Mueller Investigation pt5

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Chris is still upset that Clinton got caught in a process crime.

Not at all. I was against the impeachment of Clinton. One only need look at JFK to see a President may entertain "ladies" from time to time as an ego booster. It's not relevant to their performance in office. His lying about it never removed any coins from my pocket. The problem I had with Clinton was NAFTA.

Chris B.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

In that case, Sanders is much worse. Her reason was not political and was based on nothing.

Carney's was far more accurate. It represented the situation as applied to the majority of people. For some people that couldn't keep their plans, a significant percentage were not attributable to the ACA. I don't even know if they didn't believe when they put that position out there. It is a classic example of something just not as nuanced as the bigger picture.

Well there you have it. I disagree that her statement was not political, it wasn't tied to policy, but anything that leaves her mouth is definitely tied to politics.

I don't want to get off topic about the healthcare but I do want to add that personally, I was affected with a cost increase. I've spoken with many individuals in KY that were also affected, in each case those who were paying for their benefits experienced an increase in costs while their coverage decreased. (deductibles went up, copays went up etc.) But I have spoken to a few that did not have coverage prior to the ACA and some of those individuals obtained coverage at no cost due to their income being particularly low. If your healthcare costs went down, please let me know. Or anyone here reading the thread, if you experienced a lower healthcare cost due to the ACA, please let me know. I've not found anyone locally who experienced lower costs for their healthcare to this day. (exception above for those without coverage prior to ACA)

Chris B.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Well there you have it. I disagree that her statement was not political, it wasn't tied to policy, but anything that leaves her mouth is definitely tied to politics.

I don't want to get off topic about the healthcare but I do want to add that personally, I was affected with a cost increase. I've spoken with many individuals in KY that were also affected, in each case those who were paying for their benefits experienced an increase in costs while their coverage decreased. (deductibles went up, copays went up etc.) But I have spoken to a few that did not have coverage prior to the ACA and some of those individuals obtained coverage at no cost due to their income being particularly low. If your healthcare costs went down, please let me know. Or anyone here reading the thread, if you experienced a lower healthcare cost due to the ACA, please let me know. I've not found anyone locally who experienced lower costs for their healthcare to this day. (exception above for those without coverage prior to ACA)

Chris B.

That is the incorrect measure. Healthcare cost growth exceeds inflation. Lower than expected growth is a savings (not saying it happened, just commenting how healthcare costs are evalysted.).

 

[phiwum]

That depends on your perspective. For example, would you say that Sander's statement about the FBI agents will qualify as the biggest lie of the year? If so, then she's only equal to her predecessor under Obama Jay Carney. If you qualify her statement being less than "the lie of the year", then she has not behaved nearly as badly as Jay Carney under Obama.

Chris B.

I'm not too interested in whether she's better or worse than Jay Carney, though I'll note your analysis has an obvious logical flaw. If Jay Carney had the lie of the year one year, it does not mean his lie is worse than every lie (but one) told in another year. Now, let's think about this just a little bit. If, for instance, there were more egregious lies being told in 2017 than in whatever year you have in mind for Carney, then it might well be the case that (1) Sanders' lie is worse than Carney's and (2) it's not the worst lie in 2017.

Could it be that there were lots and lots of lies being told in 2017, some remarkably large?

Back to the point, you agree then that Sanders did something bad, yes? That is all I am interested in. I don't care to worry about whether Carney's statement that you could keep your health care plan was worse than Sanders lie that countless FBI agents texted her their support on the firing of Comey. They're both bad but comparisons are difficult to make without bias and are unnecessary here.

 

[phiwum]

Nope, getting her to lie under oath would be relevant to a process crime. If you don't believe that the agents in charge were big on trying to get conflicting answers during testimony, then you have no idea how these investigations really work.

If she had been telling the truth and a large number of FBI agents genuinely decided to text or email a deputy press secretary to add their support that Comey should have been fired, it would have been evidence that the firing was not solely motivated by any obstruction issues. It is a good question to ask Sanders.

It's hardly a perjury trap. After all, she was asked and had the sense to answer truthfully. I should think most people would.

 

[smartcooky]

You can see where Sanders had a problem with this when testifying under oath. If the Mueller attorney questioning her followed the same logic progression in trying to vet this as the press member had, she would likely be asked next, how did the agents contact her? If she gave the same answer -- email, text messages -- she might then be asked to produce some. Which she wouldn't have been able to do since they didn't exist. How would she attempt to explain not producing them? She couldn't simply refuse; she'd be committing obstruction. Say she deleted all of them? That might not play too well! Plus, the danger the investigators would ask to examine the devices in order to have IT experts see if they could retrieve the deleted text messages and emails. She decided to do the safe thing: she swallowed hard and admitted to the hearing that she had been lying. She was willing to take a hit in the media if her testimony was referenced when the Mueller Report eventually came out, in order to avoid an even bigger problem if she tried to stonewall the investigators or mislead them as she had members of the press.)

She is smart, and Trump is not. This is why his advisors would not let him be interviewed.

Trump is a narcissist; they will never admit to lying or being wrong. Accordingly, he would have never admitted lying - he would simply not have been capable to seeing far enough ahead to see the chain of events that would have resulted in him backing himself into the same corner that Sanders managed to avoid.

 

[smartcooky]

Nope, getting her to lie under oath would be relevant to a process crime.

You're arguing the perury trap again.

What will it take for people like you to understand that perjury traps are the easiest traps to avoid. You do it by telling the truth. If telling the truth gets you in trouble for your previous lies, that is entirely on you, not the investigators.

If you don't believe that the agents in charge were big on trying to get conflicting answers during testimony, then you have no idea how these investigations really work.

Getting the truth is what they want - if you are stupid enough to lie to them under oath, that is your own fault, and a bonus for them, because now you have given them leverage... silly boy

 

[quadraginta]

I wonder how many of Trump's followers believe Mueller to be a Democrat?

I'd say a lot of them.

They probably think he's 13 (18) Democrats.

 

[smartcooky]

I wonder how many of Trump's followers believe Mueller to be a Democrat?

The problem is that most Republicans (including most of the ones posting on this forum) cannot conceive of the idea of someone acting in the best interests of their country and the American people, ahead of the best interests of their party.

Putting The Country and The People ahead of The Party just does not even occur to them, ergo, anyone who does so at the expense of the Republican Party must by default be a Democrat.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

The problem is that most Republicans (including most of the ones posting on this forum) cannot conceive of the idea of someone acting in the best interests of their country and the American people, ahead of the best interests of their party.

Putting The Country and The People ahead of The Party just does not even occur to them, ergo, anyone who does so at the expense of the Republican Party must by default be a Democrat.

The real problem is that usually they're right.

 

[xjx388]

The Democratic Party has policies based on research. Do I always agree, no, but they don't dismiss science as quackery, piss all over our allies, suck up to dictators etc. They don't reject every call to action on climate as a Chinese hoax or insist we need to bring God back into schools. I'll stop there as it doesn't have much connection to Mueller but even if Democrats are partisan (as parties tend to be) they're not going out of their way to take irrational policy positions. YMMV but that makes them preferable in my book.

That’s cool, I appreciate your opinions.

But to bring it back more along the lines of what I was getting at, the Dems aren’t much better about actually governing. Both sides play the obstruction game.

Based on strict reading of the report, you can interpret Trump’s “My presidency is**********” comments as being about the fact that the investigation was going to make it impossible to get anything done. And he was right. By the same token, the GOP had no problem investigating and obstructing during the Obama Administration. I don’t like that political game and both parties do it. What’s it gonna take to end that kind of ********? Assuming a Dem gets elected in 2020 and they take both houses, how much of their time will be spent rehashing the iniquities of the Trump Admin vs actually working towards policy goals? And then: how much bipartisanship can we ever hope for again?

 

[Childlike Empress]

But to bring it back more along the lines of what I was getting at, the Dems aren’t much better about actually governing. Both sides play the obstruction game.

Both sides play the corruption game as a profession. I wouldn't estimate the number of sane representatives of their people in your "house" above two dozen, and that is after the 2018 mid-election. Before that it was maybe under a single dozen.

What you have to do is create a "reform party" whose sole mission is to reform the laughably flawed system. Ask Lawrence Lessig and many other experts who thought about how to do it. It's hard but not impossible.

Don't waste your time pretending that that Sanders bimbo is worse than the Psaki bimbo Obama employed and made to a comedy star in Russia.

 

[smartcooky]

That’s cool, I appreciate your opinions.

But to bring it back more along the lines of what I was getting at, the Dems aren’t much better about actually governing. Both sides play the obstruction game.

Based on strict reading of the report, you can interpret Trump’s “My presidency is ******” comments as being about the fact that the investigation was going to make it impossible to get anything done. And he was right. By the same token, the GOP had no problem investigating and obstructing during the Obama Administration. I don’t like that political game and both parties do it. What’s it gonna take to end that kind of ********? Assuming a Dem gets elected in 2020 and they take both houses, how much of their time will be spent rehashing the iniquities of the Trump Admin vs actually working towards policy goals? And then: how much bipartisanship can we ever hope for again?

I think one of their duties must surely be to set about curbing presidential power, and "Trump proofing" the presidency to try to prevent this sort of president from ever being elected again. There is a whole raft of things that need doing, from electoral reform to changing the way federal and SCOTUS judges are elected.

 

[wareyin]

"Immeasurable" does not mean "not measured".

Do you Promise?

 

[Cabbage]

Amazing that McConnell had the ability to spin something like that 180 degrees and be so confident he could get away with it and Obama agreed that McConnell could do it.

I honestly can't tell if you're agreeing with me on this or sarcastically disagreeing with me, but in case it's the latter: I'm absolutely confident that McConell could spin it, get away with it (from the point of view of a large portion of the population), and Obama knew that. After all, he's not acting alone; his message would be repeated nonstop by Fox News and the rest of the right wing media machine, who always seem to in sync and on the very same page with their messaging.

If it was the former, then sorry, never mind.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Retweeted

Lou Dobbs
‏Verified account
@LouDobbs

#DrainTheSwamp - @GreggJarrett: No one takes anything Schiff says seriously because he lost all credibility. For 2 years he claimed there was a mound of criminal evidence. Where is it? Show us… because it doesn’t exist. #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs


Rep. Doug Collins
‏Verified account
@RepDougCollins

This is ridiculous. AG Barr gives Democrats unprecedented accommodations, and they refuse them hours after Chairman Nadler subpoenas those same answers. They’ve had 30 hours with the #MuellerReport and realize the more information they actually get, the more bitter it tastes.

 

[Stacyhs]

It's amazing how these conservatives live in an alternate universe.

 

[smartcooky]

Here's a little exercise for our Trumpistas here

Read the section of the report on obstruction of justice, and as you do so, everywhere you see Donald Trump's name, substitute Hillary Clinton's name, and then ask yourself if you think she should be led away in handcuffs.

 

[cmikes]

I think one of their duties must surely be to set about curbing presidential power, and "Trump proofing" the presidency to try to prevent this sort of president from ever being elected again. There is a whole raft of things that need doing, from electoral reform to changing the way federal and SCOTUS judges are elected.

If the main result of the Trump presidency is progressives/socialists becoming limited government Federalists, I would count that as a massive success.

 

[Stacyhs]

Here's a little exercise for our Trumpistas here

Read the section of the report on obstruction of justice, and as you do so, everywhere you see Donald Trump's name, substitute Hillary Clinton's name, and then ask yourself if you think she should be led away in handcuffs.

I suggested that yesterday (Clinton or Obama).