ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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Xavderion wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

Remember this?

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Xavderion wrote:

Reminder that in one hour (+24 hours, whoops) Mueller's report will be presented by Barr and Rosenstein. The tears and the salt will be delicious.

Leftists on Reddit are already realizing that despite having the House, they can't do shit. The House can subpoena all they want, Trump doesn't have to deliver.

The tears are great, so many meltdowns on Reddit and Twitter. Also thanks for admitting being a hypocrite.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Xav, as I've said before, the Mueller report is a bipartisan nothingburger. Neither side got what they dreamed of. Both sides are painting it as a confirmation of their preexisting narrative (and it doesn't directly contradict either narrative, so it's more accurately a non-contradiction than a confirmation); both sides are continuing to believe they're right. It's simply not accurate to say partisan Dems are taking this as a huge defeat.

You said in a previous post that this was 80% an exoneration of Trump regarding RussiaGate. That's not how they're taking it or going to take it. For some of them, they'll view it as 50% Russia — after all, the report is two volumes, and thus half Russia by content. Others don't care about Russia, perhaps never cared about Russia, except as a means to the end of impeachment — and in their biased view, Volume 1 is irrelevant and Volume 2 is a victory. It's not even really a case of them moving the goalposts — the goalpost for those types was impeachment, it still is impeachment, and RussiaGate was simply opportunism that didn't pan out.

I'm sorry, but your prediction isn't as accurate as your confirmation bias wants it to be.

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Xavderion wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Xavderion wrote:

Reminder that in one hour (+24 hours, whoops) Mueller's report will be presented by Barr and Rosenstein. The tears and the salt will be delicious.

Leftists on Reddit are already realizing that despite having the House, they can't do shit. The House can subpoena all they want, Trump doesn't have to deliver.

Xav, as I've said before, the Mueller report is a bipartisan nothingburger. Neither side got what they dreamed of. Both sides are painting it as a confirmation of their preexisting narrative (and it doesn't directly contradict either narrative, so it's more accurately a non-contradiction than a confirmation); both sides are continuing to believe they're right. It's simply not accurate to say partisan Dems are taking this as a huge defeat.

You said in a previous post that this was 80% an exoneration of Trump regarding RussiaGate. That's not how they're taking it or going to take it. For some of them, they'll view it as 50% Russia — after all, the report is two volumes, and thus half Russia by content. Others don't care about Russia, perhaps never cared about Russia, except as a means to the end of impeachment — and in their biased view, Volume 1 is irrelevant and Volume 2 is a victory. It's not even really a case of them moving the goalposts — the goalpost for those types was impeachment, it still is impeachment, and RussiaGate was simply opportunism that didn't pan out.

I'm sorry, but your prediction isn't as accurate as your confirmation bias wants it to be.

Only the most rabid TDSers are taking the report as a win. But that doesn't matter because they're basically flat-earthers at this point. The way I see it, 25% of the country are rabid leftists and 25% are rabid rightists. Both don't really matter. Who matters are the 50% somewhere around the middle. I'm confident that those people can see through the charade.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Now you're moving the goalposts. Your prediction was a cup overflowing with tasty liberal tears, not centrist appeal.

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Writing for the Court, Justice Powell found that "if preindictment proceedings were made public, many prospective witnesses would be hesitant to come forward voluntarily"; "witnesses who appeared before the grand jury would be less likely to testify fully and frankly"; and "there also would be the risk that those about to be indicted would flee, or would try to influence individual grand jurors". Further, "persons who are accused but exonerated by the grand jury [should] not be held up to public ridicule"

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Look man, if you can't clearly see that either Mr Applebaum has TDS or is counting on his audience having it in order to ignore obvious contradictions, I don't know how to help you. He literally quotes Mueller writing "this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime," then quotes Barr saying "I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense," then Mr Applebaum says that there is a "vital distinction" between those two conclusions, then says "It’s possible to read the two conclusions as different ways of stating the same finding," meaning he admits there might not be a vital distinction despite saying there was not two sentences earlier.

You must have doublethink enabled if you got through that entire article believing it was coherent.

That bit about the OLC saying you can't indict a sitting President, fairness concerns, and so on is the big enigma of the Mueller report — that telepathic poker thing I mentioned a few posts ago. I don't blame Mr Applebaum for being incoherent on those points, because Mueller was confusing on those points. If Mueller actually believes that
1) it is not legal to indict a sitting President, and
2) that the sole function of the Office of the Special Council — in other words, the Mueller probe — is to issue indictments, and
3) it is improper (due to issues of "fairness") to comment on impeachment, since it falls outside its proper area of expertise (that is, indictments)
then the only logical conclusion of those premises is
4) logically, Mueller believes he was pre-ordained to have no conclusion in its investigation of President Trump, as REGARDLESS OF THE EVIDENCE Mueller would not return a "I think he's guilty" conclusion.

This is an absolutely absurd conclusion for Mueller to arrive at. In the context of investigating a sitting President of the United States, Mueller's raison d'être — as repeated by everyone in media, repeatedly — was determining whether or not impeachment was warranted. In essence, Mueller is arguing that the job he's had for the past 2+ years, in regards to making a determination of guilt or innocence in the matter of the President (as opposed to the President's associates) was not legally valid.

That's amazin'!

I am having trouble understanding if Mueller actually believes this nonsense, or whatever it's a deliberate untruth, and if the latter what end is achieved by it. But it is nonsense, albeit pleasant-sounding nonsense. It's like the dying Emperor in Gladiator saying the person who least wants the job is the best for it — it feels good if you don't think about it, and feels terrible once you actually do.

In light of this, I don't fully agree with your assessment that Mueller was kicking the ball to Congress (although I consider it a possibility). I think a more accurate assessment is he was kicking the ball away from himself — to whom it goes, I don't know if Mueller cares or not. He simply refused to do his job, by saying his job wasn't an appropriate thing to do. Whether or not that leaves it to others or not is more the choice of those others that it is Mueller's.

The Mueller report isn't a referral for impeachment as much as it's a decision on impeachment that has been abandoned, partially finished, its previous architect standing by it stubbornly repeating "I would prefer not to." Whether that is seen that as an invitation to finish it or not is in the eye of the beholder.

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The most generous characterization of this is that Trump was so blinded by his own pride and political incentives that he understood an attack on the country’s political system as an alliance with his campaign, and so rather than turning on Russia with fury, he turned on those who would reveal Russia’s role with fury.

This is the thinking of a man who has never understood that the presidency is bigger than he is, that the role he now occupies requires a larger frame of reference than himself. The myopia this causes him comes up again and again. Notably, there is a section in the report where Trump is heard lamenting that he doesn’t have a more corrupt attorney general. “You’re telling me that Bobby and Jack didn’t talk about investigations?” he asked. “Or Obama didn’t tell Eric Holder who to investigate?” To Trump, the attorney general’s role is to protect the president, not to serve the law.

The most generous read of the Mueller report’s findings does not clear Trump of wrongdoing. Instead, it argues that Trump betrayed the laws he swore to uphold because he thought doing so would protect his reputation, and that it was only the insubordination of his staff that restrained him from yet more egregious acts of criminality.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

The most generous read of the Mueller report’s findings does not clear Trump of wrongdoing. Instead, it argues that Trump betrayed the laws he swore to uphold because he thought doing so would protect his reputation, and that it was only the insubordination of his staff that restrained him from yet more egregious acts of criminality.

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Xavderion wrote:

Blows my mind how the TDSers simply pivoted to the obstruction narrative and act like the whole collusion delusion was never a thing.