The news has been an utter dumpster fire for the past 48 hours. There are too many dumb people screaming about how the Mueller Report has been released and Donald Trump has been vindicated and exonerated, because PROOF. When we ask to see proof of this vindication and exoneration, those same people say “no” in a panicked state. And that’s happening at the highest level of government now. So when will Congress get their hands on the Mueller Report? No one knows, but at least they’re trying to put a deadline on it:
Six Democratic committee chairs in the House sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr on Monday requesting that he submit the full report from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to Congress by April 2. In a three-page letter to Barr, the lawmakers wrote that his summary of the Mueller report “is not sufficient for Congress.”
“We look forward to receiving the report in full no later than April 2, and to begin receiving the underlying evidence and documents that same day,” the letter said.
The top House Democrats argued that providing the report “in complete and unredacted form,” along with the underlying evidence and materials, would be fully consistent with the Department of Justice’s practice and precedent with Congress.
“To the extent that you believe applicable law limits your ability to comply, we urge you to begin the process of consultation with us immediately in order to establish shared parameters for resolving those issues without delay,” they wrote.
April 2 is a week from today. Do you even think the report will be sent by then? Or will we have weeks and months of making the same argument over and over. Them: “Exonerated!” Us: “Okay, so can we see the proof of this exoneration?” Them: “No!” But that’s not stopping Donald Trump and his Nazi allies from trying to wield these shenanigans as some kind of bigly cudgel:
President Trump and his allies signaled Monday that they intend to use the broad conclusions of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation — which found no criminal conspiracy with Russia to influence the 2016 election — to forcefully attack perceived opponents they say unfairly accused the president of wrongdoing.
The targets are diffuse, ranging from specific Democratic lawmakers to the media more generally. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway called on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) to resign immediately, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) urged Schiff to relinquish his committee chairmanship. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he planned to investigate what he dubbed “all of the abuse by the Department of Justice and the FBI” during the 2016 presidential election. And the Trump campaign sent a memo to television hosts and producers that included a list of guests it suggested should no longer be booked because they “made outlandish, false claims” on air.
Trump himself, speaking in the Oval Office, offered a broad and harsh denunciation, saying there were “a lot of people out there that have done some very, very evil things, very bad things.”
“I would say treasonous things against our country,” the president added.
There have been so many times during this whole Trump escapade where I feel so alone in my terror. The ignorance of the American public, the lack of historical reference, the tunnel-visioned stupidity of this man and his followers and supporters… it’s all terrifying. The idea that Trump and his minions are going to set out to punish his “critics” is the move of a fascist despot.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
This is the talk from him that really scares me. The idea that he wants to punish people who go against him is terrifying, especially because the Rs will go right along with it.
We need to win in 2020, desperately.
I thought the same thing. This is the type of tactics used in Russia, where any journalists critical of Putin suddenly disappear or are poisoned. Everyone seems complicit in this. I really have no hope and I’m scared that this POS will get re-elected.
He’s getting reelected, I fear. The corruption is too deep.
oh my goshI just posted a really long comment and it got eaten. Ugh.
I’ll try to recreate my masterpiece, ha. Not really.
but basically I had typed this long spiel about the electoral college – we need to remember that while trump got a lot of electoral votes, it was primarily due to a very narrow margin of victory in Michigan, PA and Wisconsin. I think the right Dem can win MI and WI. Obama won North Carolina, so its not impossible for the Dems to win there either. And potentially PA. So, a Dem victory in 2020 is not impossible.
Most Americans don’t care about the Mueller report. that’s part of why Trump is banging this drum now so hard, he wants to make more people care about it and be outraged on his behalf. In basically every poll, collusion and Russia are far down the list of what people care about; they care about the economy, government spending, healthcare, etc. Basically their daily lives. And I think if we really bang that drum- that Democrats are better for your daily life – we have a good chance of beating him.
At least these are the things I tell myself when I get really depressed about the state of the country.
I know. And Sarah Sanders was doubling down on that message. It’s horrifying.
I’m not even American, and what truly scares me is that this vile thing is going to be your president for a second term.
I’m Canadian and I’m scared too. And , I’m sorry, but the sheer number of Trump loving dumbsh*ts there are in the US scares me the most. WTF America?
The only answer to “wtf” is that there has been a massive push for anti-intellectualism in the country for decades now. Most notably starting in the 1950s, but certainly prevalent before then (mostly due to religious reasons). The bottom line is, we’re dumb. And happy being dumb. In 2017, 25% of our population thought that the universe orbited earth. Can you fxcking imagine???
Any attempts, particularly in rural counties, to get ahead are struck down. I grew up being told college was the only way out of poverty. My dad lamented my high school education and said that i was being taught nothing of value by people who make too much money. I went to college and all the sudden was “brainwashed by the liberal elite” and “think you’re better than everyone else”. There is zero winning on getting an education here, and when you try to educate someone else, you get ripped down and told to “keep your OPINIONS to yourself”. Can you imagine thinking science is opinion??? It’s incredibly frustrating and tied with confirmation bias, there’s not much to do except continue to push for children to be highly educated in hopes we can escape the system.
A reminder that Russia hacked the GOP, with estimates that they stole about ten years’ worth of kompromat. What kind of kompromat does Russia have on them?
My personal guess: that the GOP has been stealing elections for years. I mean, among other felonies.
Have to admit things seem even scarier now. Trump is getting more and more off the wall and the Republicans are marching off the cliff with him. Trump’s Attorney General is doing his best to keep Congress and the rest of us from seeing the Mueller report. We can only hope that the Democrats in the House press on with real investigations and call Mueller to testify. Watergate really relied on Congressional hearings to get the truth out, and back then we had Republicans who did their job and convinced Nixon to resign when they saw the evidence. The Grand Jury wanted to indict Nixon but instead passed it all along to Congress. That won’t work now, but open hearings in the House might. Or at least they might put some brakes on Orange Chicken and his minions.
I don’t know what will make the Republicans in Congress wake up. They can’t all be blackmailed. I think. I hope.
But maybe the Party itself is being blackmailed, if Putin acquired evidence that they have been manipulating vote tallies since 2004. I’m sure they have, via those machines, but it just hasn’t penetrated through to the general consciousness yet. The reports keep piling up about people seeing their votes switched from D to R before they left the booth (some programs must have timing problems) and at least one state government has admitted this “glitch” (!) occurs but claimed it was due to age of the machines. But reports started when they were new, so it’s not a bug – it’s a feature. The machines do not have to be connected to the internet to be manipulated. I said back in 2008 that the only way Obama would win was if he outran the hackers – which he did. So did Hillary Clinton, actually; since she got three million more votes than the Orange Chicken. The slim margin (75,000 votes in a few states) that gave Orange the Presidencg because of our ridiculous electoral vote system were within machine error. The Republicans shut down recounts in court. This makes two Presidential elections in this century that have been decided for the Republicans in the courts this way even when the Democrat was the actual winner. Exit polls stopped being accurate in 2004.
If we don’t have everybody on paper ballots with mandatory hand recounts by 2020 – don’t hold your breath about relief from Republican corruption and Trumpism. That’s assuming we survive until 2020 and/or actually have an election. It was bad before, but now Putin knows what havoc he can wreak so easily. Imagine what will happen if the digital power grid is attacked remotely.
Mitch McConnell acted like he knew the Republican would win in 2016 way back when he was blocking hearings on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. He said something about waiting for the people to decide in the next election, which made no sense. He blocked those hearings for almost a year. The people decided in 2012 to elect Obama for four years, not three.
The Senate is a special problem because there are two Senators from each state, no matter how small. So the Republicans have the majority of Senators, but Republican Senators actually represent significantly fewer people than Democratic Senators. If good people are elected, this is not a problem. But when bad people are elected – problems are magnified.
There is a similar problem in the House, since district sizes can vary so much (hundreds of thousands vs millions). Electoral votes are also distributed in a very non-representative way, one state can have two or three times as many electoral votes per capita as another state. So sparsely populated states have more clout in electing someone like Orange Chicken than densely populated states like California.
What is there to say anymore. I stayed away from twitter yesterday, and Kaiser, reading your update here just depressed me to the point that, I just have to go outside. The sun is shining and I am going to need some Vitamin D. I have to get sun, exercise, and a few other things. I am not going to let this toilet bowl family kill me. They may kill this country, but I swear to god they aren’t going to kill me.
Good idea, Darla. I made the mistake of spending a little time on Twitter and I was as scared as I’ve ever been. I had a good workout this morning, which helped my mood and I’m going to take a cue from you and step away from the devices for a while, too. Virtual hugs to you.
I am staying away from social media and all cable news. I refuse to let this piece of human garbage drive me insane. If history is prologue, he will have a few good days and then the whole thing will start going south for him again.
My heart hurts over how media in this country has been such an enormous failure. Obsession over Rep Omar words (which she apologized for) but barely a blip about a member of Congress literally quoting Hitler to attack Trump’s critics yesterday.
The sad thing is….just because you won’t see it happening doesn’t mean that it isn’t. 🙈🙉🙊
I read newspapers daily. I just refuse to have my every minute consumed by the insanity.
Kaiser, you’re not alone in your terror.
Well apparently Sekulow says that no one should be able to see Trump’s written answers that he gave. What do they have to hide? If he is totally vindicated then we should see the whole report (as many on here on other threads have said). Let them take their victory laps the Justice Dept has already shot itself in the foot by saying the entire ACA should be struck down.
Meanwhile today I am hopefully going to get a video chat with my grandson who is currently serving on the USS John C Stennis. Haven’t talked to him since October.
I hope you have a lovely video chat with your grandson!
Yup, I think as long as the report is withheld from the public, we know that its not 100% for Trump.
Hope you get to have a nice chat with your grandson!
Thanks all!
We had to all know it would come to this. We knew the Mueller report was going to the AG first and that Barr wasn’t going to be quick about releasing the report. No matter what the report said, Trump was going to say it exonerated him because he wasn’t charged with collusion. Mueller was never going to be our savior, we have to save ourselves from this sh!t. Now would be a good time to call your elected officials and demand the report be made public. Maybe even call Adam Schiff’s office too and say you support him.
Call every single one of Mitch McConnell’s offices and demand he stop blocking the Senate attempts to get the report. The response to “constituents only,” is that as he is in a leadership position, he has to hear everyone. If he won’t, tell the staff he should resign from the leadership position. McConnell is heavily compromised. We know Maria Butina gave Mueller information on Russian payments to Republicans through the NRA. Is that included in the report?
Absolutely. And start now by becoming politically active before the next election–volunteer for a campaign, or at your local polling place. Education and outreach is key, especially among younger voters. There’s a lot of stuff we don’t control, but we for sure should be active in doing what we can, to create the country that we want.
I guess Trump, Sarah Sanders, and Kellyanne Conway won’t be aired on TV anymore because they only tell outlandish lies.
Ha. I know, right? Have they forgotten about Benghazi? JFC I can’t anymore.
The projection is very strong with this one.
I feel like there is just so much emotion and confusion swirling around this report. My thoughts are kind of jumbled so bear with me here.
Mueller was appointed because Trump fired Comey “to make the Russia thing go away” or whatever – and honestly Trump probably just wanted to pick the head of the FBI. But we know that Russia interfered with the election, and they did so to help trump. We knew that two years ago, it was the Rs who didn’t really care about that part of it. The firing and other weird behavior from Trump officials (Sessions, etc) made collusions seem more likely, but there were a whole host of other issues with Trump besides that.
if the trump campaign did not collude with the Russian government – honestly, that’s a good thing. democrats should not be mad about that finding. We should be relieved that there was no collusion with a foreign government.
That said, I am of the opinion that the Trump campaign did not have to actively collude with Russia because their interests aligned with Russia, if that makes sense. If we consider that trump wanted to win to help his business interests, that would include his business interests in Russia. Things like sanctions would be eliminated, because they hurt Trump’s business interests. That was part of why Putin wanted him to win. They didn’t have to work together. The end result is the same.
Obviously, though, there were crimes committed, and the Trump organization et al have done some really shady stuff, and I do think that’s all going to come out now. The Mueller report was never going to save us. I think Pelosi tried to warn Democrats of that two weeks ago when she said impeachment was unlikely.
But if there really was no collusion, why did Trump and everybody else in his campaign consistently lie about their contacts with Russians? That had to be explained before I can believe there was no cooperation. I think the real hangup is that the Department of Justice won’t allow a sitting President to be indicted and the report is not supposed to talk about evidence relating to anyone who is not charged. This is why getting Mueller and others in front of the proper Congressional committees is so important.
Plus the Russians had been encouraging Trump to run for years before he did. The Russians/Soviets had been trying to “help” an American Presidential candidate since at least 1960, when they approached Adlai Stevenson because he was thinking about running again. He listened to everything they were offering, wrote it all down, and trotted over to the White House to give the information to President Eisenhower. He discusses it in his memoirs. I’ve heard that LBJ and JFK were also approached at one time or another, and like Stevenson they told them to take a flying leap. So Trump might just have been the first one to say yes. Certainly as POTUS he is lock step with Putin and makes the craziest decisions based on Putin’s desires. Putin doesn’t even try to disguise his glee.
we’re heading into some very dangerous times… the public doesn’t gas about any of this; and too many who are paying attention blame democrats and are just fine with dotard’s fealty to putin.
dotard’s increasing belligerence and denunciation of the press is going to end up with someone getting seriously assaulted, if not killed. remember when he called out katy tur at one of his rallies, and they turned on her and started screaming and calling her names. the secret service was so unnerved, they actually escorted her out of the venue.
Setting 45 aside a moment.
What I find terrifying is how quickly our country turned into a cesspool of hatred and racism. I know some of it has always been simmering just beneath the surface, but how it erupted the moment this orange piece of shit stole the office of president is what scares me. People I know who seemed good all of a sudden changed into racists and spewed out such lies and hatreds. It is like something ripped their souls out and placed a darkness inside them. And it is like a virus. Spreading.
God and Goddess have mercy on us and the world.
And some still ask, “How did the Germans let Hitler happen?”
It’s always been a cesspool of racism and hatred. Trump just gave people the go-ahead to be more public about it and the justification to pursue their anger at the world’s changes and their own helplessness against it by singling about minorities.
@Chef Grace: I’ve been doing some research, & have been charting timelines of when new websites came about, spewing Nationalism and White Supremacy. What I noticed, is that there was an uptick in the creation of these websites, in Europe, specifically, starting in 2004. That was 4 years before Obama ran for POTUS, however, at that time, there was already mass migration from persons from the Middle East, into Europe. Also of interest, many of the participants in these websites claimed to be Americans. So this was after 9/11, and before 2006 through 2008, when Obama was considering a run, decided to run, campaigned, & won.
I understand that it’s tempting to put this on Trump, but the origins of the “new nationalism”, as I call it, rooted itself before Trump came into the picture, and solidified its standing, as well as its growth, when Obama became POTUS, which is when we saw what seemed to be a spontaneous birth of the American Tea Party.
These levers of racism , antisemiticism, xenophobia, and tribalism have always been in place. The difference is that with the advent of the internet, it has spread exponentially, into Europe, the US, and even Australia and New Zealand.
These groups, and the ideologies which they spew, are not new. What we are currently witnessing in Europe, the US, and even South America, specifically Brazil, is the rise of political leadership that is aligned to a movement that was much larger than what we realized, because most of us here, including myself, weren’t seeking out these platforms in order to align ourselves with them.
These movements don’t come out of nowhere. They have been in place long before Hitler, Stalin, Putin, and Trump. They seem to be triggered into existence by these types who rise into leadership, however, the reverse is true: these men rise into power due to these movements.
I believe, that what is causing us so much dismay, is that lines are becoming clearer, and boundaries are being solidified, that we genuinely did not know existed. People who we felt were our nice neighbors, our coworker, and even family and friends, are now “picking sides”. Please, don’t allow the disintegration of these perceived bonds you believed to have had with them, distract or dismay you. Some of them are victims too. They aren’t well educated enough to understand how these systems and passive recruitment into these systems work. Unfortunately, they were already primed for the picking, for various reasons that we aren’t necessarily aware of. It’s absolutely tragic, and I have experienced this alienation from people I thought I knew, as well.
The most important thing that we can do here, is organize and get out there, and become active via volunteering for our next Dem candidate. It’s the only way to combat this, and it is effective.
We can get through this, everyone. But please understand, that these groups are becoming more organized, and motivated. We have to become as organized, and motivated, in order to counteract them effectively.
Also, please remember, that these people have always been around, are still around, and aren’t going anywhere.
Democracy is a lifelong ideal, that must be actively defended, daily.
A+ for this explanation!
Anyone here on Twitter, it might be time to reach out to Adam Schiff who is getting hammered by the MAGAts who are too stupid to know what not exonerated means and who don’t give a damn about the damage he and his gang of thieves have done to the country. I haven’t looked at the feeds of other leading Democrats but they’re probably getting the same. Encourage them to stay the course.
Or contact their offices, otherwise.
Someone leak the golden showers tape, please. Russia if you’re listening….
We know exactly what he’s hiding: Sarah Sanders said he’s willing to publish the report minus his answers to Mueller ‘s questions. He said something he doesn’t want the public to know.
Can you guys do a simple summary on exactly what Mueller was investigating (it was two very narrow criteria on collusion and the single interest of obstruction)? I have seen so many comments on here of people not understanding what’s happening. There has been plenty of collusion and conspiracy, the 37 indictments prove that. Mueller was just not able to establish the two particular ones he was investigating.
BroodyTrudy and others, a friend posted this Twitter thread by Seth Abramson (lawyer/professor/writer). I found it really useful in parsing everything. I believe he may be adding to it when something relevant pops up. I don’t think it was this long when I first saw it.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1109913558333210629.html
Check out Glenn Greenwald’s assessments. He was a constitutional lawyer for years before going into independent journalism and he was among those who steered clear of Russiagate hysteria (not saying there hasn’t been corruption and extreme conflict of interest) from the start. Even The Washington Post and The Nation are saying Russiagate, as profitable ratings-wise and click-wise it was for mainstream news, is done.
I’ve avoided all social media and news programs. I read the summary of Muller’s report and that’s it. I put my head up to peek at the news today that Bar is going after the ACA and pre-existing conditions. Please people contact BOTH Democrat and Republicans to remind them about their promise to protect pre-existing conditions. Bar is even more dangerous than Sessions!
We.Need.To.See.The.Report. We (taxpayers) paid for it, we should see it. All of it. At the least the Congressional leaders should see it.
Read somewhere that if Barr continues to play keepaway with it and obstruct, the HJC can potentially charge him with obstruction and as part of that investigation then use their subpoena powers to get ahold of it in full.
I think there are more than a few ways to skin a cat, and if the smarter Dems in Congress play their cards well and are persistent, we will see the results.
Jesus Christ, get this guy a muzzle and a pair of handcuffs he can’t get out of.
There is no God and there is no Justice. Heartbreaking. No one is going to save us, there is no one named “God” who will make wrongs right. There’s not gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s no hope for the middle class/below. It’s done. We’ve been had.