DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Donald Trump admits son's meeting with Kremlin linked lawyer was to 'get information' on Hillary Clinton

Well done - without doubt the single most ignorant statement I have ever seen on this board. . . . and unlike some posters who you know make statements they don't actually believe - you certainly sound like you believe this complete and total fantasy that you wrote.

C ya. Won't waste another moment ever looking at your ignorant nonsense.

Lauding Putin as anything but tyrannical sociopath is cringe worthy. That guy is a psychopath for real.

How can anyone look at Putin's 18 year reign and say that democracy has done it's job?!

People ask why we are having such a hard time to "heal the divide" in this country. I truly believe it's because at some time in the not so distant past, our differences were largely procedural. How do you keep an economy strong? How do you provide for the needy?

How do you "heal the divide" from someone who claims Putin is a good guy? How do you heal the divide if someone is a white supremacist? If someones heart is hardened to truth and common decency, there is little you can do. I fear that the only way to really do so, is to normalize this behavior. To give rationale to these claims. Yet to do so would be to put tyranny on an even playing field with freedom. I simply cannot do that. It is too far of a logistical nightmare to try to connect freedom and tyranny in this fashion.

Well DC, there's an odd respect for people who don't hide who they are or what their intentions are even if they aren't the best humans. American Progressives claim they are there for the poorest and weakest yet consistently somehow manage to employ programs and politics that keep people poor and weak. Some might consider that exploitation. But whatever.

What I'm curious about is whether or not Jr paid or at least offered to pay the Ruskies for any dirt. Because if he did, well, it's already been established that its ok to pay foreign players for opposition research (a la Clinton camp paying Michael Steele for that literotica).

And I think it's wholly possible he came away with nothing because there was nothing Trump said about Hillary that John Q. Public didn't already know about her.

Very good questions gage.

How do you heal the divide?

1st, the people calling for it have to honestly be interested in doing so. It requires a level of honest introspection on all sides. It also requires a truthful premise to begin from. It's intellectually dishonest to suggest this divide suddenly appeared with Trump's victory. It's just as dishonest to suggest that the divide's existence prior to was because a black man was in the White House for 8 years.

And I 100% understand your abhorrence to "normalizing" things... but haven't we already?

Literally take everything we are supposed to be upset about Trump for: dirty business dealings, shady foreign connections, womanizing, making boldfaced lies, etc..

Literally take ANY of his actions and tell me when we as a People haven't already accepted that from an elected official from any party?

Donald Trump IS NOT the problem. I've said it from day 1. He's just the symptom of something that was already there . The Right got fed up and abdicated their title of the "morale majority" and decided to play in the mud with the Left. The Left can't help but be exposed as hipocrits at every turn with every criticism.

For example: we're told that we have to take responsibility for some white supremacist running on a GOP ticket somewhere that isn't even in our voting district. We're told this is a reflection on us personally if this is allowed to happen. We're told this by the same people who were willing to vote for Hillary Clinton who was greatly influenced by Margaret Sanger, known for posing with Klansmen, pushing for black folks to be subject to eugenicss, promoted abortion as the means to "control" the black population, and advocated or plans where black leaders would be used to "control" those communities. The same Hillary who pulled out a bottle of hot sauce from her purse at a rally attended by mostly black folks?

Can you at least see why someone like me would be reluctant to view people like that as arbiters of racial morality?

If we really are concerned with healing the divide than we need to set our sights a lot lower than the politicians. All sides need to contribute to bringing back an environment of etiquette and civil behavior. There's no good reason for so many threads, here and other sites to devolve as quickly and as deeply as they do. Changing the tone of how we communicate is not something that is dependent on some politician.

Sadly I agree with most of what you just posted. Imagine me agreeing with Devil...

As I do really appreciate your response, why does agreeing on at least some points have to be portrayed as something so icky? Something so alien?

We ought to be searching those moments out not happily avoiding them if we can. You're right, we agree on virtually nothing LOL but get this, the fact that you admitted we have agreed on something, I don't view that as a WIN for Devil and a LOSS for OCD.

I view it as a foundation we might be able to use in agreeing on a premise. That to me is the real success. We may not agree on another thing as a discussion plays out, but we've at least started to agree on rules and boundaries. When you have that, you cut out all the noise, you begin to get clarity on your own and opposing points of view, and THAT is when solutions start to materialize.

I'm going to go back to the discussion I had with CHS about white privilege. I never thought I'd ever have a thoughtful or insightful conversation with anyone on that topic. CHS didn't come at me like others have. He didn't come at me from an all or nothing attitude or make things disparagingly personal. What he did do was listen to my position and articulated his own. By the end of all that, I'm still not one to readily accept claims of white privilege, but he has given me an aspect to certain issues that I have to seriously consider going forward.

CHS may be a Commie SOB, but he's a Commie SOB I can respect even when we don't agree on an issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW5TWYbgMGQ

Well except for the video and the SOB part... we agree again.

Of course it's good to see! I'm just nowhere near here yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZSe6N_BXs

You do realize we’ve already debunked that market Sanger punch line months ago, right?

And you’re still trying to push that?

Come on bro you’re part of the problem. It’s like people still pushing uranium one, despite the facts that alresdy prove it’s a BS conspiracy.

Maybe a dumb question, but was Trump lying when he said that meeting was about adoption, or is he lying now that it was about getting dirt on Hillary.. Just wondering which lie is the truth?

That’s the problem, it appears he’s lying about the lie.

Trump also said he was gonna have a big announcement at the same time Jr responded with “if it’s what you say it is, I love it”.

And remember, he first claimed he didn’t know about the meeting at all. So that was clearly a lie. Then it was about adoptions.

Another lie.

Thanks for the contributions Devil, it's much appreciated.

I agree that this divide didn't magically appear from the victory of DJT. However, it has been quite a while since this level of division has been co-opted by the US government at the federal level, by the President. I can't think of many presidents that worked on unity in general (at least in my lifetime) but the level of distaste for the opposition by DJT is without compare.

I look at the historical context of politics and compare it to today. It's practically unrecognizable. Have you ever watched Reagan and Bush debate on immigration in the 80s? It's like two democrats stumbling over each other. The fact the party of Reagan has gone from amnesty to child separation at the border is amazing. But this immigration problem didn't just start with DJT, I agree. GWB pushed for Amnesty ~10 years ago and the Republicans were practically stroking out in outrage. I remember listening to Laura Ingraham and how upset she was and other republicans were.

Why was I listening to Laura Ingraham? Because I identified myself as Republican until a few years ago. I still hold my values as fiscally conservative and socially progressive. For years I felt that the social progressive part just slowly comes, even if evangelicals get upset with some of it. Because I wanted the fiscal conservative governance. But that's gone. There's no fiscally conservative party anymore, and the party that it was is now hell bent on reversing social progress. So I can't vote for my values and vote Republican anymore.

When Bob Dole paid respects to his dear friend Daniel Inouye, it was because he didn't care that he was a Democrat. He cared that he served this wonderful country of ours. He cared that he risked his life. He cared that he was a man of high character. Now, we have a man in charge who denigrates veterans while never himself serving as one, and a draft dodger to boot. We have a man who says that tyrants like Putin and Erdogan are great people, and that we should model the US after their countries.

You seem to be arguing that because we've had bad people in office before, that we've already normalized bad behaviour and therefore should be willing to normalize DJT. I don't see how continuing bad behavior has ever had a long lasting positive impact. If DJT is so brazen with his corruption that it's finally waking people up to the mass corruption in politics, then so be it. But let's not fall into the rabbit hole of "DJT is ok because democrats are bad too." Even if I accepted at face value this claim of yours, two wrongs do not make a right.

As for taking responsibility, I think that it's a nuanced issue. Should you be directly responsible for a candidate outside your district you can't vote for? No. Of course not. Can a strong argument be made that a white nationalist is running because The President normalized racism in Charlottesville? Yes. Most certainly. So if someone at this point wishes to continue to support the President after Charlottesville, then they have to be willing to accept the normalization that white supremacists will run for office under GOP party banners. I'm not asking anyone to hold HRC of all people as an arbiter of morality. She was hot sauce opportunistic and showed a lack of genuineness. People are very good at picking up on that. Trump may be a petulant racist, but he does a reasonably good job of convincing people he's genuine.

Unfortunately I disagree that we heal the divide by being nicer to others. This country was forged from incivility. We threw tea into a harbor to tell the Brits to get out. What's civil about that? Once Trump said there were good people amongst the racists in Charlottesville, things changed for me and how I viewed DJT and his supporters. At this point, if you still support the president, then you must agree with the President that there good people amongst the racists in Charlottesville. If one thinks that, I cannot see why a person wouldn't think some racists are good people. And if someone thinks there are good racists, then I have nothing to say to them. There is no middle ground for me when it comes to racists.

The abortion thing was Putins response to the Magnitsky act. It's very important to Putin that the Magnitsky act be repealed. I think it could actually be about both things. Russia had info on HRC, and the "price" for the information was a promise to change the party platform, get rid of Magnitsky, etc.

The RNC's platform on Russia changed shortly after this meeting.

Conspiracy against the USA, Collusion with foreign operatives to sway an election, and obstruction of justice. Boom!

I disagree. Obama's distaste for his opposition was easily on par with DJT. The only difference is that DJT is more colorful in his language. There's plenty there if anyone wants to go tit for tat. I don't particularly care to, but suffice it to say, there really isn't a whole lot that's new that Trump has shown us.

I don't like Trumps antics or his demeanor. I want a person who is put together sitting in the Oval Office. But I understand why people voted for him. I know why I did.

I'm not saying that his behavior should be considered acceptable or that he be held up as something to imitate. But incivility is exactly why we ended up with him. Incivility is exactly why in 2016 we The People had the choice between the absolute worst candidates in our Nations history.

Even the more liberal Dawgs in here are as responsible for Trumps rise as the people who pulled the lever for him.

I keep bringing up how decent people who disagreed with Obama were treated... calling them racists over any criticism or disagreement. And to date I don'pt believe I've had anyone you might say be in opposition to my beliefs engage me on that. You know why? Because they know I and others who expressed the same experiences are right. Some in here said and did those things. Others, sat back quietly maybe with a sour taste in their mouth, but didn't say anything because well, "what we need is some incivility".

It was a very shortsighted way of thinking. With all the protests and riots over the last few years we're told what? You can only push people so far before they react? Well no kidding. Apparently it didn't occur to anyone that people like Trump voters would reach a point where they've had enough of being treated such a way on a personal level.

The people who voted for Trump are getting largely what they bargained for. He's getting his agenda for the most part through and he's trolling and exposing the Left better than most people are able to.

As for the racist stuff... it's not that people who support Trump support racism. That kind of blanket accusation is old and played out. They just don't really give a crap about it anymore. We had an opportunity under the previous 8 years to have a legitimate conversation about race in the this country, to make some real strides in terms of our national identity. But that opportunity was pissed on by the very people calling for the "conversation".

Check that.. it's not that people don't give a crap. People by and large abhor racism. It's why calling people a racist to shut them up was so effective for so long. It's that people are disengaging from the topic. That's why NFL fans have reacted they way they have over the kneeling. Maybe Kaep and Co. legitimately wanted to raise awareness... but few people actually believe there was a desire to have a conversation about the topic. Too many people have been suckered in to being bit by that snake too many times.

Yes, this country was founded on acts of incivility, but it has been strengthened through acts of civility amongst each other. Acts of incivility help us as a society to break free from the things holding us back, but it's the civil behavior and discourse that moves us forward. I'd be willing to bet that those who participated in the Boston Tea party to crap on those who questioned if that act was the most wise thing to do.

If you and others really believe that incivility is the vehicle for Change, have at it. But also understand that you are also setting the rules for discourse and how to achieve a desired ends. And by adopting that as the rules of the game, you don't get to complain when the "other side" starts playing by the same rules. You don't get to put restraints on them because their level of incivility eclipses yours. Incivility has no limits. It is it's very own nuclear arms race except we don't have the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction to keep us in check.

Do you really not think that Trump supporters view his incivility as necessary and acceptable? Is Evangelical support for Trump truly still a mystery? Its simple: in DJT they saw a guy willing to play by the rules established by progressives AND be able to beat them at it.

Again, I (generally) don't like the climate in this country. I don't like the fact that be it DJT or HRC, neither one of them have many admirable qualities I can tell my kids to look up to.

I have to admit that I find a certain irony in your lamenting differences being largely procedural. I agree, they used to be. But that was only possible because the climate was more civil. When I was in my late teens (mid to late '90s) I used to be as hard Right as you could get. My best friend was the opposite. He and I, and others could get in to some very animated debates about a whole range of topics. We rarely changed minds, but we had no problem agreeing to disagree.

As a society we've moved away from that precisely because incivility was becoming normalized. I fail to see how doubling down on that behavior is supposed to make things better or at least get us back to procedural differences? For the record I don't see Trump's incivility having a net positive outcome. No matter what good he may actually do, his behavior will be his legacy. Clem asked me a while back where I saw this thing headed not long after Charlottesville, I flat out told him I expect things to eventually devolve in to mass violence. Right now 2 sides of this country are engaged in a game of chicken, but neither side has any intention of turning away at the last second. They are completely willing to let the cars collide head on and gamble that they will be the one walking away for the win. And believe me, that's not what I want to happen. Given what I do for a living (for now) I'll be smack dab in the middle of it all.


I guess the last thing I'll say before I pass the talking stick is this and I'm pretty confident I speak for several others: if incivility is your chosen course of action, don't look to me to be an ally, no matter the issue. Not when the opportunity for civility is there and costs us what? That we check our egos and maybe spend a little more time thinking before we say or do? I don't need you to demand that I 100% renounce Trump and those areas I believe he does represent me because you feel a certain way about some asinine comments he made and if I don't than I must be a racist too. That is exactly the kind of thing causes people to disengage.

I love that you referenced the spirit of our Founding. I don't think we do that enough. But you'll also know that bristling at being told how to think and what to feel is in our national DNA too.

Great win against the Giants tonight!

Good posts by both of you. This would be a good topic for the civil discourse thread.

Puts me in mind of two sides of the same coin hell bent that the other side is the evil side that must be destroyed only to realize that destroying the other side means self destruction.

I deplore racism and am very quick to lash out when I see it being practiced. I'm guilty of labeling all trumpians as racists and fascists because they support Trump. It's a convenient way of dealing with the bizarre absurdities being normalized in our political climate in my mind. Slap a label on the whole damn lot of them and write them off!

Devil this is twice in as many days that you have opened my eyes to something that I've heard from your side but rejected without giving it a second thought only to intensify my hatred of all that you (Trump supporters) stand for... Now I'm second guessing some of that hate.

It's not that I agree with your side, but in this post you did a pretty good job of explaining what it feels like to be silenced and labeled for having different views. I can relate to that on a certain level and your post triggered some empathy that I don't normally feel for your side.

It's no secret that I'm about as liberal progressive as any on this board. I brow beat everyone during the election cycle over my support for Bernie. I saw in Bernie somebody who was finally honest in politics, somebody who I feel is truly looking out for the little guy, the poor, the middle class working men and women, the elderly, and most vulnerable in our society.

To moderates from both sides and the far right, his ideas seemed insane and he was labeled crazy Bernie! I was labeled that for supporting him. At first I just kept trying to change minds, but by the time he was giving Hillary hell in the primaries I was becoming bitter at the opposition because I thought it was just nuts that you guys couldn't see what I saw.

I guess you felt the same way. And those who supported HRC also felt that way.

And you are right that liberals are just as guilty of giving us DJT because I didn't vote for Hillary. I knew she cheated Bernie and there was no way in hell I was going to vote for her. I heard all about that from the my friends on the left after the election. People like me just ruined the country.

Trust me, there have been plenty of times since that I regret not holding my nose and pulling that lever. When I look at Trump I see nothing but a traitorous con man that is completely wrecking this country. Not everything he has done is bad, but most is horrible from my point of view.

I personally think he is guilty of conspiring with Russia, time will tell. But his policies, his racism, his constant dividing has done much more damage than his possible crimes in my opinion. He is single handedly fanning the flames of civil unrest that going unchecked could very well lead to a second civil war or even a fascist regime. Yet we are all playing our roles to help him.

I don't really hate the right so much as to want to take up arms against them, nor do I think that men like you feel that towards men like me; yet we are on that very slippery slope as we speak.

You did a decent job of explaining how easy it is to overlook his shortcomings and allow them to be normalized considering that you experienced normalization of things that offended you over Obama's presidency.

I have a brother that was a diehard Trump supporter and has been embarrassed by his actions, yet still supports him. I've thought it was because he couldn't deal with his mistake in voting for him but I can see that it might be much more than that now. He's not racist, far from it. But he is sick of small businesses being ground into the dirt. He works his ass off and just wants a better deal for himself than he's had for the last 30 years. I get that.

I also get the guys who feel that being white has become a bad thing. I don't agree with it at all, but I do see why they feel that way. In the same breath, I get why a group like BLM came to be. Watching the shock of police gunning down a 12 year old boy with a toy gun at a park or the Trayvon martin case, or many many more atrocities being carried out against the people of color in this country is just disgusting.

Yet the whole time, anyone who remotely tried to defend the views from the otherside got ground into the dirt by liberals. Not because they didn't find the same acts reprehensible but because they tried to express their views as a group that could relate to or understand the reasons these things happened.

None of this changes my political views or how I feel about trump, or racism, or the other things I stand for; but it does make me take pause for a second and reflect on my part in creating the divides, your feelings, and my previous lack of any amount of empathy. So I want to thank you for that.

Thanks for responding Devil, much appreciated. You have alot of good points brought up and I'll do my best to contribute a response to you

I think you can make a direct line between the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 to the election of DJT. For many americans, resentment over the generational shift in 2008 is still there. We went from a country of opportunity to a country of uncertainty for all but the richest americans. We are no longer confident our children will be better than we are. Our healthcare is a joke. Baby mortality is high. We have a lack of good jobs in this country (low unemployment does not mean we have great jobs.)

Obama had a great opportunity after 2008 to help right the ship that was listing via big banks and criminals on wall street. Instead he did the civil thing in the name of healing this country. He did the bare minimum required to right the ship: spending a ton of money to buy out of a recession and telling wall street to knock it off. How is the average american supposed to feel Obama has their interests at heart after that?

I think Trumps election had more to do with the result that happens when two unelectable candidates are your only choices more than his platform. He had a good message for everyone: "What do you have to lose?" You know HRC will be 4 more years of Obama. What do you have to lose? It resonates very well to a country that has been dealing with sucker punches the last 8 years (talking 2016 here). Hillary spoke as if the country was great. It's not. We have a boatload of problems and no one on the hill who cares to fix it.

The only thing people in the government care about is preserving their own jobs. There was a time when a politician would be willing to lose their job in order to do the right thing. That is now consigned mostly to history. The only time a politician comes close to speaking the truth is if they are retiring. It's why so many Republicans have fallen in line behind Trump. Their only real competition is a primary challenger, and the only way they could get primaried out is to go against Trump. So even if they may disagree with him, their desire for power overrides that.

To speak briefly on trump/racism and all that... I see from your comments that you aren't fully in line with everything Trump does. That is well and good. I just can't bring up a sound logical argument that says there are good racists. Can you? Can you think of someone who is racist and a good person? It's a massive intellectual failing based on hate. The only people I could reasonably think would say there are good racists, would be other racists. Because they wouldn't view racial hate as a moral failing. So when Trump said there were good racists in Charlottesville, that's the only possible way I can read that. And if people are aware of Trumps motivations and are still willing to support him fully, I cannot consider myself to conclude otherwise. I don't call people racists lightly Devil. I'm showing you the logical reasons for my doing so. If you think I'm wrong in this assessment, let me know. You telling me you don't agree with everything Trump does is a window into your soul and shows some promise to me

I can't think of examples of civility working to enact radical change. I simply can't. I can think of many examples of what you'd term uncivilized behavior leading to change, however. Thinking that incivility leads to no limits is a slippery slope argument. People want change, and really would prefer to do the bare minimum required to accomplish it. Unfortunately the bare minimum sometimes quite a bit of effort. People bemoaned the Boston Tea Party as uncivilized behavior. The same with the civil rights movement. Womens Suffrage Parades. Storming the Bastille. The Abolitionist Movement. Vietnam War Protests. Some of these were more violent than others. All of them worked to enact lasting positive change.

Protests work, and there have been studies that show further evidence of it (this one from the modern Tea Party): https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/fs/dshoag/...Tea%20Party.pdf

I nominate this as the award winner for understatement of the decade on Dawgtalkers.

Thank you for the sentiments OCD. Yes, you are quite a firebrand for your "side" so an expression of rationality from my perspective such as it is LOL is a bit of fresh air.

I'm a pretty simple guy. I personally don't like making issues more complicated than they ought to be.

I really think that if people are serious about coming up with solutions then we have to agree on a basic framework for discussion. And I'm not talking about limiting speech as I think a couple posters had the impression a few weeks ago when I was talking about this topic.

I guess the best way for me to relate it is to illustrate it:

A topic is chosen (IF possible maybe even a premise is established... but that's for the advanced lol).

You lay out your position, I lay out mine. We ask each other clarifying questions to get a better understanding of the other and then you start to push and test the other's beliefs.

But you do it in a manner intended to make it unduly personal, and not in a manner to [censored] them down so they can't be heard. You don't engage with the intentions of having to declare a "winner".

At the end of it all, if neither side has changed their position, that's ok! It's still a positive outcome because now you've managed to find someone that you can disagree with, but wholeheartedly respect. That has value. That is where you lay the groundwork for consensus solutions.

I'm going to try and get over to your Civility thread shortly..

Lol..apparently not.

Please send a copy of this post to The White House, Congress and the Senate.