The Tyrannical Minority

[_EAllusion]

What an absolute joke.

Yup.

Really, that you compare the not exactly uncommon argument that the Nixon admin's corruption and people cast a long shadow over the behavior of subsequent Republican administrations and can help explain ongoing misconduct from one admin to the next is equivalent to singularly nutty, qanon level conspiracy theory is just pathetic. It suggests you are both poorly read and reacting without even understanding a rather pedestrian interpretation of generational political influence.

EA: Maybe Nixon admin officials who supported Nixon carried their support of Nixon's behavior over when they did Nixonesque things in subsequent government posts and influential public positions and influenced younger people to do the same. That's a common argument.

Honor: Whatever, you lunatic libertarian.

[_EAllusion]

The guy who is primarily responsible for the direction of Fox News was a close ally of Richard Nixon who worked for him as a political consultant in the role of his executive producer of television. He reacted to Nixon's near-impeachment not by believing it was justified, but with resentment towards negative media coverage of Nixon from the "liberal press." This helped galvanize his desire to create alternative media that would be more supportive of conservatives. He eventually, with people of like-mind, was able to be a significant player in making that happen.

His work eventually led to an enormously influential propaganda apparatus that currently is running nonstop disinformation to protect the President from being impeached for blatantly impeachable conduct. Its influence plausibly is the difference between that President facing Nixon's fate and remaining in office.

One can say that Nixon's scandal carried over into Trump's where the desire for impunity for the former gave birth to it for the latter.

Honor: Hahaha! Ok Bircher-boy. Next you'll tell us that fluoridation saps our precious bodily fluids. Oh. Wait. Someone else has thought about that before. This is just a conspiracy theory of one.

[_honorentheos]

Thanks for playing both parts in your little conversation in your own head. It's very illustrative.

If I get you in this years MDB Christmas white elephant gift exchange, I'm not saying you'll get a sock with nice button eyes to complete the act but, well, what's your favorite eye color so I can pick out the buttons early?

[_Some Schmo]

Thanks for playing both parts in your little conversation in your own head. It's very illustrative.

If I get you in this years MDB Christmas white elephant gift exchange, I'm not saying you'll get a sock with nice button eyes to complete the act but, well, what's your favorite eye color so I can pick out the buttons early?

OK, this made me laugh.

[_Res Ipsa]

By contrast, the official said, it would clearly be an abuse — violating a specific prohibition in an executive order governing classified information — to mark something classified at an unjustifiably higher level in order to conceal violations of the law or prevent embarrassment. Here, however, the released call record was merely marked “secret,” a lower level of classification than “top secret.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/p ... ystem.html

No violation of an executive order. No violation of any rule at all.

The last sentence doesn't follow what comes before it. It would be a violation to enhance the classification of material to conceal violations of law or to prevent embarrassment. That it was a lower level of classification than the maximum level doesn't tell you whether or not that occurred. Part of the allegation of the whisteblower complaint, which seems amply backed up, is that this particular call was inappropriately classified to conceal the misconduct contained within. The same complaint, corroborated by independent testimony, is that this is not the only instance of this occurring.

The article says that these type of transcripts are routinely classified as secret. That’s what the Ukraine transcript was classified as. It also says there is no rule against putting documents classified as secret on the NICE server. At most, we have evidence of a different practice than was used in the past. So far, you’ve shown no evidence of a violation of rules, let alone an executive order. I don’t see a change in practice, in and of itself, as an impeachable offense.

If you think I'm somehow reasoning backwards, please describe exactly what you think my chain of reasoning is and why it is backwards.

I believe the President has given rather clear evidence of impeachable offenses on multiple occasions. For one, rampant Presidential self-dealing isn't exactly a secret. By arguing this one time the President was foolish enough give up some evidence it implies that did not occur in other instances. It's hard to see how this evaluation came to be without taking the one example Democrats finally seized on and retroactively declaring its evidence more clear than other cases.

I think you’ve misunderstood my reason for referring to Trump handing over the Ukraine transcript. My purpose was only to show that Schiff didn’t have to fight for months to see the Ukraine transcript because Trump volunteered it. That puts the Ukraine investigation many months ahead of any investigation of other phone calls. Right now we have good evidence of an impeachable offense sufficient to support approval of articles of impeachment tomorrow. We don’t and won’t have comparable evidence with respect to other phone calls for the foreseeable future.

[_subgenius]

The guy who is primarily responsible for the direction of Fox News was a close ally of Richard Nixon who worked for him as a political consultant in the role of his executive producer of television. He reacted to Nixon's near-impeachment not by believing it was justified, but with resentment towards negative media coverage of Nixon from the "liberal press." This helped galvanize his desire to create alternative media that would be more supportive of conservatives. He eventually, with people of like-mind, was able to be a significant player in making that happen.

His work eventually led to an enormously influential propaganda apparatus that currently is running nonstop disinformation to protect the President from being impeached for blatantly impeachable conduct. Its influence plausibly is the difference between that President facing Nixon's fate and remaining in office.

One can say that Nixon's scandal carried over into Trump's where the desire for impunity for the former gave birth to it for the latter.

Honor: Hahaha! Ok Bircher-boy. Next you'll tell us that fluoridation saps our precious bodily fluids. Oh. Wait. Someone else has thought about that before. This is just a conspiracy theory of one.

I appreciate how you pepper fact with fantasy. About the only thing honest in your post is that Ailes worked for Nixon on Nixon's tv image. Your keywords of "alternative media" and "propaganda apparatus" are the stuff of tin-foil hats and largely just you regurgitating the fear-based blather from the hair-fire op-ed du jour.

Ailes is best summed up by his re-branding of the ever true adage of news being "man bites dog" whereas the media strategy is - "If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, "I have a solution to the Middle East problem," and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?"

It is irrefutable for you to propose that any major media outlet today is not using this orchestra pit measure to dimension everything they sell to advertisers.

[_Jersey Girl]

Justify this rule for us. What is your reasoning (assuming it's not some capricious silliness)?

To cut down on page clutter.

Page clutter? Search on the screen name "Smokey" and look at the obnoxiously large images he's spamming posting. Let us know if you find any "page clutter", Shades.

[_subgenius]

...

No violation of an executive order. No violation of any rule at all.

If you think I'm somehow reasoning backwards, please describe exactly what you think my chain of reasoning is and why it is backwards.

because EA pride insists that what he "thinks" is actually what things "are" especially when he has "figured" them from his armchair...that and EA really really really wants this all to be true (see also Nov '16, electoral college, Pee tape, Russia, Dr Ford, election tampering, taxes, emoluments, Stormy,....a.k.a. ad nauseum pipe dreams).

[_EAllusion]

The article says that these type of transcripts are routinely classified as secret.

What matters is the purpose for classifying them. They are routinely classified because they routinely contain sensitive material deserving of classification. On the flip side, calls are routinely not protected in this manner as well. The argument at hand is that the Ukraine call, among others, was classified not because of legitimate reasons these cases typically involve, but instead out of a desire conceal the embarrassing and corrupt content of the call. That is the allegation.

If so, that's both a gross abuse of power and a violation of the controlling executive order for how to use that power that exists because it is a gross abuse of power. Congress has oversight over whether the President conducts his classification powers in a proper manner regardless, but the violation exists in a written legal interpretation.

I think you’ve misunderstood my reason for referring to Trump handing over the Ukraine transcript. My purpose was only to show that Schiff didn’t have to fight for months to see the Ukraine transcript because Trump volunteered it. That puts the Ukraine investigation many months ahead of any investigation of other phone calls.

I did misread you. To that, all I say is, "What's the rush?"

I thought you were arguing, like Honor has, that this is a unique instance because Trump finally has done something there is brightline evidence of impeachable conduct over, so this is a special case. Trump does that on a regular basis. This is just the instance where Democrats decided to act. He hands over evidence of impeachable conduct often enough.

For example, pardoning unquestionable war criminals against the wishes of the Pentagon is ballpark impeachable on its own and as part of a pattern of related conduct, is plainly impeachable. It's not a secret that he did it. It's a matter of public record. Trump, through unrelenting corruption and our poor media culture, has lowered the bar a great deal for what a (Republican) executive can get away with.

[_honorentheos]

You didn't explain my argument. It isn't that the Ukraine scandal has unique evidence. It's that it has different characteristics that make it a better case. I feel like I've said that a half dozen times. Perhaps it's on me to clarify what you have wrong but honestly? I don't think I can convince you that you are wrong about what I am saying when you don't accept you might be first.