Where did all these Democrat voices go?

[japantiger 4,051]

Where did all these voices go:

Bob Kerrey: How did Department of Justice get the Trump-Russia investigation so wrong?

https://www.omaha.com/opinion/midlands_voices/bob-kerrey-how-did-department-of-justice-get-the-trump/article_7b68c700-f356-5cb8-8baf-bbbdc5375bf4.html

Delusions fascinate me in part because I have so many of my own. Most often delusions are harmless. Sometimes they are not.

At the moment my fellow Democrats are suffering from two that are harmful. The first is that Americans long for a president who will ask us to pay more for the pleasure of increasing the role of the federal government in our lives. That this is a delusion can be seen in the promises made by six successful Democratic candidates in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan: three governors and three senators. Not one of them supported the Green New Deal, a tax on wealth or “Medicare for all.”

The second Democratic delusion is that Americans were robbed of the truth when Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and Attorney General William Barr concluded that President Trump did not collude with Russia in 2016. All evidence indicates that the full report will not change the conclusion that Donald J. Trump did not collude with Vladimir Putin to secure his victory in 2016.

Rather than investigating the president further, Congress needs to investigate how the Department of Justice got this one so wrong. If the president of the United States is vulnerable to prosecutorial abuse, then God help all the rest of us. Members of Congress cannot do this themselves. We do not trust them enough with such a vital mission.

Congress should create a nonpartisan commission to find out what went wrong and to tell us what needs to be done to make certain it never happens again.

A commission to investigate the FBI needs to focus on four questions:

1. Has the law that gave the director of the FBI a 10-year term of office been sufficient to protect the appointee from political pressure to investigate potential crimes of candidates or elected officials? Neither Democratic nor Republican mobs should decide the outcome of our criminal justice system.

2. How can we write clear rules that govern the behavior of the candidate or officeholder? Tweets can and do stoke the fire of the mob. That is what they are intended to do. When the chief law enforcement officer encourages his audience to chant “lock her up,” this signals the FBI to follow the mob. When he sends out tweets that encourage law enforcement to investigate political opponents, this is also mob rule. Rules of acceptable behavior do not apply just to the president but to Congress as well. In the Twitter age, all of us need to understand when our candidate has crossed the line.

3. When is it appropriate for the FBI to begin an investigation? Once started, these things are hard to stop. A single campaign official suggesting the possibility of collusion with a foreign power or a document written as opposition research or a demand from a member of Congress are very thin reeds upon which to challenge the legitimacy of an elected official.

4. Are federal pardons justified? The commission needs the authority to examine whether some Americans were convicted and sentenced because they did not tell the truth about a collusion that never happened. The commission should be given the authority to recommend a pardon for anyone it believes was sentenced unjustly.

Our democracy will survive the hostility of Vladimir Putin. What it may not survive is distrust of our system of justice. At the moment that distrust is deep and wide. We need a nonpartisan national commission to tell us what has just happened and to advise us on what we need to do to keep it from happening again.

 

 

 

  

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

31 minutes ago, japantiger said:

Where did all these voices go:

Bob Kerrey: How did Department of Justice get the Trump-Russia investigation so wrong?

https://www.omaha.com/opinion/midlands_voices/bob-kerrey-how-did-department-of-justice-get-the-trump/article_7b68c700-f356-5cb8-8baf-bbbdc5375bf4.html

Delusions fascinate me in part because I have so many of my own. Most often delusions are harmless. Sometimes they are not.

At the moment my fellow Democrats are suffering from two that are harmful. The first is that Americans long for a president who will ask us to pay more for the pleasure of increasing the role of the federal government in our lives. That this is a delusion can be seen in the promises made by six successful Democratic candidates in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan: three governors and three senators. Not one of them supported the Green New Deal, a tax on wealth or “Medicare for all.”

The second Democratic delusion is that Americans were robbed of the truth when Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and Attorney General William Barr concluded that President Trump did not collude with Russia in 2016. All evidence indicates that the full report will not change the conclusion that Donald J. Trump did not collude with Vladimir Putin to secure his victory in 2016.

Rather than investigating the president further, Congress needs to investigate how the Department of Justice got this one so wrong. If the president of the United States is vulnerable to prosecutorial abuse, then God help all the rest of us. Members of Congress cannot do this themselves. We do not trust them enough with such a vital mission.

Congress should create a nonpartisan commission to find out what went wrong and to tell us what needs to be done to make certain it never happens again.

A commission to investigate the FBI needs to focus on four questions:

1. Has the law that gave the director of the FBI a 10-year term of office been sufficient to protect the appointee from political pressure to investigate potential crimes of candidates or elected officials? Neither Democratic nor Republican mobs should decide the outcome of our criminal justice system.

2. How can we write clear rules that govern the behavior of the candidate or officeholder? Tweets can and do stoke the fire of the mob. That is what they are intended to do. When the chief law enforcement officer encourages his audience to chant “lock her up,” this signals the FBI to follow the mob. When he sends out tweets that encourage law enforcement to investigate political opponents, this is also mob rule. Rules of acceptable behavior do not apply just to the president but to Congress as well. In the Twitter age, all of us need to understand when our candidate has crossed the line.

3. When is it appropriate for the FBI to begin an investigation? Once started, these things are hard to stop. A single campaign official suggesting the possibility of collusion with a foreign power or a document written as opposition research or a demand from a member of Congress are very thin reeds upon which to challenge the legitimacy of an elected official.

4. Are federal pardons justified? The commission needs the authority to examine whether some Americans were convicted and sentenced because they did not tell the truth about a collusion that never happened. The commission should be given the authority to recommend a pardon for anyone it believes was sentenced unjustly.

Our democracy will survive the hostility of Vladimir Putin. What it may not survive is distrust of our system of justice. At the moment that distrust is deep and wide. We need a nonpartisan national commission to tell us what has just happened and to advise us on what we need to do to keep it from happening again.

 

 

 

  

^^^^^^glad to see an honest guy speaking his mind without party talking points

[japantiger 4,051]

I'm sure any moment the Mod will come on here and tell us we're wrong.  

[homersapien 11,371]

Release the report.

[DKW 86 7,419]

Bob Freakin Kerrey wrote that??? OMG!!!!!

Bob used to be a liberal leader, Senator from Nebraska. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kerrey

[homersapien 11,371]

You don't want Mueller's report leased David?

[DKW 86 7,419]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

You don't want Mueller's report leased David?

Released to whom? 

Released as per the law? Or screw the law? 

Your question is a very very vague as usual. 

I want it released like the WW Report was released. The law says it cant be. GJ Testimony cant be released. We have discussed this before, why do you have to ask questions you already know the answers to? Why do you have to contaminate threads that have nothing to do with this?

Do you agree with Kerrey: "The second Democratic delusion is that Americans were robbed of the truth when Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and Attorney General William Barr concluded that President Trump did not collude with Russia in 2016." 

 I will now sit back secure in the knowledge that I will get at best half-assed answers after answering your questions. I am sure those half-assed answers will also be served with a topping of whataboutism.

[kd4au 1,145]

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

Release the report.

Barr said it will be released next week. Be patient, you should be glad you have another week to get your talking points ready.

[homersapien 11,371]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

Released to whom? 

Released as per the law? Or screw the law? 

Your question is a very very vague as usual. 

I want it released like the WW Report was released. The law says it cant be. GJ Testimony cant be released. We have discussed this before, why do you have to ask questions you already know the answers to? Why do you have to contaminate threads that have nothing to do with this?

Do you agree with Kerrey: "The second Democratic delusion is that Americans were robbed of the truth when Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and Attorney General William Barr concluded that President Trump did not collude with Russia in 2016." 

 I will now sit back secure in the knowledge that I will get at best half-assed answers after answering your questions. I am sure those half-assed answers will also be served with a topping of whataboutism.

That's BS David.

The Starr report was released in full to the House Judiciary committee, just like Nadler is demanding.

(You really should read your own references.)

[homersapien 11,371]

1 hour ago, kd4au said:

Barr said it will be released next week. Be patient, you should be glad you have another week to get your talking points ready.

He hasn't said he will release the full report to the House Judiciary committee.

If he doesn't, I already have my "talking points", not that I need for someone else to tell me what they are.

[DKW 86 7,419]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

Released to whom? 

Released as per the law? Or screw the law? 

Your question is a very very vague as usual. 

I want it released like the WW Report was released. The law says it cant be. GJ Testimony cant be released. We have discussed this before, why do you have to ask questions you already know the answers to? Why do you have to contaminate threads that have nothing to do with this?

Do you agree with Kerrey: "The second Democratic delusion is that Americans were robbed of the truth when Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and Attorney General William Barr concluded that President Trump did not collude with Russia in 2016." 

 I will now sit back secure in the knowledge that I will get at best half-assed answers after answering your questions. I am sure those half-assed answers will also be served with a topping of whataboutism.

 

10 minutes ago, homersapien said:

That's BS David.

The Starr report was released in full to the House Judiciary committee, just like Nadler is demanding.

(You really should read your own references.)

Like I said. Answered ZERO QUESTIONS....Threw in a WHATABOUTISM. 

My work here is done.

Mike dropped...

[homersapien 11,371]

26 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

 

Like I said. Answered ZERO QUESTIONS....Threw in a WHATABOUTISM. 

My work here is done.

Mike dropped...

You should have quit before you dug yourself into such an embarrassing hole by getting the facts wrong.

[DKW 86 7,419]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

You should have quit before you dug yourself into such an embarrassing hole by getting the facts wrong.

 

[kd4au 1,145]

4 hours ago, homersapien said:

He hasn't said he will release the full report to the House Judiciary committee.

If he doesn't, I already have my "talking points", not that I need for someone else to tell me what they are.

You know the full report can not be released. Sounds like you have stopped trusting in the great Robert Mueller since he found no collusion.

[DKW 86 7,419]

19 hours ago, kd4au said:

You know the full report can not be released. Sounds like you have stopped trusting in the great Robert Mueller since he found no collusion.

He is trying to play ignorance that the laws have changed since the Starr Report. Starr was an Independent Counsel. Laws concerning Ind Counsels and Spec Prosecutors are indeed different. The AG was allowed to limit the scope of the damage seen after the Starr Report. 

[DKW 86 7,419]

Mueller Cannot Seek an Indictment. And He Must Remain Silent.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/ken-starr-muellers-report-shouldnt-go-congress/585577/

Little attention has been paid, at least in public discussion, to the parsimonious provisions of the regulations governing special counsels. Yet those regulations have been on the books for two decades, without any material change. They should have been carefully analyzed long before now, because they were triggered to much public fanfare in May 2017 by Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller to serve—and this is crucial—as a special counsel within the Department of Justice.

Under the regulations that governed his appointment and now guide his final acts, Mueller is to provide a confidential report to one person only: the attorney general. The regulations, which were promulgated during the final months of the Clinton administration, do not contemplate any sort of report sent directly from the special counsel to Congress or the general public. To the contrary, the regulations call upon the attorney general, William Barr, to receive the confidential report and then do two things: First, to notify Congress of the investigation’s completion and, second, to provide an explanation for certain specifically enumerated actions. There is no requirement for a Barr-edited version of the Mueller report.

In short, there may be no Mueller report at all, save for the confidential document that lands on Barr’s desk. And these same regulations do not require the attorney general to simply pass along a confidential report that may very well contain unflattering information about one or more individuals. Including the president.

The fact that this prosecutor, unlike other prosecutors, cannot indict if he finds an indictable offense may seem to put pressure on the attorney general to share the report with Congress, which can remedy presidential misconduct through impeachment.

Read: The attorney general’s letter confirming that Mueller’s investigation is over

But this unusual situation does not somehow work a repeal of well-established traditions of confidentiality. If the House wants to consider impeachment, it needs to do its own work. It would be odd in the extreme to ask, in effect, the executive branch to become a tool of the legislative branch in a death-struggle with the only individual identified in the Constitution as the possessor and wielder of executive power: the president. That was the old way, under the old statute. Congress did away with that approach, and wisely so.

The regulations now governing Mueller were meant to restore the traditions of the Department of Justice, which were broken when Congress enacted the special-prosecutor (or, later, independent-counsel) provisions of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Under that regime, reports became the warp and woof of the independent counsel’s work. Most provocatively, the statute required an independent counsel to refer matters to the House of Representatives for possible impeachment when a surprisingly low threshold of evidence was in hand—“substantial and credible information that an impeachable offense may have been committed.” I followed that requirement when I produced the so-called Starr Report, which then took on a controversial life of its own in the House in the dramatic months of 1998.

 

The architects of the current regulations saw all this unfold. Not surprisingly, the drafters of the new regime—the one under which Mueller operates—set themselves firmly against the revolutionary principle of factually rich prosecutorial reports. It might seem strange for me to say, but they were right to do so. The message emanating from the new regulations, issued by then–Attorney General Janet Reno, was this: Special counsel, do your job, and then inform the attorney general—in confidence—of the reasons underlying your decisions to prosecute and your determinations not to seek a prosecution (“declinations”).

Read: The ongoing investigations still surrounding Trump

This is not to say that Barr’s hands are tied. Mueller is in regulatory handcuffs, but Barr—as the attorney general—still maintains a goodly amount of discretion as to what he will choose to report to Congress. In his exercise of discretion, Barr may well opt in favor of transparency, while complying with statutory obligations not to reveal grand-jury information. (His letter to Congress said that he is “committed to as much transparency as possible,” and that he would consult with Mueller and Rosenstein to “determine what other information from the report can be released to Congress and the public consistent with the law, including the Special Counsel regulations, and the Department’s long-standing practices and policies.”)

Barr also has inherent discretion, as an officer of the Justice Department, to share whatever he intends to report to Congress with the president and the president’s lawyers. Why would he do that? To ensure that the president’s constitutionally recognized privilege—executive privilege—is dutifully safeguarded.

The attorney general also has the raw power to jettison the regulations entirely. Unlike a statute, the regulations may be dispatched by the stroke of a pen, and new ones put in place. He may determine that the public interest requires maximum transparency, as long as grand-jury secrecy is scrupulously maintained. But unless and until the attorney general takes that bold action, the current regulations stand and have the force of law.

That is perhaps the most fundamental of governing principles—the regulations are the law of the land, and must be obeyed.

So what might the underlying confidential report from the special counsel to the attorney general look like? In keeping with the regulations, it could be a short executive summary, with lots of attachments—namely, the indictments that the Mueller probe has successfully presented to grand juries in the District of Columbia and the Eastern District of Virginia.

[DKW 86 7,419]

AAANNNDDD.....Right on Cue....

Remember, article above says that the Special Counsel law was written to block embarrassing disclosure after the Starr Report in 1998.

From Stand Up America...

https://act.standupamerica.com/page/s/barr-summary-ads?source=ADS_FACEBOOK_SUA_LB_WG_Investigations_AV_BarrSummary_HL-87Percent_BD-Coverup_DEMAND-REPORT-CHARCOAL_B-SU_032619&utm_content=ADS_FACEBOOK_SUA_LB_WG_Investigations_AV_BarrSummary_HL-87Percent_BD-Coverup_DEMAND-REPORT-CHARCOAL_B-SU_032619&fbclid=IwAR0P1ZNJ4US5k2KZ4kla3WUKXhjXbdSTXz4617I9-a3dmP29Mxmazw7h4Q0

DEMAND MUELLER’S FULL REPORT BE MADE PUBLIC.

---

Trump will do whatever it takes to bury the truth about his ties to Russia, including blocking the Mueller investigation’s findings from being made public.

Bill Barr, Trump’s lackey and new Attorney General, said he would publish his OWN report on the Mueller investigation. Meaning he could edit out the pieces Trump wants to hide. That’s a cover-up.

The Senate’s Special Counsel Transparency Act would require Mueller’s FULL, original report be published at the end of his investigation’s end OR if he is fired.

[DKW 86 7,419]

The Senate apparently has a bill that is not yet acted upon. You cant retroactively pass legislation btw. That is another one of the Law thingys.....

"The Senate’s Special Counsel Transparency Act would require Mueller’s FULL, original report be published at the end of his investigation’s end OR if he is fired."

Face it, This will be a new "cover up" no matter what. 

[SaltyTiger 7,795]

On 4/9/2019 at 7:48 AM, homersapien said:

Release the report.

 

[TitanTiger 20,479]

On 4/8/2019 at 10:27 AM, japantiger said:

Where did all these voices go:

 

 

 

  

Probably the same place the saner voices in the GOP went - pushed aside or voted out by the howler monkeys at the extreme ends of the party that don't value good temperament, being able to work across the aisle, the ability to get past ideological blinders and see the broader picture on issues, the understanding that those we disagree with are not automatically evil and stupid, etc.  Until the more reasonable voices in each party start getting just as focused and energized as the hardliners, the extreme ends will control the primaries and decide who gets to general elections and we'll continue to be left with terrible options.

[homersapien 11,371]

13 hours ago, kd4au said:

You know the full report can not be released. Sounds like you have stopped trusting in the great Robert Mueller since he found no collusion.

No, actually, the full report can be released to the House Judiciary committee.

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

No, actually, the full report can be released to the House Judiciary committee.

Redacted 

[homersapien 11,371]

5 minutes ago, NolaAuTiger said:

Redacted 

It's OK Nola, you can say whatever you want.  No need to redact yourself.

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

It's OK Nola, you can say whatever you want.  No need to redact yourself.

LOL. That actually made me laugh. Cheers Homer.