Treason!!!

The Barbarian

BANNED
Banned
After more than five decades of reasonably virtuous living, I’m now told that I have betrayed my country and committed the ultimate crime.

I did not clap during President Trump’s State of the Union address.

Granted, my hands were otherwise engaged. They pounded my laptop’s keyboard as I frantically took notes: “clean coal,” “disastrous Obamacare.” And I’m limited in my appendages and much too clumsy to approximate applause with my feet.

But even if could, I wouldn’t have. That’s not because I’m rooting against America. It’s because I’m rooting for it — and believe that we deserve better than a leader who uses language as sloppily and poisonously as Trump does, who reacts to every unwelcome message by smearing the messenger, and whose litmus test for patriotism is this and this alone: Do you worship me?

On Monday afternoon he visited a manufacturing plant outside Cincinnati, where of course he complimented himself, lavishly. He complained as he often does about the insufficient credit that he gets. He mused with audacious selectiveness about all the blessings he was bringing to us. No plummet of the Dow punctures his self-regard.

But something that he said stood out, not just because it went so ludicrously far, even by Trumpian standards, but because it so perfectly captured his distinctive madness and meanness.
Continue reading the main story

Recalling that many Democrats sat on their hands for much or all of his speech before Congress last week, he pronounced them “un-American,” adding: “Somebody said ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

My favorite touch is the “somebody.” With Trump, the darkest and most conspiratorial notions are never his doing or responsibility. He heard it somewhere. He read it someplace. And he’s merely assenting in his open-minded and agreeable way. “I guess.” “Why not?” Far be it from him to challenge this unspecified wisdom out there.

That meandering air masks a considered ploy: As a distraction and deflection, he routinely accuses his adversaries of the very wrongdoing that can more credibly be attributed to him. “Treason” is a word too grand to be thrown around casually, but it applies better to a president who minimizes and denigrates clear evidence that a foreign power meddled in an American election — and makes no real effort to prevent that from happening again — than it does to a bunch of lawmakers who decline to salute him. Their actions are largely theatrical. His are substantively dangerous.

Never has a president been so gifted at projection, the psychological tic by which a person divines in others what’s so deeply embedded in himself. Democrats, he said, were “selfish,” putting their own feelings above the country’s welfare. The man who signed tax legislation that benefits his business empire and spends roughly one of every three days at a Trump-branded property wouldn’t know anything about that.

He doesn’t engage the substance of any opposition to him or investigation of him. He just invalidates the agents of it. That diverts the discussion from facts to name-calling, which is a game that nobody ever wins.

If journalists are documenting his falsehoods, they themselves must be fabulists. If judges rule against him, they must be biased. If federal law enforcement officials have suspicions about him or people who worked for him, they must be corrupt hacks. If Democrats don’t congratulate him for making America great again, they must be traitors.

Soon there is no one to trust but Trump, or no one to trust at all. That’s the point. He’s inoculating himself, and no price — not the reputations of individuals who have behaved honorably, not the viability of institutions that are crucial to the health of our democracy — is too steep to pay.

Treason: It’s a word that he has used before, to characterize an F.B.I. agent whose text messages made his distaste for Trump clear. Maybe the president is cheapening the term. When he degrades language, he diminishes its potency against him.

But if you accept his loose definition of treason, hasn’t he committed it? I’m not referring to Russia; I’m referring to his effort to delegitimize President Barack Obama by insisting, with no evidence, that he was born outside the United States. That’s infinitely more defiant and destabilizing than Nancy Pelosi’s inert hands and anguished mien as Trump delivered his big speech. But he doesn’t mention it anymore, so we, as good Americans, are supposed to forget about it, too.

I think it does the country a greater service to remember. I think it’s more patriotic to withhold applause than to grant it too readily.

Do I wish for Trump to be an excellent president? Yes, and I’ll clap heartily — with my hands and my feet — if that happens. Until then I decline, and if that’s treason, I plead guilty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/...lick&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article

The founders made it very hard to establish a charge of treason, precisely because they anticipated people like Trump gaining power. And they made sure that the state would be deep enough to prevent him from using it on his opponents.

Thank God for them.
 

jgarden

BANNED
Banned
economist-trump.jpg


Treason!!!

"The Donald's" behavior becomes more bizarre by the day - send him back to his Florida resort with a one way ticket and leave governing the nation to the "adults!"

If failing to provide a standing ovation for this President now constitutes "treason," what term would he use to describe someone who spent the last 8 years trying to convince the public that "The Donald" wasn't born in America - and therefore prohibited under the Constitution from holding the office of Commander-and-Chief!
 
Last edited:

Grosnick Marowbe

New member
Hall of Fame
After more than five decades of reasonably virtuous living, I’m now told that I have betrayed my country and committed the ultimate crime.

I did not clap during President Trump’s State of the Union address.

Granted, my hands were otherwise engaged. They pounded my laptop’s keyboard as I frantically took notes: “clean coal,” “disastrous Obamacare.” And I’m limited in my appendages and much too clumsy to approximate applause with my feet.

But even if could, I wouldn’t have. That’s not because I’m rooting against America. It’s because I’m rooting for it — and believe that we deserve better than a leader who uses language as sloppily and poisonously as Trump does, who reacts to every unwelcome message by smearing the messenger, and whose litmus test for patriotism is this and this alone: Do you worship me?

On Monday afternoon he visited a manufacturing plant outside Cincinnati, where of course he complimented himself, lavishly. He complained as he often does about the insufficient credit that he gets. He mused with audacious selectiveness about all the blessings he was bringing to us. No plummet of the Dow punctures his self-regard.

But something that he said stood out, not just because it went so ludicrously far, even by Trumpian standards, but because it so perfectly captured his distinctive madness and meanness.
Continue reading the main story

Recalling that many Democrats sat on their hands for much or all of his speech before Congress last week, he pronounced them “un-American,” adding: “Somebody said ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

My favorite touch is the “somebody.” With Trump, the darkest and most conspiratorial notions are never his doing or responsibility. He heard it somewhere. He read it someplace. And he’s merely assenting in his open-minded and agreeable way. “I guess.” “Why not?” Far be it from him to challenge this unspecified wisdom out there.

That meandering air masks a considered ploy: As a distraction and deflection, he routinely accuses his adversaries of the very wrongdoing that can more credibly be attributed to him. “Treason” is a word too grand to be thrown around casually, but it applies better to a president who minimizes and denigrates clear evidence that a foreign power meddled in an American election — and makes no real effort to prevent that from happening again — than it does to a bunch of lawmakers who decline to salute him. Their actions are largely theatrical. His are substantively dangerous.

Never has a president been so gifted at projection, the psychological tic by which a person divines in others what’s so deeply embedded in himself. Democrats, he said, were “selfish,” putting their own feelings above the country’s welfare. The man who signed tax legislation that benefits his business empire and spends roughly one of every three days at a Trump-branded property wouldn’t know anything about that.

He doesn’t engage the substance of any opposition to him or investigation of him. He just invalidates the agents of it. That diverts the discussion from facts to name-calling, which is a game that nobody ever wins.

If journalists are documenting his falsehoods, they themselves must be fabulists. If judges rule against him, they must be biased. If federal law enforcement officials have suspicions about him or people who worked for him, they must be corrupt hacks. If Democrats don’t congratulate him for making America great again, they must be traitors.

Soon there is no one to trust but Trump, or no one to trust at all. That’s the point. He’s inoculating himself, and no price — not the reputations of individuals who have behaved honorably, not the viability of institutions that are crucial to the health of our democracy — is too steep to pay.

Treason: It’s a word that he has used before, to characterize an F.B.I. agent whose text messages made his distaste for Trump clear. Maybe the president is cheapening the term. When he degrades language, he diminishes its potency against him.

But if you accept his loose definition of treason, hasn’t he committed it? I’m not referring to Russia; I’m referring to his effort to delegitimize President Barack Obama by insisting, with no evidence, that he was born outside the United States. That’s infinitely more defiant and destabilizing than Nancy Pelosi’s inert hands and anguished mien as Trump delivered his big speech. But he doesn’t mention it anymore, so we, as good Americans, are supposed to forget about it, too.

I think it does the country a greater service to remember. I think it’s more patriotic to withhold applause than to grant it too readily.

Do I wish for Trump to be an excellent president? Yes, and I’ll clap heartily — with my hands and my feet — if that happens. Until then I decline, and if that’s treason, I plead guilty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/...lick&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article

The founders made it very hard to establish a charge of treason, precisely because they anticipated people like Trump gaining power. And they made sure that the state would be deep enough to prevent him from using it on his opponents.

Thank God for them.

If "far-left zealots" such as yourself would settle down and try to heal yourself from the political disease known as "Soreloseritis", you might have a shot at being called a "True Patriot of this country?" As it is, you "characters" continue to obstruct everything YOUR President is trying to establish for the nation, as a whole. I earnestly believe from my heart that "far-left zealots" have such a hatred for the President of the United States, that they would be willing to bring down our 240-year-old Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Nation as a whole. You same "characters" are using obstruction, false accusation, physical and verbal violence and several divisionary tactics. Everything that's happening in 2018 has its roots back to the Hilliary loss of the election. Had she won, these things wouldn't be occurring today. All of this "In-fighting" is on the back of the "far-left Democratic Party" and their insistent "poor sports attitude" after the election.

If the far-left should get their way and Trump is cast out of office over some "criminal tactic" does the far-left earnestly believe that all of those American Patriots who voted for Trump and support him, will just sit back and take it? Such an act of "treasonously removing a standing President would most likely cause an upheaval in this nation that might even result in a new "21st Century Civil War?" I mean there is such anger, vitriol, and held back violence throughout this country now. Even those who are "normally peaceful, mild, and meek" are beginning to "perk-up" and notice what's going on behind the scenes. Yesterday I was listening to a far-left zealot on CNN or one of their ilk, he was shouting that it's time for us (The far-left) to go out into the streets. He was trying his best to verbalize a "REVOLUTION" in America. I'm shocked there hasn't been any "Assassination attempts" being carried out like the one in the Ballpark a few months back?

All it would take is another "Fort Sumter" like incident to take place which could, in turn, bring about another Civil War in America. There's always a possibility of that, when emotions are at such a high pitch, "Hateful Stage" of a very divided Nation. I believe the media is "flaming the fires" for a possible civil war that just might be on the horizon. Are you folks prepared for such a possible scenario? I had a Sunday School Teacher when I was a teenager who was teaching (as I recall) on the end of times, Armageddon, etc, somebody asked him; "What part would America play in that?" I remember, he said; "There might not be an America during that time in history?"

Could it possibly be that when the "End of Days" finally establishes itself, America as a nation will no longer be around? Might we have destroyed ourselves from continued in-fighting and total division, before that time? The Bible talks about the nations of the world making war and coming against Israel someday and that, God will destroy the armies of the world in the mountains of Israel. I highly doubt if the USA were around during such a time, we certainly wouldn't be striking Israel with a mighty war against them. Therefore, one must theorize that when the armies of the world come to destroy Israel, where would we be, I mean, America? Isreal is a staunch ally of the United States. If we no longer exist as a nation during that future war, that would account for our absence, wouldn't you think? We're a very young nation, only 240 years old. Other nations/areas of the world have been around for thousands of years. Is it conceivable that at some point, as a young and powerful nation, we might just cease to exist? The Bible says in Mark 3:25 "And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
 

The Barbarian

BANNED
Banned
Watergate was a huge challenge to our democracy. Iran-contra was another. And it a different way, so was Whitewater.

In each case, the good guys ultimately won, the bad guys either went to jail or lost their offices.

I expect that this will also turn out to be so.

The investigation is still working through the mess. Only four people have been indicted yet. Be patient.
 
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