Kamala Harris Asks Twitter To Suspend Donald Trump For 'Civil War' and Whistleblower Tweets (theverge.com) 567
California senator and 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris has formally asked Twitter to suspend President Donald Trump's account, following Trump's attacks on a whistleblower and his claim that impeachment would start a civil war. From a report: In an open letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Harris says that Trump has used Twitter to "target, harass, and attempt to out" the person who filed an explosive complaint about Trump pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on rival candidate Joe Biden. Trump has been tweeting angrily about the complaint for several days now. Harris cites multiple messages where he calls the whistleblower "a spy" as well as a tweet where he called to arrest Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who has helped lead the investigation into Trump's actions, for "fraud and treason." Offline, Trump has arguably insinuated that the whistleblower should be executed for spying -- something Harris says makes his tweets more threatening. "These tweets should be placed in the proper context," she writes. Around the same time, Trump quoted a Fox News claim that "if the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office (which they will never be), it will cause a civil war-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal," which Harris also notes. "These tweets represent a clear intent to baselessly discredit the whistleblower and officials in our government who are following the proper channels to report allegations of presidential impropriety, all while making blatant threats that put people at risk and our democracy in danger," she writes. Twitter told The Verge that it has received the letter and plans to respond to Harris's concerns.
In all fairness..... (Score:5, Insightful)
That might prove the most beneficial thing to ALL mankind at this point.....
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you consider that they haven't followed the procedure for formal impeachment... just made this noise, I think this is a compromise with their base to keep emotion whipped up and loyalties inline up to the election without any actual impeachment proceedings.
Exactly this. They know they don't have chance of actual impeachment so they just strut about talking about it like it's gonna happen any second. I hate politics soooo much.
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How is this modded at +5? There is a very real chance that the House of Representatives will impeach the President. A few weeks ago, not so much. Now, public opinion has swayed sufficiently for the Democrats in Congress (they do have a majority you know) to no longer fear voting for Articles of Impeachment, and losing their seat in congress as a result.
Now, remove Trump from office after the Articles of Impeachment? Highly unlikely unless this really goes sideways (and really, erratic as the President
Nowhting iyou said is right (Score:3)
First, the Senate doesn't vote on impeachment. That's the House. Once the President is impeached, the Senate has to vote on if he is removed. But, the House appoints teh people who present evidence to the Senate,so Pelosi not McConnell will be driving that.
Second, public support for impeachment is 3x higher than it was at the start of Nixon's inquiry.
Third, I don't think it would be political suicide for Republican senators to vote to remove. Odds are that after the inquiry the public is far more in fav
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Nah, this is absolutely dead serious. The problem wasn't that there was no Russian collusion: there was. The problem was that the whole thing was hard to explain to the public. This new crime is not at all difficult to explain, the public is already sold on impeachment, and it is not going to hurt the democrats to impeach in this political climate. Just like, quite frankly, it did not hurt the Republicans to impeach Clinton for a blowjob. They won the next presidential election, and whatever house and senat
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because the media says they're right wing, doesn't mean their right wing. They could be alt-right, the Christchurch shooter was literally quoting both left and right so it's more about causing chaos
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the Democrats should just ignore Trump's BS and go after real issues.. like the impending recession, poor manufacturing results, stagnant wages, increasing health care.. if America is somehow "better" than it was 3 years ago, I'd like to know how.
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's useless... the trumpkins will believe they are better off if their golden one tells them so. They just did a poll... despite it being right there in black and white in a document Trump released, 4 of 10 republicans don't believe he mentioned Biden in that phone call... because their noise machine tells them otherwise.
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is, the Dems are courting the Extreme Left.
TDS Crazies who simply CANNOT leave the Trump thing alone.
I mean, it's okay not to like Trump. He sure as hell isn't everyone's cup of tea.
And it's perfectly fine to dislike policies being pushed by his administration. Totally free country. And everyone has their own ideas about what's best for it.
But the TDS crowd are at the point where, so long as it sounds bad and is attributed to Trump, they'll believe it.
Zero evidence. Zero research. Zero credibility.
If you've ever seen the "They've Killed Fritz" scene from Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards", they're like that.
https://youtu.be/ujQ-nMc0WGE [youtu.be]
And these people, if you're not FULLY on-board with their insanity, you're the enemy.
What the Dems don't understand is that these people are a small (albeit LOUD) minority of the total constituency.
And the further they jump Left to appease them, the more centrists/moderates they lose, and the more offensive they get, the harder the Right's opposition to them becomes.
They don't care about ethics, they don't care about right or wrong. They don't even care about issues.
They just want Their Way. It's all Power Politics now. And NOTHING else.
As for how the country's better?
Look at the unemployment numbers.
Look at your tax returns.
Look at several international trade deals that've been renegotiated in our favor.
Look at several mutual defense partners who've FINALLY been convinced to fulfill their economic and military obligations after decades of simply pushing the check down the table for the US to pay.
And what's the DNC's idea of making things better?
Taxing companies and wealthy individuals at 90% of their income AND 10% of their assets (which aren't necessarily liquid cash). Which will accomplish one thing.
Chasing these companies and individuals out of the US. PERMANENTLY.
THEN who gets over-taxed to pay for massive government pork?
*HINT* Look in a mirror!
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem you run into with this is that it's a bit like the boy who cried wolf. When you've been slinging accusations of impropriety for the last several years, people start to tune you out and ignore you. So even if they do finally stumble on something of substance, all of the past attempts that weren't as substantive mean that the default position for anyone who is a dyed in the wool Democrat is going to be skepticism.
That description fits the Republicans too, these bozos actually go on National TV and propagate absurd conspiracy theories they found on YouTube, ... E-mail gate, Benghazi-gate, the whole 'Killary' bullshit, Q-Anon, the deep state, George Soros is the root of all evil, the Democrats are running a child prostitution ring out of the basement of a pizza joint, ... give me a break, right wingers accusing the Democrats of crying wolf really is the pot calling the kettle black.
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you meant to quote this part: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
The actual Constitution says something quite different than you did.
Re:In all fairness..... (Score:5, Informative)
They're both wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I strongly oppose our Cheeto-in-Chief, but it's un-American to try to silence the opposition.
The correct response to bad speech is good speech.
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I believe her argument here is that 45 is violating Twitter's terms of service. Not sure, I haven't RTFA, nor have I read Twitter's T&C. Even if the presidential account isn't suspended (which I think would be a bad thing) then it'd at least call attention to the echo-chamber rhetoric that many feel is poisonous.
Re:They're both wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
TBH Twitter doesn't follow twitter's own terms of service. The selective nature of who is and isn't banned from twitter looks like a complete arbitrary decision making in concert with unforgiving (and ignorant) AI.
However, Harris just showed that she's for censorship, which should scare everyone who is rational. That alone is reason enough to never vote for her (or anyone who agrees with her). But it isn't.
Bingo (Score:3)
Re: They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Good speech doesn't counteract the effect of yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater. Good speech won't counteract yelling "Civil War and COUP" in the middle of a bloodthirsty and paranoid right wing movement.
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Re: They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you can shoot unarmed women and burn children in buildings because they are "scary" people who are defying illegal/immoral government actions.
(see Waco / Ruby Ridge / Philadelphia and soon Hong Kong)
I am more scared of unencumbered government power than I am of a few people who are otherwise peaceful. And unlike the government actions you mention where NOBODY was killed, the ones I mentioned caused unneeded deaths, because nobody stood for the victims. And, just for the record, Bundy clan was cleared of any and all wrong doing, it was the US government in the wrong, as declared by the courts.
There is a difference between peaceful and harmless (the danger presented by the intended victim). You don't want peaceful, you want harmless. I want peaceful, not harmless. The government OUGHT to be scared of the populace, not the other way around.
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As for the bundys.. they got a case of jury nullification, and a judge so worried about a second nullification that they decided a document that contained no factual information but a lot of emotionally charged accusations about 'government employees not liking them!' was a brady violation?
These people are not peaceful, th
Re: They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
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“To permit irresponsible authority is to sell disaster.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
Re: They're both wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
It can be argued that the democrats abandoning founding principles is causing a civil war like fracture as well.
Might I trouble you to elaborate on that point? I'm honestly trying to not take sides here in this but the rhetoric of the President as of late has been definitely... questionable/troublesome, to try to put it in the best of terms. I want to keep an open mind, so I'm curious as to what people see as the faults in the other side. However, it's become difficult to understand what the President's supporters are trying to promote here because everything is so over the top when I ask them. I know not everyone is of the mindset of "The Democrats are destroying democracy!!!!" but gosh, that seems to be the crowd on the Internet the most here as of late. So I'm curious as to what's behind that kind of statement, unless it's some superlative filled rant about the Democrats. I can find that kind of stuff a dime a dozen on Twitter.
Re: They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure.
The current article is about a democratic presidential candidate calling for de facto censorship because she doesn't like what is being said. I can agree Trumps tweets/speech can be questionable/troublesome but that is not an excuse to call for any kind of censorship.
We have democratic presidential candidates calling for mandatory gun confiscation. Whether you want more gun control or not democrats have always said "we are not coming for your guns". Now, it's mandatory buy backs.
Biden has called on news execs to stop showing Guiliani because he doesn't like what he is saying with regards to his son and Ukraine.
Using evidence-less hearsay to call for impeachment.
During the Kavanaugh confirmation we had democrats pushing forward unsubstantiated claims and pick up activist rhetoric from #metoo that disregards the concept of innocence until proven guilty.
We have had the Supreme Court argue, from democratic appointees, that POTUS has the power to do what Trump is doing but Trump can't do it because orange man bad. IOW, we should restrict power based on who we think should have power. Not what is legal.
Positions held by democrats 10 years ago are now racist and it's racist to want borders.
These are just off the top of my head about democrats, in power, abandoning founding principles while ignoring the walking gaffes in "the squad".
Politics are downstream from culture and the leftist culture has pushed the democrats very far to the left to the point that they are unrecognizable from anything sensible.
Re: They're both wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really getting out of control. Feel free to call out Kamala for a political stunt here, because that's pretty damned clear. She's attempting to gain traction in the primary and it's showing. She's shaking up her staff because the current formula isn't working. See through her rhetoric and find the intent. We can all certainly gain some sanity using that logic with our President's tweets.
The sentiments you keep repeating above in this thread are not compelling in the least. If you want to complain about things Democrats are doing wrong, at least pick some real ones.
The current article is about a democratic presidential candidate calling for de facto censorship because she doesn't like what is being said.
Temporary suspension of a Twitter account doesn't restrict the President's voice. Those comments are quite incendiary, not that they're the first we've seen, and they violate their Terms of Service. Twitter's too scared to do anything, and if memory serves it's an official government channel that isn't allowed to block people. The point is, it isn't a stretch to say the comments warrant deletion or a suspension, and telling a corporation they can't suspend a social media account insane.
We have democratic presidential candidates calling for mandatory gun confiscation.
Confiscation is bit of a bridge too far for me, but the issue doesn't have a direct impact on me so I consider my own opinions on this meaningless. But at least it's an attempt to force a conversation on the matter. It's better than the "let's do nothing - everything's fine" refrain that is (a) wrong, as things are not fine and (b) all too familiar.
Biden has called on news execs to stop showing Guiliani because he doesn't like what he is saying with regards to his son and Ukraine.
And? Biden's free to say what he wants, and several channels Biden didn't name will welcome him on any time. Guilliani doesn't need to be on TV all the time, as much as his bringing other officials into the fray is helping the case for the current inquiry I'd think he is better served off the air for the President. And until we start seeing facts come into play that implicate Biden in something, let's lay off the sauce on this. And be comforted - Twitter wasn't mentioned here either.
Using evidence-less hearsay to call for impeachment
3 wrong concepts in one sentence - kind of impressive. It's an inquiry and not an Impeachment vote, there is first and second-hand knowledge being used, and so far the inspector general says the concerns have merit. If it turns out they don't, well, this inquiry likely dies pretty fast.
During the Kavanaugh confirmation we had democrats pushing forward unsubstantiated claims and pick up activist rhetoric from #metoo that disregards the concept of innocence until proven guilty.
I don't know the claims you're referring to as being unsubstantiated, but the main concern is that Ford's allegations were not new (she's had counselling records for years over the incident) and, if you simply look at Kavanaugh's prepped response, it didn't sound like someone with a proper temperament for being a judge, let alone a Supreme Court justice. And, most importantly, it was a hearing and not a criminal trial. There was no formal innocence or guilt being decided, not that that was the center of what was going on.
We have had the Supreme Court argue, from democratic appointees, that POTUS has the power to do what Trump is doing but Trump can't do it because orange man bad. IOW, we should restrict power based on who we think should have power. Not what is legal.
I'm pretty sure we all have major disagreements with Supreme Court rulings - what are you specifically referring to here?
Positions held by democrats 10 years ago are now racist and it's racist to want borders.
Re: They're both wrong (Score:4)
His suggestion that the whistleblower is a spy is dumb. His suggestion that the whistleblower is a spy in the context of his offline suggestion that spies should be executed seems to support violence. Given that, maybe that comment should be removed due to the potential to incite his base to commit violence against the whistleblower if his identity becomes known.
As for his suggestion that something or another could lead to a civil war... that's a dumb suggestion but I don't see any reason to remove it. It's certainly not supportive of a civil war like some people seem to be suggesting. It's just another dumb comment suggesting that people Trump doesn't like are anti-American instigators. I don't think Twitter should remove that. On the contrary, I think it's important people have the chance to see and discuss idiotic statements like that.
Twitter can generally remove comments for whatever reason they choose. They don't need any moral justification to do so and I don't think they need much legal justification either. That doesn't speak to whether they should, however. I'd much rather social media platforms took a minimum force approach and allowed people to discuss things openly and, occasionally, make fools of themselves. I think US free speech protections are a good yardstick to use on these platforms: credible threats of violence and incitements to commit criminal action should be removed, Trump acting like an idiot absolutely should stay up as it gives people an opportunity to see and discuss what kinds of things he's saying.
I think it's entirely reasonable to suggest that maybe we're at a point where the best course of action might be small scale corrections, like closing loopholes or discouraging media from glorifying mass shooters. There are always going to be gun deaths. If you completely ban all guns from private use, there will be gun deaths. If you give everyone and their mother and 4 year old child a gun, there will be gun deaths. If your definition of "fine" is no one dies because of guns, then nothing will ever be fine. I'm not advocating for a particular position here (not to say I don't have an opinion, I'd just rather keep it to myself), I just think that supporting the status quo or something close to it is a reasonable position to take.
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Seems a lot more like YOU are ignoring his actual quote and context. Of course impeachment will fracture the nation (even more) and cause a lot of disharmony. Wow what a shocker!!
Also calling someone who leaked a private conversation between the president of the U.S. and the head of state a traitor is simply accurate. I don't see anything wrong with that at all, and treating a person as a traitor means they would be tried as one and receive judgment of the court system in the open.
What WOULD have been a
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Re: They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
No I literally copied it from his tweet. I didn't think it necessary for the "it" but if you want it [twitter.com].
“Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats can’t put down the Impeachment match. They know they couldn’t beat him in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and they’re increasingly aware of the fact that they won’t win against him in 2020, and Impeachment is the only tool they have to get rid of Donald J. Trump - And the Democrats don’t care if they burn down and destroy this nation in the process. I have never seen the Evangelical Christians more angry over any issue than this attempt to illegitimately remove this President from office, overturn the 2016 Election, and negate the votes of millions of Evangelicals in the process. They know the only Impeachable offense that President Trump has committed was beating Hillary Clinton in 2016. That’s the unpardonable sin for which the Democrats will never forgive him If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews
The context is that we just finished years of the russiagate lies and conspiracy from the media and the democrats, arguments at the Supreme Court being "well the POTUS can do it just not this POTUS because orange man bad", positions democrats had 10 years ago are now racist because Trump, and now an impeachment based on hearsay and a 3rd hand account without any evidence or information while Trump publishes everything relevant.
Yes, it does seem like the democrats cannot get over the 2016, have moved farther to the left than anyone expected, and are using everything they can to get Trump out by any means necessary including changing or ignoring the Constitution to get their way.
Republicans hated Obama and it was annoying. They didn't whine about changing the rules, nor attempt to overturn the election, they didn't bring forward impeachment on hearsay, nor sabotage the very institutions that are supposed to be above political bullshit. They focused on elections and after winning gained power to put forward their agenda, as dumb as it was sometimes.
>As I said, the far right has been preparing for a civil war since the 1990s
>Constant worries of socialist
>globalist insurgence
Hmm, Socialists are now mainstream running for president and we cannot have border laws or else that is racist. Seems like they were just a bit early.
But seriously, it looks like you are extrapolating your upbringing with society at large. Your reality is yours to create. Your perception is one interpretation among billions. I see the far right and survivalist doomsday as a very small minority. I also see the growing far left and extreme socialists and communists becoming more mainstream.
Re: They're both wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
"If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so," Mr. Mueller said, reading from prepared notes behind a lectern at the Justice Department at a hastily called public appearance.
He also noted that while Justice Department policy prohibits charging a sitting president with a crime, the Constitution
Re: (Score:3)
>"If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,"
Quoting this shows that you do not understand what it means.
>praying one of his supporters will murder the witnesses. This is mafia level shit
Ok. Nvm. You are insane.
Re: They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
No prosecutor ever proves your innocence. They never come out and say "we investigated and found you innocent". This is a nonsensical statement when the basis of Justice is "innocent until proven guilty". It's a bone thrown to democrats for them to take the Russia Collusion ball and run if they want (which obviously they didn't).
They look to prove guilt and the burden of proof is on them to prove it. Let me rephrase his statement to say the exact same thing: "We cannot prove a negative. So we will not say with confidence he is innocent.". When the report amounted to "we investigated and found no evidence".
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Republicans hated Obama and it was annoying. They didn't whine about changing the rules, nor attempt to overturn the election, they didn't bring forward impeachment on hearsay, nor sabotage the very institutions that are supposed to be above political bullshit.
Liar.
"One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.'"
--Mitch McConnell
He intentionally and maliciously broke the Justice Department for his own political ideology, refusing to even allow Merrick Garland's nomination for the Supreme Court to be considered by the Senate. Blatant partisan sabotage of the very institutions that are supposed to be above political bullshit, in black and white and in his own words.
Re: They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
>point of pride to intentionally try to stop ANY agenda from Obama,
After 2010. Yes, they didn't pass laws that Obama wanted. They obstructed, a power that Congress has always had. That is not changing the fundamental rules of the nation (constitution). That is not putting forward impeachment based on hearsay. That is not sabotaging institutions with political bullshit.
> changed some Senate rules
They expanded the rule change from democrats who changed the rules earlier. It was warned to not change rules. Should GOP have not followed through on their warning?
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I strongly oppose our Cheeto-in-Chief, but it's un-American to try to silence the opposition.
The correct response to bad speech is good speech.
Indeed. Mr. Trump is a total arsewipe and a no-good, very bad hombre. His tweets are inflammatory too.
That said- no, twitter shouldn't silence him. If we silenced all the jerks this world would be very quiet. Everyone's a jerk to a degree at times.
Re:They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems like an asymmetric weapon. Democrats engaged in much hyperbole about how "people will die" should Republicans repeal Obamacare, and then the nutjob goes and opens fire on the Republican baseball practice. Or they engage in hyperbole about "concentration camps" and "kids in cages" and that nutjob attacks the ICE detention center. Is it all "stochastic terrorism?" Or is merely "political hyperbole" and "rhetoric" when my side does it, and "stochastic terrorism" when the other side does it?
Given that there were 60+ million Americans who voted for Trump, and 60+ million Americans who voted against Trump, and single-digit numbers of people who took up arms after hearing pro-Trump or anti-Trump rhetoric, I don't think stochastic terrorism is a thing. It's kind of like violent video games causing school shootings. Tens of millions of people play Doom or Call of Duty. One or two people a year shoot up a school. If the video games had anything to do with it we'd all be knee deep in blood by now. Same thing with the current political rhetoric in the US: tens of millions hear it, single-digit numbers of people act.
Re: They're both wrong (Score:3)
I don't disagree with your premise about the questionable validity of stochastic terrorism, but it's worth pointing out that invoking the possibility of civil war is a significant escalation over typical hyperbolic rhetoric. The examples you cited may have been overblown, but they did not allude to potential acts of violence. FWIW, I'm also not sure I'd even classify "people will die" as hyperbole in the context of those people losing health care coverage.
Trump's standing with respect to Twitter's TOS is of
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Remember, this appeals to her voters or she'd not be saying it. I know they don't really understand that they are basically suggesting that we limit political speech and don't understand what the implications of allowing that actually is, but what does it say about these voters, and this politician, that suggesting something like this is seen as effective?
What's next? Brown shirts and Jack boots? Seriously, why is it we cannot endure political speech, even that which is coarse or rude?
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Remember, this appeals to her voters or she'd not be saying it. I know they don't really understand that they are basically suggesting that we limit political speech and don't understand what the implications of allowing that actually is,
Pot meet kettle.
I don't like Trump, I won't shed a tear when he's gone; that said, it is telling that a lot of the leading candidates of the democrats are equally nutty in the other direction. I think there is a lot of knee-jerking going on here. Yes, Trump is scum and not good for the country or the world; but, that doesn't mean his opposition need to play on his level.
I long for the day we can have a rational more moderate candidate running again. (and yes, they've never been perfect- but we're just es
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The shitty candidates we have are a direct result of the shitty way we have set up political parties, primaries, and first past the post voting. Our election system is broken and there is no incentive for the political elites to fix it. The day you have rational and moderate candidates running is the day after our voting system gets replaced with a better one. (which hopefully won't take that civil war to accomplish)
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That doesn't address the "safe" districts that the correct letter and a rock will win. Why is it that in places that have 1 party rule for decades which fail to govern and the opposition still can't get anyone elected for office? You would think that after many years of failed policies of a party the voters would kick out that party. However, there is a deeper distrust of the "other" than the known failures within the ranks. The rhetoric has been boiled down into a poison that kills any idea of voting for t
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Disagree in this case.
Re:They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I strongly oppose our Cheeto-in-Chief, but it's un-American to try to silence the opposition. The correct response to bad speech is good speech.
Years ago I spelled President Obama's last name "0bama" and was immediately modded to -1.
Recently at a business lunch one of my coworkers went on a rant about "The Orange One". Myself and several other people who I knew were conservatives just listened quietly.
I'm not even sure why I'm posting this. It's just sad.
The Civil War comments are incitement to violence (Score:3, Informative)
I don't like Harris. She's a cop, and a bad cop. She laughed at putting non violent drug offenders in Jail. But she's right (even if this is just a cheap political stunt). Trump is dangerous. He has made threats against a federally protected whistleblower and now this. The responsible thing to do at this point is to remove him
Re:They're both wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
This is indeed a problem, but what separates 'now' from 'then'?
It isn't intelligence.. while IQ tests go up and down, it's not like changes are massive and huge over the last 50 years.
But your thought process is almost as bad as any other! For, democracy requires that people are intelligent enough to self-direct. If you move forward with the premise that people are not, you must therefore move to communism or some sort of inanity along those lines.
One thing that I have thought on lately, is how 'feelings' are now immensely tolerated. Men are supposed to emote endlessly now, if people 'feel bad', then others should lose their job, or be removed so the horribly put out person 'feels better'. People must always 'feel comfortable', even if the problem is them.. not others.
Emotion is a fine thing, but it MUST be secondary to rational thought.
For example, take men and 'feelings'. For thousands and thousands of years, there has always been a reign on that. Why? For what reason?
Well, if men are over emotional, then violence can erupt more easily, at the drop of a hat! If you've ever raised kids, you'll know that boys must be reigned in constantly, taught not to hit, to smash, to destroy, to throw, to attack. NOTE: play helps create proper adult boundaries..
But my point in all of this is, now men are to throw all that aside, and 'feel'. To 'feel' first. No. Sorry. Feeling is fine, but 'feel' needs to be *controlled*.
And really the same is true of women. It's just that for thousands of years, it was OK for a woman to faint, or collapse into tears, or just stop doing things because "I feel bad", or whatever. However, female culture must catch up with rights, and the duty that full independence demands .. and that means intellect MUST have a constant reign over emotion.
Why am I going on about this? Because, people MUST stop using emotion as a reason to make decisions, to drive policy, to enact change.
Anyhow, whatever...
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Everyone uses emotion to decide everything. Logic is only for coming up with rationalizations as to why your emotions are right. The people who don't understand this are the ones who are most completely controlled by their emotions. If you think "I'm logical, and don't let my emotions decide things" then you are failing to even acknowledge your feelings, which lets them control you. This is one consequence of men's repression of their emotions.
Your take on men's feelings and violence is absolutely backwards
Re:They're both wrong (Score:4)
"If you think "I'm logical, and don't let my emotions decide things" then you are failing to even acknowledge your feelings, which lets them control you. This is one consequence of men's repression of their emotions."
This nonsense is where reality has directly contradicted psychobabble pseudo-science. Multiple generations, each less emotionally stable than the last, have been raised on this ideology now. As a consequence nutjobs engaging in mass violence is up, suicide is up, gender confusion is up and social instability is up. Reason and logically coherent and consistent policy are down.
We shouldn't roll back to old standards where we ridiculed men when they weren't stone walls every human being should strive to rise above their emotions. In fact that is exactly what we ask males to do when we say they shouldn't run around raping women, humping their legs, or beating people to death. There is a kernel of truth in what you say, none of us is completely disconnected from our emotions but our emotions are in turn driven by what we think and experience. Trying to be as logical and rational as you can means your gut response and feelings when you encounter a situation will be more consistent with logic and reason going forward.
There is this big lie that men take all their emotions and bottle them up and stick them on a shelf inside... the reality is that making a basic effort not to deny your emotions but rather to experience them without letting them drive or dominant the conversation results in a higher and higher emotional tolerance. Why? Because you aren't rewarding your neurons for sending the signals that trigger intense emotions. Embracing your emotions and letting them rule you, unpacking, spending a day crying and eating ice cream, etc are literally training your brain to overreact and strengthen connections related to feeling overwhelming emotions. Each time you lose your shit and can't function for a day like that and even further reward your brain with a day of relaxing and sugar you are teaching it to more efficiently bring you to state of losing your shit.
The problem with emotions is they aren't based in any reality other than that your brain is emitting a few chemicals. Ultimately there is a balance to be struck, you shouldn't be in denial of what you feel merely denying intense emotion the right to take the lead. You need to remember that the only thing which is "valid" about how you feel innately is that you feel it and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with reality. It's trivial to prove out. Have you ever been mad at someone for something they did only to discover later you were wrong? Have you ever had two such incidents, one where you kept your emotions together while you got the facts and another where you lost your temper? I'd venture most everyone has. In which of those cases was it easier to calm your invalid anger? In which did you feel less irrational residual anger the next day? I guarantee it was the incident where you DIDN'T let your brain flood with chemical signals related to anger.
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"You have no evidence to back up your claims"
Your logic is a bit flawed here. Just because I haven't expended the effort to back up my claims here on a message board doesn't mean I didn't form them based on evidence. Further, what I've asserted can be supported or attacked with evidence. Yours however cannot either be supported or falsified by evidence which is why you haven't presented anything but unsupported assertions.
"Just look at the unacknowledged emotion seething right below the surface here."
My arg
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.... So I can CLEARLY not choose the wine in front of YOU!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But of course you provide no empirical evidence to support your claim. Let me guess, you'd have to look up some? But with no evidence, how did you decide? Does your opinion just... feel like the right one?
Men and women are not really different emotionally and intellectually. We all have the same internal wiring, and there is likely to be as much difference between any two men as between a man and a woman. It is simply acculturation that tells men they must not show emotions. They are still having them, they
Re:They're both wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
> But I'm definitely not going to listen to an autist lecture me on emotions.
While they are emotional humans, reading emotions and adequately signaling emotions are often quite difficult for people on the autism spectrum. Some have to tediously learn all of these interactions intellectually instead of intuitively.
So a person on the autism spectrum could be way better qualified to lecture on emotions than a neurotypical person.
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Do you really thing human nature has changed?
Too - I'd note that rights are most important in times of turmoil. In times of peace, prosperity, and unity, most folks take their rights for granted, and don't get much resistance to their being exercised.
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Right, as if the people trying resolve differences of opinion by shutting down the other party are some other group?
Re:They're both wrong (Score:4, Informative)
You must have missed a memo.
Except for a few slow learners like Schiff most people who are actually paying attention have given up on the "shake down" angle when it became public knowledge that the first time anyone from the Ukrainian government had any idea about the hold put on the US aid package was a month after the phone call between the leaders. It's hard to shake someone down when they don't even know there's a threat as it wasn't mentioned or even implied in the call. The only real talk about aid was mostly to talk about how the EU isn't pulling their fair share and should help out more (which happens to be one of the justifications given as to why the US delayed their aid package).
It's now about making it an impeachable offence to suggest a foreign government to revive a corruption investigation that involves the son of a political opponent. There are still reasonable views on both sides of that question but a lot of the wind was lost from the Dems sails when the 'threat' aspect was taken out of the picture.
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I've already said people can argue over some of the Biden stuff and there are arguments to be made on both sides but simply asking foreign governments for aid in an ongoing investigation into the possible fraud committed regarding the basis for the Russian conspiracy is not in and of itself help for his re-election campaign. There is an active DOJ investigation that involves persons from the UK, Italy, Australia, Ukraine, Russia and a host of other countries and their actions with regards to the Mueller pr
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Just wondering, what was you stance on impeachment when Obama was caught on a hot mic asking the Russian President to cool things off for a bit before the election so that he would have more flexibility to work with them, “particularly with missile defense”, after his re-election?
That was the US President effectively promising to relax the US missile defense policy so that Russia would stay quite for the next couple of months as to not to stir up anything to make Obama look bad. That was 1000 t
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Better plan, lets start bring charges against every president that broke US law. We can start with Obama. Adding a terrorist organization. Sending pallets of cash to Iran in the middle of the night.
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Better plan, lets start bring charges against every president that broke US law.
That's exactly what we SHOULD be doing. If Obama broke laws and they had evidence against him then shame on everyone in the legislature at the time for not prosecuting him. If you've got evidence, do your civic duty and submit it!
Let's not make the same mistake again be it with Trump, Warren, Pence, or anyone else who may be President one day.
If Obama broke the law that doesn't excuse Trump for breaking the law. EVERYONE who breaks the law should be held accountable! The fact that your predecessor broke
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Small problem there. Wearing a tan suit isn't crime and nether is sending troops to support a ally. Now if that kingdom should be an ally is another question.
Re:Swamp Protects Swamp (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, Trump's 'offense' was to win the 2016 election. From then on it's been a continuous effort to reverse that result.
His performance since is immaterial.
This is bait (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is bait. The summary is bait. Harris's letter is bait. Trump's tweet is bait.
How hard will you bite?
Re:This is bait (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends only on who I may bite. And where.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
About as hard as you...
My feelings on this are sadness that the average voter is swayed by these kinds of arguments, that political opponents should be silenced though rules and laws. Where I don't like how coarse the average political discourse has become and how divisive our attitudes are towards each other, I fully recognize my opponents rights to SAY what they want to say any way they want to say it.
By all means, feel free to judge people on how they say stuff, but at the same time, we MUST as a peop
Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless Harris wants Trump re-elected, this is a dumb move for at least 3 reasons:
0) Suppressing him by force would only feed into his talking points about corrupt media and corrupt tech being in cahoots with the DNC.
7) The whistleblower complaint is BS. I'm sorry, but it's true.
3) Peoples' perception of Trump would improve if he stopped using Twitter. Seriously, not broadcasting his stream of consciousness babble would make him seem way less crazy.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless Harris wants Trump re-elected, this is a dumb move for at least 3 reasons:
0) Suppressing him by force would only feed into his talking points about corrupt media and corrupt tech being in cahoots with the DNC.
7) The whistleblower complaint is BS. I'm sorry, but it's true.
3) Peoples' perception of Trump would improve if he stopped using Twitter. Seriously, not broadcasting his stream of consciousness babble would make him seem way less crazy.
I agree with you on 2½ points. Yes, it would help him; yes his tweets fuel people disliking him.
I also agree that the whistleblower complaint has no evidence. It hints at wrongdoing (so was not a totally illegitimate complaint), but there has not really been enough evidence to hang a picture with. You can't convinct based on that. (that said, Trump's response to it has been that of a guilty man- so I think he's guilty, but there is no hard evidence)
Re:Dumb (Score:4, Informative)
We're at the point where it's more important (Score:3)
Also, Trump's released transcripts show the whistleblower is, if nothing else, not BS. Trump attempted to collude with a foreign power to dig up dirt on a political rival. This is now a matter of fact. He also made a quid pro quote (no, you don't have to be as blunt as everybody says you do to get convicted, and even at that, go read the transcript, it's online and it's painfully obvious he was soliciting a bribe).
Finall
"Civil-war like fracture" (Score:3, Insightful)
"Impeachment would start a civil war" does not follow from "it will cause a civil war-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal." Harris is being hyperbolic.
I'm not sure the guy Trump is quoting is wrong, though. I don't know exactly how we recover from the "intelligence community" or the "deep state" or "permanent bureaucracy" or whatever you want to call it fomenting a coup against an elected president. Why bother with elections? Just let the CIA pick our president for us and be done with it.
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Even his own sentence makes him look like a narcissistic moron who takes himself way too serious, and considers himself far more important than he possibly could be.
Re:"Civil-war like fracture" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about Trump. Trump supporters were sick of the entrenched bureaucracy and the permanent political class, so they sent in somebody to (try to?) clean it up. Since before he was inaugurated the entrenched bureaucracy and the permanent political class have been trying to oust the guy. If the bureaucrats get a veto on the electorate, what's the point? There was nothing illegal in the call with Zelensky, so this is not a reason to impeach, it's just an excuse.
Re:"Civil-war like fracture" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Read the Mueller report. Read the call transcript, read the whistle blower report. Don't let anyone summarize it for you.
The Mueller report itself is a smoking gun. The first part of the report explores the trump campaign's conspiracy with Russia, The second part of the report explores the obstruction of just that took place to prevent the discovery of the conspiracy in the first part. Both are illegal. No charges have been filed because trump appointed a corrupt attorney general.
There was without any do
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Read the Mueller report. Read the call transcript, read the whistle blower report. Don't let anyone summarize it for you.
I have. There's nothing in any of those that's actionable. The "whislte blower" report is nothing but heresy and regurgitations from media. There's no actual knowledge of anything, and everything specifically alleged is refuted by the actual evidence. The Mueller Report had NOTHING in it.
Russia hacked the Election!
Trump is working with Russia against US interests!
Trump is a Russian agent and violated one of the emoluments clauses!
Trump COLLUDED with Russia!
Trump OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE!
Trump THOUGHT ABOUT poss
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A bunch of his appointees have resigned due do corruption scandals and many more are industry people that he put in charge of the industry.
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Yes, but the outcome is a bit like being pissed off at the high insurance rates for your car so you douse it in gasoline and set it on fire.
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The Ukraine wasn't aware of funds being withheld until almost a month after the phone call. And he didn't ask them to make anything up, he asked them to continue their investigation.
And given that Biden said he did the things in question, i'm not sure how you can come to the conclusion that they are lies.
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Biden is on fucking VIDEO bragging about how HE did that.
Biden actively demanded a prosecutor, who was investigating a company his sone was involved with, be fired. He threatened to withhold $1,000,000,000 of "aid" if it wasn't done immediately.
Trump merely asked that Ukraine look into the firing of the prosecutor. Trump is REQUIRED to pursue this as part of his duties as President and part of our treaties with Ukraine.
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I don't know exactly how we recover from the "intelligence community" or the "deep state" or "permanent bureaucracy" or whatever you want to call it fomenting a coup against an elected president.
So you are ok with government employees ignoring evidence that their superiors are engaged in illegal activity?
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What illegal activity? There's nothing illegal about asking Ukraine to cooperate in criminal investigations.
What criminal investigation? Does the DOJ have Biden's son under investigation? Ukraine certainly doesn't, they closed that investigation (which was an investigation into a partner of that firm and not even Biden's son himself) several years ago. Oh, and the AG in charge of the investigation was himself corrupt and denounced as such by multiple European states who also called for his removal.
Re:"Civil-war like fracture" (Score:4, Insightful)
1) It is illegal for a candidate to solicit information on a political opponent from a foreign government, person, or entity
This is not true. Hillary and the DNC paid a law firm to pay a foreign national (Steele) who solicited information on a political opponent from Russian intelligence officers. This may be unseemly, but it is not illegal. You just have to pay for it or else it's a campaign finance violation.
2) He illegally withheld foreign military aid allocated to Ukraine by Congress prior to his communication and the memorandum of that conversation implies that said aid would only be delivered upon Ukraine performing a "favor" for 45
There's nothing illegal about withholding foreign aid, there's no "implication," and no favor is required as Ukraine is required by a treaty with the US to cooperate with criminal investigations. The server used in the spearphishing attack on John Podesta was located in Ukraine, and as part of a DOJ investigation into 2016 election interference, we would like to examine it. There's nothing illegal or improper about this, and again, is required by treaty.
3) The Hunter Biden/Joe Biden "scandal" had already been investigated and no wrong doing had been found.
By whom? The Ukrainians have been trying to get information about the Bidens' interference in Ukrainian politics to US officials since last summer and have been stymied by the State Department and the DOJ [thehill.com], which is why they started going through Giuliani to get directly to the president.
4) If there was criminal wrong doing on behalf of the Bidens, it would have been the FBI's responsibility to investigate and report, as it was their responsibility to investigate Clinton and her emails, as well as compile the Mueller report. It is not the duty of the office of the president to pursue such an investigation, particularly when the results of which could personally benefit 45.
Unitary Executive. Everything the executive branch does derives from the office of the President. There's nothing that's the duty of the FBI that is not the duty of the President.
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It is kind of hilarious. "They're saying we're going to start a Civil War! Ban them from all platforms! Ignore all our actions that are actively working towards starting a Civil War!"
The whole "impeachment" thing is ludicrous on its face. Trump released the transcripts. They're more damaging to Biden than him - we now know that Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired for the crime of investigating a company his son was working for.
I am getting really sick and tired of the Democrats and the left complaining a
Re:"Civil-war like fracture" (Score:5, Informative)
The whole "impeachment" thing is ludicrous on its face. Trump released the transcripts. They're more damaging to Biden than him - we now know that Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired for the crime of investigating a company his son was working for.
I don't know why this Republican talking point keeps being repeated. Several other countries along with the US wanted that prosecutor gone because he consistently refused to prosecute anyone politically connected. He would "start" investigations and then just never make progress on them. Biden was under orders from his boss (the US president) to encourage Ukraine to replace the prosecutor with someone who would actually do his job and he did. Or are you suggesting that several governments and the president all conspired to protect Hunter Biden?
Twist it around (Score:5, Insightful)
Civil war? More like a minor insurrection (Score:2)
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What we would probably end up with are a few more 'no go' zones like Josephine
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And maybe that's what USA needs. Let's put the 2nd amendment nonsense to the test, because I would bet that very few of those cowboy militia loudmouths has the balls to go head to head with the US military But I would love to see them prove me wrong.
You know, the military and law enforcement may actually align with the 2A folk, and not the screechy Left. There's a sizable movement called "oath keepers" who have made it known they will not enforce confiscations.
#gunvote
#willnotcomply
And fwiw, the seeds of this division, of this coming civil war, were planted by Eisenhower, Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. This little nasty thing called The War in Vietnam. That alone broke this country and it's never healed.
This country wasn't split by Trump, it was
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Maher's point was that it looks swampy for Biden's son to be on a chair with a $600k salary in ukraine. which it does, but not nearly as swampy as DJ or Jared's various schemes.
So we pick someone else. Liz Warren or Mike Pence both seem like reasonably unswampy choices to me.
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They replaced Shokin with a guy who had no law degree and had already served time in prison for fraud and forgery. He let Burisma off with a tax fine.
In fairness, that guy claims his conviction for fraud and forgery was politically motivated. It seems like a staple of Ukrainian politics that everyone is accused of corruption, and everyone claims accusations of corruption against them were a result of corruption.
Also, Shokin has sworn an affidavit that he was specifically fired for not shutting down the Buri
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However you feel about Biden, Trump used his presidential influence to withhold aid until they promised to do an investigation. By your own admission, that's a crime. Trump knows it's a crime, that's why he put it on a separate classified server even though there's no reason for such a call to be classified.
It's not like it's been a goal of Trump's to crack down on corruption. It'd be one thing if he was investigating many cases of corruption (regardless
It Would Have the Opposite Effect (Score:4, Insightful)
stochastic terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
https://www.dictionary.com/bro... [dictionary.com]
But I don't think that a private company like Twitter should be the arbiter of speech in a scenario like this. And it's especially problematic for a member of the government to ask Twitter to ban his account, because that would be a direct violation of the 1st Amendment which protects (most) speech from being censored by the government.
What needs to happen here I think is more of a judicial process, such as a lawsuit against 45 in which the courts would have to decide whether or not his inflammatory rhetoric crosses the line and endangers the lives of the people. In the same vein as you can't yell fire in a movie theater, you can't urge your followers to commit acts of violence against a person or group. The problem is that 45 has been getting away with exactly this since before he was even elected, and McConnell (along with Obama's weakness) made sure he had an absurd number of judicial vacancies to fill with conservative judges handpicked by some conservative think tank.
I do believe that Twitter would be within its rights to enforce it's ToS against 45's account as it is a private company and it's not classified as a common carrier/service provider the way a phone company is. It'd be more akin to a newspaper refusing the publish an op-ed written by 45. But, I think it would be tantamount to corporate suicide for it to do so as there would be a large public backlash by about half the country along with a dearth of lawsuits. Or Ajit Pie steps in, says f u, reclassifies social media platforms as common carriers, and has the federal goon squad of regulators step in and take over all their data centers located in the U.S. to ensure compliance.
Just got off the phone with Napolean (Score:3)
Why interrupt your enemy while he is in the middle of making a mistake?
Or, actually, lots of them.
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I'm a Canuck, and our politics are typically left-of US. Well, except for California, where left seems to be an entirely different realm of left...
(I think you have central US left, and then California mega super left.. but anyhow..)
Point is.. you guys NEED to fix this. It's not just one or the other party. I see all sorts of weird "hate" coming from BOTH SIDES, and yes.. ANY SIDE trying to censor political speech of a legitimate political party is just nutty. I mean, I could see if it was some crazy al
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Which is why the founders made those specific rights #1 and #2.
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If a party won't recognize the 2nd Amendment, don't expect them to recognize the 1st either.
Which is why the founders made those specific rights #1 and #2.
Sorry but your an idiot.
What about this makes the poster an idiot. It's 100% true and it's happening in the Democratic party as I type this.
Re:Nothing new under the sun (Score:4, Insightful)
That this is done by one government official to silence, and thus harm a political rival, is a direct attack at the core of why we have that First Amendment.