Cohen’s statement for tomorrow.

Link

(02-27-2019 12:37 AM)At Ease Wrote:  Cohen’s statement for tomorrow.

Link

"Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that
Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not."

Isn't collusion with Russia the witch that Mueller has been hunting?




"It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served
his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in
Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes."

Pretty much standard practice. Some assets, like your IRA or your checking account, can, and should be,, easily valued to the penny. But real estate is not. It is an estimate with a range. Nothing wrong with using the top of the range for one purpose and the bottom of the range for another.

Let me ask you this. You don't have to answer if the answer would be embarrassing to you.

You have an appointment with the tax assessor to value your house. He asks you what you think it s worth. You give him a number.

One hour later, you have an appointment with a prospective buyer. He asks you what you want for the house. Do you give him the same number?

The dud that will blow up Washington

Commentators take pains to note that Mueller, while investigating suspected coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, has charged nearly three dozen defendants. Omitted are the inconvenient facts that the indictments of Trump associates have nothing to do with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, while the indictments of Russian cyber spies have nothing to do with Trump.


For example, “collusion” pours off every page of the lengthy “statement of the offense” Mueller filed in Papadopoulos’ case: meetings with shadowy figures portraying themselves as Kremlin assets (one even pretending to be Vladimir Putin’s niece!), talk of a trove of Clinton emails, purported plans for summits between the GOP nominee and the Russian dictator. In the end, though, it’s collusion interruptus — Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the date of a meeting. The more recent Stone indictment features 20 pages of heavy breathing about Russian cyber ops, WikiLeaks legerdemain, and the breathless anticipation of a Clinton campaign implosion. When you flip to the last two pages, though, Stone is charged in seven process crimes that impeded congressional investigations — nothing to do with conspiracy, espionage, or hacking.

Quote:Cohen has left the Thugs for Trump club and passed that baton to certain House Republicans. I would have loved to have been in the strategy session when the House Republicans decided to be incurious about Trump’s sins and crimes but to rip the skin off Cohen.

Normal people have moral sentiments. Normal people are repulsed when the president of their own nation lies, cheats, practices bigotry, allegedly pays off porn star mistresses.

Quote:In “East of Eden,” John Steinbeck writes: “Humans are caught — in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too — in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last. … A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard clean questions: was it good or was it evil? Have I done well — or ill.”

That is the passage that confronts us as we decide to defend or condemn Trump. The moral drama is the central drama. Did you, at your crucial moment, side with generosity or greed?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/opini...imony.html

Were normal people repulsed by Bill Clinton?

(03-01-2019 10:52 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Were normal people repulsed by Bill Clinton?

I wasn't, and I'm not repulsed by Trump either. He does some things I like and some things I don't.

The way I see it, we hire a president to do a job, not to be a moral paragon. If he does a good job, then he was a good hire. If mot, he wasn't. But that's the only dimension I really care about.

Hypocrisy?

More hypocrisy?

No problem

(03-01-2019 09:23 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

Quote:Cohen has left the Thugs for Trump club and passed that baton to certain House Republicans. I would have loved to have been in the strategy session when the House Republicans decided to be incurious about Trump’s sins and crimes but to rip the skin off Cohen.

Normal people have moral sentiments. Normal people are repulsed when the president of their own nation lies, cheats, practices bigotry, allegedly pays off porn star mistresses.

Quote:In “East of Eden,” John Steinbeck writes: “Humans are caught — in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too — in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last. … A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard clean questions: was it good or was it evil? Have I done well — or ill.”

That is the passage that confronts us as we decide to defend or condemn Trump. The moral drama is the central drama. Did you, at your crucial moment, side with generosity or greed?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/opini...imony.html

I am amused that the Democrats are now the oracles for the moral majority set. When the 'aych-eee-double toothpicks' did that change take place?

(03-06-2019 10:31 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Hypocrisy?

More hypocrisy?

No problem

Re: the first link, detailing OAC's campaign redirecting donations to a sub-rosa LLC and bypassing all election accounting regimes.

Hypocrisy?

Considering her diatribe earlier this month in committee where she grandstanded about dark money..... well..... you be the judge.

Grandstanding against dark money politics

Edited to add: between OAC, Ilhan Omar, and Tlabi(sp?), the new Left's freshmen are quite the poster children for the 'new movement', aren't they?

AOC, Tlabi, Omar - these were the poster children for the "diverse" House the Dems are so proud of.

Shows what can happen when you vote for somebody on the basis of their identity.

Didn't matter if they were racist or socialist.

(03-06-2019 04:04 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-06-2019 10:31 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Hypocrisy?

More hypocrisy?

No problem

Re: the first link, detailing OAC's campaign redirecting donations to a sub-rosa LLC and bypassing all election accounting regimes.

Hypocrisy?

Considering her diatribe earlier this month in committee where she grandstanded about dark money..... well..... you be the judge.

Grandstanding against dark money politics

Edited to add: between OAC, Ilhan Omar, and Tlabi(sp?), the new Left's freshmen are quite the poster children for the 'new movement', aren't they?

I enjoy some of the new faces on the right as well. My personal favorite example was Dan Crenshaw trying to use the Patriots' success in the NFL to argue that high taxes are bad.

He kind of overlooked the fact that the NFL penalizes the best performing teams in the subsequent draft (the superbowl winner drafts last), has equal revenue sharing among all teams, has set a hard salary cap, and on and on. The NFL is basically a little communist system, so not exactly a great example to use when trying to knock someone's supposed socialist agenda.

So a 'diatribe against a professional football team as a lesson on taxes' is equivalent to 'a soapbox on dark money when your campaign probably committed several felonies in transferring campaign funds to under the radar LLCs' are equivalent in your mind?

Sorry, a stupid as hell allegory doesnt even make it into the same room, let alone neighborhood of the 'lets speak out against dark money *and* have our own campaign break all sorts of FEC regulations and Federal laws' scenario, or for that matter Omar's ardent, fairly open, and bald-faced anti-Semitism. (And yes, Omar does have a fairly long record of this -- I suggest you hop over to a political blog called 'Powerline' and search her name there. The authors there are in her district nad have been following her trail for about a year and a half now....) At least the Republicans had the sense to vote down a David Duke candidacy......

(03-06-2019 04:32 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(03-06-2019 04:04 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-06-2019 10:31 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Hypocrisy?
More hypocrisy?
No problem

Re: the first link, detailing OAC's campaign redirecting donations to a sub-rosa LLC and bypassing all election accounting regimes.
Hypocrisy?
Considering her diatribe earlier this month in committee where she grandstanded about dark money..... well..... you be the judge.
Grandstanding against dark money politics
Edited to add: between OAC, Ilhan Omar, and Tlabi(sp?), the new Left's freshmen are quite the poster children for the 'new movement', aren't they?

I enjoy some of the new faces on the right as well. My personal favorite example was Dan Crenshaw trying to use the Patriots' success in the NFL to argue that high taxes are bad.
He kind of overlooked the fact that the NFL penalizes the best performing teams in the subsequent draft (the superbowl winner drafts last), has equal revenue sharing among all teams, has set a hard salary cap, and on and on. The NFL is basically a little communist system, so not exactly a great example to use when trying to knock someone's supposed socialist agenda.

I think the better analogy would be Sweden, which is capitalism with a baseline floor. The NFL shares some things, but there is still a lot of room for teams to excel consistently--or to head to the opposite extreme. What the NFL proves is that even with the attributes you mention, the cream still rises to the top. The best do it consistently (New England Patriots). The mediocre are mediocre consistently (Dallas Cowboys). And the bad are bad consistently (Cincinnati Bengals).

A truly communist system would have had, say, the Browns in the Super Bowl against the Jaguars, even though they are both in the same conference and were both pretty bad, because they haven't been before, and it's from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

(03-06-2019 10:31 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Hypocrisy?

Check out the last paragraph of that article — it describes a miniature Clinton operation!

(03-06-2019 04:52 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  So a 'diatribe against a professional football team as a lesson on taxes' is equivalent to 'a soapbox on dark money when your campaign probably committed several felonies in transferring campaign funds to under the radar LLCs' are equivalent in your mind?

Sorry, a stupid as hell allegory doesnt even make it into the same room, let alone neighborhood of the 'lets speak out against dark money *and* have our own campaign break all sorts of FEC regulations and Federal laws' scenario, or for that matter Omar's ardent, fairly open, and bald-faced anti-Semitism. (And yes, Omar does have a fairly long record of this -- I suggest you hop over to a political blog called 'Powerline' and search her name there. The authors there are in her district nad have been following her trail for about a year and a half now....) At least the Republicans had the sense to vote down a David Duke candidacy......

The article I read from OO didn't say anything about the campaign breaking any FEC regulations or federal laws. Can you link me to what happened?

And before you go beating your chest about disavowing David Duke, what about Steve King? Everything I've seen Omar accused of pails in comparison to what Steve King says, but I don't read Power Line (links would be helpful there too).

OAC issue:

https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2019/0...laint.html

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ocasio-...nt-alleges

https://www.scribd.com/document/40108115...t-as-Filed

Power line blog:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/

Scott Johnson there has been writing about Ilhan and clan since 2016 -- when Ilhan ran for the state representative seat in Johnson's home area of Minneapolis.

In all honesty, it is fairly fitting that she succeeded the now DNC vice-chair Keith Ellison's House of Representatives seat, especially given Ellison's long engagement with the Farakhan and the Nation of Islam.

Quote:WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump has warned his political opponents of the possibility that they could eventually be confronted by armed Trump supporters in and out of uniform, telling a right-wing website on Monday that “it would be very bad, very bad” if his backers in the military, police and a motorcycle group were provoked into getting “tough.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2019/...tough.html

(03-14-2019 12:41 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

Quote:WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump has warned his political opponents of the possibility that they could eventually be confronted by armed Trump supporters in and out of uniform, telling a right-wing website on Monday that “it would be very bad, very bad” if his backers in the military, police and a motorcycle group were provoked into getting “tough.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2019/...tough.html

This is going to get lost in the news about the horrific Mosque attacks in New Zealand, but it is one of the most disturbing things Trump has said. If he had mentioned just bikers maybe you could write it off as a bad, highly inappropriate joke. But bringing police and the military into it is highly problematic. That's pretty much the definition of an authoritarian regime.

(03-15-2019 07:57 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(03-14-2019 12:41 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

Quote:WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump has warned his political opponents of the possibility that they could eventually be confronted by armed Trump supporters in and out of uniform, telling a right-wing website on Monday that “it would be very bad, very bad” if his backers in the military, police and a motorcycle group were provoked into getting “tough.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2019/...tough.html

This is going to get lost in the news about the horrific Mosque attacks in New Zealand, but it is one of the most disturbing things Trump has said. If he had mentioned just bikers maybe you could write it off as a bad, highly inappropriate joke. But bringing police and the military into it is highly problematic. That's pretty much the definition of an authoritarian regime.

Disturbing? Perhaps.

But realistic? Quite possibly. I don't know about your daily affairs, but what I'm seeing regularly convinces me that there is very real and very widespread dissension with the way things are going in this country. I think he has expressed a very realistic concern. I am quite seriously worried that we are headed toward something like that, and if you are not worried I think you should be.

I don't think this is any kind of "dog whistle," although I'm quite certain that it will be portrayed that way in some media outlets. Whenever I hear that term, I'm reminded that a dog whistle is something that is heard only by the dog, and most "dog whistle" comments are directed at things that are heard by everybody but the purported dog.

(03-15-2019 08:51 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-15-2019 07:57 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(03-14-2019 12:41 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

Quote:WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump has warned his political opponents of the possibility that they could eventually be confronted by armed Trump supporters in and out of uniform, telling a right-wing website on Monday that “it would be very bad, very bad” if his backers in the military, police and a motorcycle group were provoked into getting “tough.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2019/...tough.html

This is going to get lost in the news about the horrific Mosque attacks in New Zealand, but it is one of the most disturbing things Trump has said. If he had mentioned just bikers maybe you could write it off as a bad, highly inappropriate joke. But bringing police and the military into it is highly problematic. That's pretty much the definition of an authoritarian regime.

Disturbing? Perhaps.

But realistic? Quite possibly. I don't know about your daily affairs, but what I'm seeing regularly convinces me that there is very real and very widespread dissension with the way things are going in this country. I think he has expressed a very realistic concern. I am quite seriously worried that we are headed toward something like that, and if you are not worried I think you should be.

I don't think this is any kind of "dog whistle," although I'm quite certain that it will be portrayed that way in some media outlets. Whenever I hear that term, I'm reminded that a dog whistle is something that is heard only by the dog, and most "dog whistle" comments are directed at things that are heard by everybody but the purported dog.

If Trump was actually concerned with the widespread dissension, he would have expressed the concern about them and encouraged them not to play tough. Why did he not encourage those supporters who he called tough, to not ever play tough, regardless of what point they get to?

Quote:"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."

Breitbart said Trump was talking about the "vicious" tactics of "the left."

“So here’s the thing—it’s so terrible what’s happening,” Trump said before discussing his supporters. “You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. Okay?"