The Muscovite Candidate

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 1:48 am

And today he criticized OUR American President on Russian State TV! What candidate speaks ill of his country through the mouthpiece of a tyrant and murderer?!?!

My shock-o-meter is broken.

Lord Jim · Post by **Lord Jim** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 5:26 am

What candidate speaks ill of his country through the mouthpiece of a tyrant and murderer?!?

I'll take "Who is Donald Trump" for a thousand Alex...

oldr_n_wsr · Post by **oldr_n_wsr** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 1:07 pm

Trump didn't go specifically on Russian TV. The Russian station was a tiny piece of a network that Trump did speak on.

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 3:29 pm

No, that's not true. And even Larry King called bullshit on his 'explanation' :

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/l ... -up-227985

Trump knowingly agreed to an interview on King's Russian state tv (RT) based program. Period. Not the podcast. The RT program.

He's either playing to Russian audiences while trashing our President, or it is another sign of a terribly managed campaign. Even many Republicans were aghast.

Econoline · Post by **Econoline** » Sun Oct 23, 2016 3:21 am

Econoline · Post by **Econoline** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 2:03 am

Bringing this thread back to the top, in light of the Secretary of State nomination...

And by the way...

Lord Jim · Post by **Lord Jim** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 4:08 pm

Bipartisan Senate Group Calls for Probe of Russian Hacking in US

A group of Democratic and Republican senators are calling for bipartisan support for an investigation into cyberattacks against the United States by foreign governments following reports of alleged Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Saying that cyberattacks by foreign governments pose "grave threats" to U.S. national security, the senators' statement said: "This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country."

Two Democratic senators -- Chuck Schumer of New York and Jack Reed of Rhode Island joined two Republican senators -- John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- in issuing the statement.

"We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner, and we will seek to unify our colleagues around the goal of investigating and stopping the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security,” the statement said.

Schumer is the incoming Senate minority leader, while Reed and McCain are their parties' leaders on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Graham also serves on that panel.

President-elect Trump has questioned reports of the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that the Russian government was behind a series of hacks against U.S. political groups and institutions this year.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bipartis ... d=44121931

ex-khobar Andy · Post by **ex-khobar Andy** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:25 pm

Question for legal and constitutional folk. Just suppose there emerges, a few months into a Trump administration, incontrovertible proof that there was a Russian attempt to sway the election to him, and at least strong evidence that in fact it worked. This need not have had Trump or Republican collusion; just clear evidence that the election was rigged.

I am pretty sure there is nothing in the constitution, and unlike almost all other developed nations, the head of government is also the head of state. Could someone (e.g., Justice Roberts) in theory suspend the constitution while it is figured out? Could SCOTUS order a rerun? My point here is not that Trump be impeached (plenty of other reasons will pop up, I am sure; and in this scenario he is innocent of the election-stealing plot) but that the election itself is proven to be illegitimate.

Bicycle Bill · Post by **Bicycle Bill** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:47 pm

I think it would have to be something glaringly egregious, like actually hacking the electronic vote counting system, before the election would be declared void and another one called. I don't believe that merely digging up dirt on someone, no matter how unethically it may have been done (think back to 1972 and the Watergate break-in or how the WaPo got their hands on the Pentagon Papers), would be enough to do it.

After all, in a country where a corporation is legally an individual — a 'person' — with all the appurtenant freedoms of speech and expression, where the law already allows SuperPACs to spend massive amounts of money and effort in sending out mailings and making robocalls in an attempt to sway the election one way or the other, and where the winning candidate himself can spout lies and misinformation faster than they can be refuted, why should we be picking on the Russkies? They just wanted to get in on the fun too!

-"BB"-

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:55 pm

It would take direct and irrefutable evidence of rigged voting machines or stuffed ballot boxes to upset the election, IMHO.

I can't see political will to undo an election because people's votes might have been influenced by Wikileaks, because how do you prove it was THAT and not the many legitimate economic reasons for people's votes being 'swayed'?

As to the legal avenues open to challenge the election; it would be a great theoretical discussion and I am very sad that we no longer have Andrew D around to share his brilliance on such Constitutional questions.

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 10:28 pm

Let's see what happens IF it happens. One thing I do know -- even though I am part of the electorate it's out of my hands.

This is the world that we live in
I still want something real
This is the world that we live in
I know that we can heal over time

Guinevere · Post by **Guinevere** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 11:09 pm

First of all, you don't want anyone suspending the Constitution, nor do I think there is any lawful way in which it could be done (ignore all the crazy stuff that comes up if you use the Google on the subject -- it is unbalanced ranting). There is a provision to suspend the writ of habeas corpus during times of war. Article I, section 9 (which is limits on the power of Congress) states:

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

(This last clause is the emoluments clause, being talked about quite a bit lately, which Larry Tribe and others believe requires the P-E to completely and fully liquidate or divest himself of his holdings (and not into a trust managed by his children), or he will be in violation of the Constitution as soon as he is sworn in.)

I don't have time to give you the full history of habeas, but there is a decent wiki article on it here, including a discussion of its use during the Civil War, and the federal laws enacted since:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_co ... ted_States

But back to the original question -- I'm going to tell you what I think from a pragmatic, litigator's view of the world. The academic professorial response may be quite different. First, evidence has to be examined and gathered. Evidence that would result in demonstrable facts, after being tried in a court of law or in some proceeding with cross-examination and right to counsel and all the requisite procedures, that the Russian tampering influenced the election outcome. That's a pretty difficult bar. Then the influence would also have to be a violation of federal law. I assume there is some law that would be violated, but I don't know the remedy. A new election? Sanctions against Russia? If it could be shown this was done at the behest of the P-E, then we are into impeachment territory, but also recall that IF impeachment goes through in the House, there is a still a Senate trial to determine if a President should be removed from office. Nixon resigned to avoid that trial. Bill Clinton was acquitted, as was Andrew Johnson.

This is all not even close to charted territory. The best legal brains in the country are working on it, thinking about it, writing about it, talking about it. I'm trying to absorb as much as I can, but I'm swamped with my own work and so I haven't spent as much time on this as I probably should. Oh for Andrew, indeed.

Anyone else reading and watching and researching care to share their thoughts and ideas?

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 4:13 am

Exactly, guin. As I mentioned above, It all hangs on the big "IF." There's so much uncharted water here that it would be fooling to speculate. And as learned as many in this forum are we are mostly helpless to effect any meaningful change.

The best hope we all have is that Pence and his band of merry men fuck up in royal Trump style and we get the opportunity to be marginally noticed in November of '18, and in November of '20.

Ivanka / Jared... 2020

Lord Jim · Post by **Lord Jim** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 4:59 pm

There are definitely going to be hearings on the Russian hacking:

GOP Sen. John McCain called for forming a select committee on Sunday to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

"I would like, in an ideal world, to have a select committee," the Arizona Republican told John Dickerson on CBS' "Face the Nation."

But McCain acknowledged that garnering enough support to create a select committee — the same type of committee that investigated, among other things, Watergate and the Benghazi attacks — would take time. In the meantime, McCain said, he would ask Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to chair a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services to investigate the Russian interference, "along with a really smart Democrat."

"We'll go to work on it," McCain said. "We'll go to work immediately."

McCain and Graham joined incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) earlier Sunday morning in calling for an investigation. McCain told Dickerson that he didn't know what to make of President-elect Donald Trump's comments in a Fox News Sunday interview that the idea that the Russians worked to help elect him was "ridiculous."[ Yeah, it's "ridiculous" to think that Putin would have preferred the candidate who praised him, who questioned US support for NATO, who wants the sanctions on Russia eased, who has said he isn't sure that Putin's Ukraine thugs shot down the Malaysian civilian airliner, and who has said he'll consider recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea over the candidate with the opposite positions...what possible sense would that make?...What a silly thing to think...]

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the statement read. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.”’

McCain and the incoming Senate Democratic leader, Charles Schumer of New York, said on Sunday in an unusual joint statement that the Senate would investigate Russia’s interference in Trump’s election.

McCain and Schumer, joined by Republican Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said “Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyber-attacks.”

On Monday, Schumer made clear Democrats would be concerned with Tillerson’s ties as well.

"Every one of these nominees, and particularly a guy like Tillerson, needs a thorough, thorough hearing," he said on CBS. "He’ll be questioned thoroughly should he be the nominee, and all of these allegations and talks about his closeness with Putin will come forward."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/j ... ing-232481

Whether there is a special committee appointed or not, I don't think anyone can question that an investigation into this led by John McCain and Lindsey Graham will be very thorough and rigorous.

In fact Trump (and anyone else who would just like to sweep this under the rug) might prefer a special committee investigation to one led by those two...

Guinevere · Post by **Guinevere** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 5:22 pm

Apparently Mitch McConnell, who "wasn't concerned" over the weekend, has found religion. Or he is getting involved to assert control over the process to protect the P-E (which would be entirely consistent with how the incoming administration appears to be operating).

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/us/po ... .html?_r=0

ETA: I'm not the only one thinking like this -- from a friend's FB post "Mitch McConnell has a change of heart, announcing support for a probe of the Trump-Russia issues... but only if it can be handled by SSCI, under committee chair Richard Burr (R-NC). (The man who proudly announced during his recent election campaign that he fervently backed Trump and had been promised a role as Trump's senior foreign affairs advisor if Trump were to win.) Notice the pattern here? McConnell was promised that his wife would have a seat in the cabinet; Burr that he would sit at Trump's right hand, all provided they keep the lid on the scandal that the Trumpkins knew was brewing."

Guinevere · Post by **Guinevere** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 5:34 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/opini ... pe=article

The C.I.A., according to The Washington Post, has now determined that hackers working for the Russian government worked to tilt the 2016 election to Donald Trump. This has actually been obvious for months, but the agency was reluctant to state that conclusion before the election out of fear that it would be seen as taking a political role.

Meanwhile, the F.B.I. went public 10 days before the election, dominating headlines and TV coverage across the country with a letter strongly implying that it might be about to find damning new evidence against Hillary Clinton — when it turned out, literally, to have found nothing at all.

Did the combination of Russian and F.B.I. intervention swing the election? Yes. Mrs. Clinton lost three states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – by less than a percentage point, and Florida by only slightly more. If she had won any three of those states, she would be president-elect. Is there any reasonable doubt that Putin/Comey made the difference?

And it wouldn’t have been seen as a marginal victory, either. Even as it was, Mrs. Clinton received almost three million more votes than her opponent, giving her a popular margin close to that of George W. Bush in 2004.

So this was a tainted election. It was not, as far as we can tell, stolen in the sense that votes were counted wrong, and the result won’t be overturned. But the result was nonetheless illegitimate in important ways; the victor was rejected by the public, and won the Electoral College only thanks to foreign intervention and grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on the part of domestic law enforcement.

The question now is what to do with that horrifying knowledge in the months and years ahead.
One could, I suppose, appeal to the president-elect to act as a healer, to conduct himself in a way that respects the majority of Americans who voted against him and the fragility of his Electoral College victory. Yeah, right. What we’re actually getting are wild claims that millions of people voted illegally, false assertions of a landslide, and denigration of the intelligence agencies.

Another course of action, which you’ll see many in the news media taking [and most Trumpanzees, too],is to normalize the incoming administration, basically to pretend that everything is O.K. This might — might — be justified if there were any prospect of responsible, restrained behavior on the part of the next president. In reality, however, it’s clear that Mr. Trump — whose personal conflicts of interest are unprecedented, and quite possibly unconstitutional — intends to move U.S. policy radically away from the preferences of most Americans, including a pronounced pro-Russian shift in foreign policy.

In other words, nothing that happened on Election Day or is happening now is normal. Democratic norms have been and continue to be violated, and anyone who refuses to acknowledge this reality is, in effect, complicit in the degradation of our republic. This president will have a lot of legal authority, which must be respected. But beyond that, nothing: he doesn’t deserve deference, he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

And when, as you know will happen, the administration begins treating criticism as unpatriotic, the answer should be: You have to be kidding. Mr. Trump is, by all indications, the Siberian candidate, installed with the help of and remarkably deferential to a hostile foreign power. And his critics are the people who lack patriotism?

Will acknowledging the taint on the incoming administration do any good? Maybe it will stir the consciences of at least a few Republicans. Remember, many, though not all, of the things Mr. Trump will try to do can be blocked by just three Republican senators.

Politics being what it is, moral backbones on Capitol Hill will be stiffened if there are clear signs that the public is outraged by what is happening. And there will be a chance to make that outrage felt directly in two years — not just in congressional elections, but in votes that will determine control of many state governments.

Now, outrage over the tainted election past can’t be the whole of opposition politics. It will also be crucial to maintain the heat over actual policies. Everything we’ve seen so far says that Mr. Trump is going to utterly betray the interests of the white working-class voters who were his most enthusiastic supporters, stripping them of health care and retirement security, and this betrayal should be highlighted.

But we ought to be able to look both forward and back, to criticize both the way Mr. Trump gained power and the way he uses it. Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep my anger simmering — letting it boil over won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed to cool. This election was an outrage, and we should never forget it.

Guinevere · Post by **Guinevere** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 5:45 pm

From Thursday's Boston Globe:

John McCain was born for this moment. Will he seize it?

President-elect Donald Trump epitomizes everything the US senator from Arizona said he abhorred back when McCain was making his first run for the Oval Office: low-down campaign tactics; incitements to hatred; cozying up to authoritarians; derision for the ideals for which the senator, as a young Navy pilot at war, was prepared to die.

Times were simpler during that free-wheeling run in 2000. McCain was mostly a conventional Republican, policywise. It was his character that drew people to him, his absolute certainty about right and wrong. Covering his campaign, sitting on a bus with him day after day, I worried about what kind of president he’d be, but I never doubted his integrity.

“I will not take the low road to the highest office in this land,” he said after losing the South Carolina primary. “Never. Never. never.”

.......

So far, most Republicans in Congress are utterly invertebrate, unwilling to speak out against Trump for fear of imperiling their dreams of blowing up Obamacare and cutting taxes for the wealthy. But we’ve seen flashes of the maverick McCain. A week after the election, he came out against the president-elect’s friendly talk on Russia, saying it would mean “complicity in Putin and Assad’s butchery of the Syrian people.” At a recent security forum, he said, “I don’t give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do. . . . We will not waterboard.” This week, he penned an op-ed saying Trump’s anti-global stance was dangerous to the US economy. “It is a fool’s errand to try to recreate a mythical time when Fortress America was impregnable,” McCain wrote.

Backbone like that is all that stands between us and the abyss. But McCain seems reluctant to show it consistently. When a reporter began asking him about Trump on Tuesday, McCain interrupted: “I’m not talking about Trump. I’m not talking about Trump. . . . I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.”

Maybe he’s picking his battles. Maybe he’s decided his criticisms have less power if he makes them too often. Maybe he’s feeling the pressure.

But this is the moment for which the McCain I knew was born. If he steps up here, he will embolden other Republicans to do the same. And he will go down in history as one of the nation’s great political heroes.

He is 80 now, and unlikely to run for office again. In his twilight, he can be a beacon. The finest hour in his long and storied life begins now. He has nothing left to lose.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/1 ... 3Afacebook

wesw · Post by **wesw** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 5:46 pm

if you believe anything that james clapper tells you, you are a fool.

john McCain is corrupt.

Lindsey graham is a puffed up cracker.

Guinevere · Post by **Guinevere** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 5:51 pm

See above for Exhibit A in "normalization" and Exhibit B in "treating criticism as unpatriotic."

Just like a fish to the line.......

Lord Jim · Post by **Lord Jim** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 5:57 pm

Mrs. Clinton lost three states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – by less than a percentage point, and Florida by only slightly more. If she had won any three of those states, she would be president-elect.

That statement is inaccurate...

Trump won 306 electoral votes. If you deduct Florida's (29) he still has 277, if you deduct Pennsylvania (20) he has 286, if you deduct Michigan (16) he has 290, and if you deduct Wisconsin, (10) he still has 296...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/electi ... t/map.html

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