No information need apply!

SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2019

Also, please hold the analysis:
Yesterday, we started reading the Mueller report. We found it underwhelming.

It involves a series of episodes in which its chief character, Donald J. Trump, behaves like someone who's mentally ill.

For better or worse, we already thought that Donald J. Trump was mentally ill, or something like it. Again and again, the Mueller report shows him behaving as such a person would.

In the assessments of Trump's possible criminal complicity, the authors of the Mueller report keep acting like Trump isn't mentally ill—like he's a rational actor. So too with the nation's various corporate cable news stars.

That strikes us as slightly odd too. A bit of background:

The press corps decided at the start of last year that we mustn't discuss the possibility that Donald J. Trump is mentally ill. For that reason, Dr. Bandy Lee was frog-marched into the countryside surrounding New Haven, never to be heard from again.

No analysis need apply! So judged our biggest news orgs.

(Quick rule of thumb: The Goldwater rule is a very good rule under most circumstances. It ceases to be a good rule when a sitting United States president seems to be mentally ill.)

So far, we've found the Mueller report a bit underwhelming. For our money, the most interesting report in this morning's newspapers is the New York Times' front-page report about the Steele dossier.

Because we're a marginally rational tribal species, we tend to believe our own tribe's twaddle at highly fraught times like these. As liberals, we've tended to believe the Steele dossier, especially with our own highly marginal figures—people like Rachel Maddow—propagandizing us, again and again, about how reliable the dossier supposedly was.

This morning's front-page report in the Times lists the various ways the dossier was wrong or seems to have been wrong. This gives us a chance to consider the ways our own tribe may tend to misfire:

Michael Cohen "did not, as the dossier claimed, travel to Prague to conspire in the Russian hacking of Democrats, the Mueller report makes clear." Almost surely, Donald J. Trump didn't cavort with those Moscow prostitutes in the crazy way the dossier described.

Carter Page is still walking around, even after all the times Maddow hung him up by his thumbs, relying on the dossier's thrilling assertions.

Again and again, the dossier seems to have been wrong. In one nugget, the Times reporters say this:
SHANE, GOLDMAN AND ROSENBERG (4/20/19): By January 2017, F.B.I. agents had tracked down and interviewed one of Mr. Steele’s main sources, a Russian speaker from a former Soviet republic who had spent time in the West, according to a Justice Department document and three people familiar with the events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. After questioning him about where he’d gotten his information, they suspected he might have added his own interpretations to reports passed on by his sources, one of the people said. For the F.B.I., that made it harder to decide what to trust.

Agents did not believe that either the source or Mr. Steele was deliberately inventing things, according to the former official. How the dossier ended up loaded with dubious or exaggerated details remains uncertain, but the document may be the result of a high-stakes game of telephone, in which rumors and hearsay were passed from source to source.
Now they tell us! At any rate, when our own highly marginal figure kept vouching for the dossier, she may have been vouching for "the results of a high-stakes game of telephone!"

The Times even reports on speculation that Steele was conned by Russkie disinformation in parts of the dossier. We don't know if that actually happened, but according to this report, it's a "possibility—one that Mr. Steele has not ruled out!"

This front-page report makes us feel for the mentally ill Mr. Trump. Here's why we say that:

Suppose you know that you didn't cavort with those Moscow prostitutes in the transparently crazy ways the dossier said you did.

You may also know that Micheal Cohen didn't go to Prague. You may even know that you yourself didn't "collude" with any Russkie disinformation efforts in any particular way.

Also, suppose that you are mentally ill when you hear these claims being bruited! We can almost understand why a person who's mentally ill might react to this sort of thing in the manner of someone who's mentally ill!

For ourselves, we're sympathetic to people who are mentally ill. Stating the obvious, the fact that Trump seems to be mentally ill doesn't mean that he isn't disordered and dangerous. It means that we aren't inclined to regard him as we might regard other people who behave in certain ways.

This brings us to the question of the mental functioning of our own somewhat disordered tribe. As tribal animals, we were strongly inclined to believe the claims of the Steele dossier. Also, consider the ongoing lack of indictments from that famous Trump Tower meeting.

Bret Stephens writes a valuable column in today's New York Times. "Conservatives should thank Mueller," the conservative Stephens says.

He makes a series of excellent points. That said, along the way, he offers this doctored narration:
STEPHENS (4/20/19): If his own staff hadn’t blocked [Trump] from firing Mueller, he would have done so. If Don Jr. had been delivered a crate full of stolen Clinton documents at that Trump Tower meeting with a shady Russian lawyer, he would have taken it. If this newspaper hadn’t exposed Paul Manafort for taking illicit cash from Ukraine’s president, he might well have wound up as a senior U.S. official vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
Presumably, most of those statements are accurate. That said, there was never any indication that Trump Junior was offered "stolen" documents or any type of illicitly acquired information.

Nor is it entirely clear why that Russian lawyer had to be tagged as "shady," except for purposes of novelization.

Trump Junior was offered "information" about Hillary Clinton. It's typical of the mental life of our species, almost comically so, that he is being criticized for attempting to receive it.

Regarding Trump Senior's mental state, we've been told that we mustn't discuss it. Regarding the person running against Trump Senior, Trump Junior has been told that he shouldn't have tried to receive "information" about her. No information or analysis need apply!

As Professor Harari suggests, our species tends to run on "gossip" and compelling group "fiction." It tends to be narrative all the way down.

Meanwhile, riddle us this:

When was the last time Stephens' own New York Times refused to publish stolen information? Trump Junior wasn't offered stolen information. But when was the last time our biggest newspapers turned such material down?

Our newspapers publish stolen information all the time! But when someone else attempts to acquire information—information which wasn't stolen—we're told that receiving information should be viewed as a crime!

Anthropologically speaking, this is the way our self-impressed species tends to function. Despite our lofty self-portraits, we're strongly inclined to avoid information and analysis.

We don't need no stinking information! Anthropologically speaking, it tends to be tribal story-line pretty much all the way down.

Parts of this report were adapted from FAHIC NEWS, the official news service of Future Anthropologists Huddled in Caves (TM), the trademarked though disconsolate group which survived the effects of Mister Trump's War and communicates through nocturnal transmissions which the haters disparage as "dreams."

73 comments:

  1. "It involves a series of episodes in which its chief character, Donald J. Trump, behaves like someone who's mentally ill."

    This is one of the highest praises one could possibly get from a dembot. But personally I prefer 'racist'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bob Somerby seems to excuse Trump from criminal responsibility by alleging criminal irresponsibility instead, i.e. mental illness... but if that's the case then Trump should still be removed from office, via section 4 of the 25th Amendment, by reason of [mental and moral] inability to discharge the powers and duties of his office. If the VP and cabinet fail to so act, impeachment remains the only fallback.

      Delete
    2. Yeah, dembot. I'm all for impeachment.

      Bring it on, it'll be fun. I'm encouraging you to pause your dembot ORANGE MAN BAD campaign, and immediately organize a massive letter-writing campaign, demanding impeachment.

      Delete
    3. Raven! It’s been a while, glad to see you back. Between you and Cmike, I’ve learned a lot, hypertext language being one of them. And I’ll not forget your offer of lettering. In fact, I’ll offer it now, even to the cretins:

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      Bob never saw it.

      Anyway, I seem to recall that Bob was against MSM psychoanalysis of the Peachy Keen President, and even himself seemed to play a waiting game to make his own assessment. Memory is fungible, maybe I’m wrong, but Bob was against such public acts of assessment, that I do remember.

      That being said, I keep a pocket edition of the Constitution nearby at all times, and the idea that Congress will act on such stipulations as outlined by the 25th seems incredibly remote. I would have thought that the emoluments clause would have disqualified that SOS (sack o’ shit) by now, but nooo.

      The laws are creaky and any lawsuit is by design creaky in its resolution – which I applaud. Though I suppose the statute of limitations is running out for the evil fucks that cratered our economy in 2007-2008. Just as they will be immune when it craters again. But optimism is a healing balm. We just have to embrace it, and work for it.

      Leroy

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    4. Best of luck to AOC but to get a buy-in from Somerby she'll probably have to start donning overalls on a regular basis or spice up her Catholic liturgy with some Voodoo to prove to him she's as authentic as a Clinton or a Buttigieg LINK. As for winning over anyone with power, it's probably hopeless LINK.

      Delete
    5. Hi, Leroy! Glad to see you've kept learning, and passing along what you learn to others (whether or not they appreciate or make use of it).

      Delete
  2. TDH keeps flogging this Trump is mentally ill claim. (He isn't the only one). I'm generally a fan of TDH (not his forays into math and philosophy though). I think he is way off here. I'm not a shrink,(I'm a lawyer for more than 40 years) but psychiatry isn't an exact science. My assumption is if you asked 100 shrinks about Trump's mental health, you'd get a wide variety of opinions - even if hypothetically he was actually their patient. Trump certainly isn't psychotic. He doesn't think the CIA is transmitting messages into the fillings in his teeth. He got elected president for god sake - and exercised quite a bit of shrewdness in doing so. I might note that the economy of the country hasn't collapsed (yet), and by some measures is doing quite ok. I gather things other than psychosis can constitute a psychiatric condition - a psychopath is an extreme example. There have been murderous governments throughout history, up to the present. were the leaders of those countries "mentally ill or just awful villains?" (And Trump as far as I know isn't dragging people off the streets and throwing them into dungeons (I know, the child separation, but that is short of what Stalin did). I would suggest that by TDH's measure of mental illness, the majority, maybe the vast majority, of us are mentally ill. Who isn't neurotic and a lot of times irrational to one degree or another? Is TDH mentally ill with his irrational obsession with Wittgenstein and Goeddel? Perhaps TDH should read Machiavelli; he might have enjoyed, and learned something more, in his philosophy classes if he read him and other philosophers, as opposed to boring logical positivists.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. "Is TDH mentally ill with his irrational obsession with Wittgenstein and Goeddel? "

      I don't think Bob is mentally ill.

      He sounds a lot like a curmudgeon, grumpy old man. But that's the extent of it.

      As for Mr Trump, somehow the grumpy old man Bob believes that any politician must speak and act as a robot, a-la Algore. Or The Creepy Joe, for that matter.

      Which is, of course, a thing of the past, in our era of populism. But then it's quite natural for a grumpy old man to be a little behind the times.

      Delete
    2. Bob, too, is doing everything he can to explain Trump without mentioning how turned-on the white electorate is with Trump's bigotry.
      Trump's alleged mental illness is the latest nonsense reason to be discussed and shown not to be the case.

      Delete
    3. AC/MA: "Trump certainly isn't psychotic. He doesn't think the CIA is transmitting messages into the fillings in his teeth."

      He has made claims every bit as delusional: recall "Obama tapped my phones"? (Trump himself was known to have tapped guests' phones at his resorts.) How about when he and Kim Jong Un were "in love" and he thought everything the murderous North Korean dictator said could be trusted? Just as he still feels about Vladimir Putin....

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    4. Yes, dembot, diplomacy is insanity. Definitely.

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    5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Assuming that Trump’s “mental illness” didn’t suddenly (and conveniently) begin in January 2017, it seems quite an accomplishment for a poor, deranged, pitiable mentally ill simp to annihilate all 16 of his GOP rivals in the primary, some of whom were quite formidable and experienced politicians, become the party’s nominee, beat Hillary in 2016, get all of his former naysayers (Ryan, Graham, Romney) and the entire GOP to fall in line behind him to the point of abject sycophancy, attract a “fixer” like Bill Barr to cover for his misdeeds, all while exhibiting the same kind of behavior he has always been known for: bullying, authoritarianism, grifting, lying, self-dealing that is proceeding apace.

    But of course, Somerby finds confirmation of his own previous and cherished belief of Trump’s “mental illness.”

    Trump has duped you too, Bob.

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    Replies
    1. Mental illness, by itself, is not a defense when accused of criminal behavior. Most of the criminals in jail are mentally ill. There is a legal definition of insanity that can lead to a not guilty judgment, but Trump doesn't meet that, nor has Somerby asserted it.

      It is a bit late for the USA to decide that mental illness is an excuse for criminality when it has never been throughout the country's history. So the mental illness of our President is moot. It would have been nice if others around Trump had used article 25 to take him out of office, but that isn't going to happen either.

      So Somerby needs to stop talking about Trump's mental illness, something Somerby is unqualified to diagnose, and instead deal with his behavior and the harm that has been doing to our country, and the need for our leaders to do their job by impeaching and removing Trump.

      Delete
  4. Perhaps Somerby hasn’t gotten to the part about Don Jr, but Mueller seriously considered charging Jr with campaign finance violations, but for various reasons did not. The issue wasn’t so much whether there was a violation (Mueller believed there was), but Mueller questioned Jr’s mens rea, and wondered if the value of the “dirt” rose to the level of a felony. There are also the troubling revelations that communications were destroyed and that Manafort, who might have shed more light on this tawdry affair, broke his plea agreement and refused to talk. (Hmm. Wonder why he did that?)

    But old narratives die hard, and Somerby isn’t going to bother altering his after reading the report. No siree.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Mueller didn't charge Don. Jr. with campaign finance violations because Mueller didn't have evidence to prove that Don Jr. committed campaign finance violations.

      Note the one-way ratchet. If Mueller charged Don Jr. with violations and convicted him, that would show that Don Jr. was guilty. OTOH if Mueller did not charge Don Jr with violations, that also shows that Don Jr was guilty.

      Delete
    2. Yes, I noticed the one-way ratchet. It's similar to the one used to run interference for the rich paying their fair share.
      If the criticism is made by a rich person, they're considered to be "a hypocrite", but if it's made by someone who isn't rich, they're considered "jealous".

      Delete
  5. “But when someone else attempts to acquire information—information which wasn't stolen—we're told that receiving information should be viewed as a crime!”

    First of all, we would all like to know how Somerby knows what went down in that Trump Tower meeting, and exactly what kind of information was being offered.

    Second, the chargeable crime that was alleged was a campaign finance violation. It’s there in the report. But, no need for Somerby to let his own ignorance of the law get in the way of his opinion.

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    1. Suppose Russians HAD provided useful campaign information, would that have been a campaign finance violation. I think the that's based on the theory that information has a financial value, so it should be treated as a donation. To me, that's a dubious interpretation of the law. Campaigns get information all the time from all sorts of people. Has anyone ever reported that information as a campaign donation? Has anyone ever been punished for failing to report information as if it were a financial donation? I doubt it.

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    2. There was a whole pattern of coordination, with Wikileaks, with Russians, etc. Spin it how you want. You would be calling Hillary a traitor if she had done any of this. Oh, wait. You guys *are* saying she colluded about the Steele dossier, and how wrong that supposedly was. The cognitive dissonance from your side is astounding.

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    3. I'm troubled by Somerby's equation of a campaign's (purported) willingness to accept (potentially) stolen information from a foreign player with a journalist's willingness to publish such information. The difference is pretty clear.

      Delete
  6. Replies
    1. A link from "Highlights for Bigots" isn't going to sway anybody's opinion, son.

      Delete
    2. A whole bunch of confessions today from you, dembot. Leave some for tomorrow.

      Delete
  7. Democratic elites like Maddow are racists. The liberal journalists, academics, media personalities, Hollywood stars, intelligence officials, and New York Times documentary filmmakers who’ve been screeching about “the Russians” for the past three years may not be aware that they’re serving up reheated racist fantasies, but they are.

    And this bigotry isn’t coming from the “lower-classes” that liberals love to mock so much, but from very top — the crème de la crème of our media and political class. One day you get Rachael Maddow working herself into paranoid seizure about a supposed Russian plot to cut power lines and freeze millions of Americans in their sleep. On another, you can watch the screenwriter of Mrs. Doubtfire take to the Internet to theorize about how the Russians are plotting to take down Joe Biden (and I guess to covertly boost Bernie Sanders) by getting an American politician to highlight the creepy and demeaning way Biden treats women.

    It’s gross, and it goes to show that the respectable liberal opposition to Donald Trump is no less racist and paranoid than he is — it just operates in a different xenophobic market demographic.

    When the reality is stripped away, the sad truth is that this racism is all they have. They don't have policies that address the true issues rank and file Americans face. Their policies and the policies of Republicans are basically the same.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. The Russians interfered with our election via social media and collusion with Trump and Wikileaks. They stole voter data from Illinois, and apparently breached a computer system in Florida. This isn’t made up. It’s a real and significant threat to our electoral system.

      And it isn’t just Russians. Who knows what the Chinese, the Saudis and others might be trying?

      By the way, it isn’t average Russians we’re talking about; it’s Russian military intelligence and associates of Putin. The concern expressed by some in the media is thus directed at hostile state actors, and is not blanket bigotry against Russians. That is a stupid characterization that is a misdirection.

      As to your “Democrats are the same as Republicans?” That is stupid beyond belief.

      Delete
    2. Hmm, but where's your email server, Hillary?

      Did you crush it with hammers to prevent the FBI from analyzing it?

      Delete
    3. How are Democrats different from Republicans? Democrats are Republicans.

      Actually, thinking Russian interference was a real and significant threat to our electoral system is stupid beyond belief. Why do you believe that? Mueller said nothing of the sort. They interfered but there is no evidence that it had any effect.

      The real and significant threat to our electoral system is campaign funding by the corporate state whose goals are at complete odds with yours and mine. Anything Russia did is tiny and insignificant by comparison. I mean, it is not even remotely close Esse. You better get yourself a 7-up, old man. You're fuckin' up.

      Delete
    4. 4:23

      For instance, Hillary spent a billion and a half on her campaign most of that money coming from various industrial complexes, health, military,technology, banking, to whom she would have been indebted to pass laws that are at odds with the needs and wants of people like you and I who voted for her. Do you want any examples?. (Trump spent almost a billion with the same scenario although he did have more individual donors than Hillary.)

      Russia, on the other hand is accused of spending $100,000 on Facebook ads. Less than 1% of 1% of the money spent on the election. Less than a fraction.

      It's simply a joke when put in context with the influence corporations have over our elections to emphasize any Russian interference as a threat to our electoral system which is bought and paid for by corporations at our,you and I's, expense. It's less than a drop in the in the bucket.

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    5. "most of that money coming from various industrial complexes, health, military,technology, banking, to whom she would have been indebted to pass laws"

      Yeah. Incidentally, she (and her whole lib-zombie cult) wasn't paid by American corporations and banksters. They are financed by multinationals, whose primary business is making money by shipping American industries into low wage countries, with weak environmental protection, helpless unions, and other goodies global financial capitalism loves.

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    6. No shit pencil dick, idiot Jap.

      Delete
    7. My ilk? You're a fucking dipshit.

      More small donations, far more self-financing, some zionist money - all true.

      Goldman Sachs is all over senior White House slots faggot, no pussy having, tiny dick. Jap. He nominated a fast food executive with a notoriously anti-union record as the next Secretary of Labor, no move on NAFTA. Trump is a fucking zionist, corporatist feeding frenzy. A lobbyist's wet dream. He took huge sums from Silicon Valley, telecom finance, MIC. He's a fucking joke and no, binary robot Jap, that is not a defense of Hillary. Where is the drained swamp pencil dick?

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    8. The push illustrates how Trump, who once took a sledgehammer to rivals for their supposed fealty to big donors, has come to rely on a GOP establishment he once repudiated.

      https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/22/trump-campaign-donors-1283459

      Mao, fanfare for the common man.

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    9. So, now we agree on who financed the campaigns, and you want to change the subject to the employment histories of third-level functionaries inside the administration.

      Is that it?

      Then, hopefully, we'll agree that employment histories don't define the behavior of third-level bureaucrats, and at that point you'll switch to some other talking point?

      And that's your whole script, dembot. Right?

      Delete
    10. If we agree that he is financed and a shill for multinationals, yes we agree.

      "The campaign is aggressively wooing those who backed other candidates in 2016. Among those signing on is Geoff Verhoff, a lobbyist at the Washington firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld who bundled more than $1 million for Marco Rubio."

      Worm dick robot dumbass.

      Delete
    11. Trump, sons sue to block House Democrats from obtaining his financial records

      File this under: "cleaning out the swamp"

      He is already breaking the law by ordering his corrupt treasury secretary to not comply with the law in turning over his tax returns.

      File this under: "greater transparency"

      Delete
    12. Orange man and libs both bad (corrupt, acting in the interests of foreign powers, by facilitating neoliberal globalization, de-industrialization of America) dickless fuckwad.

      Orange man good is a joke and fucking retarded and you are fucking retarded.

      I know he said he was acting in the interest of keeping industry here and thriving but, as he has to others so many times before, he played you for a fool - stop acting stupid. He has done some good things though. He's probably better than Clinton would have been.

      But you have no life and are a virgin - so go fuck yourself. A 24 hour troll? Orange man good ? You're a loser.

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    13. "He's probably better than Clinton would have been."

      There you go.

      It takes less than 10 words to state the obvious, and you, faggot, have to type a hundred. Go get your head examined.

      Delete
    14. Yes, thank you your brilliancy. If only everyone could as ultra-wise as you, the world would be so wonderful. Hahahaha. Joke's on you young boy. Funny, you act just like a whiny leftist - crying like a bitch because everything doesn't go your way. You're a fucking pussy.

      Delete
  8. I doubt Bob Somerby read the Mueller report, it is quite damning. Trump's utter contempt for America and Americans is on full display. Mueller makes it clear Trump is guilty of obstruction and provides a road map for prosecution. Trump's collusion with Russia has been publicly evident the entire time.

    TDH and the Republicans' tortuous defense of Trump is laughable.

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    1. Be a good dembot, dembot, and demand impeachment. Now.

      Delete
    2. There are numerous Democrats who are not calling for impeachment. Others are. Doesn’t indicate “robotic” behavior.

      On the other hand, the Republican hive mind to a person rejects it.

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    3. Good point, @8:02. Still, it's remarkable and bizarre to see so many calling for impeachment now that the Special Prosecutor declared him innocent of illegal collusion and didn't find him guilty of Obstruction of Justice.

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    4. DinC: Of course the Special Prosecutor explicitly did NOT exonerate ("declare innocent") Trump; and, not being a judge and jury in a court of law, he never had the power to "find him guilty" of any charge. Indeed, DOJ policy forbade him even to indict a sitting president, which is why all he could do is put the evidence into a report for others to act upon — either Congress (e.g. impeachment) or later prosecutors after Trump leaves office (the five-year statute of limitations means Trump could be charged over a year after he leaves office, since his actions took place after Inauguration).

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    5. The report makes clear that given the "no indictment" rule, the mission could only be to exonerate or not. "Not" was their finding. How difficult is this, really?

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    6. Fascinating exercises in hermeneutics abound.

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    7. Made necessary by willful misinterpretations.

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    8. Meh. Completely unnecessary, if you recognize the Lieutenant Klink's Bible for what it is: a highly politicized bunch of 'narratives', concocted for the purpose of delegitimizing the duly elected president. And, obviously, for aggravating the environment of paranoid mccarthyism.

      Delete
    9. David,
      Even Mao noticed Mueller's report has the goods on Trump. Why won't you?

      Delete
    10. @1:57 and David Stein - Mueller could have indicted people from Trump's campaign for illegal collusion with Russia. He could have indicted people from Trump's campaign for participating in Obstruction of Justice. The Report could have explicitly said "Trump committed Obstruction of Justice" or said "Trump illegally colluded with Russia." I must have read and heard a million predictions that various Trump campaign people would be indicted for illegal collusion and a million predictions that the Report would explicitly describe and provide evidence of Trump's illegal collusion. None of these things happened.

      The tone of the Report is anti-Trump. That's not surprising, since it was written by a group of anti-Trump partisans. That tone has no more significance than Rush Limbaugh's tone against Democrats.

      Delete
    11. No, it's not the tone.

      "Mueller could have indicted people from Trump's campaign for illegal collusion with Russia. He could have indicted people from Trump's campaign for participating in Obstruction of Justice."


      He couldn't. Because, unlike with indictments of some random Russians, he would have to prove his stories in court.

      Not to mention that even with his indictments of random Russians, he is currently being made fool of, every couple of weeks, by lawyers of one Concord Management.

      So, he did the only thing he could: provided a tendentious selection of dubious (or fabricated) 'facts' and conjectures, superficially supporting his cabal's 'narrative'. That's all.

      Delete
    12. Odd, isn’t it, that Mueller, conducting the witch hunt, produced a report that totally exonerated the president, in the words of aforementioned president and hangers-on, but is yet total bullshit, and that Mueller, a Republican, could have indicted Don Jr and Jared, etc, but didn’t, out of deference to Deep State US Code and established DOJ policy that benefits Trump and associates and aligns with Barr’s views, and at the same time Mueller is part of a cabal trying to unseat Trump and yet stopped short of actually doing so, while being longtime friends with Barr who is apparently not part of that cabal. We won’t get into whether Rosenstein is or isn’t part of the Mueller cabal...

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    13. And what's so odd about any of it?

      Except for your "out of deference" fantasy. Which is, indeed, an odd fantasy.

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    14. Trump claimed the report was total exoneration, but now calls it bullshit. He sure seems upset by a report that was a total declaration of innocence.

      Delete
    15. Does not compute, eh?

      I must admit, I trust that you're not acting willfully obtuse here, but you're naturally, innately obtuse, just like every other unfortunate soros-dembot. Sad.

      Delete
  9. The Mueller report was narrow in focus and Mueller clearly took that narrow focus to heart. The title spells out that focus. He was commissioned to investigate Russian interference as a prosecutor of any criminal acts. The bigger picture was, is and should be up to "us" - citizens and their elected representatives.

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  10. Somerby’s stance is puzzling. He believes Trump is mentally ill, but that evidence of collusion and obstruction of justice detailed in the Mueller report is “underwhelming”. Rather than seeing the report as providing evidence of misdeeds, Somerby feels that it provides further evidence of Trump’s mental illness. He argues against impeachment. And yet, if Trump is truly mentally ill, he should not be president. There is a mechanism for getting rid of a mentally ill president, but that will never happen as long as the GOP hold the key cards. Which leads to the question: do any Republicans see Trump as mentally ill? There’s hardly any evidence of this. But shouldn’t Republicans see this if it’s so obvious? Why is it solely up to the mainstream media and Democrats to bang this drum? Shouldn’t the GOP and Fox News acknowledge the so-called truth of Trump’s mental illness and do what’s best for the country?

    Somerby seems to be suggesting that Republicans are a hopeless lost cause. Which may be true, but that would seem to preclude the possibility of ever convincing them that Trump is ill and should therefore not be president. Somerby likes to complain that various Democratic or media statements gain votes for Trump, and should therefore be abandoned. How is braying about supposed mental illness, a much more difficult and fraught case to make, supposed to be any different?

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  11. It's normal to become angry when one is falsely accused of a crime, particularly when that false accusation is repeated publicly. I recommend the short novel, "The lost honour of Katharina Blum: Or, How violence develops and where it can lead" by Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll.

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    1. It’s also normal to become angry when your crimes have been found out.

      And anyway, it’s normal to lie like hell about something you’re not guilty of.

      Delete
    2. That book has no relevance for Trump. Katharina Blum had honor to lose. Not Trump.

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    3. It doesn't matter if one becomes angry or not.

      What is perfectly normal and natural is to vigorously defend oneself against false accusations.

      And if that is now considered "obstruction of justice", then the US is a police state, and we're in deep shit.

      Bubba The Demigod was guilty as hell, and he claimed executive privilege 14 times (google tells me). Trump didn't do it even once. Nor did he shut the witch-hunt down, although he could. And, as we know now, it would've been perfectly justified.

      Delete
    4. Trump tried and tried and tried to shut down the investigation (which is obstruction of justice),, but the poor thing couldn’t get his underlings to follow his orders. His incompetence as a leader will not save him from his intentions.

      Delete
    5. It's normal to become angry when one is falsely accused of a crime...

      And so we've come to the end of this little farce and this is the level of defense the lawless lovers of Donald J Chickenshit are reduced to. Trump was angry. Abuse of power, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, dangling pardons - eh, they shrug, he was angry.
      Don't even attempt to have an intellectually honest debate with these fucking disgusting bullshitters. They look at you and say, "fuck you, he's Donald and whatever he does is ok by me." Say goodbye to our democratic republic. In case you haven't noticed they are at war with us.

      Delete
    6. Constitutional lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said the special counsel had a legally flawed approach to investigating alleged obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.

      "What jumps out at me is that the Mueller people got the law all wrong on obstruction of justice," Dershowitz told Sinclair Broadcast Group in a Thursday interview. "They came to the conclusion that a president could obstruct justice by simply exercising his constitutional authority under Article 2."

      According to Dershowitz, the president was within his authority to fire the FBI director and would have been justified, under the unified executive theory, to shut down the investigation.

      "The position I've taken from day one is for the president to obstruct justice, he has to go beyond his own permissible constitutional authority and engage in conduct that would be a crime for anyone else, like tampering with witnesses, obstructing a witness, paying witnesses, telling them to lie. None of that is charged against President Trump," Dershowitz said.

      https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/dershowitz-on-mueller-report-obstruction-of-justice

      Delete
    7. 2020? Mr Manafort should pardoned today. Every day this guy, a clear victim of selective prosecution, spends in jail is a slap in the face of justice.

      Delete
    8. Mao, champion of the common elite multinational global asshole. Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President, is too much of a fucking coward to do it before the 2020 election. Hope that helps. But your sympathy for a corrupt criminal tax cheat and traitor to my country is noted.

      Delete
    9. Calm down, Hillary.

      Delete
    10. Hey dittohead Rush, how was your golf outing for Donald J Chickenshit this weekend? Figure out any new ways to fuck the common man?

      Delete
    11. "It's normal to become angry when one is falsely accused of a crime..."

      White privilege. Try being black and become angry when falsely accused of a crime, and let me know how that works out for you.

      Delete
  12. David would let you get away with murder if you give him the same bigotry Trump does.

    ReplyDelete
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