Watching Barr continue, and even escalate, Trump's obstruction of justice instincts makes me wonder just how far Thump will go as he disposes of ever more of the guard rails that refused to commit crimes for him so far. The Senate acting in fear of a primary challenge is no better. I'm sure they are justifying their silence by saying they need to stay around in case something really crazy happens but all they are doing is enabling this train wreck.
I understand that most here defend the democrats as the "good guys". Hopefully there is enough self reflection to acknowledge that Barr is not the first AG to be held in contempt (if the floor vote goes as expected) and Trump was not the first President to commit perjury. This really is an ever increasing crap storm and it will only accelerate if left unattended.
The only president to ever testify under oath was Bill Clinton. It's a little known fact, but the judge was asked to define "sexual relations" before the deposition and Clinton answered truthfully within the definition the judge gave. So he did not technically commit perjury. He was impeached for it, but criminal charges were never brought.
As for obstruction of justice, I'm sure a case can be made that several presidents have broken those laws, and at least skirted the line pretty hard, including Clinton and Obama. The only one who clearly crossed the line before Trump was Nixon.
As for corruption of administrations, from 1963 to early 2017: 89 Republicans working for the president have been convicted and 1 Democrat has been convicted. That was a peripheral figure in the Kenneth Starr investigation who got popped for perjury. That doesn't count the large number of Iran-Contra people who were facing convictions until George HW Bush pardoned the lot.
Our score so far: Republicans 89, Democrats 1
The linked Wikipedia page has all the details. The article came out before Trump's people started going down. Up until late last year, the Trump administration had 89 indictment and 24 convictions.
Many years ago Democrats did do some dastardly things, and there are Democrats on the state level who have gone down in recent years. A couple of governors of Illinois and several people in the state legislature in New York are among the perps. But the Republicans have been far dirtier in their politics and their criminal activity over the last 50 years.
Another factor is hypocrisy. It's far more common for Republicans to claim one thing and do another than Democrats are. The latest scandal this week is Jerry Falwell Jr's weird situation with a pool boy in Miami. For every story of hypocrisy by a Democrat, I could probably name 50 Republican hypocrites within a few minutes.
BASSEM YOUSSEF: Are you listening to yourself? Let it go! Seriously, you can't let it go. America is like a dog with a hot spot on its butt called the middle east. You think you have to keep licking it, but you are just making it worse...
[Youssef produces a plastic cone collar for dogs.]
JON STEWART: Are you saying? Oh no not the cone!
BASSEM YOUSSEF: America needs the cone, yes!
I kinda gotta agree with this
The rest of the interview here for anyone interested.
"Egypt's Jon Stewart" Bassem Youssef On What America Should Do In The Mideast: "How About Nothing?"
Now ply Trump with the option to distract from his actual business acumen, tax returns and the Mueller Report and we just very well may be headed towards more lives lost (ours and theirs) and more money spent. Given this is an investment related political thread, time to buy stock in the US Military Industrial Complex.
This if Bolton's wet dream. Being a malignant narcissist Trump really doesn't want to go to war. The news has to be about him and war news tends to be more about the war than about the president. He doesn't want to get upstaged by some real hero who does something deserving the Medal of Honor or something.
Bolton was appointed as a political favor to Sheldon Adelson.
The news is over playing the situation though. The US has had a carrier stationed near the Persian Gulf almost constantly for the last 60 years. The Stennis has been on station near the Gulf for the last few months and its headed home now. It passed Gibraltar on the 3rd. The Lincoln wasn't on station yet when the Stennis left. It's very rare for a carrier to leave a critical station without relief already there, but it happened this time.
One reason is almost the entire fleet is down for maintenance. This site is a few months out of date, but shows only 4 carriers operational, 6 in maintenance and training and the Ford is still being fitted out.
Where are the Carriers?
The Washington is unavailable until 2021 because she is being refueled according to this site which is more current.
CV Locations
In addition to the key assets of the Navy out of operation, the Army is having a tough time recruiting. They have failed to meet recruiting goals several times over the last few years. It really hasn't recovered from the Iraq War last decade. The Army is mostly a spent force only capable of limited operations. The Air Force is in decent shape and could be called on for air strikes, but that's about the extent of what the US can do right now.
This administration is dumb enough to go to war with the current state of the military, but if they did, it would be a disaster. The Iranians specifically have been preparing to counter all of the US's strengths if they did have to go to war with the US. Their Navy has many hundreds of missile boats with one launcher per boat. They have a large number of anti-shipping missiles provided by China and Russia, including a handful of the latest Chinese anti-ship missiles designed to defeat American anti-missile defense systems. The plan is in the event of war with the US, they would swarm a US carrier task force with hundreds of these boats. The sheer number would be impossible to stop and some would get into firing position. They hope to score a few hits and possibly sink a US carrier. That's not only a huge loss for the US, but it's an environmental problem as a large nuclear reactor with possible damage would be on the sea floor.
The Iranians have also established probably the densest anti-aircraft installations in the world around their most critical facilities. Any air strikes would be very costly.
Back in 2003 I called out the Iraq War as the dumbest strategic mistake the US had ever made. Going to war with Iran, especially now would be an order of magnitude more stupid.