Barr's Book Report On The Mueller Report Is In

nan said:
Not a good result for almost three years of work.  Democrats need to move on and work on offering a great platform filled with exciting revolutionary programs for working people and the poor. 

 Where I come from 22 months is almost 2 years, not three.  

It was an investigation;  there was reason to suspect wrongdoing.  It's like going to the doctor when something hurts.  The five or six Trump associates who have been indicted/convicted is not insignificant. 

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

GL2 said:
Abundantly clear: there is no god.

 Patience.  Let's see what the report actually says.
Also, let's see what Trump does and says.  "Pride goes before disaster, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18.

 Here's what the report says:

“[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

i.e. No Collusion.

 This is Barr's interpretation of the report. I'd like to see the full report released.  Let's not forget that Barr was recently hired by Trump and his son works for Trump in the White House.  

I think the investigation will be wash in the long run - (if the report is released).  We should find out more shady practices by Trump & Co that we may not have found out if the investigation hadn't happened.

I think we should stop this now. Start taking another path to defeat this monster. The more people dig in on this, the harder it’s going to be to take a new path to defeat this man. I don’t feel like two years was for nothing and,as much as I hate Trump, I’m actually pretty glad that the President of the US didn’t work with a foreign entity against the US at least not to the extent we feared. I am pleased such a thorough job was done and I respect the work and conclusion. It seems as if it was done fairly. 

conandrob240 said:
I think we should stop this now. Start taking another path to defeat this monster. The more people dig in on this, the harder it’s going to be to take a new path to defeat this man. I don’t feel like two years was for nothing and,as much as I hate Trump, I’m actually pretty glad that the President of the US didn’t work with a foreign entity against the US at least not to the extent we feared. I am pleased such a thorough job was done and I respect the work and conclusion. It seems as if it was done fairly. 

 I for one will agree once I see that the report correlates to the statements that have been made in the last two days.   Of course all of the other investigations unrelated to Mueller should proceed full steam.  

There have been no Dem candidates, either in the mid-terms or among the Presidential runners, that have focused on the Mueller investigation. Not sure why people keep on saying or implying that they have.

The only people who have been making that claim are in the Greenwald-wing of the loony left, of which we have a couple of representatives right here, one of which can't do arithmetic.

Red_Barchetta said:

conandrob240 said:
I think we should stop this now. Start taking another path to defeat this monster. The more people dig in on this, the harder it’s going to be to take a new path to defeat this man. I don’t feel like two years was for nothing and,as much as I hate Trump, I’m actually pretty glad that the President of the US didn’t work with a foreign entity against the US at least not to the extent we feared. I am pleased such a thorough job was done and I respect the work and conclusion. It seems as if it was done fairly. 

 I for one will agree once I see that the report correlates to the statements that have been made in the last two days.   Of course all of the other investigations unrelated to Mueller should proceed full steam.  

 Yes, fair enough.

drummerboy said:
There have been no Dem candidates, either in the mid-terms or among the Presidential runners, that have focused on the Mueller investigation. Not sure why people keep on saying or implying that they have.
The only people who have been making that claim are in the Greenwald-wing of the loony left, of which we have a couple of representatives right here, one of which can't do arithmetic.

 Let's remember that what you call the "Greenwald-wing of the loony left" has been right about Russiagate for all this time, so you are the one who looks loony right now. 

drummerboy said:

The only people who have been making that claim are in the Greenwald-wing of the loony left, of which we have a couple of representatives right here, one of which can't do arithmetic.

 In light of recent events, I'm not sure if this is more stupid or loony.  It's a judgement call.  There was never any evidence of collusion and the press ran with it for 2 years.  All the while the "walls were closing in!"  What an utter embarrassment. 

Here is another, longer Jimmy Dore victory lap with Aaron Mate, who is the most famous Russiagate skeptic. 

If you are looking for loony you can't beat this, featured in the Jimmy Dore video posted above:

What's in the Report?

jamie said:
What's in the Report?

 Apparently there's not enough evidence to indict not to mention convict.  But, apparently there was enough to run sensationalist stories for 2 years with fantasies of our president being a puppet to Putin.

So you guys doing the victory lap have no interest in what was found?

terp said:
 In light of recent events, I'm not sure if this is more stupid or loony.  It's a judgement call.  There was never any evidence of collusion and the press ran with it for 2 years.  All the while the "walls were closing in!"  What an utter embarrassment. 

I was never one to think there was much to come from the "collusion" argument.  I certainly never expected an indictment of Trump. And yeah MSNBC goes overboard at times - as if we were to expect something different from an enterprise driven by profit and ratings. Capitalism kinda sucks as a model for the nooz business. But we can discuss that somewhere else.

But what's been learned in the past two years actually strengthened the case for me. If your interpretation is that no evidence was uncovered, I simply have no words.

terp said:

jamie said:
What's in the Report?

 Apparently there's not enough evidence to indict not to mention convict.  But, apparently there was enough to run sensationalist stories for 2 years with fantasies of our president being a puppet to Putin.

 I'm not going to argue over the word "puppet", but perhaps you can explain Trump's obsequiousness to Putin? You think this is normal or appropriate behavior for a U.S. President? Okay, maybe it's just his pre-disposition to fall in love with despots while pissing on more democratic leaders.

You anti-anti-Russia people choose to ignore an awful lot of evidence.

nan said:
 Let's remember that what you call the "Greenwald-wing of the loony left" has been right about Russiagate for all this time, so you are the one who looks loony right now. 

 They've been "right" not because of any analysis of the facts, but because they immediately took a contrarian position.  They also argue against the fact of Russian meddling, but they're not "right" about that.

drummerboy said:
 I'm not going to argue over the word "puppet", but perhaps you can explain Trump's obsequiousness to Putin? You think this is normal or appropriate behavior for a U.S. President? Okay, maybe it's just his pre-disposition to fall in love with despots while pissing on more democratic leaders.

You anti-anti-Russia people choose to ignore an awful lot of evidence.

Also, a "no collusion" finding says nothing about the extent to which Trump may be beholden to either Russian or other foreign influence.  That's still an open question.

drummerboy said:
 I'm not going to argue over the word "puppet", but perhaps you can explain Trump's obsequiousness to Putin? You think this is normal or appropriate behavior for a U.S. President? Okay, maybe it's just his pre-disposition to fall in love with despots while pissing on more democratic leaders.

You anti-anti-Russia people choose to ignore an awful lot of evidence.

What evidence?  Was it the pulling out of treaties?   The warships in the Black Sea?  Even the recent Golan Heights policy is a thumb in the eye to Russia.   

What is the obsequiousness you refer to exactly? 

conandrob240 said:
I think we should stop this now. Start taking another path to defeat this monster. The more people dig in on this, the harder it’s going to be to take a new path to defeat this man. I don’t feel like two years was for nothing and,as much as I hate Trump, I’m actually pretty glad that the President of the US didn’t work with a foreign entity against the US at least not to the extent we feared. I am pleased such a thorough job was done and I respect the work and conclusion. It seems as if it was done fairly. 

 This is a good summary of how I'm feeling as well. I think the full report should be released but I think a smart Democratic politician at this says something along the same lines - the investigation needed to happen, glad the president didn't work with a foreign adversary to undermine our democracy, but time to accept the results and move on.

Ironically Trump spent so much time trying to discredit Mueller and now he's crowing about the results. If he had just kept his yap shut and said he trusted the professionals in the Justice department to clear him, he wouldn't have looked so guilty.  But yeah, that doesn't play with his narrative of being a victim.

I imagine at this point he'll use the results of this investigation to discredit the other current investigations. And continue to play up that narrative of victimhood.

And I'll add I don't know if my attitude today makes me a goal post shifter. It's been nearly 2 years and my attitude has shifted over that time. At this point in not surprised by the results but I neither would I have been surprised if Mueller had dug up some contacts between Russian operatives and some campaign flunky or two. 

terp said:
What evidence?  Was it the pulling out of treaties?   The warships in the Black Sea?  Even the recent Golan Heights policy is a thumb in the eye to Russia.   
What is the obsequiousness you refer to exactly? 

Pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal helped Russia, they look reasonable and friendly to Iran and other Muslim countries compared to the US.

Pulling out of the intermediate range missile treaty helped Russia, they get to continue whatever violations they've been engaged in, without being the ones to cancel the treaty.

"Warships in the Black Sea" was an overblown claim that the US had somehow changed its actions to intimidate Russia.  In fact, as was pointed out on MOL, single ships go into and out of the Black Sea on a regular basis.

Golan Heights?  Syria hadn't held that territory for 50 years, it wasn't going to get it back in the foreseeable future.  So it had zero effect on Russia's client, Syria.  But Trump's action hurts the ability of the US to broker a peace, and anything that does that helps Russia.

I'm not saying he's doing these at Putin's bidding.  But they're definitely not contrary to Putin's interests.

The investigation was not a "witch hunt" or a hoax.  From the beginning there was evidence of hacking and meddling with the DNC, and there were shady contacts between Russians and Trump associates.  It appears that neither had anything to do with each other, thus no collusion on the hacking and disinformation campaigns.  Which is pretty much what I wrote a year or so ago.  There was circumstantial evidence that justified an investigation, and we should wait to see what it uncovered.  I've never believed anyone involved directly in the campaign actually colluded with Russian agents (although it will be interesting to see what is revealed about Roger Stone, who did not work for the campaign, so anything he did would not involved the campaign colluding with Wikileaks or anyone else).

There's still a lot of circumstantial evidence surrounding shady business deals involving the Trump Org, which is what's likely being investigated by the SDNY.  That would explain the tenacious resistance to releasing tax returns, all the lying done by Trump associates during the investigation, as well as Trump's seeming desperation to shut down the investigation from the beginning. But we don't know any of that yet either.

With counterintelligence investigations still going on, as well as other investigations of the Trump businesses, all this report has done is found Trump innocent of what was the most outlandish and absurd charge from the beginning.  But maybe people have learned to wait until those investigations are over to come to conclusions.

I just heard an NPR spot talking to a Conservative talk show house (don't remember the name) and Democratic political strategist (ditto).

There were two things the talk show host said which I think we'll hear a lot more of leading up to the 2020 election.

He used the word "hoax." I'll defer to ml1's comments above to summarize why this wasn't a hoax. But I think conservatives will happily use 20/20 hindsight to hammer that word even though a Republican Congress determined the investigation was necessary and appointed a Republican special counsel.

He also made the claim that somehow this investigation delayed or interfered with investigations of actual Russian interference with our elections. 

Democrats should be prepared to counter such allegations. The Mueller investigation was approved by Republicans and generally accepted as important and necessary. Russian interference occurred and there were credible indications of possible coordination with the party which benefited from that interference. Those suspicions did not bear out with a damn fine investigator and team digging in.

As far as Russia goes I think Democrats would be well served to switch focus to looking deeply at what happened in 2016 and what continues to occur. Rehashing the Mueller investigation would look really bad and give Trump more ammunition. 

mrincredible said:
I just heard an NPR spot talking to a Conservative talk show house (don't remember the name) 

Billet O’Reilly?

No it was some guy I'd never heard of. 

He sounded like a very reasonable person so that made me more concerned. He wasn't doing a spittle-flecked rant about it, but sounded very calm and thoughtful as he revised history. That's the **** Democrats need to watch out for as they try to convince some independents in the middle to vote for them.

mrincredible said:
No it was some guy I'd never heard of. 

How to kill a punster: Take him at face value.

#MAGA

^^^ That’s another way.

DaveSchmidt said:
How to kill a punster: Take him at face value.

 Sorry if I missed something I should have caught.  I'm not feeling particularly humorous this morning because I'm watching how conservatives are leveraging this report to denigrate legitimate concerns about the behavior of Trump and his administration. And I'm worried about the response of Democrats.