I did find this to be an interesting discussion today: According to one talking head, if Trump fires Mueller without cause, Mueller’s team would have standing to file a lawsuit under the Administrative Procedures Act, a rather arcane DOJ regulation. The suit could be filed on the basis that the firing was arbitrary and capricious. Full resolution of the lawsuit could take months, during which time Mueller would be allowed to continue his investigation pending the court’s final determination.
I’m sure Mueller’s team is ready for anything. By making the expected duration of the investigation public, it’s almost as if Mueller is daring Trump to fire him.
There was some interesting subtext in that article. So, White House lawyers are going to meet with the Special Counsels office about wrapping up the investigation?
Are they going to meet over dinner? Are the lawyers going to tell Mueller that Trump’s a good man and he should find a way to let this Trump/Russia thing go? It sounds like Trump’s having his lawyers alternately trying to bribe and bully Mueller’s office.
Here’s the thing: I honestly think a lot of people are just so damn interested in watching this that stopping it means they’ll have to finally switch the channel. (I’m not saying Asahi feels that way.)
I’ll also honestly say that this, or any investigation, will not in any way shape or form lead to an impeachment. If any other recent president in our past made a statement like any of this person’s tweets would be on the road to impeachment. There’s enough evidence of a somewhat human who isn’t fit to run a country, much less a Spirograph museum. 32% of any large country feeling this guy is great is not a country that will pursue this to the fullest. Certainly not a place where those in politics that DO support him only support for more of their own financial campaign needs.
A person who is in charge of a country has work to do. This man has done none unless it makes him more money. His social behavior has moments to get any of us arrested if we did the same. Hell, driving a golf cart on a green is enough to at least get you banned from multiple courses in one incident, even after paying a few mil in greens fees.
I don’t even know why Russia is even a factor in this. Release the tax returns, follow the money, follow the lawsuits filed against him. There’s enough corruption in his personal business dealings to prove him a financial and moral fraud.
Even if they find anything damaging enough, he’ll resign claiming a brain tumor made him do it and he’ll have a GoFundMe account for his medical bills within an hour of announcement-- and those 32% will be shelling out Bennies to support a cause they’ll call worthwhile and needed.
I am outraged, sorta. I’m also fatigued with outrage, and resigned to the fact that most of us - even those who aren’t living in Trumpland - still operate under the assumption that this is the USA, it can’t possible happen here. Truth is, except for what we see on the news, life seems normal for most people. It’s hard to convince people that there’s some sort of emergency.
But I’m a student of history, and I’ve traveled extensively, including to parts of the world where oppression is the norm. I’ve seen this show before. It has a surprise ending, and it’s not one that we’re going to like.
That being said, there’s time to stop it of course - next year’s elections are crucial. But Putin will have a hand in that election, just like he had a hand in the last one. And only half of this country’s congress is interested stopping him; the majority are ideologically-driven opportunists.
The allegiance to Trump now has several influences. An important one is that the radical religious right has never had this kind of access to the levers of power. These are not democratically-minded people at all, and they would like to remake America into something else entirely. Now they have a chance to do that, and I find it hard to believe that they’ll pass up on that opportunity for the sake of the country. In their eyes, they are the country.
The donor class is another factor (the Mercers, the Kochs, the Adelsons etc) - another group of generally undemocratic people. They might want some democracy just to lend some legitimacy to their plans for wealth concentration. The Citizens United ruling gave them the power to rig the election system over time. They’re totally on board with at least funding propaganda to shut down the investigation and make voting difficult for certain people in certain precincts.
Beyond that, I suspect that are a lot of people beyond just Trump who are implicated in embarrassing and potentially criminal activity, possibly even including members of Congress who were part of the transition. I don’t think everyone necessarily started out with the idea of destroying democracy, but the circumstances may dictate that this happens - from their point of view, not ours.
To use an analogy, this whole thing reminds me of a home invasion gone terribly wrong. It’s kinda like a guy who goes into a home thinking he’ll just steal some silverware and a laptop or two. Then someone suddenly comes into the living room and turns on the light. He shoots the guy out of panic. Now he’s not just committing a home invasion; he’s now on the hook for murder. Suddenly the wife comes into the living room wondering what happen, and then he shoots her because she’s a potential witness. Then he hears grandma waking up down the hall, and so he decides he needs to shoot her just to eliminate the last witness. What started out as a simple robbery is now a triple homicide. And some of the republicans who themselves thought this was just a simple burglary are now the getaway drivers of something much messier. Their interests are aligned. For some, there’s no turning back now.
Of course it can happen here. Most people aren’t reasonable, critical thinkers. If you tell them that the Jews or Mexicans or Muslims or whoever are out to get them and you’re going to save them, they’ll go, “Oh okay. Thanks!”
We have very little to protect against the tyranny of the majority, and the general forces of the popular vote push our system towards populism, forcing politicians to slowly erode the last protections.
There is not an impending emergency for the people of the United States. The people of the Ukraine were and probably still are at greater risk than us and that’s still talking about the long haul. The Kurds may be at some great risk as hostages to Iranian interests if Trump continues to ramp up the Middle East against Iran.
But I am unaware of any metric on starvation among Americans changing in the last year. Donald Trump has not been poisoning, stabbing, nor shooting his political opponents. A small subset of politically viable immigrants have been blocked from entry to the country, not rounded up and gassed.
Trump introduces corruption and stupidity into the White House, not evil. He is not Hitler.
Putin got very lucky with the timing and how James Comey handled it. But 99% of what kept voters home was Trump’s genuine horribleness and two decades of corruption accusations against the Clintons, and none of that is thanks to Putin. The rest was decided by the political map of which people are so partisan as to vote for their candidate anyways. That map favors the Republican party at the moment.
The Russians helped to push things over the edge, and that is sufficient to be scary and worth investigating. But they did not create nor control the grand majority of all that occurred during the 2016 election. That is the result of populism and corruption.
You don’t sound like a big fan of democracy. I’d say democracy is the solution to a lot of America’s problems, the issue is dismantling hierarchies that shut the common people out from decision making. Less democracy would only further empower the elites who are causing the problems in the first place.
Yes, like those elites who approved miscegenation 30 years before public support for it hit 50%. As populism has grown, it’s now taken until same-sex marriage had greater than 50% support before it could be legalized, and that required the Supreme Court to make happen.
Democracy over republicanism helps to fight corruption, but it impedes social justice and liberalism. Republics do better at investigating the issues, doing the research, thinking about the philosophy and greater ramifications, etc. and so lead to better considered, but unpopular decisions. To accomplish that often requires secrecy, and secrecy allows for bad apples to stay in place and corrupt the system. Publication of internal government documents and accountability systems counteract the corruption and allow the bad apples to be culled, but they also then send the issues at hand into the public forum and that turns the debate stupid.
I am perfectly happy with enfranchisement of the entire population, but you need systems in place to make sure that you’re not turning everything to direct democracy. The democratic vote can be utilized for good, but it can also be used for bad. It’s a question of the specific structures in place to bring the popular vote into the accounting. Secrecy vs. populism are not the only options. There are alternate paths that could be explored, just no one is talking about or considering them.
I’ve seen speculation that the attacks on Mueller are not attempts to lay the groundwork for his firing, but rather attempts to lay the groundwork for eventual pardons. Interesting thought.
That’s certainly an avenue he could take. Either way, whether he just uses brute force to arrest the investigation, or whether he uses pardons to disrupt and confound, the effect is the same.
A particularly interesting development in my mind is the continued ongoing relationship with Vladimir Putin. My first reaction is that Trump is being played and is just too dumb to realize it, but on second thought, it’s entirely possible he realizes that he’s compromised and feels Putin’s interests are his own.
It’s stunning how America has gone from being in the driver’s seat of global politics to being in the extremely vulnerable position it now finds itself in, being subjected to the manipulative practices of arguably the world’s strongest political individual. And without really a lot of shots being fired, either. When the United States defeated the Soviet Union, it was a victory for the ages, a lesson on how one power can defeat a rival using financial resources and allowing the other to simply implode. It probably seemed at the time the sort of humiliating defeat for the USSR, and the kind of grandiose moment for its rival, the US, that would be discussed by the experts for decades - even centuries.
Fast forward to today. What Vladimir Putin is potentially capable of achieving is the downfall of the United States into a former global superpower that descends into corruption and anarchy, and eventually civil discord. If Putin succeeds using not military means but information, and he well may, historians will be talking about this event for the next 500 years as a pivotal moment in history, perhaps on the level of the British defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Trump is driven by more basic instincts than that, certainly not planning past the next airing of Fox and Friends. The attempts to delegitimize Mueller are simple bullying in an attempt to save his own ass politically.
This is interesting. How would it work in detail? Would they have to find a judge who would be willing to let them file the case in his/her court? How would the case be named (<a person> or <a group> v. the United States)? I’m very intrigued. And if a judge took it on, then what? Would each side bring witnesses?
Spell out the procedure as if you’re explaining it to someone who doesn’t have a clue how the federal court system works (e.g., Matthew Peterson :rolleyes: ).
Maybe if it were coming from the White House, but most of the attacks are now coming from the House.
I think the issue is simply that we’re getting closer to the midterms. House Republicans are afraid of just how hyugely their numbers might reduce in 2019, as a result of backlash against Trump. Whether they want to or not, they need to polish that turd. As the Mythbusters demonstrated, if you put in enough elbow grease and proper technique, it can be accomplished.
Since the point concerns sending information that is “unintended” but not “illegal” to send, perhaps you should look for an example that does not involve violating a law (HIPPA, in this case).
The argument that Trump’s lawyer is making is that it is information that was illegal to send. I was saying that it may have been illegal to send but unintentionally sent. It’s not an either or thing.
