Lets see if we can keep this thread a little more civil.

I found this interview very interesting.  A lot of soft balls thrown at Trump, he explained his back pedalling on his more extreme issues as a lot of his claims as opening bids for negotiation purposes.  Which .. whatever .. I still think that those are insincere claims he used to get elected.

He does now come across way more presidential then he did prior to the election.  A lot of his noise, yelling, and rhetoric has been scaled back.

Do respect this one though:

Quote

 

Lesley Stahl: Are you gonna take the salary, the president’s salary?

Donald Trump: Well, I’ve never commented on this, but the answer is no. I think I have to by law take $1, so I’ll take $1 a year. But it’s a -- I don’t even know what it is.

Donald Trump: Do you know what the salary is?

Lesley Stahl: $400,000 you’re giving up.

Donald Trump: No, I’m not gonna take the salary. I’m not taking it.

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-donald-trump-family-melania-ivanka-lesley-stahl/

Everyone involved would have been hung not long ago. 

2 hours ago, bustamente said:

Alex Jones was deposed yesterday by the 1/6 committee and you guessed it he pled the 5th for pretty well all the questions asked, just another loud mouth criminal 

Every member of Trump's inner and outer circle has pled the Fifth repeatedly- Don Jr. pled the Fifth almost 500 times when deposed.

2 hours ago, Tracker said:

Every member of Trump's inner and outer circle has pled the Fifth repeatedly- Don Jr. pled the Fifth almost 500 times when deposed.

Yea but witch hunt. 

Liberal Supreme Court Justice retires. When does Mitch say 3 years from an election is too close to pick one? 

Not so crazy is it? Did he not say if Repub's regain control of the Senate in this November's election, Biden will get no judicial picks confirmed at all?

Edited January 26, 20224 yr by FrostyWinnipeg

16 hours ago, HardCoreBlue said:

Yea but witch hunt. 

                                      

JFK wants to make the USA better... shot dead in public. 

Trump trying to kill democracy.  Still alive. 

Just a ****** up country. 

57 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Liberal Supreme Court Justice retires. When does Mitch say 3 years from an election is too close to pick one? 

Not so crazy is it? Did he not say if Repub's regain control of the Senate in this November's election, Biden will get no judicial picks confirmed at all?

I don't know, does he even get a say considering that he's not a majority leader anymore?

28 minutes ago, iHeart said:

I don't know, does he even get a say considering that he's not a majority leader anymore?

He'll get to raise a lot of money white-supremacing this one. 

19 hours ago, Tracker said:

Every member of Trump's inner and outer circle has pled the Fifth repeatedly- Don Jr. pled the Fifth almost 500 times when deposed.

So do the prosecutors/investigators just sigh, throw up their arms and say now what? 

2 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:

So do the prosecutors/investigators just sigh, throw up their arms and say now what? 

The prosecution needs for one or two conspirators to save themselves by striking deals and turning on others. There is evidence this is already happening.

1 hour ago, HardCoreBlue said:

So do the prosecutors/investigators just sigh, throw up their arms and say now what? 

 

1 hour ago, Tracker said:

The prosecution needs for one or two conspirators to save themselves by striking deals and turning on others. There is evidence this is already happening.

So I asked myself this very question about how the committee can get around someone pleading the 5th, and this video does a decent job explaining some of the options. 

Bottom line, if the committee really needs testimony they will offer immunity. And then they need to be picky about who it is offered to. It needs to be someone who

(a) is not such a big fish that giving them a break will feel like a deal with the devil that  perverts justice

(b) has important enough information to pin down the real targets

(c) someone whose testimony can be found reliable and credible, or can be proven to be a lie thus opening them up for perjury if they try to lie

(d) has a side benefit that the damage to their reputation offsets the loss of criminal prosecution and hurts them anyway

(e) someone who has legitimate fear of worse criminal consequences if they refuse to take an immunity deal, so they are motivated to cut a deal to save their skin and will give up the good dirt. 

So who fits that orbit? 

Edited January 26, 20224 yr by TrueBlue4ever

Watch the Democrats screw up the SCOTUS by not getting all 50 senators on board and then the times runs out and Turtle puts a new Republican Judge on the court pronto after taking over as leader

9 minutes ago, bustamente said:

Watch the Democrats screw up the SCOTUS by not getting all 50 senators on board and then the times runs out and Turtle puts a new Republican Judge on the court pronto after taking over as leader

Mitch can't put anyone he wants on the bench. But, anyone the Dems did put up would need the GOPs support. 

6 minutes ago, JCon said:

Mitch can't put anyone he wants on the bench. But, anyone the Dems did put up would need the GOPs support. 

Democrats don't need any help from the Republicans confirming any nominee to the court as long as they have fifty Democratic Senators on board

32 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

 

So I asked myself this very question about how the committee can get around someone pleading the 5th, and this video does a decent job explaining some of the options. 

Bottom line, if the committee really needs testimony they will offer immunity. And then they need to be picky about who it is offered to. It needs to be someone who

(a) is not such a big fish that giving them a break will feel like a deal with the devil that  perverts justice

(b) has important enough information to pin down the real targets

(c) someone whose testimony can be found reliable and credible, or can be proven to be a lie thus opening them up for perjury if they try to lie

(d) has a side benefit that the damage to their reputation offsets the loss of criminal prosecution and hurts them anyway

(e) someone who has legitimate fear of worse criminal consequences if they refuse to take an immunity deal, so they are motivated to cut a deal to save their skin and will give up the good dirt. 

So who fits that orbit? 

Ivanka.

Meadows.

 

6 minutes ago, bustamente said:

Democrats don't need any help from the Republicans confirming any nominee to the court as long as they have fifty Democratic Senators on board

Yes, I was referring to the post-mid-term elections. 

But, they can't even pass a voting rights bill, so the Dems are pathetic. 

4 hours ago, JCon said:

Yes, I was referring to the post-mid-term elections. 

But, they can't even pass a voting rights bill, so the Dems are pathetic. 

Its more a condemnation of their political system.

11 minutes ago, Tracker said:

Its more a condemnation of their political system.

which operates as planned.

Idiots, all 10 of them. 

Truly the stupidest people are in charge of these children's education...

36 minutes ago, wanna-b-fanboy said:

Idiots, all 10 of them. 

Truly the stupidest people are in charge of these children's education...

They are trying to ensure that these children grow up so ignorant that they will be lifetime GOPers.

14 hours ago, wanna-b-fanboy said:

Idiots, all 10 of them. 

Truly the stupidest people are in charge of these children's education...

History makes me feel uncomfortable. Ban it or rewrite it.

19 hours ago, wanna-b-fanboy said:

Idiots, all 10 of them. 

Truly the stupidest people are in charge of these children's education...

The timing is equally unbelievable. Today is actually International Holocaust Remembrance Day. I kid you not. 

Civil war expert recoils in horror at interviews with Trump fans: 'They don’t want democracy anymore'
   
The U.S. recently fell out of the rankings of democratic nations, and one expert worries that it will happen again -- and tip the country into civil war.

Barbara Walter, a University of California professor and an expert on civil conflicts, recently wrote about the political volatility in the U.S. since the Jan. 6 insurrection, which dropped the country into the anocracy zone, and she told CNN the riot had made the deadly risks from Donald Trump's lies "impossible to deny and ignore."

"Anocracies are neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic; their citizens enjoy some elements of democratic rule (e.g., elections), while other rights (e.g., due process or freedom of the press) suffer," Walter wrote for the Washington Post. "In the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, the respected Center for Systemic Peace (CSP) calculated that, for the first time in more than two centuries, the United States no longer qualified as a democracy. It had, over the preceding five years, become an anocracy."

President Joe Biden's peaceful inauguration moved the polity ranking back into the democratic zone, but Walter warned the threat remained, putting the U.S. at real risk of additional violence and instability, and Walter reacted with alarm when a CNN host showed her interviews with Trump supporters who refused to accept the former president had lost the election.

"Well, 10 years ago, [my reaction] would have been shock and disbelief," Walter said. “I would have thought, ‘Well she’s an outlier and she’s not representative of anything larger than a fringe movement, maybe.' But of course, that’s not the case anymore.”

Walter and others who study civil conflict have been sounding the alarm for years, but she said no wanted to believe the risks, but she said Trump and his right-wing media allies have corroded trust in democracy itself -- with already fatal results.

“Citizens do believe what they are hearing and if they hear it long enough and consistently enough and if that’s all they hear, they absolutely don’t think it’s a lie, they think it’s the truth,” Walter said.

"You know, they're good people," she added. "They are trying to do what they think is right. It's the leadership that's cynical. It's the leadership that knows better who is feeding them lies consistently. They’re priming their supporters to believe that democracy isn’t worth defending because they don’t want democracy anymore."

Civil war expert recoils in horror at interviews with Trump fans: 'They don’t want democracy anymore' - Alternet.org

10 minutes ago, Tracker said:

Civil war expert recoils in horror at interviews with Trump fans: 'They don’t want democracy anymore'
   
The U.S. recently fell out of the rankings of democratic nations, and one expert worries that it will happen again -- and tip the country into civil war.

Barbara Walter, a University of California professor and an expert on civil conflicts, recently wrote about the political volatility in the U.S. since the Jan. 6 insurrection, which dropped the country into the anocracy zone, and she told CNN the riot had made the deadly risks from Donald Trump's lies "impossible to deny and ignore."

"Anocracies are neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic; their citizens enjoy some elements of democratic rule (e.g., elections), while other rights (e.g., due process or freedom of the press) suffer," Walter wrote for the Washington Post. "In the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, the respected Center for Systemic Peace (CSP) calculated that, for the first time in more than two centuries, the United States no longer qualified as a democracy. It had, over the preceding five years, become an anocracy."

President Joe Biden's peaceful inauguration moved the polity ranking back into the democratic zone, but Walter warned the threat remained, putting the U.S. at real risk of additional violence and instability, and Walter reacted with alarm when a CNN host showed her interviews with Trump supporters who refused to accept the former president had lost the election.

"Well, 10 years ago, [my reaction] would have been shock and disbelief," Walter said. “I would have thought, ‘Well she’s an outlier and she’s not representative of anything larger than a fringe movement, maybe.' But of course, that’s not the case anymore.”

Walter and others who study civil conflict have been sounding the alarm for years, but she said no wanted to believe the risks, but she said Trump and his right-wing media allies have corroded trust in democracy itself -- with already fatal results.

“Citizens do believe what they are hearing and if they hear it long enough and consistently enough and if that’s all they hear, they absolutely don’t think it’s a lie, they think it’s the truth,” Walter said.

"You know, they're good people," she added. "They are trying to do what they think is right. It's the leadership that's cynical. It's the leadership that knows better who is feeding them lies consistently. They’re priming their supporters to believe that democracy isn’t worth defending because they don’t want democracy anymore."

Civil war expert recoils in horror at interviews with Trump fans: 'They don’t want democracy anymore' - Alternet.org

Well little do they know if what they want becomes reality we'll all be hit but they'll be hit the worst.

'My situation continues to get worse and worse but boy did we own the libs!'

3 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:

Well little do they know if what they want becomes reality we'll all be hit but they'll be hit the worst.

'My situation continues to get worse and worse but boy did we own the libs!'

This completely baffles me and my major was sociology. The impoverished rural areas in the US are completely devoted to supporting the worst slates of GOP candidates who openly display racism, misogyny, pedophilia, and corruption who do little or nothing to help the people in their ridings, The purest form of sanity we were taught is the will and ability to act in one's best interests, and, by that definition, insanity has seized much of America and they are proud of it.  In one area of West Virginia, the average male life expectancy was 59 and the healthcare was so poor and the need was so great that Doctors Without Borders actually went in and established medical services. And they were verbally attacked by locals and local politicians. That is America today in a nutshell.