Yesterday, I posted some observations on the signatories to the letter supporting Stephen Moore for the Fed letter posted [PDF]. Here for the sake of completeness is the list of the affiliations the signatories provided.
- Laffer Associates
- Forbes magazine
- The Heritage Foundation (former)
- Atlanta Fed (former)
- The Federal Reserve (former)
- University of Texas at Dallas
- University of London, Royal Holloway College
- Universidad Francisco Marroquin
- University of Texas at El Paso
- Whitworth University
- Virginia Military Institute (former)
- University of Dallas
- University of Notre Dame
- University of Virginia (former)
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas
- Saint Vincent College
- University of South Florida (former)
- American Enterprise Institute
- Univ of Virginia
- Beacon Hill Institute
- University of North Alabama (former)
- George Mason University
- Texas A&M University
- Auburn University & Milken Institute
- Auburn University (former)
- Florida International University
- California State University, Bakersfield (formerly)
- California State University, Northridge
- Risk Management Advisors
- University of California (former)
- none
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
- Gonzaga and Whitworth Universities (former adjunct)
- California State University, Fresno
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- DePaul University
- Dartmouth College (former)
- TrendMacrolytics
- Ball State University (former)
- University of New Haven
- Hillsdale College
- Baylor University
- University of Houston (former)
- Emory University (former)
- Jacksonville University
- CSU
- MIT (former)
- Georgetown University
- Binghamton University
- Roanoke College
- Wofford College
- Marquette University
- The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation
- Tarrant County College
- Nathan Associates Inc.
- Founder of classicalprinciples.com
- Robert D. Niehaus, Inc.
- Trinity College
- Lewis & Clark Law School
- OMB (former)
- University of Hawaii at Manoa (former)
- UT San Antonio
- UNC Wilmington
- Arizona State University (former)
- Georgetown University Law Center
- Antonin Scalia Law School George Mason University
- Michigan State University (former)
- University of Nebraska Omaha
- University of Colorado
- Texas Christian University
- University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (former)
- HCWE & Co.
- Luther College (former)
- Johnson & Wales University
- Wake Forest University (former)
- Utah State University
- George Mason University
- Cumberland University
- University of Nevada, Reno (former)
- Brigham Young University (former)
- Arizona State University (former)
- Institute for Policy Innovation
- Syracuse University
- Sam Houston State University
- U.S. Treasury Department (former)
- U.S. Treasury Department (formre)
- Scalia Law School GMU
- Job Creators Network
- Hillsdale College
- Pacific Research Institute
- Institute for Economic Freedom
- Claremont McKenna College
- American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
- Strategas
- U.S. House of Representatives (former)
- President’s Council of Competitiveness
- Florida Southern College
- Ohio University (former)
- Manhattan Institute
- Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
- Institute for Global Economic Growth
- Discovery Institute,
- Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research
- Institute for Energy Research
A lot of Texas schools. Go figure. The California schools seem to be Cal State schools – certainly not the University of California schools.
That’s a very dumb comparison when you consider the size and population base of Texas. You can make an argument on the southern region, but that’s about all. You have MIT on the list and some pretty high ranking northeastern universities there. And Emory, though a southern region school, can pretty much rank themselves with the better institutions. Then we can discuss USC, UCLA, etc involved in the paying for admissions scandal and others that no doubt exist but haven’t been uncovered. I guarantee there are some northeast admissions folks sweating some bullets and losing some sleep over the Felicity Huffman situation.
It’s generally not about the institutions, it’s about the morals and ethics of the people who signed on the paper.
Good point. Schools attract a lot of people. Heck – even the great Harvard lets Niall Ferguson hang out and Ferguson is a raving maniac.
Yes!!! Reminded me of all the Texas Aggie jokes and that Sam Houston was going to be named Sam Houston Institute of Technology till cooler heads intervened.
Yes!!! Fresno! Bakersfield! Northridge! There is a Mexican saying that covers places like that – Sal Su Pedes. It translated to Get Out If You Can.
They used to call them “vocational” or “vocational technology” schools and then somewhere a long the line that became a dirty word. The quality of education remained the same after they took the word “vocational” out of it, but somehow I guess it made the student recruiters and admissions folks feel better taking the tuition checks. Most of them were (are) about one step below the better community colleges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_-MW3IEAJc
Not sure what we should think of this list, other than, like “Princeton”Kopits’ alma mater (if he’s telling the truth about having a bachelor’s degree), these institutions should feel some sense of shame being associated with clowns who would sign that paper.
Moore says he is not really a gold bug as he would use the prices of other commodities to gauge what monetary policy be. Well I wonder what they teach at this fine institutions about whether a commodity index would lead to stabilizing v. destabilizing. In their defense of Moore’s commodity index approach, maybe these fine scholars might consider the price of one commodity – zinc. Seriously – look at the volatility of the price of zinc over the past 30 years:
http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/zinc/all/
I do not know how any economist could with a straight face say a Moore’s proposed monetary policy would be anything short of a disaster. With that said – none of these people’s signature should be taken seriously.
I’m having a Nancy Pelosi moment here, and have forgotten which Econbrowser commenter had said it, but the Peter Diamond denial was really the thing that brings the point home on Federal Reserve appointments. So, you know really we already knew the nomination process had become political with Diamond before Cain and Moore had even been drawn into the picture. What was Diamond’s “great sin”?? Apparently writing papers showing he was concerned about labor. Being concerned about labor and laborers has now become a “black eye” for consideration of high level jobs. These are the things, thankfully my father is dead now so he can’t witness this, that would make my father say he no longer recognizes the place we live in as “America”. It longer exists as far as my father understood it.
Whoever made that original comment on Peter Diamond, stand up, wave your hand, and take a bow—it was a great observation and point to remember.
MOse,
You forgot who brought up Peter Diamond because it was me. But, of course, I am mostly wrong about things given that not only have I not realized that an even distribution over genomes implies an even distribution over a population, along with my failure to agreee with Big Brother that 2 + 2 = 6.
BTW, I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that Steven Kopits lives in Princeton but is not affiliated professionally with Princeton University, or at least n ot as a faculty member.
It was NOT you who first mentioned the Peter Diamond comparison, certainly not as it relates to the Stephen Moore situation—-WOW, you really ARE getting senile. I’ll see if I can hunt the comment down to give proper attribution. I’d say I’m surprised but it’s not the first time you lied on this blog—consciously or not it’s starting to become a pattern for you.
Fair enough, MOse. Forgot about pgl mentioing it a month ago. I did so more recently without thinking about that.
Hey, pgl, sorry about forgetting you brought it up first. I am sure you have sobbing in your beer over my senile forgetfulness, almost as bad as Nancy Pelosi’s.
BTW, Mose, your outrage over this is just hilarious. I should do this more often just to see if I can make you completely lose your mind.
@ Barkley Junior
You mean lying about who said what first?? Or being such a narcissist you assume you said something first?? Or mis-quoting/misattributing research papers you use as citations that don’t even support your base argument?? Calling something uniformly distributed a “skewed” distribution?? Or lecturing to others on political correctness when you’re faculty at a school named after a slave-owner?? I think ALL those things come naturally to you, you needn’t work at it.
I provided the link to the paper you refused to provide the link for because you knew you had been busted. That was obvious from the get go. Yet you continued to walk onward with the lie. A person who calls himself a professor should know better—so yes, I enjoy calling you out.
It was baffling who mentioned it on the 26th of March. But maybe who I should semi-apologize to is pgl as it appears he/she mentioned it before baffling did. If pgl wants me to reference her/his link I will do that as well in this part of the thread. Here is baffling’s comment link on the 26th:
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2019/03/stop-stephen-moore#comment-222616
BTW, Mose, there is another reason besides senility and lying why I might have made the goof I did. I do not read every statement here. You are among the ones I avoid the most because you are constantly going on about things not relevant to this site, although I kind of keep an eye peeled for you regarding going overboard in your periodic sexist outbursts.
As it is, I did not read baffling’s comment on Diamond, shame on me. I did read pgl’s generally reading his generally useful, informed, and intelligent remarks. On his, I just forgot about it.
As it is, the Diamond matter had been on my mind from the moment these appointments came up. I am one of the few here who actually knows both Diamond and Moore, as well as a large chunk of the top leadership at the Fed personally. Thus these two awful appointments (including Cain) are almost a personal matter for me.
In any case, I apologize for not reading word for word every one of your posts as well as some others, same apology to baffling. But on pgl’s early comment, just label me as senile as Nancy Pelosi.
BTW, Mose, what games do you play with your kids? With mine and my grandchildren I play chess, go, and non-board bridge, among others.
As for working in an institution named after James Madison, well, I shall move away from doing so when Menzie agrees to move away from a city named for him.
Bur, if you want to get on me about slave-owning, not only am I actually distantly related to Madison, but I am directly descended from serious slaveowners, connected to Confederate generals and the whole she-bang. This is much worse than forgetting about pgl mentioning the Diamond case a month ago. There are clearly just a huge amount of things I should be ashamed of. I should probably just stop posting here entirely, out of my abysmal shame.
But, hey, at least my grandchildren, and even an occasional child, likes to play various games with me.
I see very bright things in their future, as long as Grandpa doesn’t misquote the rules book as he goes along, or say he was the first one to discuss the castling move.
Yes, my gandkids look to do very well, like their parents. Sorry you will not have any, Mose.
@ Barkley Junior
If I ever have grandchildren (which I agree is doubtful) I will try to teach them by example the value of truth and hard facts. I hope (wish??) you do the same.
@ Menzie
Menzie, it just dawned on me—there must have been a Peter Diamond signatures type list to endorse Peter Diamond, yes??? Can we look at that to draw comparisons?? I’ve been looking online the last 4 minutes and apparently my Google search skills are failing me again. Can’t believe there wasn’t a signatures endorsement list for Diamond. If there was, the comparison must be pretty stark, yeah???
Democrats do not need to do these stupid signature lectures. Diamond’s CV speaks for itself.
That is correct, and especially for the case of Peter Diamond.
Trying to remain calm while William Barr continues on with his conga line of lies with no bourbon or strong drink in the house is going to be hard tomorrow. I may have to start sniffing paint cans tomorrow or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU
Reading The Big Debt Crises:
The debate continued at the start of 1936. FDR wanted to signal a concern around inflation ahead of the election, so he urged that reserve requirements be tightened that spring. Fed Chairman Eccles was worried that banks would accumulate a lot of bonds and loans at low rates and then get burned by inflation.
… By that July, Fed Chairman Eccles met alone with FDR, explaining his intention to raise reserves and assuring the president he would not act if he felt interest rates would rise and that the Fed would buy bonds if they sold off. The Fed tightened reserves later that month.
(I don’t see any difference of “lying” on this blog. I understand you want to cast yourselves as the right and upright guys.)
pgl, the Zinc price is actually “good” in a sense. 07-09 was very volatile. Post-09, stare at the chart and the volatility is at market “normal”; then you can still read out the average price and how it’s moving. WTI is another indicator in that it’s **weakly** responsive to crude production cost, long rates, inflation and productivity. For human to “crudely” process the information you’d need “accept” the noise and try to read the average levels.
Menzie for your scolding of JBH, you “always” selectively show numbers. Here is the Capacity Utilisation:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TCU
… Well I don’t pretend I know better or am saying anything truer. I just mean you bunch are not as “right” or “righter” as you think you are, as it appears to various people’s minds.
So better focus your approach and make something “happen”.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2019/apr/18/uk-retail-sales-eurozone-economy-pmi-manufacturing-services-business-live?page=with:block-5cb836768f08c89bd9063d49#block-5cb836768f08c89bd9063d49
Comparing Diamond and Moore is comparison chalk and cheese. It was a disgrace Diamond never made it.
Comparing Diamond and Moore is sort of like the New Orleans Pelicans getting rid of Anthony Davis and putting me in as their center (I’m 5′ 6″ tall and have weak vertical leap)!
Many institutions in academia and government are heavily leftist.
Even in a conservative institution, the leftist will become hysterical learning a conservative will give a speech, and mobilize to put a stop to it.
Aren’t you late for your KKK meeting? Maybe if you show up on time – they can give you new talking points.
OMG – lots of people pouring over and over this Mueller report. As a public service, I provide the Cliff Notes version:
(1) Trump repeatedly obstructed this investigation.
(2) The obstruction worked to muddy the waters on the clear collusion between Team Trump and Putin’s people to rig the 2016 election.
OK – now that this is crystal clear, we can return to the economic debates!
pgl,
Lamentations!
You and the democrat media are saying the ‘grand juries failed to be conned and support deposing the president’!
What appears to me: Mueller is whining in the 400 odd page statement. He failed to get a conviction so is lamenting that the system demands proof of guilty.
Exoneration need not be proven. Exoneration is not the job of the failed prosecutor!
The whole “Mueller” proceeding was a sham the coming blither storm is a shame!
Anyone who wants to download the report with the redactions and William Barr’s personal spin as donald trump’s quasi-defense lawyer—you can do it at this link:
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
Other than that I would say your best bets are NYT, WaPo, and Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed provided the EASIEST access to the report—the other sites seemed to be more interested in piling up web hits. At least for today, reward those who respect your intelligence enough to hand you the news directly—that would be Buzzfeed in this particular case.
Uncle Moses’ Energy drink inflation Report: 16th of April (Tuesday) picked up Monster Energy drink, $1.49 per can. Appears to be holding relatively constant month-to-month with a slight bias upward. Uncle Moses too lazy to do mathematical logs.
Will update with “bang” energy drink report inside the next 2 weeks. This update sponsored by the non-profit “Degenerates and Slackers For A Better World” LLC.
Four weeks ago Trump stooge Robert Barr wrote his four page white wash of the Mueller report which we did not get to see until late this morning. Four weeks ago – Trump stooge CoRev concluded that we liberals were ducking the alleged facts that there was no obstruction and no “collusion”. Weird CoRev is nowhere to be found today. Wonder why? Oh yea – the real Mueller report has tons of evidence that Trump serially obstructed justice. But what was he covering up?
Read this and learn:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-campaign-was-deeply-co-opted-by-russian-influence-operation
Seems that the evidence that Russian agents and members of Team Trump were doing a lot of coordination to make sure that Trump would be elected over Clinton. But give CoRev a little time – he is a master of cherry picking and misrepresenting long documents. I just hope he includes some color coding!
pgl,
the problem with liberals is that
the US is not Stalin’s USSR.
here we need to prove guilt!
evidence was needed for
indictments that did not come forth!
political evidence is a Stalinist tool you all……..
why are you opposed “innocent until proven guilty”?
do you think somehow the grand juries
needed to be ‘stacked’?
Sarah Huckabee telling LIES?? About the Director of the FBI??? No wait….. this can’t be true, because Sarah Huckabee and her daddy Mike Huckabee are like SuperChristians and stuff. They belong to DC Comics’ SuperChristian Power Team. I have all the DC Comics SuperChristian Power Team back issues. SuperChristians don’t like, LIE and stuff. Oh man, I’m getting so confused again.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/mueller-report-sarah-sanders-james-comey-comments
Does anyone know if I call a woman a LIAR if it’s sexist or not?? Anyone have a “Spring 2019 SJW Quarterly Protocol Booklet” handy that I can borrow?? I don’t wanna emotionally “trigger” any chicks getting their Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Nonfat Decaf Organic Chocolate Brownie Iced Vanilla Double-Shot Gingerbread Frappuccino Extra Hot With Foam Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended at Starbucks right now. Really, I don’t want to upset any of them…… honest, I don’t.
“Does anyone know if I call a woman a LIAR if it’s sexist or not??”
Sarah Yuckabee is a woman? Everytime I see this lying cow I have to think – she is fat even for a cow.
They keep saying “a foreign government” in relation to the Papadopoulos squawking. I’m pretty damned sure that has been well-established for awhile now as Australia so I don’t know why they keep being vague about that. I suspected Not Trampis had something to do with this the whole time.
I have a query for some of our sharper readers out there. Or maybe a reader who is good at tech things but usually is silent on the blog. I downloaded the government website version of the pdf file of the Mueller Report. Now sometimes I am a slow reader (or just lazy) and it takes me awhile to read through things. I like to highlight pdf forms that I really like, because then I can go back and focus on the crucial parts later and skip the more mechanical or routine words. But with the government pdf off Buzzfeed it seems it won’t allow me to pick out individual words, sentences, or paragraphs. I have never had this problem with a pdf file before, so I am assuming it is this particular pdf form that is not allowing me to do that. Does anyone have a “work around” tech wise, where either I can find another pdf version of the Mueller report, or a free software that i can get that will allow me to highlight/underline particular words, sentences and paragraphs in the Mueller report?? I would be grateful for anyone who can assist me to find a solution to this, preferably before midnight of Thursday, but any time you read this and have an answer for me, even past midnight tonight (Thursday) I would be very appreciative of that–and to that person. THANKS ahead of time.
Couple more Mueller Report links. I suppose this is useless in some aspects, but somehow it makes me feel better psychologically uploading this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/read-the-mueller-report/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2604367ecaa5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G73iRRgoLKg <<—–LIVE audio/video feed of Mueller Report, which I'm assuming would be uploaded later as a "recorded" link when it is complete. Kind of like an audio book. If your eyes are bad or you dislike reading, this might not be a bad think to save as a link for later.
Couple more Mueller Report links. I suppose this is useless in some aspects, but somehow it makes me feel better psychologically uploading this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/read-the-mueller-report/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2604367ecaa5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G73iRRgoLKg <<—–LIVE audio/video feed of Mueller Report, which I'm assuming would be uploaded later as a "recorded" link when it is complete. Kind of like an audio book. If your eyes are bad or you dislike reading, this might not be a bad think to save as a link for later.
@moses
https://www.daniweb.com/hardware-and-software/microsoft-windows/threads/197972/4-ways-to-edit-the-read-only-pdf-files
@ randomworker
Realize, I don’t need to “edit” as such, but be able to highlight or underline. But I’m going to assume you know what I mean and this may have my answer—Either way, I appreciate it greatly.
For anyone curious (Maybe I am the LAST person to figure this out on planet Earth??). The Mueller Report as Barr to do disseminate it is a SCANNED pdf file. That means the text is not “real” text as such (or as computer program might recognize it). Therefor, (or as this Adobe forum has me believing) you need “OCR” software (Optical Character Recognition) to turn the images of text into “real” text. I am going to hunt for this in the a.m. hours here (amongst other things I am behind on) and hope that Monster drink keeps me going. But, again, if anyone can recommend FREE OCR type software that they themselves have used and can at least semi-vouch for the site to download if from, I would be greatly in your debt and much much appreciative of it, and the person who can hook me up FREE on that. Again, THANKS ahead of time to anyone who can point me in the right direction on FREE “OCR” type software.
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2307886
I wonder if trump’s quasi-defense attorney William Barr made it available as a scanned PDF on purpose for just this reason?? because it makes it much harder to compare notes on??—Most of these type things are put up on a cloud server and can download them that way. Even government ones—WEIRD
OK, I think I may have found, how to say a “stopgap” or “makeshift” solution to the problem. I did what all great icons have done through history. I cheated. What the F— else did you think I was gonna do?!?!?!?! Uuuuhm….. let me say this answer may be particular to my system and may not work for you, and I’m presuming there will be more “OCR’d” versions of this as time progresses. But for those SUPER eager folks like me, here is what worked for me: I went to a “BoingBoing” link that had already created an OCR version of Barr’s scanned pdf, and all you had to do was download the OCR version of the originally SCANNED pdf. Here is that link;
https://boingboing.net/2019/04/18/here-is-the-redacted-mueller-r.html
Now, scroll down a small amount, maybe not even 1/8th of the page, you’ll see a blue text link which says something about “OCR’d/ searchable version”. Go ahead and click on that, and then download it if you fully believe it is safe (I believe myself that it is safe, but that’s your call). Now after you DL it, you may find it’s a little touch and go highlighting text, as it’s not as “smooth” or user friendly as a regular (not scanned) pdf. For example when I used pink it would highlight more of the text than I wanted. Then I had to figure out how to delete that (kinda frustrating). So I scratched my head a little “How to fix??”. Well I switched to green just to see if it would “react” differently. And guess what??—it did, with green specified text—for whatever the hell reason (I have no idea) the highlighted text function seemed to work ok then. You might ask “Why the hell would green work better than pink??” I have NO F’ing idea. I just know that on MY system it does. This ended up saving me a TON of headaches figuring out a free package to turn the scanned pdf into an OCR’d PDF. I think there will be other OCR’d versions of the Mueller report online very soon–certainly inside the next 2 weeks, probably sooner. But this might work for people such as myself, who aren’t “tech savvy” all of the time. I will also share 2–3 more links that discuss the issue with the SCANNED pdf forms. Hope my 45 minute headache helps SOMEONE!!!! God bless
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18484973/adobe-acrobat-pro-character-recognition-searchable-text-pdf
https://www.poynter.org/tech-tools/2019/the-mueller-report-is-coming-are-you-technically-ready/
https://twitter.com/seanodotcom/status/1118899652269608961
Xeni Jardin (A writer at BoingBoing??) and @seandotcom on Twitter were the lifesavers here—so if you found it helpful send them a tweet and say “Thank you for the OCR’d version!!!”
The search function DOES appear to work on the OCR’d version for any one who is curious. For example, when I put in Don McGahn’s name (who is very important as it relates to donald trump’s obstruction of justice charges), McGahn does not appear anywhere until Volume 2, which by the pdf numbering system (not the government’s page numbering) is roughly page 215 (page 3 of Volume 2 by the government’s numbering system). So McGahn a hell of an important figure in all this—but you wouldn’t even see his name until after you had read over 200+ pages of the redacted Mueller Report.
Moses,
Read the whole report! Word searching will give you affirmation, but you will find no truth in the report.
Your consumer risk will be seriously high.
You already know the grand juries were filled with deplorables who cannot think as well as a Clinton supporter.
Question: What part of “no collusion, no obstruction of justice” do you not understand?
sammy: Where in the Mueller report (not the Barr letter) does it say “no obstruction of justice”?
“insufficient evidence” is analogous to “not guilty”
sammy: Are you serious? Then I guess failure to reject the null hypothesis is the same as proving the null is correct. I learn something new every day!
As the old worn out cliche goes “There is still tons of this we are ‘still parsing’ “, but I found this one to be noteworthy:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BannedFromThe_Donald/comments/ben4qd/ill_take_words_of_a_completely_innocent_man_for/
There is also an interesting part in the appendix somewhere—not the main body, but the appendix, I think it was page 170.
There are many others to be found in the Mueller Report—pay close attention to many of the quotes from Don McGahn—who they will work overtime to demonize now, the same they did with Cohen.—which is why I was wanting a highlight and underline function on that pdf. I can track them much faster and obviously do some “recall” on it later.
Menzie,
Are you serious? Surely you must understand that failing to reject a null hypothesis is not analogous to decisions made in the criminal justice system? If the prosecutor fails to make his case, the defendant is pronounced “not guilty,” not “failed to reject null of not guilty.” There is a constitutional basis for that: perhaps you’ve heard of double jeopardy? In America at least, everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless proven guilty.
We never even got to “not guilty.” Mueller declined to make a determination on whether justice was obstructed, which was his job. So Barr and Rosenstein did. It’s not a close call legally.
This hoax ended as it was always going to: no collusion and no obstruction.
Rick Stryker: Sorry, where does the report conclude that there was no obstruction?
Menzie, oh, if we could just model life and live in that ole model! Rejection of the null hypothesis with a marginal p-value is where we too often live in life. Clearly, Mueller seemed to think his report on obstruction was in or below that marginal world.
Only the handful still unable to accept reality make more of the Mueller Report than is there. You diminishing handful lived in a made up Trump hating world of collusion. Now all you can do is make up your own new Trump hating world around obstruction. What’s funny is the follow-on investigations look to point at the leaders in the previous Dem administration.
This meme is going around with non-libs:
JUST THINK ABOUT STUPID THE DEMOCRATS ARE
They lost an election they rigged
AND
They lost an investigation they rigged
Rick Stryker If the prosecutor fails to make his case, the defendant is pronounced “not guilty,” not “failed to reject null of not guilty.”
Another reason why we should probably adopt the British term “not proven.” But your point is irrelevant because Trump never went to trial. The “guilty” versus “not guilty” finding is the result of a trial, not the conclusions of a prosecutorial investigation. Under the OLC rules it was not possible to arrive it either a guilty or not guilty finding precisely because the OLC rules state that a sitting president cannot be indicted, never mind put on trial. Now if Trump had been indicted by a grand jury and found not guilty by a petit jury, then you might have a point. But we never even got to the grand jury stage. And your double jeopardy argument is even more off the mark. The double jeopardy rule only applies to being tried and convicted after first being tried and found guilty. Trump was never tried the first time, so the idea of double jeopardy is preposterous on its face. Fans of Sean Hannity might find that kind of argument convincing, but Sean Hannity is an idiot with no more than a high school diploma who was a down and out DJ spinning Britney Spears records before Fox Noise picked him up.
Do you think historians will be compelled to assume Trump is “not guilty” just because Mueller was prevented from issuing an indictment? If so, then you must buy your history books from “books” offered by Regnery Publishing. Real historians prefer the subtler “failed to reject the null” approach. And responsible citizens should prefer that approach as well. We don’t all have to be stupid.
As to collusion, I don’t think anyone ever thought Trump or any of his kids were anywhere near smart enough to actually sit down and hatch a plot to collude or conspire with Putin. Trump fawned after Putin and craved Vladimir’s approval, but I don’t believe he ever actively plotted with the Russians. My reading of the Trump Tower meeting is that Trump’s family and team were eager to get dirt from the Russians, but were disappointed with the offer. They were hoping for more. They weren’t outraged that the Russians were trying to interfere in the election, and they weren’t offended by the fact that the Russians thought Team Trump could be bought. What outraged Don Jr and Jared was that the Russians didn’t have more to offer and they viewed the meeting as a waste of time. For my money that’s much worse than active collusion. Did the Trump family self-report this to the FBI, as any good citizen would have? No, of course not. It’s about all we need to know about the moral sense and patriotism of the Trump family. We already knew that Donald “Bone Spurs” Trump was a physical coward. Now we know that his offspring carry the same Cosa Nostra gene as President Trump’s father and grandfather…and Trump’s sister who just had to resign her position as an Appellate Court judge over some shady dealings. What a family.
Menzie, you really have an insulated mindset. Trump has said he’s innocent of collusion and obstruction. When your leader tells you that, that’s all the evidence that you need. You dirty liberals are all the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh163n1lJ4M
And when Donald Rumsfeld gave an affirmative answer to Nixon after Nixon used the N-word on the Nixon tapes, that wasn’t racism. Rumsfeld was just agreeing that one of the clouds in the sky that day reminded Donald of his mother.
Count them Sammy – 10 specific instances. Oh wait – you’ll have to take your shoes off to count that high!
“Rick Stryker: Sorry, where does the report conclude that there was no obstruction?”
Menzie is being too kind to The Rick. There are 11 – count them 11 – instances of obstruction noted in this report. Of course Rick has only read the couple of lines in the 448 page report his bosses emailed to him.
obstruction of the witch hunt was not proven, nothing indicted.
where in any judicial procedure is proof of innocence required?
my conclusion is to accept the shameful Mueller process as wasteful, politically misguided theater with a<2% chance of being wrong.
Even though Trump reportedly said he was “f____d”, you were always positive he wasn’t.
I generally ignore your gibberish but this intellectual garbage takes the cake. But pardon the interruption as you need to get back to working for Putin.
Not to worry, ilsm. The boys in the Kremlin are solidly on your side. Just listened to Dimitry and Georgy–two Putin stooges–blast the investigation while insisting–despite all the evidence to the contrary IN THE REPORT–that Russia had no role AT ALL in trying to sway the 2016 election to Trump.
Reports out of Russia say they’re actually making fun of Muller and the report. Those freedom loving Kremliners! Leave it to them to show us Stalinists how to proceed toward true life, liberty, and happiness.
Congratulations. Putin won, and you couldn’t be happier.
The problem, sammy, which has been regularly pointed out although the Trumpites including Barr in his press conference prior to the release have attempted to drone out by repeatedly lying about it, is that the Mueller Report does not address “collusion.” The word does not get used. It addresses criminal conspiracy, which it failed to find. It has been Trump himself who has misinterpreted this finding to mean “no collusion,” which his hacks, including Barr, have relentlessly repeated, and you, along with many others, including many in even the MSM, have fallen for.
Conspiracy involves planning and mutual communication an direction. Collusion includes a much looser cooperation and assistance that can be decentralized and not planned and coordinated. Although the term is simply avoided due to its vaguness and lack of legal definitioin, the MR clearly shows lots and lots of collusion. It is criminal conspiracy it said could not be established.
So stuff it with the claim that “no collusion” was found. You will not and cannot find that in the Mueller report, despite Barr’s repeated claims of this in his press conference. Ironically he was more careful on this point in his earlier 4-page summary, where he avoided using the word “collusion,” although, of course, Trump himself immediately began trumpeting the claim that the four page summary showed the infamous and not-shown “no collusion.”
The real “collusion delusion” is the belief by Trumpites that the Mueller Report shoed “no collusion.” It did not. Sorry to point out thee bad news to you.
Conspiracy was there. The evidence could not be fully developed because the obstruction worked.
Barkley,
The Mueller whinery went way out of line in saying “no exoneration”. The US’ proceedings do not require a prosecutor or grand jury to exonerate. It is sour grapes to report as Mueller did.
Exoneration blithering gets in the way of: “no indictment were rendered”!
Related to T J Rosser? I will have to go deeper in to cavalry in the Civil War.
I have Sheridan’s Memoir and a book on John Buford. I have read bio’s on Custer.
My connection is a NY Irishman.
T L Rosser, not T J, and also at a lower rank, James Barkley Rosser. T L was Custer’s roommate at West Point and battled him repeatedly throughlut the war, each winning over the other about half time, both starting as second lieutenants and ending as major generals.
Barkley Rosser ending as major generals.
Actually, Custer ended his days as a lieutenant colonel in the regular army. He was a major general in the volunteers, but mustered out some months after the Civil War ended. He re-entered the regular army at a field grade rank rather than as a general officer.
@ 2slugbaits
Don’t ever bother Barkley Junior with hard facts. He’s “only” a professor after all, he just makes it up as he goes along. Major historical figures or otherwise…..
Barkley,
I have a number of books on the civil war from my Father. The most numerous are about the Union side. I will look for one on the evolution of the Union cavalry I think I have. It tells a lot of the cavalry battles in the east.
McKinley appointed TL Rosser a Brigadier in the Volunteers for the Spanish American War.
Of course Custer ended up dead at Little Big Horn, defeated by the Sioux led by Crazy Horse under the overall command of Chief Sitting Bull. This was the classic Pyrrhic victory; the Sioux ended up fleeing to Canada after it. They would suffer from near starvation there. As it was, they ended up getting fed by, of all people, T L Rossser, who was overseeing the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad (Rosser, Manitoba is named for him). I happen to own a baed band that Sitting Bull gave Rosser in gratitude for feeing his people.
While most accounts have Rosser unding up as a major general, actually just before the end of the Confederacy he was promoted to lieuetenant general. At Appomattox he he led the Laurel Brigade to break through the federal lines and refused to surrender, hoping to hook up with Johnston, still fighting in North Carolina. Eventually he simply dismissed the brigade who went home after a final effort to free Confederate prisoners of war in the Shenandoah Valley, near where I live. However, Custer would track him down personally to his parents-in-law’s place near Richmond, making him personally surrender, even if the Brigade never did so officially.
In 1866, Robert E. Lee wrote him a letter saying he wanted no statues or memorials of himself put up. Ironically Rosser ended up in Charlottesvill, where he is buried in Riverview Cemetery. He got to know T Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, and TR appointed him to be a postmaster, which led to some people refusing to speak to him after that. He died in 1910.
For the record, in case it was not obvious. 2Slugbaits is correct that G.A. Custer was a mere lieutenant colonel when he died at Little Big Horn, although he was still a major general at the end of the Civil War (merely of the Volunteers).
Actually, the word “collusion” does apparently appear in the report up front on the first page or shortly thereafter. However, it appears for the report to specifically say that they are not investigating it because, as I noted, it is not a legal term, poorly defined, and not even a “term of art” in the law.
So, the “collusion delusion” is the idea believed and pushed by fools like Sammy that the MR found “no collusion,” a lie repeated five times in the press conference by AG Barr. This is now very clear: Barr outright lied in his press conference.
Barkley,
Sammy is right. Collusion is most certainly mentioned in the Mueller report.
Look on pg 180 of Mueller’s report, in section C, subsection 1 which is entitled, “Potential Coordination: Conspiracy and Collusion.” Mueller notes that Acting Attorney General used the term “collusion” in his charging instructions and that the news media frequently referred to Mueller’s investigation as about collusion between Trump, his campaign, and the Russians. As a matter of law, Mueller also notes in that section that conspiracy and collusion are synonymous.
Ultimately, Mueller found no evidence that Trump or his campaign “conspired” with the Russians, which is the same as finding no evidence of collusion. Sorry, but this investigation was always a hoax. It was clear a while ago that Mueller could and would not find any evidence and the outcome should not be a big surprise to anyone who followed the actual facts rather than Left Wing blogs or the MSM.
The actual FACTS is that the Russians offered assistance to Team Trump and Team Trump sought their assistance. Only Mr. Magoo could read this report and not see this all over the place. Of course the lying word smithers like you can spin and spin and spin.
Of course why would an American patriot spin this way to defend a traitor and Russian spies? The answer – a patriot would not do this. You sir are coddling traitors and Russian spies. I hope you are well paid!
Rick wants us to skip the very first paragraph of his vaunted page 180. I just read it and it provides a clear road map back to section IV. Hey Rick – did you READ Section IV? If you did not, go do so. If you did – you are being even more dishonest than Sarah Huckabee.
Of course Rick may be too lazy to read Section IV. Or perhaps Trump has ordered this troll not to read the relevant materials. Of course if he did bother to read it – I doubt he would have the mental ability to grasp what this section reveals. But the good news is that the following makes this so easy to grasp!
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-and-russia-worked-towards-the-same-goal-in-2016
OK Rick when you stop lying for Trump – trying boning up on what the report really says.
pgl,
Of course I read the first paragraph of pg 180. In it, Mueller notes that he investigated links and contacts between Trump associates and Russians. His conclusion: NO CHARGES other than for Manafort and Gates for activities on behalf of the Ukraine that had nothing to do with Russia.
You can’t be involved in politics in Washington in any capacity without meetings and links with Russians. They question was any of it illegal. It wasn’t.
Great line just now on MSNBC. Everyone with an IQ in 3 figures knows what is in the Mueller’s report on Russian interference is incredibly alarmed.
And yet we see our Usual Suspects are not alarmed at all. Yes – that their IQs are quite low is a well established fact!
“Rick Stryker
April 19, 2019 at 12:58 pm
pgl,
Of course I read the first paragraph of pg 180.”
Thanks for admitting that you did not read Section IV. Trump will assuredly give you an attaboy!
Rick,
You almost have this except that you left out a word, a crucial one: “largely.”
It is true that the original charge did mention “collusion,” and they set out to do so. However, it is explained on p. 180 what has been said earlier that they dropped this, or considered it “through the lens of conspiracy,” because it is not a well-defined legal term or “theory of liability” or a “term of art in the law.” They note its use on a handful of occasions in anti-trust law and there are three legal dictionaries, two of them from the late 1800s, which define “collusion” as involving “an agreement” to defraud or break the law.
We then get to the crucial part that you have misrepresented. The report does not say that the terms “collusion” and “conspiracy” are “synonyms.” They added the word “largely” before “synonyms,” which suggests that they may not always completely overlap. Certainly conspiracy is collusion, but the door remains open going the other way: collusion might not involve conspiracy.
I dug further, and indeed this is a debated matter, but the vast majority of sources agree with my view, that collusion can occur without it reaching to the level of being conspiracy. I only found two out there recently that outirght explicitly claim they are full synonyms. One is an Atlantic article by a Mike Lee, identified as a “historian, martial arts expert, and asset manager.” He makes the claim. It also showed up in a letter to the editor of the Aspen Times on April 2 of this year. That is it. Otherwise, the list is very long of experts and sources who agree with my perspective.
Bottom line that Mueller and his team came to is that while there is clearly lots of ovrlap between the two, with certainly conspiracy being collusion, they are only “largely synonymous,” and so with collusion ultimately vague and legally poorly defined, they ended up considering conspiracy and abandoning the directive they were given to study “collusion.” They did not do so and came to no conclusions about it specifically aside from that Trump and crew was exonerated on the forms of collusion that conspiracy, with it left open that there maybe forms of collusion that are not conspiracy, which seems to be the overwhelmingly accepted majority view out there.
Barkley,
The only collusion that matters is the criminal kind. That’s why Rosenstein appointed a special prosecutor. The non-criminal collusion is also sometimes called foreign policy. Let’s not forget what the allegations were. Supposedly Putin had Kompromat on Trump and Trump was being blackmailed by the Russians. In fact, people were leaking to the press that Trump could not be trusted with US intelligence. Supposedly members of the Trump campaign were actively working with Russia to assist Russian efforts to allegedly elect Trump. Etc. Etc. Some people were even saying that Trump was guilty of treason.
To anyone who took even a cursory look at the facts, it was clear that this was all nonsense. But that did not stop the Democrats or the media from repeating these allegations over and over. We kept being assured that “the walls are closing in” and that Mueller’s investigation would lead to criminal charges for collusion with Russia for members of Trump’s campaign staff, Trump family members, and perhaps Trump himself.
The Mueller report exploded those ridiculous claims. There was no collusion. Mueller knew this some time ago and so did anyone who was paying attention. Mueller kept charging people with the process crime of lying to the FBI. But he wouldn’t have been doing that if he thought there was any collusion or conspiracy afoot. If someone pleads guilty to lying, a prosecutor can’t use that person as a witness in a conspiracy case.
Sammy! Trump lied. And Barr – he also lied. Good to see you falling in line!
pgl,
Russian hackers in 2016 are like that monarch butterfly flapping his wings in Mexico effecting a typhoon in Taiwan.
Anyone with IQ in 3 figures and concern for context and perspective would see Russian activity in 2016 is like a cough in a hurricane!
Referring to MSNBC and commenting on anyone else’s IQ is not consistent.
Perspective and context gets ya’alls in trouble!
You guys are starting to sound like Captain Queeg and the strawberriess
You guys are starting to sound like Captain Queeg and the strawberries
Actually this is Trump every time Mueller is mentioned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlV3oQ3pLA0
George Conway (MR. Kellyanne) in WaPo today: “…the special counsel’s report is damning….He said stunningly that ‘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. Muller did not so state.
That’s especially damning because the ultimate issue shouldn’t be–and isn’t–whether the president committed a criminal act…Americans should expect far more than merely that their president not be provably a criminal. In fact, the Constitution demands it.”
“Americans should expect far more than merely that their president not be provably a criminal.”
One would normally think so. But a lot of people voted for someone that anyone paying attention has been a criminal for a long time. Yes Trump started committing crimes against the nation only in the last few years. One would think Americans would expect more from a President than selling out to Putin. But look at how many people still support this traitor? We should expect far more maybe – but it is clear many expect very, very little from Trump.
I was impressed with Conway’s piece. (Had no idea he’s been a confidant of Coulter, Drudge, and Ingraham!). I particularly like his comparison of the President to a a finiancial fiduciary and his mention of the “fiduciary obligations of the president.”
IN his words (relying, he says, on recent legal scholarship) a fiduciary holds legal obligations of trust and must act in a beneficiary’s best interest, not in his own. “If the trustee fails to do that, he can be removed, even if what the trustee has done is not a crime.
So too with a president.”
And this: “…presidential attempts to abuse power by putting personal interest above the nation’s can surely be impeachable, even if they are not criminal…”
There’s much more and quite enlightening, especially coming from a conservative constitutionalist who’s gathered other such thinkers into significant opposition.
pgl/noneconomist:
In a race to go to jail Hillary gets there first except that Lynch stonewalled two sets of felonies.
The use of false analogies used to be a logic fallacy used by right wing shock jocks. They are no more valid among people with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Menzie,
As I mentioned in my comment, Mueller declined to decide on the obstruction charges one way or the other. But his actions speak much louder than his words. If Mueller actually thought he could convict Trump of obstruction of justice, he was obligated to charge him. Mueller obviously did not think he could do so, which is why he didn’t bring charges.
Barr and Rosenstein just made clear what Mueller obviously believed and knew, but refused to definitively say: there was no obstruction of justice.
And no collusion either. The hoax has finally come to a close. Now it’s time to look at how the hoax got started in the first place. This hoax arose out of an extreme abuse of power on the part of the Obama Administration, who were working with the DNC, the Clintons, and foreign powers; crimes were committed. Barr is on that.
Rick Stryker: It’s like you haven’t heard of the OLC opinion on whether a sitting president can be indicted…
Menzie,
It’s like you haven’t read the Mueller report or watched Barr’s press conference.
If Mueller thought that the President can’t be indicted, they why did he bother to investigate obstruction charges in the first place? If you read the report, you would know that Mueller did not decline to make a decision because of the OLC opinion but rather because “the evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment.” Yeah, those difficult issues are a bear when you have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
The truth was the issues were not really difficult and Barr and Rosenstein resolved them.
Moreover, Barr was asked at the press conference whether Mueller failed to decide on the obstruction charges because of the OLC opinion. Barr reported that he discussed that question with Mueller and Mueller said the OLC opinion was not the reason.
No collusion. No obstruction.
“It’s like you haven’t read the Mueller report or watched Barr’s press conference.”
Barr is dishonest. EVERYONE knows that. And YOU have not read the Mueller report beyond the cherry picked quotes Team Trump asked you to do so.
Menzie
“on whether a sitting president can be indicted…”
Even if Mueller were unable to indict Trump, there is nothing stopping him from saying “We find sufficient evidence to indict Trump on conspiracy and obstruction of justice and recommend that the appropriate entity do so.” Mueller does not at all say this. Which is why the report is total exoneration of Trump on these questions.
BTW this is based on Mueller teams 19 lawyers (13 register Democrats, 0 Republicans), 40 FBI investigators, 2800 subpoenas, 230 requests for communications records, 13 requests for foreign government assistance, 500 witnesses, working for 22 months, at cost of $35 million. And you still think there is a pony somewhere in here?
Sammy there is nothing stopping him from saying “We find sufficient evidence to indict Trump on conspiracy and obstruction of justice and recommend that the appropriate entity do so.”
Actually, Mueller goes to great lengths to explain exactly why he cannot say that. And if you’ll look at footnote 1091 in Volume II, you’ll see that Mueller is saying the “appropriate entity” is Congress through its impeachment power. More to the point, what Mueller is none-too-subtly suggesting is that Trump could be outfitted for an orange jumpsuit after he leaves office.
the report is total exoneration of Trump on these questions.
So that’s your takeaway from this Mueller quote:
At the same time, 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, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him
What part of “does not exonerate him” did you not understand?
I realize that you probably have some dirt job and aren’t acquainted with the way high powered lawyers talk, but Mueller’s is a very polite and professional way of telling people who matter that Trump is unfit for office. And Mueller makes it very plain that one reason he wrote in the subjunctive “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts…” is because Trump did not cooperate and went out of his way to make life difficult for Mueller’s team. Hence little confidence in stating that he didn’t commit crimes. That’s what the appendix showing Trump’s non-responsive answers to Mueller’s questions tells us.
2slugs,
Volume II is about legal issues, which you clearly don’t understand. You fail to understand what footnote 1091 is about. Here’s a test for you. What legal argument was Mueller addressing in that footnote? This is an open book test, so feel free to refer to the report. If you are having trouble, reach out and I’ll explain it.
You said above in a comment that the British have “not proven” rather than “not guilty.” That’s false. It may surprise you to learn that our legal system is based on the British legal system. They have not guilty too. They also have a long standing prohibition, based on the common law, against double jeopardy. But since that prohibition is not a constitutional right, it can be changed, as it was in 2003 to allow double jeopardy under some circumstances. The Scottish legal system has “not proven,” but they also have guilty and not guilty.
You also fail to appreciate the legal significance of “At the same time, 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, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him”
There is not any legal significance to that statement other than Mueller decided not to press charges. Mueller is a special prosecutor hired by the DOJ to investigate Russian collusion and prosecute any crimes he discovered in the process. Whether he or his team have confidence that Trump “clearly” did not commit obstruction of justice is irrelevant to his mandate. He and his team can have their opinions on that and others can have their own opinions too. Barr made it clear that he and Rosenstein disagreed with a number of Mueller’s views. As a prosecutor, Mueller’s job was to decide whether crimes were committed under a standard of evidence that you could get a conviction in a court of law. Mueller clearly did not feel the evidence was there under that standard, which is the standard he must follow as a DOJ prosecutor. Barr and Rosenstein agreed with Mueller that there was an insufficient case on obstruction and made that judgment explicit, which was Mueller’s job to do but that they unfortunately had to do for him. Too bad Mueller and his team of exclusively Clinton supporting/donating legal staff politicized this matter by interjecting their private opinions in an official DOJ report and then refusing to finish the job they were hired to do. The public deserved better.
Sammy was not allowed to read what you just pointed out. Neither was Rick. The two are bought and paid for stooges.
Sammy, you forgot the key work Russian pony.
All the while they ignored news like jobless claims hit 50 year low, because this Russia wasn’t the cause????
“All the while they ignored news like jobless claims hit 50 year low”
I presume the CAUSE was all that non-Russian corruption that has inflicted this criminal White House!
The economy doesn’t suck so whatever treason or corruption Trump does is AOK with CoRev! I bet CoRev expects a Presidential medal of honor for this “high standards”!
The Kremlin is solidly on your side, Rick. They’re blasting the Muller report, even saying there’s no evidence at all that Russia interfered in any way in the 2016 election. You can rest easy. Trump won. So did Putin. And you can safely join in with the Russian propagandists who will repeat those lines over and over again.
Congratulations. You too bought it. Hook, line, and sinker.
noneconomist: Give it up. I long ago concluded that Rick Stryker is a Russian bot.
If Stryker is Russian, does that mean we can deport him?? Maybe we can make a trade with ICE agents, we’ll let them have Stryker for one of the children in ICE cages separated from their parents. It’ll be a win-win for everyone except Russian border security and Russia’s version of the CDC.
“They’re blasting the Muller report, even saying there’s no evidence at all that Russia interfered in any way in the 2016 election.”
Putin is even a better liar than Trump!
Rick Stryker If Mueller actually thought he could convict Trump of obstruction of justice, he was obligated to charge him.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Mueller was prohibited from charging him per OLC guidance. As to the rest of your nonsense, it sounds like you’ve been drinking the JBH Kool-Aid. It’s fair to blame the Obama Administration for not putting enough emphasis on possible Russian meddling dating back to 2014, but accusing the Obama team of keeping quiet about Russia’s support for Trump as a way to help elect Clinton is crazy train stuff. What the Obama intelligence team found was that the Russians were interfering with the election, and the Mueller report confirmed that.
Most of Trump’s problems were self-inflicted. If he would have simply accepted the initial intelligence about Russia’s complicity, then he would have been fine. But Trump’s fragile ego couldn’t stand the thought that Russia might have been working behind the scenes for his election. Trump’s troubles are due to his own innate insecurities about the election. That’s why he concocted these nut job stories about millions of illegal immigrants voting for Clinton, nonsense about crowd size, blah, blah, blah.
OK, since it was all above board you shouldn’t mind then if Barr does a thorough investigation of how the Russian investigation got started in the first place. What did the Obama Administration actually do in conjunction with the DNC, the Clinton campaign, Russia agents (through the dossier), and UK intelligence? What did Obama know about all this and when did he know it? We’re going to find out.
Do you get paid by the word for this expert legal analysis? Hope so because you write a lot of words – all of which are BS.
Ah yes – the Devon Nunes canard! Protect the Criminal in Chief by accusing everyone else on the planet with crimes. The Junior Senator from Minnesota ala the early 1950’s is alive and well!
pgl: Unfortunately, it’s Wisconsin — not Minnesota — that can claim “Tail Gunner” Joe McCarthy. (Although Rick Stryker probably thinks that’s an honor, not a blemish).
Here is an example of Adam Schiff attempting to collude with someone he thought was the Chairman of the Ukranian Parliament but who was in fact part of a Russian comedy and prank team. In the audio , they actually convince Schiff that Putin has “naked pictures” of Trump and that Trump is a Russian agent. In the end, they even advise Schiff that right before they arrest Trump, they should utter Trump’s secret code phrase and “watch his face change.”
Schiff actually bought this ridiculous story. Was Schiff colluding with what he thought was a foreign power? Of course he was. Is it illegal? Probably not unless being a moron is illegal. It’s good to keep this episode in mind when you watch Schiff and the other tin foil hat progressives (many in this very comment section) trying to furiously spin the Mueller report.
Oh gee – now we are attacking those who dare to question Herr Leader. Putin must be paying you well for these KGB tactics!
Uh, Rick apparently Schiff informed the FBI he was going to make that call and informed them about how it went after all. This is a bit of a contrast with all the Trump campaign and admin people outright lying to the FBI about their numerous Russian meetings and interactions.
This big investigation is going nowhere. So we shall get more details on exactly which parts of the Steele dossier have been proven false, true, or still unknown (the pee story is in that last category). But it remains a hard fact that the FBI was already investigating Carter Page because of the Papadopolous stuff. Steele dossier was merely backup support, and Steele himself always said it was unverified raw intel that should not be publicly released.
And at the bottom line we have for all the charges against Obama, he did not publicly relaease any of this prior to the election, in contrast with Comey coming out 11 days before the election with his later retracted stuff about Hillary that really did give Trump the election. Indeed, Obama apparently went to McConnell about what was going on trying to get a bipartisan agreement on releasing some of it, but McConnell said no and sat on it. All these new investigations are a joke that will lead to nothing. There really is nothing there, in contrast to the scads of meetings and passing of info back and forth betweeen Russians and the Trump campaign, unreported except vaguely and with little publicity prior to the election. Hillary’s infamous emails, resembling Colin Powell’s actually, got all the attention.
Barkley,
As I mentioned to Joseph, neither Trump Jr nor Schiff are required to report to the FBI in advance in such discussions. I doubt if Schiff really talked to the FBI. I only linked to that audio however to show the hysteria around the Trump Russia allegations. The Russian comedians merely pushed to the logical conclusion the nature of the allegations made against Trump. They are totally absurd but Schiff bought the whole story.
The real scandal, as I and others have been pointing out for some time, is how this investigation got started in the first place. There are supposed to be safeguards around FBI surveillance of American citizens. The FBI got a Fisa warrant on Carter Page 4 times, including a few times while Trump was President. To get a Fisa, you are supposed to have credible, verified evidence that the target is actually engaged in espionage. Enough of the Fisa warrant was released to see that they had no such evidence on Carter Page. Indeed, Mueller cleared Page in the report. So, how did the FBI manage to put taps on Carter Page and anyone within in 2 hops of Page without the evidence? How could unverified opposition research produced by a rival political party be as a basis to spy on the other party’s campaign during a Presidential race? How is it that not only the FBI were involved, but also the DOJ and the intelligence services? Who were the source of the leaks to the media when Trump became President that Trump was so distrusted that intelligence services were afraid to give him raw intelligence, since he might turn it over to Moscow? What was their motive in making these accusations, especially in the light of the findings of the Mueller report?
If Barr (and the Inspector General) seriously investigate, they are going to uncover a giant scandal and abuse of power perpetrated by members of the Obama Administration. It’s hard to believe that Obama didn’t know about it.
102,375 indictments of Democrats incoming!!!!
Hahahaaaaaahaha! You people are sick.
Dems need to reread the Tar Baby parable, “a problem situation that is only aggravated by additional involvement in it”
Sammy, imagine if the democrats are still ranting in Oct 2020 that Trump is the reason there was no evidence to convince a grand jury any of his minion did something wrong.
One man, Trump, so pervasive and powerfully evil. Heck, sounds like what the right wing was saying about Clinton and Obama!
What I see is Mueller concluded Trump is a criminal, has a lot of sympathetic wishful followers but cannot prove any of it.
Mueller’s supports say Trump ordered the subjects who could be indicted to lie but the investigation cannot show the grand jury the liars or the lies.
So much character assassinating tailgunner Joe would be jealous.
Someone donate to Mueller a cabin on a lake in Montana!
Uncle Remus stories now? I guess the KKK is feeding you Trump “defenses” now!
Rick Stryker: ” Was Schiff colluding with what he thought was a foreign power? Of course he was.”
Ole Megapixel Stryker trying to con you again. Schiff contacted and briefed the FBI about the planned call both before taking it and after taking it, exactly as would be expected of an honest government representative. And he explicitly directed the callers to give their information to the FBI. That is how you legally handle contact with potential foreign enemies.
This is in direct contrast to Trump and his son who when contacted by the Russians, did not refer the possible illegal activity to the FBI. They tried to exploit the illegal activity and keep it secret. And then they lied about it over and over and over again to the public. As the Mueller report says, Donald Trump personally dictated the lying press release claiming that the meeting was about “adoptions.” And then Trump subsequently lied about about dictating the lie.
As Mueller said in his report, the reason they decided not to prosecute Trump’s dimwitted son, Fredo, was that, effectively, they thought he was too stupid to understand that what he was doing was illegal.
Careful now. The Rick is now working for Putin. Calling out their dishonesty may get you poisoned.
Joseph,
As I’ve said before, I’ve never seen you get anything right, ever.
Failure to report to the FBI information from a foreign source is not a crime. If you had bothered to pay attention to the facts, you’d understand that Mueller was investigating the Trump jr meeting as a possible campaign finance violation, not for failing to report the attempted Russian contact to the FBI. The claim that the meeting was a conspiracy to solicit a campaign contribution from a foreign person was always a big stretch and Mueller correctly concluded his analysis with: NO CHARGES
Those radicals at the Wall Street Journal had this to say: “Robert Muller’s long awaited report is unambiguously clear on this point: Russia interfered in the 2016 election and sought to help Donald Trump win the White House.
That has been the unanimous view of the intelligence community for nearly 2 1/2 years. But it’s laid out in unprecedented detail across nearly 200 pages of the special counsel’s report, which also describes Russia’s efforts to forge ties with members of Trump’s campaign to further the Kremlin’s interference goals.”
Apparently, the report does exonerate that fictitious 400 pound guy (in New Jersey?) that Trump fingered as the hacking mastermind instead of the Russians. Meanwhile top Russian propagandists are echoing Trump, denying any sort of interference , pointing fingers toward Ukraine and crowing that Putin has made Russia great again.
Joke with a ring of truth: There are no indoor toilets in one-fifth of Russian homes, but they did get an American president elected.
“Apparently, the report does exonerate that fictitious 400 pound guy (in New Jersey?) that Trump fingered as the hacking mastermind instead of the Russians.”
No, no, no – Chris Christie has an alibi. He was blocking the George Washington Bridge!
Rick Stryker: “Mueller notes that he investigated links and contacts between Trump associates and Russians. His conclusion: NO CHARGES other than for Manafort and Gates for activities on behalf of the Ukraine that had nothing to do with Russia.“
Nothing to do with Russia? Do you know anything about Ukraine? The whole point of Manafort’s operation was on behalf of Putin who was installing his puppet ruler in Ukraine. Manafort even changed the wording in the official Republican platform at the Republican convention to favor Russia’s interference in Ukraine.
Manafort helped elect Putin’s puppet Yanukovych president of Ukraine. Yanukovych’s job was to turn Ukraine away from NATO and towards Russia. He was eventually ousted and fled in exile to his masters in Russia for safety. Today Yanukovych is still wanted in Ukraine for an indictment on treason. That’s Manafort’s client.
Manafort went on to help Putin install his next client as puppet in the US.
Manafort had nothing to do with Russia? Stryker has made some ignorant statements but that takes the cake.
Joseph,
As I’ve said before, I’ve never seen you get anything right, ever.
Yes, the charges that Mueller leveled against Manafort had nothing to do with Russia or Russian collusion. It may surprise you to learn that working for Russian or Ukrainian government interests in the US is not a crime. Mueller charged Manafort for failing to register his and his partner’s lobbing work with the DOJ, as is required by law, failing to report foreign bank accounts, bank fraud, tax fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and false statements. These crimes occurred long before Trump decided to run for President. Lobbying for a foreign government is perfectly legal as long as you register with the DOJ, report your foreign income, pay your taxes, and don’t lie about it to the FBI.
Can you try to get your facts right at least once?
The entrenched political establishment – career politicians, mainstream media, bureaucrats, etc. – cannot accept Trump actually won by showing voters they’re clowns.
So, they need to destroy Trump anyway they can.
But, they keep showing they’re clowns.
Yes we were clowns as we let Putin rig the 2016 election. That’s the entire damn point in case PeakTraitor missed it.
All Obama did to stop it is send Susan Rice to say “Cut it out.”
Pathetic.
Putin didn’t change the outcome.
Face it – Trump kicked butt, despite your treasonous confederates, who will be investigated now.
The leftist mainstream media lied for two years:
“Justice Department released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which did not find collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia but detailed 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/administration/439852-white-house-releases-photos-of-trump-rush-limbaugh-playing-golf%3famp
My God PeakIdiot – did you read the title of your own link?
‘White House releases photos of Trump, Rush Limbaugh playing golf’
You want us to believe some cherry picked quote from a story where Rush Limbaugh and the Liar in Chief are playing golf. Trust us – NO ONE is THAT stupid. Except for you of course!
Stryker never gives up in his prevarication, denying that Manaforts crimes had anything to do with Russia.
I can read plain English and you plainly said ” NO CHARGES other than for Manafort and Gates for activities on behalf of the Ukraine that had nothing to do with Russia.“
Then you say “Mueller charged Manafort for failing to register his and his partner’s lobbing work with the DOJ, as is required by law, failing to report foreign bank accounts, bank fraud, tax fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and false statements.”
All of which had to do with Manafort working for the Russians in Ukraine. If he had not been working for the Russians in Ukraine, none of those crimes would have occurred.
Wow Joseph. You really are dense.
As I’ve already explained, the crimes that Manafort committed had nothing to do with any lobbying he did for pro-Russian politicians in the Ukraine. Manfort could have been working for Canada or New Zealand and the result would have been the same. Manafort got in trouble for a massive tax evasion scheme that Mueller uncovered in the course of his investigation.
When Manafort was working for the Ukraine, he failed to register as a foreign agent. Normally, that’s treated as a slap on the wrist offense with a fine and a requirement to register, since most people who violate the registration requirement have reported their foreign consulting fees and paid their taxes. But Manafort failed to register because he wanted to avoid paying taxes on his fees. So, he diverted millions of dollars in consulting fees and parked them in foreign bank accounts and foreign shell companies. Then, he wired money from these foreign entities to pay personal expenses without reporting the income and without paying taxes on the foreign income.
None of this had anything whatsoever to do with the lobbying he did on behalf of his pro-Russian political clients in the Ukraine. The lobbying is perfectly legal. If he had registered, reported his income, and paid his taxes, he would not be in any trouble. Manafort got into trouble for a criminal tax evasion caper–not for colluding with Russia to influence a US presidential election as you seem to falsely believe.
Perhaps Stryker can clear up a big mystery about Manafort. How is it that he turned up being Donald Trump’s campaign manager working for free?
Manafort is a guy who had been a political consultant charging clients millions of dollars per year. Unfortunately, around 2015 he was in big trouble with the Russians on bad investments, owing them over $25 million. Manafort was desperate for money at that time, so desperate that he was willing to commit major felonies such as money laundering, bank fraud and tax evasion in order to cover up his debts.
Yet this guy, desperate for money, in debt to Russians who don’t fool around with debtors, who normally charges clients millions of dollars, suddenly decides to work for Donald Trump for free. A guy who had never worked for free in his life. Kind of makes you wonder who he was actually working for.
In the middle of the campaign in 2016, Manafort handed over the crown jewels of any campaign, the Republican polling database, to a Russian operative. He did this at the very time Mueller has established that the the Russians were making aggressive cyber attacks to interfere in US elections and, specifically, as Mueller says, to benefit Donald Trump.
But, as Stryker claims, nothing at all to do with Russia.
Joseph,
You don’t seem to realize how ridiculous you look spouting your tin foil hat conspiracy theories. Mueller thoroughly investigated Manafort. He arrested him in an aggressive pre-dawn raid in order to intimidate him. They threw him into solitary confinement. He has received a long prison sentence. Manafort’s crimes were about tax fraud rather than collusion with Russia.
Rick Stryker: “The lobbying laws that Manafort broke while lobbying for pro-Russian interests and the Russian money he laundered from the Russians has nothing to with Russia.”
And I can only assume that the Republican polling database that Manafort handed over to the Russians also had nothing to do with Russia. Just a coincidence. Could have been anybody, even “Canada or New Zealand.”
Some important questions need to be answered.
Before the Mueller investigation was created, after Comey was fired, why were the Trump haters at the Obama FBI investigating, and perhaps spying on, the Trump campaign?
What was the Obama FBI investigation based upon?
Why didn’t the Obama FBI warn the Trump campaign of Russian attempts to influence the Trump campaign?