5 ms·

Wouldn't it be funny if all of Obama's sleazy tricks orchestrating leaks, etc, ended up making Trump stronger and putting Obama in prison?

rtx 10y ago
Or justice.
maxerickson 10y ago
You think the level headed constitutional lawyer was recklessly breaking the law in the last months of his presidency? If Obama did directly order wire taps of Trump campaign personnel, his ass will be covered 6 ways to Sunday.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  that level headed constitutional lawyer bald facedly lied to his nation about his inability to pardon Snowden without trial, knowing full well what Ford afforded Nixon. If the wire tapping ensures a Clinton presidency, which most expected, there would 100% be no blowback. I'm anti-Trump but let's acknowledge Obama was a shady figure
  - aleeds 10y ago
    You know, the sentence "I cannot pardon Snowden without a trial" does not necessarily imply it is physically impossible. He was saying "I choose to not choose to pardon him"
    - elmerfud 10y ago
      Lawyers don't confuse the words can't and won't. So he was either lying about what he could do, ignorant of the presidential pardon power or purposefully manipulative in his word choice.
    - reddytowns 10y ago
      "Cannot" now means "choose not to"? I've never heard of this.
      - chrisoverzero 10y ago
        "I can't leave the house without my phone." There is a meaning of this sentence that implies a malfunctioning or misguided proximity-based home security system, probably using Bluetooth. But every time you've heard someone say something like this, they haven't meant it that way. "I can't eat peanuts." There is a meaning of this sentence that implies a sophisticated and unbypassable filtration system in front of the speaker's mouth. But every time you've heard someone say something like this, they haven't meant it that way. Obama's statement isn't unambiguous, but not using phrasing such as "lack the power to" or "Constitutionally prohibited from" carries inferential weight, too.
        reddytowns 10y ago
        The meaning of a statement depends on who the audience is. In your examples, logically they are both lies. But, the meaning that is being transmitted is something more akin to: there some obvious, if unmentioned, reason why an action would be undesirable. And, this meaning is pretty clear to an average person in both cases. Obama has logically lied. There is no question about that. But of course, we aren't talking about whether he lied, but whether he implied something untrue. Given his response, "I can't pardon somebody who hasn't gone before a court and presented themselves", it's pretty obvious that an average modern American would at least assume the implied meaning is that something outside of his control is preventing him. Therefore, your contention that he could have been implying "I can't because I choose not to", could not be correct, since he knew who his audience was, and having decades of practice as a career politician communicating with that audience, knew very well the meaning they would take from that.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Or Obama was making the moral point that he couldn't pardon Snowden before he stood in court and faced justice.
    - koolba 10y ago
      Your comment reads more nicely, IMHO, with "he" (President Obama) emphasized: > Or Obama was making the moral point that he couldn't pardon Snowden before he stood in court and faced justice.
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    I love HackerNews. People are clinging really hard to the idea that Obama was a great guy or whatever. I'm going to take my little -3 point soapbox and lead anyone who wants to understand how bad Obama's presidency was to this reading list by left-wing writer Emmett Rensin: http://www.bookforum.com/booklist/17438 http://www.bookforum.com/booklist/17438 The era of Obama is over. Now the majority of Americans may see it clearly for the first time. Over the past eight years, it has become apparent that President Obama's presence in office was a distortion. His calm demeanor and steady optimism seduced liberals into thinking that they were living in good—if occasionally dull—days, at war with an intransigent Congressional GOP, but blind to the breadth and power of the reaction brewing below. Liberals were often frustrated by the slow progress under Obama, even offended by the indifference and injustice that persisted in the practice of American power, but the White House and its boosters in the respectable media always had their rebuke: Don't worry. We're getting there. Trust the process. That calm is over and for many, the sudden chaos of the political situation comes as a shock. What happened? When did the country become so precarious again? But there is no "again." None of this is sudden. It is only that, in the absence of President Obama, every cruelty that persisted or grew under his stewardship has come fully out into the open. Some of this was the former president's doing. Some of it was not. But none of our problems are concealed by the veneer of steady progress anymore. Obama was a bad president, Clinton was a bad candidate, and the Democrats are the main group to blame, since their failure gave an odious Trump the presidency, no matter how much saber-rattling tries to pin it on Russia.
    - mcphage 10y ago
      Then I'd rather have 8 more years of a Clinton/Obama "bad presidency", with improving economies, decreasing joblessness, improving environment... rather than the 8 years of George W Bush or whatever shitfest we're getting under Trump.
    - pharrington 10y ago
      This is jibberish. Like, if you're going to say Obama was a bad president, at least focus on the actual bad shit he was directly responsible for like the ramping up of drone strikes and the Fast & Furious scandal. Don't destroy your own argument by drowning out the signal with correlated noise.
- elmerfud 10y ago
  Yes I believe is within the realm of possibilities, although I do not know if it is factually true. What we do know is that under the Obama administration the IRS was used to target and undermine conservative groups, and this practice went on for years with very little outrage. Therefore it's not totally uncharacteristic behavior. http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/5/irs-reveals-list-of-tea-party-groups-targeted-for-/ http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/5/irs-reveals-lis...
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    We actually don't know the IRS was used to target and undermine conservative groups. There are indications that the IRS did target the groups, there's no documentation of the motivation or whether it was directed by someone with political ties to the Whitehouse. (For example: a mid level manager could have done it to be capricious. Or because they had experience with people exploiting energized political movements to obtain fraudulent tax exemptions.)
- 69mlgsniperdad 10y ago
  Covered in bruises, in a prison cell.
  - dang 10y ago
    Please don't do this here.
pharrington 10y ago
One of my friends pointed out the CIA and such have a long, accomplished history of overthrowing democratically elected governments. Besides the tweetstorm from a known liar and narcissist, do you have any evidence to suspect Obama has anything at all to do with the current leaks?
- balazsdavid987 10y ago
  A strong belief is enough to make decisions based on emotions. Facts are only needed when it comes to thinking rationally.
- joeclark77 10y ago
  A number of last-minute executive orders have been coming out. For example, he deliberately expanded the number of people who would have access to the Flynn wiretaps in the last few days of his Presidency. This can only have been done on purpose to help criminals to leak secrets (b/c if only a few people have access, they're easy to identify, but if hundreds do, they can do it). He also messed with the chain of command at DOJ in the last few days, as a trap so that when Jeff Sessions recused himself from a case, one of Obama's lieutenants would be in charge and be able to create havoc. There's more coming out every day.
  - pharrington 10y ago
    Yes, Obama did this https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/13/executive-order-providing-order-succession-within-department-justice https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2017/0... Which completely irrelevant, because of this https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/10/providing-order-succession-within-department-justice https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/10/provi... I'm not sure which order your first point is in reference to, but please point it out - https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/president... - none of this is a secret. The bigger point is that you seem not to know how to process the fact that Obama issued a lot of EOs on his way out. Process this by understanding that he did not invent the "midnight regulation." I, like you, also believe that Obama's an incredibly smart man, but I do not grant him literal prescience in predicting the actions of the Trump administration in the recent weeks.

rtx 10y ago

Or justice.

maxerickson 10y ago

You think the level headed constitutional lawyer was recklessly breaking the law in the last months of his presidency? If Obama did directly order wire taps of Trump campaign personnel, his ass will be covered 6 ways to Sunday.

RodericDay 10y ago
that level headed constitutional lawyer bald facedly lied to his nation about his inability to pardon Snowden without trial, knowing full well what Ford afforded Nixon. If the wire tapping ensures a Clinton presidency, which most expected, there would 100% be no blowback. I'm anti-Trump but let's acknowledge Obama was a shady figure
- aleeds 10y ago
  You know, the sentence "I cannot pardon Snowden without a trial" does not necessarily imply it is physically impossible. He was saying "I choose to not choose to pardon him"
  - elmerfud 10y ago
    Lawyers don't confuse the words can't and won't. So he was either lying about what he could do, ignorant of the presidential pardon power or purposefully manipulative in his word choice.
  - reddytowns 10y ago
    "Cannot" now means "choose not to"? I've never heard of this.
    - chrisoverzero 10y ago
      "I can't leave the house without my phone." There is a meaning of this sentence that implies a malfunctioning or misguided proximity-based home security system, probably using Bluetooth. But every time you've heard someone say something like this, they haven't meant it that way. "I can't eat peanuts." There is a meaning of this sentence that implies a sophisticated and unbypassable filtration system in front of the speaker's mouth. But every time you've heard someone say something like this, they haven't meant it that way. Obama's statement isn't unambiguous, but not using phrasing such as "lack the power to" or "Constitutionally prohibited from" carries inferential weight, too.
      - reddytowns 10y ago
        The meaning of a statement depends on who the audience is. In your examples, logically they are both lies. But, the meaning that is being transmitted is something more akin to: there some obvious, if unmentioned, reason why an action would be undesirable. And, this meaning is pretty clear to an average person in both cases. Obama has logically lied. There is no question about that. But of course, we aren't talking about whether he lied, but whether he implied something untrue. Given his response, "I can't pardon somebody who hasn't gone before a court and presented themselves", it's pretty obvious that an average modern American would at least assume the implied meaning is that something outside of his control is preventing him. Therefore, your contention that he could have been implying "I can't because I choose not to", could not be correct, since he knew who his audience was, and having decades of practice as a career politician communicating with that audience, knew very well the meaning they would take from that.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Or Obama was making the moral point that he couldn't pardon Snowden before he stood in court and faced justice.
  - koolba 10y ago
    Your comment reads more nicely, IMHO, with "he" (President Obama) emphasized: > Or Obama was making the moral point that he couldn't pardon Snowden before he stood in court and faced justice.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  I love HackerNews. People are clinging really hard to the idea that Obama was a great guy or whatever. I'm going to take my little -3 point soapbox and lead anyone who wants to understand how bad Obama's presidency was to this reading list by left-wing writer Emmett Rensin: http://www.bookforum.com/booklist/17438 http://www.bookforum.com/booklist/17438 The era of Obama is over. Now the majority of Americans may see it clearly for the first time. Over the past eight years, it has become apparent that President Obama's presence in office was a distortion. His calm demeanor and steady optimism seduced liberals into thinking that they were living in good—if occasionally dull—days, at war with an intransigent Congressional GOP, but blind to the breadth and power of the reaction brewing below. Liberals were often frustrated by the slow progress under Obama, even offended by the indifference and injustice that persisted in the practice of American power, but the White House and its boosters in the respectable media always had their rebuke: Don't worry. We're getting there. Trust the process. That calm is over and for many, the sudden chaos of the political situation comes as a shock. What happened? When did the country become so precarious again? But there is no "again." None of this is sudden. It is only that, in the absence of President Obama, every cruelty that persisted or grew under his stewardship has come fully out into the open. Some of this was the former president's doing. Some of it was not. But none of our problems are concealed by the veneer of steady progress anymore. Obama was a bad president, Clinton was a bad candidate, and the Democrats are the main group to blame, since their failure gave an odious Trump the presidency, no matter how much saber-rattling tries to pin it on Russia.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    Then I'd rather have 8 more years of a Clinton/Obama "bad presidency", with improving economies, decreasing joblessness, improving environment... rather than the 8 years of George W Bush or whatever shitfest we're getting under Trump.
  - pharrington 10y ago
    This is jibberish. Like, if you're going to say Obama was a bad president, at least focus on the actual bad shit he was directly responsible for like the ramping up of drone strikes and the Fast & Furious scandal. Don't destroy your own argument by drowning out the signal with correlated noise.
elmerfud 10y ago
Yes I believe is within the realm of possibilities, although I do not know if it is factually true. What we do know is that under the Obama administration the IRS was used to target and undermine conservative groups, and this practice went on for years with very little outrage. Therefore it's not totally uncharacteristic behavior. http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/5/irs-reveals-list-of-tea-party-groups-targeted-for-/ http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/5/irs-reveals-lis...
- maxerickson 10y ago
  We actually don't know the IRS was used to target and undermine conservative groups. There are indications that the IRS did target the groups, there's no documentation of the motivation or whether it was directed by someone with political ties to the Whitehouse. (For example: a mid level manager could have done it to be capricious. Or because they had experience with people exploiting energized political movements to obtain fraudulent tax exemptions.)
69mlgsniperdad 10y ago
Covered in bruises, in a prison cell.
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't do this here.

pharrington 10y ago

One of my friends pointed out the CIA and such have a long, accomplished history of overthrowing democratically elected governments. Besides the tweetstorm from a known liar and narcissist, do you have any evidence to suspect Obama has anything at all to do with the current leaks?

balazsdavid987 10y ago
A strong belief is enough to make decisions based on emotions. Facts are only needed when it comes to thinking rationally.
joeclark77 10y ago
A number of last-minute executive orders have been coming out. For example, he deliberately expanded the number of people who would have access to the Flynn wiretaps in the last few days of his Presidency. This can only have been done on purpose to help criminals to leak secrets (b/c if only a few people have access, they're easy to identify, but if hundreds do, they can do it). He also messed with the chain of command at DOJ in the last few days, as a trap so that when Jeff Sessions recused himself from a case, one of Obama's lieutenants would be in charge and be able to create havoc. There's more coming out every day.
- pharrington 10y ago
  Yes, Obama did this https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/13/executive-order-providing-order-succession-within-department-justice https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2017/0... Which completely irrelevant, because of this https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/10/providing-order-succession-within-department-justice https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/10/provi... I'm not sure which order your first point is in reference to, but please point it out - https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/president... - none of this is a secret. The bigger point is that you seem not to know how to process the fact that Obama issued a lot of EOs on his way out. Process this by understanding that he did not invent the "midnight regulation." I, like you, also believe that Obama's an incredibly smart man, but I do not grant him literal prescience in predicting the actions of the Trump administration in the recent weeks.