Lol, no. This is the opposite of the caricature of me you have in your mind based on our differing understandings of what the word “debate” implies.

He believes the DOJ does not have the power to indict a sitting president. That is separate from having the power to determine whether charges would have been filed had that limitation not existed.

And, also, Barr ordered him not to determine obstruction of justice.

One might say that by replacing his attorney general with someone who had written open letters saying that he would do exactly this if he were attorney general, president trump was obstructing the investigation into his obstruction of justice.

Mueller isn't going to go around in this context stating he thinks Trump's a criminal. He's trying his hardest to stay neutral. That means doing what he can to stop the spread of rumors and other leakable bits.

Spicy.

One might say that, but it’s somewhat besides the point, I believe. Are Democrats willing to put their balls on the line and say that hiring Barr was an instance of Trump obstructing justice, and try to make the case to the country that it IS cause to remove him from office? Are they willing to let it be the flag they wave as they try to overcome all the noise of conservative media and all of the obfuscating of GOP politicians? Or should it all hang on something else?

Again, I’m not saying that Trump is innocent or something. Clinton was investigated for years and for numerous different very complicated and drawn-outs scandals before he was impeached. But when he was finally impeached, despite all of the complexity, the GOP has a simple and easily comprehensible argument to bring to the American people about why he deserved impeachment: he lied. If you’re going to say that there’s as good of a case for why Trump should be impeached, all of the complexity has to be reduced to something simple, because ultimately, it’s a political argument that needs to be made; you need to make it possible for Republican congressmen to vote against their guy in the WH. And you’d have to persuade people who are very stubborn about being persuaded.

You don’t think if Mueller arrived at the legal conclusion that there was incontrovertible evidence that Trump ought to be impeached that he wouldn’t see it as “neutral” or even-handed or just to say so?

I’m inclined to take the report at its word and think his view is that he believes he’s not in a position to recommend impeachment regardless of what the evidence says, but that Congress is, and that he’s provided evidence that, while inconclusive, nonetheless *may* provides a case for impeachment (although equally, perhaps it does not), but that it’s ultimately up to Congress to decide what to do with it.

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure staying neutral strengthens his case. If he seems to encourage impeachment it seems the defense could argue political bias.

I do think he'd say that if he had the smoking gun. I don't think he has a smoking gun, but I do think he has enough evidence that Trump would likely be found guilty.

In what context would he be found guilty? Impeachment proceedings? Because that’s the only “court” that matters here.

mhmm

You think GOP senators are going to vote to impeach Trump and remove him from office?

No. I'm talking about whether there's enough evidence to convict him. I think there's a solid case and he would be found guilty if tried. That's separate from the political realities of impeachment.

Nobody will ever prosecute him, so really the only “court” that matters is public opinion. Good thing, too. I can’t think of anybody scared and dumb enough to vote for a loudmouth criminal with terrible economic ideas.

But it’s a nonsensical distinction, since there’s only one “court” who can make a determination about what the evidence amounts that matters, and it’s Congress. You can’t abstract the question of whether evidence would result in conviction from the institutions that actually hand out convictions.

That seems like a pretty illiberal view. Basically implies there is no true justice.

How so?

You can’t judge whether some evidence is enough to establish that someone is guilty because it’s not generally something that a single person decides according to some objective criteria that can be determined in abstraction from court proceedings. It’s something a jury decides within the context of proceedings. The legal process is what determines whether the evidence establishes guilt. Not individual citizens coming to their own conclusions. (Now *that* would be illiberal!)

No, it’s a liberal view, because it leaves it to the processes and procedures of the justice system, a system designed at least theoretically to protect individual liberties and to ensure fairness, to make decisions about guilt or innocence, rather than some formalized set of rules.

Sure, I'll grant you that.

Oh, obviously the part where he thinks it will go on for several years and he won't be able to do anything. Fortunately that wasn't really the case.

https://www.statista.com/chart/17679/real-wages-in-the-united-states/

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

oh ho but a cell phone only takes 38 hours to buy at these wages, in 1973 the same processing power would have cost 90 trillion dollars so really the workers are all trillionaires :smug Milton Friedman dog:

In 1973 we didn't have death orbs that ominously hovered over us, an ever-present threat of instant laser vaporization for ceasing our toil. Instead they had to persecute people with monetary policy and the threat of starvation, like a bunch of ****in poors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGRC5AA1wF0&feature=youtu.be

Cage match!

But TVs are cheaper now!!1

Do most of you live in very high cost of living areas? I'm just wondering because I was thinking recently that since my wife and I are both working towards starting new careers and I imagine our starting wages will be relatively low, around $20/hour (she's almost done with her nurse program and I'm in a machine tool program), that practically any young person here could very easily make it at that wage and if married are looking at a gross over $80k per year. Now, that might not go far in a deep blue state but it goes pretty far here.

TIL Utah is a deep blue state

Really?

I mean, I get it. $80K is going to pay for less an hour down the road but I'm sure there's plenty of areas where it can buy more. Utah is also high on the list of places people are fleeing to I suppose.

I live in an area that has rampant money laundering into real estate and federal government policies designed to inflate the house prices (i.e. retirement savings) of boomers. Thanks to generations of unambitious investment we have to import practically everything we consume, and thanks to weak exports its extra expensive, and thanks to the wealth effect its extra extra expensive. Basically the area I live in is far more expensive than can be justified by the local job market.

The median household income is $80k, studies say you’d need to make over $200k to be comfortable here.



These conditions are pretty normal across Canada, except in Vancouver and Toronto where the money laundering and median incomes are both much worse.

$80k/year is more than enough pretty much anywhere to make it by. But to build any equity is much harder.

I disagree, Reid. I recently spoke with some recruiters about a job possibility that would have led to at least $90k per year in around six years. The average home cost nearly a half million there. I'm far better off with a household gross of $80K here with plenty left over for savings. But very interesting to see your post follow Jon's.

Yeah, you couldn't afford a home, but you could find somewhere to rent for that income no problem. You can live that lifestyle on $80k but you won't be building any equity. As you point out, $80k in Kentucky is enough to build equity which is why it might be a better choice.

It also depends what you're interested in personally. I don't like living in rural areas and love cities, so I'll probably make a sacrifice to my future equity to live in a city.

Well, I live in the fifth largest city in Tennessee and I'm less than an hour from the largest. It's pretty interesting where I live. I feel uncomfortable in large cities but that's because I haven't lived in one as an adult but Fresno, Clarksville, Manhattan (KS), and Anchorage aren't particularly rural either.

Wow. New York Times, this is just pathetic for publishing an article with this sort of title. (You don't need to read it, it doesn't say much beyond what you can probably imagine.)

From the comment section of that page (by somebody presumably from Ireland), I thought this was apt:


Indeed.

Btw, at the end of the day, I don't think that article is anything more than a thinly veiled attack on Bernie Sanders. And frankly, since it's a trope that seems to be coming up again and again, against Bernie, I'd say we simply call it what it is: racism.

So... the liberal elite recruits recruits anti-White bigotry, thereby helping to reelect a white supremacist fascist candidate and stoke racial hatred by whites against minorities, all the while marginalizing candidates focused on actual policy proposals that threaten their wealth. Hmm

If the billionaires try to use identity politics to shove a bad neoliberal candidate into the DNC... again... they are going to lose. Again.

That's their plan. I've been seeing a lot of fearmongering against Bernie lately.

“If people are being catty and holding gender or race against a candidate, it would break my heart.”

This was hysterical btw

You mean you can’t win a general campaign by first dividing your own party over accusations of sexism and racism during an exceptionally long and bitter primary season?

(I wrote that and laughed because actually it did work in 2008. BUT STILL!)