Is it time to call these events Trumpgate?

Sounds fucking stupid.

I would rather the media stay away from anything ”-gate.”

It should reference Putin, something like “Putinsphere.”

I like that ^^ @zenvelo .But you can’t leave ole orange hairs name out of it got to include him in somewhere as well.

There has to be a crime or actual scandal for this to make sense.

Hillary committed actual crimes. Comey lied several times and the democrats were angrily calling for his resignation until yesterday.

Since there was no crime on Trump’s part, no valid reason to call it Trmpgate

It’s just a trainwreck unfolding. Anything with ”-gate” is not taken so seriously now. A good old fashioned scandal is what this is and what it needs to be called.

@Yellowdog There has to be a crime or an actual scandal for Trump’s firing of Comey to make sense.

By the time he has left office, either by term or impeachment, he’ll have many scandals.

We could call this Trump gate 1.a.

Or Exhibit Trump gate 1.a. for the jury eh @MrGrimm888 ??

^Something like that.

A combination of a play on words of Lex Luthor and the Pillsbury dough boy and balding.

Or bronze-sphere

Treason Gate?.....

No. We don’t need any anything-gate. Let’s not do this to the language, ok?

A name for this insane fiasco will emerge naturally. We don’t have to make one up. It could just turn out to be “Trump Administration.”

^Yeah. But which “gate,” will this be in the history books?

I would like to see something a bit more original. I think @zenvelo might be on the right track.

Something derived from Trump: Putin’s Little Puta.

Playing on @zenvelo , and @Espiritus_Corvus
Putins Chump Puppet.

I guess “gate” now means political scandal when used as a suffix. Watergate was actually the name of the building, or building complex (I’m not sure if it’s a single building or multiple). It wasn’t Nixongate.

Having said that, I guess the language has evolved that gate is understood as a president doing unscrupulous, unethical, and illegal acts that potentially harm the country. I’m not ready to through around Trumpgate yet, or anything similar. I am ready to be investigating what’s going on. Does anyone know when Nixon’s shenanigans started being referred to as Watergate? Was it at the time of the initial reporting? Or, after it had been proven?

It is too early to make the comparison to Watergate. Trump has done a lot that is questionable, made a lot of ignorant statements and told a lot of lies, but he has not yet been caught doing anything illegal. Let’s see how this plays out.

@Yellowdog

What “actual crimes” did Hillary Clinton commit? Please tell.

No. I think adding “gate”—a suffix that has long-since lost the power and meaning it had when introduced in Nixon’s time—vastly trivializes the horrors this would-be dictator is perpetrating.

@JLeslie, the incident was the 1972 break-in by Nixon’s “burglars” at the Watergate complex in Washington to spy on the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters. News reports started calling it “the Watergate break-in” and, later, “the Watergate scandal” when it was apparent that there was a scandal and a cover-up. As people tend to do, especially in quick-take headlines and sound bites, it was shortened to “Watergate” and stood for the whole mess, right on through to President Nixon’s resignation in 1974 following a year of investigations and revelations and public denouncements. It was an incredibly messy, unstable period, by the standards we knew at the time.

Even at that, though, there was more respect for law and process and acceptable limits than I see occurring now, when we simply lack the vocabulary to express what “brazenness” and “outrage” used to mean, taken to the present level. And there’s no reason to think we’ve done more than get started.

The next time a major scandal broke relating to the government, and I forget now which one that was, someone coined a term using the suffix ”-gate.” and everybody got what that referred to. Now people seem to think it has a meaning in itself, but really it doesn’t.

It’s more like, if that original event had happened at a Marriott or a Holiday Inn, we started tagging other major political scandals with a piece of the name—such as “Trumpiott” or “Trumpiday.”

@Jeruba Thanks for the chronology of events, and the evolution of the word Watergate. I’m often on the fence when it comes to accepting a word changing its meaning over time, but words do change. Trumpgate is somewhere between using Obamacare as the name of a health plan, and using the accusation of Nazi and Hitler too loosely. People like to make things quick and dirty to get their point across.

@JLeslie, in a very similar way, we are currently using “Russia” as shorthand to refer to the whole tangled mess of connections and possible connections and questions pertaining to Russia’s (Putin’s) interference in our election and their influence over or compromising of key players in our government.

That is, when we say “Russia” right now—in a political context—we don’t mean Tchaikovsky or the Bolshoi or Dostoevsky, we don’t mean the steppes and the tundra, we don’t mean St. Petersburg or the Romanovs or War and Peace or Doctor Zhivago. We don’t mean the country as a whole or its history or culture. We mean Putin and his role in corrupting our democracy. Likewise, “Watergate” stood for everything that was wrong about Nixon’s reelection and where it led.

One word encapsulates a huge, knotted, and sprawling concept the breadth of which we have so far barely glimpsed.

@Jeruba Good point. I know I do this myself at times. It’s like a shorthand. The problem I find with shorthands is often people take offense to them, because they sound so sweeping in many cases. Like when someone says “Republicans X” but not all Republicans agree with X, but enough do that it matters. That actually bothers me less than using “Asian” to only mean people from East Asia, or calling anyone from Latin America “Mexican.”

@JLeslie, sweeping generalizations are something else.

I also really dislike the “gate” suffix. One reason is because it’s so easy to sensationalize non-scandals into scandals by simply appending “gate” on the end of a term. Remember “antenna-gate” for iPhones? Really? That’s going to be thrown into the same category as Nixon’s Watergate scandal?

If we do roll with the gate suffix, I’d like to propose a new one:

“The-corporate-owned-media-has-abandoned-real-journalism-in-favor-of-pro-corporate-stories-and-click-bait-scandalous-garbage-news-gate.”

Toiletgate

Gamergate

Yeah, it’s been beyond trivialized.

The gate prefix has been way overused, but there is a definite resemblance between what Nixon did and what Trump and his staff are being investigated for. Both cases involve the theft of information from the Democratic party.

This whole sorry mess, whether farce or tragedy, will come to be defined by the words “Trump Administration” as @Jeruba suggests.

@Yellowdog

So….no “actual crimes” then?

Hillary raked in hundreds of millions for favors with nations that are our enemies. Wiikilinks exposed this. Hillary also ignored subpoenas and destroyed evidence in a Federal investigation. So yes, Hillary committed several felonies in that alone.

Rather than be concerned that felonies existed, even verified by Comey himself, many people exclaim that “the Russians” and Donald Trump stole the election.

One of these days you might want to leave the land of alternative facts and join the rest if us in reality.

Facts are facts, Darth. You had the same access to Comey’s allegations on the 5th of July 2016 that I had.

Allegations do not equal “actual crimes”, and Comey’s investigation cleared her of any criminal wrongdoing.

Like I said, you might want to join the rest of us in reality.

Comey didn’t ‘allege” anything. He gave a very detailed report of the crimes committed—and then “cleared” her (actually he didn’t have the authority to clear her—Loretta Lynch would have. though).

The list comprised 16 felonies in a 13 minute speech.

Wikileaks exposed even more. Evidence was tampered with and destroyed. All felonies.

Bill Clinton tampered with Loretta Lynch, also—at an airport tarmac

If you commit a crime and have friends in high places that make you an untouchable, you still committed a crime.

But if you only allege Trump conspired with Russians to hijack an election, with no evidence, you are only making an allegation

.

To say someone committed “actual crimes” requires actual conviction. To date Hillary Clinton has never been so much as charged with any crime.

@Darth_Algar Do you feel that way about O.J. Simpson? What about the cops who beat Rodney King? or Officer Betty Shelby (who was just found not guilty of murdering an unarmed black man)?

Sorry but just because someone who is well connected politically isn’t charged/convicted of a crime doesn’t mean they didn’t commit actual crimes. If “Bobo the toothless hillbilly” did the same shit that Clinton did, he’s be in federal prison for 20+ years, let’s be perfectly honest with ourselves on that point. Just ask Kristian Saucier about his 12 month sentence plus house arrest and supervised release for taking 6 photos of a classified sub.

Compare that to Clintion asking her maid to print out email with the very highest levels of classification… for years.

I do love the time-honored tactic of deflection.

@Darth_Algar Don’t get me wrong, I think Trump should be impeached for violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. It’s just that I also happen to think Clinton should be in jail (and I’m pretty sure she would be if her last name wasn’t “Clinton.”).

^Wealthy people rarely pay for anything, especially their own crimes…

It’s really not to far fetched to think that Hillary wasn’t convicted. She’s had a defense-fund for 40 Yeats that’s been donated into by some of our most unsavory “unfriendies” so to speak. She and her hubby can’t seem to stay out of a scandal long enough enough to ever actually do anything when they are in any political position. And have we already forgotten how hard the left fought against Trump, down to fake allegations, and outright media bias and lying. Our ex-president, who should have promptly been arrested (several times over) and had his own cell at at Gitmo, certainly would be able to call in a few favors if need be. He bowed down to almost every nation on Earth. He violated his very oath of office! He might as well have spit on the graves the of our American soldiers. It’s going to be a witch hunt every time the President crosses the street. Emoluments Clause? Seriously? Obama releases a person serving a 35 sentence for treason after 7 years! Then releases numerous terrorists, after decimating our economy and fools laud him as “the greatest president ever”! I can’t even say Hillary’s name without without shuddering in revulsion.Her name is synonymous with Benedict Arnold, but how many today would know the significance of that? Yet every time any question about Trump’s brand of toothpaste is brought to the forefront it’s ” impeachment”, “resignation”, ” treason”. A bunch of spoiled rotten Americans, that’s what this nation has turned into.

^^^ Alright, fess up. Who’s alt is this?

An after-school activities program where I worked in 2009 raised over $11,000 for aid to Haiti which was donated to the Clinton Foundation— I never complained but thought the idea was too political and that we should donate the money through our church, which also gave funds and sent volunteers to Haiti (and also sponsored our After School program). But, some young assistant director wanted to give it to the Clintons.

The Clintons raised more than 100 million dollars for Haiti and got lots of accolades, but only 100 thousand went to Haiti to build a cotton gin— privately owned and nothing to do with rebuilding Haiti. That’s why Haitians were holding up signs demanding “Where’s the money?” That’s when I stopped all faith in Obama. Bill, and Hillary.

Real volunteers spent private funds and took time off work and paid regular airfare to labor in rebuilding Haiti. The Clintons raised 100 million and funded a cotton gin for favors.

One more thing—I was glad when Obama won in 2008 because there was such a positive feel and vibe in the country—like when the Draft was abolished in ‘71. Next thing I knew, Obama (which received support from the Jewish community) was saying that Israel needed to return to its pre-1967 borders. A nice sentiment I might mention as we observe the 50th anniversary of the Six-days war,

The draft isn’t abolished.

@Yellowdog I’m surprised at your remarks about the vibe, only because I was living in Lakeland, TN at the time and a lot of people around me were very negative, still talking about him being a Muslim, not being American, Socialist going to turn us into the next Venezuela, freaking out in general.

@Darth_Algar is absolutely right. Kids still have to register, or not receive their high school diplomas, enter college or, quite often, not be able to apply for work. It’s out there waiting for them when the government gets desperate enough to use it. But the government knows their American history. Calling in the draft for any reason other than a foreign military attack on this country will incite the kind of destabilization we had in the 1960s.

Once the citizenry smells weakness and fear in the government, everyone with a bitch will be out in the streets clamoring for long-overdue change. In the 1960s, it was the Anti-War demonstrators, the feminists, LBGQ, the radical Muslims, the Black Panthers, the ecology people—everybody all at once. And don’t forget the rather large, already existent Civil Rights movement. The CRM ramped up under this destabilization remarkably.

Drafting kids into a war based on government lies was the catalyst for all of that. The US very nearly devolved into anarchy.

Many of the changes these groups demanded are evident today. So, it’s not an atogether bad thing, it’s just not the ideal way to facilitate change. In 1967, for example, 130 cities were set on fire by various pissed off groups. And the government remembers.

So, athough the draft is not abolished, the gov. is very reluctant to use it.

@Yellowdog , There are a lot of us Jews who are not pleased that the Israelis are creating Jewish settlements in occupied territories. There is more than a passing resemblance between Israeli policy and apartheid. Any peace settlement will require the return of at least a portion of the territory in exchange for recognition of Israel. Trump thinks he can broker a deal. I remember when Bush said he was going to do bring peace to the Mideast. I am more than a little skeptical that such a deal will be possible any time soon.

I have two physicians, coincidentally both named Quereshi, and both Muslims from Israel.

They, like the Jews from Israel, tell a very different story about Israel. No Islamic nation except Egypt has made peace with Israel and most declare the extermination of Israel in their constitution and make no bones about it. There was no Palestinian “nation” before Yasir Arafat. There are plenty of peaceful Muslims who are Israeli citizens, and Palestinian families who have killed Jews, Christians, and Americans in Israel are paid a sort of tiend or stipend by the Palestinian authority. I’ve seen dozens of videos where small Palestinian children are taught to kill Jews and say so with rage,

I have seen what I have seen— but I am sincerely interested in YOUR point of view on this subject because I honestly do not understand it. Israel belongs to the Jews by U.N. resolution and military conquest, and they were the first indigenous ethnicity to the land.

How is it that Jews in the U.S. can believe that Israel practices apartheid, or is the aggressor in the conflict? The land belongs to the Jews and is constantly under terrorist assault. I was working as a newscaster at a radio station in High School in the 1980s—and I remember why those areas had to be “occupied”

What is the other side to this story?

“How is it that Jews in the U.S. can believe that Israel practices apartheid, or is the aggressor in the conflict?”

Because they understand that ancient religious texts do not equal real estate documents. Because they don’t conflate themselves with the modern political state known as Israel. Because they know that there have been Palestinians living there long before modern Jews decided to start moving from Europe and elsewhere to live there. Because they know that the state of Israel agreed to established borders and that it has never honored those borders.

I recall AP and UPI stories coming over the wire where the “Palestinians” fired missiles from hospitals into Israeli discos and pizza parlors and residential neighborhoods and had to be driven away to save Israeli lives.

I recall CNN reporting that Israeli soldiers were firing at Palestinian children throwing rocks. It turned out, however, that behind those children, were Palestinians firing missiles and grenades, using their own children as human shields.

I recall terrorists hiding behind children and skirts of women and firing missiles from residential areas and hospitals and decimating Israeli neighborhoods.

Americans may tout Freedom and various verbage into its constitution whereas some of these Palestinian groups tout death to Israel as the entire premise for their existence, and exist only to shell away at Israel. You have to move in to drive the bad guys out,

Many Muslims live peacefully in Israel and practice their religion, culture, and maintain their Holy sites.

But thanks for your perspective, I’ll admit I thought I’d learn something bad about Israel

It’s not my perspective, it’s the perspective of Jews I’ve known who don’t agree with the actions of the state of Israel.

It’s not helpful to think of this as “good guys” versus “bad guys”. It is a struggle over land and the evil is quite evenly distributed.

@Yellowdog , There is plenty to blame on both sides. Israelis are known to plant people firing weapons into peaceful Palestinian protest marches. The Arabs in the occupied territories are second class citizens. They have no right to govern themselves. The Israelis can’t give them the right to vote, because Jews would then be in the minority. As John Kerry said, under the current circumstances, Israel can be a democracy or it can be a Jewish state. It can’t to both.