Sam also tried to claim that the convictions for lying under oath showed that there were no crimes related to Russia, despite the fact that six of the seven Trump associates convicted were specifically lying about their meetings with Russia (Roger Stone lied about other things).
He was quoting the WaPo article.
He was quoting WaPo quoting him quoting WaPo. We’re good. 
It’s quotes all the way down…
I’m sure Sam will be along shortly to admit he was wrong.
I read Andrew Weissman’s book “Where Law Ends”. There was a tidbit in the book that I found absolutely hysterical.
It has to do with why Manafort’s plea agreement fell apart. The investigators, after a few false starts, thought he was being basically honest about his dealings with Russians. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was a deposit into one of Manafort’s bank accounts, about 500K worth of income. Manafort lied about where it came from. He got busted and lied again. They just couldn’t get an honest answer out of him.
The income had nothing to do with Russia, it was connected to a pro-Trump PAC founded by a Manafort crony. The 500K was determined to be some sort of bogus consulting fee, a kickback from the PAC Manafort’s crony started.
In effect, Manafort was stealing money that had been donated to help Trump. The investigators knew this but Manafort would never confirm it.
It’s all about the grift. Always.
I wonder if trump would have pardoned him if he knew that he was stealing from him.
Sam on the Arizona fraudit…
Tragic gullibility? Straight up chicken fucking? You decide.
From that same thread I found this particular comment laughable:
After being obsessed with defending the GOP and their policies, our Canadian friend wants us to believe he hasn’t been paying attention to the AZ fraudit? What a load of caribou shit.
I almost included that one as well.
“I don’t know anything about this topic. Here’s my opinion on it anyway.”
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
He’s always WRONG about everything. He sure thinks he’s super smart though. How does someone become so totally tedious?
He’s the Frank Burns of the SDMB.
Sam’s politics have always been anchored by tribalism, and the ground has shifted underneath his feet.
90%++ of Republicans are pro-Trump, while never-Trump conservatives are electorally irrelevant. Their leaders and the base was never committed to alleged conservative principles c. 1980-2015: they just pretended to be. So conservatives who took libertarian leaning ideology seriously were caught naked when the tide went out.
Not any more, it seems (though the poll addresses the matter indirectly).
It’s a great idea to keep tabs on Trump’s grip on the GOP base (and to check my work), but the question wording in that NBC poll is… strange. The raw data is on page 19 of this .pdf.
Q: Do you consider yourself to be more of a supporter of Donald Trump or more of a supporter of the Republican Party?
That’s a reasonable question to ask about a sitting President, but it has a distinctly cultish feel when asked about a former President. Comparing 4/21 to a time period shortly before an election might merely reflect a neurotypical inclination to move on.
The poll also gives a favorability rating (are your views of Trump positive or negative?) but unfortunately that’s not broken down by party affiliation.
Over at Gallup they break down Trump’s approval rating by party affiliation. I was surprised to see a decline among Republicans at the end. Here’s some of the data:
Donald Trump Job Approval by Party Identification
|Republicans|
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|2021||
|2021 Jan 4-15|82|
|2020||
|2020 Dec 1-17|87
|2020 Nov 5-19|90
|2020 Oct 16-27|95
|2020 Sep 30-Oct 15|94
|2020 Sep 14-28|94|
|2020 Aug 31-Sep 13|92|
|2020 Jul 30-Aug 12|90|Those last 2 figures - 87% and 82% - were unusually low and I’m less inclined to explain them away. That said, 80%++ is still pretty high. I believe it would be difficult to argue that the spell has been broken. I’ll note that GOP answers NBC’s question differed little between 1/21/21 and 4/21/21, so maybe we are around the zone we were at Biden’s inaugural. Or not, given weird question.
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What happened to the 876,000-hour flag window?
Special case. It’s only available every 99.9239 years.
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