jakee

In what way does that make sense to you? You think that because Tesla and SpaceX are successful, Musk going to court to try and back out of buying Twitter because he thought he'd made a terrible deal didn't really happen?

I don't think that's the best line to take given that MAGA people (and conservatives in general) will simply deny that's a thing. The effects of gutting the EPA will be much more direct and immediate. Before the EPA rivers used to catch fire. Before the EPA you couldn't see one side of an LA street from the other. The people who want to reduce the EPA will never just nibble away at the fringes, they'll go straight for the core mission and cut anything that makes conservative business owners have to spend more money to comply. They're so deluded that even before Trump we had conservatives here arguing that the EPA was completely unnecessary because bad publicity alone was enough to make companies act in ethical ways and not do anything dangerous to their customers or neighbours.

Again, Musk isn't Nostradamus. Buying Twitter was basically the equivalent of a drunk bet that he desperately tried to welch on until the courts forced him to honour it. It's great that you think allowing Silicon Valley elites to buy power is a positive feature of a Trump government though. Most of your MAGA fellows will claim that's exactly what they stand against. Cute gif by the way. I suppose the only dfference with X now is that you're trapped in there with a bunch of neo-Nazi farts, and farts that haven't had their measles vaccines?

There's a dfference between pardoning people connected to you who don't deserve it, and pardoning people for crimes they did on your behalf - let alone crimes against the fabric of democracy. It's funny how often this comes up with Trump but again, not even Nixon did that (I think). Also, coplaining about Trump being singled out doesn't make much sense. He is the President elect now, so his misdeeds will be talked about more than those of previous Presidents now. That's not unfair, it's plain common sense. Were stupid pardons from other Presidents complained about at the time? Yes. The Rs were still complaining about Clinton and Marc Rich when Obama was in office. They can't hve it both ways. BTW, I also think it's a mistake to believe you can mollify the Trumpists with a pardon. They would simply take it as confirmation that they were right all along, the prosecutions of Trump definitely were politically driven, and they'll be even more zealously in favour of Trump weaponising the Justice department as retribution.

When we elected Boris Johnson a lot of Americans quite rightly pointed at us and said ‘see! It’s not just us who get fooled by lying morons with stupid hair!’ Now, the thing that brought down BoJo, the line he crossed that was too far for even his own party to tolerate, was appointing a known sex pest to a position of authority within the government. But in the US, since Trump has already smashed through that barrier by being one himself, even people opposed to him are arguing that appointing Gaetz, a known sex offender, isn’t that bad. This is the corrosive effect he has on ethics in government that is going to be very hard to undo.

For someone so concerned when it suits you with the details of what people said, you seem to be intent on ignoring the ‘he said he was going to do it’ side of things. Looking at it that way, it’s quite likely that you will know when he pardons people with airtight convictions. It’ll be kinda obvious.

That’s just the kind of strong language that makes me think you’ll honour your promise to be appalled and not just shrug and say ‘eh who cares everyone does it’.

Sure, but then they said he can ignore anything else they say.

Well it's already been done, according to the people who are about to try and do it.

Then how do you know how much they warmed up to him? Seems odd to to tear down your own post so viciously, but ok. At least you're now acknowledging that the Putin speech you were so keen to share really does make them sound like mates.

OK, so the team you mentioned is purely imaginary? So the answer you wanted from me as to how you could check the minutiae better than them is 'by checking at all'? Further, your initial statement was this "My concern was with the zealous application of laws (on poor evidence) by a judiciary and jury pool in deep blue DC. I have no problem with the laws themselves. In that regard it was asked and answered; " I'm fine if he pardoned any convictions that had weak cases." Now, Trump has made absolutely no mention of pardoning Jan 6th convicts because their cases weren't well evidenced. He has said that he would pardon everyone except the most egregious offenders, a few people who 'got out of control'. So we're back to the fact that when you said you’d be appalled if he pardoned anyone with airtight convictions, that was bullshit. You're not going to do a single thing to check, you're just going to assume that everyone pardoned was recommended by a team that only exists in your imagination, working to a set of criteria that only exist in your imagination.

Were they as friendly to him as Putin was in the speech you were so keen to highlight?

Irony of you saying that aside, yes he claimed that a rally specifically organised by white nationalists was not an extremist rally, and that the left was responsible for the violence that left a liberal woman dead. By any measure it was a truly despicable statement. And speaking of actual statements - you claimed that Trump’s team said there would be a team appointed to thoroughly check the minutiae of every Jan 6th case to see if they actually did anything illegal before recommending pardons. When did they say that? What did they say?

That's an odd thing to say given that he has not returned yet.

Give us an example.

Has the local branch of Fox news been able to find any resident who says their pet has been eaten? The mention of gullibility is just [chef's kiss].

Not bad! Now if you can find one about a DNI who's a Russian stooge, AG who resigned from Congress before a report into his sex trafficking came out, health boss who thinks all vaccines are fake and DoD chief with no experience running anything then you'll really be on to something.

Ironically a horse won’t try to feed everyone horse dewormer.

You mean the sentiment of dangerous did not apply at all to Trump, "liberal" was used in that exact part of the speech, and when you said "they sound like best mates" Putin did indeed say very nice things about him. Why would they? That would also not be true. Apart from France - relative to military/economy size they've been totally useless.

What did they say about a process? All Trump has said is that he'll pardon everyone except a few people who 'got out of control'. He hasn't said anything at all about double checking who broke the law. I do notice that you're dodging explaining why you would believe the results of such a partisan controlled process (if indeed there would be one at all) as intently as you're dodging acknowledging that you were wrong about Putin's speech.

Why not ask the richest man in the world?

Cool. Now do Jan '17 to Jan '21 vs Jan '21 to present.

Blah blah whatever. Not that his appointment had anything to do with his legislative priorities beyond 'give Trump what he wants' - how hard would you have to look to find someone who supported those things who wasn't a drug addled child abuser?

Perhaps, though I would have more faith in the overall level of professionalism in federal law enforcement than across all dfferent levels and outposts of local law enforcement - even more so in politically charged cases where they know their work will be scrutinised. Now try this - if Harris had been elected and said all black prisoners in the south were victims of racism, that they were all political prisoners and that she would pardon them all - would you be standing here saying you were sure she was going to setup a commission to scrutinise every detail of every case before making a decision and you would never be able to second guess their decisions? Indeed - I made a mistake, and as soon as I realised it I said I'd made a mistake. By contrast, when provided with proof that you were misquoting Putin to support your argument you did not admit that you were doing so - you suddenly "lost interest" instead. Sure thing buddy, someone out there believes you.

It’s telling that even here there is nothing that our newfound MAGA ultra-loyalists will come out and object to. Even Republican Senators and Congressmen are publicly speaking out against Gaetz, one even saying he has as much chance of being invited for tea with the Queen than being confirmed. Now I don’t think they’ll remember where their spines are when it come time to vote, but it would be very funny if this ends up being the way the Gaetz is ejected from Congress, given that he’s already resigned in anticipation of taking up the role. For Hesgeth, he once declared that it was impossible to know if the black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been chosen because he was the best possible candidate or because he was black. So I’d be incredibly disappointed if during the hearings no one asked the talk show host with no high level managerial experience whatsoever if he was being put up for the Sec Def job because he was definitely the best possible candidate or because he was a white racist.