Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

That's a stupid response. The subject is what Trump is doing to the rule of law, not whether "the bureaucratic state" is flawless.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I that was reciprocal discipline because Arkansas suspended him first. He then resigned, rather than face disbarment.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

He didn't "flub." It didn't matter because he wasn't going to bring charges. And it was so successful people are still repeating "Mueller, as everyone knows by now, chose not to make a charging decision—one way or the other," which is not at all an accurate way to portray a report that says it won't accuse anyone of crimes it can't charge.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

There is no “rule of law” at issue. The law is an instrument here. Some people who think Trump has improper connections to Russians wanted to start an investigation for national security reasons. Some were just acting as law enforcement is supposed to (Comey). Others were biased and have used the investigation for political ends (Politicians, Ohr, Sztrock, etc.).

Trump is fighting against political enemies using the instruments available to him.

This is all about power. To say something like the “rule of law” is at risk is bizarre. The sort of thing a lawyer might say, as he’s been trained to hold a romantic idea of the law’s purity and importance.

The law is written by dimwit politicians, increasingly based off source text of lobbyists. To fret that it’s under siege by a strip mall r/e developer strongman is beneath you.

The law and its procedures are being used and abused as they've always been by politicians. This just seems more dramatic because Trump is a gambler who’s employing tactics to which other more skilled or moderate operators in the past haven’t had to resort.

A silver lining of the Trump era will be that the public will see in technicolor how politicians and bureaucrats treat the law like a chess game - mere moves to be employed for advantage. I fear what Trump does to the social fabric of this country. The damage he’s doing to the bureaucracy, the two party system, and the fantasy foisted on the public that we have a “rule of law” in politics (and generally, really), rather than a rule of power and money, doesn’t concern me. Those rotted systems and narratives need a radical reset.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Trump is fighting against bogeymen in the closet and under the bed, and he's doing it using his little wooden horses and knights.

Take the current trade war with China. He imagines he has all these ways of fighting, he imagines someone will respond to a threat by quaking in their boots rather than by levying tariffs themselves (as people have in this circumstance for centuries). All of this to fight things that aren't really a problem because he wants a bogeyman to blame other problems, like automation, on.

Likewise, he blames refugees, encourages his crowds to yell about shooting them, breaks laws trying to keep them out, says Mexico will pay for the wall. Folks, we have net emigration to, not immigration from, Mexico.

The reason he ignores the law is simple: reality doesn't matter, whether it is the reality of what the law says or the reality of someone paying $10 for soybeans that cost $20 to grow.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Do you not understand what the rule of law is, or do you not care?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I gets said so often I'm sure it's lost its edge: but are you really this stupid?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Yeah, man, the law is a pimp and the Supreme Court is its brothel. The bureaucratic state has made us all Johns and that infected pus that oozing from every orifice is all that left of democracy. You can wipe it up with the Constitution, but that shit-stained old parchment is for suckers. Trump knows this. He's a cowboy. And a gambler. And a plumber. And a landscape architect. You want rule of law? The Statue of Liberty just got an illegal abortion in Georgia and Trump was the father. Didn't even drive her home. Washington was built on a swamp that was built on a cesspool that was built on the diseased and rotting corpses of every two-bit con man and grifter in North America. The ends justify the means, which justify the ends. It's like a snake eating its own tail. Except its tail is democracy. Dig?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

So what??? Hillary would have fucked that corpse just as hard except she be directed by the bankers instead of Trump, who just does what his lizard brain tells him to do in the moment. Hell, I used to think there was no difference between Trump and Hillary but the more I see it playing out the more I realize he’s actually better- the psycho is so erratic half the time he isn’t ruining the institution, half the time he’s fucking up what he tried to do last week. Hillary had an agenda man, combine that with direction from the bankers? That’s scary. Either we have to be heading for the masses to revolt soon.

The only other way out is if we can get get Johnson 7% of the vote in 2020 so he’ll get matching money in 2024.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

see below

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I don't think it's relevant here. And I also don't believe the rule of law really exists in this country the way you think it does.

I think we have the rule of property protection. I think we have an antiquated system of laws crafted in considerable part by special interests, idiot politicians, and lawyers (the latter two having significant overlap).

If you've done criminal work, you realize quickly the level of nihilism on the side of the agents and the targets is usually equal. The architecture of the system isn't designed to deliver reasonable, just results. It's a barbarous relic of an age where zero sum competition was seen as the best way to resolve issues. Our civil system is actually a perfect environment for a person with Trump's caveman mentality, which probably explains his affinity for lawsuits.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I can't tell if he has or doesn't have a strategy on trade in re China. Sometimes, it looks like strategy. Other times, it looks schizophrenic. (I think the most scandalous story our media is missing is his trade war's impact on infrastructure projects. The cost of materials is up 15-20%, making it impossible for states and municipalities in economically challenged areas where such projects are most needed to move them forward.)

By the way, disciplining China is not irrational or unwarranted: https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Year-.../dp/1250081343 Whether Trump is aware of any of the well considered arguments on why and how to do that is another issue. I tend to doubt it.

I don't disagree with the rest of your assessment of Trump. As I noted in reply to Ty earlier, he's just playing the hand he has. He's being attacked by people who know the system well, and has succeeded so far by confusing them in repeatedly refusing to follow their rules. I know you know beltway sorts, and so do I, and I don't think we'd disagree that they assume things work along rules that they tend to follow, and they're not terribly fast on their feet when someone goes way off script and is unpredictable because, at least on policy, he doesn't even know himself what his next move might be.

Ty seems to think there's Trump vs. the Rule of Law (however that's defined). I see a group of people aligned against Trump using the tools at their disposal to try to push him from power and him using a bizarre campaign of attacks, lies, and aggressive refusals to play by the rules (ignoring subpoenas, to cite the most recent off-the-chessboard move) to counter. It's a simple power struggle. One I don't see him winning.

But I do see a silver lining. The kind of politics Newt started and Trump has now used to enter the White House needs to end. My concern, however, is that it can't and won't as long as we have this lousy two party system.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

If you don't care about the rule of law, that's between you and your God, or whatever. But even if it's far from perfect, on which surely everyone here agrees, the idea that the rule of law doesn't really exist is just moronic. Sometimes your contrarianism leads you say things that should be beneath you.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

ANDERSON COOPER: We've got a question -- I want to preface a little bit just for our viewers at home, in case they haven't been following it. The question is going to be about Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe. Just for folks at home, Strzok and Page are former FBI officials who exchanged texts bashing then-candidate Trump in 2016, raising questions of bias.

Strzok played a key role in the Hillary Clinton investigation, worked briefly on Mueller's team. Strzok was eventually fired. Page resigned. McCabe was Direct Comey's deputy at the FBI, lied to internal investigators about leaking information to the press. He was fired last year.

So I want to go to our questioner. This is Christy McCampbell. Christy worked for more than 30 years in law enforcement, including roles at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, state of California. She currently works as a strategic consultant for law enforcement agencies.

QUESTION: Good evening. Considering the high standards that we set for law enforcement, what do you think should have been the consequences for Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Andrew McCabe?

JAMES COMEY: I thank you for the question. I think, given the standards that we have, and especially we in the FBI have, there should have been and was severe discipline around their behavior, as Anderson said, very different episodes of behavior.

Everyone has opinions about political issues and religious issues and sports issues. You can't bring them to work and have them affect your work. There have to be severe consequences.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1905/09/se.01.html