The Mueller Report thread

[Dill]

(03-24-2019, 10:38 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: You know what's out there.  

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/07/14/obama_trump_stop_whining_elections_rigged_or_stolen.html

That link says Obama said the election could not be "rigged," as an inside job by deep state operatives or some such, who would be Americans, not Russians.

So Obama wasn't saying it was impossible for Russians to interfere with the elections. 

They did and Trump won

[Bengalzona]

(03-24-2019, 09:32 PM)bfine32 Wrote: It's why I don't think it should be made public, but someone determined by the Dems (because they don't trust the AG) to be impartial should be able to look at it. 

Agreed.

[Benton]

(03-24-2019, 10:38 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: You know what's out there.  

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/07/14/obama_trump_stop_whining_elections_rigged_or_stolen.html

Interfering and rigging are two different things. 

I don't like the anonymous third party attacks groups are allowed to make now (such as McCain's illegitimate daughter or Obama being a Kenyan terrorist). I think they interfere with the heart of the process and distract from the issues. Manipulating voters is a crap thing to do in a democracy.

That's not the same as rigging the election against McCain or Obama, where someone manipulates the actual voters.


As far as the report, it's over. Make it public. Let the people decide for themselves. Otherwise it's going to be the regular misinformation campaign. Which has already started. I was watching Fox news a day or two ago and they were talking about how Mueller and the Democrats wouldn't release the report so they could hang it over Republicans in 2020. Jeez. Just let the thing out there so the propaganda agencies can move on to school shootings or something.

[samhain]

So does this mean Mueller wasn't secretly working with Trump to bust Democrats on their Secret Squirrel kiddie porn ring? I'm still waiting on that one. Is "The Storm" still coming?

[JustWinBaby]

LMFAO....free healthcare for people struggling with TDS is suddenly a national emergency

There will be a lot of lulz reading all the past threads that were convinced Trump would be out of office in 12 months. There are a ton of victims of fake news and Democratic propaganda out there. And some of the true non-partisans saw all this 2 years ago.

[Belsnickel]

This is what I expected to be quite honest. The only lingering question I have from Mueller's report is what was the wording from Mueller as to why he was not making a typical prosecutorial judgement on obstruction. Was it because he felt it fell outside of his scope to make that decision? Was it due to DoJ policy? Was it a lack of evidence to the standard to indict? Or lack of evidence to the standard to convict? Those questions are ones I feel will need to be worked through before people on the left will feel comfortable with the decisions made.

There has just been so much spin already with this that it's disgusting. I'm happy that the report said no collusion. I mean this, because as divided as our country is right now I think a finding otherwise would have done terrible things. I think the biggest problem right now is how much the media has been hyping all things Russia. I think our current media landscape needs to take a hard look at itself. Yeah, this Russiagate issue is owned by the liberal-leaning media, but we have a system of media with political leanings that are servants to the almighty dollar. It's a brutal combination and one that has led me to really reconsider my media consumption over the last few years. The media screwed the pooch in 2016 with Trump. They treated him like a joke and gave him so much attention. Even left-leaning outlets really served to help him win, focusing more on his (very few) policies than they did on Clinton's. In the wake of that loss, they over-corrected with Russiagate and are now being force fed crow they should have been eating in bits and pieces all along.

I am, and will remain, a proponent of investigative journalism. Of good journalism. It does still exist out there with some of the writers doing their thing. One of the journalists I like to read a lot is Matt Taibbi. Some of you may know him. He wrote the book I Can't Breathe about Eric Garner specifically, but community policing and excessive force more broadly. He has been writing a serial book called Hate Inc. which is a biut of an indictment on the current media landscape. This is a snippet from the introduction:

Quote:People should trust reporters. It’s the context in which they’re operating that’s problematic. Now more than ever, most journalists work for giant nihilistic corporations whose editorial decisions are skewed by a toxic mix of political and financial considerations. Unless you understand how those pressures work, it’s very difficult for a casual news consumer to gain an accurate picture of the world.

I just started reading this from Taibbi over the weekend, but this sentiment is one of the reasons you have seen me state that I follow journalists online, not their outlets. Anyway, the reason for me bringing this all up is because Taibbi made a post on Saturday that was a little earlier than he was planning, but the timing of everything was too good. In this post, he discusses the media's failings with their reporting on Russiagate. I encourage you to check it out, and the rest of the public posts he has out there, if you have the time.


It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD

[GMDino]

(03-24-2019, 08:27 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Opening P&R a little early today due to the release of the Mueller report.

I have created one thread here in the hope that we can contain discussion with it and not create a bunch of threads.

What are your thoughts?

I think that Trump and the people he surrounds himself with lie a lot.  So much so that they lie when they don't even have to.  Rather than be forthright from the beginning they chose to deny things (meetings, contacts, etc) that they should have been up front about as they have now been shown to not be "collusion".

I'm glad that there is some closure there also.  

I still think many of the people involved are dirty conmen who are bad for the country.  But (so far) many of them have done nothing that is provably illegal.

On the obstruction I think congress will have to see what was found.  For some reason (his previous letters) I don't trust Barr's decisions.  But as of right now he had the final word.

The argument that since there was no provable collusion then the POTUS couldn't have obstructed is not the strongest argument I'd think he could make given that the report itself did not exonerate Trump.  (Although I've often asked how one gets arrested for "resisting arrest" if there was nothing to arrest them for in the first place too.)

In the end it was a fair report that was completed without any interference by the DOJ from what I can see.

Now we can get back to focusing on all the other awful, bad (possibly illegal) things that DJT does out in the open.  

All kidding aside I wish the president could say the same, but he will use this as a way to raise money and to bash all his "enemies" rather than moving on in a classy way.  So we're back to business as usual.

[CJD]

(03-25-2019, 03:19 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: LMFAO....free healthcare for people struggling with TDS is suddenly a national emergency

There will be a lot of lulz reading all the past threads that were convinced Trump would be out of office in 12 months.  There are a ton of victims of fake news and Democratic propaganda out there.  And some of the true non-partisans saw all this 2 years ago.

Yea, people who thought Trump would be impeached with a Republican majority house and Senate were only fooling themselves.

[CJD]

(03-24-2019, 08:42 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Personally, I think it's fantastic that the special counsel was able to determine that the POTUS and his campaign team did not collude with the Russians, and it only took TWO years to make that determination.

I think that it's sad that the Russians are attempting to interfere with American electoral process, even after Obama said it was impossible..

I think that the "no determination" on obstruction of justice is just going to be a Democrat excuse to keep wasting time, money and effort on endless investigations, rather than just getting down to the business of creating legislature that benefits and improves America and it's citizens.

Is that what our government is for?

Huh...Completely forgot about that.

I thought it was meant to just be a soap opera that we watch at 6:30 each night. It's going into at least its 19th year on air, right?

[Belsnickel]

(03-25-2019, 10:33 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Is that what our government is for?

Huh...Completely forgot about that.

I thought it was meant to just be a soap opera that we watch at 6:30 each night. It's going into at least its 19th year on air, right?

We actually really started to see a dip with the 96th Congress, which was the 1979-1980 biennium: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics

I'm curious what prior data would show, though. I need to dig a bit more for that statistical information.

[Dill]

(03-25-2019, 03:19 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: LMFAO....free healthcare for people struggling with TDS is suddenly a national emergency

There will be a lot of lulz reading all the past threads that were convinced Trump would be out of office in 12 months.  There are a ton of victims of fake news and Democratic propaganda out there.  And some of the true non-partisans saw all this 2 years ago.

Victims of fake news and Democratic propaganda predicted Trump's would be a chaos presidency, based upon his bankruptcies, lack of government experience, hyperbolic and divisive rhetoric, lack of impulse control, authoritarian instincts, and comfort with lying.

But I recall one "true non-partisan" who dismissed all that as "partisan butthurt," to maintain there was "no real evidence" Trump would be any different from previous presidents.  Like "socialist" Obama, he would grow into the office and be changed by it.  And even if he weren't, "career staffers" would be running foreign policy for us.  Checks and balances.

[Dill]

(03-25-2019, 10:32 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Yea, people who thought Trump would be impeached with a Republican majority house and Senate were only fooling themselves.

  Misled by Democratic propaganda!

[Belsnickel]

Can we just combine this thread with the other one?

[BmorePat87]

Republicans: Totally exonerated. Witch hunt. Democrats need to all resign.

Democrats: Doesn't tell us anything. We need the full report!


Obstruction of justice will be interesting moving forward. The fact that Mueller apparently gives arguments for both ends will means this is far from over.

What will be interesting with collusion is what is detailed in the report as being legal/no criminal intent. I have to imagine Democrats will try to pass something that makes it a crime to do whatever Stone and Papadopoulus did.

[GMDino]

(03-25-2019, 11:10 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Republicans: Totally exonerated. Witch hunt. Democrats need to all resign.

Democrats: Doesn't tell us anything. We need the full report!


Obstruction of justice will be interesting moving forward. The fact that Mueller apparently gives arguments for both ends will means this is far from over.

What will be interesting with collusion is what is detailed in the report as being legal/no criminal intent. I have to imagine Democrats will try to pass something that makes it a crime to do whatever Stone and Papadopoulus did.

The Daily podcast has someone on who called the Trump team "collusion curious".  That about sums it up. 

I'm really believing that they were/are too inept and unprepared to even break the law correctly if they wanted to.  

[Benton]

(03-25-2019, 10:52 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Can we just combine this thread with the other one?

No



I think the hope was people would post in this one, but ... well....

[CJD]

(03-25-2019, 11:10 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Republicans: Totally exonerated. Witch hunt. Democrats need to all resign.

Democrats: Doesn't tell us anything. We need the full report!


Obstruction of justice will be interesting moving forward. The fact that Mueller apparently gives arguments for both ends will means this is far from over.

What will be interesting with collusion is what is detailed in the report as being legal/no criminal intent. I have to imagine Democrats will try to pass something that makes it a crime to do whatever Stone and Papadopoulus did.

I think the Mueller investigation is dead in the water, from a Democrat perspective. Seeing the report will only make Democrats think the same thing they're already thinking "You can't prove anything, but you didn't exonerate him."

That is what I assume the majority of rational Democrats were expecting from the final report. Or, at the very least, they were taking the pessimistic route and hoping, against hope, that the final report would result in something other than "not enough to prove, not enough to exonerate."

The focus will now shift towards the SDNY investigation, which I have no idea when that'll all wrap up. But the idea of government returning "back to normal" is a fantasy that Republicans have long held out for at the conclusion of this report, and I think they're going to be awfully disappointed when they realize there are still plenty of investigations going on. The Mueller one is just the first to make landfall.

[Benton]

(03-25-2019, 11:10 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Republicans: Totally exonerated. Witch hunt. Democrats need to all resign.

Democrats: Doesn't tell us anything. We need the full report!


Obstruction of justice will be interesting moving forward. The fact that Mueller apparently gives arguments for both ends will means this is far from over.

What will be interesting with collusion is what is detailed in the report as being legal/no criminal intent. I have to imagine Democrats will try to pass something that makes it a crime to do whatever Stone and Papadopoulus did.

I always thought a big part of the report was to present to Congress so they could decide what they want to do (if anything) about Trump, collusion, obstruction, etc. 

[fredtoast]

(03-25-2019, 03:19 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote:  There are a ton of victims of fake news and Democratic propaganda out there.  

That goes both ways.

Remember when Trump said any claim that the Russians interfered with our election was "fake news"?  Now tht he has been proven 100% wrong the right still call this a victory over "fake news".

[Bengalzona]

https://abcnews.go.com/International/kremlin-declines-comment-mueller-report-findings/story?id=61921907&fbclid=IwAR3TLWLxBZUeCMg5Jvj1IRzecxIuK8V4XmZSfBF_Pml56sqQu7vhLL8KBPo

Putin says he cannot comment because he "hasn't seen the whole report".

Personally, I think the summary of the report is just fine for the rotten S.O.B., and he can keep his trolls out of our elections.