The Mueller investigation.

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

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I'd rather have you ask a coherent question.
     
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  3. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    They don't. Instead, they like such "antitrust" laws. Else, there would not be such laws. If you have a lobby in Washington, they are not dangerous for you anyway. Some big firms have been attacked in the past, like Microsoft. But only as long as they have not learned the lesson and paid for their own lobby.

    Here some analysis why the Mueller report proves nothing about a Russian meddling.
    https://www.realclearinvestigations...ndercuts_its_core_russia-meddling_claims.html
     
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  5. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    From your link

    "None of this means that the Mueller report's core finding of "sweeping and systematic" Russian government election interference is necessarily false."
     
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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Nonsense. Billionaires spend hundreds of millions getting those laws repealed, changing their language, interfering with their enforcement, lobbying against them, etc. They hate those laws.
    It documents that meddling was attempted by Russians, that Trump knew about it, and that it was attempted by Russian government intelligence officers as well as private firms hired by powerful and well-connected Russians.
    We also know that Trump acted accordingly - did various favors for Putin, cooperated with Putin in various matters in which American and Russian interests conflicted, etc.

    Meanwhile, Mueller's brief was to investigate and report on obstruction of justice by Trump. The Russian meddling was a side issue, to begin with - not nearly as important, such treason and violation of oath being less dangerous than an assumption of dictatorial powers and impunity by a sitting President. Your sources seem unaware of that.

    Also: Your "analysis" link features a good deal of (is mostly) bs - like this:
    • That's the very first claim, the leading item on the list, and it's almost completely irrelevant - in establishing the Russian attempts at meddling it doesn't much matter exactly how the Russian intelligence officers got their hands on those emails, only that they could have and did and used them, or at least tried to. Mueller documented that, thereby making the case.
    Even worse, we read that your source defers to William Barr's "Justice Department scrutiny" as if it were credible, and awaits Barr's "assessment" as if it were somehow expected to be a legitimate finding. That betrays either extreme gullibility or corrupt motive, in your source - either way, none of its claims and allegations about anything Trump related can be taken seriously in the wake of that whopper.

    To be fair, although mostly bs and irrelevancy your link does contain one claim that is not an apparent attempt to blow smoke around Mueller's report - this one:
    No kidding. Hold that thought

    - except for the "core finding" silliness, of course. Obstruction of justice was the core finding of the Report. That's what's going to impeach Trump, if the necessary courage emerges within the necessary people.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2019
  8. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    You have read the link I provided? It shows that there is not even proof that Russians have attempted such things. What the private firm has done with its 13 bots was simply a small-scale operation for making money with commercial advertising. So, this is not even an attempt.

    Same for the other things. There is no proof they have done it, and also no proof of an attempt.
    Do you think that behaving in a reasonable way in foreign politics is evidence for some wrongdoing? Just to explain 1001. time, it is extremely stupid to fight Russia, China, and Iran at the same time, forcing them to unify against the US. So, some cooperation either with Russia or with China would be a prerequisite of a reasonable foreign policy.
    LOL. If there was no Russian meddling, there could have been no collusion of Trump with it, so the whole investigation would have been nonsense. Of course, somehow trying to prevent witchhunt-investigations of crimes which never happened may be a crime of "obstruction of justice" in three-felonies-a-day land, who knows. But if your point would be correct, then all the investigation was nothing but a trap - start some nonsense investigation, and hope that Trump somehow reacts against this with some "obstruction of justice".

    So, for every reasonable person, who does not care about obstructions of a witchhunt, the order of importance is the following: 1.) Was there Russian meddling at all? 2.) If yes, did Trump collaborate with them? 3.) If yes, did he try to prevent that this will be found out by obstructing justice?
    LOL. These are obviously the new standards of American law. It is sufficient to establish that "they could have". And, to clarify that this is all that matters today in the US, we find the following:
    And Quantum Quack also thinks that this is somehow a point:
    No kidding. The accused side should prove that the accusation is necessarily false. Nothing below this matters at all.

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    Just to remember what was considered in my link:
    The report was examined if it contains evidence which proves something. This is certainly not a method to establish that the accusations are necessarily false. Except in extremal cases where it is simply impossible to do what one is accused to have done.

    And, moreover, everybody has to follow iceaura's prejudices against Barr, everything else makes him incredible.

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    Not that it would not be plausible that Barr is a stupid liar - last but not least, he is a politician. But once this stupid liar has gotten some political position, the source has the right to accept what Barr says as if it would be adequate for the person holding this particular position.
    Don't worry, we all know that nobody writing anything Trump-related which is not 100% anti-Trump cannot be taken seriously.

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  9. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    34 pages
    665 666 posts
    give the devil his(her?) due
    we are arguing over speculation born of ignorance
    we will never have the full report
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    It does not.
    It merely includes no such attempt at "proof", while explicitly stating that the absence is not to be interpreted as indicating nonexistence - your claim is false, in other words, according to the report.

    Mueller explained, in the report and in public speech, why his investigation "proved" nothing against the President, why he did not even interview Trump, or Donny, or Ivanka, etc, - the obvious first steps in "proving" such a charge.

    And long before Mueller's explicit warning, you were informed of that - before the report was released, before Barr lied about its contents under oath, before any of the song and dance coverup you were told would happen happened, you were told that Barr would attempt to obscure the findings and Mueller would probably not attempt to prove any crimes against a sitting President. That was information for you about US politics and government. Did you forget?

    That explanation was also omitted from the bogus "analysis" of your link, thereby demonstrating its agenda as well as your apparent gullibility.
    Significant events in Barr's long career as a top shelf Republican fixer are public knowledge (such as his role in covering up Bush's involvement in the Iran/Contra treason, his role in covering up Jeb and the Party's role in rigging the Florida election of 2000, his role in covering up the dishonest and illegal launchings of the Iraq Wars - both Bush's and W's - , his recent statements under oath recorded and largely public, and your rejection and denial of such information your standard reaction.

    You can check out Barr's career for yourself, you can compare his testimony with the report itself whenever you want to - even the redacted versions that were produced by Barr's staff in support of public dissemination of bullshit and lies provide plenty of evidence.
    You even use the "witchhunt" vocabulary - there are baby guppies less gullible than that.
    So far, dozens of "witches" - in the US they are called "felons" - have been found, and many prosecuted. That is remarkable, for a mere two year FBI investigation into white collar crime.

    Meanwhile, obstruction of an FBI investigation into White House criminal behavior is one of the most serious crimes a President can commit - the chief threat posed by a wannabe autocrat. It is a violation of oath of office more serious than many forms of treason, or murder. It is a direct threat to democratic governance - an attempt to destroy the famous "checks and balances" that US government has depended on for hundreds of years, and replace them with strongman rule backed by private corporate interests - banana republic government.
    - - - - -
    We don't need it. We have plenty of information without the still redacted portions of the Mueller report.

    No one is confining the discussion to the redacted portions of the Report, and very little of this thread has been devoted to speculation about the redacted stuff - even the obvious (such as the stuff redacted, by Barr, in his first few days on a job he was unqualified for and needed lots of advice and guidance to perform) to protect the "reputation" of named people associated with the criminal behavior documented

    We are talking about the publicly available contents of the publicly available report, written down and published and analyzed and compared to the large body of public information we have from other sources

    - that's not speculation. Several hundred attorneys, professionals in the field, have weighed in with expertise and signed their names to the same opinion Mueller himself explicitly allowed and all but endorsed in public:

    that if Trump were not a sitting President, he would be facing indictments right now - more than one, official charges, prepared for trial - based on the public and unredacted information contained in the Mueller report.

    And the Mueller investigation as reported is just one of more than a dozen that appear promising- it's not even the only Federal one, not even the only one involving the FBI, not even the only one led by hardcore Republicans who have chosen to back the law instead of short term Republican political advantage. The IRS investigations alone - - - - then there are the rape and assault investigations, the emoluments clause violations, the immigration and employment law violations, the public records law violations, the security clearance scandals, - - - it's a long list.

    Trump has met with foreign leaders engaged in hostile sabotage of US politics favoring himself, without informing any American official of the contents of those meetings - excluding even American translators, while allowing complete records of these meetings to be compiled and kept by foreign officials and interested foreign businessmen Trump does business with via his influence on American governance and regulations.

    People who do that are usually and legally required to register as foreign agents - Trump has not registered as a foreign agent.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2019
  11. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Learn to read what I claim. Nonexistence is not an issue for me at all - I couldn't care less if Russians or Trump would have tried to do things reasonable for everybody except a few warmongers. The only reason to look at this is to see what has been proven. Nothing has been proven about the Russian meddling is all that matters.
    It was trivial information. Barr is not on your side, that's all one needs to predict such a prediction from your side. Why would I try to remember such trivialities?

    And, of course, one the conclusions of my source are nothing iceaura would like, it is clear that this is
    Ad hominem against Barr disposed of - you argue as if this guy would be my hero. It is an American politician, this is already sufficient to discredit this person in my eyes.
    I like to use vocabulary which is not politically correct. Witchhunt, witchhunt, witchhunt, witchhunt.

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    The point being?
    I would suggest telling Trump openly "once you leave the presidency, you will be imprisoned forever". To make sure that he will try a coup before leaving. Without such a coup, it would be boring.

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  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    But there is. Read the report, catch up on the better websites, inform yourself of physical reality, sucker.
    You just look gullible when you believe people who are claiming obvious falsehoods and avoiding major issues.
    You went far out of your way to make a false claim of nonexistence - with a link to a Republican propaganda site you believe for some reason, and repeated attention with emphasis in multiple posts and threads.
    His lawyers already pointed that out, long ago.
    Mueller also said as much in that report you still haven't read, when he emphasized that the only reason he hadn't investigated and indicted Trump was that the FBI has a policy against investigating and indicting sitting Presidents.
    You might like to, but you are unable to actually do it - you can't identify such vocabulary. You always get it wrong, as with the "witchhunt" propaganda meme - and the PC propaganda meme itself, btw. You parrot that one routinely.
    And you are incapable of learning better, partly because your handlers have convinced you that you don't need information to make judgments of political correctness or identify propaganda and bs.
    It was information you lacked, leading to you being made a fool of.
    For you? No reason.
    Some people get embarrassed when repeatedly made fools of, even to the point of taking steps to prevent it in the future, but first they have to find out about it - there's no way for you to find out about it.
    There wasn't one - you instead disposed of information you needed to make sound judgments, and Barr made a fool of you as he was hired to do.

    So while you continually confuse lies and bs with "politically incorrect" language, and celebrate your getting made a fool of for the twentieth time as another example of you being a straight talker, you are getting played by American media professionals. Over and over and over.
    Barr is not an American politician.

    And he was not discredited in your eyes, any more than any other Republican fixer or media manipulator has ever been discredited in your eyes - you waited around for his testimony, accepted his summary of the contents of the Mueller report you had not read, and in all respects took his contribution seriously - as if it were meaningful and informative in some significant way. That's more or less how you handle all US Republican media manipulators no matter what they are claiming and arguing.

    And so it's getting to where nothing political or historical you post about the US is accurate - just as it has with the other Republican propaganda parrots on this forum. That's what happens to propaganda - because it works better when it stays on message but has no base in physical fact or circumstance for that message, reality diverges from it over time; after a while the parrots are posting stuff too flagrantly ridiculous to hide from or hide behind - they can become (like you) tinhorn Baghdad Bobs, low rent Huckabee-Sanders, shabbily dressed Sean Spicers, but they generally aren't being paid enough to take the blowback and reputation damage. Then the pros change the scripts, which still takes a few weeks of rough work even though they have made great progress in conditioning their officer parrots for fast rollout of the troops - the talking heads on Fox and their like on other outlets can turn on a dime these days.
     
  13. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Once you don't provide evidence, nobody cares about your claim, sucker.
    Learn to read what I write, sucker.
    You obviously don't, sucker.
     
  14. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    we will never have the full report

    Of course not
    We have all the ████████ we need to ██████████ anyone seeking ███████ has a ███████ .
    ████ and when ██████ however █████ speculation aside █████ trust in ██████ foregone conclusion ██████ leads to ███████
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    That's supposed to be some kind of excuse for inaction? The exact opposite, if reason prevails.

    That right there is enough - having withheld the full report is grounds for an impeachment investigation.
    And in an impeachment investigation we can get the full report.

    Meanwhile we have plenty, including enough of the report, for what needs to be done.
    I'm not the one referring to Barr as an American politician and source of information, parroting Fox News takes on the contents of a report I have not read, and posting silly bs from corporate authoritarian (Republican Party) propaganda sources - stuff you apparently believe.

    That's you, doing that.
     
  16. Beaconator Valued Senior Member

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    That's an opinion. And I'm not much for questions.
     
  17. Beaconator Valued Senior Member

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    1,486
    When you meet with someone who is supposed to provide you with truth and it ends up being a waste of time. That's a hoax!
     
  18. Beaconator Valued Senior Member

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    1,486
    So did Hillary Clinton want to use a drone to strike Jillian Assange?
     
  19. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    Of course, I'm used to using anything as a source of information. Not as reliable information, but as information.
    You, instead, have some well-defined sources of information you name reliable, that means, which you swallow uncritically, whatever fake news they propose, and others you don't even read, and what makes the difference is the political position of these sources. This is the typical behavior of propaganda victims. But, given that you propose this stupid way to handle information wars as preferable, you are better classified as a propagandist, who tries to motivate the readers not to read anything in contradiction with your propaganda sources, simply because they are right-wing.

    By the way, it seems that the hearing of Mueller has been completely ignored here. No, I'm not surprised, given what https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/07/robert-mueller-hearing-a-disaster-for-democrats.html writes about this:

    Robert Mueller Hearing A 'Disaster' For Democrats

     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    And believing what you think you've found - as with Barr's testimony, or the headline of the article you have chosen to supply your latest "information", you are willing to believe anything you find in the even the silliest of wingnut agitprop, and nothing else.
    We know. You post it here - every ditzy, bs ridden Republican propaganda item you can find, every silly Republican denial of history and reality you havde been fed. It's your signature post.
    ?
    There was nothing new in it, of course, for anyone who has read the redacted report or picked up on the many articles about it. So no reason for me to make a big deal out of the show - although someone who had no idea what was in the report, such as you, could have learned a bit. Did you?

    A decent summary of the noncriminal case for impeachment was part of that hearing, for example: https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/24/politics/adam-schiff-opening-statement-mueller-hearing/index.html

    {{ Your investigation determined that the Trump campaign -- including Trump himself -- knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling into their strategy, and used it.
    Disloyalty to country. Those are strong words, but how else are we to describe a presidential campaign which did not inform the authorities of a foreign offer of dirt on their opponent, which did not publicly shun it, or turn it away, but which instead invited it, encouraged it, and made full use of it?
    - - - -
    This also a story about money, about greed and corruption, - - -

    About a campaign chairman indebted to pro-Russian interests who tried to use his position to clear his debts and make millions. About a national security advisor using his position to make money from still other foreign interests. And about a candidate trying to make more money than all of them, through a real estate project that to him, was worth a fortune, hundreds of millions of dollars, and the realization of a lifelong ambition -- a Trump Tower in the heart of Moscow. - - -

    - For Russia, too, there was a powerful financial motive. Putin wanted relief from U.S. economic sanctions imposed in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and over human rights violations. The secret Trump Tower meeting between the Russians and senior campaign officials was about sanctions. The secret conversations between Flynn and the Russian ambassador were about sanctions. Trump and his team wanted more money for themselves, and the Russians wanted more money for themselves, and for their oligarchs.
    - - - -
    But the story doesn't end here either. For your report also tells a story about lies. Lots of lies.
    Lies about a gleaming tower in Moscow and lies about talks with the Kremlin. Lies about the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and lies about efforts to fire you, Mr. Mueller, and lies to cover it up. Lies about secret negotiations with the Russians over sanctions and lies about Wikileaks. Lies about polling data and lies about hush money payments. Lies about meetings in the Seychelles to set up secret back channels, and lies about a secret meeting in New York Trump Tower. Lies to the FBI, lies to your staff, and lies to our Committee.
    And lies to obstruct an investigation into the most serious attack on our democracy by a foreign power in our history. }}
     
  21. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Except that I have not believed it, but simply mentioned it as available information.
    No reason. Once I have sources which go through such things, I can spend my time for something else. So, you have given the information that there was nothing positive for the Dems. This corresponds to the other sources. What I have quoted looked like good evidence for witch hunting - lies lead to indictions only if done against the aims of the hunters. But, given that this was quite obvious for me from the start, no need to go into the details here too.
    The following quotes seem to be from a quite primitive propaganda speech which iceaura names "decent summary":
    LOL. US sanctions play no role at all. The EU sanctions, answered by Russian countersanctions in agriculture, are more important, but because Putin wants to preserve the countersanctions to protect the Russian agrarian market, he will do nothing to stop them.
    I know, based on some particular interest of some particular oligarch who wanted to get rid of them. That was the problem of this guy, not of Russia.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    That again?
    Once again, because you require multiple repetitions for even the simplest things: You believed that it was information. You described it as information, in your post. That belief was your mistake. That belief branded you as ignorant, about Barr in particular and the situation in general.
    You then blew off proferred information, which branded you as willfully stupid. Ignorance is one thing, rejecting information is another.
    You can't tell when you're being played, so quoting the play just highlights your gullibility. What things "look like" to someone as ignorant as you means nothing.
    You still haven't read the report, and your selected sources are obvious propaganda feeds designed to fool very ignorant Americans. That was explained to you, with quotes and so forth. You paid no attention.
    So you are once again posting in ignorance, once again blowing off information, and once again making a fool of yourself in front of everyone who has knowledge - such as those who have read the report.
    Sanctions played a key role in Trump's dealings, as Mueller documented.
    They were central in those meetings, and the lies, and Trump's behaviors, and so forth.
    And several others, including Putin, who have big money on the line.
    It was the problem of several guys, many of them Russians, one of them Putin. Trump's dealings with any of them were a betrayal of his country, a violation of his oath of office, and a felony crime if proved.

    As documented by Mueller. In the redacted Report. Which you can read, whenever you want to.
     
  23. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Playing with words? "Barr said" is certainly some information. If what he said is correct is another question, and I have never said anything about that.
    You name these source propaganda feeds, which is essentially no information because you give all sources which do not conform to your Party line bad names. Ignoring such empty information is not ignorance. You have not yet presented me anything which would be interesting for me from the report, so I have better things to do than to read reports containing nothing interesting.
    Which is nothing but evidence that there was no collusion with Putin. Putin likes it very much if Russian firms, especially those offshore firms of the oligarchs, are sanctioned and in the danger of confiscation. Why? Because this is a way to motivate them to return to Russia. With Deripaska's firms, this has worked, at least some very important parts of his imperium are now back in Russian jurisdiction.
    Do you really believe these fairy tales about Putin's billions somewhere hidden in Western offshore banks? LOL.
     

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