Political Roundtable Part XVIII

[JWizmentality]

Conservatives be like "I don't care that you saved my grandma from my burning home, what right did you have to break down my door?"

[nate33]

Right? Are you saying Obama doesn't have a right to know about genuine national security threats? Is he not allowed to ask the justice department for a briefing? What in the text indicates that he was doing anything improper?

I think that cuts to the chase. If anything, I think it should have been brought up earlier and louder.

This is a foreign power meddling in our elections.

I've just spent the last half hour skimming articles under the google search: "what evidence supports Trump Russia collusion". I've read articles from Newsweek, NBC, Vox, Daily Caller, and Slate. Can somebody please point me to any concrete evidence that Trump colluded with Russia? And by evidence, I mean something that rises to the level of probable cause of a crime.

The best article I could find was this one from Vox. In it, it points to three examples of what it considers to be "some signs of specific collusion"

There are three examples where there are at least some signs of specific collusion between Trump advisers and the Russian government.

First, there’s the admission from Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos that, back in April 2016, a Russian government-connected source tipped him off that the Russian government had “dirt” on Clinton, consisting of “thousands of emails.”

Second, there’s the email thread and subsequent meeting in which Donald Trump Jr. agreed to take a meeting because he was told he’d get damaging information about Hillary Clinton that was coming from the Russian government.

Third, there are the reports that a GOP operative who contacted Russian hackers in search of Clinton’s deleted emails last fall suggested he was in contact with Michael Flynn, a Trump adviser, about his effort.

That's it! NOBODY ACTUALLY RECEIVED ANY INFORMATION. And in all three cases, the people that actually spoke with (or claimed they spoke with) Russians were either political newbies like Don Jr. who wouldn't have immediately understood the implications, or they were distantly related to the campaign, like Papadopoulos and some guy named Peter Smith who wasn't even on the campaign team at all. These are not crimes. These are people sympathetic to the Trump campaign who are following up on rumors about opposition research, rumors that turned out to be fake. Do you really think operatives in the Clinton campaign didn't entertain similar negative rumors about Trump that emanated from Russia, Ukraine, Britain or some other country?

Even James Clapper said there was no evidence of collusion. As did Diane Fienstein and Jim Himes. Seriously, if any of you liberals or libertarians have any integrity with your beliefs about Constitutional rights of due process, you need to explain how it's possible that the government can start such a massive investigation of a man with no evidence of a crime. This is a really big deal here. This is a a Presidential Administration, using the awesome powers of the police state, to spy on a political opponent during an election campaign with no probable cause of a crime. I realize you guys hate Trump and are upset that he was elected, but this is the kind of stuff that ends democracies.

[gtn130]

Right? Are you saying Obama doesn't have a right to know about genuine national security threats? Is he not allowed to ask the justice department for a briefing? What in the text indicates that he was doing anything improper?

I said nothing of the sort. I think it's appropriate for Obama to be involved in genuine national security threats.

All I'm saying is that, if there does turn out to be intentional malfeasance in the methods that the government obtained authorization to spy on the Trump campaign, it is unlikely that Obama will be able to plausibly claim that he was totally ignorant of what was going on.

And this is something that you desperately want. We get it

[dckingsfan]

Nate - I didn't say Trump colluded. I said Russia meddled.

We should spare no effort on getting to the bottom of it... we should spare no expense and time is of the essence.

If either Trump or Obama or whoever gets in the way of the investigation - they should bear the full brunt of the electorate.

[gtn130]

That's it! NOBODY ACTUALLY RECEIVED ANY INFORMATION.

1) This doesn't matter at all. Whether they were successful or unsuccessful criminals is of zero importance.

2) Who do you think is making these bold proclamations about what the Trump team explicitly did or didn't do? Seems like everyone (except you and SD20) is in favor of an investigation to find out what happened.

[nate33]

Right? Are you saying Obama doesn't have a right to know about genuine national security threats? Is he not allowed to ask the justice department for a briefing? What in the text indicates that he was doing anything improper?

I said nothing of the sort. I think it's appropriate for Obama to be involved in genuine national security threats.

All I'm saying is that, if there does turn out to be intentional malfeasance in the methods that the government obtained authorization to spy on the Trump campaign, it is unlikely that Obama will be able to plausibly claim that he was totally ignorant of what was going on.

And this is something that you desperately want. We get it

Thank you for this important contribution to the discussion.

[nate33]

That's it! NOBODY ACTUALLY RECEIVED ANY INFORMATION.

1) This doesn't matter at all. Whether they were successful or unsuccessful criminals is of zero importance.

2) Who do you think is making these bold proclamations about what the Trump team explicitly did or didn't do? Seems like everyone (except you and SD20) is in favor of an investigation to find out what happened.

Find out WHAT happened?

I think we should investigate you indefinitely to see if you have ever committed a crime. Let's review every phone conversation or email you've made in your entire life.

[cammac]

By Nates theory the radical white terrorists who were planning on a Timothy McVeigh–style bombing in Garden City, Kansas against Somali refugees. Should be allowed to go free because they didn't complete there Crusade to kill innocent men,women & children. Simply because Donald Jr. is stupid and corralled two other equally stupid people in Kushner and Manafort into a conspiracy isn't a defense. Plus what do we really know what happened we only have the perpetrators word that it is a nothing burger! What does Mueller know is the important thing. Plus soon after the Russian dump of Clinton information started to happen.

[nate33]

Nate - I didn't say Trump colluded. I said Russia meddled.

We should spare no effort on getting to the bottom of it... we should spare no expense and time is of the essence.

If either Trump or Obama or whoever gets in the way of the investigation - they should bear the full brunt of the electorate.

By "spare no effort", do you condone wiretapping people without probable cause and reviewing every email and phone call they have ever made?

And has Russia "meddled" any more than Israel, or Mexico, or Britain. Or have they meddled as much as we have meddled in elections in France and Ukraine?

[stilldropin20]

Right? Are you saying Obama doesn't have a right to know about genuine national security threats? Is he not allowed to ask the justice department for a briefing? What in the text indicates that he was doing anything improper?

I think that cuts to the chase. If anything, I think it should have been brought up earlier and louder.

This is a foreign power meddling in our elections.

ok. so both of you and i think many here believe Obama had every right and indeed should have been involved in that investigation of HRC email scandal (among other HRC scandals) and to a larger russian meddling? right??

And I agree. but then dont pretend you are not involved. and if your involvement included influencing the investigation (in this case for political gain) then I think that should be exposed. leaked. brought up to congress. ie unseal all of the presidents communications/texts/emails/phones calls and go over them with a fine tooth comb and see what exactly happened there. Was Obama protecting HRC? Was Obama setting up trump? We should know, imo.

and by that logic. Trump should be involved in all current "meddling" investigations. This entire thing should go through trump. and trump should also be held to the same standard as I hold Obama above. If Trump steers the investigation for political gain the american people deserve to know.

But we dont have that. Obama's records are all sealed. We dont know if he authorized the unmasking. if he knew about the FISA. If he knew trump was "indirectly" surveilled pre and post election. We dont know if Obama knew. And we should know!!! We deserve to know. We do. There is no logical spin to argue against the american people knowing that info. And again, same for trump. We should eventually know. Not while trump is in office because we did not know these things in real time with Obama. But now that obama is gone we should know.

But trump can never be involved with his justice depart at this point for anything related to Russia, the election, meddling, surveillance. Nothing!! There is nothing he can do. He has been effectively neutered by the special counsel's investigation. and anything he does will now be turned into "obstruction."

I'm in a hurry right now and quite certain i'm doing my argument any justice and i hate typing. but folks. this is NOT right. Not fair. Not how its suppose to be. The president was duly elected by the american people and deserves the opportunity to fully govern. Obama (and therefore the people that elected him, like me) was given full authority and autonomy to govern his way. trump (and the people who voted for him) deserve the same. they do. he won. he deserves a chance to fully govern just like Obama had. thats how its suppose to go.

Instead we have a complete perversion of our election cycle going on where trump essentially does not have an attorney general nor head of FBI fully implementing his vision for the future of the united states. And you may not like trump nor agree with trump so that may please you. But this is not how we are suppose to go about it. we cant make sitting president sit on their hands with special prosecutors just because you dont like their politics. if you dont like their politics you are suppose to nominate a good candidate and turn out to vote for that candidate. Thats how it works. Not this perversion of justice. and perversion of the election cycle.

Trump and therefore the people that voted for Trump are not getting a fair chance to govern.

and dont tell me about Obama and republicans in congress blocking him. That's out system. You have to win the WH, and both parts of congress if you want to see the change you want. Thats how you get "change."

this style of obstructing the will of the american people with fake, phony, cooked up dossiers paid for by opposition party, sold the FBI, who then knew it was fake, still used it to surveil, found NOTHING I might add!! Absolutely nothing. No collusion at all. but still selectively leaked fake, made up stuff to create multiple investigations and ultimately the special prosecutor. This is not how our election cycles work.

The commander in chief has enough checks and balances to protect us. Between congress, Supreme court, joint chiefs, cabinet, staffers, and media. we have enough. "sicking" special prosecutors on sitting US presidents months into office is complete garbage and a complete perversion of our election cycle.

And i have to ask, why? let me answer that. because Democrats cant stand it that this man can put deals together. They cant stand it that he can actually work with a party(GOP) that is not even his and reform taxes in a few weeks. then get on with immigration reform. they know entitlement reform is next. and they can NOT stand it. so they collectively worked to bring this man to his knees. and he somehow is still managing to govern.

I said it before, i will say it again. if they get immigration reform and entitlement reform before the R's lose congress this man goes down as GOAT president of the modern era. If he removes the threat of North korea and ISIS/taliban/al keada gets thoroughly crushed it will only add to his Goat status.

and the crazy thing is all of that can and still might get done in the next 10 months before(if) he loses the house and/or senate.

Plus the economy? plus historically low unemployment?? plus massive uptick in stock market?? plus wages rising?? plus bring jobs back?? plus a massive reinvestment in american markets by global corporations??

This orange clown/fool/bumbling idiot/ whatever you want to call him is getting it all done!! And well on his way to GOAT status and doing so with a special prosecutor deep up his azz almost the entire time!! And main stream media out to kill him from October 2016. And a fully weoponized outgoing DOJ/FBI booby trapping him on the way in. An dhe doesn't even have control of his own FBI nor DOJ because of the various investigation status'.

I just dont think any of you fully appreciate the minefield this man is constantly negotiating.

I'm telling you guys now. History is going to be very kind to Donald Trump. His children will be able to run on this platform should they desire. and as long as he takes care of immigration reform now they wont have to bring the "ugly" message along with them.

[nate33]

By Nates theory the radical white terrorists who were planning on a Timothy McVeigh–style bombing in Garden City, Kansas against Somali refugees. Should be allowed to go free because they didn't complete there Crusade to kill innocent men,women & children. Simply because Donald Jr. is stupid and corralled two other equally stupid people in Kushner and Manafort into a conspiracy isn't a defense. Plus what do we really know what happened we only have the perpetrators word that it is a nothing burger! What does Mueller know is the important thing. Plus soon after the Russian dump of Clinton information started to happen.

I get it. You fully support a police state. Wiretap anybody for any reason as long as somebody heard that maybe somebody gave somebody some information.

[nate33]

That's it! NOBODY ACTUALLY RECEIVED ANY INFORMATION.

1) This doesn't matter at all. Whether they were successful or unsuccessful criminals is of zero importance.

Yes it does! Listening to rumors is not a crime. You don't go to jail for failing to inform the FBI about a conversation with a Russian. You go to jail if you offer some kind of quid pro quo in exchange for Russian assistance. But THERE WAS NO RUSSIAN ASSISTANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

2) Who do you think is making these bold proclamations about what the Trump team explicitly did or didn't do? Seems like everyone (except you and SD20) is in favor of an investigation to find out what happened.

We don't know exactly what Trump did, but we have a pretty good idea of what they believed he might have done before they opened up an investigation, and it was diddily-squat.

[Zonkerbl]

Nate - I didn't say Trump colluded. I said Russia meddled.

We should spare no effort on getting to the bottom of it... we should spare no expense and time is of the essence.

If either Trump or Obama or whoever gets in the way of the investigation - they should bear the full brunt of the electorate.

By "spare no effort", do you condone wiretapping people without probable cause and reviewing every email and phone call they have ever made?

And has Russia "meddled" any more than Israel, or Mexico, or Britain. Or have they meddled as much as we have meddled in elections in France and Ukraine?

So your objection is that the Justice Department, while Obama (gasp!) was President dared to (legally!) use the tools provided by the Patriot Act that allow him to do this?

This argument is so completely specious. I don't know where to start. From what I can untangle, basically it's ok when Republicans use the Patriot Act to wiretap American citizens, but when the Justice Department does it while Obama is President it is suddenly a national crisis. I know people are being aholes to you Nate, just stop and take a deep breath and listen to yourself critically. Does what you're saying make sense *to you*?

I'm deleting this false claim that you make that the wiretapping occurred without probable cause. Assuming the entire FBI hasn't, within a two year period, done a complete about face from a den of evil Republicans to a den of evil Democrats, I assume the FISA process was followed obediently and probable cause was found.

[nate33]

Nate - I didn't say Trump colluded. I said Russia meddled.

We should spare no effort on getting to the bottom of it... we should spare no expense and time is of the essence.

If either Trump or Obama or whoever gets in the way of the investigation - they should bear the full brunt of the electorate.

By "spare no effort", do you condone wiretapping people without probable cause and reviewing every email and phone call they have ever made?

And has Russia "meddled" any more than Israel, or Mexico, or Britain. Or have they meddled as much as we have meddled in elections in France and Ukraine?

So your objection is that the Justice Department, while Obama (gasp!) was President dared to (legally!) use the tools provided by the Patriot Act that allow him to do this?

This argument is so completely specious. I don't know where to start. From what I can untangle, basically it's ok when Republicans use the Patriot Act to wiretap people without probable cause, but when the Justice Department does it while Obama is President it is suddenly a national crisis. I know people are being aholes to you Nate, just stop and take a deep breath and listen to yourself critically. Does what you're saying make sense *to you*?

So you really don't have any problem with a sitting President using the awesome powers of the police state to spy on a political opponent in the absence of probable cause?

You tell me to listen critically to myself. Please try and imagine this situation playing out with the roles reversed. What if Trump spies on the Kamala Harris campaign based on paper thin allegations of collusion? The problem is, I can't paint for you a parallel scenario because in any scenario with a conservative doing this stuff, the media doesn't help out by alternatively leaking and obfuscating in the most pro-Democrat manner possible. You can't even conceive of a media bias working against you.

[Zonkerbl]

Right? Are you saying Obama doesn't have a right to know about genuine national security threats? Is he not allowed to ask the justice department for a briefing? What in the text indicates that he was doing anything improper?

I think that cuts to the chase. If anything, I think it should have been brought up earlier and louder.

This is a foreign power meddling in our elections.

I've just spent the last half hour skimming articles under the google search: "what evidence supports Trump Russia collusion". I've read articles from Newsweek, NBC, Vox, Daily Caller, and Slate. Can somebody please point me to any concrete evidence that Trump colluded with Russia? And by evidence, I mean something that rises to the level of probable cause of a crime.

The best article I could find was this one from Vox. In it, it points to three examples of what it considers to be "some signs of specific collusion"

There are three examples where there are at least some signs of specific collusion between Trump advisers and the Russian government.

First, there’s the admission from Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos that, back in April 2016, a Russian government-connected source tipped him off that the Russian government had “dirt” on Clinton, consisting of “thousands of emails.”

Second, there’s the email thread and subsequent meeting in which Donald Trump Jr. agreed to take a meeting because he was told he’d get damaging information about Hillary Clinton that was coming from the Russian government.

Third, there are the reports that a GOP operative who contacted Russian hackers in search of Clinton’s deleted emails last fall suggested he was in contact with Michael Flynn, a Trump adviser, about his effort.

That's it! NOBODY ACTUALLY RECEIVED ANY INFORMATION. And in all three cases, the people that actually spoke with (or claimed they spoke with) Russians were either political newbies like Don Jr. who wouldn't have immediately understood the implications, or they were distantly related to the campaign, like Papadopoulos and some guy named Peter Smith who wasn't even on the campaign team at all. These are not crimes. These are people sympathetic to the Trump campaign who are following up on rumors about opposition research, rumors that turned out to be fake. Do you really think operatives in the Clinton campaign didn't entertain similar negative rumors about Trump that emanated from Russia, Ukraine, Britain or some other country?

Even James Clapper said there was no evidence of collusion. As did Diane Fienstein and Jim Himes. Seriously, if any of you liberals or libertarians have any integrity with your beliefs about Constitutional rights of due process, you need to explain how it's possible that the government can start such a massive investigation of a man with no evidence of a crime. This is a really big deal here. This is a a Presidential Administration, using the awesome powers of the police state, to spy on a political opponent during an election campaign with no probable cause of a crime. I realize you guys hate Trump and are upset that he was elected, but this is the kind of stuff that ends democracies.

Are you seriously basing your counterarguments on the fact that classified information is not publicly available? How the hell should we know what the evidence is? If we knew what the actual evidence was now, Rosenstein and Meuller *should* be fired! Can we at least wait until the investigation is complete? I've watched Rachel Maddow sum up the evidence we have in front of us now and it's pretty compelling. Go watch Rachel Maddow.

[Zonkerbl]

By "spare no effort", do you condone wiretapping people without probable cause and reviewing every email and phone call they have ever made?

And has Russia "meddled" any more than Israel, or Mexico, or Britain. Or have they meddled as much as we have meddled in elections in France and Ukraine?

So your objection is that the Justice Department, while Obama (gasp!) was President dared to (legally!) use the tools provided by the Patriot Act that allow him to do this?

This argument is so completely specious. I don't know where to start. From what I can untangle, basically it's ok when Republicans use the Patriot Act to wiretap people without probable cause, but when the Justice Department does it while Obama is President it is suddenly a national crisis. I know people are being aholes to you Nate, just stop and take a deep breath and listen to yourself critically. Does what you're saying make sense *to you*?

So you really don't have any problem with a sitting President using the awesome powers of the police state to spy on a political opponent in the absence of probable cause?

You tell me to listen critically to myself. Please try and imagine this situation playing out with the roles reversed. What if Trump spies on the Kamala Harris campaign based on paper thin allegations of collusion? The problem is, I can't paint for you a parallel scenario because in any scenario with a conservative doing this stuff, the media doesn't help out by alternatively leaking and obfuscating in the most pro-Democrat manner possible. You can't even conceive of a media bias working against you.

Nate calm down. I'm agreeing with you. But Obama is not doing this. It's the so-called "deep state" in the Justice Department. Get your deep down racist hatred of Obama under control for a second and think about this issue rationally. And again, your claim that there was no probable cause is completely fallacious.

[cammac]

By Nates theory the radical white terrorists who were planning on a Timothy McVeigh–style bombing in Garden City, Kansas against Somali refugees. Should be allowed to go free because they didn't complete there Crusade to kill innocent men,women & children. Simply because Donald Jr. is stupid and corralled two other equally stupid people in Kushner and Manafort into a conspiracy isn't a defense. Plus what do we really know what happened we only have the perpetrators word that it is a nothing burger! What does Mueller know is the important thing. Plus soon after the Russian dump of Clinton information started to happen.

I get it. You fully support a police state. Wiretap anybody for any reason as long as somebody heard that maybe somebody gave somebody some information.

That the best you have?????
It was the Washington Post that exposed Donny Jr. and it was Donny Sr. who tried to protect him with a fabrication.
I don't pick up drooling ALT RIGHT broad sheets.
But yes I do believe that countries should be getting information about enemies of the state with foreign powers. I would trample on someones individual rights if it meant protecting my country from terrorism or manipulation by a foreign power. Why do you think the Five Eyes exit, Dutch Co-operation with USA, Israel Co-operation to protect our Democracies from the evil in the world.
Perfect example is the FBI had information on a white Canadian terrorist who believed in ISIS who was planning a bombing in Toronto. They informed Canadian authorities the terrorist was intercepted on his way to Toronto and killed.
You want to make Page some type of "American Hero" so be it!

[stilldropin20]

By "spare no effort", do you condone wiretapping people without probable cause and reviewing every email and phone call they have ever made?

And has Russia "meddled" any more than Israel, or Mexico, or Britain. Or have they meddled as much as we have meddled in elections in France and Ukraine?

So your objection is that the Justice Department, while Obama (gasp!) was President dared to (legally!) use the tools provided by the Patriot Act that allow him to do this?

This argument is so completely specious. I don't know where to start. From what I can untangle, basically it's ok when Republicans use the Patriot Act to wiretap people without probable cause, but when the Justice Department does it while Obama is President it is suddenly a national crisis. I know people are being aholes to you Nate, just stop and take a deep breath and listen to yourself critically. Does what you're saying make sense *to you*?

So you really don't have any problem with a sitting President using the awesome powers of the police state to spy on a political opponent in the absence of probable cause?

You tell me to listen critically to myself. Please try and imagine this situation playing out with the roles reversed. What if Trump spies on the Kamala Harris campaign based on paper thin allegations of collusion? The problem is, I can't paint for you a parallel scenario because in any scenario with a conservative doing this stuff, the media doesn't help out by alternatively leaking and obfuscating in the most pro-Democrat manner possible. You can't even conceive of a media bias working against you.

guys. folks. peeps. please listen to Nate here. You guys can NOT be ok with this? Right?

Do you guys not fully understand the implications or something?

what if trump somehow get thought this web and is running against corey booker in the general in 2020...do you want trump to be able to use his own version of strzok and mccabe to go after everything booker is speaking about in private?? and then leaks those things booker was up to??? especially if Booker wins and the tools are used to impeach Booker??

Come on guys, you surely dont support police state tactics like this?? If you do, What am i missing here?

[nate33]

I think that cuts to the chase. If anything, I think it should have been brought up earlier and louder.

This is a foreign power meddling in our elections.

I've just spent the last half hour skimming articles under the google search: "what evidence supports Trump Russia collusion". I've read articles from Newsweek, NBC, Vox, Daily Caller, and Slate. Can somebody please point me to any concrete evidence that Trump colluded with Russia? And by evidence, I mean something that rises to the level of probable cause of a crime.

The best article I could find was this one from Vox. In it, it points to three examples of what it considers to be "some signs of specific collusion"

There are three examples where there are at least some signs of specific collusion between Trump advisers and the Russian government.

First, there’s the admission from Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos that, back in April 2016, a Russian government-connected source tipped him off that the Russian government had “dirt” on Clinton, consisting of “thousands of emails.”

Second, there’s the email thread and subsequent meeting in which Donald Trump Jr. agreed to take a meeting because he was told he’d get damaging information about Hillary Clinton that was coming from the Russian government.

Third, there are the reports that a GOP operative who contacted Russian hackers in search of Clinton’s deleted emails last fall suggested he was in contact with Michael Flynn, a Trump adviser, about his effort.

That's it! NOBODY ACTUALLY RECEIVED ANY INFORMATION. And in all three cases, the people that actually spoke with (or claimed they spoke with) Russians were either political newbies like Don Jr. who wouldn't have immediately understood the implications, or they were distantly related to the campaign, like Papadopoulos and some guy named Peter Smith who wasn't even on the campaign team at all. These are not crimes. These are people sympathetic to the Trump campaign who are following up on rumors about opposition research, rumors that turned out to be fake. Do you really think operatives in the Clinton campaign didn't entertain similar negative rumors about Trump that emanated from Russia, Ukraine, Britain or some other country?

Even James Clapper said there was no evidence of collusion. As did Diane Fienstein and Jim Himes. Seriously, if any of you liberals or libertarians have any integrity with your beliefs about Constitutional rights of due process, you need to explain how it's possible that the government can start such a massive investigation of a man with no evidence of a crime. This is a really big deal here. This is a a Presidential Administration, using the awesome powers of the police state, to spy on a political opponent during an election campaign with no probable cause of a crime. I realize you guys hate Trump and are upset that he was elected, but this is the kind of stuff that ends democracies.

Are you seriously basing your counterarguments on the fact that classified information is not publicly available? How the hell should we know what the evidence is? If we knew what the actual evidence was now, Rosenstein and Meuller *should* be fired! Can we at least wait until the investigation is complete? I've watched Rachel Maddow sum up the evidence we have in front of us now and it's pretty compelling. Go watch Rachel Maddow.

There are checks and balances to this. The public has the right to know when their government is investigating a political campaign unless there is classified information involved. But if there is classified information is involved, the oversight falls to Congress. And Congress also believes this is an insane witch hunt without probable cause. You can't just label something "classified" and then unleash the police state with no limits on their power.

Every bit of information we have on the FISA warrant on Page indicates that it relied critically on the Steele Dossier, which is mostly unverified or outright false and the FBI knowingly misrepresented it's authenticity. And many of the FBI players involved in this, particularly McCabe and Strzok, have blantant political agendas against Trump.

The actual FISA warrant needs to be made public, or at least Congress needs to see it. It is untenable in a democracy to give so much power to an unelected bureacracy.

[stilldropin20]

So your objection is that the Justice Department, while Obama (gasp!) was President dared to (legally!) use the tools provided by the Patriot Act that allow him to do this?

This argument is so completely specious. I don't know where to start. From what I can untangle, basically it's ok when Republicans use the Patriot Act to wiretap people without probable cause, but when the Justice Department does it while Obama is President it is suddenly a national crisis. I know people are being aholes to you Nate, just stop and take a deep breath and listen to yourself critically. Does what you're saying make sense *to you*?

So you really don't have any problem with a sitting President using the awesome powers of the police state to spy on a political opponent in the absence of probable cause?

You tell me to listen critically to myself. Please try and imagine this situation playing out with the roles reversed. What if Trump spies on the Kamala Harris campaign based on paper thin allegations of collusion? The problem is, I can't paint for you a parallel scenario because in any scenario with a conservative doing this stuff, the media doesn't help out by alternatively leaking and obfuscating in the most pro-Democrat manner possible. You can't even conceive of a media bias working against you.

Nate calm down. I'm agreeing with you. But Obama is not doing this. It's the so-called "deep state" in the Justice Department. Get your deep down racist hatred of Obama under control for a second and think about this issue rationally. And again, your claim that there was no probable cause is completely fallacious.

ugghhhh!!!!!! can we please keep racism out of this??

we have no idea if Obama was even invovled!! We dont! But he might have been...and we deserve to know, Right??? what am i missing here. what does racism have to do with any of this????