Cleanup in Aisle Lunatic (h/t romad1)

[romad1]

"that my little friends, is frawwd!"

[chasfh]

On 6/25/2022 at 11:31 PM, romad1 said:

I have heard this change of tone from some people who I sort of trust.  Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare and the guy who used to be solicitor general who is often on NBC.   I would take Seth with a grain of salt but he might be right about this.

 

Wasn’t Benjamin Wittes the guy who would trumpet every progress of the Mueller investigation with a little cannon going off?

[pfife]

Yes that is him.

[romad1]

34 minutes ago, pfife said:

Yes that is him.

And?  Its not relevant that the Mueller report was defused by a malignant AG and the unwillingness of Mueller to go after the financials.  The revelations should have fried Trump and company. 

[romad1]

1 minute ago, romad1 said:

And?  Its not relevant that the Mueller report was defused by a malignant AG and the unwillingness of Mueller to go after the financials.  The revelations should have fried Trump and company. 

Put another way...it was a much thinner reed that got Clinton impeached and caused Nixon to resign. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by romad1

[chasfh]

5 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Put another way...it was a much thinner reed that got Clinton impeached and caused Nixon to resign. 

Neither Clinton nor Nixon had an entire media ecosystem devoted to them.

[CMRivdogs]

6 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Put another way...it was a much thinner reed that got Clinton impeached and caused Nixon to resign. 

If you look at the whole body of work around the 1972 re-election campaign and CREEP not to mention numerous campaign law violations to receive corporate favor. (See ITT)). Also look at some foreign coverups during and after the campaign..in 1968 concerning the Vietnam negotiations..

Nixon came fairly close to Trump's sins in the Mueller investigation. 

[pfife]

41 minutes ago, romad1 said:

And?  Its not relevant that the Mueller report was defused by a malignant AG and the unwillingness of Mueller to go after the financials.  The revelations should have fried Trump and company. 

I agree with you, I think the cannons were important.   I was just answering Chas's question.   

[romad1]

30 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

If you look at the whole body of work around the 1972 re-election campaign and CREEP not to mention numerous campaign law violations to receive corporate favor. (See ITT)). Also look at some foreign coverups during and after the campaign..in 1968 concerning the Vietnam negotiations..

Nixon came fairly close to Trump's sins in the Mueller investigation. 

Mueller was about Russian interference and conspiracy to help them interfere in the US Election.  From the wikipedia page on this...some interesting commentary

Quote

The Report cited several impediments to investigators' ability to acquire information, including witnesses invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, witnesses deleting electronic communications or using encrypted or self-destructing messaging apps, limitations of interviewing attorneys or individuals asserting they were members of the media, information obtained through subpoenas that was screened from investigators due to legal privilege, and false or incomplete testimony provided by witnesses.^{[7][8][89][9][90]}

While conspiracy or coordination was not proven, Mueller's report left many unanswered questions, such as whether the myriad secret contacts between Trump associates and Russians, which they lied about, constituted, using Mueller's words, "a third avenue of attempted Russian interference with or influence on the 2016 presidential election"? Benjamin Wittes has written about this:

Put another way, what is the story these contacts tell if it's not one of active coordination? They surely aren't, in the aggregate, innocent. They aren't normal business practice for a presidential campaign. When Mueller asks whether they constituted some sort of third avenue for Russian interference, he's really asking, in the prosecutorial language available to him, what to make of them.... To my mind, anyway, that's the story Mueller told in this section. It may not be a crime, but it is a very deep betrayal.^[91]

George Croner of the Foreign Policy Research Institute has also expressed his concerns with what he describes as a "curiously flaccid" approach taken by Mueller in dealing with what the public would normally interpret as "coordination". He sees Mueller's dependence on a formal "tacit agreement" approach as "an overly cautious" and "legalistic construct":

To most individuals, at some point, persistent parallel conduct coupled with "multiple links" between the participants increasingly suggests that the conduct is coordinated – not coincidentally parallel.... [I]t is not surprising that many are confounded by the Special Counsel's inability, or refusal, to render a conclusion on what is publicly perceived as having been the raison d'être of the inquiry.^[92]

I think "Rusher, if your listening..." was bad enough. 

[romad1]

Very curious about all this 

 

[Motown Bombers]

The hearing is about the assault on Giuliani. 

 

[romad1]

well now

[romad1]

1 minute ago, Motown Bombers said:

The hearing is about the assault on Giuliani. 

 

He's hoping he gets a medical retirement so he can collect his NYC pension and work in his cousin's video store off the books. 

[romad1]

Possible thing tomorrow:  Mo Brooks decided to turn heel. 

[1984Echoes]

1 minute ago, romad1 said:

well now

Wipe these theofascist MF'ers OUT of office.

[chasfh]

3 minutes ago, romad1 said:

well now

We can only hope that this means the car the Republican dogs caught is going to run them all over.

[CMRivdogs]

From todays Bullwerk...per JVL

https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/rules-and-power-and-roe?r=45wcm&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

This is a thought you often hear:

Joe Biden is unpopular because he was elected to bring normalcy back to politics, and instead there is inflation and $5 gas. And in addition to a couple of big-ticket bipartisan bills he passed, Democrats also failed to pass a couple of large-scale, party-line bills that were unpopular.

This is a thought you never hear:

Ron DeSantis is unpopular because he spends all of his time passing culture-war legislation that has nothing to do with people’s real lives and he does this without any bipartisan support.

---

This is a thought you often hear:

Democrats are in trouble because whatever Joe Biden’s legislative achievements may be, he gives too much rhetorical ground to the left wing of his party.

This is a thought you never hear:

Republicans are in trouble because they attempted a coup on the American government and support for this coup is now an item of dogma for most GOP candidates, at every level of government, nationwide.

---

This is a thought you often hear:

Democrats overreached when they failed to pass two bills—BBB and H.R. 1—sufficiently moderate to attract 16 Republican senators. Voters are going to punish them for this overreach.

This is a thought you never hear:

Republicans overreached when they passed laws awarding bounties for citizens who spied on women seeking abortions and for passing many laws banning abortion that have barely 40 percent approval. Voters are going to punish them for this overreach.

---

This is a thought you often hear:

Democrats must not use Procedure X (eliminating the filibuster, adding states, expanding the Supreme Court) because (1) voters would punish them for such unwise maneuvering and (2) you should never play hardball politics because some day the other side will be in charge and they will do the same to you.

This is a thought you never hear: 

After Republicans refused to vote on a Supreme Court vacancy while Barack Obama was president and then rushed to fill a Supreme Court vacancy shortly before Donald Trump was defeated, (1) voters were deeply upset by this procedural irregularity and (2) Democrats retaliated once they took control of the White House and Congress.

Quote

It is almost as though there are different rules for the two political parties.

The reason for these divergent rule sets is that voters still apply the standards of the before times to the Democratic party. And the Democrats themselves still act as though they are living in the before times.

Meanwhile, the Republican party is evolving into a post-liberal institution in which various insane people and white nationalists and aspiring authoritarians ride herd over the old chamber of commerce set. Voters have watched this transformation and mostly not been repelled by it. Instead, the general public has decided that this is the new normal for Republicans and that judging the party by the old standards is impossible.

So they don’t even try.1

 

 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

well now

As James Carville said, it's the economy stupid. Inflation and gas prices will be the deciding factor and the Republicans will secure a House majority for sure and have at least a 50% chance at the Senate.

[romad1]

55 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

As James Carville said, it's the economy stupid. Inflation and gas prices will be the deciding factor and the Republicans will secure a House majority for sure and have at least a 50% chance at the Senate.

The economy just needs to sort itself out a little bit

[gehringer_2]

50 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

As James Carville said, it's the economy stupid. Inflation and gas prices will be the deciding factor and the Republicans will secure a House majority for sure and have at least a 50% chance at the Senate.

Unemployment is 3.6%, the market correction has drained mostly forth - most peoples investments are still well ahead of where they were at the end of 2020, and gas prices may already have peaked. We'll see.

[CMRivdogs]

As an old boss once told me. It's more about perception than anything else. GQOP is good about distortion. They are terrible when it comes to real solution for real people outside blaming Democrats.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

29 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Unemployment is 3.6%, the market correction has drained mostly forth - most peoples investments are still well ahead of where they were at the end of 2020, and gas prices may already have peaked. We'll see.

Even if gas prices have peaked if they straddle continuously around the $4-$5 range Democrats will be hurting bad electorally. Gas needs to get in the $3 range nationally and I would suspect inflation needs to dip at minimum a couple of points for Democrats to have a shot 

[romad1]

Ali Alexander's name is trending on Twitter.  Possible finger directed at Ginni Thomas. 

[romad1]

 

[romad1]

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