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Sandburg’s Rule: Congress Shifts Attention Away From Mueller’s 400-Page Report To Focus On Barr’s 4-Page Summary

Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the hearing with Attorney General Bill Barr in the Special Counsel investigation. Barr’s testimony reaffirmed many of the points of the column, including the fact that Robert Mueller was not told that he could not reach a conclusion of obstruction. Indeed, Barr testified that both he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told Mueller that he should reach a conclusion. As Mueller’s superiors, that should have resolved any question of a “policy” of Main Justice. However, according to Barr, Mueller not only did not reach a conclusion but he also disregarded the express request that his staff identify grand jury information to allow for a rapid release of a redacted report.

Notably, Barr also confirmed that just eight percent of the public report was redacted — largely to remove material that could undermine ongoing investigations. The sealed version of the report given to Congress only had two percent redacted. Thus, while the Democratic leadership is insisting holding back impeachment efforts until they can get “the full report,” they already have 98 percent of the report and the remaining grand jury information might ultimately not be released by a federal court. Nevertheless, as predicted in the column, the focus of Congress remains on the four-page summary that preceded the full 408-page report. It is a telling emphasis that highlights what I have previously discussed as the priority of congressional leaders.

Here is the column:

This week’s congressional hearings with Attorney General William Barr are likely to follow Carl Sandberg’s rule: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.”

Last night, news broke of special counsel Robert Mueller’s letter to Barr, objecting to the four-page summary that Barr gave Congress before releasing Mueller’s report. That news led to the familiar vapors of legal experts who suggested Barr might be impeached and accused him of lying to the public. In anticipation of the heated questioning in Congress, here is a Sandburg-like guide to the issues.

Arguing the facts

Many pundits and politicians in Washington seem far more eager to discuss Barr’s four-page summary than the actual 400-page report. It is a telling emphasis since, whatever the summary’s shortcomings, the public now has the report itself. It is like movie critics focusing on the one-minute “Avengers” trailer rather than the three-hour movie.

Barr released the report with limited redactions. The problem for critics is that the report does not support two years of predictions of criminal charges against President Trump and his family. In writing his summary, Barr offered to allow Mueller to review the draft. Mueller declined. The regulations stipulate that, after the submission of a confidential special counsel report, the attorney general will issue “brief notifications, with an outline of the actions and the reasons for them.”

Barr did that. He stated correctly that Mueller did not find evidence of crimes connected to collusion or conspiracy with the Russians and that Mueller did not reach a conclusion on obstruction. He then explained that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that the evidence would not support a charge of obstruction.

Barr then added a line from the report that remains most damaging to Trump, which is that Mueller did not exonerate Trump. The Justice Department issued a statement following Tuesday’s leak that Mueller wrote a one-page letter, calling for the release of the report’s longer executive summary. The Justice Department stressed that the “special counsel emphasized that nothing in the attorney general’s March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading.” Yet, Mueller is quoted as stating that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions.” Mueller wanted to release the summary section of the report.Barr reportedly called Mueller to explain that he preferred not to release the report piecemeal and that the specific portion raised by Mueller had not been cleared by reviewers for release.

Barr can be legitimately criticized for his press conference. He briefly described Trump’s noncriminal motivations and mindset in a way that raised valid concerns. Those three lines smacked of advocacy and tainted the rest of a largely descriptive press conference. However, his four-page summary was not misleading on the report’s conclusions, and his press conference was followed by releasing the report itself.

More importantly, despite predictions that Barr might delay the report’s release, redact embarrassing material or make unexplained redactions, Barr’s record is commendable. He released a summary within two days of the report’s completion. He then released the report within a few weeks. He released highly damaging information on Trump. Finally, he not only minimized redactions but clearly identified the reason for each.

Arguing the law

Faced with bad facts, many have argued the law, claiming that Barr’s narrow view of obstruction dictated Mueller’s results, or the Justice Department policy of not indicting a sitting president was the reason no obstruction was found. Both happen to be wrong on the law.

As Barr clearly stated during his press conference, any differences over the scope of obstruction were immaterial because all of the officials agreed there must be a showing of a “corrupt intent.” Mueller found a variety of noncriminal motives that would offer ample defenses to obstruction. That does not mean such acts could not be grounds for impeachment, but it would make for an anemic obstruction prosecution.

Mueller’s report largely defuses the key events cited for two years as clear acts of criminal obstruction. It describes the Trump Tower meeting in strikingly noncriminal terms. Likewise, Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey seems more obsessive than obstructive in the report. Even the alleged order to fire Mueller, described in the report, focused on Trump’s view of Mueller as having conflicts of interest. It did not say that Trump ordered an end to the investigation or barred the appointment of a new special counsel.

Finally, Rosenstein, who Democrats have defended, agreed there was insufficient evidence to support obstruction, given the noncriminal motives described by Mueller. The second claim is that Mueller was barred from finding obstruction because of the long standing, and in my view fundamentally flawed, Justice Department policy against indicting sitting presidents. Mueller does not claim in his report that he was told he could not reach a conclusion on obstruction. Indeed, Barr and Rosenstein did not feel legally constrained in reaching such a conclusion.

What is absolutely clear is that nothing in Justice Department policies would bar a special counsel from finding evidence of criminal conduct. It is absurd to suggest that a policy against indicting a president means you cannot report evidence of a crime. It also fundamentally changes the role of the special counsel to a mere collector of evidence with no analytical function. Absent an order to the contrary, the failure to reach a conclusion on obstruction was a failure of Mueller rather than Barr.

Pounding the table

With bad facts and bad law, that leaves pounding the table and yelling like hell. Despite the report being publicly available, and Congress has copies without many of the redactions, the focus will continue to be on whether an initial summary was accurate. Various pundits have declared that Mueller said Barr “lied” and that his summary was false or misleading.

Without waiting to hear from Mueller or Barr, Democratic Representatives Maxine Waters of California and Joaquin Castro of Texas called for Barr to be impeached over a four-page summary that preceded the report’s release a few weeks later. Impeaching someone for not adding more context to a summary, or adding three ill-considered lines to a press conference, is hardly equivalent to a high crime and misdemeanor.

The report released by Barr contained hundreds of pages of highly damaging information against Trump. Some of that information could support an impeachment inquiry, yet lawmakers now seem more inclined to focus on impeaching Barr. That may reflect the fact that Mueller’s report is full of evidence supporting noncriminal motives that would make for ready defenses against charge of obstruction. That is why we are likely to see desk pounding over a four-page summary, or three lines in a press conference, rather than the 400-page report itself in the coming hearings.

As for Barr, his record on the report was tarnished by his rhetoric. He would do well to remember another Sandburg caution: “Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten.”

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He testified at the Senate confirmation hearing of Attorney General William Barr. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

296 thoughts on “Sandburg’s Rule: Congress Shifts Attention Away From Mueller’s 400-Page Report To Focus On Barr’s 4-Page Summary”

      1. NR has gone down hill …..Jonah and Kevin are the better writers these days. Pity Bill Kristol couldn’t keep his sheet together post 2016 election to grow weekly standard. It was painful watching him disembowel himself. Now we are left with slim pickins when it comes to thoughtful commentary on today’s circus other than WSJ

        1. They all have their own unique style. I have multiple sources I read beyond NR. McCarthy’s style tends to be less flamboyant and more straight to the point legal analysis, backed by an impressive history as a federal prosecutor.

          1. Michael Brendan Dougherty made me cancel my subscription a few years back. Aside from his truly uncharitable and arrogant screeds against Roman Catholicism, Kathryn Jean Lopez peddled a saccharin version of Christianity, Mairead McCardle and Matthew Confetti were infantile and overall the publication became a shadow of Buckley’s thinking

            Cest la vie

    2. The Mueller Report stated that the investigation could not establish “willfulness” on the part of Donald Trump Jr. with “admissible evidence.” The Mueller report did not state that the investigation “could establish” willfulness on the part of Donald Trump Jr. with “inadmissible evidence”. But what if the SCO could establish Donald Trump Jr.’s willfulness by means of evidence that had been rendered inadmissible when Paul Manafort was declared in breach of his cooperation agreement with the SCO? Perhaps even especially whatever information Manafort “proffered” to the SCO in order to get that cooperation agreement in the first place.

      I ask because evidence that is inadmissible in a United States Court might be admissible at a committee hearing in The House of Representatives or The United States Senate. The reason for that is that The Congress enacts the federal rules of criminal procedure as well as the federal rules of evidence. Therefore, The Congress has the constitutional power and authority to decide for itself what evidence is or is not admissible.

      I would imagine that Manafort must have proffered information substantially useful to the SCO in order to get his cooperation agreement. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the information that Manafort proffered was incriminating against Donald Trump Jr. So if that incriminating information from Manafort’s three proffer sessions with the SCO were to be admitted into evidence at an impeachment hearing in The House or even at an impeachment trial in The Senate, then our elected representatives in the U. S. Congress might be able to learn for themselves far more about what criminal conduct the investigation of which President Trump might have been trying to obstruct.

      Contribute by The L4D They Wouldn’t Dare Even Dream Of It Project–except that they might.

      1. Extra Wrinkle: Whatever evidence Manafort may have proffered to the SCO to incriminate Donald Trump Jr. would not be used against Donald Trump Jr. in a court of law. Instead, that prospective evidence would only be used to show that President Trump may have had a corrupt purpose for obstructing the SCO investigation into his own son’s potentially criminal conduct.

        Contributed by The L4D I Forgot To Mention One Little Detail Project

  2. The question that is on many people’s mind is whether or not Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign. It is becomming obvious that those previously saying no spying occurred were wrong. Of course we don’t have all the facts but I think Barr will investigate this aspect. He said he would and this is worrying the Democrats and a lot of sanctimonious people who may have been involved. Even the NYTimes is trying to get ahead of the story recognizing that spying occurred while trying to spin it.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/politics/fbi-government-investigator-trump.html

    F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016

    By Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and Mark MazzettiMay 2, 2019

    George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide, was the target of an F.B.I. investigation into connections between the campaign and Russia.Tom Brenner for The New York Times

    WASHINGTON — The conversation at a London bar in September 2016 took a strange turn when the woman sitting across from George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, asked a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia?

    The woman had set up the meeting to discuss foreign policy issues. But she was actually a government investigator posing as a research assistant, according to people familiar with the operation. The F.B.I. sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer to better understand the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.

    The American government’s affiliation with the woman, who said her name was Azra Turk, is one previously unreported detail of an operation that has become a political flash point in the face of accusations by President Trump and his allies that American law enforcement and intelligence officials spied on his campaign to undermine his electoral chances. Last year, he called it Spygate.

    “https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/politics/fbi-government-investigator-trump.html”

    1. Barr has already stated that the government spied on the Trump campaign. The question, he said, was whether that spying was proper.

      There’s no question that Halper and Turk were spies. What about Downer, Mifsud, etc?

      1. There’s no question

        Anon’s going to start caterwauling that you’ve stolen his scooter.

      2. “Barr has already stated that the government spied on the Trump campaign.”

        Yes, Ivan, he did, but it takes time for the left to absorb the problem and figure out which spin to use. Right now some are questioning the definition of the word but I am reasonably confident that the investigations will find improper spying. I personally believe it should be jail time for a number of people and others should be sued but we are dealing with all sorts of complexities like soverign immunity.

        1. Why wouldn’t the FBI spy on someone from one of the campaigns bragging about getting stolen documents from a hostile government? It’s usually called surveillance, but call it whatever you want. That’s their job.

          1. Anon, then they should have investigated Obama because he hung around with domestic terrorirsts. Or they should have surveilled Obama for what he said to the President of Russia.

            Where did Trump ever say he received *stolen documents*? You are making things up again.

        2. https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-transcript-george-papadopoulos-interview-house-judiciary-and-oversight-committees
          This is very lengthy, and I didn’t read enough of it to give a fair summary. According to one article, both Papadopolous and Australian politician Downer stated that the conversation about Russian dirt on Hillary took place on May 10, 2016.
          The article also says that the OSC Report put the date of that meeting as May 6 ,2016. A further claim in the article was that Fix News (Napolitano, I think) states on May 9th, 2016 that the Russians had damaging infomation about Hillary.
          Again, I didn’t read much of Papadopoulos’ Congressional testimony, nor have I verified the dates ( conflicting dates) stated in the article. If the article is accurate, Napolitano basically said the same thing ( on Fox) on May 9 that Papadopolous told Downer on May 10.

          1. Excerpted from Page 21 of the Papadopoulos transcript linked above:

            Q: COMMITTEE SENSITIVE was in April of 2016, Mifsud told you that he had returned from Moscow where he had learned from high-level Russian Government officials that Russia had, quote, “dirt on Clinton,” including thousands of emails.

            A: Yeah.

            Q: Is that accurate?

            A: So my understanding, my current memory of this meeting was that he invited me to the Andaz Hotel in London by Liverpool Street Station, I guess on April 26, 2016. And at this meeting, he was giddy, you know, like he had something he wanted to get off his chest.
            And he tells me that the Russians have thousands of Hillary Clinton emails.

            I never heard the word DNC. And I’ve said this on TV, and I’m saying it here, I never heard the words DNC, Podesta, anything like that. I just heard “the Russians have thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails.” And at that time, and we could look at the records, people were openly speculating about that, too.

            I think even Judge Napolitano on Fox News, the day before I met with Mifsud on April 25th was openly speculating the same thing.
            So my impression when he told me this information at the time was he is validating rumors.

            Because I didn’t feel that I heard something so different, like Democratic National Committee emails, WikiLeaks, I didn’t hear anything like that. So yeah, it was an interesting piece of information, but you COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

            [end excerpt]

            And so it would seem that Judge Napolitano is the source of at least two “garbles” of two “rumors” that were living rent free inside George Papadopoulos’ head. Maybe George would like to accuse Judge Napolitano of “entrapment” by means of open speculation on the public airwaves. No. Wait. That would be Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller who retroactively put Napolitano’s two “garbled rumors” into George Papadopoulos’ head. Wouldn’t it? And so the garbling never stops. Because Chuck Ross has done a “Clockwork Orange” operation on the whole lot of you “garbling rumor-mongers”–including, especially, poor George Papadopoulos.

            Contributed by The L4D Tongue Of Newt Project

  3. Thank you for providing a fair analysis of the situation, that is not politically biased in either direction.

    1. Karen, Honey, because you are a Faux News disciple, you are incapable of perceiving what “a fair analysis of the situation that is not politically biased” looks like. Turley’s article is premised on Barr’s testimony. Barr is a proven liar. Barr is a proven advocate for the object of a Special Counsel investigation, and misrepresented the substance of the Special Counsel’s findings in a preview letter so Trump could attempt to capture favorable headlines before the actual report was released. Barr is an advocate for someone who cheated to win an election by accepting assistance from a Communist dictator. His campaign manager lied about it and is going to prison. The Mueller Report documented multiple instances of obstruction of justice, but consistent with Barr’s campaigning for the AG job, nothing will be done about it. Barr should resign or be impeached. Trump refuses to acknowledge Russian involvement in the election, as this would wound his snowflake feelings of superiority, so the Russians will keep on, and that’s just fine with disciples like you.

      America is the laughing stock of the world because of Trump. People like you give him hope he can keep getting away with it.

      1. America is the laughing stock of the world because of Trump.

        You are more correct than you could even imagine. His win has cast a bright light on the cockroaches that have controlled government for generations; including the Gruber-defined voters stupid enough to keep them in power.

        1. You mean Putin’s win, don’t you? Have you ever heard of an American President with proven ties to a Communist dictator or an American President who accepted help from a Communist regime, who denies reports of American Intelligence, and won’t do anything to stop it from happening again? Did you see today’s headline? Fatso and Putin discussed the Mueller Report. And, all of this is OK with you?

          1. You mean Putin’s win, don’t you? Have you ever heard of an American President with proven ties to a Communist dictator or an American President who accepted help from a Communist regime, who denies reports of American Intelligence, and won’t do anything to stop it from happening again? Did you see today’s headline? Fatso and Putin discussed the Mueller Report. And, all of this is OK with you?

            Nope. Not yet. Yes. Yes. Yes. Nope. Nope.

          2. And, all of this is OK with you?

            the Russian women are far better spankers than you and L4D Project…without gloves, so yeah, we would like diplomatic ties with Russia

            Hillary wants her Russia reset button back

      2. Nutacha sez

        because you are a Faux News disciple…

        and you are a NY antisemitic devotee.

        Psssst, don’t tell Don “call me pissy” Lemmon but…..

        ——-

        RATINGS
        Scoreboard: Wednesday, May 1

        Fox News was the go-to cable news network for coverage of the Barr testimony, and No. 1 in prime time. The 10-most-watched shows in prime time cable yesterday were either sports or news.
        https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/scoreboard-wednesday-may-1/401610/

        ——-

        If you hurry, you can get your passport ready for moving to Venezuela where your hero is waiting for you, Ernesto Maduro.

        We will live a light on for you

    2. Don’t you love the way Natacha and Olly so smugly, so arrogantly portray themselves as the all seeing eyes. Seems they can’t stand objective journalism. But then, when people hold such a high opinion of themselves, as these two do, it’s hard not to be politically biased.

      1. Seems they can’t stand objective journalism.

        Ron,
        I’ll be the first to admit if I’ve made comments that somehow warrant being paired with Natacha, then I need to reevaluate exactly what I’ve said to earn that.

        So, please identify the post(s) I’ve made that you believe reflects that criticism.

        1. OLLY says: May 3, 2019 at 4:31 PM

          [Quoting Natacha] “America is the laughing stock of the world because of Trump.”

          Olly said, “You are more correct than you could even imagine.”

          Meanwhile, Ron either read no further than that, or Ron did not perceive the “irony” of Olly “seeming to agree” with Natacha for the sake of rebutting Natacha.

          Needless to say, but possible to belabor, Olly’s drift was not lost on Natacha–just Ron.

          Contributed by The L4D Circular Firing Squad Project

  4. The absurd and baseless allegation that Trump is a traitor has now been decisively proven to be a lie. What we are seeing is a desperate attempt to distract from that truth. Fortunately, we are finally investigating the investigators and the Dems can not stop what’s coming.

    1. “WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Friday that he discussed the “Russian Hoax” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, in their first conversation since the release of the special counsel’s report, which found that “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion….

      Mr. Trump also gave no indication that he warned Mr. Putin against Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election, a prospect that has unnerved some of his own top aides, including the recently departed secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen.

      To the extent that the findings of the Mueller report figured at all in their conversation, Mr. Trump suggested that he dismissed the intense focus on Russian interference as a politically motivated effort by Democrats to discredit his victory in 2016…..”

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/us/politics/trump-putin-phone-call.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

      1. Typical nothing burger and spin from the NYTimes.

        “Mr. Trump also gave no indication that he warned Mr. Putin against Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election”

        In other words they don’t knowwhat he did or didn’t do. …And yes much of the Russia investigation was politically motivated and was known by Obama who chose to let it alone.

        1. Obama, knowing the politics involved asked McConnell to issue a joint statement with him warning the public of the Russian interference and warning the Russians that opposition to their behavior was non-partisan McConnel declined, leaving Obama with appearing to being interfering himself or to stay silent. After the election he instituted new sanctions on Russia and booted diplomats. Flynn and others in the Trump campaign secretly told the Russians to bide their time and they would make it better. That was part of the collusion laid out in the Mueller report.

          1. That was part of the collusion laid out in the Mueller report.

            Now Democrats define policy changes as crimes.

            1. Now Democrats define policy changes as crimes.

              Well of course. If it wasn’t there brainchild, then there is no way it could be legal.

          2. And that’s your case for a conspiracy…that Trump is a traitor? Give me a break. LOL.

            1. Ivan, no, there are numerous behaviors by our president that are hard to explain unless Trump is compromised in his dealings with Russia. His attempts at ingratiating himself with Putin precede his election and subsequent siding with Putin and against the US by at least a couple of years.

              1. “there are numerous behaviors by our president that are hard to explain”

                No. Anon, the problem is that you are trying to form an opinion before looking at all the facts and details. Your brain then tricks you. Confirmation bias.

                1. Trump said he’s going to personally monitor social media sites for fair treatment but had Putin on the phone and did not bring up meddling in our elections. Besides for being a foreign agent or useful idiot, who does that?

                  1. Anon, how do you know what Trump told Putin? You don’t and that is your problem. You wish you knew but don’t, so you make things up.

                    1. I absolutely guarantee you that The NSA knows every last single word that Trump and Putin exchanged in that phone call. What’s more, that’s whole and sole reason that Trump was forced publicly to disclose his phone call with Putin. It’s called damage control by means of limited hangout. See also–The meeting was mostly just about “adoptions”. Compare with–“The emails will never get out”.

                      Contributed by The L4D Start Paying Attention Project

                    2. “guarantee you that The NSA knows every last single word that Trump and Putin exchanged ”

                      Assuming they did, how would Anon know?

                    3. Trump said he did not bring up meddling in our elections in his recent call with Putin.

                      What is wrong with Allan? He has no idea what is going on yet insists on posting.

                    4. “Trump said he did not bring up meddling in our elections in his recent call with Putin.”

                      You don’t seem to be a deep thinker Anon, or a careful one. In this case you trust what Trump says but in all other cases Trump is a liar. How do you know that Trump is telling the truth in this case? This is an example of you picking and choosing what you wish to believe without any regard to truth.

                      Your earlier statement was typical of an Anon generalization which is what you do all the time making your comments worthless. You didn’t state the phone call you were talking about.

                      “but had Putin on the phone and did not bring up meddling in our elections.”

                      All in all your comments are based on confirmation bias (That is how the term is usually stated. You stated it as bias confirmation when you tried to copy a more sophisticated approach in argument).

                      Try not to be such a flip flopper and try using fact instead of generalizations. You prove over and over again (copying your statement) that you have “no idea what is going on yet insists on posting.”

          3. “Flynn and others in the Trump campaign secretly told the Russians to bide their time and they would make it better. That was part of the collusion laid out in the Mueller report.”

            Anon, I would like to see where the Mueller report says that. There were no tit for tat discussions mentioned in the Mueller Report. You have drawn conclusions not proven in the Mueller report.

            I await for you to show me the proof. Russian meddling isn’t new and existed long before Obama. When we talk about telling the Russians to bide their time we saw Obama doing it and you can listen to the exact words on tape Maarch 2012

            “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Obama told Medvedev Video at https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/2012-flashback-obama-whispers-message-putin-after-my-election-ill-have-more

            You seem to forget a lot of things and falsely accuse others of exactly what Obama did.

            1. Sure Allan. You don’t read enough worthwhile sources and like a lot people here, don’t seem to know what’s goin on.

              “On Dec. 29, 2016, with less than a month remaining in office, President Barack Obama announced “a number of actions in response to the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election in 2016.”

              In a phone call with Kislyak that day, Flynn asked that Russia refrain from retaliating to the U.S. sanctions. Kislyak agreed that Russia would “moderate its response to those sanctions” as a result of his request, according to charges later filed against Flynn by the special counsel’s office.

              Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador would not become public until Feb. 9, 2017, when he was Trump’s national security adviser. Shortly after it did, Flynn resigned from office.

              Flynn would later plead guilty to giving false statements to FBI agents about two discussions he had with Kislyak, including his Dec. 29 conversation about sanctions.

              But Flynn was not acting on his own. The Mueller report said that “Flynn made the call immediately after speaking to a senior Transition Team official (K.T. McFarland) about what to communicate to Kislyak. Flynn then spoke with McFarland again after the Kislyak call to report on the substance of that conversation.” McFarland would later serve under Flynn as the deputy national security adviser.

              Trump has said that he did not direct Flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russians, but the Mueller report indicates that the president-elect may have been aware that Flynn would talk to Kislyak about the sanctions on the day they were imposed.

              The report says that “McFarland met with the President-Elect and senior officials and briefed them on the sanctions and Russia’s possible responses” about one hour after she had talked to Flynn.

              “Incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus recalled that McFarland may have mentioned at the meeting that the sanctions situation could be ‘cooled down’ and not escalated. McFarland recalled that at the end of the meeting, someone may have mentioned to the President-Elect that Flynn was speaking to the Russian Ambassador that evening. McFarland did not recall any response by the President-Elect,” the report said. “Priebus recalled that the President-Elect viewed the sanctions as an attempt by the Obama Administration to embarrass him by delegitimizing his election.””

              https://www.factcheck.org/2019/04/what-the-mueller-report-says-about-russian-contacts/

              PS Did you enjoy the database of Trump’s 10,000 lies I linked for you after you requested it?

              1. “Sure Allan. You don’t read enough worthwhile sources and like a lot people here, don’t seem to know what’s goin on.”

                Is that your excuse for not responding to the video or text of what Obama said?

                What you did instead is go to a biased fact checker that said not one word about the video where Obama was actively “colluding” with the President of Russia on tape. He didn’t realize the microphone was on. Nor did it demonstrate or prove any collusion by Trump, nor did you bother to highlight what you think was important. You don’t know what you are reading.

                “PS Did you enjoy the database of Trump’s 10,000 lies I linked for you after you requested it?”

                I laughed at the stupidity of it and even copied one of the lies to show you how foolish that list was. As usual you never responded. I understand. You can’t deal with Hillary’s loss so you have created an alternative world.

                1. The article quotes from the Mueller report which you denied covered Flynn’s communication to Russia.

                  Be a man and admit when you’re wrong.

                  Glad you liked the database of Trump’s 10,000+ lies, You requested proof and then say it’s stupid that someone is keeping track. I think it’s you who needs to start backing up the crap you pull from your butt be accountable. What’s the point of arguing with liars.

                  1. Anon, you are talking about being a man. How are you a man when you run away after calling people names and accusing them of crimes. Isn’t that what you see in the playgrounds or on the streets when a 10 year old does the same as you do on this blog?

                    Why don’t you act like an adult and actually provide the three most important quotes that concern you in the Mueller Report. This is where our conversations usually end because for some reason like a child your statements are empty.

                    Yes, the database on Trump was hysterical and anyone that cannot see how foolish a lot of the comments were needs to read it with an adult party sitting by to help. By the way, I took one of their highlighted “lies” and showed how foolish and wrong it was. Did you respond? No. Like a child you ran away, again. If I ever had to identify you in a line up I would have to look at your back.

                    “What’s the point of arguing with liars.”

                    Once again frustration brings you to insult another. Anytime you think I am lying simply copy what was said and I will either appologize or tell you why it is not a lie. You on the other hand indiscriminately call everyone that frustrates you liars.

                    I am waiting for you to deal with the video of Obama “colluding” with the President of Russia. Now run along and insult someone else.

                    1. Still no acknowledgement from Allan that he was wrong on Flynn and the Russians and Trump’s lies, both of which he demanded proof on and which I supplied irrefutably. . I don’t see the point in discussing anything with someone like that though I’ll continue to correct other falsehoods he promotes here, out of ignorance or willfully.

                    2. “Still no acknowledgement from Allan that he was wrong on Flynn and the Russians and Trump’s lies, both of which he demanded proof on and which I supplied irrefutably. ”

                      Anon, you finally, in a post to another, supplied some context to your Flynn allegation. Despite your labelling that information as irrefutable and proved Flynn did something wrong, I responded with the correct answer proving that you were irrefutably wrong as usual. That is where you run away. I even reposted the video of Obama telling Medvedev (when he thought the mic was off) that after the election he could be more flexible. You never responded.

                      You are insulting again, implying that I am a liar when I either provide the facts available or indicate what I am saying is a possiblity. You on the other hand are like a 10 year old without any nuance in his language.

                    3. PS At the Trump’s lies database by Glenn Kessler, – who has run the same with Obama and other political figures of both parties – the more than 10,000 lies he has tallied are listed and sourced. For example:

                      “We’re building the wall, by the way, we’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year.”

                      FACT CHECK:
                      No, Trump’s wall is not yet being built. Congress inserted specific language in its appropriations bill that none of the $1.57 billion appropriated for border protection may be used for prototypes of a concrete wall that Trump observed while in California. The money can be used only for bollard fencing and levee fencing, or for replacement of existing fencing. The same restrictions were included in the spending bill Trump signed on Feb. 15, 2019. Trump appears to acknowledge the renovations, except he persists in claiming it is a wall. All told, Congress has funded about 175 miles of barriers. Trump has also tapped a Treasury Department asset forfeiture fund to build 30 miles and unused Pentagon funding to fund 53 miles. That adds up to a little under 260 miles, which Trump-speak often gets translated to 400 miles.

                      REPEATED 160 TIMES:

                      The 160 times are then linked.

                      https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.b2b4781dda34

                    4. “We’re building the wall, by the way, we’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year.”

                      You quoted a lot of garbage, but where does it say that there won’t be 400 miles of wall? The two of them are playing with semantics. If you call what Trump says a lie then you have to call what Kessler says as a lie as well.

                      Secondly, how can Kessler be so sure of what will exist in the future?

                      Thirdly, stating something will occur in the future isn’t actually a lie. It’s a promise that may not be kept, but we can’t even count it as an unfullfilled promise until the date has expired.

                      Reading comprehension is an important factor when discussing complex problems. Apparently you have some difficulty and that is why you copied and posted.

        2. Ivan, Trump said he did not bring up the 2020 election. Watch the tape of our Russian President.

      2. the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion….

        Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did far worse to our nation, and yet Bernstein still proudly flies his red flags 40+ years later

        Now the NYT has debased what little reputation it had left by becoming an Antisemitic rag, and WahPutz has been so ridiculed into oblivion that not even Jeff Bezos can save it

        Richard Nixon, you are owed an apology

  5. Turley claims: “Barr’s testimony reaffirmed many of the points of the column, including the fact that Robert Mueller was not told that he could not reach a conclusion of obstruction.”

    But, as we now know, Barr is an unmitigated liar, so no one believes his testimony. What did you expect him to say, anyway? He lied to Congress when he claimed that he didn’t know whether Mueller agreed with the letter he put out to give Trump favorable advance cover. Barr admitted he never even reviewed the evidence personally.

    The thrust of Turley’s entire piece relies on Barr being truthful, which he isn’t. Just another syncophant who threw away his reputation for a lying narcissistic assaulter of women.

    1. Natacha, It’s the twisted logic of how the right reads and hears things, He didn’t say that, and if he did, he didn’t mean that, and if he did, you didn’t understand it, and if you did, it’s not a big deal and if it is, others have said worse, like Obama or Hillary.

      1. There is nothing twisted about the actual words used by Barr when he testified that he didn’t know whether Mueller agreed with his analysis, when, in fact, he had a letter in his possession setting forth Mueller’s actual disputes with Barr’s failure to capture the essence of the report. There is nothing twisted about the fact that Barr sent an unsolicited memo to the DOJ, campaigning for the AG position, which advocated for the position that a sitting President cannot be indicted. There is nothing twisted about the fact that Barr continues to openly advocate for someone who cheated to win an election with the help of a Communist dictator, and who took multiple steps to obstruct justice, all of which are detailed in the Mueller Report. It is a fact that Trump refused to sit for either an interview or deposition, and that this is the reason why Mueller didn’t have all of the necessary evidence.

        Someone please explain to me why any of this is OK with Trumpsters, and if it is, then why don’t the majority of Americans donate cash to the DNC to be used to outbid the Republicans so the Russians can help elect a Democrat. Because Trump refuses to admit Russia’s involvement and won’t take steps to stop it from happening again, this seems the most expedient way to get rid of Trump if this is the new reality we are forced to deal with and a traitorous AG won’t comply with his oath to uphold the rule of law and prosecute crooks like Trump.

        1. No one here gets paid to listen to your fantasies.

          1. Absurd,
            Wanna bet? Her posts are not on a par with The Weekly World News or the Onion in quality ( or accuracy, for that matter), but they are
            still entertaining.🤗😂🤣

            1. Absurd,.
              I misread your comment while doing a quick scan of these posts.
              I missed the “nobody gets paid” part.
              Of course, we can read her comments for free. And learn🙄 so much from them.

              1. You’d get more for your effort if read Natasha twice and ignored TIA_whatever altogether.

        2. You’ve got all the Dem/media talking points nailed down. Good grief.

          Now, can you tell us what happened to the conversation about collusion and coordination with Russians that we’ve been hearing about for two years? Did that just go away only to be replaced by Barr Derangement Syndrome?

          Can you explain why Mueller’s thorough report never mentioned Fusion GPS? Or Alexander Downer?

          Can you explain how Mueller concluded there was no collusion or coordination by anyone on the Trump campaign yet you still insist Trump is guilty of cheating with the Russians?

          Do you know that there was not one indictment brought by Mueller that had to do with Russian collusion, coordination or conspiracy by any American, let alone Trump or anyone on his campaign?

          YOU are the one consuming Faux Newz and projectile vomiting it all over this blog. Have you found a good grief counselor yet? You’re gonna need it. Soon.

        3. Nutacha sez:

          Someone please explain…..

          You wanted Obamacare and now you are paying for it.
          We told you so!
          😬

        4. Also, Natacha, have you checked with your dentist about getting a nightguard? I’m told they can really help you with your gnashing of teeth. 😉

        5. Also, Natacha, when you say “someone please tell me why…we are forced to deal with and a traitorous AG won’t comply with his oath to uphold the rule of law and prosecute crooks…” I’m curious how would you explain not charging Hillary for destruction of evidence, obstruction, and mishandling classified information?

          Oh, and using the Corrupt Emo Giraffe’s (isn’t that the perfect name for him??) false excuse that no “reasonable prosecutor” would prosecute such a slam dunk case of obvious criminal behavior is not an acceptable response. We’ll wait. 😉

          1. T Bob,
            I thought Natacha was referring to Holder and Lynch. She seems to still be living in the year 2016, so I thought maybe she meant Obama’s AGs.

  6. As weeks tick off the calendar Obama looks more and more sullied in this ugly affair.

    Funny that with all of the cover the Left wing MSM gave Hillary, and still lost, it doesnt appear anything is going to stop the slow moving Bill Barr train of exposing the corrupt Obama legacy. And we thought Clinton was bad

    —-

    Book: Obama saw Trump’s win as personal insult

    https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/441942-book-obama-saw-trumps-win-as-personal-insult

    Former President Obama viewed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to President Trump as a “personal insult” and a defeat of his own legacy, according to new updates to a 2017 book.

    Updates to New York Times correspondent Peter Baker’s history of the Obama presidency, “Obama: The Call of History,” published by the Daily Mail, detail how the president was overcome with anger in the days following Clinton’s defeat to Trump, which Obama saw as a result of her inability to translate his policy successes into a winnable message.

    “Obama may not have been on the ballot, but it was hard not to see the vote as a ‘personal insult,’ as he had called it on the campaign trail,” Baker writes, according to Fox News.

    “This stings,” Obama said after the election, according to Baker. “This hurts.”

    Struggling with the results of the election, Obama found himself thinking that the American people “simply could not have decided to replace him with a buffoonish showman whose calling cards had been repeated bankruptcies, serial marriages and racist dog whistles,” Baker continued.

    “I’ve got the economy set up well for him. No facts. No consequences. They can just have a cartoon,” he told one aide after the election, according to the book.

    Baker wrote that Obama directed much blame at his former secretary of State, who the former president thought ran a “soulless” campaign.

    “No one forced her to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and other pillars of Wall Street for speeches,” Baker writes, according to the Mail. “No one forced her to run a scripted, soulless campaign that tested eighty-five slogans before coming up with ‘Stronger Together.’ ”

    Obama largely refrained from criticizing his successor during Trump’s initial months in office, but has since joined the chorus of Democrats who have issued sharp criticism of Trump’s presidency.

    In 2018, he actively campaigned for Democratic candidates as his party saw record gains in the House during November’s midterm elections.

    1. No one forced her to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and other pillars of Wall Street for speeches,” Baker writes, according to the Mail. “No one forced her to run a scripted, soulless campaign that tested eighty-five slogans before coming up with ‘Stronger Together.’ ”

      WOW Obama came up with some interesting words and those are a damning indictment of her campaign from a guy who beat the pantsuit off of her. LOL

      I don’t think Obama is at the foot of all this. Cui bono favored Hillary not Obama, He was halfheartedly playing for team Democrat I suppose, but seeing him as the chief villain is probably wrong.

      1. Kurtz, at the foot of what? Sabotaging Hillary’s campaign while protecting Trump’s (among those protecting Trump’s campaign were the FBI and Obama)?

        Someone did force her to lose about 3 points from the Comey announcement 2 weeks before the election, and still she won the national vote by 3 million, losing the EC only due to 77,000 votes spread across 3 states. You think that was a plan? You think Trump can pull that off again?

        1. PS Kurtz – I lost your limk to the New Yorker AI article. Can you repost it?

        2. Sabotaging Hillary’s campaign

          She skated on criminal charges, courtesy Lynch / Comey / McCabe. She had some mild embarrassment late in the campaign. Because Democrats are childish, they fancy they’re properly immune to mishaps of any kind (even as they stuff the ballot boxes).

          1. ” The impact of Comey’s letter is comparatively easy to quantify, by contrast. At a maximum, it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points toward Donald Trump, swinging Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida to him, perhaps along with North Carolina and Arizona. At a minimum, its impact might have been only a percentage point or so. Still, because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the Electoral College…. The story dominated news coverage for the better part of a week, drowning out other headlines,…..

            …News of the Comey letter broke just before 1 p.m. Eastern time on Oct. 28, …Few news organizations gave the story more velocity than The New York Times. On the morning of Oct. 29, Comey stories stretched across the print edition’s front page”

            …Clinton’s standing in the polls fell sharply. She’d led Trump by 5.9 percentage points in FiveThirtyEight’s popular vote projection at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 28. A week later — after polls had time to fully reflect the letter — her lead had declined to 2.9 percentage points. That is to say, there was a shift of about 3 percentage points against Clinton. …

            According to the news aggregation site Memeorandum, which algorithmically tracks which stories are gaining the most traction in the mainstream media, the Comey letter was the lead story on six out of seven mornings from Oct. 29 to Nov. 4, …”

            https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

            1. 538 know perfectly well their polling is no longer reliable enough to make anything ‘easy to quantify’.

              1. Yes, now everyone awaits absurds predictions, though he skips assembling data like news coverage and goes right to whatever makes him feel good.

            2. Anon – Comey commented about emails that had been illegally deleted that were recovered, and were being investigated. Then he abused his authority to claim that a bootleg server uploading Classified Information to the Cloud, accessible by people with zero clearance, was not a felony mishandling of information.

              So, there was a dip in her numbers because the public found out that thousands of her deleted emails had been recovered. She took a hit on that due to her own behavior, and ended up evading justice. The pubic has evidence of felonies.

              On the other hand, Hillary Clinton released an October surprise against Donald Trump with the dossier, that not only made its way into the public, but it was also the basis upon which political activists in the FBI spied on her political opponent, with Obama kept in the loop. That same poison, spurious dossier has been the basis upon which Trump’s presidency has been questioned for two years, and our entire country destabilized, at the cost of our geopolitical strength.

              I would say that Clinton’s October surprise against Trump had a harder hit than Comey’s commenting that her criminally deleted emails had resurfaced did.

              The question is not so much did Clinton take a hit, but rather was it fair?

          2. If Johnny gets 304 Electoral College votes and Mary gets 227 Electoral College votes, who wins the election if 270 E.C. votes are required to win?

            1. That depends on several factors: are either of them white? Is Johnny a Republican or Democrat? Did Mary win the popular vote? Does Johnny like to eat more ice cream than his guests? Is Johnny’s wife hotter than Mary? And so on.

              1. Let’s approach this another way, Olly. If Johnny gets the 304 EC votes and Mary gets 227, how many of those 304 votes that Johhny received we’re due tto internalized misogyny?

                  1. Give this man (Olly) a prize! He got the correct answer right on the button.

                    2. “I had to ask my 10 year old.”

                      I believe it. The question was below your pay grade.

                    3. You are correct, Allan. Natacha’s 13-part quizzes are much tougher.🤓

      2. Obama was the President during all the shanigans at the FBI & DOJ. If he wanted it to stop he could have said. There are text messages that say the White House wants to know everything that is going on. That is totally and completely on him. HRC on the other hand is also responsible for being an awful candidate. She thought it was her turn and we deplorables told her otherwise.

  7. Being loquacious seems to be a prerequisite for discussion on this site, to bore those that may have differing opinions into surrender by forcing them to wade through an ocean of unrelated material before they can even attempt to ascertain what your underlying argument is, or what your point is.

    Let’s get to the point, Barr’s behavior since becoming AG has been an act of insubordination that should have resulted in his immediate dismissal!

    Just who does the AG report to, and what is the limit of his authority as AG?

    To cut to the Chase, everyone in the Executive Branch, up to and including the President, reports Directly to the United States, in Congress Assembled, and due to the division of roles and responsibilities between the House and the Senate, the Senate as the least Numerous Branch has the responsibility of establishing, directing, and overseeing every department in the Executive Branch including the Chief Executive which only manages the day to day operations of the Executive Departments.

    So what about separations of powers, Executive Authority, Executive Privileges, and Coequal Branches of Government?

    Let’s start with Coequal Branches of Government, which has absolutely nothing to do with the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Departments, and has everything to do with the Design, Assembly, and Rights of Suffrage associated with the Bicameral Legislature which divides our Government, Congress, into two equal Government assemblies to provide Checks and Balances on the distributed power and authority of the States assembled by their population versus the States assembled as Equals.

    This dual assembly gives the larger more populous states control over all Domestic Policy, but also requiring the Consensus of the Smaller States for final passage, this gives the States with the greater resources control over the Scope and Cost of all expenditures made by the federal government because they control the greatest proportion of the resources and they have the a greater proportion of the Suffrage in the House to reach Majority Consensus, meaning our 9 largest States can form a Consensus majority in the House to either pass, or block, any measure under consideration, but they cannot use this Majority power to pass any measure at their will, they must get the concurrence of a Majority of all the States as Equals before any measure can become law. Notice that the Senate likewise cannot force its will without the Consent of the large States as they are assembled in the House, this forms a balance requiring the consent of the People and the consent of the States to pass any measure concerning domestic policy.

    However, this division of responsibilities in the Bicameral Legislature gives the Senate complete control over all Foreign Policy and all Executive Functions by giving the Senate the power of advice and consent for all Foreign Policy and all Appointments which define every aspect of the Executive Branch and forms the Administration of our Government with the Senate at its core.

    Article 2 Section 3 of the Constitution states that the President shall have Power, By and With the Advice and Consent of the Senate, Provided 2/3 of the Senators Present Concur, to make Treaties and Appointments. However, By and With means Before and During, Not After, and the Processes of Conformation and Ratification occur After, and are Processes that are not elucidated in the Constitution except for the requirement of the ratification of the Constitution by 9 of the 13 States to adopt the Constitution as the Law of the Land superseding, and setting aside, the Articles of Confederation! Furthermore, the States have Equal Suffrage in the Senate, Not The Individual Senators, meaning concurrence is by 2/3 Majority of the States which must dutifully appoint, and compel the prompt attendance of, its Senators to realize their State’s Equal Vote in the Senate.

    This is not a Parliament, or other European style, Party Governing System where Parties compete for seats in the Government through partisan elections and the Party which achieves a majority of the Available Seats forms a Government and selects a Leader to coordinate and oversee their administration of the government. Our Government, and its administration, is fixed by Article 1 of the Constitution, and all power of Government is distributed equally between the States by the length of terms, as well as the 1/3 rule for replacement of Senators, to provide Continuity and Stability of Government due to the Fact that no State changes both its Senator’s in any 2 year election cycle therefore their Suffrage in The Senate does not change forming a stable governing institution whereas the House and the President May change, but all policy of our country remains constant due to the Stability and Predominance of the Senate.

    Now that we have all the structure and hierarchy of our Government out of the way we can begin to discuss the processes of governing, in particular to how it relates to the Mueller investigation and the Role and Responsibilities of AG Barr regarding the results of the investigation. First just from a overhead view of this situation, it concerns the President, and the President’s Potential wrong doing, where it relates to the Selection of the President by the 2016 Election and the possibility of interference by Foreign Nations, and the possible coordination with those efforts to interfere by the Election Campaign, and possibly by the Candidate himself. To assume that the President has any possibility of authority over this investigation, or the persons conducting the investigation, would constitute a conflict of interest which would not be allowed to exist on any level.

    So what would have been the proper process of investigation and reporting into the President’s involvement in this situation! First, the President should never have been informed that his possible election interference was under investigation, nor that of the possibility of Russian involvement through election interference which might have involved his coordination. The Justice Department should have communicated their concerns directly to the Senate directed to the President of the Senate, who at the time was Vice President Joe Biden! Then once the States, as they are assembled in the Senate as Equals, determine how they wished to proceed to investigate these matters of interference and corruption, they would have communicated directly to AG Lorretta Lynch exactly what their expectations and scope were for the investigation they wished to be conducted along with there expectations of reporting of findings.

    This would have been conducted with the Secrecy and Dispatch that only a less Numerous body, like the Senate, can achieve! Meaning, no information would be disseminated outside the Senate, Not to the House, Not to The Parties, Not to The General public, and not even to their own States or State Legislature’s, Not to anyone But the State’s as they are represented in the Senate, the Senators are their State’s in the Senate with all the Decision making authority on behalf of their State’s!

    So this puts the current fiasco into its proper context, the President shouldn’t have any authority, or mechanism, to interfere with the investigation, or interfere with those conducting the investigation, he shouldn’t even be aware of the investigation, or its conclusions, until the States, as they are assembled in the Senate as Equals, have determined what actions to take based upon the completion of the investigation, or interim findings, and he, The President, has been informed of the States reaching a Majority Consensus in the House for his impeachment, indicating an absence in the Presidency until the conclusion of the trial for removal of the President occurs in the Senate either resulting in his impeachment, or signaling the reason for his absence has been resolved reinstating the President to conduct the duties of his office.

    If the findings were communicated before the selection of the President, or before the President Elect was sworn into office, then the Senate would have the authority to Shutdown, set aside, or judge the President elect unfit, or the election invalid, which would prevent the Electors Votes from being counted, or if counted Disqualify the certified list from each affected State’s Electors, or those who have been determined to have not met the qualification for their list to be counted. Remember, the first election only had 10 States participate, New York was one of the States that did not ratify the Constitution in time to participate!

    Now when it comes to The AG not transferring a complete report with all supporting information, or refusing to attend Congress when summoned, whether it is an official summons or not, that would be insubordination and a reason for immediate removal, by impeachment, no questions asked, the States, while they are in conference with the AG in the Closed Senate, could initiate his impeachment during his testimony, and vote on his removal before he left the Senate Chamber at the conclusion of those proceedings with his pink slip and the assurance that his personal belongings would be forwarded to him in due time.

    Now I know many of you are saying that the Republicans in the Senate would not vote to remove him, but you must realize the Parties, along with all their conflicts of interest, would not be participating in any of the Senate’s deliberations, and would not even be aware of any of the Senate’s proceedings, and none of the conflicts of interest associated with party affiliation would exist in the Senate, which is an Assembly of the States as Equals with independent Equal Suffrage to reach a Majority Consensus of the States, not a Bipartisan Majority Consensus of the Parties!

    1. a fascinating hypothesis. but just as you criticized others, you ended up being quite loquacious there. I will set this aside for further study at a later date when I have about a half hour freed up to figure it out, and in the meantime, ah, thank you for your contribution sir/ madam

    2. Being loquacious seems to be a prerequisite for discussion on this site???

      “1600 words, 9836 characters. Readability level: college graduate”

      The bad news is that WordCountItools website
      https://wordcounttools.com/ indicates you used 1600 words and almost 10000 characters to relieve your bowels even if nobody would bother to read. The good news is that it scored you as a college graduate writer.

      You get the loquacious award.
      Getting people to read your tripe is your next hurdle.
      😉

      1. Are you sure about that reward to “federalist? Anonymous who says she’s L4D seems more deserving.

        1. I can explain your confusion. When you read the words, “excerpted from The Mueller Report,” you mistakenly presume that the “Anonymous” who says she’s L4D had somehow written the words that follow the citation “excerpted from the Mueller Report,” when, in fact, all of those words were “excerpted from The Mueller Report.”

          When you were a child–strike that–even as an adult you have not yet won a game of “Simon Says.” Put your hands in the air. Ha-ha! Gotcha. Simon didn’t say, “Simon says, ‘Put your hands in the air’.” You. Will. Never. Learn. Because. You. Will. Never. Pay. Attention.

          Contributed by the Anonymous who says she’s L4D.

    3. It would appear you’ve revisited the Articles of Confederation and not the Federalist Papers. You may want to revisit #69.

      The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people for FOUR years; the king of Great Britain is a perpetual and HEREDITARY prince. The one would be amenable to personal punishment and disgrace; the person of the other is sacred and inviolable. The one would have a QUALIFIED negative upon the acts of the legislative body; the other has an ABSOLUTE negative. The one would have a right to command the military and naval forces of the nation; the other, in addition to this right, possesses that of DECLARING war, and of RAISING and REGULATING fleets and armies by his own authority. The one would have a concurrent power with a branch of the legislature in the formation of treaties; the other is the SOLE POSSESSOR of the power of making treaties. The one would have a like concurrent authority in appointing to offices; the other is the sole author of all appointments. The one can confer no privileges whatever; the other can make denizens of aliens, noblemen of commoners; can erect corporations with all the rights incident to corporate bodies. The one can prescribe no rules concerning the commerce or currency of the nation; the other is in several respects the arbiter of commerce, and in this capacity can establish markets and fairs, can regulate weights and measures, can lay embargoes for a limited time, can coin money, can authorize or prohibit the circulation of foreign coin. The one has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction; the other is the supreme head and governor of the national church! What answer shall we give to those who would persuade us that things so unlike resemble each other? The same that ought to be given to those who tell us that a government, the whole power of which would be in the hands of the elective and periodical servants of the people, is an aristocracy, a monarchy, and a despotism.

      1. Absolutely not, and it’s Federalist #’s 62 and 63 by Madison, and #64 by Jay, and #77 by Hamilton.

        The reference in the Articles of Confederation is Article 9 which forms the Committee of the States which is what the Senate under the replaces!

        1. Sure, revisit all of them.

          If you believe the Chief Executive only manages the day to day operations of the Executive Departments. then it would seem to be outrageous the framers empowered that “manager” to have any negative over the Legislative branch, let alone a qualified one. How would you square that QUALIFIED negative for someone you attest is “responsible to” the United States and the Legislative branch?

          1. You’ve taken that out of context, read #52 by Madison to see how the Legislature and Executive interact, you will find that “in a compound Republic, the Legislature necessarily predominate”! You will find that the Senate is the Stronger branch of the Stronger Department!

            Good try, but you must take the Federalist Papers in their full context!

            1. Good try, but you must take the Federalist Papers in their full context!

              Meh. You don’t take the US Constitution in context, so why bother?

              Next you’ll be quoting the writings of Walter Duranty on Stalin, telling us everyone took him out of context. Alas, the NY “antisemitic” Times tried that for Walter and that didn’t end so well

              1. If you think I took the Constitution out of context, then site the appropriate references to support your position.

                I’ll leave it at that! I know for a fact that you cannot find a single reference in the Constitution to support the Government, or the Legislative Processes, we have today, especially where it relates to the interference and usurpations of Political Parties!

                Congress is an Assembly of the States, the United States, in Congress Assembled! I don’t see a single reference to Parties in that!

            2. Federalist, I will leave it up to you and Olly to argue what the federalist papers and other historical documents said but in the end the Constitution is a compromise so even people signing the Constitution might not have entirely agreed with it. That includes those that wrote the Federalist Papers and the anti-Federalist Papers.

              In the end, what is your point? Try and be succint so it can be referenced to. I want to learn more.

              1. My point is this, our Government doesn’t function properly because we have improperly consolidated the States into one Simple Republic, a National Government with a National Economy, not only in the Senate, but the House as well, in fact the Suffrage of the States has been usurped and we can no longer properly reach Majority Consensus, in Either the House or the Senate due to conflicts of interest related to Party Affiliation, which Congress was designed to be free of.

                When Congress is an Assembly of the States and the States work Together to reach Majority Consensus, then the system will work as intended. The conflicts of interest prevent the Legislative Processes from operating, Parties only try to formulate legislation within their Majority caucus to gain compliance from party members with party leadership, giving a one Shot solution which does not represent a majority Consensus, where if the balance between the large and small states was honored, then an iterative process with feedback control from the implementation and observation of legislation would drive to a Consensus Solution!

                Everyone needs to play their own role, the large States must set the Scope and Cost, the small States need to Concur with the Solution, The President must review the Legislation and consider its implementation, the legislation must be implemented by the Executive Departments, feedback must be communicated back to congress of its effects, congress must amend the legislation to address these effects, then the process continues until we as a nation reach a desired solution.

                All this partisan bickering, Control, and conflicts of interest are not helpful, the only controls in our Government are voting in the governing assembly to reach Majority Consensus, by State, according to the Mode of of Assembly, Proportional and Equal.

                But everything starts with proper Equal Per Capita Representation, which can not be achieved through partisan competitive elections. The distribution of power, and Suffrage for participation, must be specified before the elections to select representatives from among us to achieve the composition of the assembly desired, Not to set partisan control of our Governing Institutions and the Legislative Process.

                Article 1 of the Constitution unalterably defines this Nonpartisan Assembly of our Governing institutions, it’s about time we started paying attention to what the Constitution says, instead of arguing about what the Constitution supposedly doesn’t say and coming up with our own misguided Political Monopoly House Rules to gain control over a System which should be inherently equal!

                I’ve reiterated myself several times, but I’m saying we have a problem with Assembly, which should give every person equal participation through representation, and that’s everyone, not just a voting electorate!

                Well there I go again being loquacious!

                1. My point is this, our Government doesn’t function properly because we have improperly consolidated the States into one Simple Republic,

                  No, that’s not the reason.

                2. in Either the House or the Senate due to conflicts of interest related to Party Affiliation, which Congress was designed to be free of.

                  you need to bone up on your US History because the Founding Fathers were pretty savage against each other. The 1800 Presidential Election was a low point in our fledgling nation.

                  The Federalists, the party of John Quincy Adams, considered the party of Thomas Jefferson, Democratic Republicans, as traitors and passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in rebuff to Jefferson. It was Alexander Hamilton who crowned Thomas Jefferson as King when the presidential election of 1800 was decided by Congress: President John Quincy Adams, Federalist, vs Vice President Thomas Jefferson, opposition party Republican-Democrat. Jefferson considered the presidential election of 1800 a peaceful revolution. For payback, Adams appointed a number of Jefferson’s political opponents to high positions just before leaving office.

                  You can selectively quote the Federalist Parties but knowledge of them would be far more efficacious

                    1. I will not even acknowledge this wit( a reply!

                      Now where has Turley put that edit feature? Damn!

                3. Federalist, if I read you correctly your discussion leads one to conclude that the federalist system has been disrupted by an ever larger and more powerful central government. The solution is to return power to the states and the people and let the states experiment and copy one another voluntarily.

                  1. Well they don’t have to experiment and copy, they can, and should, adopt the principles of Republican Government on the State Level just as it is mandated on the Federal level. Republican Government is Indirect Democracy Based Equal Representation and Equal Participation, the Problem becomes dealing with the idea of equality of persons, and distributed power with control by Majority Consensus determined through equal Suffrage.

                    This has always been the problem, Equality of participation and equality of Debts shared by the people in their collective capacity! You have always had those that have tried to tilt the scale to their advantage, we must now in our more mature society recognize these failings and usurpations and steadfastly join together to prevent them from further corrupting our society.

                    “The Union is the Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”, Federalist Papers #’s 9 & 10 by Hamilton and Madison Respectively. #10 by Madison discusses the control of our Political Factions by preventing them from coalescing, and spreading, their influence into National Political Parties, rendering all politics as local phenomena and under the control of the People as a collective.

                    Think about it, today we have the minority controlling the Majority through underrepresentation and the power of monied interest to corrupt and control the Suffrage of the people themselves, the only solution is for the States, the people in their collective capacity, to join together as the Union to combat the forces of our factions.

                    This is a Civil War of Insurrection between the States, the people in their collective capacity, the Union, Against the Parties, our Domestic Factions, and the only way we win is we join together by embracing the Fundamental principles of Republican Government, an equally shared responsibility to each other!

                    1. Whether or not you like everything in the Constitution there is a process for Amendment. Those rights not granted to the federal government were left to the states and the people. Certain rights were guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. That is it. States have their own Constitutions and laws that the Federal Government should not be involved with but has done so anyhow causing many of the problems that seem to worry you (I think).

                      I’m not sure what you are trying to say above but some of it doesn’t seem to match what the Constitution says or the basis behind our Federalist system. Can you extract what you are trying to say and put it in clear English leaving out the words that might have different meanings to different people? We need not bring up the Federalist Papers as the Constitution is a compromise by men of various persuasions. We need to match our thoughts to the Constitution and if an interpretation is required one can use things like the Federalist Papers at a later time.

                    2. We don’t have to amend the Constitution , the Constitution already grants all the power the people need to stabilize and reestablish our Union as intended. We the People don’t have to continue to buy tickets to watch this clown show, we have always had to power to shut it down, immediately, but we have t9 do it together through our States as the Union.

                      And yes you are right, there will need to be a transition period because the States will have to fix their own governments before the Federal Government can be reassembled properly under the Constitution!

                      There is no interpretation required, the principles of republican Government contained in the Constitution must be applied as written just as the mathematical principles which constitute Algebra are applied without interpretation.

                      That’s been the problem, people resorting to interpretations to justify corruption of the system to gain advantage to promote their own agendas!

                      And you never need to use the Federalist Papers at all, the Constitution is clear to anyone willing to approach it unbiasedly.

                      You should be able to form the Federal Government, including the selection of all Principle officers, and assembly of all Governing institutions, and describe the operational Legislative processes, with only the Constitution and the current census.

                      Give it a try, I’ve done it, it produces a Nonpartisan Grassroots Government Of, By, and For the People without Parties and all the corruption, conflicts of interest, waste , fraud, obstruction and division that are inherent in a Party Governing System.

                    3. it produces a Nonpartisan Grassroots Government Of, By, and For the People without Parties and all the corruption, conflicts of interest, waste , fraud, obstruction and division that are inherent in a Party Governing System.

                      Is this George? Did you find the cure to human nature?

                    5. “What, are you scared of Equality and Control by Majority Consensus?”

                      Federalist, majority consensus is when 2 Fox and 1Chicken decide what they are having for lunch.

                    6. Federalist, I’m not quite sure what you mean by “the States will have to fix their own governments before the Federal Government can be reassembled properly under the Constitution!” For the most part they are two different and separate entities where the states can be different from one another. What is needed is for the Federal government to step back to a point closer to the original intentions of the Constitution. That will permit the states to act more freely.

                      “And you never need to use the Federalist Papers at all, the Constitution is clear to anyone willing to approach it unbiasedly.”

                      Does that mean you lean towards the textual or originalist interpretation of the Constitution?

                    7. Yes, I’m a Constitutional Originalist, without interpretation, just application!

                      And the States are definitely free to choose their own Government systems, independently from the Federal Government, and each other, but that means that they should, in my opinion, choose a form of republican Government, and decide the levels of Government they have nested, Based Upon their Population, to Control the Collection and redistribution of revenue.

                      What does that mean, it means that a small State like Wyoming can have a simple, but still Confederated, Republic, where all tax revenue is collected into a common Treasury then distributed uniformly throughout the State to pay for collective services to reach the lowest per capita cost. This model is sufficient for small states, but when you get to States as big as California, you may need to form Sub-States, which are independent where revenue is collected and expended within the Sub-State, then the State Government is funded by proportional taxation on the Sub-States to fund only those Services which are necessary for the State as a Whole, much like the Federal Government taxes the States only for collective Services of the Union.

                      This control over resources and taxation is critical for the control of the size and spending throughout our governing systems starting on the county level up through the Federal level.

                      Meaning siphoning $3 trillion dollars out of the States disproportionately directly from the People Themselves in the form of Federal Revenue has to stop! We need to put the controls back on and give the people back control of how, and how much, they are willing to spend on Collective services.

                      Just to let you know Colorado with a $30 Billion State Budget has $80 Billion paid directly to the Federal Government for a return of $10 Billion for Federal Programs and Services for a net liability of $70 Billion just for the pleasure of belonging to the Union. California is worse, they have a $110 Billion Budget and has direct revenue of more than $600 Billion. The worst is The City of Washington DC where as a City should not pay any direct taxes to the Federal Government, but has the highest per capita revenue transfer to the Federal Government of more than $35,000, that’s $21 Billion in Federal revenue for the city of DC alone. If that money stayed in their City, they wouldn’t need any Federal Programs to fund any collective services they wished at a lower per capita tax liability then they currently have.

                      It sounds like a paradox, but it’s true, the People would have lower taxes and they would have more money to pay for collective services! This is why the power of the Purse needs to be held by the People Themselves at the lowest level of common taxation to form collective revenue!

                    8. Federaist, what it seems you are saying is that the federal government should be greatly reduced in size and many of its programs such as healthcare should disappear.

                    9. Yes, it’s more efficient for the States to decide and provide the revenue for the collective services the people need within their own States, the promise of Federal Programs is just a money grab to transfer wealth from the People to the Elite and Special Interest.

                      Additionally the goal is to reach the lowest per capita cost for collective services, which in most cases cannot be achieved on the Federal level, and even programs like the military and the Post Office, which are typical programs that need to be considered Federally need to be curtailed and controlled to manage the size and scope efficiently.

                      The expenditures must be approved before the Collection of revenue. Collecting revenue disproportionately without related expenditures which can be paid through the direct proportional taxation of the States defeats the purpose of Article 1 Section 2 Clause 3 of Proportional Representation to approve Proportional taxation by the people themselves through their States.

                      What’s a State? I was told the other day by my Senator’s office that a State was just some dirt with a line drawn around it, meaning it was just a geographical boundary, which is not what a State is at all! A State is all the People and natural and economic resources within that boundary, and what makes our Government Federal is when the States are joined into the Union and the States Maintain Control over those resources through our residual State Sovereignty through our Independent Suffrage to participate in the Governing Process with our vote to reach Majority Consensus which is based upon our proportion of the people of the United States which inhabit our State.

                      As with everything else in the Constitution, every word has a more complex meaning than just a State being a geographical boundary.

                      Today we have trouble putting words like By and With into their proper context!

                    10. Federalist, to summarize what I believe is your distinct position:

                      Small government, strict interpretation of the Constitution, Federalism with a shift of power back to the states, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness where each state has self determination. OK, sounds good.

                      I will add to what I think you believe that if a state prefers a higher per capita cost for services then that is the business of the voters of that state.

                    11. The State is the People in their Collective Capacity, there are not partitioned into Factions, everyone’s making these decisions together, but as Equals, the monied interest have no more say in Government than the working interest, everyone works together and determines a collective solution.

                      Taxation on the other hand, albeit a collective decision, is not coupled with wealth or income, it must always be through Property, commerce, and consumption, then the relative magnitude of these taxes are designed to pay for the overall cost of collective and capacitation expenditure within your State, with your membership in the Union and your State’s debt liability for that membership expenses out of that collective revenue as a level the People of your State agree to, nit what the Federal Government wants. The Federal Government is the dependent and the State’s are the Parents with the money.

                      And life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution! The Constitution only provides the system of Government that you can be free to pursue you own happiness, and disproportionate taxation without representation is an impediment to the freedom necessary for those pursuits!

                    12. Yes, Life,, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness is from the DOI not the Constitution. I didn’t intend to mean it as you took it rather to mean what the citizens of the newly founded country fought for. The Constitution was how the government would be set up and was a compromise.

                      No need to make things overly compicated. Reduce the size of the federal government and its expenditures fall immediately.The most important government for the individual should be its local government with less importance as one climbs the ladder. Of course that is for the individuals of the state to decide.

                      One doesn’t have to delve into the rules for taxation until one reduces the size of the federal government. Each state decides what is best for itself.

                      Does all this rhetoric mean to you that the federal government should have no part in healthcare? Is it OK to you if a state other than your own adopts no healthcare plan what so ever.?

                    13. Absolutely, the Federal Government should not have any role in healthcare, because you cannot achieve the lowest per capita cost through a national solution, but that does not mean that each State, or Sub-State in California, couldn’t have its own healthcare solution paid for through collective revenue at no additional cost to the people.

                      Once something is identified as having collective interest, then it can be paid for out of collective revenue!

                      The State is the Collective People, and the Federal Government is the Collective States, what rises to collective interest is different for these two Governments!

                    14. “the Federal Government should not have any role in healthcare, because you cannot achieve the lowest per capita cost through a national solution”

                      That is a reason you might not want healthcare involved but the reason it doesn’t belong in the federal government is because it is not one of the listed responsibilities. I find that your rhetoric sometimes is harmful to your point.

      2. Federalist #77 Hamilton, this is his conclusion the rest of 77 is more important!

        We have now completed a survey of the structure and powers of the executive department, which, I have endeavored to show, combines, as far as republican principles will admit, all the requisites to energy. The remaining inquiry is,—Does it also combine the requisites to safety, in a republican sense—a due dependence on the People—a due responsibility? The answer to this question has been anticipated in the investigation of its other characteristics, and is satisfactorily deducible from these circumstances; from the election of the President once in four years by persons immediately chosen by the people for that purpose; and from his being at all times liable to impeachment, trial, dismission from office, incapacity to serve in any other, and to forfeiture of life and estate by subsequent prosecution in the common course of law. But these precautions, great as they are, are not the only ones which the plan of the convention has provided in favor of the public security. In the only instances in which the abuse of the executive authority was materially to be feared, the Chief Magistrate of the United States would, by that plan, be subjected to the “control of a branch of the legislative body”. What more could be desired by an enlightened and reasonable people? PUBLIUS.

        Just in case you are still having trouble, that Legislative Body that is said to control the President is the Senate!

        1. In the only instances in which the abuse of the executive authority was materially to be feared, the Chief Magistrate of the United States would, by that plan, be subjected to the “control of a branch of the legislative body”. What more could be desired by an enlightened and reasonable people? PUBLIUS.

          Context huh?

          1. What, you don’t want to read the rest of the essay which these conclusions by Hamilton are a summary of.

            The Congress is a System for the States to Govern Together as Equals, The United States, in Congress Assembled, Not The United Parties, and only the States have Suffrage to come to a Majority Consensus between the States Themselves, the Parties have no Suffrage, and therefore congress does not come to a Bipartisan Majority Consensus between Parties!

            The Federal Government is the States in their Collective Capacity, anyone who is affiliated with a political party must participate through their State’s, just like everyone else, no exceptions!

        2. What more could be desired by an enlightened and reasonable people?

          Enlightened and reasonable people?

          Franklin: Hamilton, hold my ale!

    4. 1. The Congress makes law. They don’t direct the executive branch. This is pretty basic.

      2. “To assume that the President has any possibility of authority over this investigation, or the persons conducting the investigation, would constitute a conflict of interest which would not be allowed to exist on any level.”

      The President has authority and control over the executive branch…he is the Chief Executive. He gets to nominate and fire the primary officers of his administration on his mere say-so. He is in charge of those officers. That’s the Constitution.

      Does that mean that there are “conflicts” when it comes to DOJ/FBI investigations? Of course! That’s why the Congress has the power to run their own investigation and the House can impeach if necessary.

    6. To assume that the President has any possibility of authority over this investigation, or the persons conducting the investigation, would constitute a conflict of interest which would not be allowed to exist on any level.

      Mr. dunningkrugereffectrevisited, he’s the head of the executive branch. The Attorney-General works for him.

  8. “Notably, Barr also confirmed that just eight percent of the public report was redacted — largely to remove material that could undermine ongoing investigations. The sealed version of the report given to Congress only had two percent redacted. Thus, while the Democratic leadership is insisting holding back impeachment efforts until they can get “the full report,” they already have 98 percent of the report and the remaining grand jury information might ultimately not be released by a federal court. Nevertheless, as predicted in the column, the focus of Congress remains on the four-page summary that preceded the full 408-page report. It is a telling emphasis that highlights what I have previously discussed as the priority of congressional leaders.”

    I guess that says it all. They are fakers trying to gin up more fake news. They have the report, the AG made the calls he had to make, end of probe, end of story. This is all postscripting and posturing.

  9. Mueller indicted everyone he could. There was nothing stopping him from laying out a case for indicting the President on obstruction, even if he believed a sitting President couldn’t be indicted. He would have made the case for congress to move forward on impeachment. He didn’t do that. So Barr and Rosenstein did what Mueller failed to do and that was make a decision based on the evidence and law. With the IG report due soon and other investigations into how this all began, the Democrats are doing everything in their power to discredit the AG. This is going to get very ugly for the Democrats leading into the 2020 campaign season.

    Grab some popcorn.

    1. Grab some popcorn

      Forget the popcorn, and watch for the mushroom cloud forming over Obama, the Dems, FBI, & DOJ. Not even a nuclear fallout shelter is going to protect them.

      Its about time

      —-

      New York Times Admits Obama Admin Deployed Multiple Spies Against Trump Campaign In 2016

      – snip –

      When William Barr took over as attorney general, it was the first time in years the agency had any real political accountability. Trump’s first attorney general recused himself from overseeing anything related to the 2016 campaign, and his deputy who took over is alleged to have been involved in a conspiracy to oust the president.

      While Barr was adamant that Mueller’s special counsel probe be unimpeded and his report fully published, he scared the anti-Trump forces in and out of government when he said spying on opposing political campaigns is inappropriate. His public vow to examine whether the widespread spying operation against Trump and his affiliates was lawful and appropriate sent shockwaves through an organized anti-Trump political operation that had completely controlled the narrative until recently.

      https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/02/new-york-times-admits-multiple-spies-deployed-against-trump-campaign/

      1. There are a lot of people that have invested every fiber of their being towards the theory that Trump and his entourage colluded with the Russians. Unfortunately for them, this blog has an archive that allows anyone to review who the most prolific anti-Trumpers were. Many of them are still here, but for some strange coincidence, they have to use an Anonymous ID. Of course they’re blaming Darren.

        We’ve reached a point where they will prove their commitment to the rule of law or lawfare.

        1. The Trump campaign did collude with the Russians and the report makes that clear, confirming what had been reported for at least a year.

          The legal battle is over and has been since Barr lied about the report in his summary. It is all politics now on both sides, a fact JT is somehow oblivious too in his devotion to every word of the liar AG.

          If bold predictions make you all feel better, have at it, I predict your “spygate” will yield nada, though the senate could try a another Benghazi like unending series of hearings to promote it. Barr promoted the false “no collusion” “no obstruction” line for political reasons, so that’s our battlefield.

          1. Anon with the Russians and the report makes that clear

            There there now honey, you’ll be OK.
            In 3 years youll be glad you voted for Trump in 2020

            1. We’ll see Estovir. Your boy can’t get past 45% and a poll released today has him losing to 6 of the top Dem candidates including Mayor Pete and tying Warren. Yes too early, I agree, but the righties here are constantly bucking each other up with confident predictions of triumph, when your candidate has 55% of the population saying they’ll never vote for him. Hey, maybe you can win the EC again by 77,000 votes across 3 states while being crushed nationally, but only a fool would feel confident about that, and you won;t have Comey to help you out next time.

              1. Trump was at about 39% favorability rating on the eve of the election.
                He got about 46% of the vote.
                Anyone who thinks that that poll favorability numbers line up with percentage of votes received is likely to be proved wrong.

                  1. “likely” is wishful thinking, a favorite activity here.

                    Given the polling data and the results of the last election, a mere mention of polling data at this or any point would be the operational definition of wishful thinking.

                    1. And yet the righties here engage in regular triumphalism about the next election. Go figure.

                    2. And yet the righties here engage in regular triumphalism about the next election.

                      They have good reason to feel optimistic. The American people are not as stupid as the Democrats need them to be. If you thought they didn’t respond well to Clinton’s email problems, just wait until they learn of how deep and wide the conspiracy was against candidate and then President Trump.

                      Like I said, bring it.

                    3. Olly, “the American people” have already rejected Truimp once and show every sign of doing so again. Your optimism is delusional.

                    4. They rejected; Trump is President; they’ll reject again and my optimism is delusional? Al…..righty then.

                  2. That 39%-46% split I mentioned was neither a prediction nor “wishful thinking”.
                    It was made to point out that favorabilty polls on the eve of an election do not neatly carry over to/ match up with the percentage of votes won.
                    I would add that favorabilty polls taken 18 months before an election are an even less accurate gauge of how an election will turn out.

                    1. Tom, then perhaps you should be at least equally cautionary to your ideological brothers who without any reason claim they are riding a popular wave.

                  1. I think if the left wingers keep re-running the 2016 election, Trump’s 2020 prospect look pretty good.
                    We need to hear more about how the 4 million vote margin of victory in California gave Hillary 3 million votes lead nationwide.
                    And how Trump wom 3 states by a margin of 70,000- 110,000 votes.

                    1. Tom we could similarly subtract Trump’s margin in Texas and …. he still loses the popular vote just as he does with it.. Which Americans do you want disenfranchised so you can claim he is popular?

                    2. You seem awfully desperate for someone so confident that President Trump will lose in 2020. Let’s do this; we’ll agree that the media is reporting President Trump is unpopular, if you agree to hold our beer while the electoral votes are counted? Deal?

                    3. Olly, unlike you and most of Trumpsters here, I’m not confident about 2020, but I very much like our chances. I try to refrain from predicting things I can’t control and don’t confuse bold predictions with strong argiments.

                    4. I said optimistic, not confident. I’ll have more optimism once the additional investigations and reports come out regarding just how our electoral process was compromised.

                    5. Tom, just like football fans overlooking weak teams, our arguments here have no impact on the efforts or planning of the players, nor are “lefties” the only or main participants re-running the past. If however, the past comes up, lets try to get the facts and their meaning straight.

                    6. Anon says, “Tom we could similarly subtract Trump’s margin in Texas and…”

                      Tom don’t play blackjack sitting next to Anon because everytime he loses he will blame you for asking for or not asking for another card. He feels predestined to win so he cannot believe when he loses and then he feels justifiably angry.

                    7. If Anon wants to swap out Hillary’s 4,000,000 vote lead in California ( which more than accounted for her 3,000,000 nationwide popular vote lead) for Trump’s 800,000 vote lead in Texas, that’s fine.
                      We can throw them both out, and Trump’s nationwide lead is only 200,000 votes in 48 states instead of 1,000,000 votes in 49 states.
                      So much has been written and repeated mindlessly about the 60,000- 108,000 vote lead Trump won in the 3 states ( Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin) that most people are ignorant of the fact that Hillary won FOUR STATES by a total margin of 92,000 votes.
                      And also ignore that an extremist state–California– is going to be virtually written off by a GOP Presidential candidate. The candidates and their campaigns are very much aware of the “lock” the Democrats have on California and New York, so whether a Republican loses those sites by 7,000,000 votes or 700,000 votes, the huge pot of Electoral College votes (c.90?) is still in the bag for the Democratic candidate.
                      That puts them a third of the way there to winnng the required 270 votes. Anyone trying to “call” an election by the popular vote prediction, in a fairly close race, is looking at the in the wrong direction. Especially when swamping an outlier state like California gives the winner 55 EC votes no matter the margin of victory.
                      I lost a bet in 2004 because I thought John Kerry would win the Electoral College votes,veven though he was not likely to close the gap in the popular vote.
                      That election hinged on Ohio, and a shift of about 60,000 votes in that state would have put Kerry over the top. Even though he lost the nationwide popular vote by about 3,000,000 .
                      So there are all kinds of bean-counting election trivia games that can be played.The two popular one played hundreds of times in these threads by the TDS crowd aren’t the only ones……they’ve just taken up 99–99.9% of the election trivia games mentioned in these threads. Usually after 2 1/2 years, most people “move on”.

                    8. I thought Tom said he was not going to rehash details of the 2016 election, but unprompted he’s posted now at least twice on the subject and without backing up his talking point, which I requested.

                      Obviously among the states Hillary won by small numbers several – Maine, New Hamshire, and Vermont – have small numbers of voters and their EC totals don’t begin to compare to WIsc, Mich, and Penn, who’s EC vote were won by about 77,000 votes and swung the election. Given the 3 million Hillary beat Trump by nationally, that thin margin in 3 of the 4 states Manafort passed on polling data to the Kremlin on, is a piece of luck any Trump supporter would be wise not to count on again. That made 6 out of the 7 presidential elections were Americans in total rejected the GOP candidate as the lily white party slides into slow oblivion. That they won 2 of those elections were they lost the popular vote is an anomaly and another piece of good luck – for them but bad for the country – given that makes only 4 times out of all presidential elections were that has happened.

                      As to disenfranchising California, New York, or any other Democratic stronghold, an idea promoted here by Tom and Karen, you need their federal taxes to help subsidize numerous red states. Tom interestingly brings up the fact that GOP candidates don’t bother to visit California without mentioning that Democratic candidates don’t either unless it’s fund raising trip. In fact, 3 of the 4 most populous states – that’s the ones with the most Americans living in them – are not visited by any candidates, and this supposed to be a good thing by those supporting continuation of the Electoral College. Let’s be honest. The support for that anachronism is based on another fact – given losing 6 of the last 7 popular votes, the GOP has no other way to win.

                      Since Tom is not posting on this subject anymore, I guess this is the last word, as well it should be.

                3. Hillary Clinton won 4 states by a margin of 92,000 votes.
                  Had she not won those 4 states by narrow margins, all of those states’ Electoral College votes would have gone to Trump.
                  Anyone should feel free to use this infomation. Then, the next few hundred times, or few thousand times, that some whines “Trump won 3 states by 77,000, or 80,000, or 110,000, or 70,000 votes, we can all have fun with the “play with numbers game”.
                  Anyone is welcome to play.

                  1. Unlike Trump, Hillary received the greater number of votes from Americans and that was not close. There have only been 4 elections where the popular vote loser won the election and of course we know the other recent one had to rely on a fix by the SC which they specifically made not a precedent. Anyone thinking this might happen again in 2020 and wishing for that outcome is seriously and terminally optimistic.

                    1. Hillary received the greater number of votes from Americans and that was not close. T

                      Give or take the ‘harvested’ ballots, the felon vote, the alien vote &c.

                    3. Most of the drivel about states won by narrow margins…..there were at least a half dozen or so in 2016….has come from the TDS group.
                      I have’t seen any forecasts about Trump or Biden or whoever winning or losing any particular states 2020.
                      The endless repitition about states won by narrow margins has focused on the 2016 election, by those glued to the rear view mirror.
                      Trump won, Hillary lost. Deal with it.

                    4. Anon Hillary received the greater number of votes from Americans and that was not close.

                      But your gal didn’t read the US Constitution… twice. Wasn’t she proclaiming herself to be a brilliant legal scholar or something, other than being a fabulous baker of cookies?

                      Take home message: If she cant read and play by the US Constitution and hence launch a strategy to win the White House therein, well that is her stupidity and arrogance.

                      She failed to think of a Plan B once realizing riding Bill’s coattails became untenable because she had become to heavy to drag, ya know?

                      😉

                      THE CONSTITUTION
                      Article II

                      Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows
                      Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

                      The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

                      Twelfth Amendment

                      The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;–The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice…. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President to the United States.

                    5. “Wasn’t she proclaiming herself to be a brilliant legal scholar or something, other than being a fabulous baker of cookies?”

                      Hillary Clinton is an incompetent.

                    6. “Hillary received the greater number of votes”

                      Again, Anon is dealing with deflection instead of arguing facts.

                      If the rules were different there is a high likelihood he could have won the popular vote.

                      This demonstrates Trump’s superb talents at figuring out how to win and how to set the pieces up when negotiating.

                    7. The subject today has been what the future likely holds and how Hillary “lost” the election. We don;t know the answer to the 1st, though most here think they do and somehow also think that bold predictions is how one wins an argument, while the answer to the 2nd, given the fact that Hillary won the approval of American voters and Trump did not, is the actions of the supposed Deep State in the form of James Comey, a difficult event hard to plan on and in direct contrast to the whining of Trump supporters pretending he had been victimized. In fact, most here are counting on vindication on this imaginary conspiracy to guarantee their wishes regarding the former question on the future. Good luck dreamers!

                  2. Tom, do you want to tell us which states Hillary won by a combined 92,000 votes and their electoral vote count compared to Wisc, Mich, and Pennsylvania which Trump won by 77,000? By the way, the latter three are among the states targeted by Russia with polling number provided by the Trump campaign. Olly doesn’t think that was collusion.

                    1. It depends on who is asking; try doing your own homework,anon. You seem to like me “trivial pursuit” involving the 2016 elections.
                      As far as my “idealogical brothers”, (as you ignorantly state), they are not obsessed with bean- counting trivia from the 2016 election.
                      The reason that I brought up the fact that Hillary won 4 states by a margin of only 92,000 is to ( for once) throw a little but of “counter-trivia” back at the whiners. Crybabies who have( collectively) recounted the same mantras about the 2016 election hundreds of times here.
                      You also could probably throw Michigan and Wisconsin’s electoral college votes over to Hillary, and Trump would still clear 270. Another piece of 2016 election trivia.
                      But you, Natacha, and others just keep looking to “to the future” by moaning about the 2016 election.

                    2. OK Tom, so you don’t know if or what the facts are behind your talking point. Of course no one is forcing you to get into the minutiae of 2016, whether it be the popular vote, the EC vote, or the illogical conspiracy your ideological brothers are constantly promoting – your choice.

                  3. Anon,
                    I posted comments that probably totaled about 001% of the common mantras here; “the 3 states won by 60-108 thousands votes” and Hillary won the popular vote by 3,000,000.
                    After reading thousands of those posts by the same relatively small group of people, I thought I”d take a turn going over some 2016 election details.
                    I called it “counter-trivia” in response to the TDS group here that has endlessly dwelt on the 2 election factors I mentioned in the first sentence.
                    The electoral votes Hillary by a small margin in Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, and New Hampshire totaled about 20 votes.
                    Pennsylvania was the big prize of the 3 states Trump won by a narrow margin ( although a c.44,000 vote lead is not a razor-thin margin, even in PA) , and he could have still win the election even if he had lost the other two states, Michigan and Wisconsin.
                    The details that I posted were somewhat different than the usual mantras cited here . After seeing hundreds if the same same tiresome moaning and groaning about 2016, I thought it’d be a change of pace to mention that there are 46 other states beside Pennsylvania, Michigan, California, and Wisconsin.
                    I can guarantee that the same harping on the same them by the TDS group will continue; I won’t guarantee that I’ll let another 2 1/2 years go by without bringing up other details of the c.2016 El.

          2. The Trump campaign did collude with the Russians and the report makes that clear,

            The legal battle is over…It is all politics now.

            If the report clearly proves collusion, then why would the legal battle be over? Oh that’s right, because as far as the law goes, Mueller didn’t find evidence that would prove a case of collusion in court. But this is not about the law is it? As you’ve stated, this is about politics and that is where we move from the law to lawfare.

            Thank you for being the first out of the gate siding with lawfare over the law.

            Bring it.

            1. Olly, if you read even parts of the report, or coverage in respected news sources like the NYTs, WaPo, or WSJ – not the editorial pages – you would know that Mueller explicitly did not pass judgement on collusion as he correctly deemed it not a legal standard, but on the much higher and legal standard of criminal conspiracy. Evreytime Trump or Barr or any other GOP hack claims he was exonerated of collusion, they’re lying. The evidence in the report confirms what those 3 news sources have been reporting for at least a year – Trump’s campaign was in regular contact with Kremlin connected agents in the pursuit of their help in the campaign and then lied about it, including Trump himself. That is not disputable,

              1. PS the legal battle was over before it began – except of course for likely prosecution of Trump (individual #1) when he leaves office – because the DOJ memo says you can’t indict a sitting president and Barr was hired on the basis of his vigorous agreement with that memo. The only battle left is either impeachment, which is at heart political, and with the zombing GOP hopeless in the Senate, or the politics leading up to the election.

              2. Oh criminal conspiracy, you say. Then Mueller should have easily indicted Trump’s co-conspirators at the very least. And then laid out a case for the Senate impeachment trial. Well, because. Because nothing is in dispute. Right?

                1. Olly, I have already explained the fact that Mueller determined he could not prove criminal conspiracy but did not seek to prove or disprove collusion. To anyone who speaks English however, the facts establish clear collusion between the campaign and Russians. That is not disputable and we – those who read reputable news sources – have known about it for over a year.

                  1. To anyone who speaks English however, the facts establish clear collusion between the campaign and Russians. That is not disputable and we – those who read reputable news sources – have known about it for over a year.

                    You are correct, the facts have established that Russian connection with the campaign; the Clinton campaign and other entities as well. That is something that has been widely known for over 2 years. That is in dispute, but I trust we’ll get more clarity here in the near future.

              3. “Evreytime Trump or Barr or any other GOP hack claims he was exonerated of collusion, they’re lying.”

                Foolishness!

                In this country a man is innocent until proven guilty. Mueller didn’t find what some had hoped for. I’d like to know which GOP hacks made that claim, but you haven’t stated the facts.

                End Product of Mueller Report:

                No collusion
                No Conspiracy
                No Obstruction

                There are beginnings and endings. To you, Anon, there is no such thing as an ending until the ending matches what you want to hear.

                1. Allan, if the campaign did not “collude” with Russians, how would you describe their multiple contacts seeking help from them, together with their lying to cover it up and failure to report it the FBI even after being warned about Russian activity? This behavior is proven to have occured at the highest level?

                  1. “how would you describe their multiple contacts”

                    Anon, contact is not collusion. Now we get to the hard part for you. What contact are you talking about? The Tower Meeting has been cleared of any wrong doing. Manaforte’s contacts occurred a decade earlier and didn’t impact the election.

                    But, you say ” This behavior is proven”. What behavior? What proof?

                    Mueller went over these things unless you are talking about something outside of the report.

                    Muellers findings:

                    No collusion
                    No conspiracy
                    No Obstruction

                    If there was a criminal act Mueller would have said so.

            2. Anon,
              I do know the facts behind the claim that Hillary won 4 states by 92,000 votes. I thought you were such an expert on 2016 election minutia that you’d know that, or at least have enough intellectual curiosity to do a quick Google search to find out for yourself.
              Since you, Natacha, and Peter have collectively brought up the the “Trump won 3 states by 60,000 (or 70,000, or 77,000, or 108,000 narrative” several hundred times, as well as the “Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million mantra, I thought maybe one of you might know what happened in some of the other states.
              Or maybe were not too lazy to find out. I’ll save you some work…..”U.S. News and Works Report” is the source. As a change of pace, try going beyond the robotic phrases I mentioned in the 2nd paragraph.
              If you’re to lazy to find out which 4 states Hillary won by 92,000 votes, that”s OK too.

          3. Once again Anon you draw conclusions without facts and evidence and those conclusions are unwarranted.

            Where is your proof?

        2. Olly,
          At least they haven’t blamed Darren for Hillary’s loss….at least not yet.

      2. Estovir:

        To a large degree, the anti-Trump coalition still controls the narrative. It still controls the public education system K-grad school, the mainstream media, Hollywood, social media/Silicon Valley, etc.

        This is why there are so many videos of people in their twenties being interviewed who have absolutely no idea about the misuse of power, that the Mueller Report found no evidence of criminal activity, or that Trump is not a Russian Manchurian candidate.

        The mainstream media is not going to set anyone straight. This means that prior to the 2020 election cycle, conservatives need to communicate to non-conservative voters and educate them. Right now, they are only hearing one side of the story, laden with propaganda. They have heard, nonstop, across channels, that Trump is a Russian agent. Now they hear that Barr is an agent of a Russian agent. They are not getting any accurate information, and those same sources brainwash their viewers against seeking any other sources or questioning the narrative.

        The truth is no defense when not enough voters know it.

        1. “To a large degree, the anti-Trump coalition still controls the narrative.”

          That is why Trump must Tweet.

          1. “That is why Trump must Tweet.”

            I dearly wish his Tweets were more effective. Sometimes they connect, but other times they create more problems than they solve. Fight back, but effectively. Bush was wrong to take the high road above it all and allow his political opponents to communicate what he and his party stood for.

            1. Karen, on this we must disagree. Trump is a promoter and he knows that he must keep his name in the news. He used the MSM to make people listen to what he said. Otherwise what he said would have been buried since the news media didn’t publish what he was doing. Remember early on when the news media was hitting him hard on all fronts? He was responding and there was a war. But, during that period of time while they were involved in looking at the tweets he was busy with executive orders to reduce regulation. Not a peep from the media until after the fact. Other Tweets suck the media into a debate that would never have occurred and was necessary. Then of course there were the Tweets that caused me agita, but after the fact sometimes months later I realized that at least some of those Tweets were effective.

      1. That dodge about not being able to determine if a crime was committed is bunk.

        Of course it’s bunk. For 2.5 years we were to believe Mueller had the A-Team of legal experts capable of indicting and prosecuting all the crimes related to Russian collusion. They managed to bring indictments of Russians but not Americans. Why is that? Were they incompetent after all, or were they not interested in looking at all possible Americans? Mueller should have an opportunity to testify in front of the House and Senate to explain his process and findings. He may want to wait until the conclusion of other investigations and the IG report before doing so.

  10. WSJ

    For Fear of William Barr

    The attorney general gets attacked because his probe endangers many powerful people.

    Kimberley A. Strassel

    The only thing uglier than an angry Washington is a fearful Washington. And fear is what’s driving this week’s blitzkrieg of Attorney General William Barr.

    Mr. Barr tolerantly sat through hours of Democratic insults at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. His reward for his patience was to be labeled, in the space of a news cycle, a lawbreaking, dishonest, obstructing hack. Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly accused Mr. Barr of lying to Congress, which, she added, is “considered a crime.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said he will move to hold Mr. Barr in contempt unless the attorney general acquiesces to the unprecedented demand that he submit to cross-examination by committee staff attorneys. James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lamented that Donald Trump had “eaten” Mr. Barr’s “soul.” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren demands the attorney general resign. California Rep. Eric Swalwell wants him impeached.

    These attacks aren’t about special counsel Robert Mueller, his report or even the surreal debate over Mr. Barr’s first letter describing the report. The attorney general delivered the transparency Democrats demanded: He quickly released a lightly redacted report, which portrayed the president in a negative light. What do Democrats have to object to?

    Some of this is frustration. Democrats foolishly invested two years of political capital in the idea that Mr. Mueller would prove President Trump had colluded with Russia, and Mr. Mueller left them empty-handed. Some of it is personal. Democrats resent that Mr. Barr won’t cower or apologize for doing his job. Some is bitterness that Mr. Barr is performing like a real attorney general, making the call against obstruction-of-justice charges rather than sitting back and letting Democrats have their fun with Mr. Mueller’s obstruction innuendo.

    But most of it is likely fear. Mr. Barr made real news in that Senate hearing, and while the press didn’t notice, Democrats did. The attorney general said he’d already assigned people at the Justice Department to assist his investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. He said his review would be far-reaching—that he was obtaining details from congressional investigations, from the ongoing probe by the department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, and even from Mr. Mueller’s work. Mr. Barr said the investigation wouldn’t focus only on the fall 2016 justifications for secret surveillance warrants against Trump team members but would go back months earlier.

    He also said he’d focus on the infamous “dossier” concocted by opposition-research firm Fusion GPS and British former spy Christopher Steele, on which the FBI relied so heavily in its probe. Mr. Barr acknowledged his concern that the dossier itself could be Russian disinformation, a possibility he described as not “entirely speculative.” He also revealed that the department has “multiple criminal leak investigations under way” into the disclosure of classified details about the Trump-Russia investigation.

    Do not underestimate how many powerful people in Washington have something to lose from Mr. Barr’s probe. Among them: Former and current leaders of the law-enforcement and intelligence communities. The Democratic Party pooh-bahs who paid a foreign national (Mr. Steele) to collect information from Russians and deliver it to the FBI. The government officials who misused their positions to target a presidential campaign. The leakers. The media. More than reputations are at risk. Revelations could lead to lawsuits, formal disciplinary actions, lost jobs, even criminal prosecution.

    The attacks on Mr. Barr are first and foremost an effort to force him out, to prevent this information from coming to light until Democrats can retake the White House in 2020. As a fallback, the coordinated campaign works as a pre-emptive smear, diminishing the credibility of his ultimate findings by priming the public to view him as a partisan.

    That’s why Mr. Barr isn’t alone in getting slimed. Natasha Bertrand at Politico last month penned a hit piece on the respected Mr. Horowitz. It’s clear the inspector general is asking the right questions. The Politico article acknowledges he’s homing in on Mr. Steele’s “credibility” and the dossier’s “veracity”—then goes on to provide a defense of Mr. Steele and his dossier, while quoting unnamed sources who deride the “quality” of the Horowitz probe, and (hilariously) claim the long-tenured inspector general is not “well-versed” in core Justice Department functions.

    “We have to stop using the criminal-justice process as a political weapon,” Mr. Barr said Wednesday. The line didn’t get much notice, but that worthy goal increasingly looks to be a reason Mr. Barr accepted this unpleasant job. Stopping this abuse requires understanding how it started. The liberal establishment, including journalists friendly with it, doesn’t want that to happen, and so has made it a mission to destroy Mr. Barr. The attorney general seems to know what he’s up against, and remains undeterred. That’s the sort of steely will necessary to right the ship at the Justice Department and the FBI.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-fear-of-william-barr-11556837637

    1. Strassel is probably right on. Those projecting the most are probably the most fearful but Obama’s silence is deafening.

      1. “Dream on Estovir”

        Anon, why don’t you list the dreams of Estovir and number them so that later on we can demonstrate how upside down your thinking is

  11. Dems are every bit afraid for good reason. Nancy Pelosi is the leader of her party, and if the party fails, which is happening week by week, it is a reflection on her. Her career reputation of 30+ years in Congress are at stake.

    No wonder she is pounding the table

    – Estovir

    ——

    Pelosi’s Pre-Emptive Smear – WSJ

    The Speaker is worried about what Bill Barr might reveal about 2016.

    Doing her best to raise the level of civility in Washington, Nancy Pelosi called William Barr a liar on Thursday. The House Speaker even accused the Attorney General of committing a “crime” when he testified to Congress about a memo he issued outlining the main conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

    The Speaker says the AG lied last month when he said he didn’t know what members of the special counsel’s team were referencing when they complained his memo didn’t accurately portray their findings. Mr. Barr said he didn’t know but that “they probably wanted more put out.” At most this is a small evasion. Mr. Barr had talked to Mr. Mueller, who had told him nothing in the AG’s summary was inaccurate and was unspecific in his objections beyond wanting more of his report released. The AG should have anticipated that Mr. Mueller’s March 27 letter to him would leak, but he didn’t lie about its contents.

    The real reason for Mrs. Pelosi’s slander is what else Mr. Barr said the last time he was before Congress. He said that spying on a political campaign was a “big deal,” that he thought the FBI did spy on the Trump campaign in 2016, and that he intends to find out what happened and why. Democrats want to intimidate him to drop this or discredit him before he can release his findings.

    The FBI’s former deputy director Andrew McCabe and former counsel James Baker are under criminal investigation, the former for lying to federal investigators and the latter for leaks to the press. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney John Huber is investigating the FBI surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

    There are also criminal referrals from Congress. These include one regarding dossier author Christopher Steele from Senate Judiciary Members Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.); one on former Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr from the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Mark Meadows (R., N.C.); and another from Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) of the House Intelligence Committee that includes eight people whose names are not public because the referral involves classified information.

    Also potentially illuminating will be a pending report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz into possible Justice and FBI abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants.

    In Mr. Barr, America now has an Attorney General who isn’t crippled by recusal from the most critical issues involving his department—and says he is determined to get to the truth. This is what Democrats shouting “liar” are really upset about.

  12. “As for Barr, his record on the report was tarnished by his rhetoric. He would do well to remember another Sandburg caution: “Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten.”
    ***************************

    I prefer this more descriptive Sandburg quote to the meeky-mouthed one above:

    “The greatest cunning is to have none at all.”

    ~ Carl Sandburg (“The People, Yes” 1936).

    Barr is damn cunning.

    2. Yes, damn cunning. Barr’s words soothed Trump and his followers while his actions quietly redacted away deep state improprieties. It’s almost noble of him to suffer the slings and arrows of the media and congress in order to protect the establishment. Will Trump’s howling wolves figure out they’ve been duped when they never see the pertinent parts of the Horowitz report and charges are never brought against any of the perpetrators of the “attempted coup”?

      1. “looking like Harris’s lunch:”

        Anon, that is only because you look at things through special glasses. Kamala did her job as an attorney trying to defend an undefendable position. Barr did his job by holding his own and not losing his cool. Had this been a debate between the two where he could have gone on the attack he would have wiped her out.

        But, maybe I missed something. Do you want to tell us what was said that you find sufficient to make the comment you did? You can post a time stamp in the video and your interpretation. Will you do that? Probably not because once you have to deal with proof you seem to suddenly disappear.

  13. The L4D Read All About Project says that sooner or later you’re going to have to read what Mueller wrote. And then you’re going to have to try to understand what Mueller wrote. Here’s a hint: Jerald Nadler does not work for Trump. Emmett Flood does–at least for the time being.

    Excerpted from Pages 1 & 2 of Volume II of The Mueller Report:

    We first describe the considerations that guided our obstruction-of-justice investigation, and then provide an overview of this Volume:

    First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions” in violation of “the constitutional separation of powers.” 1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the Department of Justice and the framework ofthe Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. 515; 28 C.F.R. this Office accepted the legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from the constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. 2

    Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted, it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President’s term is permissible. 3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office. 4 And if
    individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available.

    Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in ajudgment that the President committed crimes. The threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person’s conduct “constitutes a federal offense.” U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Justice Manual 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice Manual). Fairness concerns counseled again st potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In contrast, a prosecutor’s judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator. 5

    The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor’s accusation of a crime, even in an internal report, could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
    concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President’s term, OLC reasoned, “it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment’s] secrecy,” and if an indictment became public, “[t]he stigma and opprobrium could imperil the President’s ability to
    govern.” 6 Although a prosecutor’s internal report would not represent a formal public accusation akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report’s public disclosure and the absence of a neutral adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining “that the
    person’s conduct constitutes a federal offense.” Justice Manual 9-27.220.

    Fourth, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

    1. L4B…..The L4D Read All About Project says that sooner or later you’re going to have to read what Mueller wrote.

      Apparently you are the only one who has not read it. Or……Given the reaction of those in the leadership in the US House, and your act of denial, not even Kubler Ross can help you.

      Suggestion: bargain with the Devil because the American people might very well lynch you.

      Just trying to help ol “Spanking, yanking, shooting blanks” gloveless one.

      ——

      Stages of grief in terminal illness

      The stages, popularly known by the acronym DABDA, include:

      Denial – The first reaction is denial. In this stage, individuals believe the diagnosis is somehow mistaken, and cling to a false, preferable reality.

      Anger – When the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue, they become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals. Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; “Who is to blame?”; “Why would this happen?”.

      Bargaining – The third stage involves the hope that the individual can avoid a cause of grief. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek compromise. Examples include the terminally ill person who “negotiates with God” to attend a daughter’s wedding or an attempt to bargain for more time to live in exchange for a reformed lifestyle.

      Depression – “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die soon, so what’s the point?”; “I miss my loved one; why go on?”
      During the fourth stage, the individual despairs at the recognition of their mortality. In this state, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time mournful and sullen.

      Acceptance – “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it; I may as well prepare for it.”

      In this last stage, individuals embrace mortality or inevitable future, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event. People dying may precede the survivors in this state, which typically comes with a calm, retrospective view for the individual, and a stable condition of emotions.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model

      1. Estovir says: May 3, 2019 at 10:32 AM

        “L4B . . . [edit] . . . Suggestion: bargain with the Devil because the American people might very well lynch you.”

        That’s coward talk, Be-A-Sissy-Man. You will never acquire a single one of the manly virtues. The manly virtues shall remain forever beyond your ken. Who else but a cowardly Sissy-Man would call upon the American people to form a lynch mob to rid that Sissy-Man of a meddlesome shrew? Know thyself, Twerp.

        Contributed by The L4D–Be-A-Virago Project

  14. American voters wake up. See what your own Congress person is doing or saying in the House or Senate and to the snooze you lose media and if you do not agree then vote them out. O U T spells out and OUT you go!

  15. Here’s one fact that can’t be challenged: The Democrats are a failed political party. They have done nothing but resist and obstruct this administration since it’s legal election. They have no interest in making life better and safer for all Americans, for that matter any American. Each day they get before MSM they spew lie after lie. They are responsible for the abuse at our border. They want one thing power over all Americans. Not one Democrat has the courage to stand up and say enough.

    1. I agree. And the more they yak the more they offend voters. They all should wear muslim headscarfs.

  16. One gets the impression that the Democratic Party has turned into a collecting pool of all the worst people in the country.

    1. That’s the corrupt leadership under the malevolent influence of Hillary. There are still a lot of good Democrats out there who are decent normal people. I suspect they are generally not much involved with the party of their belonging.

      1. @Kurtz, If there are good, normal Democrats not one has objected to what the bad, abnormal Democrats have been doing to this administration and Americans for the past two years. Don’t you think it’s time for the good, normal Democrats to step up and out the bad, abnormal Democrats? While they’re at it do a number on the MSM. Don’t you think?

    2. “One gets the impression that the Democratic Party has turned into a collecting pool of all the worst people in the country.”

      That is a reasonable assumption and that is why many Democrats want to lighten the load by dumping Hillary.

  17. Barr was stating his opinion based on facts in the report. Sounds to me like a judge writing his opinion in a court case. There is a dissenting opinion by the Democrat yahoos in Congress and crazy TV lawyers. The TV guys mean nothing to me. I search out lawyers who understand this type of law. I then base my own decision based on all of that. If Congress feels so strongly it is time for them to impeach Trump. But, they won’t – they will just scream and yell impotently for CNN, MSNBC, the WaPo and NYT. And those outlets will gladly give them all the airtime/columns they want.
    But today, the NYT says “oops” there was spying (though they won’t call it that) on the Tump campaign. Ask yourself, exactly why was this story leaked at this time? Because they know the Mueller report was a big nothing, so now we will see leaks to try to shape the narrative BEFORE the Huber report is released. Which is exactly why the media wanted the Mueller report released to them BEFORE it was released to the public. Gotta shape the narrative for the silly, stupid public (according to the media) who are incapable of reading and making their own opinion.

    1. Excerpted from Emmett Flood’s “snitty” letter:

      Second. and equally importantly: ln closing its investigation, the SCO had only one job to “provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.” 28 CPR. 600.8tc). Yet the one thing the SCO was obligated to do is the very thing the SCO intentionally and unapologetically refused to do. The SCO made neither a prosecution decision not a declination decision on the obstruction question. Instead. it transmitted a 182-page discussion of raw evidentiary material combined with its own inconclusive observations on the arguable legal significance of the gathered content. As a result, none of the Report’s Volume II complied with the obligation imposed by the governing regulation to “explain the prosecution or declination decisions reached.”

      [repeated for emphasis]

      The SCO made neither a prosecution decision not a declination decision on the obstruction question.

      [end excerpt]

      Emmett Flood is just-plain flat-out wrong. And he knows it, too. But he does not care about knowingly being wrong. The SCO declined to initiate a prosecution against Trump for obstruction of justice. (Note: to initiate a prosecution, a prosecutor must ask a grand jury to return an indictment and the grand jury must decide whether or not to bring that indictment.) Of course, since the OLC opinion and Justice Dep’t regulations prevent the SCO from indicting a sitting President, therefore, Mueller never asked the grand jury to return an indictment against Trump for obstruction of justice. Guess what? That’s a declination decision–plain and simple. What Flood is really upset about is the Mueller refused to exonerate Trump, preferring instead to refer the case and defer the decision to Congress.

      [also repeated for emphasis from Flood’s snit fit letter]

      Instead. it transmitted a 182-page discussion of raw evidentiary material combined with its own inconclusive observations on the arguable legal significance of the gathered content.

      And there you have it. Emmett Flood is now complaining most bitterly that he was not allowed to suppress “raw evidentiary material” from being transmitted to Congress–presumably by means of one sort or another of executive privilege being asserted over that “raw evidentiary material.”

      Did you know that Emmett Flood’s letter is addressed to AG Barr–not Mueller? That’s because Mueller did not transmit the raw evidentiary material to Congress–AG Barr did.

      Obviously Rosenstein “landed the plane” in The Potomac. And Emmett Flood is not about to start singing along with the old hymn: Whitewash row the boat ashore. Hallelujah! White wash row the boat ashore. Hallelu-u-u-u-jah!

      Contributed by The L4D Extra Extra Read All About It Project

  19. I fail to see what the article describes as Barr’s rhetoric?

  20. “just eight percent of the public report was redacted — largely to remove material that could undermine ongoing investigations.”

    Barrs obstruction tactics are ridiculous. Without the redacted version of the report, how are members of Congress expected to move forward on such critical decisions as whether to spend 800 grand on a pack of lawyers or to spend it on a one way plane ticket and a beach front hideout in Samoa.

    1. Some parts of the report are legally required to be redacted.

      The redacted parts do not say, “Just kidding. Ignore everything prior, the real story is…” Just read the report.

      1. Notably, Barr also confirmed that just eight percent of the public report was redacted — largely to remove material that could undermine ongoing investigations.

        8% of the 408 page report = 32 pages.

        408 – 32 = 376 pages

        So you have 376 pages to read and weep like all of the apoplectic Dems have been doing for weeks. When a Federal Court decides on the 32 pages, Obama, Comey, Hillary et al will be in prison

        Lock em up!

        💪🏽

        1. If you discount the Tables of Content and the Appendices, then there are only 381 pages remaining in The Mueller Report. Eight percent of 381 yields 30.48 pages. That means that there are eleven pages that do not incriminate Obama, Comey, Hillary et al for every one page that stands a snow ball’s chance in hell of incriminating Obama, Comey, Hillary et al.

          Did you know that gambling is one of the manly vices–as in not one of the manly virtues? It’s not exactly Christian, either.

          Contributed by The L4D Virago Project

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