, derelict and negligent.
Congress must class-action, mass-action impeach the leadership of the DOJ, FBI et al.
The final act of the treasonous Obama coup d’etat in America is prosecution and severe penalization of the
traitors.
George,
I’ve been seeing your work here & I’m still liking it.
I just wanted you to know that others agree with you yet never say anything. Hope you can keep it up.
I know at least for now I can’t always post.
Please post more of this type of material, as well as something on the Twin Towers, the Grassy Knoll, Area 51, and whether I should secrete silver ingots in my compost heap for the end times. I’ll hang up and listen. Thanks.
this is to “ya, I’m pretty crazy, but any pub is good pub” georgie
Marky Mark Mark – I have been to Area 51, it is on the way to Las Vegas. If you get too close to the fence, trucks with armed men show up and look at you very meanly. Area 51 is where the infamous “Skunkworks” was.
“NO. NO HE WON’T. WELL STOP IT.”
Who’s we, Pete?
The entire 7th floor…
on orders from Obama.
_____
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page wrote to Strzok in a text message set to be released Thursday as part of a Department of Justice inspector general’s report.
“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok, who was dating Page at the time, responded.
_____
Obama, the DOJ and the FBI nullified and subverted the Constitution as acts of capital treason.
MUELLER INVESTIGATION IS NOT OVER..
UNTIL DONALD TRUMP GIVES DEPOSTITION
Trumpers are fond of saying the Russia Probe has gone on ‘long enough’. But Robert Mueller can’t honestly say he has fully investigated this matter until Trump gives deposition.
Yet every American knows by now that Donald Trump has serious issues with the truth. Not a day goes when Trump doesn’t utter a falsehood of some kind.
Trump came back from Singapore grandly claiming the North Korean threat has been averted. However Trump has NOTHING in writing to indicate any specific truce. The summit in Singapore was nothing more than a meeting. And while that meeting marks a breakthrough, Trump has no right to present it as anything more than that.
Therefore we know a deposition with Mueller would expose Trump as the liar he is. No president in recent history has uttered so many falsehoods. Though insanely Trump’s falsehoods have a become a Culture Wars issue. Because of right-wing media, it is now a ‘matter of opinion’ when Trump is really lying.
We knew we were in trouble on Trump’s second full day in office when Kelly Anne Conway tried to present ‘alternative facts’ on the “Meet The Press”. However ridiculous that moment seemed it was a very telling preview of things to come.
I think a bit of historical relevance is in order. We cannot forget when Obama spied on congressmen opposed to the Iran deal. Think of where and what Mueller was doing at the time and how he was linked to this abuse along with spying on American citizens and then perceived political enemies of which Trump was one of those perceived enemies. Is it so amazing that he ended up as the special prosecutor?
From 9/11 to Spygate: The National Security Deep State
The men that failed on 9/11 used their new powers to suppress the truth about Islamic terror.
On September 4, 2001, Robert Mueller took over the FBI. At his confirmation hearings, fraud had overshadowed discussions of terrorism. And as FBI Director, Mueller quickly diverged from the common understanding that the attacks that killed 3,000 people had been an act of war rather than a crime.
In 2008, Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, who had been unleashed from Guantanamo Bay, carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq. Al-Ajmi had been represented by Thomas Wilner who was being paid by the Kuwaiti government.
Wilner was a pal of Robert Mueller. And when the families were having dinner together, Mueller got up and said, “I want to toast Tom Wilner. He’s doing just what an American lawyer should do.”
“I don’t know what he was doing from inside the government. I’d like to find out,” Wilner mused.
We know some of what Mueller was doing. The same official who paved the way for raiding the president’s lawyer, who illegally seized material from the Trump transition team and whose case is based in no small part on illegal eavesdropping, fought alongside Comey against surveilling terrorists. Materials involving the Muslim Brotherhood were purged. Toward the dawn of the second Obama term, Mueller met with CAIR and other Islamist groups and a green curtain fell over national security.
But the surveillance wasn’t going anywhere. Instead it was being redirected to new targets.
Those targets were not, despite the wave of hysterical conspiracy theories convulsing the media, the Russians. Mueller’s boss was still quite fond of them. Barack Obama did have foreign enemies that he wanted to spy on. And there were plenty of domestic enemies who could be caught up in that trap.
By his second term, the amateur was coming to understand the incredible surveillance powers at his disposal and how they could be used to spy on Americans under the pretext of fighting foreign threats.
Two birds. One stone.
While the Mueller purge was going on, Obama was pushing talks with Iran. There was one obstacle and it wasn’t Russia. The Russians were eager to play Obama with a fake nuke deal. It was the Israelis who were the problem. And it was the Israelis who were being spied on by Obama’s surveillance regime.
But it wasn’t just the Israelis.
Iran was Obama’s big shot at a foreign policy legacy. As the year dragged on, it was becoming clear that the Arab Spring wouldn’t be anything he would want to be remembered for. By the time Benghazi went from a humanitarian rescue operation to one of the worst disasters of the term, it was clearly over.
Obama was worried that the Israelis would launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear program. And the surveillance and media leaks were meant to dissuade the Israelis from scuttling his legacy. But he was also worried about Netanyahu’s ability to persuade American Jews and members of Congress to oppose his nuclear sellout. And that was where the surveillance leapfrogged from foreign to domestic.
The NSA intercepted communications between Israelis and Americans, including members of Congress, and then passed the material along to the White House. Despite worries by some officials that “that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress”, the White House “believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign.”
The precedent was even more troubling than it seemed.
Obama Inc. had defined its position in an unresolved political debate between the White House and Congress as the national interest. And had winkingly authorized surveillance on Congress to protect this policy in a domestic political debate. That precedent would then be used to spy on members of the Trump transition team and to force out Trump’s national security adviser.
National security had become indistinguishable from the agenda of the administration. And that agenda, like the rest of Obama’s unilateral policies, was enshrined as permanent. Instead of President Trump gaining the same powers, his opposition to that agenda was treated as a national security threat.
And once Obama was out of office, Comey and other Obama appointees would protect that agenda.
We still don’t know the full scope of Spygate. But media reports have suggested that Obama officials targeted countries opposed to the Iran sellout, most prominently Israel and the UAE, and then eavesdropped on meetings between them and between figures on the Trump team.
Obama had begun his initial spying as a way of gaining inside information on Netanyahu’s campaign against the Iran deal. But the close election and its aftermath significantly escalated what had been a mere Watergate into an active effort to not only spy, but pursue criminal charges against the political opposition. The surveillance state had inevitably moved on to the next stage, the police state with its informants, dossiers, pre-dawn raids, state’s witnesses, entrapments and still more surveillance.
And the police state requires cops. Someone had to do the dirty work for Susan Rice.
Comey, Mueller and the other cops had likely been complicit in the administration’s abuses. Somewhere along the way, they had become the guys watching over the Watergate burglars. Spying on the political opposition is, short of spying for the enemy, the most serious crime that such men can commit.
Why then was it committed?
To understand that, we have to go back to 9/11. Those days may seem distant now, but the attacks offered a crossroads. One road led to a war against our enemies. The other to minimizing the conflict.
President George W. Bush tried to fight that war, but he was undermined by men like Mueller and Comey. Their view of the war was the same as that of their future boss, not their current one, certainly not the view as the man currently sitting in the White House whom they have tried to destroy.
Every lie has some truth in it. Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty, his frequent claims of allegiance to American ideals, are true, as he sees it, if not as he tells it. Men like Comey and Mueller believed that the real threat came not from Islamic terrorists, but from our overreaction to them. They believed that Bush was a threat. And Trump was the worst threat imaginable who had to be stopped by any means.
What Comey and Mueller are loyal to is the established way of doing things. And they conflate that with our national ideals, as establishment thugs usually do. Neither of them are unique. Washington D.C. is filled with men and women who are registered Republicans, who believe in lowering taxes, who frown at the extremities of identity politics, but whose true faith is in the natural order of government.
Mueller and Comey represent a class. And Obama and Clinton were easily able to corrupt and seduce that class into abandoning its duties and oaths, into serving as its deep state against domestic foes.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? It’s the old question of who watches the watchmen that no society has found a good answer to. And the answer is inevitably that the watchers, watch themselves and everyone else. What began as national security measures against Islamic terrorism was twisted by Obama and his deep state allies into the surveillance of the very people fighting Islamic terrorism.
Spygate was the warped afterbirth of our failure to meaningfully confront Islamic terrorism. Instead, the political allies of the terrorists and the failed watchmen who allowed them to strike so many times, got together to shoot the messengers warning about the terror threat. The problem had never been the lack of power, but the lack of will and the lack of integrity in an establishment unwilling to do its job.
After 9/11, extraordinary national security powers were brought into being to fight Islamic terror. Instead those powers were used to suppress those who told the truth about Islamic terrorism.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270430/911-spygate-national-security-deep-state-daniel-greenfield
Today’s Pravda Faux News talking points. Check. Thanks comrade. Dismissed. Pro tip: real people find your ilk to be sadly out of touch to still not have snapped to the big con.
this is to “hey fellas, I’ve found another neato conspiracy website, see?” allan
Mark, I understand that you lack the intelligence to comprehend what I sent. That is why I don’t bother sending you anything of importance. However, since you tried to read it I’ll provide you with one important point. The President, Obama in particular, was not supposed to spy on American citizens and he spied on members of Congress under the guise of national security. I don’t expect you to understand what a citizen’s basic civil liberties are, so ask one of the kids on their way home from grade school.
You are allowed your own opinion, no matter how silly it makes you look, but you are most assuredly not allowed your own facts. So sorry for your loss.
this is to “but hannity pinky-swore it was truthlike” allan
“You are allowed your own opinion”
Of course, Mark. Everyone is allowed their own opinions but you don’t seem to have one. You are just playing games as you write your little responses that say a lot of nothing. We all recognize that what you say is a substitute for what you don’t have, clear thinking. That means your comments are void of anything of value and most of us recognize your stupidity. Even some on the other side of the political aisle recognize your stupidity but are quiet about it.
Yes, relevance is in order. We turn now to the relevant ongoing deep corruption of Trump and his family. https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-new-york-attorney-general-sues-trump-foundation-campaign-coordination-and-self-dealing
Hollywood, for those that are uneducated in these matters that is a nothingburger. There are allegations and at worst the charity that has given large amounts of charity to noble groups will be closed down (which also stops the money flow to these needy organizations) or more likely pay a fine if anything was done that didn’t meet the exact code requirement.
New York has to prove wrongful action to even penalize the charity (not the people) and the citizens of New York will pay for those costs. Likely they will find something trivial since it was managed by those that were unpaid for their efforts and minor mistakes are not uncommon in that type of foundation. It is a pure get Trump move in an attempt to stimulate the imaginations of those that know little about these things. They succeeded as far as you go.
Let’s look at a much bigger charity that has been around for decades longer, the ACLU. What NYState is accusing Trump of the ACLU has admitted to. They are not following the rules of a 501(c)3 and they have managers that are being paid. The formerly respected ACLU has turned openly partisan in a leftward direction and now the only question at the ACLU is whether centrist leftists can deal with this far-left group that should no longer exist as a 501(c)3.
If you would like to make a criminal case against Trump please do so, but you will be searching for the rest of your life. If you wish to show a case that violated a specific code you might find one. So far the claims I have read that were made don’t carry the requisite proof that the donations made to charitable groups violated the code.
“‘Viva Le Resistance’: Mueller Team Attorney Sent Anti-Trump Texts”
…And some people believe the Mueller investigation is nonpartisan?
http://dailycaller.com/2018/06/14/mueller-lawyer-resisted-trump/
Once again:
The Donald @ Singapore:
All hat, no cattle.
David, how come you never responded to remarks about a paper you wrote involving the WTC?
Because no one wants to talk to ‘Ken Rogers’.
But, NII, I asked David to respond only because I quoted the article and Ken started calling me professor … (another name I can’t remember that was also listed as an author of the article) It demonstrated how inexactly Ken links data to one another and demonstrates how unreliable Ken is. It also might be demonstrating that David doesn’t remember his co-authors or what he has written under his name.
It demonstrated how inexactly Ken links data to one another and demonstrates how unreliable Ken is.
Ken thinks there’s a ‘mountain of evidence’ that the destruction of the World Trade Center was via ‘controlled demolition’. You see this professor at Brigham Young says he found thermite in the ruins and Larry Silverstein said ‘pull it’. I guess Ken doesn’t buy into Judy Wood’s thesis that WTC was destroyed by a ‘directed energy weapon’ which pulverized it. Judy Wood, btw was one of two engineers among the founders of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, the other being Col. Robert Bowman. Theretofore, Judy Wood’s research had been devoted to designing dentures. Col. Bowman had been an aerospace engineer who had suffered some sort of crack up around 1982 and never worked again (he had an Air Force pension). He did put out a newsletter that seems to have had almost no subscribers and founded a religious sect and appointed himself bishop. Now they’re banking on the work of a civil engineer in Alaska who’s on something of a learning curve – he’d devoted his career to designing bridges for Arctic climates. There are some high mountains in Alaska, so I guess that’s the ‘mountain of evidence’.
NII, soon those theories will disappear and the Ken minions will be saying the WTC destruction never happened. The WTC never existed and it is a Zionist plot. It would go along with some of the theories espoused by some of the people Ken so avidly follows.
Allan — Sorry, I never noticed the question. Given the format here I may have difficulty in responding, but please do ask again.
David, I mentioned it in several posts with the first one quoting from your paper. The last thread I posted on was https://jonathanturley.org/2018/06/11/humpy-dumpty-duty-trump-regularly-rips-up-documents-requiring-staff-to-tape-them-back-together-to-comply-with-federal-law/comment-page-1/#comments in response to your statement
It was in response to your statement: “Oh dear. I studied this collapse. WTC 7 was hit by large pieces of WTC”
I don’t remember where the original posting was made where Ken added 2+2 and got 5. That posting quoted directly from your article. I wasn’t asking you to respond at that time but I was wondering why you didn’t comment on the fact that Ken was calling me by your co author’s name.
All wrong. The peer reviewed paper by Bazant et al., avaliable from Bazant’s website, only treats WTC 1 & 2.
The explanation of the collapse of WTC 7 which I seem to have to repeat again and again on this website was obtained from the study of photographs and reading the firefighters testimony.
David, did you find the quote I copied from the paper with your name on it? Were you involved in the writing more than one paper having to do with the WTC? Did you note the context surrounding that several paragraphs I copied? If you didn’t then I don’t know how you could say “All wrong.” Please explain.
David Benson still owes me two citations and a quotation after three weeks, one of them from the OED. – So, you could have done better? Put your proposal on the table for all of us to see.
How are they going to serve a subpoena, much less enforce service?
On whom?
IG report: “While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice,”
One example cited in the new report is an exchange of texts between Strzok and Page on Aug. 8, 2016. Page questioned whether Trump would become president. Strzok replied: “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
With the lack of impartiality of the DOJ and FBI and Mueller’s close relationships with the institutions and the people most involved does anyone think that Mueller is looking for the truth?
Normal people don’t, no.
In addition, I’m wondering if the IG would recognize political bias if it fell out of the sky, landed on his face, and started to wiggle.
The bias is ingrained. It starts in pre-school and works its way through the universities. A competent investigator that wasn’t in the service of big government would have finished the investigation in a matter of weeks with a fraction of the cost. The report would be vivid instead of intentionally faded so that even the simplest could recognize the horrors that have taken place.
Yes, I do.
“Yes, I do.”
Hollywood, that is nothing more than a sign of poor judgment.
The professor professes, among other impractical speculation, purely theoretical drivel and counter productive behavior, that “It is possible to prep a witness, including Trump, for such an interview if there is an agreement on well-defined areas of questioning. …”
First, a short review of the professor’s own poorly and shamefully drafted or, at least, poorly edited or non-edited prior musings portray a client, Donald J. Trump, before and during his Presidency as an individual who is not subject to self control, adviser-counselor control or attorney preparation or control.
Preparing a such a client is a fool’s errand. A fool’s errand may be the musing or teaching of law professors, but it is not duty and responsibility of a defense, trial counselor.
Second, any counselor and trial lawyer who has practiced as little as a year’s worth of preparing a client(s) or witness(es) for deposition or trial will have learned the most most cooperative, conscious and committed client with fail to follow his or her preparation.
Donald J. Trump has demonstrated to anyone not in a comatose state that self restrain, thoughtfulness and measured response his not part of his character.
Here, President Trump has stated and acted on his absolute conviction that the process in question and the individuals “prosecuting” the process are prejudiced against him and biased in favor of Hillary R.Clinton and the parties ( Democrat and Republican ) that are his opposition.
The professor or whoever the author may be evinces a classroom mindset, naive thinking, and improper grammar in failing to use the subjunctive case in the sanguine proposition of “… an agreement on well-defined areas of questioning. …”
As I have noted more than once before, Mr. Mueller and his posse are cops, who will bend, if not break, the law to obtain indictments and convictions.
Donald J. Trump, client, under no circumstance or circumstances must make a statement to the cop, Mr. Mueller, or any one of his posse.
“Any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to the police under any circumstance.” Watts v. Indiana 338 U.S. 49, 59 (1949).
Any advice to the contrary, may be the spittle of a professor with sinecure and who blogs to amuse or self gratify himself.
But!, it must never be the advise or counsel of an experienced and astute criminal defense attorney.
[ Please note I did not vote for Ms. Clinton or Mr. Trump. I have not voted the monopoly party ( one bird of prey with two wings ) since McGovern v. Nixon ) ]
dennis hanna
President Trump does not need to speak with Mueller. If Mueller can’t write down whatever his questions are at this point, and receive written responses to finish out his file, then it is obviously an intended perjury trap for a vulnerable victim.
Well, I think he has to speak with New York’s AG. https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-new-york-attorney-general-sues-trump-foundation-campaign-coordination-and-self-dealing
Hollywood, are you sure about that or are your facts flimsy and more of what you are dreaming about?
You must hate America and world peace. Trump is doing exactly what the left has asked for decades, talking and trying to reduce nuclear arms and having a good shot at succeeding. In the midst of this, you find nothing better than to stop him in his tracks with garbage. It sounds like you are hoping Trump doesn’t succeed in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. That neither makes you smart nor a decent caring citizen of the world.
My advice to Trump is not to speak to Mueller and instead look at what happened to Flynn who didn’t know he was being interviewed where the interviewers thought he was innocent.
I lawyer I correspond with (who is, unlike professor Turley, a working lawyer with a criminal defense practice) has this advice for his clients
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYa0jpGFUeY
His view is that once you know you’re being investigated, communicate only through counsel. Counsel will disclose facts which have to be disclosed as needed.
I agree, NII. What one says is always added to whatever the claim is. It is never subtracted and in this case, we aren’t even dealing with honest brokers.
Allen:
Let’s see now. An investigation based on lies paid for by the opposition party and initiated based on leaks of FBI classified property and is overseen by a lawyer at DOJ with an obvious conflict of interest, who picked a guy that was turned down for a job by the POTUS to investigate him and who, shortly after getting the job, stacked his staff with prosecutors who donated to the political opponent of the POTUS, who are weighing allegations that were investigated by politically biased FBI agents hell bent to “stop him” before the election and thereafter to impeach POTUS after he won and who were overseen by a reputed liar, fired by the Bureau, all of whom were specifically called to task by the agency’s OIG now wants the POTUS to submit to a “fair” interview that could determine whether or not he’s impeached.
Hum, that’s a tough call, right? NOT!
Mespo,
As far as many others & I are concerned most all of their known Treason, Sedition, Espionage, Perjury, etc, against the USA it’s on Trump’s back as we see it.
We all know enough of the evidence against the DOJ, FBI, CIA, Demo’s, Neocons, inside out, the only question left is why hasn’t Trump put them all in orange jumpsuits & leg lrons???
I’m sure many will be letting their Reps know their views tomorrow.
Thanks, Mespo. I look at justice with the idea that transactions made whether it be by private officials or government officials should be at the least arm’s length transactions and as soon as that is not the case then justice is not provided and criminal intent becomes more suspicious.
You are a practicing attorney who appears to have a sound understanding of the principles behind good law. I note many of the participants on this list have no idea what these principles are and sound like they come from banana republics with failed judiciary systems. They view their off the cuff conclusions as proof of innocence or guilt. What they don’t recognize is that correlation does not imply causation. Apparently, our education system has failed in preparing students to think logically and approach the law in a neutral fashion.
No kidding, Allan. He would be a fool to talk to Mueller now.
You can say that again and again, but Natacha will tell you how she defends her clients. If she was a criminal attorney she must have a lot of clients that reside behind bars. Then again we have some people on this list that say they are attorney’s which I believe is an affront to actual attorneys that exist on the list.
Interesting how a so-called “journalist” scribbling for some internet blog, under the protection of the Freedom of the Press, can refuse to answer “gotcha” questions from the federales, about say “who gave them stolen, top secret, classified Pentagon information which they published . . .,” while the President of the United States, in this case Donald J. Trump, can be compelled to answer Mueller and company’s no doubt “perjury trap” interrogation questions, being to date they haven’t found one scintilla of prosecutable evidence regarding the original “Trump/Russia collusion” allegation, nor the purported “obstruction of justice” for his firing J. Edgar Comey . . . unless Trump tells Mueller’s team “what he was thinking at the time . . .” To which they can say “Ah ha! Trump fired Comey with evil intent!! He said so himself! Now we’ve got him . . .”
Our good Professor Turley says Trump should submit to questions if they are “well-defined.” The truth is Turley knows damn well Donald J. Trump, because of certain personal flaws, cannot possibly answer Mueller’s top notch pariah attorney’s “trick” questions without falling into a perjury trap. No way, no how. But Turley tries to act as if he’s not partizan. Just like how he crucified Michael Cohen numerous times (without knowing all the facts) while he gave his favorite student Michael Avenatti, the porn-queen’s money-grubbing mouthpiece, who’s got many of the same problems of his own, a pass. Phony to the core. But at least it gets him on Fox news every week.
If heir Mueller has a solid criminal case against Trump or anyone else, he should prosecute him or them, without needing their confession, or slip-up responses, all the way to not being fully candid about some conversation they had with X – 2 or 3 years ago at some cocktail party, like they did with Jeff Sessions forgetting he briefly spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, which forced him to recuse himself.
The only reason Mueller wants to interrogate Trump is because he doesn’t have any prosecutable evidence, and needs Trump to slip-up and perjure himself. No way Mueller can finish this wholly unfounded, $20 million and counting “Trump/Russia collusion” investigation with only 4 “after-the-fact” perjury peas, Manafort’s 10 year old money-laundering schemes, and 13 (never coming to court) Russian’s who tried to influence the vote on social media, the same as Germany’s Angela Merkel, Britain’s Cameron, and Pope Francis “Trump’s no Christian” did. Mueller needs to take Trump down to win the grand prize, not to mention give his buddy J. Edgar Comey some retribution for firing him and trashing “their” FBI.
Take it to the bank, President Trump will not sit for Mueller’s “perjury trap” interrogation, either in the Oval office or the grand jury. If Mueller believes like Professor Turley that he can compel President Trump to appear before a grand jury “bring it on Jack!”
As Mueller will never indict Trump unless he’s stupid enough to sit for an interview.
The only thing that matters is what happens in the midterms. If the Dems win the House, they’ll immediately impeach Trump with the help of Mueller’s report. But they’ll never get the required 67 votes in the Senate to remove him from office. If the Republicans retain the House, Trump will summarily fire Session, Rosenstein and Mueller and this whole “witch hunt” will end up in the dustbin of history, as Trump goes on to win a second term, resulting in mass suicides among the Never-Trumper RINO’s.
The biggest hoot is how all the anti-police, Black Lives Matter, Lefty fascists, Liberals and Libertarians, including the phony ACLU, have made a head-spinning 180 and jumped behind a serially corrupt FBI and DOJ, applauding their trashing the constitution (in this case only) because they pathologically hate President Trump so much. Like after Trump is taken out, the corrupt DOJ/FBI won’t go after some other targets.
The same mentality was present in the 1930’s when a monster named Adolf Hitler duped millions of German’s into believing the Jewish people were less than human and needed to be exterminated.
No different today. It’s called “Trump derangement syndrome.”
Absolutely correct. Whatever the left touches become dirt and Mueller’s investigation is dirt itself. You mentioned how even the ACLU has turned completely far left so here is Alan Dershowitz, a lifetime liberal and member of the ACLU distancing himself from that organization. I am waiting (hopelessly) for the New York State attorney general to call for the removal of the ACLU’s status as a 501 (c) 3.
The Final Nail in the ACLU’s Coffin
by Alan M. Dershowitz
June 14, 2018 at 4:00 amhttps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12507/aclu-leftist-partisan
The director of the American Civil Liberties Union has now acknowledged what should have been obvious to everybody over the past several years: that the ACLU is no longer a neutral defender of everyone’s civil liberties; it has morphed into a hyper-partisan, hard-left political advocacy group. The final nail in its coffin was the announcement that for the first time in its history the ACLU would become involved in partisan electoral politics, supporting candidates, referenda and other agenda-driven political goals.
The headline in the June 8, 2018 edition of The New Yorker tells it all: “The ACLU is getting involved in elections – and reinventing itself for the Trump Era.” The article continues:
“In this midterm year, however, as progressive groups have mushroomed and grown more active, and as liberal billionaires such as Howard Schultz and Tom Steyer have begun to imagine themselves as political heroes and eye Presidential runs, the A.C.L.U., itself newly flush, has begun to move in step with the times. For the first time in its history, the A.C.L.U. is taking an active role in elections. The group has plans to spend more than twenty-five million dollars on races and ballot initiatives by Election Day, in November.”
Since its establishment nearly 100 years ago, the ACLU has been, in the words of The New Yorker, “Fastidiously nonpartisan, so prudish about any alliance with any political power that its leadership, in the 1980’s and 90’s, declined even to give awards to likeminded legislators for fear that it might give the wrong impression.” I know, because I served on its National Board in the early days of my own career. In those days, the Board consisted of individuals who were deeply committed to core civil liberties, especially freedom of speech, opposition to prosecutorial overreach and political equality. Its Board members included Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, right-wingers and left-wingers — all of whom supported neutral civil liberties.
The key test in those days was what I have come to call “the shoe on the other foot test”: would you vote the same way if the shoe were on the other foot, that is if the party labels were switched? Today the ACLU wears only one shoe and it is on its left foot. Its color is blue. And the only dispute is whether it supports the progressive wing of the Democratic party or its more centrist wing. There is little doubt that most Board members today support the progressive wing, though some think that even that wing is not sufficiently left. There is no longer any room in the ACLU for true conservatives who are deeply committed to neutral civil liberties. The litmus test is support for hard-left policies.
To be sure, the ACLU will still occasionally take a high-profile case involving a Nazi or Klan member who has been denied freedom of speech, though there are now some on the board who would oppose supporting such right-wing extremists. But the core mission of the ACLU — and its financial priority — is now to promote its left-wing agenda in litigation, in public commentary and now in elections.
If you want to know the reason for this shift, just follow the money. ACLU contributors, including some of its most generous contributors, are strong anti-Trump zealots who believe that the end (getting rid of Trump) justifies any means (including denying Trump and his associates core civil liberties and due process).
Anthony Romero, the current radical leftist who directs the ACLU, refers to those of us who favor the ACLU traditional mission as “the old guard.” The leading critic of the ACLU’s newfound partisan mission is Romero’s predecessor, Ira Glasser who was the executive Director of the ACLU from 1978 until 2001. Glasser believes that this transformation in the way the ACLU has operated since 1920 “has the capacity to destroy the organization as it has always existed.” Glasser points out that some of the greatest violations of civil liberties throughout history have come from “progressive politicians, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt who interned 110,000 Japanese-American citizens. He worries, and I worry, that when the ACLU supports candidate’s parties and partisan agendas, it will become less willing to criticize those who it has supported when they violate civil liberties.
The Presidency of Donald Trump has introduced a new dynamic. Trump himself has denied fundamental civil liberties by his immigration policies, his attitude and actions regarding the press, and his calls for criminal investigations of his political enemies. The ACLU will criticize those actions, as it should. But the Trump presidency has also pushed the ACLU further to the left and into partisan politics. President Trump is so despised by contributors to the ACLU that they have increased their contributions, but also demanded that the ACLU be on the forefront of ending the Trump presidency, either through impeachment, criminal prosecution or electoral defeat.
The move of the ACLU to the hard-left reflects an even more dangerous and more general trend in the United States: the right is moving further right; the left is moving father left; and the center is shrinking. The center-left is losing its influence in organizations like the ALCU, and the center-right is losing its influence in conservative organizations. America has always thrived at the center and has always suffered when extremes gain power.
The ACLU’s move from the neutral protector of civil liberties to a partisan advocate of hard-left politics is both a symptom and consequence of this change. If America is to remain strong, its major institutions must move closer to the center and reject the extremes of both sides. If the ACLU does not return to its core values, a new organization must be created to champion those values.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of “Trumped Up, How Criminalization of Political Differences endangers Democracy.”
It’s amazing to me that people who supposedly can read and write fall for this “perjury trap” garbage spewed daily by Fox News. How can someone trap another into perjury, anyway? If you’re not lying, you’re not going to get in trouble. It’s as simple as that. While someone might testify a different set of facts, that doesn’t make someone a liar if they testify differently. One would be a liar by uttering untruths, like Trump does almost every single day. Problem is, Trump doesn’t have the patience or intelligence to review material, listen to instruction and do what his lawyer recommends, because, after all, he’s superior to everyone else in the world in his own mind. He makes stuff up, because the truth doesn’t matter to him. He’ll likely get caught because there will be phone records, e-mails, photographs, memoranda, reports or other non-testimonial evidence proving that his story cannot be true. The “perjury trap” concoction is nothing but a pre-excuse for the lies Trump surely will tell. Trump has proven to be a very prolific liar, about many things, but mostly about facts that make him look like the weak, unpopular person he really is.
I remain amazed that anyone could look at this rodeo clown lying misogynist racist and not want to vomit, which brings us to the topic of why people dislike him so much: it’s because he is not a worthy person. Period. Not worthy to enjoy the freedoms of this country because he dodged the draft to avoid service. Certainly not worthy to serve in high office because he is a chronic, habitual liar. He not only assaults women, he brags about it. He is a racist. He insults anyone who disagrees with him and is seriously mentally ill, with disabling narcissism. He abused his first wife. He is alienating US allies. He lied about the reasons for tariffs, which is supposed to be national security. He said that Mexicans are “criminals, rapists, drug dealers”, which is not true. He praised White Supremacists after they killed a protester. He was not the choice of the majority of Americans. Fox News informs their disciples that any criticism of Trump is due to Trump hatred, which is, of course, irrational, and based on jealousy due to his fabulous wealth, because he’s clearing the swamp, because he’s a political outsider, or as a knee-jerk because HRC lost the Electoral College. Put down your remotes, Fox News fans, and pay attention to facts.
Next, there’s the institutional disrespect for federal law enforcement, initiated by Trump and perpetrated by Fox, because, after all, they’re in the process of getting the goods on Trump. Therefore, they must be corrupt, so we’ll get syncophants like Nunes to investigate the investigators. Of course, no subpoenas will be issued because, after all, the mission is to attack the DOJ and FBI, not to get to the truth.
And who the hell are Fox and Giuliani to second-guess or comment on the work being done by Robert Mueller? Mueller and his team are gathering facts, and interviewing Trump is part of their work. It would be irresponsible for him not to seek an interview. He’ll delay it as long as possible, of course, all the while claiming to be willing to cooperate. Meantime, his administration is ripping babies from the arms of their parents and placing children in prison camps. He is separating siblings, too, because boys and girls go to different prison camps. These are for people who are seeking asylum, not those who snuck across the border. If, as you claim, Trump someone survives impeachment, he’ll still go down in flames. He already will always be an asterisk, having lost the popular vote. There’ll never be a Trump Presidential Library. He has already failed. And that is the truth.
” How can someone trap another into perjury, anyway?”
Natacha if you were placed on the stand any competent lawyer could twist you into a pretzel salt and all. Just look at what you write. Full of holes and errors.
Natacha claims to be a lawyer. Maybe she’s Marky Mark’s partner.
I think she is smarter than Marky Mark, but that leaves a lot of room above the bottom of the barrel.
I am a competent lawyer. I have been for 36 years. It is not possible to trap someone into perjury who listens to the question, makes sure they understand what is being asked before answering, requests clarification, if necessary, and then tells the truth. I’ve never had a client experience any problems when they follow this advice. Trump is an unmitigated chronic liar. He doesn’t care about the truth. He doesn’t want or listen to advice because of his narcissism, because, after all, he’s smarter than everyone else. His ego will be his downfall. Fox, Giuliani, et al, are trying to cast doubt before Trump even has a chance to lie.
“I am a competent lawyer. I have been for 36 years. It is not possible to trap someone into perjury”
Quick, someone, remove her license.
Some people’s biographical asides are more credible than others.
No kidding.
Natacha – you ever work with the FBI when they changed the 302s?
hey NuttyChaCha, why don’t you put down your remote, turn off BSNBC, etc, and try to figure out the difference between FACTS and political spin. You obviously don’t know the difference. Your brain has been marinating in the BS for far too long and it shows. You just regurgitated the Democrat spin and talking points almost verbatim here, and you actually believe you are repeating ‘facts.’ Yours, NuttyChaCha, is an impressive example of a thoroughly washed brain.
Trump is going to have to testify to the New York AG’s office, and to Avenatti, and to Zervos’ attorney. Maybe after he gets that practice under his belt he’ll be ready for Mueller?
hollywood – Trump has been interrogated for several cases. I have seen a video of him in action. I think unless they anger him, he can handle himself.
Right, that’s why he had to settle numerous cases. But those were civil cases. And guess what? After testifying, he settled. Or lost as he did to Tim O’Brien. The Mueller investigation is quasi-criminal. The only possible settlement is resignation.
hollywood – as attorneys will tell you, in most legal cases, there is a winner and a loser. You win some, you lose some if you are in enough suits, it is the law of big numbers. The idea is to win more than you lose. And Trump might settle, but he would not resign. Mueller’s investigation was just crippled by the IG report.
BTW, have you started reading the report yet? Riveting stuff.
“The Mueller investigation is quasi-criminal. The only possible settlement is resignation.”
Trump will not lose but what I found interesting is that you have discovered a distinctly new type of law, “quasi-criminal”. I guess in the future we will have a system of civil courts, criminal courts, and quasi-criminal courts along with any other type of court to meet your criminal fantasy.
Hollywood, I should have added this to my former reply. Do you know why a lot of cases are settled? It sounds like you don’t. There are a lot of costs in time and money so neither side is assured victory. There can also be a problem when court costs might be charged to one party. Have you ever added up the costs of legal fees? Apparently not. There are also punitive verdicts.
The one time court costs aren’t granted such consideration is when the government is trying to get someone. The government can spend as much of the taxpayer’s money as it desires. Sometimes they have no limits. [Look up Howard Root video and choose the video that is just under an hour. It will provide a course on this subject if you want to understand what happens. Summary: 25 million dollars later Howard Root was found totally innocent. Most innocent people in similar circumstances settled. Attorneys familiar with the case are horrified at how government prosecutors got away with this type of abuse and it happens all the time. If you don’t wish to know what you are talking about then don’t listen to the video and rant away ignorantly.]
Since Trump has already said he would pardon himself and whoever he wants, so be it. Problem is, he can’t pardon himself and his kids with the NY AG all over him.
Find a provision of the Penal Law of New York that they violated. You can’t do it.
“Find a provision of the Penal Law of New York that they violated. You can’t do it.”
************************
Fishy doesn’t trifle with such mundane matters. He “feels” the violation.
You’ve been listening to Rudy Giuliani on Fox again. Meantime, we find out that Trump uses his alleged foundation to pay his bills, which isn’t allowed. Another day, another scandal.
Natacha doesn’t belong on juries.
—
Eric Schneiderman’s minion couldn’t possibly be pursuing a political vendetta.
Again, disregard the facts and attack the accuser. Typical Trump and Fox News ploy. I’ve seen some of the documentation. He used Trump Foundation funds to pay off a lawsuit. It’s in his own handwriting.
What facts, Natacha? Even if you’d read the briefs, what’s in them amounts to allegations offered in a civil case.
I’ve seen some of the documentation.
Yeah. And you’re a lawyer. And you’re a nurse-practioner.
Not a nurse-practitioner, but was in the program when I was accepted into law school. I do have the MSN, however.
And a CPA? Surely you’re a CPA as well, right?
New York has been going after people forever for tax violations that never occurred. The state needs money so people that have moved out years before and reside elsewhere suddenly get letters in their mailboxes telling them how much money they owe while they resided in another state. It’s an abuse because these people then have to hire lawyers to defend themselves. Leftists can be quite abusive.
New York is finding citizens fleeing and will one day be left with people like Natacha that likely pay little if any taxes.
Read the complaint. https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-new-york-attorney-general-sues-trump-foundation-campaign-coordination-and-self-dealing BTW, there are other laws besides the Penal Code.
He can’t pardon himself and his family from New York state crimes. Sad!
Hollywood, did you ever think that Trump doesn’t need a pardon? Apparently, that never crossed your mind. That demonstrates a mind that is fixed and doesn’t understand a free society. If you did you would understand that people in law enforcement have a special desire to convict Trump for political reasons which should not exist.
I think Trump should get the same interview that Hillary got. Not under oath, no notes and Cohen as my attorney.
So far the Mueller indictments fall into 2 categories. Indictments that are irrelevant and indictments that are pathetic.
He indicted two people on actions they engaged in years ago — not in 2016. The F.B.I. and the Justice Department looked into those matters at the time and saw no reason to pursue them. Evidently Mueller thinks these two entities are incompetent for not doing so.
The other 2 indictments covered the 2016 period, but are so ridiculous and embarrassing to any reasonable prosecutor that you’d have to laugh if it weren’t so pathetic.
Why would anyone sit down with someone who has conducted himself the way Mueller has?
I’m assuming someone here, in a pedantic state of “gottcha”, is going to point out that the proper way to refer to the 2016 “indictments” by Mueller is plea bargains. Special Councils and Special Prosecutors are endless monstrosities with unlimited funds. While it is “gratifying” to see people with 6 figure incomes subjected to the kind of farce poor people face every day in this country, plea bargains don’t mean anything.
And the Flynn and Papadopoulos court filings are hilarious.
SteveJ – our resident expert on plea deals is Marky Mark Mark.
I already know how plea bargains work today.
Uh, your forgetting the superceding indictment of Manafort that extends to activities into April, 2018.
Hollywood, what specific criminal activities of Manafort occurred from 2016-2018 that involve Trump?
Mueller charged a Russian company and now that company is asking for discovery. What do you think is going to happen? I’m not an attorney but I would have thought Mueller would have thought of that possibility. His mind is too politically inclined so he made a bad mistake there. He also hired proven partisans to work for him in the investigation that also demonstrates his lack of neutrality.
I am inclined to prosecute anyone that breaks the law whether it be Republican or Democrat. I don’t like partisans bending the law for their own advantage and that apparently is what has happened at the DOJ and FBI.
I don’t think he should go. He could add nothing to the case. President Trump has been an open book, he couldn’t keep a secret if he wanted to. He has been open publicly even when others said he shouldn’t. To have him testify would be redundant unless they charge him. In my opinion, with his personality all it would do is give him an opportunity to give the same answer in a different form therefore opening him up for some form of perjury. He should stay as far away from Mueller as possible.
Trump has always been an ego driven do anything, say anything, cuz he’s bigger than that which affects the average person, ie: honor, truth, honesty, etc.
This disgusting trait has increased exponentially since he entered politics. In his own words, the world/America has never been in such terrible shape before he took office and he is the only one that can fix it; and things got better immediately after he was sworn in.
It would do the world a world of good to see this trait pilloried in an open question and answer session. The only element strong enough to allow this perversity would be his actions coming to a positive result for Americans. Wage increases, a return of the middle class, a stop to illegal immigration, abolishing the tariffs in other countries, abolishing subsidies in other countries, North Korea joining up with South Korea with no nukes, everything in its place as per the braggadocio, then Trump being the consummate a**hole would not be so bad.
If the Koreas decide to get together, Trump will not have played any role whatsoever in this happening. They’ve wanted this for decades, and used the Olympics as a prelude to friendlier relations. As Isaac points out, Trump’s narcissism is overwhelming. Does he really think that rattling his saber and insulting Un by calling him “Little Rocket Man” would result in the reunification of Korea? Do his faithful followers really believe this? Because Trump lives for adulation, did you hear his praise of Un? How does the Warmbier family feel about all of this?
If the Koreas decide to get together, Trump will not have played any role whatsoever in this happening.
You and Jill. I feelz it therefore iz true.
Given the difference in living standards and cultural development between the two halves of the peninsula, it wouldn’t be terribly prudent to put them under one government.
Natacha – you should check out what Trump said about Warmbier and his family at the press conference.
What is hard to believe is that the left that has been anti-nuclear for decades suddenly is fighting so hard to convince the American public that Trump’s attempt to denuclearize the Korean peninsula is a bad deal. They always advocated talking until now when Trump actually talks to Kim. Obama emphasized the US dump its own nuclear weapons to show others the right path. Suddenly the left is bleeding from all its orifices as they see what Trump is actually trying to do and they are scared sh-tless that he might accomplish such a denuclearization.
The left doesn’t give a sh-t about the US or the World. All they care about is power. They should be supporting the President’s efforts giving that added boost that might make this work but world peace and millions of lives mean nothing to them. Look at the 20th century where outside of war over 100 million people were killed and the left in great numbers supported the killers. They are decadent.
Allan
Unfortunately there is some little thing to what you say. However, how you say it equals the extreme left and you fall into the same area of extreme polar opposites. A polar opposite is a polar opposite is a polar opposite. The left is not scared sh*^less that Trump will accomplish something positive. The left has been for that, along with the right all along. Your extreme angle of your perverse dangle illustrates the main problem with the US, us or them, take your pick of sides from which to perceive the ‘other’ side.
The problem with the US is that it is an oligarchy that works best when there is little to no center. Your perspective feeds this travesty.
North Korea has been destined to fail, just as the Soviet Union was destined to fail. People can only be suppressed for so long. A push here and there only makes a difference when the fall is imminent. When I lived in France in the late 70s and early 80s young idealistic French students would applaud the USSR until they actually visited, then they were mostly quiet. I knew many students who just didn’t go back home to one of the Eastern block countries. The writing was on the wall well before Reagan came along. Reagan was the guy at the right time and he was the finger that pushed a tottering USSR over. He helped make the world a better place for millions. The writing is on the wall for North Korea as well. China has been their last hope and that release has been dissipating. If Kim tries to play it out and keep the nukes while trying to get the sanctions dropped, the first easing up will be China. If they’ve had enough and want what they say they want, prosperity and security, then Trump will be the Reagan that happened along at the right time and pressed the right buttons. Regardless of what an a**hole Trump is and how insufferable it is to watch him claim victory, well before anything is achieved, he will have proved himself right to play this game. There are two issues at play in America. One is the loss of social advancement due to Trump and his policies and the other is Trump the buffoon. If he was indeed making America great, you could laugh off the rest. Until he achieves something, America is a tragedy and Trump is its shame.
“North Korea has been destined to fail, just as the Soviet Union was destined to fail. ”
That is why the Democrats kept thinking we had to live with the Soviet Union forever (until it fell) and why North Korea when starving didn’t collapse. These changes only seem to occur when the President of the US has a spine and all the invertebrates are too busy trying to explain how dumb the President is. I think they are making a movie about your type. It’s called Octopussies.
Wake up Issac and take your meds.
Allan
Read your history of mankind. Society moves in one direction over time; that of freedom and opportunity. What gets in the way is your sort, dividing and polarizing, or stagnating. Thank goodness that Darwin was right and your sort is going extinct, not quickly enough. I believe the last dying gasps are more and more incomprehensible. Your responses, cases in point.
You are reversing things. The polarity occurs mostly on the side of the left and has been occurring for decades. It has gotten so bad that even well known civil libertarians have distanced themselves from the left movements. Never forget in the 20th century over 100 million people were killed outside of war to protect your type of government. If you wish to go further back then you don’t have to stop any earlier than the American Revolution which in good part represented the classical libertarian while the French Revolution represented your side of the equation.
Take note today who is preventing freedom of speech. Look no further than the campus of the university where your type in the name of diversity, a distorted diversity, only looks to polarize the nation based on race and minority status preventing alternative ideas from even being heard. Just look at the violence created at some of the events where your type tried to burn the building down where the speaker was located. They succeeded in preventing the speech and promoting their sick racist type of diversity.
We should all listen to Jr. Some day he might by President or Leader for Life. How could you go wrong with lineage like that?
Sayeth the man from the country where the prime minister’s office has been turned over to the n’er do well son of a previous prime minister.
Who can’t even glue his own fake eyebrows on correctly…