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

[Brisbot]

Eh I doubt that.

Trump won the presidency by copying a lot of his populist rhetoric from Justice Dem types. And Obama had a lot of the same populist rhetoric before he revealed himself to be a centrist. Though I think the biggest contribution to winning is not Justice Dems or Corporate dems, but how much you can excite your base. Hillary did not do that and honestly being a corporate dem these days has got to be harder to excite your base since a lot of what your base wants are things like universal healthcare or free college.

Btw, what's stupid about the whole free college thing is that if you slashed the military budget in half you could pay for college 6-7 times over, and we'd still be spending around twice as much on our military as compared to China... and even though free college for people would pay for itself over time since people would on average be more educated putting more money into the economy. It's absolutely ridiculous we spend 11-12 times more on our military than Russia, and 5-6 times more than China.

 

It's called investing in your citizens. Instead they'd rather make you a debt slave.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Brisbot

[ignatius]

^^ even free 2 year community college and trade schools/training would be a huge win. 

 

i think that's estimated to cost about the same as the defense spending increases that happened..  not to mention the tax cut scams.

 

if the dems want young voters to get out and vote they're going to have to speak their language.

 

there's a lot of peoplre who were excited about hillary but they were mostly boomers.. she did win the vote by 3 million. just left behind a few key places.

[Brisbot]

They are indeed the old guard. Old but still relevant. Yeah I was thinking  they should at least do free community college which would allow people to go to college without worrying about loans that you would have to pay off if you ended up realizing it wasn't for you.

Free 4 year college would be around 60 billion or so (from what I remember maybe a few billion more) and the defense budget is currently 643 billion. I can only assume the people who make the most money from your school loan are really paying their lobbyists well. 

I wonder what the political landscape will look like in 20 years. A great majority of people who vote for bernie are young. So I wonder if many of the people in their 20s will become more conservative as they age and the millennial demographic will mirror the current preferences of boomers and such.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Brisbot

[goDel]

Interesting thread on why Mueller would end his investigation like this in the case where he did find proof of the so called trump russia thing:

 

[sheatheman]

Well guys, it happened. Not sure if the news has made it yet, but the findings of the mueller report were leaked. And it is HUGE.

 

Might be a media black out, not sure yet, but I don’t see how trump can survive this.

[Squee]

Well guys, it happened. Not sure if the news has made it yet, but the findings of the mueller report were leaked. And it is HUGE.

 

Might be a media black out, not sure yet, but I don’t see how trump can survive this.

 

Maybe these "leaks" should be taken with a grain of salt.

[may be rude]

link?

Edited March 24, 2019 by very honest

[goDel]

[goDel]

link?

[YangYing]

Edited March 24, 2019 by MIXL2

[bendish]

I'll put my money on grey area spin fest

[Rubin Farr]

[ignatius]

They are indeed the old guard. Old but still relevant. Yeah I was thinking  they should at least do free community college which would allow people to go to college without worrying about loans that you would have to pay off if you ended up realizing it wasn't for you.

 

Free 4 year college would be around 60 billion or so (from what I remember maybe a few billion more) and the defense budget is currently 6.43 billion. I can only assume the people who make the most money from your school loan are really paying their lobbyists well. 

 

I wonder what the political landscape will look like in 20 years. A great majority of people who vote for bernie are young. So I wonder if many of the people in their 20s will become more conservative as they age and the millennial demographic will mirror the current preferences of boomers and such.

 

 

USA defense budget for 2018 was just under $700 billion.

[Brisbot]

^^^ yeah it was a typo, meant 650 billion or so, and even then that's 2017 I'm referencing. Second place is China at... a little under 150 billion. Could pay for college many times over.

[Hugh Mughnus]

but smot peopleses aren't as easily subjugated 

Edited March 24, 2019 by Bulk VanderHooj

[ignatius]

^^^ yeah it was a typo, meant 650 billion or so, and even then that's 2017 I'm referencing. Second place is China at... a little under 150 billion. Could pay for college many times over.

 

 

defense budget is full of pork too. also, it's et up so in every state there's some kind of defense project. either parts or repairs or housing or a military base. they do it on purpose so that everyone in congress gets on board because it means jobs in their state. a tank might have parts made in 30 states or something. 

 

there's a lot of waste. also the pentagon hasn't had to show where its money has gone for more than a decade. they became exempt from even a basic audit by the general accounting office because they just don't know where the money goes so eventually the general accounting office just stopped asking.. and it's the most basic audit.. just a balance sheet with money coming in on one side and a list of expenditures on the other side.. not down to the penny or anything.. just big round numbers.. nope.. can't even do that. 

 

it's a shit show. 

 

china has been spending something like $250 billion a year on infrastructure for a decade.. they of course didn't have any infrastructure to speak of so they had to but even so.. we spend a tiny amount every year and basically need a trillion dollar program to modernize and repair shit. 

 

it's all so dumb. for a long time this gov't has basically hated its citizens and put them at the bottom of the list of priorities.  that shit is gonna come due one way or another. 

[auxien]

No collusion

[ignatius]

fake news.  just a witch hoax

[maitake]

lol

Makes reading the thread history rather amusing. All of the collusion conspiracy..

[ignatius]

lol

 

Makes reading the thread history rather amusing. All of the collusion conspiracy..

 

 

it's crazy.  it'll make a great movie or miniseries. this copypasta is from 2 months ago. this shit has been going around and around for 2 years. 

 

copy/pasting:

• Trump was first compromised by the Russians back in the 80s in the days of the Soviet Union. In 1984, the Russian Mafia began to use Trump real estate to launder money and it continued for decades. In 1987, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuri Dubinin, arranged for Trump and his then-wife, Ivana, to enjoy an all-expense-paid trip to Moscow to consider possible business prospects. Only seven weeks after his trip, Trump ran full-page ads in the Boston Globe, the NYT and WaPO calling for, in effect, the dismantling of the postwar Western foreign policy alliance. The whole Trump/Russian connection started out as laundering money for the Russian mob through Trump's real estate, but evolved into something far bigger.
• In 1984, David Bogatin — a Russian mobster, convicted gasoline bootlegger, and close ally of Semion Mogilevich, a major Russian mob boss — met with Trump in Trump Tower right after it opened. Bogatin bought five condos from Trump at that meeting. Those condos were later seized by the government, which claimed they were used to launder money for the Russian mob. (NY Times, Apr 30, 1992)
• Felix Sater is a Russian-born former mobster, and former managing director of NY real estate conglomerate Bayrock Group LLC located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. He is a convict who became a govt cooperator for the FBI and other agencies. He grew up with Michael Cohen--Trump's former "fixer" attorney. Cohen's family owned El Caribe, which was a mob hangout for the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn. Cohen had ties to Ukrainian oligarchs through his in-laws and his brother's in-laws. Felix Sater's father had ties to the Russian mob. This goes back more than 30 years.
• Trump was $4 billion in debt after his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt. No U.S. bank would touch him. Then foreign money began flowing in through Bayrock (mentioned above). Bayrock was run by two investors: Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on bottomless sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who had pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a huge stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia. Bayrock partnered with Trump in 2005 and poured money into the Trump organization under the legal guise of licensing his name and property management.
• Semion Mogilevich was the brains behind the Russian Mafia. Mogilevich operatives have been using Trump real estate for decades to launder money. That means Russian Mafia operatives have been part of his fortune for years, that many of them have owned condos in Trump Towers and other properties, that they were running operations out of Trump's crown jewel. (Mogilevich's role today is unclear).
• One of the most important things that is often overlooked is that the Russia Mafia is part and parcel of Russian intelligence. Russia is a mafia state. that is not a metaphor. Putin is head of the Mafia. So the fact that they have been operating out of the home of the president of the United States is deeply disturbing.
• From Craig Unger's AMA: "Early on, a source told me that all this was tied to Semion Mogilevich, the powerful Russian mobster. I had never even heard of him, but I immediately went to a database that listed the owners of all properties in NY state and looked up all the Trump properties. Every time I found a Russian sounding name, I would Google, and add Mogilevich. When you do investigative reporting, you anticipate drilling a number of dry holes, but almost everyone I googled turned out to be a Russian mobster. Again and again. If you know New York you don't expect Trump Tower to be a high crime neighborhood, but there were far too many Russian mobsters in Trump properties for it to be a coincidence."
• So many Russians bought Trump apartments at his developments in Florida that the area became known as Little Moscow. The developers of two of his hotels were Russians with significant links to the Russian mob. The late leader of that mob in the United States, Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, was living at Trump Tower.
• According to a Bloomberg investigation (March 16, 2017) into Trump World Tower, which broke ground in 1998, “a third of units sold on floors 76 through 83 by 2004 involved people or limited liability companies connected to Russia and neighboring states.”
• Here is the most prominent example: In July 2008, the height of the recession, Donald Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property. Again, this was the height of the recession when all other property had plummeted in value.
• As an example of the Russian mob operating out of Trump Tower, in 2013, Federal agents busted an “ultraexclusive, high-stakes, illegal poker ring” run by Russian gangsters out of Trump Tower. In addition to card games, they operated illegal gambling websites, ran a global sports book and laundered more than $100 million. A condo directly below one owned by Trump reportedly served as HQ for a “sophisticated money-laundering scheme” connected to Semion Mogilevich.
• It has been widely known for decades that Russia often used videotaped "honey traps" to compromise influential visitors. General Oleg Kalugin, former head of counterintelligence for the KGB, told Craig Unger (Author, "House of Trump, House of Putin") they probably did this with Trump during his visit to Russia in 1987--long before the events in the Steele dossier. "I can't tell what is inside Trump's mind, but everyone who traveled to Russia knew this."
• Rudy Giuliani famously prosecuted the Italian mob while he was a federal prosecutor, yet the Russian mob was allowed to thrive under his tenure in the Southern District and Mayor. And now he's deeply entwined in the business of Trump and Russian oligarchs. Giuiani appointed Semyon Kislin to the NYC Economic Development Council in 1990, and the FBI described Kislin as having ties tot he Russian mob. Of course, it made good political sense for Giuliani to get headlines for smashing the Italian mob.
• A lot of Republicans in Washington are implicated. Boatloads of Russian money went to the GOP--often in legal ways. The NRA got as much as $70M from Russia, then funneled it to the GOP. The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee lead by McConnel got millions from Leonard Blavatnik. The big white shoe law firms--Jones Day, for example-- represent powerful Russian oligarchs who have billions and billions of dollars. Much of this is legal even though it appears to have compromised huge parts of the GOP. Unger's book alleges that most of the GOP leadership has been compromised by RU money. In the 90s, the Russians began sending money to top GOP leaders, like Speaker of the House Tom Delay.
• At the Cityscape USA’s Bridging US and the Emerging Real Estate Markets Conference held in Manhattan, on September 9, 10, and 11, 2008, Trump Jr. was frank about the tide of Russian money supporting the family business, saying "...And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets."
• Eric Trump told James Dodson, a golf reporter, in 2014 that the Trump Organization was able to expand during the financial crisis because “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”
• Trump's first wife, Ivana, was under surveillance by the STB, the Czech secret police, and they reported to the KGB. Ivana got out of Communist Czechoslovakia in the 70s which was not easy to do.
• Regarding the Steele dossier, while not everything in the dossier has been corroborated, some of it has and none of it has been disproven. Christopher Steele has a terrific reputation in the intelligence world. For reference, Jeb Bush's opposition research included paying a US based intelligence firm (GPS Fusion), who reached out to Steele. This same intelligence firm was later hired by Clinton during her campaign. All of this was above-board and verifiable.
• At the end of 2018, Putin and his allies started making a strong push for a resolution that would justify their country’s 1979 invasion and reverse an 1989 vote backed by Mikhail Gorbachev that condemned it. The Putinists’ goal was to pass the resolution by Feb. There is no one on this side of the Atlantic who thinks the USSR was justified in invading Afghanistan. And out of nowhere, on January 2nd, Trump came out strongly supporting Russia's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.
• We don't know who may be prosecuted with Deutsche Bank, but Russian money laundering is a huge part of this and how they compromised Trump. Trump was $4 billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out. They own him.

[YangYing]

6 more years my bois

[ignatius]

6 more years my bois

 

 

i'm sure he'll get a momentary bump in the polls.  we'll see what comes of the other investigations and money laundering through the inauguration committee.

 

it's all gonna be pretty unbearable even above normal levels of stupid. 

[may be rude]

barr's summary is pretty interesting.

 

 

Dear Chairman Graham, Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Ranking Member Collins:

 

As a supplement to the notification provided on Friday, March 22, 2019, I am writing today to advise you of the principal conclusions reached by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III and to inform you about the status of my initial review of the report he has prepared.

 

The Special Counsel’s Report

 

On Friday, the Special Counsel submitted to me a “confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions” he has reached, as required by 28 C.F.R. 600.8©. This report is entitled “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Although my review is ongoing, I believe that it is in the public interest to describe the report and to summarize the principal conclusions reached by the Special Counsel and the results of his investigation.

 

The report explains that the Special Counsel and his staff thoroughly investigated allegations that members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, and others associarted with it, conspired with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, or sought to obstruct the related federal investigations. In the report, the Special Counsel noted that, in completing his investigation, he employed 19 lawyers who were assisted by a team of approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, and other professional staff. The Special Counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.

 

The Special Counsel obtained a number of indictments and convictions of individuals and entities in connection with his investigation, all of which have been publicly disclosed. During the course of his investigation, the Special Counsel also referred several matters to other offices for further action. The report does not recommend any further indictments, nor did the Special Counsel obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public. Below, I summarize the principal conclusions laid out in the Special Counsel’s report.

 

Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. 

 

The Special Counsel’s report is divided into two parts. The first describes the results of the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The report outlines the Russian effort to influence the election and documents crimes committed by persons associated with the Russian government in connection with those efforts. The report further explains that a primary consideration for the Special Counsel’s investigation was whether any Americans — including individuals associated with the Trump campaign — joined the Russian conspiracies to influence the election, which would be a federal crime. The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

 

(Footnote 1: In assessing potential conspiracy charges, the Special Counsel also considered whether members of the Trump campaign “coordinated” with Russian election interference activities. The Special Counsel defined “coordination” as an “agreement — tacit or express — between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference.”)

 

The Special Counsel’s investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election. As noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts, although the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian nationals and entities in connection with these activities.

 

The second element involved the Russian government’s efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons associated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for the purposes of influencing the election. But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.

 

Obstruction of Justice. 

 

The report’s second part addresses a number of actions by the President — most of which have been the subject of public reporting — that the Special Counsel investigated as potentially raising obstruction-of-justice concerns. After making a “thorough factual investigation” into these matters, the Special Counsel considered whether to evaluate the conduct under Department standards regarding prosecution and conviction but ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as “difficult issues” of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The Special Counsel’s report states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

 

The Special Counsel’s decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime. Over the course of the investigation, the Special Counsel’s office engaged in discussions with certain Department officials regarding many of the legal and factual matters at issue in the Special Counsel’s obstruction investigation. After reviewing the Special Counsel’s final report on these issues; consulting with Department officials, including the Office of Legal Counsel; and applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide our charging decisions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president.

 

(Footnote 2: See A Sitting President’s Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution, 24 Op. O.L.C, 222 (2000).)

 

In making this determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,” and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction. Generally speaking, to obtain and sustain an obstruction conviction, the government would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person, acting with corrupt intent, engaged in obstructive conduct with a sufficient nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding. In cataloguing the President’s actions, many of which took place in public view, the report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent, each of which, under the Department’s principles of federal prosecution guiding charging decisions, would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to establish an obstruction-of-justice offense.

 

Status of the Department’s Review

 

The relevant regulations contemplate that the Special Counsel’s report will be a “confidential report” to the Attorney General. See Office of Special Counsel, 64 Fed. Reg. 27,038, 37,040-41 (July 9, 1999). As I have previously stated, however, I am mindful of the public interest in this matter. For that reason, my goal and intent is to release as much of the Special Counsel’s report as I can consistent with applicable law, regulations, and Departmental policies.

 

Based on my discussions with the Special Counsel and my initial review, it is apparent that the report contains material that is or could be subject to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(e), which imposes restrictions on the use and disclosure of information relating to “matter occurring before [a] grand jury.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(2)(B). Rule 6(e) generally limits disclosure of certain grand jury information in a criminal investigation and prosecution. Id. Disclosure of 6(e) material beyond the strict limits set forth in the rule is a crime in certain circumstances. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. 401(3). This restriction protects the integrity of grand jury proceedings and ensures that the unique and invaluable investigative powers of a grand jury are used strictly for their intended criminal justice function.

 

Given these restrictions, the schedule for processing the report depends in part on how quickly the Department can identify the 6(e) material that by law cannot be made public. I have requested the assistance of the Special Counsel in identifying all 6(e) information contained in the report as quickly as possible. Separately, I also must identify any information that could impact other ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other offices. As soon as that process is complete, I will be in a position to move forward expeditiously in determining what can be released in light of applicable law, regulations, and Departmental policies.

 

***

 

As I observed in my initial notification, the Special Counsel regulations provide that “the Attorney General may determine that public release of” notifications to your respective Committees “would be in the public interest.” 28 C.F.R. 600.9©. I have so determined, and I will disclose the letter to the public after delivering it to you.

 

Sincerely,

 

William P. Barr

 

Attorney General

Edited March 24, 2019 by very honest

[ignatius]

at least it firms up the facts about russian interference. i wonder if trump and supporters will acknowledge that? 

[Nebraska]

yeah this is a disaster in my eyes. trump kept harping the song that the dems were just wasting time with the "witch hunt" and now (of course) he can't stop harping how "this is a total exoneration"

 

i think we've learned two things today:

 

1). justice is a social construct and it relies on people to create and uphold it. 

2). justice is a shared virtue and you can't have it when half the country just wants power.