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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[NeedsAdjustments]

Awfully quiet in the Trump Administration forum considering that we just found out that Trump is a likely felon.

I know kiidcarter8 and REDSTATEWARD are hiding in a corner somewhere, but do we really need their blind adoration of Trump to drive conversation?

[Hamilton Samuels]

Awfully quiet in the Trump Administration forum considering that we just found out that Trump is a likely felon.

I know kiidcarter8 and REDSTATEWARD are hiding in a corner somewhere, but do we really need their blind adoration of Trump to drive conversation?

People likely recovering from hangovers, either from celebrating or from trying to cope with Donny's very, very, bad day.

[facilitatorn]

I think it’s more akin to afterglow than a hangover.

Just reveling in all the justice and contributing to Democrats up and down the ballot.

[Yankguy1]

Awfully quiet in the Trump Administration forum considering that we just found out that Trump is a likely felon.

I know kiidcarter8 and REDSTATEWARD are hiding in a corner somewhere, but do we really need their blind adoration of Trump to drive conversation?

I'm a natural pessimist so put me down in the don't count your chickens group.  I'd like a little bit more than words from a convicted felon to prove that the President is a likely felon.   

[NeedsAdjustments]

Awfully quiet in the Trump Administration forum considering that we just found out that Trump is a likely felon.

I know kiidcarter8 and REDSTATEWARD are hiding in a corner somewhere, but do we really need their blind adoration of Trump to drive conversation?

I'm a natural pessimist so put me down in the don't count your chickens group.  I'd like a little bit more than words from a convicted felon to prove that the President is a likely felon.   

His former lawyer implicated him in a crime under oath.  "Likely" is conservative.  I'd actually go with "Obvious."

Unless you really think that Cohen would have plead guilty to crimes investigators didn't have proof of?  Or you really do think it possible that Cohen would have taken it upon himself to execute the payoffs without direction from Trump?

BTW, the Trump Organization also directly implicated in fraud related to those payments:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-company-approved-420000-in-payments-to-cohen-relying-on-sham-invoices-prosecutors-say/2018/08/21/b6b327fc-a596-11e8-97ce-cc9042272f07_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.778f2f2f0de7

But Yankguy1 wouldn't say "likely."  LOL. 

[whiskeypriest]

Awfully quiet in the Trump Administration forum considering that we just found out that Trump is a likely felon.

I know kiidcarter8 and REDSTATEWARD are hiding in a corner somewhere, but do we really need their blind adoration of Trump to drive conversation?

I'm a natural pessimist so put me down in the don't count your chickens group.  I'd like a little bit more than words from a convicted felon to prove that the President is a likely felon.   

As an ex-prosecutor friend of mine used to tell juries, "Priests and nuns do not enter into criminal conspiracies. Criminals.conspire with other Criminals." First, those were the days. God knows what.example.he would use now. Second, those documents and tapes seized from Cohen are going to play a role in all this.

I do not doubt a sitting president can be indicted for crimes. I doubt as a practical matter they would indict, or if indicted prosecute, a sitt9ng president for the offense Cohen accused him of.

[NeedsAdjustments]

Awfully quiet in the Trump Administration forum considering that we just found out that Trump is a likely felon.

I know kiidcarter8 and REDSTATEWARD are hiding in a corner somewhere, but do we really need their blind adoration of Trump to drive conversation?

I'm a natural pessimist so put me down in the don't count your chickens group.  I'd like a little bit more than words from a convicted felon to prove that the President is a likely felon.   

As an ex-prosecutor friend of mine used to tell juries, "Priests and nuns do not enter into criminal conspiracies. Criminals.conspire with other Criminals." First, those were the days. God knows what.example.he would use now. Second, those documents and tapes seized from Cohen are going to play a role in all this.

I do not doubt a sitting president can be indicted for crimes. I doubt as a practical matter they would indict, or if indicted prosecute, a sitt9ng president for the offense Cohen accused him of.

I’m not going to analyze what might happen with Trump based on Cohen’s implicating him in criminal conspiracy because I don’t think there is any way that this is the last of it. We will have more criminal activity to consider  (possibly shortly) and in Nov “likely” a Democratic House ready to investigate and act on it.

[bankshot1]

I wonder if this doesn't play out like Nixon and Watergate.

after getting swamped by the blue tsunami in the '18 elections Republicans assume further party destruction in '20 if Trump is anywhere near the ticket, and pressure him to either resign  or face an impeachment in the House, and likely conviction in the Senate.

And  criminal charges as a private citizen.

and maybe Jr and Jared.

and they might lose their fortune.

So he thinks golfing at Trump National or folding shirts at the prison laundry?

Mar-a-lago or Federal Prison?

Trump resigns, Pence pardons him, America is outraged...

the '20 Repub primary is a clown-show of former Trump quislings and cowards

outraged decent Americans pissed off they can't hang Trump, take it out on the party of deplorables, put a D in the WH, Senate and House.

We as a country get more divided

I don't see a happy ending, unless we get to hang the treasonous son of a bitch

[barton]

I do not doubt a sitting president can be indicted for crimes. I doubt as a practical matter they would indict, or if indicted prosecute, a sitt9ng president for the offense Cohen accused him of.

My doubt is driven by what seems to me the obvious weasel ways for Trump to deny that his hush money was really a campaign contribution.  My guess is that, if he is ever answerable for this stuff, he will say that he was simply paying off dalliances to protect his marriage and his (snicker) reputation from lying schemers.  That the hush money was paid during a campaign was just a coincidence.  To me, Cohen's allegation is only of value when it would comprise part of a much longer list of malfeasance, when it can add a little more heft to multiple indictments.

[Hamilton Samuels]

My only words of advice are to follow the money.

[oilcan]

Oh to be a fly on Robert Mueller's wall!

[NeedsAdjustments]

I do not doubt a sitting president can be indicted for crimes. I doubt as a practical matter they would indict, or if indicted prosecute, a sitt9ng president for the offense Cohen accused him of.

My doubt is driven by what seems to me the obvious weasel ways for Trump to deny that his hush money was really a campaign contribution.  My guess is that, if he is ever answerable for this stuff, he will say that he was simply paying off dalliances to protect his marriage and his (snicker) reputation from lying schemers.  That the hush money was paid during a campaign was just a coincidence.  To me, Cohen's allegation is only of value when it would comprise part of a much longer list of malfeasance, when it can add a little more heft to multiple indictments.

I’m no legal expert of course but I’m not sure that it matters if Trump can come up with other reasons for the payoff. Of course there were other personal/business reasons for the affairs to remain unknown. But even timing aside, he can’t reasonably argue they were not a benefit to the campaign and in service of suppressing info that is of interest to voters.

[NeedsAdjustments]

And no, this doesn't mean candidates running against Trump need to talk about impeachment, although now that Trump is implicated in a felony, I don't see why that should be off-limits.  What is talked about here is the bare minimum of congressional responsibility to oversee the Executive. 

One could make the argument that Republicans in Congress are complicit in crimes, but at the very least, they aren't doing their jobs.

Going back to this...

The shocking thing about the Cohen crimes and the implication of Trump in those crimes is that none of it is shocking.  We have a President who, if he behaves in an outright criminal manner, would surprise no one. 

And that brings Congressional Republican inaction into focus.  They know who this guy is, what he is capable of.  We all do.  So when they block action (even the simplest of action like forcing the release of his tax returns) they are not doing so because they think it isn't necessary, they are doing so to prevent the public from seeing exactly how much of a criminal Trump is.

And I don't think this is said enough, or that people appreciate how extraordinary this is.  We shouldn't assume that if a President breaks the law, you need a congress of the opposite party to hold him accountable.  That is a very, very dangerous path for this country to go down.  And Republicans, with eyes wide open, are putting us there.

[Hamilton Samuels]

On Wednesday morning, the lead story on FoxNews.com was not Michael Cohen’s admission that Donald Trump had instructed him to violate campaign-finance laws by paying hush money to two of Trump’s mistresses. It was the alleged murder of a white Iowa woman, Mollie Tibbetts, by an undocumented Latino immigrant, Cristhian Rivera.


On their face, the two stories have little in common. Fox is simply covering the Iowa murder because it distracts attention from a revelation that makes Trump look bad. But dig deeper and the two stories are connected: They represent competing notions of what corruption is.



Cohen’s admission highlights one of the enduring riddles of the Trump era. Trump’s supporters say they care about corruption. During the campaign, they cheered his vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. When Morning Consult asked Americans in May 2016 to explain why they disliked Hillary Clinton, the second-most-common answer was that she was “corrupt.” And yet, Trump supporters appear largely unfazed by the mounting evidence that Trump is the least ethical president in modern American history. When asked last month whether they considered Trump corrupt, only 14 percent of Republicans said yes. Even Cohen’s allegation is unlikely to change that.

The swamp isn’t easy to drain.

The answer may lie in how Trump and his supporters define corruption. In a forthcoming book titled How Fascism Works, the Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley makes an intriguing claim. “Corruption, to the fascist politician,” he suggests, “is really about the corruption of purity rather than of the law. Officially, the fascist politician’s denunciations of corruption sound like a denunciation of political corruption. But such talk is intended to evoke corruption in the sense of the usurpation of the traditional order.”


Fox’s decision to focus on the Iowa murder rather than Cohen’s guilty plea illustrates Stanley’s point. In the eyes of many Fox viewers, I suspect, the network isn’t ignoring corruption so much as highlighting the kind that really matters. When Trump instructed Cohen to pay off women with whom he’d had affairs, he may have been violating the law. But he was upholding traditional gender and class hierarchies. Since time immemorial, powerful men have been cheating on their wives and using their power to evade the consequences.


The Iowa murder, by contrast, signifies the inversion—the corruption—of that “traditional order.” Throughout American history, few notions have been as sacrosanct as the belief that white women must be protected from nonwhite men. By allegedly murdering Tibbetts, Rivera did not merely violate the law. He did something more subversive: He violated America’s traditional racial and sexual norms.

Trump’s supporters honor the American tradition of discrimination.

Once you grasp that for Trump and many of his supporters, corruption means less the violation of law than the violation of established hierarchies, their behavior makes more sense. Since 2014, Trump has employed the phrase rule of law nine times in tweets. Seven of them refer to illegal immigration.

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/568147/

To defeat your enemy, you must first understand him it her.

[whiskeypriest]

Donald Trump's mother gestates turkeys.