Special Counsel Mueller has submitted his report to Attorney General Barr

[zinfamous]

Got it, but isn’t that the nature of white collar crime, and also why the 1% prefer to hide behind the curtain.

Yes, It's why I was agreeing with you.


It's why the anger here is legitimate, and the paralyzed thinking that "nothing can be done" is just counterproductive. With Trump, it goes beyond politics--hell, he likes to claim and his true believers like to defend that he isn't a politician--because he is exactly the type of entitled elitist scum criminal that the vast majority of Americans just outright tend to hate. Well, humans tend to hate such people in general.

It baffles me that the very common, very normal expression of this hate has been perverted by the type of conservative sycophants that, only ~4 years ago, would have been in 100% agreement with this anger and hatred. But now, since this sentient tumor has been anointed as the standard-bearer for their tribe, this very normal and popular type of anger and hatred is classified as "biased, political, derangement syndrome."

It's insane, especially considering how these GOP shitstains can sell their morals and their ideals (that they never had, obviously), so quickly. And really, for their own detriment. I simply won't abide the label of "angry liberal!" or "get over it!" or "TDS fucktard!" simply for expressing, natural, popular, common anger over the type of non-political skullduggery that is flapping about in full public display, utterly shamelessly.

Liberal reaction to Trump is 100% normal, from the perspective of a functioning adult human. ..this is actually the standard of civilized human behavior. it is no other way. It's what makes listening to certified special people like TH or slowspider brandonbull or Taj-ma-babygrenader, and their casual defenders, so utterly aggravating, because you know these little bitches turned 180 degrees in a heartbeat when it was determined that this well-known criminal conman was going to be speaking for them. The GOP and its unapologetic supporters have no fucking spine. It's plain for anyone to see, and frustration over this is completely understandable.

 

[Blackjack200]

Which sounds like something Trump & his Russian friends want you to believe.

Commitment to the bit right here.

 

[Fern]

Democrats did not start the investigation, nor did they set the rules for the Special Counsel when it was given the authority to take over the investigation.

"Democrats did not start the investigation" Seriously? That's disingenuous. This whole Russian Collusion thing was started by the Dems; same with obstruction of justice.

The hiring of Mueller marked "a concession by the Trump administration to Democratic demands" for the investigation to be run independently of the Justice Department, according to the Washington Post.[58]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speci...riginal_claim_of_Russian_election_involvement

The Special Counsel rules were written in 1999 (IIRC).

Fern

 

[Fern]

Thinking about this a little further, why was it the 1% the Russians might have swayed that made the difference?
-snip-

The 1% number is completely made up.

You'd have to have two parallel world's. One with Russian interference and one without and then compare to determine the difference. Anything else is a guess.

To contend that Russians posting BS on Facebook etc made US citizens change their minds on who to vote for says more about that person's opinion of US voters than anything else.

Attempting to influence (or more accurately sow dissension) =/= actually influencing.

Fern

 

[zinfamous]

The 1% number is completely made up.

You'd have to have two parallel world's. One with Russian interference and one without and then compare to determine the difference. Anything else is a guess.

To contend that Russians posting BS on Facebook etc made US citizens change their minds on who to vote for says more about that person's opinion of US voters than anything else.

Attempting to influence (or more accurately sow dissension) =/= actually influencing.

Fern

So, you honestly have a high opinion of US voters?

 

[Maxima1]

"Democrats did not start the investigation" Seriously? That's disingenuous. This whole Russian Collusion thing was started by the Dems; same with obstruction of justice.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017–2019)#Original_claim_of_Russian_election_involvement

The Special Counsel rules were written in 1999 (IIRC).

Fern

Trump's stupidity and incompetence led to it foremost. Rosenstein gave approval because he realized fast that his ass was on the line for signing that memo recommending firing Comey.

 

[Indus]

The 1% number is completely made up.

You'd have to have two parallel world's. One with Russian interference and one without and then compare to determine the difference. Anything else is a guess.

To contend that Russians posting BS on Facebook etc made US citizens change their minds on who to vote for says more about that person's opinion of US voters than anything else.

Attempting to influence (or more accurately sow dissension) =/= actually influencing.

Fern

Do you know how many alex jones followers actually believe sandyhook was a hoax? Just spread out the amount over 3 swing states and you can turn an election on a conspiracy theory.

 

[Indus]

"Democrats did not start the investigation" Seriously? That's disingenuous. This whole Russian Collusion thing was started by the Dems; same with obstruction of justice.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017–2019)#Original_claim_of_Russian_election_involvement

The Special Counsel rules were written in 1999 (IIRC).

Fern

The investigation was to find out Russian election involvement.

There's already plenty of evidence of Russian election involvement including Russian spies being arrested and pleading guilty.

 

[dainthomas]

Barr's argument is perfectly circular. We can't prove conspiracy because of likely obstruction and we can't prove obstruction w/o having a conspiracy.

Barr knows that people are convicted of obstruction all the time with no one being convicted of the associated crime. Otherwise all you'd have to is obstruct justice well enough and you wouldn't have to worry about going to jail for anything.

 

[pmv]

I don’t get what’s ironic about this at all? That’s like saying we shouldn’t get upset if someone bombs us because we bomb other people all the time. Of course we should!

From a US standpoint it’s entirely irrelevant if we run influence operations in other countries because for the US the standard of judgment is ‘is this good for us’, not ‘is this hypocritical’. Same goes for every country.

After going to do something else I suddenly realised another glaring problem with this position!

Both of you started with a moral argument and then switched to a rational-self-interest-based one.


Surely that is inconsistent? If your position is you are fine with such interference if it's in your rational personal self-interest, what grounds do you have for telling a Trump/Putin fan who thinks Putin interfering in the US is in _his_ self-interest that he's in any way wrong?

He's just following the exact same principle you are espousing!

The only way to salvage your argument is to assume that all Americans share the exact same self-interests, and all Russians likewise. And then accuse Trump/Putin fans of acting against their own self-interest. I don't think that's a self-evident truth.

Also the particular irony here is that US interference in Russia did a great deal to bring Putinism about. One part of that among many being the US support for Yeltsin in shifting power from parliament to an quasi-imperial presidency. That's what now gives Putin his power base.

 

[fskimospy]

After going to do something else I suddenly realised another glaring problem with this position!

Both of you started with a moral argument and then switched to a rational-self-interest-based one.

Surely that is inconsistent? If your position is you are fine with such interference if it's in your rational personal self-interest, what grounds do you have for telling a Trump/Putin fan who thinks Putin interfering in the US is in _his_ self-interest that he's in any way wrong?

He's just following the exact same principle you are espousing!

Also the particular irony here is that US interference in Russia did a great deal to bring Putinism about. One part of that among many being the US support for Yeltsin in shifting power from parliament to an quasi-imperial presidency. That's what now gives Putin his power base.

I don't recall ever making a moral argument about this? In fact I've always discussed this in purely rational self interest terms.

As far as telling Trump/Putin fans they are wrong that's pretty easy. It is extremely unlikely that Russia has the United States' best interests at heart. Even if you believe in this case your interests coincide by accepting/encouraging Russia to continue to conduct espionage operations against our election process the country will be harmed in the long run either through poor leadership or by delegitimizing the democratic process.

 

[Indus]

I don't recall ever making a moral argument about this? In fact I've always discussed this in purely rational self interest terms.

As far as telling Trump/Putin fans they are wrong that's pretty easy. It is extremely unlikely that Russia has the United States' best interests at heart. Even if you believe in this case your interests coincide by accepting/encouraging Russia to continue to conduct espionage operations against our election process the country will be harmed in the long run either through poor leadership or by delegitimizing the democratic process.

We could just divide the country into United Socialist America and Trumputina!

 

[dank69]

"Democrats did not start the investigation" Seriously? That's disingenuous. This whole Russian Collusion thing was started by the Dems; same with obstruction of justice.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017–2019)#Original_claim_of_Russian_election_involvement

The Special Counsel rules were written in 1999 (IIRC).

Fern

It is not disingenuous. The whole Russian Collusion thing was started by the intelligence community. The original investigation was started by the FBI and was headed by James Comey, a lifelong Republican.

 

[fskimospy]

"Democrats did not start the investigation" Seriously? That's disingenuous. This whole Russian Collusion thing was started by the Dems; same with obstruction of justice.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017–2019)#Original_claim_of_Russian_election_involvement

The Special Counsel rules were written in 1999 (IIRC).

Fern

This is false.

From your own link:

The special counsel also took over an FBI investigation on whether President Trump had committed obstruction of justice, which began within eight days after Trump's dismissal of FBI Director James Comey. CNN reported in December 2018 that then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe started the investigation based on Comey's firing and also Comey's allegation that Trump had asked him to stop investigating Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The obstruction of justice investigation was initiated entirely by Republicans.

You're getting a lot of bad information on this from somewhere, what gives?

 

[fskimospy]

The 1% number is completely made up.

You'd have to have two parallel world's. One with Russian interference and one without and then compare to determine the difference. Anything else is a guess.

To contend that Russians posting BS on Facebook etc made US citizens change their minds on who to vote for says more about that person's opinion of US voters than anything else.

Attempting to influence (or more accurately sow dissension) =/= actually influencing.

Fern

The ~1% number is simply math. If you look at Trump's margin of victory in the decisive states about a 1% swing would have been decisive. As far as 'anything else is a guess' this is sheer nonsense. By your logic it is literally impossible to infer anyone or anything's effect on societal behavior ever. Does that sound reasonable?

Anyone that looks at the hacking of the DNC and concludes it's impossible or extremely improbable that the release of those emails and the subsequent discord they led to in the Democratic Party caused a 1% change in voter behavior is either a fool or engaged in motivated reasoning. Of course we can never know for sure, but it's an absolutely reasonable conjecture.

 

[woolfe9998]

The ~1% number is simply math. If you look at Trump's margin of victory in the decisive states about a 1% swing would have been decisive. As far as 'anything else is a guess' this is sheer nonsense. By your logic it is literally impossible to infer anyone or anything's effect on societal behavior ever. Does that sound reasonable?

Anyone that looks at the hacking of the DNC and concludes it's impossible or extremely improbable that the release of those emails and the subsequent discord they led to in the Democratic Party caused a 1% change in voter behavior is either a fool or engaged in motivated reasoning. Of course we can never know for sure, but it's an absolutely reasonable conjecture.

Trump won Michigan by .23%, Wisconsin by .77%, and Penn by .64%. That right there was the election.

 

[jackstar7]

Also, if advertising/propaganda didn't work it wouldn't generate billions of dollars.

We know it works.

 

[jackstar7]

Something tangential:
Sen. Lindsey Graham says he told John McCain to give Trump-Russia dossier to FBI

Someone please reconcile this with life as we know it.

 

[Maxima1]

Donnie might be able to play with his crayons.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1110643887465476097

 

[woolfe9998]

Donnie might be able to play with his crayons.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1110643887465476097

Is there any serious doubt about why the delay in releasing the report? Trump is going through it and underlining every unflattering statement about him, then passing it to Barr and telling him to find a legal rationale to redact them out.

 

[jackstar7]

Is there any serious doubt about why the delay in releasing the report? Trump is going through it and underlining every unflattering statement about him, then passing it to Barr and telling him to find a legal rationale to redact them out.

We're gonna have to burn this shit down... goddamnit.

 

[dbr1]

It is not disingenuous. The whole Russian Collusion thing was started by the intelligence community. The original investigation was started by the FBI and was headed by James Comey, a lifelong Republican.

No, the 'whole Russian collusion thing' originated with the Steele dossier, a product of opposition research group Fusion GPS and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump–Russia_dossier

Dossier was full of information alleging cooperation and conspiracy between Trump and Putin, now proven to be false (see Mueller report summary). Information in the dossier was used by the DOJ to obtain FISA court warrants to spy on the Trump campaign starting in 2016 and later became the basis of the Special Counsel investigation. Steele and DOJ officials and investigators including Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe had open animus towards Trump from the onset.

 

[Fern]

Here we go.....

Demanding full immediate release regardless of the law.

This is stupid. Putting aside any shenanigans by Trump reviewing such reports for classified data has always taken a while. They've also gotta scrub any Grand Jury info and any other info prohibited to be released under the Special Counsel rules. That's all straight up law established long ago.

Then there may be Exec Priv stuff.

It's simply unreasonable to expect an instant turnaround. The Congressional Dems (most anyway) know this, some of you know this too. This is a disingenuous attempt to cause F.U.D. and antagonize the Dem base.

Heck, the length of the report isn't even known. After a couple of years, hundreds of interviews and thousands of subpoenas etc I think we can expect it be fairly lengthy.

You people are nuts (unhinged still).

Buh-bye

Fern

 

[Jhhnn]

No, the 'whole Russian collusion thing' originated with the Steele dossier, a product of opposition research group Fusion GPS and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump–Russia_dossier

Dossier was full of information alleging cooperation and conspiracy between Trump and Putin, now proven to be false (see Mueller report summary). Information in the dossier was used by the DOJ to obtain FISA court warrants to spy on the Trump campaign starting in 2016 and later became the basis of the Special Counsel investigation. Steele and DOJ officials and investigators including Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe had open animus towards Trump from the onset.

So what? The taxpayers paid millions for this report & we want to see it, at least the vast majority do, I'm sure. And if it actually lets Trump off the hook then he & Barr should be eager to let us have it. But they're obviously not. Perhaps you can explain.

 

[outriding]

Here we go.....

Demanding full immediate release regardless of the law.

This is stupid. Putting aside any shenanigans by Trump reviewing such reports for classified data has always taken a while. They've also gotta scrub any Grand Jury info and any other info prohibited to be released under the Special Counsel rules. That's all straight up law established long ago.

Then there may be Exec Priv stuff.

It's simply unreasonable to expect an instant turnaround. The Congressional Dems (most anyway) know this, some of you know this too. This is a disingenuous attempt to cause F.U.D. and antagonize the Dem base.

Heck, the length of the report isn't even known. After a couple of years, hundreds of interviews and thousands of subpoenas etc I think we can expect it be fairly lengthy.

You people are nuts (unhinged still).

Buh-bye

Fern

Wasn't this investigation revolved around things that happened prior to Trump being president? If that is the case how can it have exec privileged in? Unless it was about Obama spying on him and if that is the case wouldn't that back up Trumps claim on how dirty Obama is?