INTENSITY²
Politics, Mature and taboo => Political Pundits => Topic started by: odeon on July 25, 2019, 03:17:24 AM
-
I watched some of the Mueller hearings yesterday and found myself thinking about how fucked up the situation is. Here you have a person who would almost certainly have been indicted if he hadn't been president. The decision not to is a policy based on a memo, not anything that should actually stick. But there is also a statute of limitations that, in a worst case scenario, helps that person get away.
This is inequality before the law. This is the rule of law put aside. It's what happens in third world dictatorships, not in a democracy.
-
It was on so late. I watched about half of it before falling asleep and then have spent a number of hours trying to fill in all the blanks.
The hearing was really awful on Robert Mueller. He looked diminished and doddery. He did not really seem to know a lot about the report. He obviously had some involvement but his aides likely were across it and essentially rubberstamping his name to everything.
There was a lot he did not know and a couple of contradictions and walking back of a couple of big claims.
It was bad for Democrats. Really bad.
As for Republicans. There were some really standout performances. Mostly it was same, same.
This really deflated things in terms of impeachment. This, if anything, not only did not push things along but weakened the position.
At best (and this is at best) there is a genuine argument that can be (and I think was made well enough by some Democrats like Jeffries) that Trump DID engage in efforts which were unethical and ill-though out. I personally think given that he was being investigated by people trying to tie him to a narrative that was bullshit and smear him, was excusable. I can see how some people would not find it as excusable. I can also see how people may wish to believe that it was more than unethical or ill-thought out but that it met the criminal standard.
Mueller could not make that determination and he admitted to Ted Leiu that it was NOT because of the OLC ruling. It was simply not something he wished to rule on. Barr ruled on it saying that it did not rise to the standard of criminal activity.
The fact is that they are NOT prosecuting it in a court of law. They are trying to use it as a weapon against the President. A vote of no confidence in impeaching him. A kind of quasi-criminal branding. Unfortunately for them, they do not have the numbers in the Senate.
The Democrats have not run on Healthcare, Climate Change, Infrastructure, or anything else whilst they have held the House. They ran on Impeachment and Russia Collusion. That has died and they are now in the awkward position of having to show substance behind the claims and having nothing at all. Less than nothing.
Trump is winning 2020.
-
He's not stupid.
Perhaps he was using the stalling tactic:
Asking the questioner what page,
Looking it up in the report
Saying I don't recall
Asking would you repeat that
etc.
All eat up the questioners limited time. Fewer questions = less information/insight.
-
It was fairly obvious that the decision couldn't be made to prosecute. They declined to decide to prosecute because of the DOJ policy, not because of something else as Al suggests. I would have thought it clear, all things considered.
I think the hearing was as damning on Trump as was the report. The Republicans shot themselves in the foot on a number of occasions, which was quite entertaining. I loved how Mueller agreed that Trump could be prosecuted once he left the office, in response to a particularly stupid Republican.
More than anything else, the hearing served to demonstrate what a disgrace this president is, how utterly unfitting the office he is. There was a time when that office was respected outside the US borders but it's been a while now and it's going to take a replacement quite a bit of time and effort to restore that respect.
-
He's not stupid.
Perhaps he was using the stalling tactic:
Asking the questioner what page,
Looking it up in the report
Saying I don't recall
Asking would you repeat that
etc.
All eat up the questioners limited time. Fewer questions = less information/insight.
It was obvious he was stalling. He didn't want to be there. He wanted the report to speak for itself. If anything, he came across as a bit weary at times.
-
It was fairly obvious that the decision couldn't be made to prosecute. They declined to decide to prosecute because of the DOJ policy, not because of something else as Al suggests. I would have thought it clear, all things considered.
I think the hearing was as damning on Trump as was the report. The Republicans shot themselves in the foot on a number of occasions, which was quite entertaining. I loved how Mueller agreed that Trump could be prosecuted once he left the office, in response to a particularly stupid Republican.
More than anything else, the hearing served to demonstrate what a disgrace this president is, how utterly unfitting the office he is. There was a time when that office was respected outside the US borders but it's been a while now and it's going to take a replacement quite a bit of time and effort to restore that respect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzqzr1O-E7E
He clarified his record as he was under oath.
The problem is that picking and choosing will not work. He explicitly clarified that it was NOT the OLC guidelines that drove him. You can choose to ignore it but it just is not sincere or honest.
There was questionable behaviour and I think pretending it did not exist or was perfectly normal and okay is just dishonest. I see a lot of Conservatives doing just this, but it is just as egregious trying to transform it into crimes because you do not like a President, and I see plenty do this.
The game is over. This is the last thrashings of a mortally wounded narrative of Trump colluding with Putin to win 2016 elections. Unfortunately the Democrats invested everything into this that they have no cohesiveness on anything else. Their platform is get Trump. That is not an electable platform.
-
Again, it's quite clear at the end: "we did not reach a determination as to whether..."
Note what I wrote: "They declined to decide to prosecute". That option was never available to them. They did, however, strongly suggest that other mechanisms are available, just not to them.
As you say, picking and choosing doesn't work. You're blind and deaf to anything you don't want to hear so you conveniently ignore a large part of the hearing, the report, and the report's conclusions. The facts of the matter don't agree with you and the Republicans, though, and that won't change just because you cherry-pick among them.
-
Again, it's quite clear at the end: "we did not reach a determination as to whether..."
Note what I wrote: "They declined to decide to prosecute". That option was never available to them. They did, however, strongly suggest that other mechanisms are available, just not to them.
As you say, picking and choosing doesn't work. You're blind and deaf to anything you don't want to hear so you conveniently ignore a large part of the hearing, the report, and the report's conclusions. The facts of the matter don't agree with you and the Republicans, though, and that won't change just because you cherry-pick among them.
Nope. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The truth is that there was not much there for him to work with. His animus towards the President was no worse than many on both sides of the political divide. Trump was too crass, too tacky, too boorish, too unrefined, too rude, too inexperienced and too full of himself and had to be taken out. Mueller was the insurance policy.
Mueller was always going to find some amount of dirt and unquestionable behaviour from some parties. Perjury traps are pretty easy because human memory and recall is flawed, and people when they are tired and stressed are prone to say things that are flawed. Investigating Lobbyists in politics by virtue of the activity and the types of people you find in those fields you will get dirt on them. Mannafort's political opposite is Tony Podesta, he is just as dirty and if HE were investigated for Russian contacts and the like would have found just as many and just as many unethical instances of poor conduct. Lobbyists are scummy. BUT they DO have connections and they are well versed in schmoozing and this is why Mannafort was taken on board. Not for his Russia connections.
All of this would be known. There was no there there.
The President was harassed over something he did not do based around a phony dossier that his political opponent hired through their law firm to get Fusion GPS to employ Christopher Steele to make up fake stories generated through Russian agents propaganda and inject they through Nelly Ohr of Fusion GPS investigator to DOJ management level Bruce Ohr, her husband, to DOJ, CIA and FBI.
Now given that this ALL was complete BS, and he knew it AND he knew it was both poisoning his campaign and Presidency and unfairly smearing him, where does the line between him rightly and righteously defending himself and rejecting the validity of the attempts to hurt his Presidency AND obstructing justice?
See here is where it all comes apart.
I know you want to think that a court of law will look at ONLY the negative and most detrimental aspects to his conduct and judge it devoid of any context of facts BUT that is not reality. They will need to look at things in context.
Were the charges based around solid intel and was it verified? Was he set up? Was it fruit from the poison tree?
He wanted to do a lot of things.....but wouldn't anyone? So okay, the underlying crime was bullshit. So there is that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uR5PyoLa3o
So did Trump withhold any information? Apparently not. He gave more information to Mueller's team than was asked and even Mueller's team had to agree the 1400000 pages were NOT held back.
Did he give pardons or immunity? He could have and in fact not only is it in his power but there is a precedent of exactly this behaviour. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair) But did he? No
Did he invoke Executive Privilege? No.
Did he fire Bob Mueller? No. (Let's not get into whether he wanted to or thought about it or railed against Mueller or anything else. Unless it ACTUALLY happened then it falls somewhere between mind-crime and a crime without an action to support it).
Did Bob Mueller continue his investigation to its conclusion? Yes.
Did Trump hate being put under what he knew to be a phony investigation and deride and rail and espouse his innocence and seek to get out from under the cloud of this years long smear campaign? Yes. Did he struggle and make some mistakes? Sure. Did he do anything that materially affected the investigation or were they ineffectual and despite his frustrated efforts, allowed Mueller to complete the investigation? No and yes Mueller was allowed to complete this.
There is nothing there.
-
Still ignoring anything that doesn't follow your delusions. Oh well.
-
Haha. Mueller exposes himself as a fucking liar. He said he didn't even know about the fake Steele Dossier and Fusion GPS was :lol1: Fairly clear the demented liar didn't even read his own report. Not the first time he's been a proven liar.
https://youtu.be/mK5T_rZmVyg
-
Still ignoring anything that doesn't follow your delusions. Oh well.
Clearly i am not.
-
Haha. Mueller exposes himself as a fucking liar. He said he didn't even know about the fake Steele Dossier and Fusion GPS was :lol1: Fairly clear the demented liar didn't even read his own report. Not the first time he's been a proven liar.
Welcome back. Am interested to see how this will effect Trump's approval ratings in the next gallup poll.
-
Haha. Mueller exposes himself as a fucking liar. He said he didn't even know about the fake Steele Dossier and Fusion GPS was :lol1: Fairly clear the demented liar didn't even read his own report. Not the first time he's been a proven liar.
Welcome back. Am interested to see how this will effect Trump's approval ratings in the next gallup poll.
Well I'm afraid most Americans aren't like poor retarded Odeon. A lot still on the fence will now realise they've been lied to for 3 years and see that deranged liberals who were holding useless Mueller up as some kind of phenom were bullshitiing all along. Even some liberal commentators are saying what a disaster it was. The report was a dud and the alleged author is a demented loser. Watch the wolves turn on him now. Every retard pushing this hoax can thank themselves when Trump gets relected :hahaha:
-
Haha. Mueller exposes himself as a fucking liar. He said he didn't even know about the fake Steele Dossier and Fusion GPS was :lol1: Fairly clear the demented liar didn't even read his own report. Not the first time he's been a proven liar.
Welcome back. Am interested to see how this will effect Trump's approval ratings in the next gallup poll.
Well I'm afraid most Americans aren't like poor retarded Odeon. A lot still on the fence will now realise they've been lied to for 3 years and see that deranged liberals who were holding useless Mueller up as some kind of phenom were bullshitiing all along. Even some liberal commentators are saying what a disaster it was. The report was a dud and the alleged author is a demented loser. Watch the wolves turn on him now. Every retard pushing this hoax can thank themselves when Trump gets relected :hahaha:
Yes
After 2 years of Trump being a Russian agent for Putin, the narrative is dead and the Dems can't just admit it was BS and its origins are being looked at.
They can't go forward and can't go back.
Trump has successfully pinned the Squad as the face of the Democrats.
Americans are fatigued by a nothing burger, do not like the Socialist approach, and like the economy.
-
Welcome back, Benji
:popcorn:
-
Haha. Mueller exposes himself as a fucking liar. He said he didn't even know about the fake Steele Dossier and Fusion GPS was :lol1: Fairly clear the demented liar didn't even read his own report. Not the first time he's been a proven liar.
Welcome back. Am interested to see how this will effect Trump's approval ratings in the next gallup poll.
Well I'm afraid most Americans aren't like poor retarded Odeon. A lot still on the fence will now realise they've been lied to for 3 years and see that deranged liberals who were holding useless Mueller up as some kind of phenom were bullshitiing all along. Even some liberal commentators are saying what a disaster it was. The report was a dud and the alleged author is a demented loser. Watch the wolves turn on him now. Every retard pushing this hoax can thank themselves when Trump gets relected :hahaha:
There's not many on the fence about trump. That's why he's thus far had the most consistent approval/disapproval ratings of any other president, only fluctuating within ten percent. It's been so closely divided it's unrealistic to say most Americans are anything when it comes to Trump, though that ten percent will definitely be the deciding factor in the next election.
-
I guess those still pushing the hoax missed where even Mueller walked back and said it wasn't cause he couldn't charge Trump it was cause there wasn't evidence for it. Then Odeon's hero tinfoil Ted Lieu suggested someone had gotten to Mueller during the break. :lol1:
-
Watching this liberal meltdown is box office stuff :laugh:
-
With them being able to push the ball along so far on the basis of nothing. I hope to Hell he can pin them to the wall based on the actual crimes they have done. There was no wiggle room for people like Roger Stone. A swat team and the early hours of the morning to a home of an elderly couple and their lap dog to arrest Stone. There better be similarly over-cooked procedures in the rest of the investigations from the Trump DOJ.
-
I guess those still pushing the hoax missed where even Mueller walked back and said it wasn't cause he couldn't charge Trump it was cause there wasn't evidence for it. Then Odeon's hero tinfoil Ted Lieu suggested someone had gotten to Mueller during the break. :lol1:
No. They, like Odeon, want to ignore it or to parse the words and try to pretend it said something it really did not.
-
Benji and Al, the Trump spazz fan club. You brought critical thinking to a new low.
-
Benji and Al, the Trump spazz fan club. You brought critical thinking to a new low.
Odeon is a projectionist
-
Benji and Al, the Trump spazz fan club. You brought critical thinking to a new low.
Odeon is a projectionist
Don't waste another second of energy on him. He's probably been having a meltdown for days after Mueller getting exposed.
You can prove this idiot wrong a million times and he will still act as some kind of all knowing phenom when in reality he is a tragic loser.
-
Benji and Al, the Trump spazz fan club. You brought critical thinking to a new low.
Odeon is a projectionist
Don't waste another second of energy on him. He's probably been having a meltdown for days after Mueller getting exposed.
You can prove this idiot wrong a million times and he will still act as some kind of all knowing phenom when in reality he is a tragic loser.
100% right
-
(https://i.imgur.com/BTkbd1C.png)
-
Al and Benji would be going back for seconds.
-
Benji and Al, the Trump spazz fan club. You brought critical thinking to a new low.
Odeon is a projectionist
Don't waste another second of energy on him. He's probably been having a meltdown for days after Mueller getting exposed.
You can prove this idiot wrong a million times and he will still act as some kind of all knowing phenom when in reality he is a tragic loser.
100% right
I always wonder about the fantasy world you two inhabit. It must be nice to be so utterly oblivious to the real world,
The rest of the world is laughing at you. How do you feel about it?
-
Al and Benji would be going back for seconds.
It is what they do. Now watch them bend over.
-
Benji and Al, the Trump spazz fan club. You brought critical thinking to a new low.
Odeon is a projectionist
Don't waste another second of energy on him. He's probably been having a meltdown for days after Mueller getting exposed.
You can prove this idiot wrong a million times and he will still act as some kind of all knowing phenom when in reality he is a tragic loser.
100% right
I always wonder about the fantasy world you two inhabit. It must be nice to be so utterly oblivious to the real world,
The rest of the world is laughing at you. How do you feel about it?
That us one of the stupidest things you've said, and you've a lot of competition.
-
Unfortunately for tards like Odeon, the joke is on him. It was humiliating how he made this thread expecting Mueller to come to his rescue but then Mueller got globally exposed as a senile fraud
https://youtu.be/WOQXOV0PHL4
-
All Odeon had to do was apologise for being a moron.
-
All Odeon had to do was apologise for being a moron.
Now just look at him exposed and marinating in his stupidity
-
The real issue here, of course, is that you'd be fine with Trump doing just about anything. Mueller did his job and did it well. I'm sorry that you don't grasp this basic fact.
-
The real issue here, of course, is that you'd be fine with Trump doing just about anything. Mueller did his job and did it well. I'm sorry that you don't grasp this basic fact.
Delusional
-
Basically, he is bad for his country and I'm sorry you don't understand it. I'm glad you don't have the right to vote over there.
-
Basically, he is bad for his country and I'm sorry you don't understand it. I'm glad you don't have the right to vote over there.
Oh dear, Odeon
-
Gotta love Tommy Lee...
(https://i.imgur.com/zzHGyze.jpg)
-
Gotta love Tommy Lee...
(https://i.imgur.com/zzHGyze.jpg)
How perfectly fascist and Authoritarian. At least he is not hiding his tendencies
-
Gotta love Tommy Lee...
(https://i.imgur.com/zzHGyze.jpg)
:LMAO:
-
How perfectly fascist and Authoritarian. At least he is not hiding his tendencies
Dammit, now i don't know if Al's taking Tommy Lee too seriously. or if i'm taking Al too seriously. :LOL:
I guess this applies, either way: :asthing:
-
How perfectly fascist and Authoritarian. At least he is not hiding his tendencies
Dammit, now i don't know if Al's taking Tommy Lee too seriously. or if i'm taking Al too seriously. :LOL:
I guess this applies, either way: :asthing:
Yes and no in equal measure to both. I am half-joking in the same way Tommy-Lee is half-joking.
-
I guess Mike Pence is praying for the latter.
-
And now, a federal judge is criticising Barr's actions when it comes to the Mueller report.