All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Brian Peacock]

Trump still talking as if the Mueller investigation was always and only ever about him. The collusion narrative is something he's promoted at every turn.

[Svartalf]

only the deranged even believe it is, winters are ever colder.

[JimC]

only the deranged even believe it is, winters are ever colder.

No, Svarty, it's your circulation getting worse every year...

[laklak]

"Climate change" is the prefered nomenclature. Who fucking knows? Looks like the climate is changing, at least from what we can tell from the tiny little chunk of data we've got. Not shit we can do about it, because a) if it truly is anthropogenic nobody is going to do anything about it because there are 5 billion ground apes lining up for air conditioning and new cars, and b) if it isn't anthropogenic there's fuck all anyone can do about it anyway. Mother Earth doesn't give a shit, she'll be fine, and in 10,000 years you won't even know we were ever here. Seth wasn't always wrong, you know, adapt or die. It has always been thus. Ask any trilobite.

[pErvinalia]

So - back to the OP topic?

"Is it over yet?"

Yes, indeed, it's over. Nobody in the Trump campaign did anything to constitute collusion with Russia.

No, the "it" in the topic refers to Trump's presidency. Unfortunately it isn't over yet.

[pErvinalia]

"Climate change" is the prefered nomenclature. Who fucking knows? Looks like the climate is changing, at least from what we can tell from the tiny little chunk of data we've got. Not shit we can do about it, because a) if it truly is anthropogenic nobody is going to do anything about it because there are 5 billion ground apes lining up for air conditioning and new cars, and b) if it isn't anthropogenic there's fuck all anyone can do about it anyway. Mother Earth doesn't give a shit, she'll be fine, and in 10,000 years you won't even know we were ever here. Seth wasn't always wrong, you know, adapt or die. It has always been thus. Ask any trilobite.

Aderpt or derp!

[Tyrannical]

At the very least, the Trump team had to be aware of Russian interference in the election, and gleefully let it happen...

That would be the Obama administration, and they are about to be investigated over it.

[Joe]

"Climate change" is the prefered nomenclature. Who fucking knows? Looks like the climate is changing, at least from what we can tell from the tiny little chunk of data we've got. Not shit we can do about it, because a) if it truly is anthropogenic nobody is going to do anything about it because there are 5 billion ground apes lining up for air conditioning and new cars, and b) if it isn't anthropogenic there's fuck all anyone can do about it anyway. Mother Earth doesn't give a shit, she'll be fine, and in 10,000 years you won't even know we were ever here. Seth wasn't always wrong, you know, adapt or die. It has always been thus. Ask any trilobite.

I'm not so pessimistic as that. We don't really know how adaptable we are.

It makes me think about that old saying, “depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

I don't think we've collectively reached that point yet.

[Tero]

[Seabass]

"Climate change" is the prefered nomenclature. Who fucking knows? Looks like the climate is changing, at least from what we can tell from the tiny little chunk of data we've got. Not shit we can do about it, because a) if it truly is anthropogenic nobody is going to do anything about it because there are 5 billion ground apes lining up for air conditioning and new cars, and b) if it isn't anthropogenic there's fuck all anyone can do about it anyway. Mother Earth doesn't give a shit, she'll be fine, and in 10,000 years you won't even know we were ever here. Seth wasn't always wrong, you know, adapt or die. It has always been thus. Ask any trilobite.

But there is shit we can do about it, and there's shit other countries are doing about it, but we Merkins aren't going to do shit about it because we keep putting the goddamn Republicans in power! Many of us would prefer to adapt rather than die, but Republicans make that impossible.

[Animavore]

"Climate change" is the prefered nomenclature. Who fucking knows? Looks like the climate is changing, at least from what we can tell from the tiny little chunk of data we've got. Not shit we can do about it, because a) if it truly is anthropogenic nobody is going to do anything about it because there are 5 billion ground apes lining up for air conditioning and new cars, and b) if it isn't anthropogenic there's fuck all anyone can do about it anyway. Mother Earth doesn't give a shit, she'll be fine, and in 10,000 years you won't even know we were ever here. Seth wasn't always wrong, you know, adapt or die. It has always been thus. Ask any trilobite.

And like I said to Seth; moving to renewable sources and changing our whole way of thinking IS adapt or die.

But his version of adapt or die seemed to be, "Let the floods come. Let the extreme weather come. Let Africa burn. Let the seas rise and the biodiversity collapse. Those who are plucky enough will survive. Those without the will (ie. the means. ie. the poor and those without resources) will die. But in no way should we step in to prevent this because that's Communism."

His view was sick and twisted, devoid of empathy, and lacking in compromise. He is narrow-minded dinosaur set in his ways whi doesn't have the (ironically) adaptability or foresight to see any other way than what he has always known.

[laklak]

I have found, over the course of the last 6 1/2 decades, that optimism rarely pans out. Pessimism, OTOH, is the correct attitude 90% of the time, and the remaining 10% gets you a pleasant surprise.

[Animavore]

I'm pessimistic too, but I don't see the point of translating that into a self-fulfilling prophecy just to prove the point.

[Seabass]

I know, right?

"We're not going to fix the problem, so we may as well vote Republican."
"But votes for Republicans are the reason we won't fix the problem."
"And since we're not going to fix the problem anyway, we may as well vote Republican."

Goddammit, we're doomed.

[Seabass]

Barr’s Startling and Unseemly Haste
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... er/585628/

...The attorney general showed no such circumspection. In less than 48 hours, he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—who supervised Mueller for most of his investigation—“concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offence.” Though Barr emphasized that he and Rosenstein had been involved in evaluating the status of the investigation for months, and that they consulted the Office of Legal Counsel and other Department of Justice experts, this conclusion reflects startling and unseemly haste for such a historic matter.

Crucially, we don’t know whether Barr concluded that the president didn’t obstruct justice or that he couldn’t obstruct justice. Well before his appointment, Barr wrote an unsolicited memo to Rosenstein arguing that Mueller’s investigation was “fatally misconceived,” to the extent that it was premised on Trump firing former FBI Director James Comey or trying to persuade Comey to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national-security adviser. Barr’s memo was a forceful exposition of the legal argument that the president cannot obstruct justice by exercising certain core powers such as hiring or firing staff or directing the course of executive-branch investigations. So although Barr’s letter to Congress says that he and Rosenstein found no actions that constituted “obstructive conduct” undertaken with the requisite corrupt intent, we don’t know whether he means that Trump didn’t try to interfere with an investigation, or that even if he did, it wasn’t obstruction for a president to do so. Democrats in Congress will want to probe that distinction—as they should.

Mueller’s report was initially confidential under Department of Justice regulations governing the special counsel. In Sunday’s letter, Barr said his goal was to release as much of it as possible consistent with the law. In particular, he noted that the report includes information about matters occurring before a grand jury that are secret as a matter of federal law, and that some other references in the report might reveal the status of ongoing investigations. Barr must abide by his promise to resolve those questions promptly and in favor of as much disclosure as the law permits. It’s impossible to evaluate the results of Mueller’s investigation—and their legal, political, and historical significance—without the details.