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Only the guilty, and those who support them, view accountability as a nasty consequence.
The rest of us? Not so much, not so much.
And I'll bet you that 'the rest of us' will increase in the post Mueller polls.
That's a very bad translation. He also said that he was constrained by the DOJ memo from even considering bringing charges.
'No confidence that Trump did not commit a crime' would have had you on the warpath for Obama's scalp had it been about him.
THAT is the fundamental hypocrisy that you Trumpanzees can not run away from, successfully, on this board.
More than enough obstruction of justice instances for Congress to vote articles of impeachment.
That was from 10/16, bonehead.
More pertinent, long after his Intel agencies confirmed for him the Russian interference he had repeatedly questioned....'400 pound guy on a bed'....this stunning, disgraceful performance in Helsinki:
Trump on election hacking: Don't see why it would be Russia
I Inferred that 'a drunk DC-3 pilot' meant things did not end well for the band.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Mountain_Wood_Band
They had some national success and, described as "well-adapted to today's modern country sound," were being favorably compared to major groups of the time such as Alabama and the Oak Ridge Boys.
After the departure of Quist, Terry Robinson was the only remaining original band member when a plane crash killed all then-members of the Montana band in 1987.
The band was the subject of a 2009 PBS documentary, Never Long Gone: The Mission Mountain Wood Band Story.
Thank you, Bobby......
Robert De Niro: Robert Mueller, We Need to Hear More
You said that your investigation’s work “speaks for itself.” It doesn’t.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/opinion/robert-de-niro-robert-mueller-we-need-to-hear-more.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
By Robert De Niro
Mr. De Niro is an actor, producer and director.
May 29, 2019
Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller on “Saturday Night Live.”CreditCredit Will Heath/NBC
Dear Mr. Mueller,
It probably hasn’t escaped your attention (in my mind, nothing escapes your attention) that I play a version of you on “Saturday Night Live.” As “Robert Mueller,” my character is intimidating because he is so honest and upright. I do it for comic effect — that’s the intention anyway — but there’s also a lot of truth to it. To put it another way — it’s good-natured fun, but not entirely good-natured.
There’s a level of satire, directed at the current administration. To be fair, not everyone appreciates the humor. The president has tweeted that there’s “nothing funny about tired ‘Saturday Night Live’” and that it’s “very unfair and should be looked into,” even “tested in courts,” and “this is the real collusion!” Though what or with whom the show would be colluding is unclear.
But then I don’t have to tell you about problems with the term “collusion.” You barely mention the word in your report, and then only to explain why you’re not using it. That could be a punch line on “Saturday Night Live.”
As I prepared for my role on the show, I got to know you a lot better. I read about your lifetime devotion to public service and your respect for the rule of law. I watched how you presided over the special counsel’s office apparently without leaks. And you never wavered, even in the face of regular vicious attacks from the president and his surrogates.
While I and so many Americans have admired your quiet, confident, dignified response in ignoring that assault, it allowed the administration to use its own voice to control the narrative. And those voices are so loud and so persistent that they beat even reasonable people into submission. The loudest, most persistent voice belongs to the president himself, and under most circumstances, we want to believe our president.
There’s a lot of speculation about the president being tone-deaf to facts, but there’s not much disagreement about the tone. Whether you take delight in it as his loyal supporters do or you’re the unfortunate target of his angry rhetoric, the hostile way he expresses himself registers with everyone.
Nor is there much credible disagreement that the president treats lies, exaggerations and bullying as everyday weapons in his communication toolbox. These onslaughts of rhetoric aimed at his opposition mostly leave his antagonists sputtering in response, but I don’t think an in-kind response will be very effective either.
Say what you will about the president — and I have — when it comes to that lying, exaggerating, bullying thing, no one can touch him. He has set up a world where it seems as if those disapproving of him can effectively challenge him only by becoming just like him. He’s bringing down the level of the entire playing field.
And here, Mr. Mueller, is where you come in — where you need to come in. In your news conference, you said that your investigation’s work “speaks for itself.” It doesn’t. It may speak for itself to lawyers and lawmakers who have the patience and obligation to read through the more than 400 pages of carefully chosen words and nuanced conclusions (with all due respect, as good a read as it is, you’re no Stephen King).
You’ve characterized the report as your testimony, but you wouldn’t accept that reason from anyone your office interviewed. Additional information and illumination emerge from responses to questions. I know you’re as uncomfortable in the spotlight as the president is out of it.
I know you don’t want to become part of the political spectacle surrounding Russia’s crimes and your report on them. I know you will, however reluctantly, testify before Congress if called, because you respect the system and follow the rules, and I understand why you’d want to do it away from the public glare.
But the country needs to hear your voice. Your actual voice. And not just because you don’t want them to think that your actual voice sounds like Robert De Niro reading from cue cards, but because this is the report your country asked you to do, and now you must give it authority and clarity without, if I may use the term, obstruction.
We’ve learned our lesson about what can happen to the perception of your work when interpreted in rabid tweets by the president, dissected by pundits all over the map, trumpeted in bizarre terms by the president’s absurd personal lawyer and distorted by the attorney general.
And if, in fact, you have nothing further to say about the investigation, for your public testimony, you could just read from the report in response to questions from members of Congress. Your life has been a shining example of bravely and selflessly doing things for the good of our country. I urge you to leave your comfort zone and do that again.
You are the voice of the Mueller report. Let the country hear that voice.
With great respect,
Robert De Niro
Not exactly. You've got a one week time out.
Visit.... https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/seeBans.aspx?boardid=1642
...drop a turd in their already defiled punch bowl, and then we'll talk. You OWE it to me. LOL!
You couldn't be more wrong. I condemn the free fire zones of Vietnam and the Iraq war's horrible toll on civilian lives as I do the expulsion/extermination of Native Americans.
The 'advancement' and defense of Western Civ is as red in tooth an claw as that of any civilization of any era.
WWII differs in that it was an existential threat to the U.S that was unprecedented since the Civil War and which consequently required the measures used. Period.
Maybe Pelosi sublet to McCain the condo she has in Trump's head?
Better be a duplex, 'cause between those two and Obama it's gotta be getting fucking crowded in there.
During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump disparaged Mr. McCain’s military service in Vietnam, saying he was “not a war hero” and that “I like people who weren’t captured.”
Pictured below are Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe strolling amiably after Abe told Trump that it was the official military policy for the Empire of Japan to 'like people who weren't captured' during WWII.
Trump had responded "I love ya bigly Abe. You know we had a GOP president called Honest Abe, right?"
The prime minster reportedly face palmed his forehead upon hearing that question, before photographers could snap what would have been an historic and hysterical picture.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a blackhawks' flight of imagination worthy of The Onion, IMO.
"If we had confidence that President Obama did not commit a crime, we would have said so"
See what I did there, gearhead? I can't count on it, s'why I ask.
THINK about it, and how antsy you'd be standing in a very long line outside of the GOP Shit Lost and Found.
I thought of that earlier, a witness for the prosecution in the Senate as well as in the hearings over articles in the House.
Yeah, Mueller knows.
Literalism, also the bane of the stupid. For whom nuance and connotation are foreign words, or at least the words most often failed by Trumpanzees on vocab tests.
Thanks, I ran out of my quota of Bwtz views for the month. I have to pace myself better.
Mueller Reminds the Nation That Trump Betrayed the USA
Treachery is not always a crime.
•
David Corn
Washington, DC, Bureau
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/robert-mueller-donald-trump-usa/
Carolyn Kaster/AP
Much of the immediate commentary following special counsel Robert Mueller’s surprise press conference on Wednesday focused on his damning statements about President Donald Trump’s actions that potentially could be charged as obstruction of justice—if Justice Department policy did not prohibit the indictment of a sitting president.
But Mueller’s remarks were also a reminder of the core elements of the Trump-Russia scandal: Moscow attacked the 2016 election to help Trump, and Trump assisted Vladimir Putin’s assault by claiming at the time (and afterward) that it wasn’t real. That is, whether or not Trump had criminally colluded with Russian operatives, he did side with a foreign adversary that attacked American democracy—and that’s treachery.
The attack was real. It was significant. And there was a compelling need to investigate it.
Mueller began his statement by reiterating what has already been stated by the US intelligence community, Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and his own report:
Putin “launched a concerted attack on our political system.” He noted the Russians “used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks.
The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate.” The Kremlin’s goal was to impede Hillary Clinton and, consequently, boost Trump. And, Mueller added, “a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation where Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to influence an election.”
In other words, there is no Russian hoax. This is no Deep State concoction cooked up to subvert Trump’s campaign or his presidency. The attack was real. It was significant. And there was a compelling need to investigate it and any contacts between Trump associates and Russians.
Yet during the campaign, Trump and his lieutenants repeatedly denied the Russian attack was under way. As soon as the Democratic National Committee publicly announced its servers had been penetrated by Russian hackers, the Trump campaign claimed this was a “hoax” devised by the DNC itself.
After Democratic emails swiped by the Russians were dumped by WikiLeaks right before the Democratic convention in July 2016, Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manfort, then the campaign chairman, went on news shows and denied this had anything to do with the Russians. (Only a month earlier, they and Jared Kushner had attended a meeting with a Russian emissary whom they were told was bringing them dirt on Clinton as part of a secret Kremlin scheme to help the Trump campaign.)
Even after the intelligence community briefed Trump in mid-August of that year and informed him that Moscow indeed was behind the hack-and-dump operation, he continued to say in public that there was no reason to blame the Russians for this intervention.
At the first presidential debate, Trump huffed, “I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC…It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK? You don’t know who broke into DNC.” He kept this up after the Obama administration a few weeks later officially declared Russia was culpable.
Comments like these must have signaled to Russia—a foreign adversary trying to subvert an American election—that the Trump campaign was just fine with its underhanded efforts.
(After the DNC emails were posted around convention time, Trump publicly called on Russians to hack Clinton: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” And, according to Mueller’s report, hours later, Russian hackers targeted Clinton’s servers.)
Also in the summer of 2016, George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, was trying to set up a back-channel with Putin’s office. This means that while Putin was waging information warfare on the United States, one of the campaigns was reaching out and saying, Hey, we want to play ball with you.
No doubt, that was another sign of encouragement for Moscow. (And don’t forget that from October 2015 until June 2016, Trump was secretly negotiating to develop a tower project in Moscow that could reap him hundreds of millions of dollars—talks that included communicating with the office of Putin’s top aide. At the same time, Trump was telling American voters he had nothing to do with Russia.)
Trump and his team were repeating and amplifying Putin’s disinformation. They were aiding and abetting the Kremlin.
Trump put his own interests ahead of the security of the nation. And by insisting there was no Russian attack, he helped Putin pull off this caper and made it more difficult for President Barack Obama to enlist Republicans in a united front against Moscow’s attack.
With Russia falsely claiming it had nothing to do with the hacks and dumps, Trump and his team were repeating and amplifying Putin’s disinformation. They were aiding and abetting the Kremlin. And after Trump won the election, he continued this pattern, failing to acknowledge the Russian attack and notoriously saying he accepted Putin’s denials. (One result of this was that Trump has done nothing to prioritize actions to prevent future attacks on US elections.)
Mueller’s report notes that the Trump campaign tried to reach out to WikiLeaks during the campaign and exploited the Russian attack—even as it was publicly dismissing the idea that Moscow was undermining the election.
Mueller did not dwell on this point during his appearance; he only noted that “there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy” involving Trump associates and Russians.
But this was his understated way of saying that his report had not reached a verdict of whether there had been any collusion. His task was only to determine if crimes had been committed.
The big news was Mueller signaling that there had been enough evidence of obstruction to consider an indictment of Trump but for the DOJ policy and that it was now up to Congress to decide the matter.
But he ended with the fundamental fact of this scandal. “I will close,” he said, “by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments: That there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election, and that allegation deserves the attention of every American.”
That was certainly a dig at Trump, who has refused to recognize this central allegation. And it highlights a key subplot of the scandal: Trump has consistently sided with Putin and purposefully obscured the reality of what happened in 2016 (often by tossing out diversions and distractions regarding Deep State coups and other rightwing conspiracy theories).
And Trump and his crowd continue to do so. After Trump tweeted “case is closed” in response to Mueller’s statement, his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, issued a statement full of lies: “Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s remarks today confirmed what we already knew: There was no collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign, and there was no case for obstruction.
President Trump has been fully and completely exonerated.” None of that was true. And Parscale added, “Now it’s time to turn to the origins of the Russia hoax.”
Hoax—they’re sticking with hoax. This is total gaslighting. Trump and his minions are still covering for Putin and playing the (paranoid) victim.
On Wednesday, Mueller did not spill any beans that were not in his report. He was cautious and disciplined. But this media appearance demonstrated that it is important that the facts and outrages of the Trump-Russia scandal—probably the most consequential political scandal in American history—not be reserved to the printed page of a long and dense report.
Mueller’s nine-and-half-minute-long statement likely had a different, possibly greater, impact than the release of that report.
Here was a credible source telling the story, even if only in an abbreviated manner. This illustrated what House Democrats need to do, whether or not they proceed with impeachment: Bring witnesses to public hearings to convey the full narrative of the Russiagate. House committees are tussling with the Trump administration over potential witnesses, such as former White House counsel Don McGahn, but there are others the Democrats could showcase.
(How about former Trump business associate Felix Sater, who negotiated the Trump project in Moscow?) The Dems ought to move past the procedural squabbling and present a clear depiction of Trump’s misconduct in this matter—and others.
Mueller did not advocate any course of action. His job is done, his mission accomplished. He announced his resignation and passed the case for obstruction to Congress.
But he has told a slice of the story—a slice that is damning for Trump. It fixes a spotlight on the momentous lies Trump and his crew have told, lies that aided Putin’s war on American democracy, and lies that continue to flow from Trump and his henchmen. Mueller has served the truth. In doing so, he has indicted Trump—not in a legal sense, but for betraying his country.
So THAT'S what it would look like if you Trumpanzees owned a bottling company?
Label cheap liquor with your lamest conspiracy theories, and a few of your own crimes, and then sit down and get shitfaced enough to post imagery that applies to you, only you're too stupid to notice?
Check, check, check, check and check.
The Problem Is That Mitch McConnell Doesn't Give a Fuck About Ethics, Morality, or Law While Democra
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-problem-is-that-mitch-mcconnell.html
You can't understand the Devil until the Devil shows you his works. Oh, you may think you grasp what the Devil is capable of; you think it's all just monstrous acts of sharp object sodomy and the extravagant, cruel lies the Devil uses to justify his devilish fuckery.
But what most people don't understand until they see the Devil in action is that it's far, far worse when the Devil abandons lies and gives you the truth.
Then you look in the face of an honest Devil and you are utterly lost because you knew what was true. You just didn't think the Devil would grin so broadly when he told it to you.
The reason that Democrats seem so hapless in the face of Republican savagery is that Democrats don't grasp the depth of the moral and ethical void in the center of the GOP.
They keep telling themselves that Lucifer was once an angel and he can be one again, ignoring that Lucifer doesn't fuckin' want to go back to boring ol' Heaven. They cling to this pathetic hope like a log in a flood, except they ignore the snake on the log that has no problem biting them to death.
Today, malevolent dry turd Mitch McConnell, who is the goddamn Senate Majority Leader, was at a luncheon at the Chamber of Commerce of Paducah, Kentucky (motto: "Sure, we're filthy with heroin and racism, but we have a quilting museum!").
He was asked, "Should a Supreme Court justice die next year, what will your position be on filling that spot?" See, this is a reference to 2016, when Justice Antonin Scalia died and McConnell declared that the seat shouldn't be filled until after the presidential election so "the people could decide" or whatever fucking excuse he used. Next year will be another presidential election, and I think you know where this is going.
Here's his response: "The leader took a long sip of what appeared to be iced tea before announcing with a smile, 'Oh, we'd fill it,' triggering loud laughter from the audience." Oh, man, that's hilarious. See, he doesn't have any principles. He doesn't give a happy monkey fuck about hypocrisy. All he cares about is winning, fuck everything else. He took joy in saying that shit. It's just so funny.
That a giant hand didn't descend from the sky and squeezed McConnell until he popped like a fat bullfrog under a steamroller is absolute proof that there is no God.
You can't beat Machiavelli by quoting Thich Nhat Hanh. You can't reason with a pack of gabbling hyenas who are tearing up a gazelle by offering them etiquette lessons.
Yet that's what Democrats are trying to do with their seeming acquiescence to Republicans when it comes to impeachment. They keep waiting for the political equivalent of Bigfoot to come along: a group of Republicans who will publicly oppose Trump. But that big fucker is never gonna be found.
Look, at this point, Republicans are too far in with Trump. They have more reason to keep him afloat than to put him in cement shoes that they are chained to. With all the shit they've let Trump get away with so far, why bother stopping him now?
It's like they all committed a bank robbery; they emptied the safes and shot all the hostages. They're standing there covered in blood, with cash falling out of their pockets. If their leader says, "Ok, let's burn down the bank," well, why get a conscience now? They'll just start setting fire to shit.
McConnell didn't give a fuck about how his reversal on whatever ludicrous principle he pretended to have seemed. He didn't give a fuck about how it seemed when he refused Merrick Garland a hearing and vote. He didn't give a fuck because it's about the win, not how you get it. He didn't give a fuck because the Devil doesn't give a fuck.
And people respond to the win. That's how we got Trump in the first place. More on that and how it applies to impeachment later this week.
Sarah Fuckin' Huckleberry Slanders? Please, get TF outta here with THAT.
VERY weak shit. Can't even come up with a funny meme image because of the stupid.
It WOULD work, but not the way you want it to, if the DOJ guidelines said that even if Big Foot was found to be real, the DOJ still wouldn't be allowed to capture him.
Pic Of The Moment: Mueller's Statement In A Nutshell
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017542558
Robert Mueller's Speech Was a Repeat of His Appeal to Congress: Initiate Impeachment Proceedings
The special counsel could not charge Donald Trump with obstruction of justice. The legislature must wield its power to hold him accountable for what he's done.
By Jack Holmes
May 29, 2019
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is an "institutionalist" at a time when the institutions of our republic are crumbling, undermined by the most powerful people in our society and, in some cases, the very people who run them.
This is a perilous position when democracy is sliding into autocracy, a big-money bet that relentlessly observing institutional norms is the best defense against those hell-bent on destroying them. It requires the supreme conviction of a devout acolyte of The Order of Things—the kind of person who would privately write a letter to Attorney General William Barr complaining about how he rolled out The Mueller Report, then state publicly that he has no doubt Barr conducted that rollout in good faith.
That's what Mueller said at a press conference Wednesday—that he doesn't think Barr conducted himself in bad faith. It was a stunning piece of counter-evidence against the claim Mueller is some kind of Honest Abe character.
He might be squeaky clean, but it seems he'll take on a smudge if it means protecting the institution of the Department of Justice—and, with it, the fading notion of the rule of law.
Mueller spoke on Department property, symbolizing his commitment to Order, and largely refused throughout to speak about anything beyond the text of the Mueller Report. But there was one moment that stood out.
CNN Politics
? @CNNPolitics
Mueller: “If we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime” https://cnn.it/2WcA8qv
Overall, this is an extension of the Mueller Report's appeal to Congress, which goes something like this:
1) Justice Department regulations hold a sitting president cannot be indicted.
2) As a result, my team could not file charges against the president.
3) We did not accuse him of a crime without charging him, because then he would have no chance to defend himself in a court of law. It would be unfair.
4) Here is evidence of up to 10 incidents in which the president meddled in the investigation, many of which could rise to the level of obstruction of justice.
5) Congress has broad powers to investigate the president and hold him accountable for unacceptable or criminal conduct in office.
6) It is up to Congress to use the vast body of evidence laid out here to hold the president accountable by initiating impeachment proceedings.
In the time since, more than 450 former federal prosecutors have signed a letter attesting to the fact that if Donald Trump were not the president, he would be charged with obstruction.
Mueller could not charge him, so Congress must. It was not a Witch Hunt, the report is not a COMPLETE EXONERATION or NO COLLUSION or NO OBSTRUCTION. There was collusion, but that's not a crime. There was evidence of conspiracy, but it did not rise to a level where the special counsel sought charges against members of Trump's campaign. And there was a huge amount of evidence that the president obstructed justice, but Mueller felt he could not charge him according to institutional norms.
Typically, the president responded with a lie:
Donald J. Trump
? @realDonaldTrump
Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.
Remember when it was a Deep State Coup that ended with a COMPLETE EXONERATION? It never made any sense, and now he's saying something entirely different. It is time for Congress to act.
As between the two of us I'm the one who most often posts links to support my assertions. I jump to unwarranted conclusions far less than do you, prefer that a legal process proceed locking someone up and fall for fake news not at all. Because, you know, I look things up, crosscheck sources, employ logic and use critical thinking skills.
That said, I also qualify frequently using 'may', 'could', 'possibly' and 'probably' which, to an intelligent person, WOULD signal doubt or at least an inability to arrive at certitude on one matter or another.
The quote doesn't allow for the observable fact that most people both harbor doubts and display confidence. A serious caveat.
Which is probably why the quote hasn't achieved wider circulation, among intelligent people.
Thanks for identifying your particular ilk
Sure, both for the insight that a scumbag brings to identifying a fellow scumbag and for the corroborative value to numerous documented examples of Trump's scumbaggery.
I haven't twisted a single thing. That's your job and one you really don't do very well.
I appreciate your pasting my carefully crafted paragraph though.
It holds up well to a second reading.
Bannon: This could bring down Trump's presidency
"Steve Bannon says supporters will turn when tax records reveal Trump’s ‘just another scumbag’: Michael Wolff"
This is a new article that discusses Wolff's book and what Bannon had to say about Trump:
President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist believes a thorough investigation will reveal his family business is a “semi-criminal enterprise” — and ultimately end his presidency.
The president is fighting congressional orders to turn over his tax returns, putting Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in possible legal peril, and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Trump has every reason to fear their release, according to excerpts from a new book reported by The Guardian.
“Trump was vulnerable because for 40 years he had run what increasingly seemed to resemble a semi-criminal enterprise,” wrote author Michael Wolff in his forthcoming book, “Siege.”
Bannon, who is quoted extensively in this book and Wolff’s previous White House tell-all, “Fire and Fury,” takes that even further.
“I think we can drop the ‘semi’ part,” Bannon told Wolff. Bannon said investigations into Trump’s finances will eventually cause his strongest supporters to turn on the president, when they realize he’s not nearly as wealthy as he claims to be.
In Siege, Wolff quotes Bannon saying investigations into Trump’s finances will cut adrift even his most ardent supporters: “This is where it isn’t a witch hunt,” Bannon said. “Even for the hard core, this is where he turns into just a crooked business guy, and one worth $50 million instead of $10 billion.”
“Not the billionaire he said he was,” Bannon added, “just another scumbag."
Link: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/steve-bannon-says-supporters-will-turn-when-tax-records-reveal-trumps-just-another-scumbag-michael-wolff/?utm_source=push_notifications
Irony and projection alert.....
The intended timing doesn't change the fact that the carriers were at their launch locations and the planes were ether lifting off or well on their way.
Even if delivered at the intended time, the reaction of America would have been the same.
Yamamoto had a good idea as to what the nature of the responses would be, even if Tojo and the emperor didn't
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto
A military man can scarcely pride himself on having "smitten a sleeping enemy"; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.
Reply made to Ogata Taketora, the Editor in Chief of Asahi Shimbun (9 January 1942) as quoted in The Reluctant Admiral (1979) by Hiroyuki Agawa
Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco.
To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.
As quoted in At Dawn We Slept (1981) by Gordon W. Prange, p. 11; this quote was stated in a letter to Ryoichi Sasakawa prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Minus the last sentence, it was taken out of context and interpreted in the U.S. as a boast that Japan would conquer the entire contiguous United States. The omitted sentence showed Yamamoto's counsel of caution towards a war that would cost Japan dearly.
In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.
Statement to Japanese cabinet minister Shigeharu Matsumoto and Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoe, as quoted in Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan (1985) by Ronald Spector. This remark would later prove prophetic; precisely six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy would suffer a major defeat at the Battle of Midway, from which it never recovered.
Disputed[edit]
I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. Statement made after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Yamamoto as portrayed in the film Tora! Tora! Tora!, this is one of the most quoted remarks attributed to him. Though it is thought that it summarizes his sentiments well, a definite source for this quote has never been provided.
William Safire wrote that there is no printed evidence to support this quote. Safire's Political Dictionary, page 666. For more information see the Wikipedia article "Isoroku Yamamoto's sleeping giant quote".
Robert Mueller to make public statement about Russia probe on Wednesday
Source: NBC
Robert Mueller to make public statement about Russia probe on Wednesday
"This will be a statement only, no question and answer period to follow," the Department of Justice announced.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/robert-mueller-make-public-statement-about-russia-probe-wednesday-n1011331
The Slowskys live next door to the Chantix Turkey. If the turkey can sport a back pack he can sling a laptop bag.
Again... poor people. They can't afford a missile system or an air force. They don't count. Imagine the frustration they must feel.
Sorry, but frustration is no more an excuse to fly planes into buildings than it is to obstruct justice.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mp06.asp
Hiroshima was a city of considerable military importance. It contained the 2nd Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. To quote a Japanese report, "Probably more than a thousand times since the beginning of the war did the Hiroshima citizens see off with cries of 'Banzai' the troops leaving from the harbor."
The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great war-time importance because of its many and varied industries, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. The narrow long strip attacked was of particular importance because of its industries.
Accuracy, as we've learned, is not your strong suit.
I see what you did there and yes, false equivalence always seems lame.
You've equated a sneak attack by a non-state actor with our increasing attacks of retribution against an enemy that had exacted enormous casualties against us in the Pacific War over a 3 year period, with the prospect of much worse if the war continued.
The comparison could hardly be MORE lame.
The terms of the war, rules of engagement, against Japan were determined by Japan itself in their attack on Pearl Harbor, and further expressed in fanatical resistance by the Japanese in the island campaigns.
The relatively few prisoners taken by Americans was because the Japanese viewed surrender as disgrace, which also meant the Japanese didn't take prisoners either.
Mueller drew up obstruction indictment against Trump, Michael Wolff book says
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/28/mueller-trump-obstruction-charge-michael-wolff-book-siege-under-fire-news
Revelation is in Fire and Fury sequel, Siege: Trump Under Fire
Edward Helmore in New York
Tue 28 May 2019 10.35 EDT First published on Tue 28 May 2019 08.46 EDT
A new book from Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff says special counsel Robert Mueller drew up a three-count obstruction of justice indictment against Donald Trump before deciding to shelve it – an explosive claim which a spokesman for Mueller flatly denied.
'It's all explosive': Michael Wolff on Donald Trump
The stunning revelation is contained in Siege: Trump Under Fire, which will be published a week from now, on 4 June. It is the sequel to Fire and Fury, Wolff’s bestseller on the first year of the Trump presidency which was published in 2018.
The Guardian obtained a copy of Siege and viewed the documents concerned.
In an author’s note, Wolff states that his findings on the Mueller investigation are “based on internal documents given to me by sources close to the Office of the Special Counsel”.
But Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, told the Guardian: “The documents that you’ve described do not exist.”
Siege: Trump Under Fire.
Questions over the provenance of the documents will only add to controversy and debate around the launch of Wolff’s eagerly awaited new book.
Fire and Fury shone a harsh spotlight on dysfunction within the Trump White House and engendered huge controversy after the Guardian broke news of its contents. Many of Wolff’s assertions were confirmed by later works, among them Fear: Trump in the White House by the Watergate reporter Bob Woodward. The book prompted the banishment of the Trump adviser and Wolff source Stephen Bannon, who also lost his place at Breitbart News. It sold close to 5 million copies.
Mueller was appointed in May 2017 to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, links between Trump aides and Moscow and potential obstruction of justice by the president
Mueller’s final report was handed to the attorney general, William Barr, on 22 March this year and made public in redacted form on 18 April. Mueller did not find a conspiracy between Trump and Russia but did lay out 11 possible instances of obstruction of justice, indicating Congress should decide what came next.
Barr said he had judged the instances of possible obstruction not to be conclusive. Trump and his supporters have claimed total exoneration. Democrats in Congress are weighing whether impeachment is merited.
And yet Wolff reports that Mueller’s office drew up a three-count outline of the president’s alleged abuses, under the title “United States of America against Donald J Trump, Defendant”.
The document sat on the special counsel’s desk, Wolff writes, for almost a year.
According to a document seen by the Guardian, the first count, under Title 18, United States code, Section 1505, charged the president with corruptly – or by threats of force or threatening communication – influencing, obstructing or impeding a pending proceeding before a department or agency of the United States.
The second count, under section 1512, charged the president with tampering with a witness, victim or informant.
The third count, under section 1513, charged the president with retaliating against a witness, victim or informant.
The Jews always flip
Donald Trump, according to Wolff
The document is the most significant aspect of Wolff’s new book.
Wolff writes that the draft indictment he examines says Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice “began on the seventh day of his administration, tracing the line of obstruction from National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s lies to the FBI about his contacts with Russian representative[s], to the president’s efforts to have [FBI director] James Comey protect Flynn, to Comey’s firing, to the president’s efforts to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation, to his attempt to cover up his son and son-in-law’s meeting with Russian governmental agents, to his moves to interfere with Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe’s testimony …”
The draft indictment, Wolff writes, also spelled out what Mueller considered to be the overriding theme of Trump’s presidency: the “extraordinary lengths” taken “to protect himself from legal scrutiny and accountability, and to undermine the official panels investigating his actions”.
According to Wolff, Mueller endured tortured deliberations over whether to charge the president, and even more tortured deliberations over the president’s power to dismiss him or his boss, the then deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein.
Mueller ultimately demurred, Wolff writes, but his team’s work gave rise to as many as 13 other investigations that led to cooperating witness plea deals from Michael Cohen, David Pecker of American Media and Trump Organization accountant Allen Weisselberg.
“The Jews always flip,” was Trump’s comment on those deals, according to Wolff.
In one of many echoes of Fire and Fury, such shocking remarks by Trump are salted throughout Siege.
The justice department’s Office of Legal Counsel had said a sitting president could not be indicted. According to Wolff, Mueller’s team drew up both the three-count indictment of Trump and a draft memorandum of law opposing an anticipated motion to dismiss.
In his 448-page redacted final report the special counsel briefly noted that his office had concluded it would accept previous justice department guidance that it did not have the power to prosecute a sitting president.
The draft memorandum quoted by Wolff argues that nowhere does the law say the president cannot be indicted and nowhere is the president accorded a different status under the law than other federal officials, all of whom can be indicted, convicted and impeached.
The document says: “The Impeachment Judgment Clause, which applies equally to all civil officers including the president … takes for granted … that an officer may be subject to indictment and prosecution before impeachment. If it did not, the clause would be creating, for civil officers, precisely the immunity the Framers rejected.”
The memorandum rejected the argument that the burden of a criminal process on the president would interfere with his ability to carry out his duties.
The very existence of the special counsel’s investigation had … become the paramount issue of the investigation itself
Michael Wolff
Of Mueller’s thinking, Wolff writes that as a former FBI director, he “had not risen to the highest levels of the federal government by misconstruing the limits of bureaucratic power”, and had therefore continually weighed the odds with his staff about whether the president would fire them.
Thus, Wolff writes, “the very existence of the special counsel’s investigation had in a sense become the paramount issue of the investigation itself”.
According to Wolff, a memo circulated internally asked: “Can President Trump order [then attorney general Jeff] Sessions to withdraw the special counsel regulations (and fire him if he doesn’t)?
“The short answer is yes.”
Mueller’s team also believed Trump could have fired Mueller directly, Wolff says, “arguing that the special counsel regulations are unconstitutional insofar as they limit his ability to fire the special counsel”.
Trump has claimed to have had the right to fire Mueller, but he has also denied Don McGahn’s testimony to Mueller that he was ordered to do so. Trump is now seeking to stop the former White House counsel testifying to Congress.
In another memo quoted by Wolff, Mueller’s staff wondered what would happen to the special counsel’s office, staff, records, pending investigations and grand juries reviewing evidence if Mueller was fired.
To preserve their work, Wolff writes, they decided to share grand jury materials with fellow prosecutors. That process led, for example, to the investigation into Cohen being handed to the southern district of New York.
In the end, Wolff writes, Mueller concluded that “the truth of the matter was straightforward: that while the president had the support of the majority party, he had the winning hand.
“Robert Mueller, the stoic marine, had revealed himself over the course of the nearly two-year investigation to his colleagues and staff to be quite a Hamlet figure. Or, less dramatically, a cautious and indecisive bureaucrat.”
Caught, Wolff says, between wanting to use his full authority and worrying that he had no authority, Mueller went against the will of many of his staff when he chose not to attempt to force Trump to be interviewed in person. Ultimately, he also concluded he could not move to prosecute a sitting president.
Perhaps surprisingly given his fate after Fire and Fury, Bannon is quoted extensively in Siege. His view of Mueller’s two year investigation into claims of collusion and obstruction of justice: “Never send a marine to do a hit man’s job.”
Wolff’s conclusion is a sobering one.
“In a way,” he writes, “Robert Mueller had come to accept the dialectical premise of Donald Trump – that Trump is Trump.
“Bob Mueller threw up his hands. Surprisingly, he found himself in agreement with the greater White House: Donald Trump was the president, and, for better or for worse, what you saw was what you got – and what the country voted for.”
Comey Goes Off on Trump's 'Treason' Claims in New Op-Ed: 'The President is a Liar'
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/comey-goes-off-on-trumps-treason-claims-in-new-op-ed-the-president-is-a-liar/ar-AAC2XUV?ocid=sf
Josh Feldman
2 hrs ago
Former FBI Director James Comey penned another op-ed today blasting President Donald Trump, this time going off on his “dumb lies” about the Russia probe.
He says he can’t just ignore Trump “when the president is a liar who doesn’t care what damage he does to vital institutions.”
“We must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason, that we spied on the Trump campaign, and tried to defeat Donald Trump. We must constantly return to the stubborn facts,” he writes.
Comey defends the FBI’s actions in conducting the investigation and even mockingly comments “Worst deep-state conspiracy ever”:
If we were “deep state” Clinton loyalists bent on stopping him, why would we keep it secret? Why wouldn’t the much-maligned FBI supervisor Peter Strzok — the alleged kingpin of the “treasonous” plot to stop Trump — tell anyone? He was one of the very few people who knew what we were investigating.
We investigated. We didn’t gather information about the campaign’s strategy. We didn’t “spy” on anyone’s campaign. We investigated to see whether it was true that Americans associated with the campaign had taken the Russians up on any offer of help.
Comey ends by expressing confidence that the investigations will show “the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations” and that there’s a reason “non-fringe media” isn’t spending time on “dumb lies.”
Maybe it is as simple as likes attract likes. Why would she go anywhere near the West Wing for that matter?
These are soulless nihilist ends justify the means people, devoid of character, morality and ethics.
Thought bubble for all three:
I can't believe I'm fronting for this POS dufus. WTF am I going to do after this? My resume is trashed.
One what? I like it when she's sultry. That's her former boyfriend, by the way.
Aw c'mon. How many columns dealing with an individual, male or female, do NOT feature a photo?
OK, let's go back to the photo selection. Hicks is a former model. I defy you to find an image of her that doesn't make her appear glamorous.
It's hard to convey existential dread with any of her photos.
Lastly, I doubt that Hope can show her lawyers Maggie's column and say 'hey, Maggie thinks I have a choice', and convince them that she really does.