DB Roy wrote:So imagine if the republicans called for an investigation into Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Imagine that they hire Ken Starr to head that investigation. Then imagine after his investigation is complete that Starr has to turn in his report to the attorney-general, Janet Reno, and Reno simply writes a couple of pages on it saying no wrongdoing was found and gives it to the public and then files away the report and we're never allowed to see it. Would do you think would be the republican reaction? Would they shrug and say, "Oh, well" and go back to whatever it was they were doing? Or would they scream foul until their throats bled? If Reno's little summary said no evidence of obstructing justice on Clinton's part, would the Republicans buy that? You know damned well they would not. And for good reason.
We already have a pretty good indication on the subject. When Robert Fiske didn't find any provable dirt with the Whitewater investigation, the panel in charge of Special Investigator went for a more avid prosecutor, Kenneth Starr. He caught a break with the Lewinsky affair, and Clinton's miscalculation of just denying it, but that came out partly because he had doggedly pursued conspiracy theories and blind alleys long enough that it just fell in his lap.
DB Roy wrote:But here we are at 2019, where a president's team of grifters were accused of colluding with Russia and it definitely seemed to have happened with that president's knowledge and approval. It has put our national security, our electoral process and our democracy at grave risk and yet Robert Mueller's report has not been released and it looks like it will never be released--certainly not before Trump leaves office. IF we do see it, the Republicans will make sure it is so heavily redacted that there will be no point in reading it.
It looks like Nadler and Schiff will insist on getting info on what was redacted and some secure way of looking at it. Claims of executive privilege will at least be probed. I wouldn't say we can have a lot of confidence, but it seems unlikely that they can get away with hiding any clear evidence of blatant wrong-doing. The big Republican fear is probably of a glaring screw-up by Dear Leader that is as politically damaging as the Lewinsky affair turned out to be. So that's also the reason that committee chairmen will be scrubbing hard to make sure the legitimacy of redactions is verified.
DB Roy wrote:The reaction has been utterly baffling. News source after news source keep saying that Mueller's investigation found that Trump's team did not collude. They found no such thing. They said they found NO EVIDENCE of collusion. Those are two very different conclusions! STOP SAYING THIS ERRONEOUS SHIT!! As far as obstruction, Mueller made no conclusion leaving it to Barr to draw his own and since he's a Trump lackey, golly-gee, I wonder what he concluded.
I see your point here, but there probably remains such a murky picture that Barr will get away with his claim that "there was no underlying crime." I think Dear Leader's strongest defense is the one he would never use, which is that he is too incompetent to pull off a real cloak-and-dagger relationship. I mean really, would there have been evidence of Manafort sharing polling data with the Russians if they were really trying to do a coordinated strategy with Trump being run by the Kremlin? Would the creepy meeting about "adoptions" have happened, with Manafort and Trump Jr? I am still willing to entertain the possibility that those were just an effective smokescreen set up by a very clever Putin, but you would need to show me some pretty convincing evidence.
DB Roy wrote:I find this incredible--literally incredible. There was a meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian agent whom Trump's people were led to believe had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Don Jr was there, Manafort was there and Jared Kushner was there. Right there--THAT is illegal. They made up a cover story--and it came from Donald Trump himself demonstrating that he knew about the meeting--that the meeting was about Russian adoption. Don Jr then releases an email chain PROVING the meeting was about getting dirt on Clinton. Then they say the agent had nothing to give them anyway so no crime was committed but that's not what the law says. This was the 2nd time Kushner was caught cavorting with the Russians, the first was when he was caught up in a lie about having no Russian contacts. How could he not get charged? The email chain verifying the collusion took place was released by Don Jr himself.
Are you sure it was illegal? It was clearly wrong, and very stupid, for putting party ahead of country, but illegal? I have not been hearing that and it seems to me I've been hearing the opposite.
DB Roy wrote:Then there's Trump going on national television and telling Lester Holt that he fired Comey in an attempt to stop the Russian investigation. But, gee, we can't find any evidence of obstruction!!!
I suspect what will come out in the report is that Mueller couldn't establish corrupt intent partly because nobody takes Dear Leader's statements at face value. If you had a reliable way of knowing that his statement to Holt was not just a variation on his usual blustering ways, wanting people to believe he had gotten rid of Comey to stop the Russia investigation even if it was just personal discomfort with people who did not kowtow to him, it would be an easier pin. But he is so erratic and irrational that the simplest and most obvious conclusion is likely not to hold water under examination.
DB Roy wrote:Did Trump collude? Yes. Or explain why so many of his people lied about having no Russian contacts. People lost jobs and some went on trial and onto jail for lying about it but there was no collusion! Why was Trump trying to kill the investigation if he had nothing to hide? Hell, it ended his friendship with Jeff Sessions! Sessions was supposed to fuck up the investigation and when he instead recused himself for lying about having no Russian contacts, Trump was furious with him and couldn't let it go. He lamented over and over again that Sessions would never have gotten that appointment if Trump knew he would recuse himself. It stuck in Trump's crawl so bad that he finally fired him--yes, FIRED him!
It is pretty clear that Trump was courting Putin for deals in Russia, right through the campaign. I think it is highly likely that's why he picked Manafort to manage his 's campaign, and fairly likely that there was money laundering which we will eventually hear the details of, probably through family. But I want to play Devil's Advocate a bit here. Is it so unreasonable that Flynn might have been carrying on one of his several games of skimming a bit of cash from a bit of advocacy, and in fact was not dealing with Kislyak at Trump's instigation? And that Dear Leader wanted it squelched just on account of the embarrassment factor, and the likelihood that his lying about the hotel deal in Moscow would come out? Is it so unlikely that Manafort's ties to Russia were useful precisely because he was used to hiding shady dealings and the hotel deal was Trump's main objective in the campaign? And that Manafort was let go in August of 2018 because something, maybe the New York meeting about "dirt," actually got Trump thinking about how it would look when the Wikileaks files came through and he had visible ties to the Russians? And that his resentment of Sessions was just his usual preoccupation with servility and "wartime consigliores" working for him? I mean his father had actually employed Roy Cohn! Trump had worked with one of the scummiest and most ruthless sickos in American history.
DB Roy wrote:You see, the republicans are total obstructionists. The way they refused to even consider an Obama nominee on the Supreme Court and allowed a seat to go vacant longer than any previous point in US history is proof. It flew in the face of protocol and it flew in the face of the Constitution. What did the dems do? Nothing. Obama left office, and an absolute perfect embodiment of the best traits of the republican party took office in the bloated, disgusting shape of Donald Trump who cheated his way into office and gave control of SCOTUS to the GOP. While dems were sticking to their principles, the republicans happily shed any pretense of having principles (however meager it already was) and got their way. So while we are going high, while they go low, they are also stacking the Supreme Court with the type of people that think like them--total fucking idiots and psychopaths who don't care about anybody or anything unless that person threatens their power grab and then they'll ruin him or her and get away with it because we refuse to go low and respond to their childish stupidity. But their childish stupidity is netting them the big fish so how stupid are democrats for letting them get away with it over and over again when they could easily stop them?
It's not clear to me that the Dems were in a position to do anything about the obstructionism. McConnell knew very well that what goes around would come around, but I think he believed the Republican majority in the Senate was secure. 2018 did not show that to be totally stupid, but it probably cast more doubt on it than he expected. Let's be honest, the Dems have done a few end runs around the norms before that, and McConnell's escalation was following the pattern but probably overreach. I don't think he realizes how truly untenable the right wing position is in the modern states. He is playing a strong hand for advantage, but doesn't recognize that the more he has to play obstructionist the more undemocratic he looks. I still think the Dem's "long game" approach was probably wise. Certainly it paid off in 2018. Don't be too shocked if they take the Senate in 2020, despite a still-healthy economy.
DB Roy wrote:Because the the democrats have no unity. Not only do they fight and bicker endlessly when they need to show unity, they will abandon a nominee that wasn't from their faction. That's WHY Trump is president. So many dems stayed home because poor Bernie was bumped off a rigged ticket by that foul bitch Hillary Clinton so I'm taking my marbles and I'm going home and I'll never play with you again! Nice way to hold tight to your principles. Meanwhile the republicans bicker but they find enough common ground that they will stand behind a nominee they hate with every fiber of their being because--well--who the hell wants to lose??
I'm not so sure it was Dems staying home. The swing votes in the Blue Wall states seem to have had as much to do with anger over imports and the damage done as with former Obama voters staying home out of pique. I think she lost the independent vote where it should not have been taken for granted.
DB Roy wrote:Republicans want to win no matter they have to do to get it including cheating, they have no morals other than the phony Christian ones they were raised on by inbred hicks for parents. Dems, on the other hand, over-value means and lose sight of the ends.
I don't know about that either. Obamacare is still the biggest advance for economic fairness in 30 years. Whoever is the Democratic nominee many of Elizabeth Warren's very sensible policies will be put in place, and it's really, really clear by now which party cares about actual lives of people.
DB Roy wrote:Even the dumbest dem in Congress is far more intelligent than the most intelligent republican on his brightest day but, as a group, they are left in the dust because they fight with each other so much that they turn from policy unable to come up with one because one of their core values--cooperation across the aisle--they can't even show to one another.
The circular firing squad problem is real, going back at least to Ted Kennedy's refusal to be gracious in losing to Jimmy Carter, a sitting president, in 1980.
DB Roy wrote:Instead they cling to an amazingly absurd idea that when govt is run correctly, i.e. based on their democratic principles, the goals will reach themselves. The means will take care of the ends. Does that work? No, it does not. I don't even need to provide an example. They ARE their own example.
Look, if you are trying to sell policies on the basis of human principles, as opposed to whatever is being pushed for by donors or shouted for by crowds, then you take on the burden of legitimacy. The Republicans didn't have to sell their tax cut as legitimate - they could let it be a naked power play because they had the power to buy off the Evangelical vote with court appointments. Douthat at the Times has said explicitly that the alliance depends on Roe v. Wade being overturned, implying that if Kavanaugh doesn't come through for them, the social conservatives will no longer acquiesce to the policies of fomenting inequality.
DB Roy wrote:They despise your principled stance and they subvert it every chance they get. They know you're too divided amongst yourselves to mount a proper defense so they make it a point to keep you on the defensive--you're terrible at it.
Again, I basically agree with you but you should keep in mind that the average Republican voter considers their party to be the party of principle. Why? Not because they would never do anything unethical, but that's just how politicians are. No, because they include lots of farmers willing to vote against government handouts to farmers and state governments willing to vote against federal handouts to finance Obamacare and patriots who actually understand that the flag must be respected and, well, you get the idea. The voters do have principles, and that's what the donor money plays off of. You and I might agree that those principles tend to be poorly thought out and punitive, but we are libtards.