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Code:As of 9/21/10: As of 9/13/10: College Hockey 6 College Football 0 BTHC 4 WCHA FC: 1
Originally posted by SanTropezOriginally posted by bigblue_dlHe's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North WestOriginally posted by Kepler -
Not A Good Review Of Mueller
Weissmann offers a ****ing indictment of a “lawless” president and his knowing accomplices—Attorney General William Barr (portrayed as a cynical liar), congressional Republicans, criminal flunkies, Fox News. Donald Trump, he writes, is “like an animal, clawing at the world with no concept of right and wrong.” But in telling the story of the investigation and its fallout, Weissmann reserves his most painful words for the Special Counsel’s Office itself. Where Law Ends portrays a group of talented, dedicated professionals beset with internal divisions and led by a man whose code of integrity allowed their target to defy them and escape accountability.
“There’s no question I was frustrated at the time,” Weissmann told me in a recent interview. “There was more that could be done that we didn’t do.” He pointed out that the special counsel’s report never arrived at the clear legal conclusions expected from an internal Justice Department document. At the same time, it lacked the explanatory power of last month’s bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report on the 2016 election. “Even with 1,000 pages, it was better,” Weissmann said of the Senate report. “It made judgments and calls, instead of saying, ‘You could say this and you could say that.’”The Special Counsel’s Office also worked under the constant threat that Trump would fire Mueller, as Richard Nixon had fired Archibald Cox, the first Watergate special prosecutor, in the Saturday Night Massacre. Trump tried several times to get rid of Mueller, but he was stopped by his underlings, who knew that it would lead to legal and political disaster. Still, the threat never went away, and in the end, it served the president’s interests well: “The specter of our being shut down exerted a kind of destabilizing pull on our decision-making process.” Where Law Ends describes numerous instances, large and small, when Mueller declined to pursue an aggressive course for fear of the reaction at the White House. For example, the special counsel shied away from subpoenaing Don Trump Jr. to testify about his notorious June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. Ivanka Trump, who didn’t attend the meeting but talked with participants afterward in the lobby, and later discussed with her father how to conceal details from the press, was never even asked to speak with Mueller’s investigators: They “feared that hauling her in for an interview would play badly to the already antagonistic right-wing press—Look how they’re roughing up the president’s daughter—and risk enraging Trump, provoking him to shut down the Special Counsel’s Office once and for all.”On the subpoena, Weissmann told me that the reason given in the report—that the legal battle would have unduly delayed the inquiry—was less than candid, since a subpoena issued at the start of the investigation could have been resolved by the Supreme Court months before the date of the report’s completion. In Where Law Ends, Weissmann reveals that the real reason for not compelling the president to be interviewed was Mueller’s aversion to having an explosive confrontation with the White House. On the obstruction of justice, Mueller declined to make a determination because of a long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Mueller, judging that Trump wouldn’t have his day in court until he became a private citizen again, refrained from stating that Trump had broken the law (even though volume one of the report explicitly cleared the president of the conspiracy charge).
Weissmann politely demolishes this effort at extreme fairness. “I was flummoxed by Mueller’s thinking,” he admits. The special counsel was required to make a legal recommendation on the facts and present it in an internal department document to the attorney general. Barr could decide to keep the report private. Or, if it became public, Trump could use his unparalleled platform to defend himself to the country. Or he could choose to be charged and tried in order to clear his name. Mueller, completely out of character, was “making his own, freelance judgments about what was appropriate and not delivering on what he was tasked with doing.”Weissmann made these arguments to the lawyer whom Mueller had assigned to draft this tricky passage of the report. “I also think it seems like a transparent shell game,” Weissmann told his colleague. “When there is insufficient proof of a crime, in volume one, we say it. But when there is sufficient proof, with obstruction, we don’t say it. Who is going to be fooled by that? It’s so obvious.”
By abdicating the role of prosecutor, Mueller cleared the way for Barr to take it on himself. Mueller and Barr were old friends. Several weeks before submitting the report, Weissmann writes, Mueller informed Barr of his intent to omit any legal recommendation. Barr didn’t object. Without telling Mueller, he saw a chance to disfigure the report into an exoneration of the president and thereby make its ****ing truths disappear. “Barr,” Weissmann writes, “had betrayed both friend and country.”
And Mueller? He was incapable of navigating the world remade by Trump. He conducted himself with scrupulous integrity and allowed his team to be intimidated by people who had no scruples at all. His deep aversion to publicity silenced him when the public badly needed clarity about the special counsel’s dense, ambiguous, at times unreadable report. His sense of fairness surrendered the facts of presidential criminality to an administration that was at war with facts. He trusted his friend Barr to play it straight, not realizing that Barr had gone crooked. He left the job of holding the president accountable to a Congress that had shown itself to be Trump’s willing accomplice. He wanted, above all, to warn the American people about foreign subversion of our democracy, while the greater subversion gathered force here at home.
In our interview, I asked Weissmann if Mueller had let the American people down. “Absolutely, yep,” Weissmann said, before quickly adding: “I wouldn’t phrase it as just Mueller. I would say ‘the office.’ There are a lot of things we did well, and a lot of things we could have done better, to be diplomatic about it.”"It's as if the Drumpf Administration is made up of the worst and unfunny parts of the Cleveland Browns, Washington Generals, and the alien Mon-Stars from Space Jam."
-aparch
"Scenes in "Empire Strikes Back" that take place on the tundra planet Hoth were shot on the present-day site of Ralph Engelstad Arena."
-INCH
Of course I'm a fan of the Vikings. A sick and demented Masochist of a fan, but a fan none the less.
-ScoobyDoo 12/17/2007Comment
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Yep, he failed. We needed 1980s Giuliani going after Wall Street and the mob, and instead we got a total boy scout.Comment
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Need I state the obvious? He was a Republican judging Republicans. While he wasn't part of the criminal gang he was sympathetic to the larger cause that he felt would be damaged by exposing their criminality.Originally posted by FadeToBlack&Gold View PostCornell University
National Champion 1967, 1970
ECAC Champion 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1980, 1986, 1996, 1997, 2003, 2005, 2010
Ivy League Champion 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2020Comment
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He was weak willed and feckless. He got played and even after his "friend" spit all over his legacy he never even stood up to defend himself. He is no better than Ted Cruz who also wouldnt stand up to Trump after Trump insulted his wife and said his Dad killed Kennedy."It's as if the Drumpf Administration is made up of the worst and unfunny parts of the Cleveland Browns, Washington Generals, and the alien Mon-Stars from Space Jam."
-aparch
"Scenes in "Empire Strikes Back" that take place on the tundra planet Hoth were shot on the present-day site of Ralph Engelstad Arena."
-INCH
Of course I'm a fan of the Vikings. A sick and demented Masochist of a fan, but a fan none the less.
-ScoobyDoo 12/17/2007Comment
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I wouldn't say weak willed. I would say conflicted in his allegiances.Originally posted by Handyman View Post
He is far better than Cruz. Cruz is trash -- a pure cynic like Lady G and Yertle, just doing his paymasters' bidding and offering some hypocritical fig leaf to cover it with their dumber supporters. I believe Mueller tried to do the right thing. He simply didn't feel he had the standing to swing a meat cleaver: he left it to a Congress that he knew wouldn't do it because it was hopelessly riddled with Nazis.
He's not a profile in courage, but he's not a weakling either. He's just a guy who, when history at its eyes on him, failed the test. Which probably makes him like 99.9% of us, so let's be merciful.Cornell University
National Champion 1967, 1970
ECAC Champion 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1980, 1986, 1996, 1997, 2003, 2005, 2010
Ivy League Champion 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2020Comment
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Fvck Mueller. He is nothing more than a useless loser like the rest of his republican brethren. He showed me he IS a weakling by being unwilling or unable to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the American people. Maybe it would have helped, maybe it wouldn't. He still should have tried. How many Democrats praised him as being a stand-up guy and someone bound not by loyalty to party but loyalty to country? It was all bull5h!t. All of it. He is no better than the rest of them. And plenty of people I know would act in far more honorable ways. Hell, I'm a giant dick but I have more integrity than Mueller.
In other news in trump's Amerikkka, the surviving victim from the Kenosha shooter's murderous rage with his ***** enhancing AR-15 style rifle is being threatened. Even family members have not been spared.
This is not going to end well.Gaige Grosskreutz wasn’t even out of the hospital when his phone started blowing up. Shot point blank in the arm with an AR-15, he was the only person to survive a triple shooting at a protest condemning the shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha police in Wisconsin. Weeks later, the messages haven't stopped. And while some are encouraging, most are ugly, even threatening. In some corners of the internet, Grosskreutz, 26, has become the target of angry white supremacists who think he and others who support Black Lives Matter should be stopped by any means necessary — including homicide.Comment
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If you don't change the world today, how can it be any better tomorrow?Comment
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Why are they covering the hurricane and not MEEEEEEEEEE?! https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1308209688882958337
Cornell '04, Stanford '06
KDR
Rover Frenchy, Classic! Great post.
iwh30 I wish I could be as smart as you. I really do you are the man
gregg729 I just saw your sig, you do love having people revel in your "intelligence."
Ritt18 you are the perfect representation of your alma mater.
Miss Thundercat That's it, you win.
TBA#2 I want to kill you and dance in your blood.
DisplacedCornellian Hahaha. Thread over. Frenchy wins.
Test to see if I can add this.Comment
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Confirmation that those "Sir!" yarns that Trump weaves are bullsh**...
[From Tonight's Rally:] https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/s...53487496744961
Trump said he goes home all the time and asks Melania: "How did you like the crowd?"
According to him, Melania responded: "Sir, I didn't see it."“Demolish the bridges behind you… then there is no choice but to build again.”
Live Radio from 100.3Comment
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Donnie Jr's in town tomorrow.
Should I go to heckle?What kind of cheese are you planning to put on top?Comment
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He's recruiting brownshirts to beat people at the polls for Daddy's coup. I recommend staying as far away from his drooling lackeys as possible.Originally posted by rufus View PostCornell University
National Champion 1967, 1970
ECAC Champion 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1980, 1986, 1996, 1997, 2003, 2005, 2010
Ivy League Champion 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2020Comment
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This is the key thing I am waiting for. They still insist they have a Health Care plan. I hope we see it before election day.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-...ytztP9x5cIg2z0**NOTE: The misleading post above was brought to you by Reynold's Wrap and American Steeples, makers of Crosses.
Originally Posted by dropthatpuck-Scooby's a lost cause.
Originally Posted by First Time, Long Time-Always knew you were nothing but a troll.Comment
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