Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

[chenGOD]

 

@goDel: I mean newspaper articles that would require him to be focused/have an editor.

 

@aux: you need to read this with government/civil servant lens. This is very strong language to use against the sitting president, especially when the system is stacked against Mueller prosecuting. And, as per the thread gODel linked, the issue is not around the obstruction, which as you point out, is largely public already. The issue is really around the collusion with Russia.

lol yeah Abramson might be good if someone were to rein him in and focus him.

 

I understand that Mueller 'did not conclude that there was a crime but it does not exonerate him either' is something, not saying otherwise....but that's about obstruction. his conclusions re: Russia conspiracy were that there was nothing there. he did point to many pieces of evidence that showed some intent (public and private) but nothing substantial that arose. if they did try to conspire they failed or they hid it very well. bottom line is if Mueller says 'no collusion' (yes I know that term is legally irrelevant, as do all of you) then that's all that's going to matter to the broader American public. and you're not going to impeach the president on it, that's for goddamned sure. if there's something impeachable, it's the obstruction, but again, that's not a strong case...and most importantly it's not strong enough for the American people to demand it of their Representatives and Senators.

.

Aux: you should skim the Abramson twitter thread. He actually does illustrate why there might be more to the collusion piece than meets the eye.

 

Regardless: the way Barr and the WH have handled the release of the Mueller report should lead people to have some suspicion that there’s more to it than meets the eye.

[ignatius]

Barr was picked for AG precisely to handle the report. He’s a true believer in presidential power being above the law. He’s stated as much in previous writing. Even conservative David brooks said he regrets giving Barr the benefit of the doubt.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[psn]

[Candiru]

Forreal guys, that unrelenting pattern of suspicious fuckery where they were in constant contact with Russian intelligence officials wasn’t “no collusion”. Especially when they lied about it 100000000 times. Manafort will die in prison for lying about it for fucks sake. I don’t think they were trading casserole recipes.

 

Some people are letting the despair porn get the better of them methinks.

[may be rude]

[dingformung]

The US influences other country's elections on a regular basis. Why is it so outrageous that another coubtry tries the same thing on the US too?

That Trump is a corrupt pig isn't really news. Hope he and his administration will be held responsible for their crimes but somehow I doubt it. The rich and powerful rarely have to face the consequences of their actions

[MadameChaos]

 

 

 

Dude, I live in Canada. I go to walk-in clinics all the time.

 

 

Wait, I thought you lived in Japan 100km away from Fukushima? I'm confused.

Did you just assume his geolocation?

Lol.

 

Travel, MDM Chaos. 3 weeks in Japan, two of them roughly 112 km from the Daiichi reactor site.

 

Did anyone catch Bernie’s town hall on Fox?

Not too shabby! So did you go on a tour of the fallout zone with a radiation counter?

[may be rude]

Barr was picked for AG precisely to handle the report. He’s a true believer in presidential power being above the law. He’s stated as much in previous writing. Even conservative David brooks said he regrets giving Barr the benefit of the doubt.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

barr is a fishy dude.

 

in his mar 24 letter summarizing the principle findings of the mueller report, he says that an underlying crime is needed for an obstruction case. that is flatly untrue and it is strikingly odd to professionals in the legal arena that he would voice something so entirely off-base. an obstruction case requires 3 things:

• an obstructive act
• a nexus between the obstructive act and an official proceeding
• a corrupt intent

why was he trying to mislead the american people in such an incredibly high-profile and consequential public statement?

 

stuff like this makes him look like a trumper to me:

 

 

In fact, in November 2017, Barr told the New York Times that there was more basis to investigate Hillary Clinton for the Uranium One deal than there is to investigate Trump for potential collusion with Russia.

 

from wapo

 

he almost certainly got nominated because of the memo written to rosenstein about how messed up the mueller investigation was. he wrote that to rosenstein june 8, 2018, while barr was a private counsel to a firm in chicago.

 

barr's march 24 letter summarizing the mueller report principle findings stated that mueller's decision not to make a judgement means the AG gets to. but the mueller report states that the decision not to make a judgement was based on the OLC opinion - which applies to the entire DOJ. in that letter, barr omitted that the mueller report suggests that an obstruction case on a president should be handled by congress.

 

in barr's apr 18 press conference - 2 hours ahead of the mueller report release - he again presented misleading language about the special counsel's decision not to make a judgement. he was asked directly if that decision was the result of the OLC opinion, and he responded with a misleading answer implying that the answer was no. in reality, the report explicitly states that the answer is yes. from the transcript of the apr 18 press conference:

 

 

Reporter: "Mr. Attorney General, we don't have the report in hand. So could you explain for us the special counsel's articulated reason for not reaching a decision on obstruction of justice and if it had anything to do with the department's long-standing guidance on not indicting a sitting president? And you say you disagree with some of his legal theories. What did you disagree with and why?"

 

Barr: "I would leave it to his description in the report, the special counsel's own articulation of why he did not want to make a determination as to whether or not there was an obstruction offense. But I will say that when we met with him, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and I met with him, along with Ed o'Callaghan, who is the principal associate deputy, on March 5th. We specifically asked him about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion. And he made it very clear several times that that was not his position. He was not saying that but for the OLC opinion, he would have found a crime. He made it clear that he had not made the determination that there was a crime."

 

 

from the mueller report:

 

 

First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions” in violation of the constitutional separation of powers.” Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515; 28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC’s legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC’s constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.

 

Edited April 20, 2019 by very honest

[ambermonk]

Looks like the GOP in some southern states are trying to stop the proliferation of wind farms, one of them even going as far as declaring them a threat to national security: https://thinkprogress.org/renewables-wind-texas-north-carolina-attacks-4c09b565ae22/

But you know what? Fuck 'em. Renewables are the future whether they like it or not. And there's nothing their mob boss in the WH can do about it in the long run.

[auxien]

^^Barr's definitely a shill/Trumper/partisan. Maybe wasn't always like that, but no doubt about his current skew.

[goDel]

 

a democrat with a spine! good!

[may be rude]

 

 

mueller handed off 10 cases and referred 14 cases. there is also an FBI counter-intelligence investigation into trump/russia that coordinated with mueller but is independent and ongoing. mueller's conspiracy investigation was criminal only. it's not unlikely we will see ongoing developments in regard to the subject of Volume I.

 

susan hennessey makes this point about Volume I:

 

"The only element that was missing was the technical meeting of the minds, the actual agreement necessary for conspiracy. And so the lack of that element, which of course is significant whenever you're thinking about criminal charging decisions, actually I think it masks a lot of the profoundly disturbing underlying conduct."

 

from The Lawfare Podcast's What to Make of the Mueller Report episode

Edited April 25, 2019 by very honest

[sheatheman]

Did y’all know Elizabeth warren is Native American?

[sweepstakes]

Did y’all know Elizabeth warren is Native American?

That's the battle you're picking, eh? Play cheap games, win cheap prizes.

[auxien]

Report: You’re Far Too Dumb To Be Reading The Mueller Report Yourself

 

 

pats self on back for trying, pursuant to the stated order subsumed henceforth by corporate entity and legal persons Onion Inc Ind.

Edited April 21, 2019 by auxien

[sweepstakes]

Report: You’re Far Too Dumb To Be Reading The Mueller Report Yourself

 

 

pats self on back for trying, pursuant to the stated order subsumed henceforth by corporate entity and legal persons Onion Inc Ind.

lol

[dingformung]

lol

[zero]

Did y’all know Elizabeth warren is Native American?

Dude you may not know, but her real name is P O C A H O N T A S. And I heard she lives in a wigwam, has a pet buffalo, and eats peyote for dinner.

[dingformung]

[goDel]

nvrmind

Edited April 21, 2019 by goDel

[bendish]

Yea yea but it's just not entertaining enough

[may be rude]

Congressman Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that would start impeachment proceedings

 

 

part 2 

 

part 3

 

part 4

Edited April 21, 2019 by very honest

[bendish]

Impeaching an idiot is a waste of time. Offer a solid alternative dems or deserve another loss.

[may be rude]

Impeaching an idiot is a waste of time. Offer a solid alternative dems or deserve another loss.

 

the president should not be allowed to obstruct justice. imagine if they see that the democrats gave them a pass. they're off and running, and any future motions for impeachment on the grounds of obstruction are weakened.

 

what i'm seeing from Congress people on the left is that they don't even want to impeach. that just gears up the right, which makes the democrat prospects in 2020 worse. they don't want to but it's this thing where they should, because it's like if they don't do this then what are they there for? this is one of the most important purposes Congress serves.

 

it offends the senses of any serious american to think about permitting a rampaging executive to disassemble it's subjection to justice and checks. it should feel disgusting to any congress person to consider declining the role of enacting the check that was intended by the founders to prevent deterioration into more authoritarian forms of government.

Edited April 21, 2019 by very honest

[Braintree]

They should do their jobs even if they know they won't succeed. They have a responsibility to do so.