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OT: The Power to Pardon

Seriously? So you're willing to go on record to say that the mis-statements, failing to disclose information until reported on, etc is the fault of our imaginations? This administration is it's own roadblock. Transparency is the best policy and it all started during the campaign. If taxes, meetings, etc were released there wouldn't be half the issues. Stop doubling down and recognize these important facts.

Exactly. The best case scenario is that Trump and his people are a bunch of liars who keep stepping on their own dicks. Innocent of collusion, but looking guilty as sin because of lies and cover-ups. That's the best case scenario at this point.
 
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Exactly. The best case scenario is that Trump and his people are a bunch of liars who keep stepping on their own dicks. Innocent of collusion, but looking guilty as sin because of lies and cover-ups. That's the best case scenario at this point.
Other than the bunch of liars statement, I agree
 
Quest,
You have given a Liberal wish list of talking points:
The President has filed his taxes with the IRS. As far as I know no law requires release and the President has absolutely Zero obligation to release his taxes to anyone.
All politicians misstate things : " If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor "
" If you like your insurance, you may keep your insurance " " I did not have sex with that woman "
" The attack was the result of a vidio tape " etc, etc, etc !
" Believe it or not , politicians have meetings all the time with diplomats and representatives from all
other nations about all types of subjects, IT IS NOT A CRIME, and THERE IS NO Law stating that
That the conversations from those meetings must be "Released", released to whom ?
Please cite the legal Statutes that require releasing the private conversations that took place in all
Such meetings !
 
Wasn't Trump challenging someone last week about their failure to release or disclose something by saying "What are they trying to hide?" That applies to his tax returns too.
 
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R
Quest,
You have given a Liberal wish list of talking points:
The President has filed his taxes with the IRS. As far as I know no law requires release and the President has absolutely Zero obligation to release his taxes to anyone.
All politicians misstate things : " If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor "
" If you like your insurance, you may keep your insurance " " I did not have sex with that woman "
" The attack was the result of a vidio tape " etc, etc, etc !
" Believe it or not , politicians have meetings all the time with diplomats and representatives from all
other nations about all types of subjects, IT IS NOT A CRIME, and THERE IS NO Law stating that
That the conversations from those meetings must be "Released", released to whom ?
Please cite the legal Statutes that require releasing the private conversations that took place in all
Such meetings ![/QUOTE
rgc = spin doctor. One question: would you defend Obama if the scenarios were exactly reversed? So it comes down to what is punishable by law and not ethics, got it.
 
We frequently hear people say they have nothing to hide - so surrendering privacy and constitutional rights to the Surveillance State may not be such a big deal if it helps catch a terrorist or two. But with each passing day in the RussiaGate drama we are learning that this superficial exoneration is dangerously beside the point.

We are referring here to the unrelenting witch hunt that has been unleashed by Imperial Washington against the legitimately elected President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. This campaign of lies, leaks and Russophobia is the handiwork of Obama’s top national security advisors, who blatantly misused Washington’s surveillance apparatus to discredit Trump and to effectively nullify America’s democratic process.

That is, constitutional protections and liberties were systematically breached, but not simply to intimidate, hush or lock up citizens one by one as per the standard totalitarian modus operandi. Instead, what has happened is that the entire public debate has been hijacked by the shadowy forces of the Deep State and their partisan and media collaborators.

The enabling culprits are Obama’s last CIA director, John Brennan, his national security advisor Susan Rice and UN Ambassador Samantha Power. There is now mounting evidence that it was they who illegally “unmasked” NSA intercepts from Trump Tower; they who confected the Russian meddling narrative from behind the protective moat of classified intelligence; and they who orchestrated a systematic campaign of leaks and phony intelligence reports during the presidential transition—-all designed to delegitimize Trump before he even took the oath of office.

So all three of them should be lockedup—-that’s for sure. But the more urgent solution would be to unlock and make public all the innuendo, surmises, assessments, half-truths and boilerplate intelligence chatter on which the entire false narrative about Russian meddling and collusion is based.

Stated differently, without the nation’s massive intelligence apparatus and absurd system of secrecy and classified information to hide behind, the RussiaGate witch hunt would have never gotten off the ground.

In truth, as we will essay below, there is no there, there. So what this new chapter in McCarthyite hysteria actually demonstrates is that the Imperial City’s far-flung, 17-agency, $75 billion Intelligence Behemoth is a plenary threat not just to individual liberty, but to the very constitutional democracy on which the latter depends.

To appreciate the severity of the threat, it is necessary to recognize that the post-9/11 Deep State has lowered a double whammy on our system. That is, it unconstitutionally collects the entirety of all internet based communications of America’s 325 million citizen, while at the same time it has effectively disenfranchised 98% of the 535 members of the House and Senate who have been elected to represent them.

Accordingly, behind the Surveillance State’s vast wall of secrecy and so-called “classified” information, there operates a Dark Government that is unaccountable to the public and largely unconstrained by normal constitutional limits, which the Patriot Act and secret FISA courts have more or less suspended.

In the realm of this Dark Government, the heart of American democracy—-the US Congress—has been completely usurped. Almost everything behind the secrecy wall is off limits to the rank and file. Only a handful of intelligence committee members and the House and Senate leadership gets sworn into the classified intelligence.

Yet just consider the hideous asymmetry of this arrangement. The so-called “Gang of Eight,” comprising the heads of the intelligence oversight committees and their respective party leadership, gets orally briefed in a secure “vault”, where they can’t take notes or carry-out any documents.
Gibberish.
 
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Well, I would argue that it wasn't the way I presented my view, but rather the way you chose to interpret and read between the lines. Regardless, we agree on two aspects. Yes, teachers are largely under appreciated and many go to extreme efforts and personal expense to provide a great learning experience. And we agree that good teachers facilitate open discussion of all views and leave their bias outside the classroom. We disagree as to whether these qualities are practiced by the majority or minority of teachers. We also disagree as to whether there is a dominant liberal bias in our education system, but I don't think anyone can dispute the fact that American K-12 education, as measured in science and math and reading, is producing discouraging and mediocre results when compared internationally.
You bet. To believe the cause of the less than stellar results is solely on the teachers and their pesky union is short sighted and I am not saying you are. The problems here in Ohio are many and having our governor in bed with the leading charter school honcho in the state is troubling. The legislature has been mandated to address the way schools are funded but it hasn't t happened yet. We have many issues here in Ohio. Nationally having a clueless secretary of education doesn't t appear to benefit anyone but her big money pals. A disgrace.
 
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You bet. To believe the cause of the less than stellar results is solely on the teachers and their pesky union is short sighted and I am not saying you are. The problems here in Ohio are many and having our governor in bed with the leading charter school honcho in the state is troubling. The legislature has been mandated to address the way schools are funded but it hasn't t happened yet. We have many issues here in Ohio. Nationally having a clueless secretary of education doesn't t appear to benefit anyone but her big money pals. A disgrace.
Ohio is the armpit of America
 
Democrats have willfully used Moscow disinformation to influence the presidential election against Donald Trump and attack his administration. The disinformation came in the form of a Russian-fed dossier written by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. It contains a series of unverified criminal charges against Mr. Trump’s campaign aides, such as coordinating Moscow’s hacking of Democratic Party computers.
Some Democrats have widely circulated the discredited information. Mr. Steele was paid by the Democrat-funded opposition research firm Fusion GPS with money from a Hillary Clinton backer. Fusion GPS distributed the dossier among Democrats and journalists. The information fell into the hands of the FBI (via Senator McCain), which used it in part to investigate Mr. Trump’s campaign aides.
Mr. Steele makes clear that his unproven charges came almost exclusively from sources linked to the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He identified his sources as “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure,” a former “top level Russian intelligence officer active inside the Kremlin,” a “senior Kremlin official” and a “senior Russian government official.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork
 
You bet. To believe the cause of the less than stellar results is solely on the teachers and their pesky union is short sighted and I am not saying you are. The problems here in Ohio are many and having our governor in bed with the leading charter school honcho in the state is troubling. The legislature has been mandated to address the way schools are funded but it hasn't t happened yet. We have many issues here in Ohio. Nationally having a clueless secretary of education doesn't t appear to benefit anyone but her big money pals. A disgrace.
Echo...we have to ask ourselves why we continue to decline when compared to other countries! We've had 24 years of Presidents committed to education and a strong Federal presence; Clinton and Bush and Obama. The current Secretary of Education has had zero impact at this early stage. In California, teachers are well paid for their nine month job, but it seems that too much resource is spent on school administration rather than teaching. I also appreciate the complexities of places like LA City, where in the nineties, they had 71 different languages represented in their pupil population, and they had to accommodate with ESL. We also led the nation for decades in babies born to single moms, which perpetuates welfare dependency. I appreciate that these and many other social realities adversely impact on the success or lack thereof of our education system; but I am of the opinion that our entrenched teachers and tenure and teacher unions and Their PACs all contribute to opposing significant changes in our education system to meet these challenges and the workforce challenges of the future. I sure as hell don't know the answers, but I do know the current system is failing our children, and our county will pay a heavy price for this.
 
Echo...we have to ask ourselves why we continue to decline when compared to other countries! We've had 24 years of Presidents committed to education and a strong Federal presence; Clinton and Bush and Obama. The current Secretary of Education has had zero impact at this early stage. In California, teachers are well paid for their nine month job, but it seems that too much resource is spent on school administration rather than teaching. I also appreciate the complexities of places like LA City, where in the nineties, they had 71 different languages represented in their pupil population, and they had to accommodate with ESL. We also led the nation for decades in babies born to single moms, which perpetuates welfare dependency. I appreciate that these and many other social realities adversely impact on the success or lack thereof of our education system; but I am of the opinion that our entrenched teachers and tenure and teacher unions and Their PACs all contribute to opposing significant changes in our education system to meet these challenges and the workforce challenges of the future. I sure as hell don't know the answers, but I do know the current system is failing our children, and our county will pay a heavy price for this.
One of our biggest problems is that teachers have become test preparers first and foremost. The ridiculous amount of pressure put on districts over the results of state mandated testing is absurd. Just as rating teachers based on their students testing results is also. The problems are deep and complex. We are teachers but sometimes we are also mothers, father's best friends and mentors to our students. Its not a 9-5 gig but any stretch of the imagination.
 
I started teaching public school in 1962 and retired in 1990. Just generally speaking and not
Trying to paint everyone with the same broad brush, I would just like to share my observations:
1. My Principal served at the Battle of the Bulge in World War 11. Most of our faculty were also military
Veterans from WW11 and Korea at that time. Just about all Americans shared the same moral and patriot
Value system.
2. The morning started with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Start Spangled Banner , and a moment of silence to pray or reflect. no one even though of protesting.
3. The black families in our racially mixed suburban community were two parent families, and were actively
Involved in the education of their children. Based upon a Normal Curve , the Black Children achieved as well
As their white counterparts in the classroom and on standardized testing.
4. During LBJ,s Great Society, I took my first job as a Guidance Counselor at an inner city high school.
It was right after one of the riots had taken place , and we had a school ID Card to show before we were allowed to enter the building. Community Organizers were hired to patrol the halls and help maintain
Discipline and order in the school. The Community and the school population was 90% + black.
5. As I checked my student's records, I was appalled to see that ,by and large , the majority of the fathers
Were " Deceased ". If they all died, they lived very short lives ? In short, there were very few families that
Were two parent, and the children were raised by single mothers.
6. Gangs roamed the streets and came to school. Drug use was very high. And motivation to learn and study
Was minimal.
From my experiece teaching and Counseling at both of my schools, I drew the following conclusions:
1. In the U.S. we have two very different types of educational systems at opposite ends of the educational
Spectrum. To add to the problem, the traditional family is all but non existent in the inner city schools adding to the problems of teaching in an inner city school. It is sad that motivated black students and families are trapped in failing schools where low motivation and poor discipline and the resulting low test
Results are the rule , not the exception. Teachers in those schools burn out quickly, leave if they can, or just
Hang in there until they can retire.
2. Suburban schools are a completely different story and a pleasure to teach in.
So as far as teachers go and teaching subject matter goes, the environment is very conducive to
Learning , the majority of parents are traditional two parent and actively involved in their children's education.
So I believe that When laymen blame teachers for the failing schools, they are talking about inner city schools which are extremely difficult to teach in, and I believe that the inner city problems are much more the
cause of the poor educational environment than the teaches can even begin to be. Improve the inner city environment and I think that one would be truely amazed just how much improved the teaching in those schools will become.
The big problem that I have with education is the destruction of our moral and patriotic values has and continues
to be Progressive rather than Traditional, and they are destroying the moral and patriotic values in the name
" Tolerance " , " Fairness " and any other high sounding words that the radical Progressives like to use.
Sorry to be so long but those are my observations based upon my years of teaching.
 
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I started teaching public school in 1962 and retired in 1990. Just generally speaking and not
Trying to paint everyone with the same broad brush, I would just like to share my observations:
1. My Principal served at the Battle of the Bulge in World War 11. Most of our faculty were also military
Veterans from WW11 and Korea at that time. Just about all Americans shared the same moral and patriot
Value system.
2. The morning started with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Start Spangled Banner , and a moment of silence to pray or reflect. no one even though of protesting.
3. The black families in our racially mixed suburban community were two parent families, and were actively
Involved in the education of their children. Based upon a Normal Curve , the Black Children achieved as well
As their white counterparts in the classroom and on standardized testing.
4. During LBJ,s Great Society, I took my first job as a Guidance Counselor at an inner city high school.
It was right after one of the riots had taken place , and we had a school ID Card to show before we were allowed to enter the building. Community Organizers were hired to patrol the halls and help maintain
Discipline and order in the school. The Community and the school population was 90% + black.
5. As I checked my student's records, I was appalled to see that ,by and large , the majority of the fathers
Were " Deceased ". If they all died, they lived very short lives ? In short, there were very few families that
Were two parent, and the children were raised by single mothers.
6. Gangs roamed the streets and came to school. Drug use was very high. And motivation to learn and study
Was minimal.
From my experiece teaching and Counseling at both of my schools, I drew the following conclusions:
1. In the U.S. we have two very different types of educational systems at opposite ends of the educational
Spectrum. To add to the problem, the triditional family is all but non existent in the inner city schools adding to the problems of teaching in an inter city school. It is sad that motivated black students and families are trapped in failing schools where low motivation and poor discipline and the resulting low test
Results are the rule , not the exception. Teachers in those schools burn out quickly, leave if they can, or just
nang in there until they can retire.
2. Suburban schools are a completely different story and a pleasure to teach in.
So as far as teachers go and teaching subject matter goes, the environment is very conducting to
Learning , the majority of parents are tridionally two parent and actively involved in their children's education.
So I believe that When laymen blame teachers for the failing schools, they are talking about inner city schools which are extremely difficult to teach in, and I believe that the inner city problems are much more the
cause of the poor educational environment than the teaches can even begin to be. Improve the inner city environment and I think that one would be truely amazed just how much improved the teaching in those schools will become.
The other problem that I have with education is the destruction of our moral and patriotic values has and continues
to be Progressive rather than Triditional, and they are destroying the moral and patriotic values in the name
" Tolerance " , " Fairness " and any other high sounding words that the radical Progressives like to use.
Sorry to be so long but those are my observations based upon my years of teaching.
Very well said. I started my teaching career 3 years after you retired. Things are even worse now. I m pretty lucky though as our district has an interesting dynamic. One of the few in our state that has an affluent section along with a smaller section one would consider lower middle class to poor. The mix works pretty well for the most part. Kids will be kids but their obstacles are very different. I would never want to be a kid today. Kudos to you on your career. I hope you found it as satisfying as I find mine.
 
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Very well said. I started my teaching career 3 years after you retired. Things are even worse now. I m pretty lucky though as our district has an interesting dynamic. One of the few in our state that has an affluent section along with a smaller section one would consider lower middle class to poor. The mix works pretty well for the most part. Kids will be kids but their obstacles are very different. I would never want to be a kid today. Kudos to you on your career. I hope you found it as satisfying as I find mine.

Thank you, Echo ! Keep up the good work, you have a very tough job, but loving the kids and doing our best to help them is our reward ! God Bless !
 
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In the United States, the pardon power for federal crimes is granted to the President of the United States under Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution which states that the President "shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment". The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted this language to include the power to grant pardons, conditional pardons, commutations of sentence, conditional commutations of sentence, remissions of fines and forfeitures, respites, and amnesties.[22]

To pardon there first must be a conviction of a crime. To impeach you first must control the House of Representatives (R-241 & D-194). The House has the Constitutional Responsibility to draw up the Articles of Impeachment. The Democratic Party has already separated 50% of the voters by calling us dumb, worthless, and Deplorables. We don't forget and we vote at Midterm elections. It is the Senate (R-52. D-46 & I-2) that would conduct the Impeachment Trial. The last I checked "I don't like him," He's a detestable person", or "I don't like the outcome of the 2016 election"; are not grounds for impeachment.
 
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The swamp is made up of government hacks. Give me all the successful businessmen that want to join the administration.
#MAGA
You should look at the roles of the Goldman group in the housing crisis and America West before you call them successful. Success from giving out bad loans and then creating a bank to forclose on them is pretty slimy. He brought the worst part of the financial crisis into his inner circle.
 
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You should look at the roles of the Goldman group in the housing crisis and America West before you call them successful. Success from giving out bad loans and then creating a bank to forclose on them is pretty slimy. He brought the worst part of the financial crisis into his inner circle.
Goldman Sachs profited greatly from the housing crisis, but they were not related to the cause of the crisis. The rest of the country, stupid lenders and stupid borrowers alike, handled that just fine on their own. You can't fault Goldman for seeing what was going on and investing accordingly. Goldman gets the best and brightest coming out of the best schools, we can use that kind of talent in the government.
 
Goldman Sachs profited greatly from the housing crisis, but they were not related to the cause of the crisis. The rest of the country, stupid lenders and stupid borrowers alike, handled that just fine on their own. You can't fault Goldman for seeing what was going on and investing accordingly. Goldman gets the best and brightest coming out of the best schools, we can use that kind of talent in the government.

The cause of the housing crisis was the government's decision to allow 100% financing and other idiot measure deigned to give great access to housing all on loans backed by the USA. President Bush objected to these changes but backed of after being called racist by the dems you claimed his objection were just an effort to keep minorities from home ownership. It cause by well-intentioned idiot who wanted to pretend that people could own a home even if they could not afford it.

It was worsened by greedy companies taking advantage of the goverment's stupidity, after all they could right loans and bundle them and sell them with the knowledge that the US would cover all losses, but the root was the loosening on the regulations on the type of loans that could be insured.
 
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The cause of the housing crisis was the government's decision to allow 100% financing and other idiot measure deigned to give great access to housing all on loans backed by the USA. President Bush objected to these changes but backed of after being called racist by the dems you claimed his objection were just an effort to keep minorities from home ownership. It cause by well-intentioned idiot who wanted to pretend that people could own a home even if they could not afford it.

It was worsened by greedy companies taking advantage of the goverment's stupidity, after all they could right loans and bundle them and sell them with the knowledge that the US would cover all losses, but the root was the loosening on the regulations on the type of loans that could be insured.
Bush wanted to rein in Fannie and Freddie and all the very loose underwriting that was going on, the Dems, with Barney Frank in the lead role, fought any attempt to do so.

Everyone should own a home!!!! The reality is, like most everything in life, some people are simply not suited, for an infinite number of different reasons, to own a home. That's why we have apartments.
 
The cause of the housing crisis was the government's decision to allow 100% financing and other idiot measure deigned to give great access to housing all on loans backed by the USA. President Bush objected to these changes but backed of after being called racist by the dems you claimed his objection were just an effort to keep minorities from home ownership. It cause by well-intentioned idiot who wanted to pretend that people could own a home even if they could not afford it.

It was worsened by greedy companies taking advantage of the goverment's stupidity, after all they could right loans and bundle them and sell them with the knowledge that the US would cover all losses, but the root was the loosening on the regulations on the type of loans that could be insured.

You are forgetting bank deregulation. That allowed banks to infect otherwise healthy bond packages with the risky junk.
 
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You are forgetting bank deregulation. That allowed banks to infect otherwise healthy bond packages with the risky junk.

In part, yes that is true. But it was the government changes, allowing Fannie May to insure the loans that was the real issue. Do you think the banks would have risked their own money? They were risking ours.
 
You should look at the roles of the Goldman group in the housing crisis and America West before you call them successful. Success from giving out bad loans and then creating a bank to forclose on them is pretty slimy. He brought the worst part of the financial crisis into his inner circle.
Don't think they forced people to sign for stupid loans. It is about time the government started to operate like a business.
Less hacks and more business people will do the country nothing but good!!
 
Don't think they forced people to sign for stupid loans. It is about time the government started to operate like a business.
Less hacks and more business people will do the country nothing but good!!
Time will tell, but history will predict you will most likely be wrong. There is a reason why there are 3 equal branches of government.
 
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Time will tell, but history will protect you will most likely be wrong. There is a reason why there are 3 equal branches of government.
Hacks aren't really a voice of reason when the President is draining the swamp. You might have to enter the dreaded private sector.
 
Goldman Sachs profited greatly from the housing crisis, but they were not related to the cause of the crisis. The rest of the country, stupid lenders and stupid borrowers alike, handled that just fine on their own. You can't fault Goldman for seeing what was going on and investing accordingly. Goldman gets the best and brightest coming out of the best schools, we can use that kind of talent in the government.
Congress forced the hand of the lender in the name of racism.
 
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