If Trump is guilty, how do we survive this?

I don't think we will see an impeachment. Trump will most likely finish out his term or resign if it comes to it, in my opinion. I did not vote for Trump FYI.

If Trump leaves office under any circumstance, there will be huge pressure on Pence to mend the tears left. He will need to take a lot of weight on his shoulders and try to do what is best for the country. I don't imagine there will be an improvement in partisanship if there is a resignation or impeachment.

 

I guess you've changed your mind. That's a relief! Now I can go to the liquor store safe in the knowledge taht I am not laundering money as you had previously claimed!

 

Trump is not the sort of person who will "do the right thing". The concept is foreign to him.

But McConnell holds Trump's fate in his hands. When McConnell decides he's had enough, the clock starts ticking on the end of the Trump era.

Will that happen?

It's hard to say right now. A lot depends on what Mueller finds, what the Grand Jury decides, and the outcome of umteen other investigations into Trump and his dirty team.

We know now that the Republican Party's agenda is dead in the water. There is one Democratic Party and three Republican ones, (the traditional GOP, most of whom were once considered arch conservatives, the untrustworthy and inflexible Freedom Caucuss, and Donald Trump, who has no interest in doing the job he was elected to)>

The best outcome politically for Democrats is for Trump to serve all, or most of his term. We now know exactly what that will look like.

If we have another year of this, the Republcians are going to be worried about 2018 (I'm sure they already are).

In far right wing Trumpster land, Trumpster will send even more intractable right wingers to the House, and the GOP will lose seats in both houses.

If the GOP can't move legislation now, they certainly won't be able to move any if the divide is made worse.

Trump isn't going to learn his job. That much is obvious by now.

Will Trump survive?

Consider what a liability George W Bush was at the end of his term. Trump will make him look wildly popular by comparison.

If we do go through the drama of impeachment in 2019-2020, Mike Pence will emerge as a weak caretaker President with no mandate and the inheritor of a lot of Trump stench. Pence is far better than Trump as a competent politician. But his is no Gerald Ford. And look what happened to him.

 

A valid assessment. I am reconciled with the nation being afflicted with trumpery, and hopeful that it will remain legislatively impotent, but a narcissistic megalomaniac that arrogantly declares he can blithely absolve his own sins and those of his groveling minions without contrition or penance is a national liability some may well concluded cannot be endured beyond whatever proves to be a breaking point.

Hubris has a way of befouling itself.

 

^^^ Yet another future shooter introduces himself in the thread.

Steve

 

No i said it wasn't money laundering, but nice try. Criminals can engage in legitimate commerce too like buying food and property

 

I do ....

 

There will be less visceral hatred for Pence than Trump because Pence doesn't go looking for any sort of media attention he can find, good or bad.

 

Lmfao, you are putting your hopes in that ***** rino of Mitch? He is so scared of even looking his self in the mirror much do anything else..


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Translation` you want it back to normal where the government ****s you up the ass with you not knowing about it.



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Trump's media whoring is not about transparency, it is about bread and circuses.

I have a fair idea of what Pence wants and what he will do, and I will be able to keep track of what policies he is pushing.

With Trump its a ****ing crap shoot, further muddied by all sorts of distortion from non-issues and nonsensical tweets.

 

Once again you want the government to hide it's dirty work, Obama promised transparency and it appears Trump delivered..


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Your sig says you get paid to read but you don't seem too good at it.

Focus, now:

Trump is not transparent, he is just an unrepentant bull **** artist and media whore. Just because someone won't shut the **** up doesn't mean he is telling you any sort of truth.

 

Translation: Pence would have to give up Trump's populist/nationalist agenda, in favor of a establishment/neocon/globalist agenda, and give up his most controversial policies (the wall, the travel ban, etc.). That's all the Democrats and the press will accept. Anything less than that, I guarantee you we will begin to hear about "new evidence" that has "come out", tying Pence to Trump's Russia scandal.

 

Perhaps this is true, but you do realize that Iran, Russia, and Syria are very much working together, and by calling for an end to support of the Syrian resistance, Trump vacated the biggest chip he had in future Iranian negotiations?

What principled opposition there is to Trump's coziness with Russia is that Russia is doing its best to undermine America's attempts to restrain Iran.

 

The Middle East-Eurasian Alliance was starting to come into fold, perhaps as early as 2010(We can add China and NK to this list as well) and thus a spice of Asia as well. We could shorten all of this to say a new Eastern Front was apparent to challenge the US(West). Making matters worse were the secondary fronts of Europe and Terrorism. Further distracting us on the World Map.

Seeking to reduce the tensions and at the same time reestablish US Dominance on the World Map, I first sought the possible alliance with the West-East. And I did indeed target Russia for this possibility. And it's not just me. President Obama saw this opportunity as well, and I pushed for the passage of the START Treaty, a treaty that Russia had since violated.

One of the major reasons for trying a Russian Alliance, was Russia's strong stance against INTL terrorism, as well as the possibility of neutering China VIA Russia(Russia/China make no secret about their desire to be a hegemon over the Eurasian territory.)

These were the reasons, pre-Trump that I sought an alliance with Russia. It's not because of Russian Bots(Lol) or anything like that. I observed the World Map and made judgments accordingly. If I had known that Russia would undermine us and try to destroy us, I'd have moved closer to China instead.

If the US became an ironclad ally of China, it would also double as protection from NK. And the same neutering of Russia would exist as well. The only problem is, being an ally of China equally means being in the wind with regards to Japan, our ironclad ally. I don't want to drop alliances, I want to add onto them. So I think we need to bring China and Japan together in a room to settle the financial and geographical difficulties between the two. Noting that we once had terrible relations with Mexico and improved on them. So China and Japan can definitely get on the good side of the bed.

 

But this assumes facts not in evidence..."Coziness" is a leftist wet dream, not a fact...Using Russian Dressing or having dined at the Russian Tea Room is not collusion, coziness, or even noteworthy of comment.

 

Sometime in the next 24 hours, I'm willing to bet you make an argument that the US should be trying to be friendly with Russia and that you like Trump's friendliness with Putin.

But anyways, the Senate forcing Trump into signing the sanctions against Russia and his unilateral withdrawal of support to Syrian opposition make him look awful in tune with Putin desires. Just today Trump's spokesman said that Trump still doesn't really believe in Russian meddling in the election. I'm not going to sit here and preach impeachment or censure or any sort of charges, I generally think the Russia stuff is more of a media circus than anything else. But to sit and act like Trump and his cohorts are not troublingly close to Russia strikes me as silly.

 

Politically wise, I don't ever remember this country being as polarized or as divided today. I was born right after WWII. From reading history, I think one has to go back to just before the civil war to find this country as divided as it is today. One of the biggest problems we have today is both parties have shed their more moderate factions leaving a hard right and a hard left. Where neither party wants to work with the other or to compromise. Better to get nothing at all than give the other party 10% to keep this country moving forward.

With Trump, who knows what is true and what isn't. Hopefully Mueller can provide the answers. The problem is you're going to have 30% of the electorate that won't believe his finding whichever way it goes. The Democrats just want to get Trump out of the presidency whatever it costs. Trump supporters want him to remain, also with whatever the cost is. If it means they bring this nation to a screeching halt, divide it beyond repair, that is fine with both sides. Neither is willing to step back and look at the ramifications for the nation as a whole.

Personally, I think it's past time for both sides to tone it down and let Mueller do his job. I don't trust Trump, I don't trust the media as they have taken sides, I don't trust either party's leaders in Washington or either major political party. About the only one I trust to get to the bottom of all this is Mueller. But I fear there isn't but a few of us who are willing to sit back and wait for Mueller to do his thing.

 

I can't even trust the Intelligence Community with its now-well documented abuses of power(and as noted in the OP, if you're going to take liberties to abuse power, you might as well prevent a supposed con-artist from taking office? You'd think right? That's one of the reasons I didn't believe in the stories. In fact, it's a major reason.) It might just turn out that not only did they abuse power, but they were criminally neglectful in allowing Trump to be President.

Now for me, I'll believe in the evidence provided its documented. That is, I don't want anymore "I can't say this in an open setting." Hell yes you can, the intelligence community started the worst kind of conspiracy theory. It must either prove or disprove it, with no "buts" in between. And if it needs some kind of legislative clearance to make it happen, I'd do it as a Congressman. We must get the truth. Repercussions can come after that.

Likewise, I'm strongly against voting 702 back. The War on Terror continues, but now it continues through the normal procedures of getting a warrant and PROVING suspicion for crimes to be committed. No more taking liberties because someone works in intelligence.

 

As some one who spent 20 years active duty army, then another 26 years working as a Department of the Army civilian. Working with our intel agencies or taking advantage of the intel provided, I can't knock them. All they can do is present the information, the intel to the president at the time, his representatives, to the JCS and the different secretaries and directors. What they do with that information is up to them.

But keep in mind, regardless of the intel agency it is analysts that comb over all the data gathered. Most of the time the analysts get it right, but not always. There have been times when two or more analysts disagree with what the data means or shows.

Apparently the Russian hacking was reported. That is usually the limit of any intel agency ability unless they receive orders from above to do something about it or to take action. Apparently that didn't happen. But we don't know that for sure. Covert operations do take place in secret and those who do carry them out are very good at keeping it secret.

As for your last paragraph, Ben Franklin was credited, it is doubtful he actually did say it. But I'd like to think he did. He said those who choose security over freedom, liberty will soon have neither. It does seem to me that our huge government has become big brother and has the capabilities of knowing what you are doing or have done almost at will.

 

You're getting CLOSE to the problem many of us already see. When you mentioned not trusting the intelligence community, that should clue you in. Yes, there are people in intel that are focused on doing their job and doing it well, however, it's the politically active people in ALL government that are causing problems. Look back to the IRS scandal and Lois Lerner. She literally got away with targeting citizens based upon their political philosophy. Nearly ALL the leaks to the media are illegally coming from government employees breaking our laws.That is occurring all over the federal government. And it's ALL DEMOCRATS and democrat sympathizers.

Steve

 

The Republicans do not include the Democrats in anything. So let's get real. I am certain that the Democrats want to participate, if
they are invited into bi-partisan discord to do the right thing. Trump has to stop the ridiculous criticism of Democrats, since it is a turnoff.

 

What planet are you living on?