The Mueller investigation.

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Quantum Quack, Feb 17, 2018.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Nor was he capable of authorizing such behavior by Russia. Your quote makes that perfectly clear.
    And you don't know anything about them, apparently.
    Which makes every post of yours in this thread a contribution of careless ignorance - and identical to the media feed of the Republican Party, which is entirely a body of familiar lies and bs any American except a Trump voter can see through immediately.
    There are many, many pages about such a thing - not only the money laundering, and the campaign aid in return for favors, but the main focus of the investigation: obstructing of justice.
    Trump obstructed legitimate and soundly motivated investigations into his "collaborations" with Russians. That was the assigned focus and - we read - the major content of that fraction of the Mueller report that we are allowed to see.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
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  3. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    So what? If Yanukovich asked for military help against an anti-constitutional fascist putsch, he does not give away the country to a foreign power. The putschists have given away the country, to the US, which decides about a lot of things in Ukraine today. (BTW, the actual clown is also prepared by the US, in cooperation with Kolomoisky.)

    If the Ukrainian constitutional order has been defended only on a part of the territory, while the other part is controlled by the fascist gangs, such is life. But in this case, it is the fascist coup which caused the civil war and destroyed the territorial integrity.
    Quite funny fantasies. I tend to answer if I'm attacked, and answer almost every attack (far too much, I know), and if the attack is already off-topic, so will be my answer. Such is life. The moderation is free to remove off-topic posts, no problem if it removes it consistently, thus, removes the off-topic attack I have answered too.

    For me, the Mueller investigation has shown nothing it was aimed to show - no collaboration of Trump with Russia. It only claimed, without any serious proof, that Russia has tried to influence the elections, the evidence being 13 bots who tried to make money by advertising in social media after collecting a sufficient set of followers and a conspiracy theory about the DNC leak. Everything else is internal policy, uninteresting for me.
    I distribute here some knowledge about positions different from the US media bubble. I think this is useful for the readers. As a scientific forum (which was my original aim when I joined) it is anyway dead, with no competent contributors. So, I use it as a forum inside the bubble of globalist supporters and distribute here some information hidden by their media.
    This behavior of Russia exists also only in Western propaganda fantasies. The legal government of Crimea decided to separate - something Yanukovich did not like or support at all. If it did have this right is another question, unrelated to Yanukovich's rights as a president. Beyond this, there are simply two factions of a civil war in Ukraine, in a ceasefire. Nothing is invaded, occupied or annexed. One part is ruled by the powers which remained legal after the coup (IOW, not supporting the coup), the other part is ruled by the putschists. Even if there would be real Russian troops, they would not be invaders, but supporters of the legal government. Inviting foreign troops to support own aim - like the suppression of a coup - is certainly something the constitution allows.

    Don't forget - if not, the US would be an invader of all countries with US bases inside.
    Obstruction of justice is certainly not a foreign policy issue, Manafords money laundering is also a private affair of Manaford himself, relevant only as an illustration that everybody in contact with Ukrainian politics is corrupt. Biden being another illustration.
    In other words, there was no collaboration with Russia, which was obvious from the start to Trump (once he did not collaborate). His conclusion was that the intention of this was not finding the truth but illegitimate witch-hunt. Of course, he tried to stop it, and once the witch-hunters used illegitimate means (media lies and other deep state games) it is quite plausible that some of the means used by Trump were illegitimate too. Simply tit for tat. And these points are now the major content of the result of the report. Laughable. And anyway irrelevant to foreign policy - except for the point that if those internal conflicts escalate, possibly up to impeachment or even a civil war, this will have side effects on foreign policy too.
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    No, you don't. You post the Republican Party media feed that is the primary content of the US media bubble.
    Like this idiocy:
    Trump's obstruction of justice involved an investigation into the corruption of US foreign policy. That's a foreign policy issue. Manafort's money laundering is not the same as Trump's money laundering, but his actions while Trump's campaign manager and under Trump's direction are not private affairs of Manafort - Trump is a public official.
    And in Ukraine, Crimea, certain Central Asian regions, Syria, and so forth. Where there are ports and pipelines of interest to Putin's government.
    There was lots of collaboration with Russians, many of them government reps. There was also obstruction of the investigation into that collaboration, which is the crime the Mueller investigation was focused on. Read the report.
    He did collaborate. He also obstructed the investigation into his collaborations. Read the report.
    That was not a "conclusion". It was a Republican media feed lie - part of the US media bubble, and like so much of that bubble now posted by you.
    The attempt to dismiss the Mueller report's findings on the grounds that the investigation was poorly motivated originally is of course bs - the findings don't go away because honest and decent people don't like Trump.
     
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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You are about half way through posting the entire US Republican media feed on this topic - the US media bubble you think you are outside of? It's you.
    They were felony crimes, as well as impeachable offense. And Trump obstructed the investigation into them - also a felony crime as well as an impeachable offense.

    Playground excuses like that don't fly well in court. I've never met a thief who didn't think the world was ripping him off - it's part of the psychology of that kind of behavior. Even the Trumps of this world have to justify their behavior to themselves. Judges and juries tend to be unsympathetic.

    Trump uses that same excuse when he cheats at golf, btw - there's a book out, by a well known sportswriter who loves the game of golf (who knows why, but he does, and he writes about it a lot). Trump cheats at golf in genuinely remarkable, even startling, fashion. It's entertaining as hell, if you ignore the fact that this guy is in charge of Federal law enforcement and so forth.
     
  8. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Rather quite lawless.

    When you make it up as you go like that, it's called lying.

    Well, sure, but you're ignorant, partisan, and lawless, and therefore rather quite unreliable. More directly, as I've mentioned before↗, the idea of what Barr has done will seem considerably less dramatic if one does not understand what they are seeing.

    It's not actually "knowledge". It's called "make-believe".

    Your appeal to lawlessness pretty much wrecks your anti-American appeal to international law; to the other, nobody is surprised, as you haven't shown sincerity about anything but your hatred.

    1. No, it's not.

    2. No, it wasn't a scientific forum when you joined.

    3. Yes, we get that you're a troll pushing make-believe.

    Ordinarily I don't worry about certain syntactical questions, but there are two meanings to that sentence; to the other, neither of them is accurate, so, whatever.

    That would be rather like saying defrauding Deutsche Bank is certainly not an international banking issue.

    More directly, when obstruction of justice is alleged in relation to a foreign policy issue, obstruction of justice becomes a foreign policy issue.

    This is the sort of making it up as you go that people find problematic; it really is hard to know where to start with such utter stupidity that cannot recognize the foreign policy implication of foreign government money and its proximity. Tacking opposition onto it as you did only reminds people of the priorities guiding this strange pretense of ignorance, or the real dearth it intends to exploit. In Manafort's case, any number of players behaved blatantly; your general outlook on the Mueller report makes no sense because of its sheer ignorance. It's not simply that you are getting certain answers wrong; you seem to be incapable of recognizing the questions. The point that the idea of what Barr has done will seem considerably less dramatic if one does not understand what they are seeing also applies to the underlying questions of the Mueller investigation. There is an underlying question in American jurisprudence, asking if process itself is law; the reason for this question is that our notion of "due process" doesn't mean anything if it doesn't "establish justice"; I can, for instance, think of a particular Democratic candidate, who I generally appreciate, but will, at least upon winning the presidential nomination, if not before, need to answer this question in particularly visceral aspects. Republicans generally don't address the question, by the way, because of their outlook on process and justice, which is never actually stable, but tends to disdain the question, and seems to try to shape itself around whatever issue of the day might demand such consideration°.

    And while it's never my place to speak for Iceaura, it is also true I sincerely doubt he is surprised to witness that particular overlap between Republican talking points and your generally otherwise ill-informed pretense.

    In our present question of process and justice, we should note that Mueller's work does not yet appear to be finished; particular questions House Democrats would like to ask him will, in fact, finish his job unless the answer demands otherwise: Is there anything the Special Counsel sought to investigate, and was prevented from doing so? How was the Special Counsel prevented from investigating these aspects?

    If his answer is no, there was nothing, his job is finished. If the answer is yes, then he will be asked to explain what and how. It is likely, at that point, Attorney General Barr would prevent further investigation by the Mueller team; we already know there are unanswered questions. As we saw with the Report itself, the Devil is in the detail of how Mueller expresses himself when he answers those questions. One of the ways you and Republicans alike spin the report is to ignore standards of process in translating the Report into talking points. In your case, sure, to the one, you're not American while, to the other, many Americans don't understand their own civic processes; the GOP, however, is relying on that ignorance in order to exploit it.

    Our neighbor sometimes recalls the Gish Gallop, a behavior intended to pack so much misinformation into one run that nobody can possibly address it all in one go; it's a common tactic in structured political debate, including news-media punditry, and a fundamental tool of conservative logic and rhetoric. The GOP and its supporters are doing something else, this time, a thermobaric-scale burst of ignorance intended to exceed, overwhelm, and collapse rational discussion. And the thing about, say, American understanding of civic processes, is that the average American is the average American, while the Attorney General, Congressional Republicans, and any number of conservative pundits claiming this or that credential ought to know better. This is essentially a demand to remind them of everything under the sun while they interrupt, complain, and, when we attend closely what they say as they do so, generally ignore the answer.

    The conservative descent into lawlessness is only surprising for its brazenness. Other than that, no, we ought not be surprised at their own willful manifestation of everything they have complained of and projected onto their political opposition for decades. One of the great mistakes of that opposition was to presume basic human decency of conservatives despite the rightist appeal to incivility and antisociality.

    While it's true, for instance, that—

    —it would be easy enough to forgive your basic ignorance of American civic processes, except that you don't really seem to care.

    Meanhile, anybody with a law degree, or deigning to sit in Congress, ought to know better than to overlook the particular language of the Report. There is a reason why Trump, Republicans, and their parrots and poodles at home and abroad, have particular political need for such tabula rasa ignorance.
    ___________________

    Notes:

    ° There is a potential Donald Trump himself might eventually come out against certain businesspeople whose classification obviously includes himself, and Democrats will either laugh or just sigh and shake their heads at the stupidity of it all, Republicans will suddenly forget their own policies and somehow come out on Trump's astoundingly hypocritical side, and many leftists pretending to disdain Trump will attack Democrats on secondary vectors addressing related aspects because that's what they do. It will be a show. There are two ways around it: Either Republicans and Bernie Sanders alike leave it alone, or the candidate doesn't get the nomination. It is unlikely Democratic contenders, barring Sanders, will call it out, as none of them save, perhaps, Warren, know how, and she won't go forward on that attack until she can say she has a plan to address the problem; Republicans likely won't get around to it until Trump himself points the way with open and unmitigated hypocrisy. But it will be interesting to see how this goes. The sad thing is that even if the storm does come, it won't change anything. To the other, perhaps a later iteration will. Still, if everybody who starts yelling at that point had given a damn on the ballot in the past, the outcome we countenance today would be different, and thus the question would either not exist for this candidate, or read differently according to other foci.
     
  9. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    Sorry, but even if it is related to US foreign policy, it is an US-internal problem. No murdering or other crimes against citizens of foreign countries involved. Manafort has, of course, taken money from criminal Ukrainian oligarchs, which, as all their money, have been stolen from citizens of Ukraine, but the issue against him is also US-internal, namely that he has not paid taxes for this or something related.

    You seem to think that US-internal issues are somehow relevant to the whole world. They are not. Ok, the US behaves as if their laws would be relevant for citizens of other states, even if they have never entered US territory, but this is simply a particular aspect of US attempts to rule the world.
    The US propaganda fantasies are indeed about Ukraine, Crimea, certain Central Asian regions, Syria, and so forth.
    Quote the evidence. You make the claim, you have to provide the evidence. And, please without irrelevancies, like members of the Russian embassy talking with various people - this is their job. Or bots posting popular opinions to gain followers, this is their job.
    If the Reps have better arguments so that people around the world which I consider to be reliable prefer their arguments, this is bad news for Dems.
    Big deal - in "three felonies a day" America. Sorry, but actually I do not care at all if you impeach Trump or not, that's internal policy. With the actual Bolton-Pompeo team making the foreign policy there is anyway no difference with Dems, except possibly that Dem policy is less stupid and therefore more dangerous. Maybe an impeachment would be even good - it would, first of all, need a lot of time full of internal fighting of even more serious type than what we have seen during the last two years. And heavy internal fighting usually means weakening.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2019
  10. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    imho
    Political divisiveness is a foil intended to divide and distract the electorate.
     
  11. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    I do not have to care if you consider me as a reliable source. And such primitive attacks without evidence are not impressive. About my "I distribute here some knowledge about positions different from the US media bubble" you write:
    You don't know my sources outside your bubble, thus, you cannot evaluate if I present their positions accurately. So this is yet another primitive attack without evidence in support.
    Do foreign states have to care about this? Not? Then it is an US-internal issue.
    Nice try, going from Russian government money (which would be relevant about the collusion of Trump with Russia, to some "foreign" government money. In the Manafort case, the only foreign government involved is the Ukrainian one. Which supported Clinton. Which is, of course, completely unproblematic, given that Clinton is the good guy.
    You don't get the point that I simply don't care about some questions which seem important for you? Namely, questions about US-internal policy? If Barr did some evil things is simply something I don't care at all. I have only mentioned him in the past given that what he wrote was all that was known about the report.
    I care in this case about what the Russian commenters care - what was found about the Russian collusion with Trump. They all agree that it is nothing. Like it or not, this is what is thought in Russia.

    This is in agreement with another line of reasoning popular in Russia: That the Russiagate will not stop, it will last forever - the Dems will not give up. With the consequence (relevant for Russia) that Trump will remain in the same defense mode as before, thus, will be prevented from starting normal relations with Russia. (There was also a remark that the Dems harm themselves in this way because no Trump supporter will accept that as fair game, but as a continuation of the witch hunt even after the main issue - the collusion with Russia - appeared to be a fantasy. Even if they would reach some success, this would be a success with means those people don't like much, with games played by lawyers.)
    I'm obliged to care only if I argue about this. What I think about the US legal system I have made clear enough - see my references to the greatest GULAG as well as to "three felonies a day" law system.

    (This is, of course, not all, for example, I highly value the common law tradition (which differs from the German tradition) and some other elements of the US system which have a long tradition. But they don't play a decisive role today, at least as far as I can tell.)
     
  12. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Schmelzer, if you're genuinely not here to troll pro-Westerners and the like, could you perhaps outline some of the core differences between your stated philosophy of "libertarian anarchy" and the classical philosophy of Russian imperialism? I think most of us are having difficulty telling them apart.
     
  13. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    muller is now global military strategic strategy ?

    i feel like i missed an entire season of this story

    though i felt from the beginning there was only around a 2 to 4 % chance anything vaguely incriminating would be found and any of that can be pardoned and swept away with the authority they have.
    it seems ... with all due respect to the dems, a complete waste of time and an even bigger waste of money.

    it almost feels like a big game wasting money and diverting attention away from core issues like the economy and global warming.

    im not advocating throwing legal systems under the buss, that is just a fairly flippant observers view of the end result and never ending appearance of self grandiose political media at the expense of the low income working class tax payers.

    it was always going to be an appeal to the republican party to ask them to fold up their tent and nicely pack away their toys and go home...
    which they were never and will never do.

    what happened to all these big new public works programs to build massive hydro dams and other such infastructure ?
    why has the great wall of mexical taken all the imputes away from infrastructure building ?

    it almost appears from the outside that the entire country have been sucked into a made up fight to divert their attention away from the national economy.
    im sure many have the best interests of the country at heart... from their ivory working class tax income funded towers.

    that is my topical laypersons emotive verbal gesticulation
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Sure we do.
    When you repost idiocy after idiocy exactly as we have seen featured in US rightwing authoritarian agitprop (Republican Party line, Fox News line, Murdoch press line), in the same vocabulary and timing, following even its reversals and self-contradictions from one week to the next, your sources are obvious.

    The question is whether you know what your sources are.
    Yeah, actually. It's a big deal. Very few people launder Russian money and cheat American citizens on the scale of Donald Trump. None of them are using the Presidency to do it.
    Nobody cares what a bunch of Russian commenters are allowed to say they think - least of all the US courts.
    They are getting ripped off and abused as well. They can care or not as they choose.
    It doesn't matter who they supported.
    Meanwhile: The Manafort case also involves Russian oligarchs, meetings with Russians, and laundering of Russian money. Additionally, Trump is currently continuing to solicit support from Ukraine via his associates, such as Guiliani.
    Russian oligarch money, and Russian government representatives, and Russian government protected troll farms, and so forth. Read the report.
    It is not "related" to US foreign policy. It is US foreign policy. That's part of what Trump was selling, in return for cash and political help.
    Of course that's a US internal problem.

    And of course you have no idea whether foreign citizens were murdered, or foreign citizens robbed and cheated. Americans don't care, but that is something I would think you would check before running your mouth. The people Trump deals with are mob guys, organized criminals.
    You don't care whether you are posting falsehood or not - that's obvious - but other people do.
    Appeared to whom? People who don't care what Barr did and said, apparently. Fools like you. That's not important.
    Many Trump supporters will always believe nonsense, such as Trump's Russian dealings being a "fantasy" - but that's a given. Trump supporters are almost as gullible as East European schoolboys.

    But the Dems do not suffer any more from that than they already have - that's just a fact of American political life for the past thirty years.
    You post about it all the time. If you don't care whether you know anything about what you post, why are you actually posting?
     
  15. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    LOL, nicely describes your fantasy world, where you know better than me what I read.

    Of course, my sources do not invent their positions out of thin air (if they would, I would hardly read them), but rely on arguments. Once you identify the result as identical with Rep propaganda, all that follows is that the Reps have better arguments, so that their position is the one preferred by my sources. You would better improve your own propaganda skills instead of whining that the Reps use better arguments in their propaganda.
    Nice try, but Russian commenters don't ask for permissions, they say what they think. They are not Americans who have to care about their claims being politically correct. What nobody cares about, except the victims in the US Gulag, is what US courts think.
    Because they supported Clinton. LOL, YMMD.
    Funny excuses. Manafort was working for Yanukovich, who was a creature of Achmetov. Achmetov is a Ukrainian oligarch. Even that his base was Donezk and he is Russian-speaking, this does not make him a Russian oligarch.
    In other words, nothing. The "Russian government protected troll farm" is the funniest thing. They don't need any protection, they simply make money by advertising, and the "Russian government protection" is based on Putin knowing the oligarch who owns this troll farm.
    ?????????? We are talking about the claimed collusion of Trump with the Russians during the elections. I have not even seen any claims in extremal propaganda sources that this was connected with murdering foreign citizens.
    It is not obvious, because you have not been able to support such claims about falsehoods with quotes. Waiting for a quote where I say some falsehood about Barr.
    Learn to read: To those mentioned in my text as Trump supporters. Feel free to think that what such deplorables think is not important. You may lose the next elections too, or in the worst case end in a civil war.

    That's simple. My project of libertarian anarchy includes the right of every group of people to separate from the rest of the world on some own territory, with full sovereignty over that territory. Russia does not support such a right. China and Russia don't support it too, the US has even fought a horrible civil war about this and is proud of having beaten the separatists.

    Behind my opposition to the US is also a basic ideological conflict between libertarian anarchy and the classical liberal ideology. (Not the US "liberal" nonsense, but the classical enlightenment project.) The liberal order is, by its nature, a world order, and aims at a world government. It does not accept the sovereignty of other groups on their own territory in principle. All have to follow the same liberal laws. By idea, these laws are quite minimal, in reality, the law of liberal democratic states are far from minimal, but control far more than any classical dictatorship, and they try to impose this nonsense everywhere.

    I support Russia in the fight against the US because the multipolar world is nonetheless closer to libertarian anarchy than a US world rule, not because I like the Russian state. (For example, the Russian GULAG is, even if much smaller than the US one, nonetheless very large.)
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    So if you're not posting about it, then what are all these posts?

    Remember, also, sure, there is your opinon, e.g., what you think of the U.S. legal system; but, yes, there is reality. And, sure, it's possible to argue you're only obliged to care about something if you're arguing about a subject, but inasmuch as your ignorance of certain elements is concerned, we might then wonder about the number of your own posts you have, by your own standard, disqualified. To wit, if you're not arguing about these things in your posts, why are you posting them?

    Don't get me wrong: If the point is that Iceaura and everybody else have been wasting their time on you for five years, well, we already knew.

    But, still, your manner of argument has, during your time here, always been more disruptive than communicative, and you keep seeming to make the point that such disruption actually is your point.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Your sources are handing you parroted fascist propaganda from US professional marketers, unaltered and unedited and without support.

    If you have actually been taken in by some fantasy that your "sources" came up with that crap independently of the US media feed that is its only origin - time for a reality check.
    I covered them: fools like you.
    Of course the decent folk may lose another election to the fascist movement that stole the last one. The electoral fraud, Russian manipulations supporting Trump in return for favors granted, and voter suppression operations, are still active and ramping up, the corporate media are still complicit and arguing "both sides" and "compromise" and "divisiveness" and so forth, it's obviously a threat.

    That does not make whatever the Trump supporters say they are "thinking" this week important. They - and you - will think whatever they are conned into thinking by the US corporate media feed - just as you will post it here. That's how fascist movements work - propaganda is central and sophisticated, the thug base is cared for and kept in line. Nothing anybody does can prevent this, and it's a waste of time to try to predict or forestall the details (the US propagandists will adjust to whatever attempts are made).
    Nonsense. You don't even support the right of a group of people to levy taxes on capitalists, let alone separate themselves from capitalist control of their territory.
    The US beat the slave owners, who were fighting for the right to prevent black people from separating from their control.

    Entertaining as it may be to see yet another "libertarian anarchist" sign on with war to maintain industrial scale slavery, the blindness to fascism involved in their blanket endorsement of corporate capitalist tyranny has done quite a lot of damage to actual freedom and liberty in real life.

    The Republican Party in the US - which is where these guys all end up, yakking about "free markets" and such - is not ok. The Mueller report has implications far beyond its documentation of Trump's criminal forays into treason, campaign finance fraud, and obstruction of justice.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Something we forgot, that we used to know:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/ju...-trump-congress-tried-obstruct-probe-n1006666
    There are tapes.
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Twittery

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    Part of what can get screwed up in partisan discourse is certain significance. One might, for instance, make the simple point that Eric Holder was Attorney General for a Democratic administration, but this means more to people invested in so nearly slapstick solipsism as we have witnessed in recent years of Republican partisan politicking. And there is, to the other, the significance of a former AG scolding a sitting AG so publicly and directly as Holder↱ just did:

    AG Barr has deliberately misrepresented the Mueller report. He has started examinations of the conduct of Intell/FBI personnel without a predicate-for political reasons. He is protecting the President. He does not stand up for the good people he leads. He is not fit to lead DOJ.

    This comes after a letter from "more than 800 former federal prosecutors who have come together to make an extraordinary assertion: It is only the presidency itself that prevents Trump from facing felony charges for obstruction of justice" (Vestal↱).

    Even still, right-wing stalwart Congressman Justin Amash (R-MI03)↱ set the chatter alight earlier today, writing explicitly, via Twitter, that, "Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller's report", and, "President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct", among other things.

    We might, in the moment, consider prior notes about attorneys in the U.S.; I have previously↑ noted that not actually lying is not actually good enough for a bar-certified American attorney; also↑, the idea of what Barr has done will seem considerably less dramatic if one does not understand at least something of the expectations attorneys face, as well as suggesting, the key to understanding Barr's letter is to scrutinize what he says according to the point of how it is not a disqualifying lie; moreover, in such contexts, a federal judge has even weighed in↑ on Barr's behavior; Robert Mueller, himself, has even had his say↑ about the Attorney General's conduct. And, yes, we should recall these are all jurists and attorneys, and thus acutely aware of what expectations attorneys face.

    The Distinguished Member, Mr. Amash of Michigan Three, the Tea Party and Liberty Caucus Republican, just happens to be an attorney. His thread goes on to summarize particularly within the limits of one tweet↱, so that there is no confusion about what he thinks: "Contrary to Barr's portrayal, Mueller's report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment."
    ____________________

    Notes:

    @EricHolder. "AG Barr has deliberately misrepresented the Mueller report. He has started examinations of the conduct of Intell/FBI personnel without a predicate-for political reasons. He is protecting the President. He does not stand up for the good people he leads. He is not fit to lead DOJ." Twitter. 18 May 2019. Twitter.com. 18 May 2019. http://bit.ly/2YDfzAp

    @JustinAmash. "Contrary to Barr’s portrayal, Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment." Twitter. 18 May 2019. Twitter.com. 18 May 2019. http://bit.ly/2Hq4z3F

    —————. "Here are my principal conclusions: 1. Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller’s report. 2. President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct. 3. Partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances. 4. Few members of Congress have read the report." Twitter. 18 May 2019. Twitter.com. 18 May 2019. http://bit.ly/2EianKF

    Vestal, Shawn. "The 800 former federal prosecutors who signed a letter alleging Trump obstructed justice are heroes". The Spokesman-Review. 10 May 2019. Spokesman.com. 18 May 2019. http://bit.ly/2Jutaqi
     
  20. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Your fantasies become more and more absurd.
    Such thinking is a quite obvious stupidity. The result is that Trump does not even have to do much - the Dem propaganda makes alone all that is necessary to ensure that those guys elect Trump.
    No, there is a simple way: to distribute truth. You don't use this way - all you do is name-calling against the claimed sources. Telling the truth and supporting it with evidence would be much better. (Of course, this method is not available for everybody - if there is no truth on his side, the propagandist cannot use this simple method.)
    I name high taxes an economic stupidity because it is. But I support the right of people to do whatever stupidity they like in their sovereign territory. This includes high taxes and even communism. With the right of every part of those living there to split away and stop such stupidity on their own part of the split territory, such stupidities are not very problematic. So, I support those rights you have mentioned.

    What becomes entertaining is to follow the distortions. As a libertarian anarchist, I see no reason at all to go to war for whatever state.

    In the case of separatism, it is essentially always the big state party which starts the war. Because the separatists don't need war, all they need is to be left alone on their territory. They are the majority there so that they can reach all they need, namely to rule effectively in their part, in a peaceful way: They found a local government, and people in their part simply do what the local government says, and pay their taxes to the local government. The big state then has to use brute force to make them follow the big state laws, pay the taxes to the big state, and to destroy the local government. So, with supporting separatism, I support the more peaceful side.

    Moreover, you know very well that I think that in the Civil War slavery was not the main issue. Thus, even if I would "go to war" in such a case (I would not), my aim would not be "to maintain industrial scale slavery". Once you know this, this is an intentional lie about me.

    In fact, it does not really matter if some of the small parts after a separation suppress their citizens even more rigorous than the former large state. Even in this case, there will be more places to emigrate or to flee if suppression becomes too heavy. Moreover, the negative effects of suppression become obvious in a faster way in smaller states, even to the rulers, thus, it will take less time to correct them.

    So, again, if parts have the right to separate, everything else is not that important, and even communism and other forms of slavery are not that problematic.
     
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    It is a completely accurate description of the Republican voting base, and your behavior here.
    Only in theory, when cornered. You oppose them every time they are at issue. Example: the black people held as slaves in the Confederacy.
    That doesn't work with Trump supporters. You are impervious to facts and information - they have no affect on you, any more than they affect the Republican voting base that has shared your "sources" for so long.
    Of course I know that. And if I didn't I would have predicted it easily - denial of the central cause and motive of the Civil War has been a major Republican Party meme since the fascist movement takeover of that Party, and like all Trump supporters you are a gullible tool who believes everything you get fed by the US rightwing corporate media no matter how ridiculous. I've been pointing that out, with examples and links, for years now.

    (Remember when I provided you with links to all those documents - the declarations of Secession (featuring slavery as the primary declared cause), the Confederate Constitution (essentially identical to the US Constitution, except for guaranteeing slavery), the records of the Confederate treatment of black people and enforcement of slavery during the War, the role of slavery and racial bigotry in the preliminary frontier State battles that predated the formal war, the major efforts the Confederate States focused on black people in the aftermath, the trivial effort and lack of focus on all those taxes and tariffs and so forth in the aftermath? I actually used to waste my time distributing truth to you - didn't work, doesn't work, won't work).
    Their's was. And you excuse them in their past horrible behavior, while supporting them in their current political incarnation.
    Your supposed "aims" are irrelevant. Do you think Trump will consult his supporters, consider their wishes, in such matters? He has no reason to - your support is obtained by feeding you ridiculous shit you are precommitted to believe, not by anything he actually does.

    Including what the Mueller report has documented he actually did - and recent news affirms he is still doing: organized criminal profiteering from his political position, betrayal of the US and violation of his oath of office for personal gain, obstruction of all efforts to enforce US law against him.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2019
  22. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    President le Twit

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Click for something about a loser

    The President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, responds to comments by the Distinguished Gentleman Mr. Amash of Michigan, a fellow Republican, explicitly asserting the Mueller report describes impeachable conduct by the Executive:

    Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy. If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, "composed" by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump,....

    ....he would see that it was nevertheless strong on NO COLLUSION and, ultimately, NO OBSTRUCTION...Anyway, how do you Obstruct when there is no crime and, in fact, the crimes were committed by the other side? Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!

    The two↑ tweets↑ arrived before ten in the morning, Sunday, and sometimes we ought to take the moment to appreciate the detail of just how angry the President is: As a loser, Mr. Amash is a Tea Party Republican on his fifth Congressional term. As a lightweight, he is a House insurgent who has helped topple two Speakers.

    Clearly, Amash got Trump's attention; indeed, the Michigan Republican snared the attention of his House fellows, as no less than Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA23) sought to distance his Party from the remarks, and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, who has for Trump's benefit scrubbed her family name which includes a three-time Michigan governor, went so far as to challenge Amash's voters directly:

    And how has this particular first from Amash been received within his party? The president tweeted that he was "never a fan of" Amash, which is probably true, and described him as a "total lightweight" and a "loser." This was to be expected. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was equally unsparing, leveling personal insults at one of his own members.

    "This is exactly what he wants, he wants to have attention," McCarthy said Sunday. "You've got to understand Justin Amash. He's been in Congress quite some time. I think he's asked one question in all the committees that he's been in. He votes more with Nancy Pelosi than he ever votes with me. It's a question whether he's even in our Republican conference as a whole."

    Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, tweeted that "it's sad to see Congressman Amash parroting the Democrats' talking points on Russia," adding that "voters in Amash's district strongly support this President, and would rather their Congressman work to support the President's policies that have brought jobs, increased wages and made life better for Americans." A primary challenge to Amash is in the works, though none have been successful in the past. (That's one reason Amash can tweet these things: He has a close, transparent relationship with his voters, often writing lengthy Facebook explanations for his consequential votes. The voters in Michigan's 3rd district know who Justin Amash is, and they've reelected him four times. He can get away with heresies.)


    (Newell↱)

    We would, of course, be remiss to omit the other famous Romney, whow as also a governor, but in a different state. U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) tried splitting hairs:

    Still, you wouldn't look to McCarthy or McDaniel for signs that the dam is breaking. But you might look at McDaniel's uncle, Mitt Romney. The Utah senator, appearing on CNN on Sunday, didn't lob insults at Amash and called his statement "courageous." But Romney also said that Amash "has reached a different conclusion than I have," and that "to make a case for obstruction of justice, you just don't have the elements that are evidenced in this document."

    We might consider↑, yet again, the point about the expectations attorneys face. Mr. Amash is an attorney; Mr. Romney, like Mr. Trump, is a businessman.

    Obviously, we won't have universal agreement among lawyers, but at some point, an attorney like Mr. Amash can look at his political career and wonder, should he ever return to practice as an attorney, what the law will look like when he is done in Congress. To the other, that might be January, 2021; his tweets have attracted State Rep. Jim Lower (R-70/Cedar Lake) declared a primary challenge on Monday morning, on an explicitly pro-Trump platform:

    The 30-year-old Lower, of Greenville, says he made the announcement earlier than planned after Amash attacked Trump.

    Lower calls himself a "pro-Trump, pro-life, pro-jobs, pro-Second Amendment, pro-family values Republican." He is in his second term in the Michigan House after working as a legislative staffer and political consultant.


    (Associated Press↱)
    ____________________

    Notes:

    @realDonaldTrump. "....he would see that it was nevertheless strong on NO COLLUSION and, ultimately, NO OBSTRUCTION...Anyway, how do you Obstruct when there is no crime and, in fact, the crimes were committed by the other side? Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!" Twitter. 19 May 2019. Twitter.com. 20 May 2019. http://bit.ly/2QaraUG

    —————. "Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy. If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump,...." Twitter. 19 May 2019. Twitter.com. 20 May 2019. http://bit.ly/2JPn4jG

    Associated Press. "Michigan's Amash, GOP Trump critic, faces primary challenge". 20 May 2019. APNews.com. 20 May 2019. http://bit.ly/30ykqED

    Newell, Jim. "Justin Amash Is Not the Start of Anything". Slate. 19 May 2019. Slate.com. 20 May 2019. http://bit.ly/2HBXnQM
     
  23. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    That you are unable to understand that the world is a little bit more complex, so that there may be conflicts between different principles, this is only your problem.

    The classical example of this inability to understand the complexities is that you handle me here as a Trump supporter even I have explained thousands of times that Trump is simply less evil than Clinton.
    To explain to you why your strategy is stupid: I know that this attack against me is completely off. (And even if this would be true, I would think that it is wrong.) What follows for me from your attack? That your attacks against Trump supporters, once they are of the same type, are as well completely off. So you reach the opposite of what you would like - this even improves my expectations about the abilities of Trump voters, given that even being as good as myself would not protect them from such primitive attacks strongly suggests that these attacks are stupid, and tells nothing about the Trump voters.

    Violating elementary norms of civilized behavior (in this case, courtesy not to attack participants of the discussion personally) hurts those who do such things.

    And this is not only your personal problem, but it is also a problem of the Dems in general, they all like to attack Trump supporters in the same primitive way.
    In fact, it did work. Read carefully what I write: "I think that in the Civil War slavery was not the main issue". You can easily conclude that I have accepted that it was an issue, even an important issue. You have only failed to convince me that it was the main issue. To think that your links will have a 100% success would be stupid anyway, so you have reached a lot. Don't forget, the other side has arguments too, and I have seen them too.

    This is, btw, a general problem: All that you reach are partial successes, and, even worse, they are usually not even mentioned in the discussion. This is a side effect of the confrontative style which is common today. If the discussions would be obliged to follow rules of courtesy so that a personal attack would be unimaginable at all, this could be different. It would be completely normal in such discussions to say something like "your argument has shown me that indeed ...., but there remains disagreement about ...".
    This "their's was" is what you have not convinced me that it is correct. The opponent claim, for example, that there have been even black people fighting on the side of the Confederation.

    Then, you would better understand that I'm not a moralist. I do not care much about accusing or excusing other people. I try to understand what happens, which includes understanding the motivations of the participants, but I do not judge them. In this sense, I'm utilitarian, and this utilitarianism is on a quite deep personal level.

    What I support is also not based on morality, but pragmatic. This is quite natural if your own ideas about what is moral differ essentially from those of the majority (as they necessarily do if you are a libertarian anarchist). There will be no people you agree with 100% so that if you support some side in a conflict, this is not based on complete agreement, but on some shared interest, or, in other words, on evaluations which side is less evil.
    Once you claim I have such aims, in a personal attack, these claims are relevant, namely for establishing (yet another time) that you are intentionally lying in your personal attacks against me. Trump is in this context completely irrelevant.

    And, of course, in democracies, politicians have to care about what their potential electorate thinks. If they don't, they lose elections. It does not follow that they will follow their promises later, but in their public behavior during the election campaign, they care a lot about these feelings. It is this part where the Dems have lost against Trump, thinking that the usual PC attacks against Trump's intentional non-PC behavior will do the job. They have given nothing.
    And your problem remains that the Trump electorate will not buy this.

    In fact, this type of problems prevents me from supporting democracy. Even if true, if nobody cares, it does not matter. Those who care should have the right and the possibility to separate, without going through a civil war.
     

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