US Politics March 2019: “I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled”

this is gonna be the phantom menace of politics isn't it

meesa think so

https://media.giphy.com/media/6NhHFB86oCaUU/giphy-downsized-large.gif

Thread title otm.

Not everyone is faced with the decision of whether to tap the brakes on a media outlet

If only James had been appointed instead, by next Wednesday we could have Trump tweeting angrily about Soundbombing II only getting 3 mics in The Source - "very unfair!", and signing executive orders to reopen vinyl plants to get Pharoahe Monch's solo debut back into print

Phantom Menace is stretching it, maybe the Holiday Special.

maybe a fan edit

Word is that Lachlan is even more of a one-eyed conservative mf than his dad, I don't think he has any warm/fuzzy ideas re social responsibility and media.

again, i think we should retire the word "conservative" at least in re. folks like this. fox news went straight-up fascist a while ago. it's like calling lenin a "progressive."

my congressman doesn't hold town halls or other truly public meetings. he has a tight circuit of nursing homes, contracting businesses, and christian schools that he visits for photo ops. all white folks, mostly men, mostly old. here's his latest event:

https://scontent.fagc1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/54729295_10156368262132815_6155866592589643776_o.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_ht=scontent.fagc1-2.fna&oh=4f547f5f0cc557cee53f3c1736d48d6d&oe=5D05E302

america!

loool

you have to admit it's a novel rendition of the last supper.

props to the tearaway with the Mike Tyson eye tattoo though

some other recent events

https://scontent.fagc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/53020185_10156332039067815_1773270672282222592_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent.fagc1-1.fna&oh=e3010caebb5f3d008c2fccfef8530c9f&oe=5D09BEBA

https://scontent.fagc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/49896638_10156229762077815_8137665821242556416_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&_nc_ht=scontent.fagc1-1.fna&oh=8fb93bd4b69d905482b12017ff77d9e6&oe=5D04D17D

https://scontent.fagc1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/45095165_10156061191352815_8207409737872965632_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_ht=scontent.fagc1-2.fna&oh=62fcea8000bb3cc9fc9a1ff34730f0c2&oe=5D02707F

that first one might be the most WHITE MAN AMERICA picture i've ever seen

- the red-tinted hard plastic coke cups
- the fluted plastic pitcher of icewater (even though judging by what they're wearing it's cold outside)
- the low-ass ceiling
- the off-center "fancy" ceiling fan
- the haphazard jumble-sale americana
- the importance of having a tv within sight
- the tidy stacks of individual plastic containers of smucker's
- the faux old-timey "pioneer" stonework columns
- the general air of hopeless small-town malaise

Cigar store Indian...

Is lacking a flag though.

good morning!

Barr letter sounds more positive about keeping both Mueller and Rosenstein in the loop than I feared.
Still not sure what no further indictments means. Nothing fresh, but a few outstanding?
Surely bringing extreme pain to several of the Trump family and GOP higher echelons is mandatory?

so he's recommended no more indictments

perhaps he's recommended people to be dropped from a 12 story building though

Or, as some hypothesize, perhaps he knows SDNY and any of the other investigations have the same information and are on it. One of many bigger questions I and others have is, for example, if he's done and the report is finished, then why is Mueller still requesting that Andrew Miller testify? For the purpose of what?

I mean the idiot GOP's rush to say that the 'no additional indictments' clears Trump clearly means they are concerned about what's going to be in the report.

the rest of Trump's family not being indicted, ok, that's a surprise. but Mueller was not going to suggest Trump be indicted because he doesn't believe in the indictment of sitting Presidents.

doesn't mean the report won't say there wasn't obstruction, though.

more likely, I bet there is going to be stuff in the report that is extremely embarrassing to the President, and might actually establish that he obstructed justice, and what's going to happen is the obvious difference in interpretation between Dems and Pubes as to the seriousness of his 'crimes' and whether impeachment should occur.

the real hope should be that the report has enough damning information to hurt Trump in the polls so we can kick the fuck out of him in 2020.

It's quite likely the report will show Trump did nothing overtly illegal but was so incompetent and taken advantage of at every turn by the grifters and criminals he hired.

the Russia stuff will probably show that. I'm interested in Mueller's conclusions on the Comey firing.

you have to be flailing when your argument is "if the result is NO COLLUSION, then the investigation should never have occurred in the first place".

cos I'm sure they also feel that way about civilians who have lost years of their lives and tons of their savings defending themselves in court from egregious charges.

We will find that Trump wrote his criminal directives in cheeto dust and tacos bowls, which he then promptly ate. No evidence, no collusion.

He keeps his Cheeto dust in a drawer

you have to be flailing when your argument is "if the result is NO COLLUSION, then the investigation should never have occurred in the first place".


Thing is, by tweeting “NO COLLUSION!” almost every day for the last 2 years, trump really did succeed in redefining the argument along those terms in the minds of everyone who might vote for him. It doesn’t matter if he’s clearly corrupt and surrounds himself with scum and orders people to do things in the manner of the mafia. If it can’t be proved beyond reasonable doubt that he directly colluded, then he “won”

Would think that several things that have been in public knowledge since they happened coupled with recent highly publicised knowledge would have things way too close to collusion for any other public figure.
The presence of Russian officials in the oval office on the day of Comeys firing. The gifting a penthouse to Putin and all other.public acts of obeisance to him.etc etc.

Would certainly be things any other leader would consciously avoid even if just for appearance sake.

But I guess everybody concerned has found that despicable since it was first aired.
I don't get it or what the GOP see in an inept idiot like him.

Xpost those people were going to vote for him regardless. Even if he went to a National Park and tried to fuck a tree

ESPECIALLY if, who among us hasn't etc.

fucking a tree would honestly be the high point of Trump's presidency

Perhaps the lack of indictments at federal level is the only sane response to the problem of 45 pardoning individuals as they happen? NY courts can do their worst, though.

or maybe a lifelong republican lawman who helped make the case for the Iraq war and never flinched at expanding surveillance of us citizens was never gonna sink a republican president anyway

^^^^

This. Plus Manafort and others blocked access and covered up

Yea I'm officially done with speculation for the weekend.

" Trump can be indicted as soon as he is out of office?"

I can't see this happening, just as it didn't happen to Cheney or Rumsfeld or Bush.

of all the takes i see, the "he didn't indict because he's gop" is one of the less convincing.

rather thought that figuring out one russia-related conspiracy-- at least to alter the gop platform, e.g.-- would be do-able, but i have not followed manafort issue closely enough.

mills of justice: slow. mills of injustice: also pretty slow, if there's rules and shit.

if we just got rid of the law, maybe god would move faster.

he didn’t indict because there was no collusion obv

I really wonder what those fools who in all seriousness thought Mueller would direct a "SWAT" team up the Truman Balcony are doing now.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 22, 2019

there's definitely a little fanfic in this thread. mueller would not have withheld indictments simply because he figured NY would do it instead. if his team thought there was reason to indict, he would have indicted. so what we got, we got.

Still it is a bit dumb to already be reacting like we know the contents of the report. We just know no more indictments.

DJT himself was never going to be indicted, his kids should have been, but this report could still take a steaming shit on him a or suggest that he obstructed justice without recommending indictment because he's a sitting President (I think it's a long shot but hey, we all said with certainty that Mueller would be fired 73 times)

I read somewhere that DOJ policy forbids him from focusing in the report on people he isn’t going to indict.

Even if there was a ton of evidence that fell juuuuust short of enough to indict, because he isn’t being charged with a crime, it gets thrown out as irrelevant in the final report.

Mueller's job wasn't to indict, it was to investigate. All the indictments he pursued were to obtain cooperation with the investigation. Presumably, he and his office decided that he had sufficient evidence without an indictment (on his part) of Kushner, Trump et al.

To my knowledge, his remit didn't extend far enough from Russiagate to investigate the nefarious shit Kushner has been doing with the UAE and Sauds. That MF may be the worst of the lot.

So the report will include everything he found?

Even if he didn’t decide it was criminal?

I feel extremely depressed.

I'm with Sanpaku. As I read it (with lots of added conjecture) Mueller played it the exact opposite of Starr, by sticking strictly to investigating Russian interference. Where he uncovered evidence of crimes outside his investigative sphere he either used them to obtain cooperation or he passed off the evidence to other prosecutors for further investigation or indictments. It is also very possible that one or more sealed indictments exist.

The near-instantaneous 'leak' that "no further indictments were recommended" was carefully worded, as most such manipulative leaks are, to suggest much more than it says. It seems wise to presume that the conclusions it wants you to draw are a misdirection from the truth.

It is also very possible that one or more sealed indictments exist.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/22/special-counsel-mueller-has-no-sealed-indictments-as-russia-probe-ends-nbc-news.html

Special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his investigation and will not file any more indictments in connection with his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, NBC News reports, citing a senior U.S. law enforcement official.

There are no sealed indictments.

It is possible that leads uncovered during the special counsel’s inquiry and handed off could lead to charges brought by state prosecutors or other parts of the Department of Justice.