"THE PRESIDENT IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW"

[Bob Schroeck]

I read this last night, and meant to post a link this morning.  The editorial board of the New York Times has published a short but powerful op-ed position piece warning against the President's intent to shut down Mueller and his investigation and putting Republicans on notice about what will happen if they continue to passively or actively support him.

Make no mistake: If Mr. Trump takes such drastic action, he will be striking at the foundation of the American government, attempting to set a precedent that a president, alone among American citizens, is above the law.

You all might want to read it.

[hazard]

At the point such a thing occurs there are four options left to the American public.

1) They actively recall as many representatives (Senate and House) that are supporting the President as possible. They then use the special elections following the recall elections to vote in representatives that will impeach and remove Trump and/or his entire cabinet.
2) They wait for the November 2018 elections and do the same.
3) They protest so extensively and loudly that the representatives act as previously noted.
4) They cease exercising their voting rights and their right to redress by petition and exercise the (according to the GOP) purpose of the Second Amendment and oust the government by force. If the USA is lucky, the revolution is non-violent and results in emergency elections with an acceptable result to the public. If they're not, the Second American Civil War just kicked off. In a nation, I will note, with WMD stockpiles. Pray the military picks only 1 side.

[Bob Schroeck]

Honestly? I think if option 4 comes into play, we'll find that the GOP support for the sanctity of the Second Amendment extends only so far as it keeps them in office. As soon as they're the government to be ousted, they'll be screaming for gun control by any means necessary and explaining they didn't mean liberal redress against a conservative government.

But that's irrelevant to the thread topic.

[Dartz]

I don't think the 2nd will come into it. The president is neither black, nor a schoolchild.....

[Rajvik]

5) they continue to use the New York Times to line the bottom of their bird cages and ignore the slavering mainstream news media while they wait for actual evidence of any actual motion by the president


The President actually has the complete legal right to fire Mueller as has been noted in other threads, what he may not be able to do is survive the political fallout. That said, as many times as he has said that he would like the investigation to be over, he has yet to fire Mueller, so why don't people stop listening to outlets like the NYT and wait and see what happens

[robkelk]

... so why don't people stop listening to outlets like the NYT and wait and see what happens

The New York Times is the closest thing the USA has to a fair, impartial, and unbiased news outlet. That's why it is your country's newspaper of record.
(EDIT: I think they swing a little to the right, but I'm Canadian - I think your entire country swings a little to the right.)

If you stop paying attention to it (and don't replace it with something similar from outside the USA), then you're only listening to biased news sources.

[Rajvik]

Considering the number of times the Times, and the Post and the majority of the other major news outlets have been proven wrong simply in the past 2 years i'll take my chances with news sources that are at least biased towards shit that is actually happening.

[Dartz]

Okay. Who might that be then?

And what shit is actually happening?

For that matter, the utter unwilligness and desire to trust *any* sort of news is part of the goal - to put the population into a state where everything is rejected as unreal except the thing that's in front of them. Where you don't believe anyone except that which validates your gut feelings on the subject matter. Either because you'll stay on site and click the ads,

it's a terrible place to fins myuself stuck in.

[Labster]

*sigh*.  The art of journalism is to take a subject that you don't understand, and explain it to other people.  If you've ever been in a newspaper or TV news as I have, this becomes very clear.  Science pages are particularly ludicrous, as most journos have a shallow understanding of the basic concepts.  Expecting any news source whatsoever to not make lots of mistakes is an impossible standard to clear.

What's important is the are the ethical standards.  The Washington Post and New York Times have regular corrections columns.  Every day, they admit their mistakes.  A source that doesn't admit mistakes is not one worth reading or watching.

On the other hand, we have Sean Hannity, who felt that he didn't need to disclose his association with Michael Cohen to viewers or his bosses.  And then he went on air for weeks, attacking the FBI and prosecutors who searched Cohen's office, without telling anyone that his own ass was on the line.  And this isn't conjecture, either, it's a evidence revealed in a court of law.  And today, Fox News has decided that this was hunky-dory with them, and he'd face no consequences.  A self-described journalist who does not disclose conflicts of interest is no journalist.  And a news organization that does not enforce a full disclosure policy, as with Fox News, is entirely untrustworthy.  We cannot be sure of the motives of any of their staff -- if one member of their news team fails to disclose with no consequences, why not all of them?

[Rajvik]

And Hannity has repeatedly said he is not a journalist but a commentator. Rush Limbaugh has no connection to Fox news, also a commentator i will note, and has called the southern district of New York, the Times, the Post and several others out for the same items as Hannity, Levin, and several others have over the Cohen thing. Does it not concern you that a special council who has gone as far beyond his mandate as Meuller has, pre-plans what is blatantly an end-run around his limitations by getting his buddies to investigate a mans personal lawyer to look for any little bit of dirt that could possibly be there?

Lobster, yes the major papers have columns where they place their retractions and corrections. Have you ever really paid attention to them, or do you only see the headlines? The answer is likely the latter because you ha e the TV media blaring out the same headlines every 15 minutes as the papers because they generally pull the same stories off the AP and other wire services and run them straight out the can.

Look, nobody is perfect, and in this fight we have to understand that everyone on both sides has an axe to grind against someone on the other side, and the political axes are the sharpest. I'm old enough to remember the coverage of the Clinton years, and somewhat the news coverage of the HW Bush years. Back around 90 we called CNN the communist news network because their bias was so damn evident it was embarrassing. Then it became known as the Clinton news network because of how much it sucked up to that family during the 92 election cycle. Again, it was embarrassing to see a news organization suck up to the administration like it did. (And before you say anything about Fox and Trump, I ain't exactly happy about that either, but considering its 4 to 1 in the news media, I will take what I can get.)

The long and short of it is that none of them are unbiased, and all you can do is pick the bias you can stand to listen to and then try and filter out the bullshit.

[robkelk]

Is Rush Limbaugh not a regular commentator on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace?

[Rajvik]

Not to my knowledge, but then again i don't watch Chris Wallace