WTF Community

Day 333

General Discussion
#1

Updated 12/18/2017 9:22 AM PST

1/ Robert Mueller obtained "many tens of thousands" of Trump transition emails, including the emails of Jared Kushner and 11 others. The emails came from the General Services Administration, which hosted the transition email system, and include exchanges about potential appointments, gossip about senators, vulnerabilities of Trump nominees, PR strategies, and policy planning. (Axios)

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2017/12/18/day-333/
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#2

Funny how the same people that applauded the illegal hacking and Wikileaks dissemination of DNC emails are the same ones decrying the legal retrieval of Trump transition emails.

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#3

:joy:

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#4

If Trump fires Mueller, would that be a clear case of obstruction of justice? Would that be a nail in his coffin? Would he be eminently impeachable?

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#6

Yeah, and, as long as it takes Pence out too, I wish they would. But, I meant, would this pragmatically build enough political capital toward impeachment that he could, pragmatically, be impeached?

Although, on those grounds, we wouldn’t also oust Pence, so…

Still, thanks for the refresher for anyone who isn’t aware about how impeachment works.

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#7

Yup, without a majority in the House the presidency would fall to Vice President Pence then Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

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#8

I think the only way we really win, for this term, is if we annul the election. But we don’t have framework to do so. There are so many governmental reforms we’re in dire need of. We need a better voting system than First Past the Post, the Electoral College, and Winner Takes All. We need campaign finance reform. We need better voter rights protection. We need to disallow electronic voting, and implement better absentee ballots.

All of this would go a long way to making our country a stronger democracy, without even changing how politics itself works.

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#10

He sure didn’t waste any time politicizing the Amtrak derailment in Washington, did he?

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#11

@mouseam :flushed: Wow, you’re right!

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#12

NOPE. The 11-min delay before issuing a more “presidential” tweet is such a tell that somebody’s forehead in the White House hit the table.

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#13

@Zilla I agree with all of that! But since there isn’t a process for annulling the election, I think our only option is to win back both chambers of Congress and contain this madness.

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#14

An infrastructure bill = more union jobs. Enough talk, make it happen!

#15

This is intriguing…

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#16

@mouseam

Stein’s name has also come up in the context of a 2015 dinner hosted by RT in Moscow. Stein sat at the same table as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn

Whoa :flushed: why would she be invited to such a dinner and why would she attend? Doesn’t pass the smell test.:thinking:

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#17

This has been known for a little while…quickly after the below picture surfaced of Flynn with Putin at that dinner, people realized that the woman in the photo was Jill Stein. Also, she is directly referenced in the Steele dossier.

russia_dinner630
Image Source: Mother Jones

From the Steele Trump/Russia Dossier:

Russia/US Presidential Election: Senior Kremlin Figure Outlines Evolving Russian Tactics In Pro-Trump, Anti-Clinton Operation

A Kremlin official involved in US relations commented on aspects of the Russian operation to date. Its goals had been threefold - asking sympathetic US actors how Moscow could help them; gathering relevant intelligence; and creating and disseminating compromising information (‘kompromat’). This had involved the Kremlin supporting various US political figures, including funding indirectly their recent visits to Moscow. S/he named a delegation from Lyndon LAROUCHE; presidential candidate Jill STEIN of the Green Party; TRUMP foreign policy adviser carter PAGE; and former DIA Director Michael Flynn, in this regard as successful in terms of perceived outcomes.

Jill Stein is a…interesting character, in my opinion. I once heard an interview with her where she said that there was a super easy way to get everyone out of student loan debt to stimulate the economy – just wipe out everyone’s student loans and print more money. While, I agree – lessening student loan debt would stimulate the economy because so many people would have higher discretionary income…but at the risk of devaluing the dollar…? :thinking: I’m no economist but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that would unlikely to be a beneficial trade off… :face_with_monocle:

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#18

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-set-to-declare-north-korea-carried-out-massive-wannacry-cyber-attack/2017/12/18/509deb1c-e446-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e_story.html

Honestly, what’s the point in this? It’s like Trump just wants to provoke Kim Jong Un… The British government, the NSA and the CIA (newly reported in this article) have all already deemed North Korea to be the culprit, why do this dog-and-pony show of announcing it?

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#19

So close. Just mention how he’s increasing the troop count to Afghanistan, increasing the amount of money our inept foreign policy is costing us, increasing defense spending by nearly a trillion… Then you get the right picture.

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#22
#9

There’s a weird caveat to this, that I know I originally missed…in order for their to be a POTUS, Paul Ryan any time soon – Trump & Pence would need to be removed at almost the exact same time. Reason being that Paul Ryan wouldn’t become VP automatically – Pence would actually appoint a VP, then that VP would fall into the succession order.

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#5

Impeachment is a purely political process, technically the House could impeach the President based on anything they consider a high crimes or misdemeanors. They could choose to impeach him right now if they had the will and the votes. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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