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Oh, my!! Michael Cohen's Testimony is Devastating to Trump, Stone, Trump, Jr. and maybe more

Athanasius68 said:
Ok-- so what politically can the Democrats impeach Trump over?

jnug said:
Obstruction of Justice, Abuse of Power, Campaign Finance just for starters. The problem with the GOP protecting Trump for two years is that the next two years are going to be a cavalcade of ugly heading right into 2020. The Right wants to HOPE that we are at the end when in fact this is just the beginning. Oh and then there is Mueller.
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Hell, moral turpitude is sufficient.
 
SonOfDaedalus said:
We learned:

1. Trump is a racist

2. Trump is a conman
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These two were already well documented.

Based on his campaign strategy, Trump believes #1 is what got him elected, and keeps him so popular with his base. Personally I believe he knows his base.
 
SonOfDaedalus said:
Keep your plan is a broken campaign promise not a lie. And your other example is also a broken promise.

The moon is made of cheese is a lie. If I promise to take you to the moon but don’t because my rocket plans failed that’s not a lie. Circumstances change. You can’t always deliver on your promises.

You have nothing on Obama who was a good and honest man.

Crime rates dropped in El Paso after a wall was built is a lie.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Red:
Well, yes, of course. That said, we can rightly deride one for being, at the very least, imprudent for having made a promise that's well outside one's ability to, given the rule of law and a host of other extant and material factors, deliver given the authority one has or is reasonably assured due to have.

Folks will, in minor measure, suffer executive-level principals' imprudence; however, when such principals repeatedly display the same imprudence, whatever forbearance they may have originally been given is rightly withdrawn. Quite simply, one cannot get away with over promising and under delivering, most especially not in "big" ways.

Do you recall what was supposed to have been accomplished, some of which was supposed to have been realized within 100 days of the 2017 inauguration? To say nothing of at all....
Simply, business executives, for all they do wrong and right, they don't promise things they, and everyone else, know "from jump" they can't deliver. That Trump even made the above promises showed the precious few skills/acumen he may have, they didn't include running anything and doing anything the way highly competent business professionals do.
 
calamity said:
We know. Republicans loved Michael Cohen when he lied for Trump. You're just mad that he stopped.
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Red:
In a nutshell, that's precisely what animates "the right's" recent vitriol and animus toward Cohen.
 
ajn678 said:
Do we believe him now or what?
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From another post ( mine )

Okay, let's look at this.

Cohen lied to congress.

But he admitted to it and swallowed that bitter pill. he got jail time.

He lied FOR TRUMP.

Then Trump threw him under the bus.

Knowing quite well that if he lies again to congress, his jail time will get longer.

Therefore, already given jail time, the incentive now is that he is telling the truth. This idea he is lying to get shorter jail time just doesn't compute. In fact, the opposite makes much more sense. It's also evidenced in the nuance of his disclosures of fact.

If he were lying, would he have defended Trump on questions inquiring about things which he knew were not true?

If he were Mr Liar liar pants on fire would he have, when asked, said he did not believe Trump would ever strike Melania?

There are many examples of this during his testimony. The entire time, the repubs never addressed the substance of the evidence that Cohen brought. Not once, their entire approach was to attack Cohen, nothing about his evidence.

I understand why the right really want him to be lying today, but the right didn't seem to mind when hired hitman Valachi spilled the beans on many of the gangsters of the "Cosa Nostra", but no one liked the Cosa Nostra. So, what is different here? Oh, they like Trump.

So, if you like your man, a thuggish lawyer is not to be believed.

But, if you don't like him, heck, even the words of a mafia hit man will do.

That is the Senate I saw today.
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SonOfDaedalus said:
Keep your plan is a broken campaign promise not a lie. And your other example is also a broken promise.

The moon is made of cheese is a lie. If I promise to take you to the moon but don’t because my rocket plans failed that’s not a lie. Circumstances change. You can’t always deliver on your promises.

You have nothing on Obama who was a good and honest man.

Crime rates dropped in El Paso after a wall was built is a lie.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Obama lied repeatedly about the details of Obamacare. He said he wouldn't give amnesty to the dreamers and then did. These are facts.
 
ultmd said:
Gee, what a surprise to see that you have selectively responded to my remarks.:roll:

I'm sure you read the English language proficiently, so I can only presume that you intentionally chose to pretend that I directly accused you of being a birther, when in FACT I actually said that you (and people like you) either supported/promoted that LIE....or you were completely silent about that LIE from your side. So as you and your ilk whine and complain about the REAL Trump scandals and the LEGITIMATE attacks on Trump's character and personal history, you simply reveal yourselves as the hypocrites that I (and others) have always understood you to be. But....nice try at defelction, on your part. Unfortunately, you failed.:lamo



LOL, that statement actually hit too close to home for someone like you, didn't it? Don't lash out at me because YOU feel convicted. Look in the mirror and do some soul-searching, instead.

In truth, it's the FAKE "family values" right wingers who are the hypocrites. These are the Trump acolytes of today who feigned indignation about Bill Clinton's personal affairs in the mid-90s. These are the Trump acolytes who supported impeachment of Clinton 20 years ago for lying under oath about his sex life, yet worship a disgraceful human being (and likely traitor to our country), like Donald Trump, today.

As I've said before, one of the best things about the disgraceful Trump era in American history will be that it forever laid bare the COMPLETE AND TOTAL fallacy of moral superiority of the political/Christian Right in this country. If that bothers you, so be it. I think we both know you can't refute it. So...whine and complain and deflect as much as you wish. It won't change that TRUTH.
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How the hell did I "support" the birther movement? You're a drama queen of the first order. As for Trump, I'm only interested in what he does as POTUS, not whether he slept around or once considered building a tower in Moscow. That is IRRELEVANT.

The rest of your bloviating is simply a diversion. I vote based on policy and have never discussed any moral failings of Obama or anyone else. You must have some deep seated grievance against Christians since you endlessly blabber about them. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with them. They support Trump because they like his policies, not because he's a goody two shoes. You are arguing from a false assumption. If Christians could only vote for the morally pure, they'd never vote at all.
 
noonereal said:
We are not talking about that. Are you challenged?

This is about all the crimes Trump has committed.

It would be easy to show what an awful President he is but this was not what this was about.
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What crimes? Accusations are not facts, they are just accusations. Oh, and Trump is doing an excellent job no matter how much you guys lie about it.
 
Indlib said:
I find that difficult to believe. As an independent I have spent a lot of time on conservotive political threads...mostly conservative Tribune and Allen West. I can tell you that birtherism was promoted regularly along with a plethra of other conspiracies on thise sites.

Which right wing forums were you on that you didn't see this? I would be interested in visiting them. It would be a refreshing change to be on a right wing site that wasn't selling america out with lies just for some extra ad bait click revenue.
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Where did I say I was on a right wing site? I was on the Baltimore Sun's politics forum, which doesn't exist anymore. You guys imagine stuff and then respond to what you imagined.
 
Grand Mal said:
Doesn't bother you that the President of the US paid hush money? Twice? You don't wonder if there might be other people out there that know things about him that he doesn't want made public?
Remarkable. That'd be political suicide almost everywhere else. Politicos around the world must envy Trump the loyalty of his followers.
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Trump paying off his girlfriends is NOT a crime for the 50th time. He could give them $1M of his own money and it wouldn't matter. Hell, Congress uses public funds to do the same thing. Do you care about that at all? I'm also highly amused that the same people who supported the serial assaulter Bill Clinton, are now engaging in fake moral harrumphing about Trump.
 
veritas1 said:
Obama lied repeatedly about the details of Obamacare. He said he wouldn't give amnesty to the dreamers and then did. These are facts.
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Trump said we would have something better than Obamacare. Where is it? Is that a lie?

If I promise my kids that I'll take them to Disney World but I don't my bonus and I don't take them, is that a lie?

It's absurd that I should have to explain such basic realities to you. A promise is not a fact. The crime rate in El Paso before and after the wall is a fact. Whether or not construction has started on the wall is a fact. U.S. Steel plans to open 6 new plants or not is a fact.

Your defense of Trump is to claim that others lied too. A G.W. Bush supporter can point to Clinton's "didn't inhale" or "did not have sexual relations". A Clinton supporter can point to Bush I and "read my lips, no new taxes." A Bush I supporter can point to Reagan's Iran / Contra "I don't remember."

There is no end to this.

Trump is president today and his lies are his own. No president has ever lied about factual matters to the extent that Trump has.

I don't care if you support him but why do you have to deny reality and make yourself look foolish to do so? Trump is a habitual liar and you don't care because you hate liberals.
 
veritas1 said:
Trump paying off his girlfriends is NOT a crime for the 50th time.
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You can deny it 100 times and that won't make it so. You don't get to decide what's illegal. Let a jury decide if he broke the law.
 
SonOfDaedalus said:
Trump said we would have something better than Obamacare. Where is it? Is that a lie?

If I promise my kids that I'll take them to Disney World but I don't my bonus and I don't take them, is that a lie?

It's absurd that I should have to explain such basic realities to you. A promise is not a fact. The crime rate in El Paso before and after the wall is a fact. Whether or not construction has started on the wall is a fact. U.S. Steel plans to open 6 new plants or not is a fact.

Your defense of Trump is to claim that others lied too. A G.W. Bush supporter can point to Clinton's "didn't inhale" or "did not have sexual relations". A Clinton supporter can point to Bush I and "read my lips, no new taxes." A Bush I supporter can point to Reagan's Iran / Contra "I don't remember."

There is no end to this.

Trump is president today and his lies are his own. No president has ever lied about factual matters to the extent that Trump has.

I don't care if you support him but why do you have to deny reality and make yourself look foolish to do so? Trump is a habitual liar and you don't care because you hate liberals.
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You are comparing apples to hammers. If the GOP Congress had put together some healthcare plan and Trump had lied about its particulars over and over in order to get support for it, that would be comparable to what Obama did. I agree that failing to have some campaign promise materialize is not a lie but neither is that what I was talking about.
 
veritas1 said:
Where did I say I was on a right wing site? I was on the Baltimore Sun's politics forum, which doesn't exist anymore. You guys imagine stuff and then respond to what you imagined.
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Very slippery of you. You make the contention that you had seen no birthism claims in all your years on a political forum but then it turns out it wasnt a right wing forum? Then how does your statement of never seeing birthism claims hold any merit?
 
Indlib said:
Very slippery of you. You make the contention that you had seen no birthism claims in all your years on a political forum but then it turns out it wasnt a right wing forum? Then how does your statement of never seeing birthism claims hold any merit?
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You can't read, apparently. I said I rarely posted in those threads, not that they didn't exist. I also told you what forum it was. If you think anything about the Baltimore Sun is right wing, then you know nothing about it. It was a forum like this one with a wide variety of opinions.
 
veritas1 said:
You can't read, apparently. I said I rarely posted in those threads, not that they didn't exist. I also told you what forum it was. If you think anything about the Baltimore Sun is right wing, then you know nothing about it. It was a forum like this one with a wide variety of opinions.
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I think our points are getting lost in translation and this point is not really important enough to me to try to clarify and hash out. We simply don't seem to be understanding each other. No biggie. I wish you well.
 
veritas1 said:
How the hell did I "support" the birther movement?
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You're being intentionally dense, I believe. Did I simply say you supported it? Or did I say "you (and people like you) EITHER supported it, or were completely silent" in response to that entire LIE from your side? You can read. Go back and try a better response, next time, ok? Please don't pretend to be stupid. And don't try to pass off Strawman arguments on me. I will not give you credit for either. If you can't rebut something I say (which is obviously the case here) you'd do better to just hush up about it, next time.

You're a drama queen of the first order.
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Sorry, I'm not very concerned about personal insults from low-info right wing types who traffic in ignorance and bigotry on anonymous message boards.

As for Trump, I'm only interested in what he does as POTUS, not whether he slept around or once considered building a tower in Moscow. That is IRRELEVANT.
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Nonsense. You (and people like you) are clearly politically amoral, as long as your political agenda is being advanced. Like most Goper's, you value things like honesty, morality and ethics (as you people understand those traits) ONLY as TOOLS by which to judge those who do not share your political views. In this case, you are completely ok with racism, bigotry, incompetence and dishonesty on scales that we never seen before...because the ignorant bigot in the White House supports your agenda (which no doubt has some roots in said traits).

I vote based on policy and have never discussed any moral failings of Obama or anyone else.
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No you don't. You vote based upon your ideology. Your status as a Trump apologist proves that. You're a right wing ideologue, and the policies you support are clear.

You must have some deep seated grievance against Christians since you endlessly blabber about them. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with them. They support Trump because they like his policies, not because he's a goody two shoes. You are arguing from a false assumption. If Christians could only vote for the morally pure, they'd never vote at all.
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What an ignorant set of assumptions. First, I'm a Christian. I have no "grievance" against people of my faith. Secondly, Trump's support among Christians is almost entirely from one faction: white Evangelicals, 80% of whom supported (and continue to support) Trump. Every other major Christian demographic group in the electorate (except for self-identified conservative Catholics, who supported him in a very slight majority)....do NOT support Trump.

That said, it's important to define those "policies" of Trump that explain why white evangelicals support him so strongly. It has been documented, in study after study, that the "policies" (as you put it) behind the unyielding support for Trump by white evangelicals are ALL related to racial resentments, cultural fears and religious intolerance. NOT tax policy. NOT "deregulation". NOT energy policy. NOT "jobs". Not trade. Not security. It's no real mystery why most of Trump's core supporters (like you) love him so much. Some people just don't want to (or can't handle) an honest discussion of those "policy" issues.
 
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veritas1 said:
You are comparing apples to hammers. If the GOP Congress had put together some healthcare plan and Trump had lied about its particulars over and over in order to get support for it, that would be comparable to what Obama did. I agree that failing to have some campaign promise materialize is not a lie but neither is that what I was talking about.
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When Obama was campaigning there was no concrete healthcare plan. Just outlines of a plan. There was supposed to be a public option but when Ted Kennedy died, they didn't have the votes.

Trump consistently tells factual lies. Moving from "Build the Wall" to "Finish the Wall" is a lie. Nothing new has been built. It's just a lie. Give me an equivalent lie by any other president.

Fact check: Trump says his border wall is under construction. It's not.
 
veritas1 said:
Trump paying off his girlfriends is NOT a crime for the 50th time. He could give them $1M of his own money and it wouldn't matter. Hell, Congress uses public funds to do the same thing. Do you care about that at all? I'm also highly amused that the same people who supported the serial assaulter Bill Clinton, are now engaging in fake moral harrumphing about Trump.
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Why is criminality the benchmark when you're talking about your President? Is that the high water mark in the USA now?
You guys are all the same, lowering the bar until it becomes a tripping hazard instead of a minimum standard you hold your President to. The pattern is so predictable it's yawn-inducing. "Was it illegal? Indictable? No? Then it's acceptable." Followed closely by citing Bill Clinton and if that deflection doesn't work, declaring Obama to be the worst President ever and measuring Trump to that.
Trump paid hush money to someone to keep them from revealing something shameful he's done. Period. Have you ever done that? Has anyone you know ever done that? The President did it twice, twice that we know of. In my world that makes him a sleazy scumbag. Different in the circles you move in, I guess.
 
Cohen's testimony KILED THE RUSSIA LIE, ONCE AND FOR ALL.


NO PRAGUE MEETING, ergo DOSSIER FULLACRAP (which we already knew).

NO EVIDENCE OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION, from Trump's personal confidante, despite the Witch Hunt seizing everything he had.If Cohen doesn't have it...WHO DOES?


NO ONE...that's who.....
 
Grokmaster said:
Cohen's testimony KILED THE RUSSIA LIE, ONCE AND FOR ALL.


NO PRAGUE MEETING, ergo DOSSIER FULLACRAP (which we already knew).

NO EVIDENCE OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION, from Trump's personal confidante, despite the Witch Hunt seizing everything he had.If Cohen doesn't have it...WHO DOES?


NO ONE...that's who.....
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Missing the forest for the trees.
 
SonOfDaedalus said:
Trump said we would have something better than Obamacare. Where is it? Is that a lie?

If I promise my kids that I'll take them to Disney World but I don't my bonus and I don't take them, is that a lie?

It's absurd that I should have to explain such basic realities to you. A promise is not a fact. The crime rate in El Paso before and after the wall is a fact. Whether or not construction has started on the wall is a fact. U.S. Steel plans to open 6 new plants or not is a fact.

Your defense of Trump is to claim that others lied too. A G.W. Bush supporter can point to Clinton's "didn't inhale" or "did not have sexual relations". A Clinton supporter can point to Bush I and "read my lips, no new taxes." A Bush I supporter can point to Reagan's Iran / Contra "I don't remember."

There is no end to this.

Trump is president today and his lies are his own. No president has ever lied about factual matters to the extent that Trump has.

I don't care if you support him but why do you have to deny reality and make yourself look foolish to do so? Trump is a habitual liar and you don't care because you hate liberals.
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Promises are declarative statements, so, yes, they can be lies. Simply put, if one over-promises "stuff" -- and let's be honest, everyone knows when they uttered a promise that exceeds their ability and span of control to bring it to fruition -- one may later become a liar.

If one speaks too quickly, one needs to immediately, right then and there, revise one's remarks to bring them into line with what one can rightly accomplish. That's not hard to do:
  • Well, actually, let me clarify that....
  • Actually, I better not say that; better that I say....
It's all about managing expectations well in advance of folks getting their "hearts set" on "this" only to later learn "this" isn't at all what one's delivering.


Red:
Yes! Resoundingly, yes.

It's a lie because he, just as you and I did, knew or should have known damn well he didn't know enough about health insurance to have anything close to a normatively comprehensive vision of to what he'd have US health insurance evolve. He had no business uttering any qualitative remarks about the future of health insurance offerings, acquisition, acceptance and use. He knew or should have known too that as POTUS he could not by fiat effect whatever notion of heath insurance he deemed fitting.


Blue:
Maybe; maybe not. It depends on the nature of the promise you made.
  • Did you predicate the outcome on your bonus? If so, no.
  • Did you make an unqualified promise? If so, yes.
If one's ability to deliver on a promise depends on anyone's actions other than one's own, and one's not already secured their approbation/concordance with one's stated outcome, one runs the risk of being made a liar.
 
ludin said:
i gave you a shot to support you argument you failed to do so you lose. it is pretty simple.
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Rinse and Repeat.

Spin first of course.

Looks like Kim turned down Donald's request for asylum in NK. I heard and say Kim said he doesn't like beach bums. I'd be sure Kim doesn't want Americans with mint julips kicking the tires of his artillery pieces on the lovely beaches.

So what again wuz your original statement...
 
AlphaOmega said:
So cohen gave his congressional testimony to CNN before he gave it to congress? Why would an honest person do that?
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Why not? What is dishonest about providing advance copy to journalists or media of a statement unless the testimony is in front of a closed committee? Did not Trump do the same thing before the state of the Union?
 
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