Discussion: Nunes Attacks FBI Over Flynn Guilty Plea: 'It Was Nothing Short Of Entrapment'

Reading between the lines
Trump was a total asshole renegade abusive employer in his family owned non-publicly held companies.
He is the exact same as President.

He was and is a failure at both. He was and is a crook and corrupt to the core at both. He blames his employees for his fuck ups and lack of understanding of his own job. Mulvaney will not last as long as Priebus.

Except in regard to appointing extremely partisan judges to lifetime positions, disabling consumer-friendly policies in favor of coddling corporate abusers, and causing general mayhem that feeds the “government doesn’t work” crowd. We keep saying that Trump is failing, but this is actually the intent of his policies. So far, they have only been restricted in their ability to pull it off by their own incompetence, but we should be careful not to equate something less than total success as total failure. Their goal is to tear down effective government, and only managing to tear down half of it is still a serious problem. (With any luck, Democrats controlling the House will provide some additional protection for us, and trouble for the Trump administration.)

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Rep. Nunes is apparently unfamiliar with the definition of the word ‘entrapment’.

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Another GOP criminal shooting off his mouth.

Yes. He seems to think that “entrapment” is when conservatives get caught doing something that they cannot simply obfuscate their way out of.

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Ok. But, maybe I am older than you. Dotard 1.0 (Ronald Reagan) and his newly formed GOP -Dixiecrat alliance began this policy. It was continued unabated by GHWB (and I am so glad his funeral is out of the news cycle and I dont have to read another Jennifer Rubin op ed or any other hagiography of GHWB) who appointed Daniel Manion and Clarence Thomas (to replace American Legal Giant Thurgood Marshall). So, Trump and McConnell and the entire Senate GOP are merely continuing the Dixie-GOP’s policy of continuing to perpetuate the power of the White Nationalists, a policy begun with Ronald Reagan. Another feature of the Dixie-GOP and FOX, is their perpetual Butt Hurt over Richard Nixon’s impeachment and their concerted plans and maneuvering, after impeaching Clinton, to insure that no GOP President is ever impeached again, no matter what crime or treason he committed (again, Reagan preceded Trump in treasonous pre-election communication with a US sworn enemy).

Maybe you are older than I am, or maybe not, since my memory goes back at least that far as well. I am not suggesting that this is a new policy, in broad terms, only that they have grown increasingly successful at implementing it. Whenever they suffer a setback, they focus their attention, refine their approach and regroup for a new attack. Over time, they chip away at established norms and concepts of basic decency, a little here and a little there. By now, Trump has the advantage of relying on decades of such damage, and on a very large number of extremely (one might argue insanely) conservative (a word somewhat belied by the radical nature of their actions) group of office-holders (both elected and appointed) as well as a thoroughly indoctrinated and reliable base. That these things are substantially responsible for the success of their current schemes does not detract from the fact that they have been somewhat successful in achieving them. (It has, of course, the inherent advantage that tearing down is always easier than building something worthwhile.)

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Ok. I was mostly objecting to you giving Trump any credit for thinking up the policy. McConnell has been executing it, actually and his blocking of a vote on Garland is one of the biggest most brazen, norm violating power grabs in American history. So we are essentially in agreement. Trump’s main contribution has been, his vanity and vindictiveness and transparent self protection gleefulness in appointing the people that The Federalist Society has hand picked. Kavanaugh was the worst nominee ever, in my lifetime, and it was made by Trump because he thinks it will protect him and his family, given the new Justice’s craven partisan career and his manifestly disqualifying table pounding rant at the Blasey Ford matter hearing.

The GOP has actually become the Afrikaaner Party of the USA. No procedural or crooked maneuver is beneath them. They, including Trump, and Reagan before him, have embraced this notion that mediocre and dumb white men like Trump and Steven King, somehow represent the greatness of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and Winston Churchill I guess, and therefore just deserve to continue running the US and ignoring science and cashing in on oil and Wall St graft.

So I dont disagree with you. I just think it is the GOP and FOX and the Right’s agenda. And Trump is just along for the ride, fucking TV fake businessman and politician that he is.

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Well said.

IF this Republic survives, Flynn will be remembered as a wingnut.

By everyone but other wingnuts.

FBI–if you’re reading and listening----it’s time for you to pay a visit to this Nunes kid.

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Trump has not thought up any new policies or means of implementing them. What is new, in a sense, is that he is promoting these awful ideas more or less in full public view, and bragging about them, even if he still hides a bit of the worst parts behind already established weasel-words, dog whistles and Orwellian constructs. (In part, I think he is as much a product of this increasingly toxic environment as someone who benefits from it due to his sheer narcissism and lack of ethical considerations.) He is not only a promoter of bigotry, hatred and ignorance, but a proud and unabashed promoter of bigotry, hatred and ignorance — and his base loves him for it.

Putin has put his money on the idea that America, as an idea of a better country founded on democracy, is basically a fraud and that beneath the rhetoric we are no better than he is. To some extent, our founding mythology has always been a public proclamation of grand ideals that all too often masked less savory ambitions. And, sadly, he is not entirely wrong as we now see that a large part of the population is consumed to a great extent by ignorance and the same principles of self-interest and being as motivated by wanting to inflict harm on our perceived enemies even if they suffer a few personal setbacks in the process. We have to hope that both Trump and Putin are wrong.

This fundamental perception is part of why this moment in time is so crucial to our future existence. We have reached a tipping point, and we either find a way to pull back from the edge or accept falling into the pit of autocracy. What we see now is that it does not necessarily take a majority to destroy everything worthwhile, and that should terrify us — I know that it terrifies me.

Reagan and GWHB and W all did it openly. They packed the DOJ and Federal Courts with Right Wing True Believers. Daniel Manion was voted unqualified by every evaluating body that wasnt a branch of the GOP. He has been living on the Federal Trough for over 20 years now (after representing mostly right wing advocacy groups against government spending as a lawyer) and is on senior status which means he does not even have to retire, can work a Baby Case Load and still collect a full salary. Reagan began appointing people to the Civil Rights Bureau of the DOJ who were against Civil Rights Enforcement. Just like he appointed people to the Anti Trust Division of the DOJ who thought anti trust is some offense against God, and as a result, the US has about the same number of banks and banking choices as Japan or Spain (about 3 per country) after all the mergers. So, it has been going on pretty openly not just in the courts and DOJ but in every other cabinet or other appointment by the Reagan-Dixie GOP.

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I think Reagan did it actively and boldly, but he was still talking a different game in public. Trump doesn’t have Reagan’s flair for speaking, or projecting a father figure and down home aw-schucks sensibility (in spite of sitting on millions, much of it gained illicitly if not actually illegally). At this point, Trump apparently doesn’t need to pretend anymore.

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Well, since I never bought Reagan’s Aw Shucks personality or his teleprompter reading of Peggy Noonan’s grandiose words which his mediocre and self important mind would never have thought up, I dont see any difference at all. They were both made for movies and TV persons. They both allied with the Southern racists disguised as religious persons and the fundamentalist capitalists who think the New Deal was an affront to their God and have done everything in the Koch Bros and Sheldon Adelson’s and AIPAC’s and Big Coal and Big Oil’s bidding. There has not been a secret about the GOP’s agenda. Trump is a crass asshole with no pretense to manners or morals who has been a criminal his entire adult life. Maybe that is the (only) difference.

It doesn’t matter that you and I did not buy it — we weren’t the audience. The difference is that they still felt that they needed the act, and now they don’t. Assuming we survive this terrible episode, the one useful thing might be that the slime felt safe to ooze out from under their rocks, and now we know exactly who they are.

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Well, there are still people buying it from Trump, either sincerely or disingenuously. I think a lot of people who bought Reagan’s bullshit act and his spun image were disingenuous. The image that the entire US population fell on their knees in hosannas to Reagan’s “great communicating” was, for me, total Bullshit. America was butt hurt by the Iran Hostage crisis. A con man who conspired with the Ayatollah so he could win the election came in and pretended to be Clint Eastwood in a cheap polyester suit and bolo tie, and ride his horse on weekends in jodhpurs and read Peggy Noonan’s words about a shining city on a hill to the teleprompter.

I guess the fact that at his advanced age he could perform all that is of great credit in some people’s view. Oh and George Will, lets not forget his role in propounding the Reagan Myth.

why oh why California do you keep sending this lying asshole back to congress???

the only reason he didn’t lose his seat is because his district, at the time, didn’t know his family had moved their family-farm business to IDAHO…

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Lock 'em both up!

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