2019 archive

Honest to Pete, you couldn’t make up this much stupid.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board makes a point that I’ve expressed privately to friends.

Meddling in our elections by Russia and others foreign and domestic would not have worked if American citizens had looked up from their “social” media feeds and paid attention to the real world.

Here’s a bit; follow the link for the rest:

The fact is that Russia was able to compromise voters through dirty tricks, hacked e-mails, social media, and disinformation points out our own weakness as a country: We’re too gullible, and we don’t check facts, and we would rather share a meme than debate our differences.

Random Thought:

Conspiracy and puppetry are not the same thing.

Mike Littwin points out that it ain’t over till it’s over. An excerpt:

Three, and this is the critical point, that in the post-Barr-summary era, Trump will still be Trump. Today, tomorrow and forever more. He will remain the unprecedented Trump, for whom all models of behavior do not apply. Trump is sui generis, which is a good thing and very much a not-so-good thing. We don’t know yet what this report will mean for the 2020 election cycle. But we can be certain that Trump’s behavior will continue to enrage a majority of the electorate right up to November 2020 — which, as we saw in 2016, still doesn’t mean he won’t win. But as Steve Bannon put it, now that the Mueller investigation is complete. Trump will go “full animal.” I’m struggling to pull up the image.

If this were over, Trump could have simply declared victory and left it there. Instead Trump called the summary of the undisclosed report a total exoneration even as Barr, in his letter, says it was not, in fact, an exoneration, total or otherwise. So, Trump lies. Barr sighs. And anti-Trumpists desperately search for a reason to believe.

Field has a take on the situation that is also worth a read. A snippet:

What we are seeing now is the trump handpicked AG write a four page summary to congress of Mr. Mueller’s report , and then declare that there was no obstruction. This of course is not what Mr. Mueller said.

At Above the Law, Joe Patrice argues convincingly that many of the initial reactions to the Mueller report are getting it wrong. Folks who had been hoping that Robert Mueller would turn into a Fairy Godfather and give them a magic pumpkin have been disappointed and are gnashing their teeth in frustration, without reflection.

The “without reflection” bit is the important bit; reflection is called for.

Here’s part of what he has to say about Attorney-General Barr’s “summary” letter (emphasis added):

Instead of complaining about what the letter says about the report’s conclusions, focus a bit more on what it says about the investigation itself. The letter says that Mueller made the decision not to make a prosecutorial judgment one way or the other about obstruction. It’s curious that Barr chooses not to quote Mueller here. Could Mueller have just not included any language about this decision in his report? That seems unlikely. It seems that this section of the report — at the very least — could be released today so everyone can get a better sense of Mueller’s thinking on this. There’s no argument that any grand jury materials — the reason Barr claims the report cannot be released immediately in its entirety — are implicated by just reading Mueller’s own interpretation of why he could not make a traditional prosecutorial decision. This isn’t to dispute that Mueller made this call, but for a letter eager to take direct quotes when it can, the reticence to let everyone gauge Mueller’s own language is curious.

This matters because a description of Mueller’s “decision” that reads much closer to “As discussed, making a determination on this issue would exceed my mandate so I have made the decision to present the evidence I found without making a determination one way or the other,” would make for a very different hearing before the House.

The whole thing is worth your while.