Friday, January 12, 2018

Another Day In Paradise


Yeah, according to:  Breitbart, Fox News, The Daily Caller, and the Washington Times, that's what she said.  Odd I can't find anything at a non-right wing news source about this "story."  Oh, well.....

That would be the same President who said this on Tuesday:

Now, that doesn’t mean 2,000 miles of wall because you just don’t need that because of nature, because of mountains and rivers and lots of other things.  But we need a certain portion of that border to have the wall.  If we don’t have it, you can never have security.  You could never stop that portion of drugs that comes through that area.
.....
Yeah, we’re doing a study on that right now.  But there are large areas where you don’t need a wall because you have a mountain and you have a river — you have a violent river — and you don’t need it.  Okay?
.....
And we don’t need a 2,000-mile wall.  We don’t need a wall where you have rivers and mountains and everything else protecting it.  But we do need a wall for a fairly good portion.  We also — as you know, it was passed in 2006 — a essentially similar thing, which — a fence, a very substantial fence was passed.  But, unfortunately, I don’t know, they never got it done.  But they need it.
Still not quite sure what he means.

Yeah:  bullshit.
"Get smart" is his new tag line, apparently.  And the GOP is probably grateful this meeting didn't take place in front of TV cameras, so Trump could talk "tough".  Too tough, because this is what the White House said yesterday:
Not a word of denial there of the use of the term "shithole."  But this morning:
Because, sure, he's trustworthy.  And if that doesn't convince you:
Not sure where the "take them out" language came from, except Trump's imagination.  There's no reference to it in the NYT article.  Besides, Dick Durbin was there:


Oh, and was he not clear about the Democrats and military funding?
He's repeating himself on Twitter, not just verbally.  Not sure what this means, but it can't be good.  And yes, even if John Kelly can't bother to read the President's tweets, other people can:
I'm surprised Trump's tweets this morning haven't satisfied Haiti.  Right?  The rest of Africa is not too impressed, either.  Some Republicans publicly disapproved of Trump's reported comments; but Ryan and McConnell?  Crickets.  And while we're here, let's just add this in from yesterday:  two birds, one stone, and all that.

 Trump told the WSJ:

“A man is tweeting to his lover that if [Democrat Hillary Clinton] loses, we’ll essentially do the insurance policy,” Trump said. “We’ll go to phase two and we’ll get this guy out of office.”

“This is the FBI we’re talking about—that is treason,” he added. “That is a treasonous act. What he tweeted to his lover is a treasonous act.”
Treason is such a serious offense it is the only crime whose elements are set out in the Constitution, which means you'd need an amendment to change this language from Art. III:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
So by expressing opinions in text messages (opinions which were not political or even investigatory, but statements about an FBI investigation already underway, and while Trump was merely a candidate) that are deemed insulting by the sitting President is equivalent to "levying war against [the United States]" or "adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort"?

That's the primary problem with Trump's argument: the text is not a treasonous act, it isn't even an illegal act.  Then is the secondary problem: 

I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I'm afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40.

That's the text Trump is referring to.  We already know the FBI was investigating Trump before Fusion GPS contacted them with the concerns raised by the Steele dossier.  All this tweet says is that the investigation shouldn't be dropped prematurely on the grounds that Trump won't win.  So not only is Trump stone ignorant as to the state of the law regarding treason, he doesn't even have the facts of the case right.

Fortunately Trump is not the state, and his legal opinions do not carry the force of law, or even sufficient force in the DOJ to prompt prosecutions of all the people he complains about, on the grounds (or any other grounds) that he complains about them on.

Just another day in paradise!

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1 comment:

  1. The Thought Criminal11:47 AM

    I was worried that the White House was going to succeed in presenting a cleaned-up, controlled Trump after the media gushed that he didn't, as someone said, wet his pants, during that televised "meeting" but I guess I should have counted on Trump being Trump.

    The only reason I am glad my parents aren't here is because they'd have to see this if they were.

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