All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Tero]

Three responses? I am not reading them unless someone else responds with a quote.

[Joe]

Three responses? I am not reading them unless someone else responds with a quote.

You're not missing anything.

[Forty Two]

https://twitter.com/maddow/status/1111749689538424837
What happened between Sunday and today that made Barr expand the list of things he will cut from the Mueller Report?

On Sunday, it was (1) grand jury material and (2) stuff that impacts ongoing cases.

Now he's added (3) intelligence information and (4) "embarrassing" material.

The President waived his right to an executive privilege review. That didn't get much mention in the news.

Barr wrote the following would be subject to redaction:

“Material subject to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) that by law cannot be made public.”
“Material the intelligence community identifies as potentially compromising sensitive sources and methods.”
“Material that could affect other ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other Department offices.”
“Information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”

What of these would you object to as unreasonable, if the report were about a politician you supported?

My view is that the default position should be that the entire report should be made public, good or bad. I think that things that are subject to Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) are easy to isolate - matters before the grand jury. The next one is dicey, which is what the "intelligence community identifies as compromising sources and methods." We should know who is making that decision and get a reasonably articulated rationale for non-disclosure with someone's name being attached for accountability - bullshit claims of secrecy should have some accountability attached. Although that never seems to be the case, regardless of who is President.

The third one is happening with Mueller's input - things that could effect ongoing matters - which Mueller has referred to other department offices.

The last one would seem to depend on who is considered "peripheral." Certainly, some minor character who had his name besmirched by unsupported or false allegations, one would hope doesn't get unnecessarily put through the wringer. But that is a risk of possible abuse.

However, none of that is being vetted by the White House first - it's all up to the AG - unless they breach that wall improperly - but the sieve like nature of the leaks over the last two years would suggest that is hard to imagine happening without it being identified. The press pours over every calendar, every signin sheet, and foia ever document related to every meeting - they will be watching.

I prefer to wait for the report. If whole swaths of non-Grand Jury and non-"other investigation" matters are being categorized as "sources and methods" and "peripheral embarrassments" then it's going to seem suspicious. If there is no executive privilege taken. And if the redactions are mostly limited to grand jury and other investigation matters, then the critics are going to have a hard time bitching about it.

[Forty Two]

Three responses? I am not reading them unless someone else responds with a quote.

You're not missing anything.

[Scot Dutchy]

Three responses? I am not reading them unless someone else responds with a quote.

That's what I do. It is not worth it. The only thing he is missing his side kick, well here that is. They are probably boring the socks off other tormented souls on the internet as directed by troll central.

[Forty Two]

Yes, it's fine for Tero to post four separate posts, but totally unacceptable for people to respond to them. Makes as much sense as most of the other bullshit you post, Dutchy.

[Scot Dutchy]

Come in central, come in central: response please.

[Tero]

Not punishment enough. But it is satisfying to know that we laugh at One Track Trump and knows it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtr ... 2177609729

[Tero]

Trump: Democrats should stop fighting Sen. David Perdue’s disaster relief bill. They are blocking funding and relief for our great farmers and rural America!


Eugene Gu, MD
@eugenegu
·
6h
Replying to
@realDonaldTrump
This is a bold faced lie. Democrats are not opposed to disaster relief for Southern rural farmers or anywhere else. The only reason this disaster relief bill with David Perdue faces any opposition at all is because Trump wants to cut aid to Puerto Rico like a stingy crook.

[Svartalf]

what else is riding on that bill? Don's wall funding maybe?

[L'Emmerdeur]

Trump and his daughter both lied about this. But of course we must remember the sycophant refrain: 'Not illegal!!'

'Whistleblower Says White House Overturned 25 Denied Security Clearances'

An 18-year White House employee told congressional investigators that she and other career staffers denied security clearances for 25 Trump administration officials, including three "very senior" officials, only to see most of those recommendations overturned.

The employee, Tricia Newbold, was interviewed by staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Democrats on the panel released a summary of her interview, conducted over the weekend, raising new questions about how and why the White House issued security clearances to, among others, Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law.

Republicans argued in response that Democrats on the committee released "cherry-picked excerpts" of the interview with Newbold to "manufacture a misleading narrative that the Trump White House is reckless with our national security."

After all, according to those same Republicans, 'only 4-5 of her unfavorable 25 adjudications were for "very serious reasons".'

[Joe]

My view is that the default position should be that the entire report should be made public, good or bad. I think that things that are subject to Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) are easy to isolate - matters before the grand jury. The next one is dicey, which is what the "intelligence community identifies as compromising sources and methods." We should know who is making that decision and get a reasonably articulated rationale for non-disclosure with someone's name being attached for accountability - bullshit claims of secrecy should have some accountability attached. Although that never seems to be the case, regardless of who is President.

I guess Presidents know something about sources and methods that you don't, Forty Two.

[Brian Peacock]

He is going to lock them up, except for Saturday Night Live which he will drive off the air for treason:

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump identified the enemies of his state Thursday night.

At a raucous campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan — his first since Attorney General William Barr reported that the president would not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice and that special counsel Robert Mueller had not established the existence of a conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives — Trump listed them by name and occupation.

"Little pencil-neck Adam Schiff," Trump said of the House Intelligence Committee chairman, who continues to oversee a Russia probe as the president's campaign seeks his resignation or expulsion from Congress.

"Jerry Nadler," he said, invoking the name of the House Judiciary chairman, who is looking into the obstruction-of-justice allegations for which Mueller, in the still-secret report to Barr, laid out evidence for and against concluding the president had committed criminal conduct.

"I have beat him many times, and now I have to come here and beat him again," Trump said of the New York Democrat.

"These people are sick," he continued. "All of the Democrat politicians, the media bosses, bad people. ... crooked journalists, the totally dishonest TV pundits. ... And all the current and former officials who paid for, promoted, and perpetuated the single greatest hoax in the history of politics in our country. They have to be — I am sorry, they have to be accountable."

The crowd chanted a solution for that: "Lock them up!"

NBC

So, those folks accuse him of treason and various other crimes, mock and belittle the guy for the last 3 1/2 years endlessly - ridiculing his face, his weight, his hands, his hair, his food, his beverages, his manner of doing everything - depicting him as stupid, evil, horrible, and not only that but in the pocket of foreign governments who "have something on him" - two years of false accusations that he he knew about wikileaks dumps in advance and the like - every couple of weeks a new monster breaking news that would finally destroy the guy they openly, and brazenly, loathe....

... he verbally retorts, and he's the problem?

They can fuck off. Rachel Maddow? Crying her eyes out at the release of the Mueller report. LOL.

I understand that you're not happy with people mocking or ridiculing the president personally -- you've consistently championed him and defended him in that regard for many years now. But you also seem keen to confuse and blur the personal critique and the political critique. For example, the president demanded an oath of fealty from the director of the FBI, he asked the FBI to drop an investigation into a member of his administration--who subsequently pleaded guilty to charges--and then he sacked that official precisely because 'of this Russia thing'. He publicly declared that he considered the assurances of the Russian leader as more trustworthy and credible than the conclusions of 11 national security agencies, and he had a number of off-the-record meetings with the Russian president which themselves blurred the line between is personal status as an individual and his role as representing the state. His administration instituted the special council investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and then spent their time calling it a witch hunt, discrediting it, and disavowing any idea that it was, or could ever be, independent or non-partisan. The administration also consistently briefed against the various congressional investigations that were also instituted under the House majority of his own party. To criticise the president's action here is to criticise him personally - you can't have the one without the other - and yet in response to this the president and his supporters have been vociforously OUTRAGED!! Mentioning people calling him a lard arse just lends weight to that OUTRAGE!! while implying that political criticisms are necessarily of the same token as and indistinguishable from derogatory personal slanders.

If anyone was maintaining the 'collusion narrative' in he media then they were merely keeping apace with the administration. Given what has occurred (only some of which I mention above) it any surprise that questions were asked in public, propositions forwarded, debates and discussions aired, criticisms made? This is only as it should be, and while I doubt any politician in a free society would argue against the idea that questions, debate and criticism of the government and it's officials are illegitimate components of public political discourse, some are more than willing to argue, call for, and to place, stringent conditions on the content thereof - to control the story, as they say.

The idea that the president and/or his administration have played no part in this story, but that it is something which has just happened to them, has been thrust upon them unbidden, that they are the powerless recipients of some vast and organised malignancy and have prevailed entirely by force of will and strength of character against overwhelming odds, is the 'collusion narrative'. That is, it is not the narrative or agenda of the press but the political narrative and agenda of the presidency. If you want people to take you as a dragon-slayer then you surely must find some dragon to slay - and preferably one with no teeth and bad eyesight.

No doubt you'll take issue with this, and I look forward to reading your thoughts - but fair warning, I have no interest in debating equivocations at the level of the sub-clause. Anyway...

Now the president is on his self-declared victory lap, the dragon has been slain and the damsel saved, and seemingly unhappy to let democratic processes run their course he is singling out his political rivals while his administration writes letters to media outlets suggesting the views of those rivals be banned. In the current climate that sets up a perfect feedback loop which provokes media outlets to either defy the president, and thus single them out for yet further censure under the #FAKENEWS banner, or to capitulate, and thus limit the scope and extent of the national political discourse at the president's discretion.

On that specific matter, how does the White House telling Media outlets which politicians and commentators they should and shouldn't give time to sit with the constitutional imperative for unabridged free speech? What is your view? Do you think there are free speech implications to the White House's letter to television producers?

[Scot Dutchy]

Freedom of speech just got shit upon AGAIN!!!

Nice post Brian btw.

[Tero]

Lock him up!
https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtr ... 1037719552