50 Years Ago Today
 

McCord and his 'plumbers' were arrested at the Watergate offices of the DNC. It took two years to get Nixon out of office.

I was just wondering if the current GOP effort to take control of and do away with our democracy is payback for having to turn on Nixon? Crazy huh?

Those assholes have been out to revenge Nixon since '79 when St. Ronnie the Snitch played footsie with the Iranian mullahs that kidnapped our people in Tehran. All to beat Carter, fecking traitors.

All that GQP America has is grievance, real or imagined. Mostly imagined.

Not sure what you're talking about here. Reagan had nothing to do with the Iranians taking hostages at the Embassy in Tehran in 1979, nor did he have anything to do with their release. Their release occurred after the election, so the timing of their release could not have impacted the 1980 election results.

Can you please provide detail on what you're referring to above?

Uh, the release was "negotiated" to happen after the inauguration by Reagan's people.

bobabode
Got that right.

He said that Reagan played footsie with the same people who had (earlier) taken hostages in Iran, not that he had something to do with the taking of hostages. He's absolutely correct about this.

Between 1981 and 1986, Reagan administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, a right-wing rebel group, in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.

So, he violated the arms embargo and the Boland Amendment.

So, all five of the most recently elected Republican presidents did some pretty unsavory/illegal shit:
1. Nixon had his Watergate scandal.
2. Reagan and his administration broke several laws in supplying arms to terrorists in the Iran Contra affair.
3. George H. W. Bush preempted himself from being implicated in Iran Contra by pardoning those implicated/convicted in associated crimes (per Independent Counsel Walsh).
4. Dubya led the nation to war in Iraq on false pretenses.
5. Trump staged an autogolpe (a self-coup) and became the only president ever to not participate in a peaceful transfer of power.

So, it can certainly be argued that the GOP is an ongoing criminal enterprise. In fact, 142 members of the past 3 Republican presidents have been indicted (and counting (for Trump)) whereas 2 members of the past 3 Democratic administrations have been indicted.

The party of las & order? What you say :eek:

You've never heard of Iran Contra? Really?

Your post specifically referred to 1979 and the 1980 campaign:

Those assholes have been out to revenge Nixon since '79 when St. Ronnie the Snitch played footsie with the Iranian mullahs that kidnapped our people in Tehran. All to beat Carter, fecking traitors.

Iran Contra followed the 1980 campaign by years. Still looking for clarification on your remarks.

Another myth/conspiracy theory that refuses to die, and one that both Repubs and Dems try to use for their advantage when the opportunity presents itself.

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...ease-hostages/

Irrespective of when it started the Republican party has been out to overthrow our democracy for a long time. They play the long game better than anybody.

Interesting how each side accuses the other of exactly the same thing.

Remember when the leader of the Democratic party instigated an insurrection against the U.S. government? Yeah, me neither. Remember when the Democratic party so radicalized it's members that the majority of them refuse to believe that last election wasn't stolen? Yeah, me neither. Remember when the Democratic party instituted measures to restrict voting across the because of imaginary voter fraud? The widespread voter fraud no one has shown any evidence of. Yeah, me neither. Once during an interview then speaker of the House Paul Ryan said it was his job his duty to see that another Democrat never sat in the WH. I wager that he wasn't and isn't the only Repub to hold that view.
The Repubs accuse the Dems of trying to take over to deflect from what they themselves are doing.

They seem rather equivalent when stated that way, don't they? One might throw up one's hands and just figure all politicians are equally bad. But there is a heck of a lot of evidence that the GOP of late has been plotting to subvert democracy here. I have heard many Republicans testify under oath about how they tried to do it.

On the other hand, actual evidence of Democratic Party vote fraud seems really thin on the ground. So, equal accusations do NOT mean equivalence. Not at all.

Please be more careful about repeating easy but false accusations.

I really don't see much difference between today's Repubes and the Taliban, or Pootin. They all have that authoritarian instinct. Disgusting bunch, all of them.

Conflating the modern Democratic party with the Dixicrats poached by Nixon to the 'Pubs as part of "the southern strategy" is historically disingenuous, and everybody knows that.

That's the "We're not the racists, they are" argument. Actions however speak louder than words.

Some words speak quite clearly though. "I've heard of Kwanzaa, a made up holiday...."

Perhaps, but this assertion only makes sense when levied by a Democrat. When Republicans say it, it brings to mind the meme "Every Republican accusation is a confession."

Show me evidence of Republicans rounding up and killing dissenters and I'll consider your opinion on this.

They're just waiting until the time is right ...

Don't you think we should try to avoid getting to that point, rather than ignoring the warnings until the death squads are active?

One warning that's pretty close to your specification is the execution of Michael Reinoehl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killin...chael_Reinoehl

When did you move to Missoura, Mike?

or that new darling of the Republicans, Kyle Rittenhouse.

Thanks for telling me to be careful about something I didn't do. But, while we're at it, allegations of voter fraud are nothing new. Having a presidential candidate openly question the results of a national election are also nothing new.

If evidence of election fraud seems thin to you, maybe its because you're not looking for it. It happens every election cycle, and members of both parties do it. While I don't believe the 2020 election was stolen, there were plenty of cases of election hi-jinks.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr...election-fraud


https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud-print/search

https://www.courierpress.com/story/n...ny/7799375002/

https://www.wuft.org/news/2022/04/02...registrations/

Back to my original point, claims that members of one party "subverting democracy" by another party is nothing new, and didn't start in 2020. Here's a Slate article going back to 2003 where it was suggested that the Repubs were subverting democracy when they, for example, impeached Clinton for lying. Funny how Slate never thought that the Dems efforts to derail the Trump presidency with never ending false accusations, investigations and impeachments were subverting democracy. But its not hard to find examples of Repubs accusing Democrats of the same thing.

That was my point! Accusations are cheap! To use them to say the two side are equal is tantamount to saying the two sides are GUILTY of similar accused conduct.

And FALSE accusations against Trump? I see you are now past fairly considering my comments, and are in full partisan mode. So engagement over!

I guess White supremacists mass killing folks of color and gays doesn't count.

Hell, they run on a platform of murdering dissenters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZZ2Y6fAq8o

Speaking of Ronnie the Snitch playing footsie with Iranians. I found this gen from the past in my files.

Attachment 3980

Speaking of Ronnie the Snitch playing footsie with Iranians and such. I found this gen from the past in my files.

Attachment 3981

Which, of course, is why I used those words.

Yup, false. Regardless of how much folks want to believe it happened, there was no finding of collusion with Russia during the 2016 election cycle. Even though it was the topic of breathless reporting for years and allegations by the opposing party and their mouthpieces were non-stop during that period.

The report said that they had insufficient evidence to prove Trump's involvement in the scheme in part due to obstruction (10 counts, 4 of which were slam dunks), perjury and unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation. They did clearly show, however, that Manafort, Gates and Stone all collaborated/coordinated with Russian agents and that Trump welcomed Russian help and likely benefited from it. The GOP-controlled Select Committee on Intelligence said the same thing.

That's correct, nobody said tRumpty was exonerated. The insufficient evidence was due to the obstruction. If there was nothing to hide why all the obstruction?

No, it didn't say that. You may wish it said that, but it didn't. What the Mueller report did say was:

Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Further:

In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of “collusion.” In so doing, the Office recognized that the word “collud[e]” was used in communications with the Acting Attorney General confirming certain aspects of the investigation’s scope and that the term has frequently been invoked in public reporting about the investigation. But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law. In connection with that analysis, we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign “coordinat[ed]”—a term that appears in the appointment order—with Russian election interference activities. Like collusion, “coordination” does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

I'd prefer to stick to the investigation's conclusions rather than wild speculation about the meaning of certain "evidence" that you think may be relevant.

The Trump Cult Prayer
 

All hail Lord Donald. The Holy anointed one brought to us by God above to save us. Without him we would all scum to those evil forces that surround us. Any and all of his sins are absolved by the Lord above and we have to turn a blind eye to his transgressions lest we offend God almighty. All hail Lord Donny the perfect one who does no wrong and if he does we shouldn't mention it lest it upset his followers.

Oh yeah, MAGA.