Political Roundtable Part XXII

[montestewart]

From here

[JWizmentality]

Didn't take long for Molly Tibbets to be used as a political football.

[Ruzious]

Didn't take long for Molly Tibbets to be used as a political football.

...which is beyond disgusting.

[TGW]

Hey Wizardspride, you want some a strong black female representation for Speaker of the House? How about Barbara Lee instead of Clyburn/Pelosi:

https://lee.house.gov/

[DaRealHibachi]

Read on Twitter

[Jamaaliver]

Read on Twitter

[Wizardspride]

Hey Wizardspride, you want some a strong black female representation for Speaker of the House? How about Barbara Lee instead of Clyburn/Pelosi:

https://lee.house.gov/

I'd be fine with Barbara Lee as Speaker..

[Pointgod]

Read on Twitter

We're in the end game now.....

[Kanyewest]

Not sure Mark Levin is the most reliable source. He is the one who started the Obama wiretap rumor (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/07/mark-levin-trump-wiretap-tweets-obama).

Again the payouts to the women count as an undisclosed campaign donation given the timing of the transfer of funds. The same thing that forced John Edwards to resign back in the 2007-08 Democratic Primary. Of course I imagine that Edwards lost a lot more of his base than Trump.

That being said, it looks as if Cohen has a lot more evidence to use against Trump especially since he was in those meetings in the lead up to the Trump tower meetings with the Russians. Apparently now Cohen is not willing to take a presidential pardon.

[gtn130]

Trump was basically just named as an unindicted co-conspirator but Mark Levin said *something*, so obviously this is all Fake News and Trump is in no trouble whatsoever.

The real scandal is that a large number of counts, ten, could not even be decided in the Paul Manafort case. Witch Hunt!

[TGW]

Not a fan of Beta O'Rourke at all, but he's got some balls...I'll give him that:

https://football.realgm.com/wiretap/40917/Beto-ORourke-Nothing-More-American-Than-Peaceful-Protest

[JWizmentality]

Mark Levin...lol. You poor Trumpies.

[Ruzious]

Not sure Mark Levin is the most reliable source. He is the one who started the Obama wiretap rumor (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/07/mark-levin-trump-wiretap-tweets-obama).

Again the payouts to the women count as an undisclosed campaign donation given the timing of the transfer of funds. The same thing that forced John Edwards to resign back in the 2007-08 Democratic Primary. Of course I imagine that Edwards lost a lot more of his base than Trump.

That being said, it looks as if Cohen has a lot more evidence to use against Trump especially since he was in those meetings in the lead up to the Trump tower meetings with the Russians. Apparently now Cohen is not willing to take a presidential pardon.

Whether or not Levin is reliable, his conclusions sound absurd. Clearly the payments were made FOR THE PURPOSE of affecting the election. That was the prime purpose - unlike the examples he used to try to justify them not being reportable. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to pretend I know 100% for sure that laws were broken, but Levin's logic makes no sense whatsoever.

[JWizmentality]

Not sure Mark Levin is the most reliable source. He is the one who started the Obama wiretap rumor (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/07/mark-levin-trump-wiretap-tweets-obama).

Again the payouts to the women count as an undisclosed campaign donation given the timing of the transfer of funds. The same thing that forced John Edwards to resign back in the 2007-08 Democratic Primary. Of course I imagine that Edwards lost a lot more of his base than Trump.

That being said, it looks as if Cohen has a lot more evidence to use against Trump especially since he was in those meetings in the lead up to the Trump tower meetings with the Russians. Apparently now Cohen is not willing to take a presidential pardon.

Whether or not Levin is reliable, his conclusions sound absurd. Clearly the payments were made FOR THE PURPOSE of affecting the election. That was the prime purpose - unlike the examples he used to try to justify them not being reportable. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to pretend I know 100% for sure that laws were broken, but Levin's logic makes no sense whatsoever.

Yeah, I'll go out on a limb and say the prosecutors in NY that were under Preet Bharara know what they're doing as opposed to some far right wing talking head.

[closg00]

Watch on YouTube

If Republicans are held to their own hypocritical standards, Trump will have to be impeached, Bill Clinton was impeached for far less.

[verbal8]

Not a fan of Beta O'Rourke at all, but he's got some balls...I'll give him that:

https://football.realgm.com/wiretap/40917/Beto-ORourke-Nothing-More-American-Than-Peaceful-Protest

Do you like Ted Cruz better?

[Jamaaliver]

3 reasons for the longest bull market ever

The current bull market is now 3,452 days old. One additional day would take it over the threshold into the history books. For sure, the U.S. economy and the stock market have come a long way from the harrowing days of March 2009 when the financial system was teetering on the edge.


How did we get here? Here are the three main factors:

The Federal Reserve
The single largest force that has boosted share prices has been the epic post-financial crisis experiment in cheap money stimulus.


Share buybacks, dividends and earnings growth
With the Fed holding interest rates so low while pumping so much cash into the economy, many corporate managers have shied away from riskier revenue-growing efforts. Instead, the focus has been on share buybacks: using net income and debt-fueled borrowing to buy back their own shares. Higher dividends have also been a part of this.


Fiscal largesse
The last really frightening setback the market has been forced to suffer was the 2011 decline related to the downgrade of the U.S. Treasury's credit rating by S&P Global Ratings amid a budget showdown. But now, the GOP seems to have forgotten all about fiscal discipline under President Donald Trump with the recently passed tax cut and military spending increase.

CBS News

[verbal8]

If Republicans are held to their own hypocritical standards, Trump will have to be impeached, Bill Clinton was impeached for far less.

Sadly Republicans have confirmed their "standards" only apply to "other people" - like the poor, minorities and liberals.

I think an impeachment will face a pretty steep uphill battle. I started this and it looks like Ted Cruz would have to support impeachment for it to happen. I assumed that voting with Trump would equal reluctance to impeach.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/?ex_cid=rrpromo

A few names in the high "Trump rating" might be more willing to impeach:

Richard Burr - seems somewhat reasonable and has overseen real Senate investigations vs. the travesty in the house
Rob Portman - Ohio Senator - seems somewhat reasonable
Marco Rubio - may feel a personal vendetta, but then again that would be too close to a real political view
Dean Heller - if replaced by a Dem - this vote presumably flips

Some of the lower "Trump rating" Senators may not be willing to impeach:

Lindsey Graham - seems to have a personal relationship with Trump
John Kennedy - LA Senator - deep Red State - spoke out against Brennan
Rand Paul - seems very sympathetic to Russia
James Lankford - OK is a very Red/pro-Trump state, Enzi(WY) might be a similar story
Replacement for Corker - would(assuming R) owe seat to Trump to some degree, fairly Red state

If Cruz is willing to impeached or replaced by Beto, the potential high "Trump score" defections could open up a lot of paths to impeachment.

[Jamaaliver]

Mollie Tibbetts’s tragic death shouldn’t confuse the truth about immigrant crime

Fox News is trying to make this into an immigration story. But immigrants are less likely to commit crimes in the US.

After weeks of searching, police on Tuesday found what they believe to be the body of Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old student from Brooklyn, Iowa. The case — one of a missing white woman — had already drawn a lot of media attention before Tibbetts’s body was reportedly found.

But it has drawn particular attention this week from Fox News due to another development: The suspect in the killing is an undocumented immigrant, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, whom police charged with first-degree murder on Tuesday.

It can be easy with this kind of story, though, to lose sight of the bigger picture: In the US, immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than their native-born peers.

Take this chart from the Pew Research Center, which depicts the prevalence of criminal activity among different generations of immigrants and native-born Americans:



As the Pew chart shows, first-generation immigrants are considerably less likely to commit crime. To the extent that second-generation immigrants commit crime at closer rates to that of native-born Americans, that’s actually them ditching the approach of their better-behaved parents and moving closer to the American norm of more criminal activity.

Other research supports this point. A 2015 report from the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group, concluded that native-born Americans are more likely to be incarcerated than Central American immigrants, and recent increases in immigration occurred as crime actually fell in the US.

Still, as with any large group of people, some immigrants will at times do bad, even terrible things. What’s important to remember is that they do not represent their broader group, at least based on the best evidence.

Vox

[gtn130]

Not a fan of Beta O'Rourke at all, but he's got some balls...I'll give him that:

https://football.realgm.com/wiretap/40917/Beto-ORourke-Nothing-More-American-Than-Peaceful-Protest

Do you like Ted Cruz better?

TGW would rather have right-wing fascists in office than ideologically impure liberal Democrats. He sat out the 2016 election because Trump and Hillary are equally bad in his world. It's almost as if he cares more about performative wokeness than progressive policymaking