Flynn Walks

[_EAllusion]

So the "lock up Obama" chatter has increased pretty significantly in conservative-dom from what I can tell. That's where things are at now. Trump's currently on an epic tweet storm - retweeing crazy-pants Qanon accounts and the like - and it's interlaced with stoking this sentiment.

It seems extremely unlikely prior to the election - unless they're quite confident that it's a sham election - but I would not discount the possibility they'll be coming after him after the election is over.

[_subgenius]

Apparently Criminal Presidents are empowered to let their criminal confederates escape the law.

Paging Eric Holder, "Eric Holder".

[_honorentheos]

Just because you are a sucker for middle-brow pundit articles that attempt to manufacture a case for a position where there is no reasonable doesn't mean you are considering a case like a very serious intellectual while people you are interacting with are not. That you can't fathom that other people are also weighing the evidence if they don't have your own fallacy of the golden mean hangups is like 75% of the problem here.

The very serious, reasonable position is not that while Flynn seems shady, regrettably the FBI poisoned its own case by engaging in misconduct and now have to lawfully drop charges. That's wrong on several different fronts, and represents you buying into a bad-faith, misleading series of arguments regarding law enforcement misconduct. You do this while trying to seem sober-minded by acknowledging that mayhaps Flynn isn't a good actor. That you call denial of that "extremism" is just ridiculous. And no, this isn't the first time you swallow the bulk of some propaganda effort while not going whole hog and cross your arms thinking this makes you the clear-thinking one.

Let's see. On the one hand we have Flynn lying to the FBI about his having talked with Kislyak. He plead guilty to it, and obviously and publicly acknowledged wrongdoing. It's not viewing him as "seeming shady".

But on the other hand, early reporting on the conversation assert Flynn was acting under direction of Trump as a candidate when it turned out he was doing so as a member of Trump's transition team post-election. You keep asserting it was "plausibly" part of a deal to swing the election. Conjecture isn't fact. And it's at odds with the known facts.

So what we have is a case where Flynn broke the law in lying to the FBI, but the subject he lied about being...complicated. With the JD asserting they don't feel they can defend the case given recent review of FBI investigative documents and recommending it be dropped, we will see next week what the judge in the case has to say about it.

And that's it.

Or, you know, RAGEBERRY JAM the internet's!!!!

That you don't do this on subjects like global warming is a borderline miracle and probably just represents a specific area that you have some paraprofessional expertise in that insulates you from taking a manufactured middle-ground . So at least I'm spared being called an "extremist" there.

In case anyone ever doubts EA is a class act.

There is zero evidence inserting the Mueller investigation into that would have been beneficial to the case.

Yeah, no evidence at all. I mean, it's not like the report details out with extensive evidence numerous episodes of impeachable conduct or anything.

This is amazing. Point at the evidence, say, "See!!!??" And then fold arms with satisfaction. Yeah, that worked great for the Democrats so what would have made it really successful would have been to bring in the subject of countless hours of news, previous House committee public relations trainwrecks that entrenched rather than resolved partisan division, and the already publicly recalcitrant Bob Mueller for one more run on CNN. That sounds effective.

Hey, remember after the truncated impeachment when Trump massively increased an ongoing effort to purge and replace with amoral hacks all the government non-loyalist inspector generals, justice department attys, intelligence officials, and now military leadership while simultaneously retaliating against anyone who blew the whistle on his admin's malfeasance? Do you think that would've occurred during impeachment?

We've disagreed multiple times over the purpose of impeachment proceedings. In the above, you are again going public with their being used as a political tool rather than one for seeking justice. Using ongoing impeachment proceedings as a check on the opposition party? Jesus Christ. Do you even hear yourself? Can you even think past the current moment to reflect on the Pandora's Box that opens? Good God.

Remember how during impeachment house managers brought a crazy, worst scenario case in which the President would try to condition federal disaster relief on political loyalty, then President Trump did that exact thing not a few months after with likely deadly consequences and that's just a thing we tolerate now? Do you think that would've happened if impeachment were ongoing?

Ongoing? Jesus. Had the Democrats actually pursued the matters brought up or created during the impeachment proceeding prior to drafting and voting on articles I think we'd have been more likely to see the concerns resolved or opposed rather than what happened with impeachment - that being it was exploited and politicized to damaging effect.

[_subgenius]

One of the more important takeaways here is how free they feel to be so openly corrupt at this point. Not even a fig leaf involved. You don't get to this level of brazenness in a mafia state without the ruling regime feeling a certain level of impunity. Those feelings don't come from nowhere.

Your ignorance of Eric Holder insists you refrain from further posting on this topic.

The next logical step is prosecuting political enemies on thin pretexts. We've seen how this goes in enough other nations to get to be Cassandras during our own fall.

"Thin Pretexts"? The irony insists that you admit you are posting sarcastically and with full knowledge of the "prosecution" for impechment, collusion, emoluments, pee tape, Dr Ford, racism, and every other political hair fire you have screamed inder since November 2016.
Your posturing is laughable but is quickly becoming sad....and not make a wish foundation sad, more like in an alley passed out drunk with pee jeans sad.

[_honorentheos]

So the "lock up Obama" chatter has increased pretty significantly in conservative-dom from what I can tell. That's where things are at now. Trump's currently on an epic tweet storm - retweeing crazy-pants Qanon accounts and the like - and it's interlaced with stoking this sentiment.

It seems extremely unlikely prior to the election - unless they're quite confident that it's a sham election - but I would not discount the possibility they'll be coming after him after the election is over.

Given the central plank of his campaign was, "Aren't you better off now than you were four years ago?" was torpedoed by COVID, his economic policies put us in a bad position for combating the worse economic conditions in almost 100 years, opening his mouth in public on the subject of the crisis damages his credibility as a leader, and his administration is directly responsible for a terrible response that looks worse everyday, he's got one play left. It's the good old sure fired tactic of portraying Democrats as underhand, criminal combatants trying to impose socialism and government control over freedom loving, hard working, risk taking 'Mericans. "Lock her up!" worked as a way to work the base into a frenzy before, no surprises here.

[_EAllusion]

Honor, you spent the entire impeachment lead up offering incorrect analysis about impeachment could most effectively be used as a political tool. That, in fact, is your principle argument for neglecting expanding the impeachment inquiry to cover a range of impeachable conduct he has engaged in - a belief that it is politically unsound to do so and therefore would taint the chances of conviction and improve his standing for the 2020 election. Because Trump was very unlikely to be convicted in the Senate and because the interest of justice demands it as a good unto itself and for posterity, I thought impeachment investigation should concern all relevant articles of impeachment that can be drawn up. Because this would take longer to do, this would have the additional benefit of providing some protective benefit over the 2020 election and the intervening time as the Trump admin was likely to dial back abuse of power under public scrutiny during impeachment. You reasoned that this would look "partisan" and damage the likelihood of his conviction.

Well, he wasn't convicted, which you hilariously continue to attribute to the cardinal sin of looking too partisan, and Trump has taken his acquittal for plainly impeachable conduct as a blank check to further burn liberal democracy to the ground. Now, on a thread concerning a specific example of that very thing happening, you're actively defending it because it allows you to put your David Brooks cap on again.

If you were in Turkey, you'd be arguing that Erdogan shouldn't have jailed opposition party justices. He merely should've forced them to resign. Like a serious person would. But hey, the good news is you might get a chance to argue that here. Like a serious person. Who argues serious things.

[_honorentheos]

Honor, you spent the entire impeachment lead up offering incorrect analysis about impeachment could most effectively be used as a political tool.

True, early on prior to the Ukraine incident when the Muller Report was being covered I held that view and expressed it here. I didn't see the constant calls for impeachment as a smart thing to do. After some discussion here I was persuaded to view it as a matter of justice and Congressional responsibility. I admitted it at the time, too. I think it was a good point then and still do.

When it came to the Ukraine call I thought, and still think, it was the ideal case as it had many positive attributes such as the true victim being the Ukraine so it didn't have to become a partisan spat, witnesses from both parties in the administration, a pretty strong line of evidence including Trump essentially admitting to it, and the opportunity to show Trump abused power for political purposes.

But I also expressed concerns with how that case would be handled, told you directly I thought issues raised during the process should be pursued, and it was important to not turn it into a partisan spectacle. Every day I listened to the proceeding left me more pessimistic because it seemed clear the Republicans had a strategy - show the case was based in heresay, the Ukraine leadership did not see it as a quid pro quo, and the existence of said quid pro quo was the product if conjecture rathe than stated fact. The Democratsz on the other hand, seemed to think the proceeding was a chance for them to make statements in the form of questions aimed at putting talking points on the record, and showing little by way of coherent prosecution strategy. They followed that through by wrapping up when they had every reason to follow up on multiple unsettled issues that, in my opinion, would have been obvious had they held to a coherent strategy. They then used the procedural process to try and leverage the Senate which was...questionable as tactics go and even less clear what the intention was regarding strategy.

The idea impeachment should be weaponized as a political tool was never something I agreed with, and frankly was behind my initial concerns with it being the go to call every time the Trump administration was reported to have done something questionable. To assert parallels with wanting to use an open impeachment investigation as a chance to bring in anyone and everyone who may or may not have information on any potential Trump wrongdoing is reckless. It's the opposite of arguing in defense of Congressional oversight as a responsibility or an act pursuing justice.

Well, he wasn't convicted, which you hilariously continue to attribute to the cardinal sin of looking too partisan,

I attribute it to the Democrats having done a bad job. Or better said, their failing to convince a reasonable number of Republicans to vote to convict even if not enough for a supermajority seems most likely they did so because they failed to get outside of their own conversational bubble to figure out what strategy they needed to take to win over people who didn't already agree with them..so yeah. I guess we can attribute some of that to being too partisan.

[_EAllusion]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2000-do ... itter_abcn

Nearly 2000 former justice department officials - slash - hardcore extremists have called on Barr to resign over his Flynn intervention. They signed onto a petition decrying his intervention as a illegitimate political effort to subvert the rule of law that augurs autocracy . They probably just have not considered the evidence or something.

From Neal Katyal here's 3 articles:

1) Mary McCord arguing that the her words were distorted / lied about in the Flynn filing:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/opin ... flynn.html

2) Chuck Rosenberg arguing why the Flynn filing is obviously spurious.

https://t.co/CdfB1rdlhX?amp=1

3) John Kravis, one of the prosecutors how resigned over the Stone case, pointing out a pattern of Barr lackeys intervening in DoJ cases to help Trump's inner circle while not applying their argued standards in other cases:

https://t.co/oqZQiAdDf1?amp=1

Granted, these are extremely extreme extremists unlike sober-minded individuals like David Brooks, Tom Friedman, and the like, but food for thought from the radical fridge.

[_subgenius]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2000-do ... itter_abcn

Nearly 2000 former justice department officials

Keyword = "former"...and of you bothered to research beyond the "oh my! two-thousand" you would understand why no one but simple-minded folk care what these "2000" have to say on the matter. But, yeah, go on and promote that these 2000 are clearly upstanding and unbias individuals in this context.

They probably just have not considered the evidence or something.

I am interested in how you come to this conclusion...were you impressed by the number 2000? or by them being "former"?...would 5 current justice department officials have the same appeal to authority for you? or are you just deliberately posting obtuse opinion?

I am guessing that the credence here for you is the "former" title, because that likely means they were either career politicians ousted by Trump, or Obama "officials" ousted by Trump...or both....nevertheless, your measure is lacking.

[_EAllusion]

The link contains a link to the petition and its signatories. The list includes a wide range of people who served in the justice department under Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, and a surprisingly decent number having careers under Reagan, Carter, Ford, and/or Nixon. I caught one LBJ person in there. Rather than having a major partisan lean in which administrations they served, it's a sampling of people alive from all previous administrations prior to Trump.

Shame about their extremism.