Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

  On 7/26/2019 at 12:03 AM, doublename said:

This fascist is seriously attacking one of the most participatory and egalitarian societies of the planet for being unfair. His whole family and all people that are alike him need to be dispossessed

i'm incredibly pissed at most of the liberal media for focusing on how mueller was cagey. the hearings are good and people should watch them and really pay attention.

the dems had a tough challenge. they knew mueller would be restricted in what he would say, and they had limitted time. the exact play that was the correct one is what the judiciary committee ran - just extracting the significant content of the report from mueller for the cameras. the judiciary committee largely followed a shared script meant to do this, highlighting the 5 most proven instances of OOJ, mixed in with various other points. the facts laid bare are entirely damning. the intelligence committee part of today's hearing did not have the same shared narrative script, but was more traditional q&a.

here's the lawfare no-bull mueller hearings audio edit-down podcast

i recommend watching, though. it's very dramatic stuff:

congress are just pussies, it's pretty clear he wants THEM to initiate impeachment, not him.  he's in the executive branch

Dem establishment leaders are useless as usual in actually doing their job, which is to keep the executive branch accountable. Nope, can't do impeachment, while there are concentration camps on the southern border and the administration is full on corruption. It seems that the GOP are playing by a completely different set of rules (or lack of them) and the only thing the Dems are worrying about it is decorum and optics. That has been the MO for the past two decades. 

And the media is also absolutely useless on calling out Trump & co. corruption and bullshit. Sure, the NYT  or some other 'liberal' rag can have an article critical of Trump but at the same time they have a human interest story about some nazi that got fired from their job because they were a nazi and how sad that made them feel. No need to mention the propaganda channel Fox News.

The US is one of those shithole countries Trump whined about.

  On 7/26/2019 at 4:10 AM, Zeffolia said:

congress are just pussies, it's pretty clear he wants THEM to initiate impeachment, not him.  he's in the executive branch

while i disagree with the generalization at the beginning of your post, you put your finger on the main issue of the hearing in the second half of your post, which is that congress, the media, and the viewers were waiting for mueller to say "trump should be impeached." that unwarranted expectation shrouded the very significant hearings. mueller, as he said in his introductory remarks before the judiciary committee, insisted on absolute integrity within the special counsel investigation because it would be important for protecting the investigation. part of that is mueller not over-extending himself, because that would open the investigation up to attack. mueller views the situation like this: he did the investigation and found the evidence, and any presidential wrong doing would fall on someone else, like congress, to address. he says that in the report. it is up to congress to say that these are high crimes and the president should be impeached. that view is eminently sensible.

it's historically tragic that the gop are falling for, perpetuating, and amplifying false conspiracy theories that seek to discredit the special counsel investigation. if the media were not fruit flies darting to the nearest lowest-common-denominator headline, the headlines would be about the conflicting narratives on display in this historic congressional hearing. who is right? if one narrative is wrong, why is it so prominent? and how dangerous is it for such a false narrative to rise to the level of being shouted by congress people at a special counsel in a public hearing? the gop are helping trump dismantle the country's justice system, and while they are doing it they are going all in on trying to paint the democrats as the ones who are dishonest. it looks like the gop assaulting the country itself.

  On 7/25/2019 at 4:39 PM, ignatius said:

the eagle is holding golf clubs in one talon and cash in the other. 

 

 

Expand  

Whoever designed the new seal has a knack for nuance, knowing that he'd be too stupid to realize that it were in fact a jab.

  On 7/26/2019 at 4:20 PM, ambergonk said:

Whoever designed the new seal has a knack for nuance, knowing that he'd be too stupid to realize that it were in fact a jab.

For a bunch of "patriots" ToiletPaperUS sure don't know what their dumb symbols look like to let that slip by. 

I think Pelosi is holding off on impeachment because, weirdly enough, just barging ahead with it now would actually help him politically.(just like when he says blatantly racist things) Once they get his tax returns without the impeachment proceedings, that would give them the green light. There are also much bigger stories approaching. Fucking huge ones. One of them being Psygroup, which is enough to piss off literally everyone in the USA, even Trumptards.

  On 7/26/2019 at 6:39 PM, Candiru said:

I think Pelosi is holding off on impeachment because, weirdly enough, just barging ahead with it now would actually help him politically.(just like when he says blatantly racist things) Once they get his tax returns without the impeachment proceedings, that would give them the green light. There are also much bigger stories approaching. Fucking huge ones. One of them being Psygroup, which is enough to piss off literally everyone in the USA, even Trumptards.

holy fuck.. had no idea about this group.. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psy-Group

I'm starting to doubt whether she's actually holding of, or whether they have some roadmap with some boxes to tick first. Working to impeachment by taking a number of steps: mueller, mcgahn, taxes, etc. First getting a couple of subpoenas and documents through court orders. Apart from a sizeable part of the electorate still supporting Trump, there's also a lot of resistance coming from the white house (taxes, hearings, other documents). I'm guessing they have some plan behind it all, instead of going forward without taking care of interdependencies.

In the end, it's still all about the 2020 election though. With Trump out of the white house, that OLC will not be his saving grace any more.

  On 7/26/2019 at 6:50 PM, goDel said:

I'm starting to doubt whether she's actually holding of, or whether they have some roadmap with some boxes to tick first. Working to impeachment by taking a number of steps: mueller, mcgahn, taxes, etc. First getting a couple of subpoenas and documents through court orders. Apart from a sizeable part of the electorate still supporting Trump, there's also a lot of resistance coming from the white house (taxes, hearings, other documents). I'm guessing they have some plan behind it all, instead of going forward without taking care of interdependencies.

In the end, it's still all about the 2020 election though. With Trump out of the white house, that OLC will not be his saving grace any more.

Expand  

which is why he'll do whatever it takes to get reelected. all the dirty tricks all the time. ll the foreign help and foreign money.. all the voter disenfranchisement etc etc..  republicans don't want free and fair elections.. hence mconnel blocking voting security bills.

sure. don't think it'll work like it did last time around though. or at least, the trump voters will vote for him anyways. and probably like to see him do those dirty tricks. it's the swing voters in only a couple of states and voter turnout that's important. i'm not too worried about this election, tbh. but you never know...

i was struck by the fact that 3 of the 4 states manafort gave kilimnik polling data on were WI, MI, and PA. those are 3 of the 4 states that went a different way than expected, and had similar, narrow margins of about 1 percent.

dropping registration records may have occurred. mcconnell's stonewalling of election protection is evil. i'm not being hyperbolic, it is evil.

the final checkmate putin is playing for is a contested election. that's why comey made the public announcement about reopening the hillary investigation 10 days before the election, which likely tipped it. he chose it as the better alternative to allowing the reds (and those who manipulate them) to claim a fixed election and blame the fbi. comey has said effectively this, when asked about that controversial decision he made

  On 7/26/2019 at 7:25 PM, very honest said:

the final checkmate putin is playing for is a contested election. that's why comey made the public announcement about reopening the hillary investigation 10 days before the election, which likely tipped it. he chose it as the better alternative to allowing the reds (and those who manipulate them) to claim a fixed election and blame the fbi. comey has said effectively this, when asked about that controversial decision he made

what lead you to that conclusion? did he state that somewhere or is it widely hinted at somewhere?  that's a new wrinkle to me.. 

nothing beats a good 2 week old amerikkkan cabernet sauvignon

Geezus luizus. 

WAIT! Isn't a notorious tee-totler who claims to have never had a drop of alcohol in his life?! 

So many Trump supporters around here where I live (nowhere, IA) are going to probably agree with him and toast that Franzia shit. Not even going to question his justification for that statement. Just pure dumbass tribalism. 

Also, he "always said" a lot of shit. How does he have time for all of the shit that he "always says" when he's always finding new things for always saying? I feel like this is a really retarded Hilbert's Hotel paradox of infinite dumbass sayings. 

  On 7/26/2019 at 8:03 PM, ignatius said:

what lead you to that conclusion? did he state that somewhere or is it widely hinted at somewhere?  that's a new wrinkle to me.. 

putin's goal is to weaken america. the strategy has been to increase and exploit internal division. a contested election is not necessarily the one goal, but it would be a huge prize along the trajectory he's on, because it could precipitate the actual fall of america. him and the fsb, sitting around thinking about how to fuck america, are certainly aware of this potential. comey was apparently so concerned that he risked tipping the election trump's way. 

  On 7/26/2019 at 11:40 PM, very honest said:

putin's goal is to weaken america. the strategy has been to increase and exploit internal division. a contested election is not necessarily the one goal, but it would be a huge prize along the trajectory he's on, because it could precipitate the actual fall of america. him and the fsb, sitting around thinking about how to fuck america, are certainly aware of this potential. comey was apparently so concerned that he risked tipping the election trump's way. 

yeah.. i know. but i didn't come across anything about comey opting one way or the other about his reasoning to do anything. 

  On 7/27/2019 at 12:29 AM, ignatius said:

yeah.. i know. but i didn't come across anything about comey opting one way or the other about his reasoning to do anything. 

at the timestamp linked here in the town hall interview comey did with anderson cooper, he discusses the choice. he describes as "catastrophic for the organizations of justice" the scenario in which they don't disclose the clinton investigation reopening, clinton wins, and then the right says that the fbi hid the information for political reasons, allowing clinton to win. 

chris hayes did a great piece on it yesterday:

Not sure about the logic, but here you go

yeah. asked later, nadler said it is a de facto impeachment inquiry. they may not need to initiate official impeachment proceedings, if the court filing works.

pelosi gets into some coded language around 19:20 - 21:10, below. to me it suggests she's intending to allow a vote on articles of impeachment. OOJ charges are impeachable, they're listed in the constitution as an example of something to impeach for. earlier in the press conference her and nadler directly say trump committed multiple instances of obstruction of justice. later, pelosi says that if there is a case for impeachment then they will move forward with it. she says they're waiting until they have the strongest possible hand, but wont wait forever, and will move forward especially if they are further stonewalled by the admin. she basically disclosed their plan.

inspirational

ironic coming from the guy who wants to build the f-ing wall