Trump the Autocrat.

[Jim B.]

Yes, because Trump personally went down to Louisiana and specifically instructed this officer to say stupid stuff.


From CNN....

Washington (CNN)Two police officers in Louisiana were fired Monday after one wrote a Facebook post suggesting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot and the other liked it.

Officer Charles Rispoli wrote in the post last week that the progressive freshman is a "vile idiot" who "needs a round ... and I don't mean the kind she used to serve," an apparent reference to Ocasio-Cortez's former job as a bartender. Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson told reporters Monday that Rispoli -- along with Officer Angelo Varisco, who "liked" the post -- had been fired.

"This incident, we feel, has been an embarrassment to our department," he said.

The incident underlines not only the outsized attention Ocasio-Cortez has drawn as the face of an evolving Democratic Party, but also a heated political climate in which Capitol Police say threats against members of Congress continue to climb.

Not that Trump is directly responsible but do you think Trump bears any responsibility at all as the POTUS to use measured words and to make sure his words are accurate?

[Mountain Man]

Anybody who has taken a good hard look at Mueller's report will quickly realize that his case for Russian interference is virtually non-existent.

https://www.realclearinvestigations....ng_claims.html

Of course Mueller wouldn't know this because he didn't write and probably never read the report, so here's just parroting the party line.

[carpedm9587]

Would you consider MSNBC "a voice on the right"?



I was flippin channels, and some of the left's cheerleaders looked downright depressed over Mueller's performance.

I didn't say the left was excited. Many wanted the "nail in the coffin." Mueller was clear in his public statement weeks ago that he was not going to do that. I am not hearing much from the left "confused" (despite that word in the headline, it is fairly rare in the news cycles, AFAICT) or "dementia" or the rest I've seen here. They have used words like "boring" and "clipped" and "halting" and "disappointing."

Mueller has been fairly clear - he provided the report - the next step is up to Congress. A sitting president, by DOJ rules, cannot be indicted. Mueller is not going to say "guilty" and is not going to say "committed a crime" or in any way make a statement implying Trump is criminal. He provided the report and the evidence they uncovered. The closest he came to pointing a finger was the statement in the report that if the president could have been vindicated, they would have.

As I said, I think the impeachment investigation should formally begin and run its course.

[carpedm9587]

Answering over 100 times 'I'm not going to answer that' is not 'clear and concise'.

I'm all for the House beginning impeachment (the House doesn't do 'impeachment investigations' - that's what impeachment IS). By all means, please do.

Delusional Democrats, having learned nothing from the 1990's equally deluded Republicans, should be encouraged to run blindly off the cliff. The lemmings already turned around and went home seeing that the Democrats wanted the job so badly.

Go, go, Speed Impeachers! Go!

And no, I don't need the sarcasm tags - I am all for the demise of the modern Democrat Party. Let's hope Version 5.0 does better!

Actually, the house does do (or at least cause to be done) impeachment investigations. That was the primary difference between Nixon and Clinton. The former investigated, then began moving towards an impeachment vote (but Nixon resigned). The latter did it in the reverse direction (and Clinton did not resign). We see the results. This is the normal process for the legal system: suspect, investigate, bring charges, try. This would be suspect, investigate (house), impeach (house), try (senate).

That is why I think it would be a mistake for the house to go immediately to an impeachment vote. We have the suspicions, so let the formal investigations by (or at the behest of) Congress begin. As we have seen, investigations of the executive by a branch of government that is under the executive can only go so far. Congress has far more latitude.

With any luck, the investigations will continue on until 2020, hauling one piece of garbage out after another, and burying Trump. Then the elections will come around, he'll get booted and the need for actual impeachment will disappear and he can simply be indicted for any criminal acts that have been uncovered.

[carpedm9587]

OK, watch the video in this link, and tell me you think he's being "clear and concise".

https://news.grabien.com/story-confu...ions-be-repeat

And, lemme guess.... it's just a grossly biased collection of snippets designed to make him look bad, eh?

Yeah - pretty much. A bunch of cherry-picked snippets from hours of testimony isn't going to cut it. Anyone can be made to look bad by taking their worst moments in 7 hours and gluing them all together. It's a cheap trick and pointless. I saw one or two of these moments and what I saw was a man being very careful about his answers, sometimes appearing to "buy time," as he framed a response, and being careful not to fall into any verbal "traps." The Dems were clearly pandering to him, and the Reps clearly gunning for him. The whole thing was political theater he did NOT want to be part of (and made that clear). He was only there because of a subpoena.

[carpedm9587]

A Harvard law professor, and evidently noted Trump hater, took an equally dim view.

I generally agree with his view. The entire "Mueller testifying" shtick was a bad idea from the get go. Mueller made clear what he would and would not say, was under constraints due to his role as a DOJ employee, and is too honorable to violate any of those boundaries. The entire thing was doomed to fail before it started.

In other, depressing for Democrats, news: RICO claims dismissed

Did you read that article? Trump was being accused of four things - one got dismissed for lack of adequate evidence (racketeering), and three are moving forward (fraud, deceptive trade practices, and unfair competition).

Why the focus on he one that got dismissed and the lack of mention of the three that are moving forward - not to mention that the state charges are also moving forward?

[carpedm9587]

I think there may have been a personal reason Mueller was so reluctant to testify - today's fiasco was more than just 'unprepared' - he really wasn't on his game. I FULLY grant anyone can have a bad day but maybe there's a reason he couldn't recall what president appointed him.

I'm feeling sorry for the guy.

Do you know at what point in the testimony this occurred? That was not something I saw or saw reported anywhere. I'd like to look at what actually happened, given the propensity for so many on the left and right to spin the smallest thing into an endorsement of their existing positions.

[carpedm9587]

In spite of your misportrayal, it is not just "on the right" that is characterizing Mueller's testimony in this fashion. Even MSNBC described him as "seem[ing] lost at times." Joy Reid was even trying to spin how an "old and feeble" Mueller was good news for the left since it "makes the Republicans yelling at him look more absurd."

Rogue...I don't believe I claimed "no one on the left thinks this." My comment was about the pretty much universal, lock step, meme coming from the right on this theme. Yes, there is a smattering of the same from the left, but mostly the left appears to be disappointed they didn't get their "nail in the coffin." They were stupid, IMO. Mueller was never going to give them that - and he made that clear when he spoke publicly several weeks ago. And the Dems successfully did was give the Reps a chance to publicly rip into Mueller.

[Sparko]

I have to wonder if he's experiencing the leading edge of dementia or something. And I wonder if that's why he had a buddy there with him, just in case. It's sad.

several pundits have been speculating it's because he doesn't actually know what's in the report, because he just handed the investigation off to staffers and then signed the report. That's why he can't seem to answer anything about it and keeps just saying, "if that's what the report says then I stand behind it" and stuff like that.

[firstfloor]

I have to wonder if he's experiencing the leading edge of dementia or something. And I wonder if that's why he had a buddy there with him, just in case. It's sad.

Yes, he looked like an elderly gentleman of impeccable manners expecting to be bullied by Republican thugs. And he got what he expected; hence the unsteady voice.

[Mountain Man]

I generally agree with his view. The entire "Mueller testifying" shtick was a bad idea from the get go. Mueller made clear what he would and would not say, was under constraints due to his role as a DOJ employee, and is too honorable to violate any of those boundaries. The entire thing was doomed to fail before it started.

It was doomed to fail not because of DOJ constraints but because Mueller barely seemed to know what was in his own report, or even what day it was. There were several instances where committee members would read directly from the report, and Mueller would ask what document they were referencing to, as if he were hearing it for the first time. Or he would need a simple yes or no question repeated several times before stammering out an answer. Then there was a time when he directly contradicted his report, but then when confronted with the report itself, he said, "Well then, I guess I'll go with what it says." A couple of members ripped his "could not exonerate" narrative to shreds -- one representative even pulled out several law books and asked Mueller to find the legal statute for "exoneration" -- leaving Mueller looking rattled and uncertain. And on it went, just one humiliation after another.

A number of leftwing pundits have lamented that not only did Mueller set the case for impeachment back, he may have even taken it off the table.

[One Bad Pig]

Were you watching the same thing I was watching? Did you watch the whole thing or just the edited bits on conservative media? There was no one bombshell moment but no one expected that since Mueller was restricted to the confines of the report. But it was damning.

Even the Washington Post couldn't manage to spin things that much; the best it could say was that Dems got some sound bites they wanted (in your parlance, "edited bits" ), but optically it was a disaster.

[carpedm9587]

It was doomed to fail not because of DOJ constraints but because Mueller barely seemed to know what was in his own report, or even what day it was. There were several instances where committee members would read directly from the report, and Mueller would ask what document they were referencing to, as if he were hearing it for the first time. Or he would need a simple yes or no question repeated several times before stammering out an answer. Then there was a time when he directly contradicted his report, but then when confronted with the report itself, he said, "Well then, I guess I'll go with what it says." A couple of members ripped his "could not exonerate" narrative to shreds -- one representative even pulled out several law books and asked Mueller to find the legal statute for "exoneration" -- leaving Mueller looking rattled and uncertain. And on it went, just one humiliation after another.

A number of leftwing pundits have lamented that not only did Mueller set the case for impeachment back, he may have even taken it off the table.

Yeah - that's pretty much in line with the right-wing characterization and memes I'm seeing. I'm sure, any moment now, we'll have a meme in cartoon form from Rogue...

[Mountain Man]

Yeah - that's pretty much in line with the right-wing characterization and memes I'm seeing. I'm sure, any moment now, we'll have a meme in cartoon form from Rogue...

Not memes. It actually happened, and it was all recorded for posterity. General consensus across party lines is that it was a bad day for Mueller and the Democrats. Only difference is that only one side is happy about it

[Sparko]

Yeah - that's pretty much in line with the right-wing characterization and memes I'm seeing. I'm sure, any moment now, we'll have a meme in cartoon form from Rogue...

Your bias is showing.