even if Cooper is right in saying that public awareness of Trump's malignant delusions is required. — Wayfarer

I think Cooper is absolutely correct.

Any (perceived) attempt to suppress Trump's idiotic ramblings would be counterproductive.

‘Not having an audience applauding wildly’ would not amount to ‘suppression’. Could have been a one-on-one with some gruff senior male journalist. Although then Trump would decline to appear, he’ll only agree to situations he knows he can play.

If you've already passed through the digestive system of capitalism, Trump's bowels are no great stretch. Networks will do whatever's profitable.

Streetlight had some choice things to say about this whining about platforms and deplatforming. "Should we give Trump a platform?": is the wrong question. "Why is a reactionary fuck like Trump so successful?", should be the question. Possible answer: because the material conditions for US citizens are conducive to him getting a platform. If the USA didn't have so many poor, didn't have so many people one healthcare invoice away from being poor, then nobody would take Trump seriously.

Possible answer: because the material conditions for US citizens are conducive to him getting a platform. If the USA didn't have so many poor, didn't have so many people one healthcare invoice away from being poor, then nobody would take Trump seriously. — Benkei

If economic issues were the concern then they'd be voting for Democrats.

It's clearly social issues (the "culture war") that elicit support for Trump and the Republicans.

The mere appearance of 'suppression' (insistence on preconditions that Trump would never accept) would reinforce Trump's supporters' sense that he's (again) being treated unfairly.

"Should we give Trump a platform?": is the wrong question. "Why is a reactionary fuck like Trump so successful?", should be the question. — Benkei

Yes, I think that's more or less the way we ought to look at things. The first question is just to take on the establishment's voice and they don't really need (or deserve) any help.

Possible answer: because the material conditions for US citizens are conducive to him getting a platform. — Benkei

Yeah, I would say that the problem is the dynamic whereby neither side has anything real to offer, where the debate is over whoever has the better table manners while throwing scraps to the plebs barking underneath.

"Why is a reactionary fuck like Trump so successful?", should be the question. — Benkei

Rather than the life conditions of each U.S. citizen, I think the success of Donald Trump is due to the mass media. Yes, I am aware that there are journalists out there who put criticism on him, but they are not notorious. FOX news holds a lot of power and monopolizes information. On the other hand, I remember some "famous" instagrammers or "influencers" cleaning up his image. (Kanye West, for example).
Trump is the creation of other people's businesses.

Possible answer: because the material conditions for US citizens are conducive to him getting a platform. If the USA didn't have so many poor, didn't have so many people one healthcare invoice away from being poor, then nobody would take Trump seriously. — Benkei

If economic issues were the concern then they'd be voting for Democrats.

It's clearly social issues (the "culture war") that elicit support for Trump and the Republicans. — Michael

Whether it’s more one than the other has been an interesting debate. I think it’s mostly material conditions. That makes people much more vulnerable to media bombardment, false answers, scapegoating, demonization, and wedge issues that exist. We see it on the left as well, to a different degree.

Remember that Trump always claim he’s in favor of working people. It’s not always about Mexicans and China and anti-wokeness. There is an economic message. Which is why he tried to imitate Bernie in 2016 to a certain degree. Anti-NAFTA, anti-TPP, “rigged system,” etc.

If you repress Trump, he'll go deeper because people will associate him even more with their own socially repressed selves. If you do the opposite and give him air, he'll go wider. If you confusedly oscillate between the two, he'll go deeper and wider, which seems to be what's been happening and what's got him where he is. The only way to ever have combated Trump would probably have been to deal with him perfectly neutrally, like reporters presenting the news, but because this is the last thing you would ever consider doing in a commercial media format, you constantly inflate the balloon so that it becomes bigger than any fact that you can throw at it and its existence as much testament to your lie (pretending to be a news organisation) as any of his. In a way Trump is just the escaped reality of the lie that is news media, presenting to it its own face. Ditto for social reality. It's natural to hate the guy and want him to go away but what he represents isn't going away.

The 300-page Durham report is finally out. Better late than never, I suppose.

No probable cause, systematic failures, personal bias, two-tiered justice—the works. It's difficult and maddening to believe people were led so easily to such false and dangerous conclusions by what amounts to lies, corruption, and stupidity.

Durham Report

Somebody link the Mueller Report please...

Herewith Mueller Report

It should also be recalled that despite Trump trumpeting that Durham would unearth a massive scandal, in fact he scored one minor conviction and two acquittals. The rest is just harumphing. Any law enforcement worth their salt would have been suspicious of Trump 'Russia - are you listening?' - and his continual brown-nosing of Putin (whom he continues to defend to this day.)

Bring on the indictments, for God's sake.

No one is absolved from the fact they trumpeted nonsense for years and were complicit in injustice, undermining everything from the justice system to the intelligence community to diplomacy, and leading directly to the sordid states of affairs we see today. History won’t forget these crimes.

Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani plotted to sell presidential pardons for $2 million a piece, former staffer says in lawsuit

Summary: a two-bit criminal and lifetime con man rightfully getting some consequences.

So funny to watch his cult followers (naturally) throwing a tantrum. :rofl: Always brightens my day.

Thanks Jeep!

Bring on the indictments, for God's sake. — Wayfarer

They're not done... There's more than the public at large will ever be able to know. Trump was and is compromised.

Yes but his acolytes in Congress may yet succeed in crashing the global economy and wrecking the Republic.

Special counsel John Durham had everything he needed. Time, money, resources and a clear if not-quite-stated charge from then-Attorney General William P. Barr: Go after the investigation into Russia’s attempts to manipulate the 2016 election. Turn over every rock. Make the whole thing look like the “hoax” Donald Trump said it was.

Durham has released his report, and not only is it a dud, but in many ways it’s also the direct opposite of the investigation by the other special counsel in this case, Robert S. Mueller III.

Mueller amassed a mountain of evidence making clear the shocking sweep of Russia’s campaign to put Trump in the White House. He also showed how eager Trump, his family and his aides were to receive Vladimir Putin’s help. Yet Mueller bent over backward to avoid saying that Trump was guilty of a crime or that the whole affair met the legal definition of a criminal conspiracy.

In contrast, Durham assembled a molehill, which Trump and his supporters are desperately trying to claim is a mountain.

Beginning in 2019, Durham spent years and millions of dollars investigating Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s investigation of the Russian interference effort. While his 300-page report excoriated the FBI, just about all the facts he discusses were detailed more than three years ago in an inspector general’s report that revealed serious problems with the way the bureau handled Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant requests, among other things.

But if you look at the way conservatives are spinning the report by Durham, you’d think he claimed that the FBI never should have investigated Russia’s efforts in the first place. That’s bonkers.

“Yes, the FBI could be second-guessed for some of its decisions, and it got sloppy” at times, says Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former U.S. attorney. But given the suggestion that a hostile foreign power was trying to manipulate a presidential election, “it would have been a dereliction of duty not to investigate.” ...

During the campaign, Trump, members of his family and his campaign aides had dozens of contacts with Russian nationals and officials. His campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, who both worked for pro-Russian oligarchs and politicians in Ukraine, passed confidential internal polling data to a Russian intelligence operative.

Russia hacked Democratic National Committee servers, then passed embarrassing information to WikiLeaks so it could be released publicly at moments advantageous to Trump. WikiLeaks was in communication about the information with Trump adviser Roger Stone, whom Trump later pardoned for lying to Congress about the scandal, witness tampering and obstruction. Russia also mounted a comprehensive trolling campaign through social media to boost Trump’s presidential bid. Plus, the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian nationals.

Trump successfully convinced people that all of that (and more) could be reduced to the question of whether he “colluded” with the Kremlin, a word with no fixed meaning. Mueller unwittingly helped in this effort by contending in his report that he was prevented by Justice Department policies from saying Trump committed crimes, even though he offered copious evidence that Trump did, especially in his efforts to obstruct the investigation.

Mueller “practically stood on his head to avoid besmirching Donald Trump out of an exercise of caution,” McQuade told me. “I don’t see Durham doing the same thing here.” In fact, Durham did just the opposite. His report ignores that it would have been insane for the FBI not to investigate what turned out to be perhaps the most dangerous effort ever of a hostile foreign power attempting to manipulate American politics.

You’ll search his report in vain for any mention of, for instance, the fact that Trump’s campaign chairman passed information to a Russian intelligence operative. Nearly every mention of Manafort is about his relationship with former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who turned out to be an inconsequential figure in the scandal yet takes up much of the space in Durham’s report because of the FBI’s shoddy means of obtaining FISA warrants to surveil him.

In the end, Durham’s investigation achieved little to nothing of consequence. He indicted three people, one of whom pleaded guilty to illegally modifying an email and was sentenced to probation; the other two were acquitted. His report tries to turn what is already known about FBI sloppiness into something new and shocking.

But if his goal was to give Trump and his dishonest minions an excuse to repeat their bogus claims about his innocence in the Russia scandal? Mission accomplished. — Washington Post

Prosecutors ready to ask for Trump indictment on obstruction and Espionage Act charges

Tommorrow. :cool:

Trump indicted again. I love seeing the "lock her up!" crowd get sent to the pokey.

:cool: 2 down and 2 to go in 2023 ...

The timeline of MAGA Loser #1's legal reckoning for his 2016-2023 crime spree (excluding potentially ruinous civil lawsuits) is taking a definite shape:

1. NYC felony indictment 31Mar23 :up:
"34 counts of Business Documents Fraud Crealing and/or Covering-up Felonies", etc

https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-full-document-640043319549?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_02

[ ... ] — 180 Proof

2. Miami, Federal indictment 8Jun23 :up:
re: 37 counts "Mishandling Documents, Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice, Violating Espionage Act, Making False Statements to Federal Authorities, Witness Tampering" etc

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/08/donald-trump-charged-retention-classified-documents

update:

9Jun23 Federal indictment unsealed ...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/09/trump-indictment-unsealed-pdf-text-criminal-charges

Unfortunately, these legal struggles will make Trump even more popular with a large number of Americans. Look at Bolsonaro in Brazil . It is legal for someone in prison to be elected president.

WTF is wrong with the Dems? Biden is six years my junior and I can tell you someone that age should not be president. And then there is VP Harris.

WTF is wrong with the Dems? Biden is six years my junior and I can tell you someone that age should not be president. And then there is VP Harris. — jgill

:up:

Unfortunately, these legal struggles will make Trump even more popular with a large number of Americans. — jgill

More popular with his base, that's for sure. It's less certain when it comes to the rest of the country. I like to think they won't elect an imprisoned felon who will likely try to dismantle the justice system from within if he ever becomes president again, but who the hell knows.

WTF is wrong with the Dems? Biden is six years my junior and I can tell you someone that age should not be president. And then there is VP Harris. — jgill

It's a race to the bottom for both sides. Oddly enough I'd feel pretty good about a party's 2024 chances if they just nominated a generic Rep/Dem while the other side continues to do what they do, but it's looking to be Biden vs. Trump again.

If economic issues were the concern then they'd be voting for Democrats.

It's clearly social issues (the "culture war") that elicit support for Trump and the Republicans. — Michael

That may be a topic for another thread but George Packer's piece How America Fractured into Four Parts in The Atlantic suggest to me an interesting way in which culture and economics intersect to sustain both the economic inequalities and the culture war by means of the four-fold division that he details. On the left, Smart America (academics, mainstream media, tech gurus, Democrat politicians) stands on top of Just America (SJWs, students, progressive activists) while, on the right, Free America (libertarians, capitalists, lobbyists, Republican politicians) stands on top Real America (Trumpists, patriots, poor and middle class conservatives). On each side, those on top protect their economic status by redirecting the anger and grievances of their 'cultural allies' below against their fellow destitute on the other side of the exacerbated cultural divide.

Peter N. Limberg and Conor Barnes' The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0 further refines Packer's fourfold division and underlines other dimensions of the ideological polarisation.

Mike Pence in his recent CNN town hall makes a compelling argument against Trump's indictment. It sends a terrible message to the world. Since Pence and Biden committed the exact same crimes (according to Pence), indicting only Trump undermines the U.S.A.'s enviable reputation as a place where all rich and powerful white men stand as equals above the law.

Biden and the deep-state going after their political opponents once again. I’m sure none of it is to distract from Biden’s bribery scandal. The US government is both crooked and stupid from top to bottom.