The age-old conning of the tribe!

TUESDAY, JULY 23, 2019

It's time for Katyal to go:
From the cable news pseudo-liberal perspective, the Mueller report was a deeply disastrous dud.

We'd been promised so many indictments that we'd get tired of all the indictments! But Mueller announced no further indictments. Most disastrously, the Mueller report said this, early on:
MUELLER REPORT (Volume I, page 9): Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks’s releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.
Oof. The corporate clowns who con us each night had promised us something much better. When it finally appeared, the Mueller report was a ginormous dud.

From that time to this, those same corporate clowns have been conning us liberals all over again. No one is more ridiculous than MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, who emits a selective account of the contents of the Mueller report on a daily basis.

Last Friday, Wallace was at it again. Below, you see her slithery, slick account of what "the normal person" can "take from" the Mueller report.

She spoke with Neal Katyal, a former high official, but one who has also decided to function as a propagandist:
WALLACE (7/19/19): You're the rule of law guy. I spent more of my time of the political side...Just from your perspective on the rule of law side of the ledger, is it clear to you that when Robert Mueller stood up before God and country, which actually means something to Robert Mueller—we're so conditioned to someone who doesn't mean what they say or say what they mean—

KATYAL: I have no idea what you're talking about—

WALLACE (Laughing, as always): Donald J. Trump, for one.

When Robert Mueller says, "If I could have found that the president didn't commit crimes, I would have said so," what the normal person can take from that is that Donald Trump did commit crimes?
Wallace has been running that version of three-card monte for weeks. It was ironic to see her run this con after praising Mueller for his honesty, but people like Wallace have behaved this way all through the annals of time.

Needless to say, "a normal person" can "take from" the Mueller report whatever he or chooses. But the Mueller report doesn't say that Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice. It says that Mueller and his team made no attempt to settle the matter one way or the other.

Mueller did say, in his report, that he can't exonerate Trump. He also said that he hasn't judged that Trump did commit obstruction. Wallace keeps reporting one part of that multi-part statement, then urging her viewers to draw the pleasing conclusion she persistently describes.

This is who and what Wallace is. It's what she was when she pimped the war in Iraq. It's what she was in 2004 when she pimped all those same-sex marriage ballot measures, trying to drive up turnout to keep George Bush in office.

Wallace is a partisan propagandist; that's who and what she is. In a more rational world, it would fall to a former public official like Katyal to correct the misleading statements these impulses cause her to issue.

That said, Katyal has taken the tribal dive too. This is the remarkable way he responded to Wallace:
KATYAL (continuing directly): Absolutely. And I mean it was remarkable, because the president, right after the Barr summary of the Mueller report came out, said the report found no obstruction, no collusion, totally exonerates the president. And Barr's summary suggested that was all right.

But now that we actually have the report, it says the reverse.
On just the first couple of pages, Mueller says, "Look, if I could have cleared the president of obstruction of justice, I would have." That is devastating, the implication lies in the air, and that's what we should be talking about Wednesday.
To watch the full hustle, click here. Regarding Katyal's response:

The Mueller report says no such thing "on just the first couple of pages." More significantly, the Barr letter didn't suggest that the Mueller report "totally exonerates the president."

Also, the Mueller report doesn't "say the reverse" of that. That's just plainly inaccurate.

Should the normal person take away the idea that Mueller did find that Trump committed the crime of obstruction? Below, you see what the report actually says, early in Volume II:
MUELLER REPORT (Volume 2, page 2): Fourth, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.
Partisans can describe the hidden meanings of that full passage in whatever way they choose. They can then convey their selective, novelized pictures to "normal people" who don't know that they're being conned.

But Katyal follows Wallace down the drain, citing one part of what was said while completely omitting the other. The conduct is especially egregious coming from a person who has worked "on "the rule of law side," not as a partisan hack.

One other point should be made. There was at least one obvious problem with the Barr letter's summary of the Mueller report.

But in his letter, Barr quoted the very sentence in which Mueller says that he didn't exonerate Trump. By now, people like Katyal have made it sound like Barr disappeared that part of what Mueller said. This false impression is routinely conveyed on MSNBC programs.

Rereading the Barr letter today, it's hard to say that Barr was more disingenuous then than Katyal is today. But then, we humans weren't wired for Enlightenment values, top high-ranking anthropologists have quite frequently said.

We were and are wired for tribal war—for constructing, then repeating, our preferred tribal narratives. Wallace has always behaved in such ways. Katyal now follows suit.

Wallace has been sent to us live and direct from service to President Bush and his wars. Of Katyal, we'll repeat what glum future experts have said:

Because he's human, all too human, it's time to get him off the air!

27 comments:

  1. "Most disastrously, the Mueller report said this, early on:"

    Well, dear Bob, perhaps even more disastrously, the Mueller report has been now proven a fraud. Liberal zombie cult directed fraud.

    See the latest development in the Concord Management lawsuit.

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    Replies
    1. You get all upset when a non-Trump worshiper fails to provide back up ,yet here you are talking about how Mueller has been "proven to be a fraud." (Probably takes very little to prove that to you, I would think). How has he been "proven a fraud?" What is the basis for your claim?

      Delete
    2. Did you notice the last sentence? Google Concord Management, and click the consortiumnews link, it should be on the first page.

      Okay, here, just in case: https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/12/concord-management-and-the-end-of-russiagate/

      Delete
    3. "...the Mueller report has been now proven a fraud."

      The one that totally exonerated Trump and showed no collusion? Thanks for the update, zombie dembot.

      Delete
    4. Mao, I looked up the Consortium pieces. Consortium has been vehemently negative on the Mueller probe and the Russian interference claim for a long time (and I am not far off from that view, in the sense that I think it's making a mountain out of a molehill, and skepticism in general). But since you think Consortium is such a good source, I'd welcome the day when you cite some of their constant attacks on our current POTUS. The particular Consortium posts you cite don't "prove" the Mueller report is a "fraud." The judge in that Concord Management case issued an order prohibiting the prosecution from violating a court rule relating to pre-trial publicity. The judge has made other ruling against Concord Management in the case. It does seem to me that Mueller, the dems, the liberal pundits, and a lot of republicans claim that actors in Russia who propagated the fake news Facebook posts assert that this was the equivalent of the Russian government making the posts. I suppose if some private U.S. citizen somehow was able to send posts attacking Putin next time he runs, it wouldn't ipso facto mean the U.S. government was behind it. (But it wouldn't shock me if in fact Mueller was right). Frankly, I think there are a lot of things that aren't known, and a lot of people (including you I'm afraid) make unequivocal claims based on various degrees of insufficient evidence.

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    5. "Frankly, I think there are a lot of things that aren't known,"

      Fine. And I think that everything is perfectly clear.

      The establishment candidate was unexpectedly defeated in the 2016 election. The machine of 'managed democracy' in America suffered a glitch.

      The russiagate hoax was their response. To erase the humiliation, to delegitimize the new president, and (hopefully) to institute a coup.

      Incredibly reckless (should we say: treasonous?) actions. Perpetrated by the proverbial 'swamp'. Or the 'deep state', if you prefer.

      And this is what we've been witnessing since the morning of 11/9/2016. That's all.

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    6. You may think it's all "perfectly clear;" and you're a bright fella (who seems to spend a lot of time on the internet) though I have no way of knowing where you are in life - but you come across as a dogmatic zealot. Who is the "their" who responded by inventing the Russiagate hoax? Name them. All this deep state stuff - is paranoid conspiracy theory. "Treasonous" - the so-called deep state guy, Brennan called Trump treasonous - foolish. Trump calls people who don't applaud him traitors - idiotic. Maybe there is some truth to what you say - but you're blind or ignore all the contrary evidence, including what a jerk Trump is - as pointed out so often by Consortium News -

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    7. You're welcome to your opinion.

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    8. ...as for naming them, I just saw Sy Hersh quoted saying "it was a Brennan operation, it was an American disinformation".

      But of course Brennan is just a manager. The deep state is an institution, not a person.

      It's an institution serving financial interests. In these times, it's the interests of global finance, i.e. those who make super-profits exploiting the tremendous gap between wages in poor countries and consumer prices in rich ones.

      I'll leave you with this famous quote from Capital:

      "Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated."

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    9. Mao's love for Trump, because Trump gave his Establishment Elite friends a massive tax cut, and is throwing more than 3 million children off the food stamp program, is hiding in plain sight.

      Delete
  2. Mao, you are consistent. You've never said or are capable of saying anything remotely intelligent, so why don't you create your own ignorant blog or post on the many right wing ignorant blogs there are?

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    Replies
    1. Dear Alan,
      thank you for you attention, your appreciation, and your kind suggestions.

      To answer your question: I talked to many wingnuts. Please believe me when I tell you that they, on average, are nowhere near as retarded as you dembots.

      Incidentally, there is a simple explanation for that, dear Alan. You see, unlike you brainless dembots, wingnuts have a solid (albeit often flawed) base: traditions. Traditions, developed over centuries and millennia.

      Traditions - that's something. You dembots, otoh, got nothing; only your hatred and your retarded zombie talking points. And this makes you an interesting object to study.

      So, sorry, but I'm staying with you for now. And you, dear Alan, should take pride in it.

      Delete
  3. It would have been a simple matter for Mueller to use the same language in Volume 2 as in Volume 1: “the evidence was not sufficient.” He did not say that in reference to obstruction of justice.

    It was Barr in his summary who took it upon himself to determine Trump’s guilt or innocence, and he decided that “the evidence was not sufficient” to charge Trump with obstruction, and that allowed Trump to claim “total exoneration”, which is what Katyal was saying.

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    Replies
    1. "He did not say that in reference to obstruction of justice."

      Meh. Since he definitely concluded that there was no crime to administer justice upon in the first place, the thing he wasn't sure about should be called "obstruction of injustice".

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    2. No, dipshit Dittohead limpdick, it means the obstruction was successful.

      Delete
    3. @5:46 Barr did not "take it upon himself" to determine Trump’s guilt or innocence. It was his job, as AG, to do that. BTW you left out the fact that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein agreed with Barr. Rosenstein was the man who appointed Mueller.

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    4. The Mueller report presents evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and that then later Trump obstructed justice. Read it.

      Mueller was unable to present a judgement of criminality due to DOJ policy; however, Mueller left little to interpret, especially with respect to obstruction where he laid out a clear road map to prosecute Trump.

      From Rosneft to money laundering for the Russian mob to not enforcing sanctions on Russia to partying with Epstein to kidnapping non white children and keeping them in concentration camps, etc. on and on, Trump is corrupt through and through. Whatever! There were not weapons of mass destruction in Iraq either.

      Are we supposed to pretend that Republicans have not been corrupt and racist for decades? Brother, please.

      Delete
    5. David, having never read the Mueller Report, is the go to guy to find out what it really says.
      Because he's a Conservative, I'm willing to bet David has never read the US Constitution or the Bible, either.

      Delete
  4. Somerby ever so gently applies his thumb to the scale in Trump's favor, and yet insists everyone else be limited to a purely literal reading of various news items, never mind analysis and context.

    Notwithstanding Somerby's minuscule cheerleading squad, his influence is roughly zero.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I knew today would be a disaster for the Democrat party but had no idea it would be this good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Dittohead, it's so embarrassing for Democrats to have to keep asking questions about exposing the endless lies from Donald j Chickenshit, Acting President, and his family of liars, beggars and thieves. I'm so embarrassed.

      Delete
  6. Bob,
    Trump is a liar and a thief.
    And Putin's bitch.
    You are Trump's bitch.

    ReplyDelete
  7. OMG, Right-wingers are excusing treason against the United States of America.
    No one could have seen that coming for the last 40 years. LOL.

    ReplyDelete
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