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Old 07-12-2020, 09:28 AM   #1021
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However, there is plenty in there to support a firther investigation, and potentially criminal charges, after he leaves office. Up for debate as to whether that's a road that should be followed.
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Old 07-12-2020, 11:20 AM   #1022
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I read several articles about Mueller’s investigation but this article stood out. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...igation-failed


“Mueller declined to issue a grand-jury subpoena for Trump’s testimony, and excluded from his report a conclusion that Trump had committed crimes. These two decisions are the most revealing, and defining, failures of Mueller’s tenure as special counsel.”

“Instead, Mueller kept negotiating for an interview. Later, he wrote in his report, “We thus weighed the costs of potentially lengthy constitutional litigation, with resulting delay in finishing our investigation, against the anticipated benefits for our investigation and report.” But Mueller himself was responsible for much of the delay. In this critical moment, he showed weakness, and Trump pounced. After his lawyers refused the Camp David interview, he began to attack Mueller. “The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” he tweeted in March, 2018, in one of his first direct attacks on the special counsel. “WITCH HUNT!””

“Mueller eventually capitulated on a grand-jury subpoena and on an oral interview. Then he gave up on questions about Trump’s actions as President. Finally, Trump’s lawyers presented Mueller with a take-it-or-leave-it proposal: Trump would answer only written questions, and only about matters that took place before he became President. Mueller took it.”

“Mueller’s staff had analyzed in detail whether each of Trump’s actions met the criteria for obstruction of justice, and in the report the special counsel asserted that, in at least these four instances, it did. But Mueller still stopped short of saying that Trump had committed the crime.”

“After conferring with Mueller and others on the team, Zebley told O’Callaghan that Mueller didn’t want to see Barr’s letter—he wasn’t going to vouch for it.”

“By leaving the disclosure of the report and its conclusions entirely up to Barr, Mueller had brought this disaster on himself and his staff.”

“But Barr was able to dismantle the Mueller report only because the special counsel and his staff had made it easy for him to do so. Robert Mueller forfeited the opportunity to speak clearly and directly about Trump’s crimes, and Barr filled the silence with his high-volume exoneration.”

I think the house, senate and Mueller all made significant errors investigating Trump and holding him accountable. I do not recall the reasoning behind Mueller’s selection as special counsel beyond his experience and exemplary record of service. During the investigation, the general sentiment was that Mueller was a hard ass, no nonsense guy and in the end it appears that Mueller simply wanted to do an investigation, supply a written record but avoid a simple conclusion. Mueller had the opportunity to elaborate on his report through his congressional questioning and again he avoided making prosecutorial judgements. Trump committed obstruction of justice and could have been charged but Mueller didn’t go there due to the precedent of not charging a sitting president. Mueller could have easily laid out the crimes and said that trump had broken the law while leaving it to legislators to debate whether or not to pursue charges. Fast forward to the Stone sentence being commuted and Mueller decides to jump in the fray and outline how Stone broke the law and that he is a criminal. When he wrote his report, Mueller had his chance to say these were the crimes Trump committed and give evidence yet he chose to give a statement that was open to interpretation. He made mistakes and now he is trying to atone for those errors. The time has passed and he had his chance.
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Old 07-12-2020, 11:34 AM   #1023
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Trump committed obstruction of justice and could have been charged but Mueller didn’t go there due to the precedent of not charging a sitting president. Mueller could have easily laid out the crimes and said that trump had broken the law while leaving it to legislators to debate whether or not to pursue charges.
You clearly do not know what you're talking about. Trump could not have been charged. Legislators do not have any say in whether charges are pursued or not (thankfully).

The monday morning quarterbacking on the report is all well and good, but the guy was walking a tightrope and frankly most of the perceived shortcomings of the report are from the perspective of trying to beat Trump and win the next election, which was obviously not what Mueller was interested in, nor should he have been.
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Old 07-12-2020, 09:59 PM   #1024
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It's possible I've missed it if we discussed Michael Cohen going back to jail after being released re: COVID 19. I assumed he did something stupid to invalidate the terms of his release. Instead, it appears to be because he is publishing a book about Trump, so they got him locked back up.

Where are all the First Amendment types who lose their minds about colleges not letting Nazis speak? This is about as cut and dry a 1A infringement as you're going to see.

Thread about it was unrolled here

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3. A foremost First Amendment scholar @stone_geoffrey (@UChicago):

"clearly designed to suppress expression the gov't disapproves of and definitely does not further an important or substantial gov't interest related to Cohen's incarceration. It is thus patently unconstitutional"

4. @ACLU's Vera Eidelman:

"This restriction is almost certainly unconstitutional."

"Even if this were analyzed under the less speech-protective doctrine that applies to individuals who are currently incarcerated, it would almost certainly fail."
So we're at the point where the POTUS is just literally locking up people who might expose him??
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Old 07-12-2020, 10:30 PM   #1025
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Mueller can't indict a sitting president. He gave Congress all the ammo they needed to remove the dips**t from office, and the GOP-controlled Senate failed to do so. End of story. Mueller's final report was indeed quite damning, and Barr essentially ignored all the juicy bits when he put out that ridiculous "nothing to see here" statement afterwards.

https://www.businessinsider.com/muel...t-crime-2019-5
I actually think all of the precedent is clear that he could have indicted a sitting president. What was lacking was an istitution with the polictial legitamacy to carry out that action.

The FBI fears that ever taking action against a rebuplican will lead to the tpye of paritzan rah rah team hackery that will destroy them as an institution forever, and frankly they are right, so they can't do anything.

There is also the problem that Barr would have fired him for indicting, which would have caused the impeachment of Barr in the normal world, but thats not the timelive we live on.
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Old 07-12-2020, 10:45 PM   #1026
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So we're at the point where the POTUS is just literally locking up people who might expose him??
Just like so much that he's done if another president had done it it'd have been political suicide, but this is 2020.
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Old 07-12-2020, 11:06 PM   #1027
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Where are all the First Amendment types who lose their minds about colleges not letting Nazis speak? This is about as cut and dry a 1A infringement as you're going to see.
Presumably in exactly the same place they are on that issue? What a silly thing to say. Do you have any evidence to suggest that any of those people have taken an inconsistent or hypocritical position on this?
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Old 07-13-2020, 05:59 AM   #1028
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Polls in Texas continue to have Biden in a statistical tie with Trump. Same with Arizona. Florida lead remains high. There does seem to be a pretty big swing on the state level from 2016 that is holding so far for Biden.
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Old 07-13-2020, 06:05 AM   #1029
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Some in the media are suggesting a blue tsunami this fall, but call me skeptical. It would be great to see Trump utterly get destroyed this time around, just to see his ego hurt but the way the US has major issues with voter suppression, gerrymandering and the like, I am not that optimistic. Win sure, but no massive Senate takeover by the dems.
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Old 07-13-2020, 06:25 AM   #1030
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Some in the media are suggesting a blue tsunami this fall, but call me skeptical. It would be great to see Trump utterly get destroyed this time around, just to see his ego hurt but the way the US has major issues with voter suppression, gerrymandering and the like, I am not that optimistic. Win sure, but no massive Senate takeover by the dems.
The senate will be difficult just because of the math of the seats up for grabs and you are starting to see some distancing from the administration. Not because of the goodness of their hearts but because they want re-election. That will limit a Tsunami. I do hope there are a few blue surprises on the president front because something needs to force the GOP back to the center. And we are still a long ways out. Biden will have to have strong debates because somehow senility is perceived as an issue for him but not the other guy.




In other news, DeVos with a horrible day. Not unexpected given who she is but a bad interview where she showed she has no understanding about education funding (just like her orange boss). And people have linked the push by Trump and DeVos to open school to the CDC saying said that the death rate of children is 0.02 % (it could be higher than that). Thats 20 dead children for every 100,000 infected. But of course we all know schools are never petri dishes with every little disease so it’ll be fine.

I understand you need to make decisions on numbers and statistics. Sometimes difficult ones. But you don’t want to mess with people’s children. This is likely to make a hell of an ad this week.

Oh and the whitehouse is starting to trash Fauci because he has publicly disagreed with Trump.

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Old 07-13-2020, 07:42 AM   #1031
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It's amazing how Trump has just trashed his election chances. Couldn't get out of his own way.

All he had to do was follow doctors, let the economy tank, which it did anyways, not fight everyone and everything, and he'd be fine.
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Old 07-13-2020, 08:28 AM   #1032
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Some in the media are suggesting a blue tsunami this fall, but call me skeptical. It would be great to see Trump utterly get destroyed this time around, just to see his ego hurt but the way the US has major issues with voter suppression, gerrymandering and the like, I am not that optimistic. Win sure, but no massive Senate takeover by the dems.
Here's how the numbers stack up. In Presidential it looks like a land slide. Trump has lost his firewall and is solidly behind in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Those three states carried the election for him by only 77,000 votes. He burned through that advantage like a mob loan against the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. He's getting crushed in all three. He also trails in Florida by a good margin. To make matters even worse, he trails in North Carolina and Georgia, Texas and Arizona.

In the Senate the numbers don't look good for Republicans either. Being tied to a flailing Trump is not doing them any favors.

Democrats

Safe

Cory Booker (New Jersey)
Christopher Coons (Delaware)
Dick Durbin (Illinois)
Ed Markey (Massachusetts)
Jeff Merkley (Oregon)
Gary Peters (Michigan)
Jack Reed (Rhode Island)
Tina Smith (Minnesota)
Tom Udall (New Mexico) (retired)
Mark Warner (Virginia)
Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire)

In trouble

Doug Jones (Alabama)

Of the Dems, Jones is the only one that is classified as being in a race and he is still leading in his state. His lead is not commanding, but he is holding firm and not seeing significant movement in polling that establishes a negative trend. The Dems are not expected to see a loss based on current projections.

Republicans

Safe

Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) (retired)
Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia)
Bill Cassidy (Louisiana)
Tom Cotton (Arkansas)
Michael Enzi (Wyoming)
Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi)
James Inhofe (Oklahoma)
David Perdue (Georgia)
James Risch (Idaho)
Mike Rounds (South Dakota)
Ben Sasse (Nebraska)

The Republicans have a much larger number of senators up for re-election and the trend in state leanings for president is taking its toll. While there are a number that are safe, there is a greater number where the trends are not looking good.

In Trouble

John Cornyn (Texas)
Kelly Loeffler (Georgia)
Joni Ernst (Iowa)
Pat Roberts (Kansas) (retired)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)

The exposure to recent ads tying Republicans to the support of Trump has been effective and started disturbing trends for some power players. McConnell is facing an onslaught of outside money and is seeing a negative trend. Lady G is in some serious trouble and could slip into the group below. The fact that these individuals are even being discussed as at risk is a statement to the temperature of our politics.

The follow Republicans are not just at risk, but trailing in their races and moving in the wrong direction. These look like they could very well be gains in the Senate for the Democrats and change the seat of power.

Steve Daines* (Montana)
Cory Gardner* (Colorado)
Susan Collins* (Maine)
Thom Tillis* (North Carolina)
Martha McSally* (Arizona)

Of course it is only July, and things can change. But with Trump in the White House you know there is certainly to be nothing but negativity coming out and all of falling on the Republicans' heads. Trump is the biggest liability this cycle and the Republicans are getting pounded as a result.
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Old 07-13-2020, 08:42 AM   #1033
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Another solid ad from the Lincoln Project.



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Old 07-13-2020, 08:47 AM   #1034
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Some in the media are suggesting a blue tsunami this fall, but call me skeptical. It would be great to see Trump utterly get destroyed this time around, just to see his ego hurt but the way the US has major issues with voter suppression, gerrymandering and the like, I am not that optimistic. Win sure, but no massive Senate takeover by the dems.

Biden polls great, but polls assume 100% turnout and excitement over Biden himself is still low. Women, Moderates, Blacks, Latinos: Biden's really cornered the market on people who aren't actually going to go out and vote for him.
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Old 07-13-2020, 11:32 AM   #1035
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Biden polls great, but polls assume 100% turnout and excitement over Biden himself is still low. Women, Moderates, Blacks, Latinos: Biden's really cornered the market on people who aren't actually going to go out and vote for him.
You're out to lunch. Every single one of those groups is activated and pissed as hell. They will go to the polls, if Republicans allow them to, and they will vote their asses off. I mean, you have to be in a coma or just ignorant of what has been going on. For women its blatant misogyny, rollbacks on women's health issues, blocking laws to promote equal pay, hurting family leave, and did I mention infringements on reproductive rights? For Latinos its DACA, unfair targeting of Latinos by law enforcement, keeping kids in cages, and attacking their communities as criminal enterprises. For "blacks" you may not be paying attention to Black Lives Matter and the massive protests going on around the nation? Biden may not thoroughly excite them, but voting against Trump and Republicans across the country sure does.
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Old 07-13-2020, 11:41 AM   #1036
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People are motivated by negative emotions. It's why people didn't vote for Hilary and voted for trump in swings states

Trumps his own worst enemy this election. It will be a landslide
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Old 07-13-2020, 11:47 AM   #1037
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It would very clearly be a landslide if the election was today. The way 2020 is going, anything could happen in 4 months.
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Old 07-13-2020, 11:55 AM   #1038
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Trumps his own worst enemy this election. It will be a landslide
Is this a quote from 2016?
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Old 07-13-2020, 12:12 PM   #1039
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Biden polls great, but polls assume 100% turnout and excitement over Biden himself is still low. Women, Moderates, Blacks, Latinos: Biden's really cornered the market on people who aren't actually going to go out and vote for him.
Polls do not assume 100% turnout.

Polls in general will use either a likely voter model, a registered voter model, or the general population model. You would need to look at the specific poll you are talking about to determine which model is being used.

I believe that most of the major pollsters use likely voter at this stage.
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Old 07-13-2020, 01:25 PM   #1040
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You're out to lunch. Every single one of those groups is activated and pissed as hell. They will go to the polls, if Republicans allow them to, and they will vote their asses off. I mean, you have to be in a coma or just ignorant of what has been going on. For women its blatant misogyny, rollbacks on women's health issues, blocking laws to promote equal pay, hurting family leave, and did I mention infringements on reproductive rights? For Latinos its DACA, unfair targeting of Latinos by law enforcement, keeping kids in cages, and attacking their communities as criminal enterprises. For "blacks" you may not be paying attention to Black Lives Matter and the massive protests going on around the nation? Biden may not thoroughly excite them, but voting against Trump and Republicans across the country sure does.
That, I think, is the key factor. After the election, it will also be a question of whether or not they accept the legitimacy of any negative results.
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