The Mueller investigation.

[candy]

Anything that derived from the Steele report is questionable.
Using federal agents to spy on the opposition strikes at the heart of the election process.
I find the assertion that the majority of Americans can not see through foreign disinformation a bit insulting.

 

[(Q)]

They are lies, in the claim that they are either illegal or constitute impeachable offenses.

"The terms “high crimes and misdemeanors,” in their natural sense, embrace a very large field of actions. They are broad enough to cover all criminal misconduct of the President, — all acts of commission or omission forbidden by the Constitution and the laws. To the word “misdemeanor,” indeed, is naturally attached a yet broader signification, which would embrace personal character and behavior as well as the proprieties of official conduct. Nor was, nor is, there any just reason why it should be restricted in this direction; for, in establishing a permanent national government, to insure purity and dignity, to secure the confidence of its own people and command the respect of foreign powers, it is not unfit that civil officers, and most especially the highest of all, the head of the people, should be answerable for personal demeanor.

The term “misdemeanor” was likewise used to designate all legal offences lower than felonies, — all the minor transgressions, all public wrongs, not felonious in character. The common law punished whatever acts were productive of disturbance to the public peace, or tended to incite to the commission of crime, or to injure the health or morals of the people, — such as profanity, drunkenness, challenging to fight, soliciting to the commission of crime, carrying infection through the streets, — an endless variety of offences." CM Ellis 1867

 

[iceaura]

In camera means "not in open court", not "not in court"

It means in private, in the judges chambers, not in a courtroom whether open or not. Good journalism would avoid the ambiguity. You tried to use it to misrepresent the sequence of events and the reliability of the FBI's findings.

And the Senate intelligence committee found no more evidence of Trump colluding with anyone than the Mueller report did. So still bupkis.

Still haven't read the Mueller report, we see.
Now you are talking about yet another report you haven't read.
What would you guess someone's odds are of being correct in such claims about reports they have never read?
Yours are zero in this case, because they've been checked; but let's assume a more general case - one in which nobody had read the reports and somebody like you came along and made all kinds of dubious claims about what was in them.

No, that's the right word. Democrats are hypocrites who only care about violations of due process or law and order, corruption, or abuse of power when it's Republicans. They don't care how much Democrats are violating and abusing such.

The wrong word for sure, then. You definitely did not mean to imply that Democrats do care about that stuff when Republican bad government is involved.

I've actually hammered on that point repeatedly.

But you keep forgetting it, like this:

Doesn't have to, as it's fruit of the poisonous tree.

Obviously there was a lack of due diligence in the first warrant, and Durham's investigation is just getting started.

? There's no public allegation, or even a hint, of significant problems with the original warrant; and Durham's investigation is a year and a half old - his discovery of Clinesmith's misrepresentation dates back to last December. (Like Comey's ill-considered letter, it plays better for Trump now - closer to the vote.)

At this stage of the Mueller investigation - which had to deal with stonewalling and obstacles and threats by the President of the United States and the entire Congressional leadership, rather than the cooperation and mutual aid Durham received - he had a bunch of guilty pleas and indictments and findings of collusion and so forth. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury
Durham? You put it best: Bupkis. It's almost as if there were nothing bad to discover.

 

[Quantum Quack]

a bit insulting.

the fact that Trump is still in power goes well beyond "a bit insulting". It indicates a chronic failure of the USA system of governance that allows such a president to hold office. From an external perspective the USA must be full of fools....

 

[iceaura]

I find the assertion that the majority of Americans can not see through foreign disinformation a bit insulting.

Not the majority of Americans - the Republican voting base. And it's thoroughly documented.

Using federal agents to spy on the opposition strikes at the heart of the election process.

So you would favor impeachment or other dismissals - including prosecution - of those who did that or cooperated with it.
Good to know. Most Republicans seem to think that its part of a President's ordinary powers, and that the Republican-dominated FBI is well justified in its treatment of non-Republican political activists.

Anything that derived from the Steele report is questionable.

And questioned. So we're good, there.

 

[billvon]

Anything that derived from the Steele report is questionable.
Using federal agents to spy on the opposition strikes at the heart of the election process.

Using federal agents to spy on a campaign that is actively cooperating with Russian intelligence agents is . . . an excellent use of federal agents. Indeed, it's sort of their job. In this case, they identified over a dozen criminals who were in fact colluding with Russians, lying to investigators, conspiring against the United States, working as foreign agents, committing bank fraud and tampering with witnesses. Putting those criminals in prison is an excellent use of taxpayer money, especially since the income from all the fines was more than the cost of the investigation.

I find the assertion that the majority of Americans can not see through foreign disinformation a bit insulting.

Perhaps. But Americans, collectively, are not all that intelligent. Look at how many still believe all of Trump's lies.

 

[candy]

PoF: The impeachment failed to remove DJT from office. It was more or less doomed from the start.
What is emerging now about the origins of the warrants is getting very close to violating the Hatch act. The Steele investigation stated as a privately funded data collection report that is funneled to US government agencies that acted with out verification of the facts.
Bottom line the Steele report is disinformation.
With the chickens coming home to roost in time for the election there is a distinct probability that we will have 4 more years of DJT.
The continuing protests and destruction are swinging the independents that typically decide elections to him. If the destruction continues the balance of the House could change. Fear is a great motivator but rarely a force for good.

 

[billvon]

What is emerging now about the origins of the warrants is getting very close to violating the Hatch act.

So far six Trump officials have been found to have violated the Hatch Act: Raj Shah, Jessica Ditto, Madeleine Westerhout, Helen Aguirre Ferré, Alyssa Farah, and Jacob Wood.

Given that, the old adage about people who live in glass houses comes to mind.

The Steele investigation stated as a privately funded data collection report that is funneled to US government agencies that acted with out verification of the facts.

The Steele dossier is a collection of raw intelligence data, compiled by Christopher Steele for the firm Fusion GPS. It was not a government investigation. It was not vetted by anyone. It is not a government product. It is merely raw data compiled by a private company; this is something every company in the US has the right to do. Some claims have since been corroborated; most has not been. Two were found to be false.

The two that have been proven were the big ones - that Putin and Russia worked to elect Trump and hamper Clinton, and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had multiple secret contacts with Russian intelligence.

Bottom line the Steele report is disinformation.

Given that several items have been corroborated, it is provably not all disinformation.

With the chickens coming home to roost in time for the election there is a distinct probability that we will have 4 more years of DJT.

That all depends on whether Trump can cripple the post office enough to steal enough votes from Biden to make a difference.

 

[Quantum Quack]

PoF: The impeachment failed to remove DJT from office. It was more or less doomed from the start.
What is emerging now about the origins of the warrants is getting very close to violating the Hatch act. The Steele investigation stated as a privately funded data collection report that is funneled to US government agencies that acted with out verification of the facts.
Bottom line the Steele report is disinformation.
With the chickens coming home to roost in time for the election there is a distinct probability that we will have 4 more years of DJT.
The continuing protests and destruction are swinging the independents that typically decide elections to him. If the destruction continues the balance of the House could change. Fear is a great motivator but rarely a force for good.

The Steele report has been covered up from the start. The truth is out there...

 

[candy]

DJT did not cripple the USPS. Congress did that in 2006 with the insane funding requirements for healthcare and pensions that they imposed on the USPS. Before someone points it out; yes Biden was one of the sponsors of he legislation. Members of Congress rarely know all the fine print that is in the final act.

The original work that Fusion (a nonUS company) did was commissioned by the Clinton campaign so questions should have been raised from the start when Steele went to US agents but they liked what he was saying so no red flags went up. Steele speaking of telephone traffic patterns is a big red flag. Private citizens are not allowed to monitor phone traffic; the government can only do it under warrant.
I suspect a Flynn trial with full discovery is the nightmare that DoJ wants to avoid; all those mistakes and oversights coming to the light.
Personally for the good of the nation I hope they stay buried in the past.

 

[billvon]

DJT did not cripple the USPS.

He appointed a Trump loyalist as Postmaster General who has stated that he will not deliver some mail. Trump himself has refused the funding needed to run the post office. When asked why, he admitted that he is withholding funding to make sure mail-in voting fails.

He is working to cripple the post office. He has admitted it.

The original work that Fusion (a nonUS company) did was commissioned by the Clinton campaign so questions should have been raised from the start

Why? They paid for a report on the opposition. That's business as usual in government. Trump has spent millions digging up dirt on his opponents; other politicians have done the same.

Steele speaking of telephone traffic patterns is a big red flag. Private citizens are not allowed to monitor phone traffic; the government can only do it under warrant.

It is illegal to tap phone calls and record the conversations. It is not illegal to monitor phone usage patterns. Cellular companies do it all the time - and sell the results.

 

[iceaura]

PoF: The impeachment failed to remove DJT from office. It was more or less doomed from the start.

We noticed.
We also noticed why it was doomed. Do you remember why it was doomed?

 

[Vociferous]

We noticed.
We also noticed why it was doomed. Do you remember why it was doomed?

Because it was complete and utter bullshit.

 

[billvon]

Because it was complete and utter bullshit.

No, because Mitch McConnell said that "Everything I do during this [process], I'm coordinating with White House counsel. There is no chance the president is going to be removed from office. I’m not impartial about this at all.”

Imagine that someone breaks into your house and beats up your family before fleeing with some valuables. He is captured by police and the trial begins. At one point the jury foreman stands up and says "look, I am going to be talking to the defense every day. There is no chance you are going to be found guilty, Mr. Criminal. I will make sure of it."

He is then acquitted. Does that mean justice has been done? Was your getting mad at him for breaking into your house "complete and utter bullshit" because he was found innocent by that jury?

 

[iceaura]

PoF: The impeachment failed to remove DJT from office. It was more or less doomed from the start.

And Trump backers keep repeating that as if it exonerated Trump for what he did.
You said something about being "insulted" by observations of such childlike gullibility?

DJT did not cripple the USPS.

Yes, he did. He is still doing it. That is observable fact - all you have to do is look.

I suspect a Flynn trial with full discovery is the nightmare that DoJ wants to avoid

The DoJ did not avoid that - Flynn did.
The DoJ is not continuing to avoid that - Trump is.

The Senate Intelligence Committee just released its report on the related matter of Trump's Russian dealings, which included much discovery relevant to Flynn's situation - among other things they discovered that Trump has been in the loop on all of this stuff, and is therefore accountable for appointing Flynn to be head of US security against foreign powers while he was a paid agent of a foreign power.

Because it was complete and utter bullshit.

That's not what the facts say.
The facts say it was doomed because Mitch McConnell had refused in advance to allow the Senate to try the case, regardless of its merits, on Partisan grounds.

 

[Tiassa]

Correction

… we see Senator Cruz kissing up to President Trump, fighting harder for graft and corruption than he would for his wife, and even trying to challenge actor Ron Perlman to wrestle Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH4) because the seventy year-old actor scorched the Texas Republican on Twitter, and then remember that, before he was a U.S. Senator, he was a state attorney general who took dildos to federal court. The idea of Ted Cruz slugging it out in court against a dildo is a memory I wish I didn't have …

I actually owe Senator Cruz of Texas an apology on this one: He did not sue dildos in court and lose; that was Governor Abbott, of Texas.

(I had occasion to actually look it up, tonight.)