• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Pelosi calls on embattled Collins to resign: 'No person is above the law'

Acadia said:
Lots of "allegedly" and "inside sources", too.
The WaPo outdoes themselves on their Beautiful Mind connection conspiracies.
Click to expand...

Lots of creative usage of words to tell a story that pushes the agenda they want to push irregardless of the truth or most likely truth.

Which is of course not journalism.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Wow, that is some warped thinking right there....
Click to expand...

You post about the so called journalists, but are unable to name a single one, Einstein! Do you know anything about anything?
 
holbritter said:
Oh, please do!
Click to expand...

They already are...


"The Trump administration's scandals threaten to take a toll on Republicans in battleground districts this fall, according to new polling suggesting “culture of corruption” messaging is gaining traction.

Fifty-four percent of voters across 48 Republican-held congressional districts said Republicans are “more corrupt” than Democrats, compared with 46 percent who said Democrats are “more corrupt.”
..."

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/17/corruption-republicans-democrats-poll-728977​
 
Floridafan said:
You post about the so called journalists, but are unable to name a single one, Einstein! Do you know anything about anything?
Click to expand...

If you need it pointed out to you where stuff that is pushed at you under the guise of journalism is not in fact journalism as is proven in the words that they write then you are better left to remedial education, you are not worthy of my time.
 
Moot said:
They already are...


"The Trump administration's scandals threaten to take a toll on Republicans in battleground districts this fall, according to new polling suggesting “culture of corruption” messaging is gaining traction.

Fifty-four percent of voters across 48 Republican-held congressional districts said Republicans are “more corrupt” than Democrats, compared with 46 percent who said Democrats are “more corrupt.”
..."

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/17/corruption-republicans-democrats-poll-728977​
Click to expand...

It would be a mistake.



As the Trump administration corruption scandals mount and yet President Donald Trump's poll numbers continue to tick upward, Democrats ask: Why don't voters care? Doesn't corruption matter?

Here's one reason the Trump corruption scandals aren't connecting as much as they should: Before Democrats spent the past 18 months telling everyone this is not normal, they spent years reassuring voters that this was normal.

Well, not precisely this. But the general this: politicians having extensive financial conflicts of interest.

Democrats told voters that taking high-dollar speaking fees right before you run for president from the industries you might regulate should you become president was just something everybody does. They said it was unsophisticated to worry if entities related to you had been fundraising from countries with foreign-policy interests before the US. They said nobody would object if a man did these things.

They said you should look past the finances and understand that the Clintons shared your values and had your best interests at heart.

Of course, the Clintons' behavior was never normal. They had the second-deepest set of financial conflicts of interest we've seen in a national political operation in my lifetime — second only to Trumpworld.

Democrats could have picked virtually any other candidate for president and gotten a clean advantage on the corruption issue in the general election. But by defending the Clinton model, Democrats were playing right into Trump's hands, essentially telling voters there would always be a swamp, that everybody does it, that a leader is always going to have financial interests that intertwine with his or her public duties.

Is it any surprise so many voters decided they might as well put their own corrupt guy in charge of the swamp?
Years before Trump started taking policy advice from friends at Mar-a-Lago, Hillary Clinton was forwarding freelance intelligence memos about Libya from Clinton Foundation consultant Sidney Blumenthal around the State Department as Blumenthal pursued business interests in Libya with other Clinton associates.

Close associates using the perception of closeness to officials to seek large consulting fees from businesses? How do you think Bill Clinton's former personal aide, Doug Band, got rich enough to buy David Rockefeller's $20 million mansion?

Getting in private business at the same time you serve as a top official adviser in government? Huma Abedin was doing it years before Jared Kushner.

You can even compare the Clinton and Trump swamps live in action in Prague this month, where Steve Bannon will debate longtime Clinton confidant (and brownnoser) Lanny Davis at an event sponsored by the Czech defense contractor for which Davis lobbies.
My point is not that what Bill and Hillary Clinton's associates did is as bad as what Trump and his associates have done. It's not as bad. Trumpworld has taken graft and influence peddling to a new, vulgar level. And my sense is Trump's associates have been significantly more sloppy about legal compliance than Clintonworld ever was.

But the fundamental ethical concern is the same: that a leader has marinated himself or herself in financial conflicts of interest, making it unclear where the public interest ends and private interest begins.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-hillary-clinton-normalized-trump-2018-5
 
Moot said:
They already are...


"The Trump administration's scandals threaten to take a toll on Republicans in battleground districts this fall, according to new polling suggesting “culture of corruption” messaging is gaining traction.

Fifty-four percent of voters across 48 Republican-held congressional districts said Republicans are “more corrupt” than Democrats, compared with 46 percent who said Democrats are “more corrupt.”
..."

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/17/corruption-republicans-democrats-poll-728977​
Click to expand...


But there's more:

Plenty of corruption to go around! From a write up just last year.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Mayor of Allentown Ed Pawlowski and former Democratic Mayor of Reading Vaughn Spencer, along with three others, were indicted by the FBI on July 26,2017 for a pay-to-play scheme.

Philadelphia’s District Attorney Seth Williams, a Democrat, decided not to run for re-election because he currently faces an FBI probe into $160,000 of gifts he failed to report.

Last year, Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah was convicted and sentenced to prison for corruption charges. Fattah had been in office since 1995.

Seattle Democratic Mayor Ed Murray isn’t running for re-election this year due to a sex abuse scandal he is implicated in.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is plagued by corruption and inefficiency. It currently faces an ongoing class action lawsuit filed by Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ supporters for rigging the primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton. Another class action lawsuit was filed earlier this year on behalf of Clinton campaign field organizers who weren’t paid overtime, despite the Democratic National Convention Committee handing out $1 million in bonuses.

In May 2017, former Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown was convicted on several charges related to a fraudulent charity. She had served in Congress since 1993. The Florida Democratic Party chair race in January 2017 was rife with scandal: Billionaire donor Stephen Bittel broke the party’s rules to win the controversial race.

In March 2017, Sen. Bob Menendez exhausted all his appeals to avoid facing trial for bribery charges. The trial is set to begin in September.


Chicago Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel is hoping that early fundraising will save his bid for re-election in 2019. He will likely face staunch opposition due to his office being plagued by scandal, most notably a cover-up of police shooting unarmed black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2015.

In New York, Former Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver managed to get his corruption conviction overturned this month, but the U.S. District Attorney Office for the Southern District of New York is retrying the case.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose former aides were charged with corruption last year, is in damage control over an MTA State of Emergency in New York City. The New York Daily News reported earlier this month that Cuomo diverted funds meant for MTA repairs to boost his “pet projects.”

In May 2017, former New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner plead guilty in an underage sexting case.

In California, the California Democratic Party Compliance Review Commission found that over 300 votes cast in the election for California Democratic Party chair posed problems in their potential legitimacy. The election was decided by 62 votes. Last weekend, the commission invalidated 25 votes for Eric Bauman, the winner, and 22 for Kimberly Ellis, who lost the election, but Ellis noted its overt bias for Bauman, the party establishment’s choice for the position. Ellis has indicated that a lawsuit will likely have to be filed to hold the party accountable.


Corruption Scandals Are Piling Up for Democrats | Observer
 
holbritter said:
But there's more:

Plenty of corruption to go around! From a write up just last year.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Mayor of Allentown Ed Pawlowski and former Democratic Mayor of Reading Vaughn Spencer, along with three others, were indicted by the FBI on July 26,2017 for a pay-to-play scheme.

Philadelphia’s District Attorney Seth Williams, a Democrat, decided not to run for re-election because he currently faces an FBI probe into $160,000 of gifts he failed to report.

Last year, Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah was convicted and sentenced to prison for corruption charges. Fattah had been in office since 1995.

Seattle Democratic Mayor Ed Murray isn’t running for re-election this year due to a sex abuse scandal he is implicated in.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is plagued by corruption and inefficiency. It currently faces an ongoing class action lawsuit filed by Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ supporters for rigging the primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton. Another class action lawsuit was filed earlier this year on behalf of Clinton campaign field organizers who weren’t paid overtime, despite the Democratic National Convention Committee handing out $1 million in bonuses.

In May 2017, former Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown was convicted on several charges related to a fraudulent charity. She had served in Congress since 1993. The Florida Democratic Party chair race in January 2017 was rife with scandal: Billionaire donor Stephen Bittel broke the party’s rules to win the controversial race.

In March 2017, Sen. Bob Menendez exhausted all his appeals to avoid facing trial for bribery charges. The trial is set to begin in September.


Chicago Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel is hoping that early fundraising will save his bid for re-election in 2019. He will likely face staunch opposition due to his office being plagued by scandal, most notably a cover-up of police shooting unarmed black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2015.

In New York, Former Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver managed to get his corruption conviction overturned this month, but the U.S. District Attorney Office for the Southern District of New York is retrying the case.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose former aides were charged with corruption last year, is in damage control over an MTA State of Emergency in New York City. The New York Daily News reported earlier this month that Cuomo diverted funds meant for MTA repairs to boost his “pet projects.”

In May 2017, former New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner plead guilty in an underage sexting case.

In California, the California Democratic Party Compliance Review Commission found that over 300 votes cast in the election for California Democratic Party chair posed problems in their potential legitimacy. The election was decided by 62 votes. Last weekend, the commission invalidated 25 votes for Eric Bauman, the winner, and 22 for Kimberly Ellis, who lost the election, but Ellis noted its overt bias for Bauman, the party establishment’s choice for the position. Ellis has indicated that a lawsuit will likely have to be filed to hold the party accountable.


Corruption Scandals Are Piling Up for Democrats | Observer
Click to expand...

tl:dr
 
JacksinPA said:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/4...-collins-to-resign-no-person-is-above-the-law

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday called for the resignation of Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), who is facing charges of insider trading.

"[House] Speaker [Paul] Ryan (R-Wis.) must call on Congressman Collins to resign," Pelosi said in a statement. "No person is above the law, not the President nor his first supporter in Congress."

Collins, an ally of President Trump's, announced Saturday that he will not seek reelection as he mounts a defense against the Justice Department's multiple charges of securities fraud and lying to the FBI.
===================================================
Time for this dirt bag to go back to Buffalo & join his millionaire friends. Vacant house seats can't be filled by appointment, like in the Senate. So this would give the Dems a 1 vote uptick in the House.
Click to expand...

Did she make that same call to Menendez?
 
holbritter said:
Stay uninformed then :shrug:
Click to expand...

My link showed the Dems message on anti-corruption is taking hold in swing states that voted for Trump...and you respond with a wall of words on Clinton whataboutisms. So what did I miss? :shrug:

Btw...your second link is sooo last year. :coffeepap
 
Hawkeye10 said:
If you need it pointed out to you where stuff that is pushed at you under the guise of journalism is not in fact journalism as is proven in the words that they write then you are better left to remedial education, you are not worthy of my time.
Click to expand...

Lets ask you again, Einstein, just who is "they"?
 
And how many criminal Dems did Nutty Nancy defend when they were called to resign?
 
Moot said:
My link showed the Dems message on anti-corruption is taking hold in swing states that voted for Trump...and you respond with a wall of words on Clinton whataboutisms. So what did I miss? :shrug:

Btw...your second link is sooo last year. :coffeepap
Click to expand...

Uhm...yeah....that's why I said it was from last year. So anything from 2017 doesn't matter?

And it's not a whataboutism. You think anti-corruption platform is 'taking hold' because of a 54%, slightly over half think the GOP is more corrupt. The other slightly under half 46% think the Dems are. The message I take is 100% think corruption is the norm. That's a very foggy mirror they are counting on.

Hey, they should go for it. Such an earth shattering platform should do the trick. Nothing gets people going over jobs, economy, healthcare more than showing that they are slightly less corrupt than the other side.
 
holbritter said:
It would be a mistake.



As the Trump administration corruption scandals mount and yet President Donald Trump's poll numbers continue to tick upward, Democrats ask: Why don't voters care? Doesn't corruption matter?

Here's one reason the Trump corruption scandals aren't connecting as much as they should: Before Democrats spent the past 18 months telling everyone this is not normal, they spent years reassuring voters that this was normal.

Well, not precisely this. But the general this: politicians having extensive financial conflicts of interest.

Democrats told voters that taking high-dollar speaking fees right before you run for president from the industries you might regulate should you become president was just something everybody does. They said it was unsophisticated to worry if entities related to you had been fundraising from countries with foreign-policy interests before the US. They said nobody would object if a man did these things.

They said you should look past the finances and understand that the Clintons shared your values and had your best interests at heart.

Of course, the Clintons' behavior was never normal. They had the second-deepest set of financial conflicts of interest we've seen in a national political operation in my lifetime — second only to Trumpworld.

Democrats could have picked virtually any other candidate for president and gotten a clean advantage on the corruption issue in the general election. But by defending the Clinton model, Democrats were playing right into Trump's hands, essentially telling voters there would always be a swamp, that everybody does it, that a leader is always going to have financial interests that intertwine with his or her public duties.

Is it any surprise so many voters decided they might as well put their own corrupt guy in charge of the swamp?
Years before Trump started taking policy advice from friends at Mar-a-Lago, Hillary Clinton was forwarding freelance intelligence memos about Libya from Clinton Foundation consultant Sidney Blumenthal around the State Department as Blumenthal pursued business interests in Libya with other Clinton associates.

Close associates using the perception of closeness to officials to seek large consulting fees from businesses? How do you think Bill Clinton's former personal aide, Doug Band, got rich enough to buy David Rockefeller's $20 million mansion?

Getting in private business at the same time you serve as a top official adviser in government? Huma Abedin was doing it years before Jared Kushner.

You can even compare the Clinton and Trump swamps live in action in Prague this month, where Steve Bannon will debate longtime Clinton confidant (and brownnoser) Lanny Davis at an event sponsored by the Czech defense contractor for which Davis lobbies.
My point is not that what Bill and Hillary Clinton's associates did is as bad as what Trump and his associates have done. It's not as bad. Trumpworld has taken graft and influence peddling to a new, vulgar level. And my sense is Trump's associates have been significantly more sloppy about legal compliance than Clintonworld ever was.

But the fundamental ethical concern is the same: that a leader has marinated himself or herself in financial conflicts of interest, making it unclear where the public interest ends and private interest begins.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-hillary-clinton-normalized-trump-2018-5
Click to expand...
I see your point and acknowledge that Clinton had benefited way too much from public service.

Many of us did actually have a problem with Clinton's conflicts of interest, but we were dismissed because so many felt that nothing would stand in the way of Clinton becoming the first female president.

Still, there really isn't any evidence that Clinton ever did anything that was illegal, or that she was selling foreign policy to the highest bidder. There have been many reviews of the Clinton's fiances over the decades and nothing ever was found to be illegal.

That's not to say I don't think that the laws don't need to be changed to prohibit what she was doing, FYI.

Trump, OTOH, hasn't had to deal with any real oversight by Republicans. All of his financial information (including his tax returns) are secret and will remain a secret as long as the Republicans have control of all the committees. I think that's what bothers a lot of people so much. They feel like the secrecy has gone on long enough, and they might vote for Democrats just to finally have these records released.
 
MovingPictures said:
I see your point and acknowledge that Clinton had benefited way too much from public service.

Many of us did actually have a problem with Clinton's conflicts of interest, but we were dismissed because so many felt that nothing would stand in the way of Clinton becoming the first female president.

Still, there really isn't any evidence that Clinton ever did anything that was illegal, or that she was selling foreign policy to the highest bidder. There have been many reviews of the Clinton's fiances over the decades and nothing ever was found to be illegal.

That's not to say I don't think that the laws don't need to be changed to prohibit what she was doing, FYI.

Trump, OTOH, hasn't had to deal with any real oversight by Republicans. All of his financial information (including his tax returns) are secret and will remain a secret as long as the Republicans have control of all the committees. I think that's what bothers a lot of people so much. They feel like the secrecy has gone on long enough, and they might vote for Democrats just to finally have these records released.
Click to expand...


I agree with most of that. But I'm pretty sure Mueller has his tax returns for his investigation, so I don't think they will remain secret forever, and his other financial statements have been released. That's what was given in lieu of his tax returns at the start.

And it's not so much 'Clinton' being corrupt, but Democrats as a whole as well. By dismissing it, as you said, it made the perception that it wasn't as important as other issues. It normalized it. To now switch gears and claim it as such an important issue, which is what you are doing if it's the platform you are going to run on, is a mistake, imo.

But who knows. With the media's steady reporting of Trump and company's, working as companion advertising for the Dems, it might work. Yes, with those that base everything on what the current headlines read, it might work.
 
holbritter said:
I agree with most of that. But I'm pretty sure Mueller has his tax returns for his investigation, so I don't think they will remain secret forever, and his other financial statements have been released. That's what was given in lieu of his tax returns at the start.

And it's not so much 'Clinton' being corrupt, but Democrats as a whole as well. By dismissing it, as you said, it made the perception that it wasn't as important as other issues. It normalized it. To now switch gears and claim it as such an important issue, which is what you are doing if it's the platform you are going to run on, is a mistake, imo.

But who knows. With the media's steady reporting of Trump and company's, working as companion advertising for the Dems, it might work. Yes, with those that base everything on what the current headlines read, it might work.
Click to expand...
Well, don't forget it has been the GOP that has been talking nonstop about the so-called "swamp", and for decades accused the Clinton's of all kinds of heinous criminal conduct, but are now turning a complete blind eye to the mountain of Trump's corruption.

Mueller can release Trump's tax returns if a crime has been uncovered within them, so there's no guarantee they will be released.

As for the media. I think Trumps and the GOP's nonstop attacks on the media are exactly why they have de-facto, taken preference with Democrats. Argue that it's wrong all you want, but a politicians bashing the media is kind of like flipping the cop off at a traffic stop and calling him a pig.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom