Re: Mueller Report
 

Mueller said "idk on this obstruction stuff, Bob... you take it."

Barr said, "okay... not enough to charge, and here's why."

It's not a conflict, but a hand-off. I don't blame Mueller. Next to Trump, he was probably the person in DC most often repeating to himself, "how in the fuck did I let myself get talked into this shit."

Re: Mueller Report
 

I'll stop. It's my fault.

I watched some of The Dirt. Don't do it while sunning on a machine next to an older lady. Had to shut it off rather quickly. (It's her fault for taking the machine next to me, however. She had other options.)

Re: Mueller Report
 

Trump won't be impeached unless and until a significant number of Republicans believe that he is hurting them politically. As long as he can keep the base with him, that won't happen, because Republicans on the Hill are more worried about primary challenges than losing in the general.

I didn't think that Trump could unify the GOP around himself in 2016, and obviously that was very wrong. So the idea that Mueller could issue a report about things Trump and his campaign have done that would alienate a significant number of conservatives from him -- that seems like a possibility, but far from a likelihood.

Trump is not the real problem. The real problem is that we share the country with the sizable minority of people who are so committed to their politics that they continue to support him in spite of what everyone knows about him.

Re: Mueller Report
 

Exactly what Mueller said about his decision not to make a recommendation is one of the things we need to see from the report. Given DOJ policy on charging the president, I'm not sure he meant to leave it to Barr. He may specifically have meant to leave it to congress, or he may have said nothing about who should make the call.

Yeah, you don't know that. At minimum, Mueller made one judgment - no recommendation either way - and Barr made a different one.

Re: Mueller Report
 

Mueller is not a free agent. He is a counsel within the DOJ, reporting to the AG, who reports to the President. The report that he drafted was not his own invention, and is governed by specific procedures that were drafted before the current events. Kenneth Starr's investigation led many people to recoil from an independent special counsel, so Mueller's office by design was not independent. The law gives Mueller no way to overcome an AG who values protecting the President over the rule of law and accountability. Mueller doesn't get to decide whether to leave anything to Congress.

Either someone is going to leak the report, or Congress is going to subpoena it (and Barr and the White House will resist, and the Supreme Court will decide), or Congress will lose interest, or the White House will change hands and a new President and AG will relent.

I'm not going to say that Mueller will leak anything, but if I were Mueller and I were worried that Barr were going to act in a corrupt fashion, I might make sure that everyone working on the investigation has an unmarked copy of the report, and would trust their oath to the Constitution, their role as a DOJ lawyer, and their ethical judgment.

The country of No
 

Don't know if you saw this, Hank, but the UK Parliament literally cannot find a majority for anything. Just a colossal failure of leadership.

Re: Mueller Report
 

Yup 30 seconds in, realized I had to hide this in the wedge in the middle of the elliptical.

That's what the 80s were like. I've told this story before but it wound up being a tata comparing/sucking contest at the 2d floor of the Whiskey with Roxy winning. It was like her 2d week in LA from Denver and I have a specific recollection of Tommy and Mick running up there like the cat when you open a tuna can.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Re: Mueller Report
 

I thought the opener with Tommy eating the girl out in the middle of the party might've been an homage to Cocksucker Blues. There's a scene in that where someone is carrying a woman around a plane with his face between her legs. The squirting shot, however, reminds you -- these cats were a different level.

Why didn't I learn to play a guitar? Or take up acting?

Re: Mueller Report
 

That's the way you do it. You play the guitar on the MTV. Money for nothing and your chicks for free.

Re: Mueller Report
 

You bastard. Now that tune, their very worst, is in my head.

There’s a DS early 80s live (I think BBC) session on iMusic where Knopfler makes a damn good case for being included in Top 10-20 guitarists of all time. #recommended

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

“Mutton” takes the popular vote, but “grass” wins in the Electoral College. The wolves wish they hadn’t all moved into the same few trendy coastal cities.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The sheep votes for the Wolf Party, because he agrees with them on social issues.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I know you think this is clever but it illustrates why anyone not living in Tx/NY/CA who is against the electoral college is crazy.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Anyone who lives in a swing state should support the Electoral College, unless they have some commitment to democracy above and beyond their own immediate self-interest.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. FactCheck.org rates the Wolf Party’s claim that mutton can be made without harming sheep as “Mostly False”.

UK edition
 

The two wolves vote to leave the zoo, but no specific proposal to do so can get more than one vote.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Yes, and I know people like you want to equate my self interest to racism, but there are people of color in my state, so no.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

You’re smarter than this.

Robert Smith rocks the Hall
 

“It’s the best thing we’ve ever done.”

This is one of the funniest interviews I’ve seen: https://news.avclub.com/this-intervi...ful-1833715037

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I didn't say anything about racism, and since you live in a predictably blue state, the Electoral College is a bad deal for you.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The electoral college makes sense if you have many regionally focused political parties (like in the mid-19th century) or very weak and fluid political parties (like in the early Republic). In a one-against-one system with established parties, which is what you breed when requiring a majority to win election to any position and what we have had since the end of the civil war, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Why? Do you think a state like Massachusetts or Michigan has more in common with Kansas and Wyoming or California and NY? What do you think the electoral college does to make it better? How has that worked out?

Changing email topic
 

I’m trying to understand this.

You write someone with a rather specific question about a time-sensitive question, eg, impending dispositive motion. They respond with a question about something unrelated.

Too often to be random. Please explain.

Re: Changing email topic
 

Power move: "I don't need to deal with your issue. Here's mine."

Weak move: "I want to ignore this email, but I feel like I need to reply with something. Maybe if I shift the focus, the thing I don't want to address will go away."

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

A pure democracy has a short shelf life.

Re: Changing email topic
 

Yeah. I responded with an obnoxious vacation announcement.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Idk where racism entered this discussion (Ty didn't mention it), but if Ty is suggesting people should put the interests of "democracy" above their own self-interest, I'd say he's stretching the definition of naivete to a point where we're going to need a new term.

Self-interest makes the world go round. Sometimes, it becomes too extreme and it needs to be tempered. But the suggestion one must choose between the doing what's right for "democracy" and what's right for himself is both silly and false. These aren't mutually exclusive all the time, and nobody's going to agree to live under the rules of majority unless those rules benefit him.

The thinking behind majority rule is that most people will get what they want. And what do they want? What's in their self interest.

I think it was de Tocqueville who noted even a democratic republic like ours would only survive until people voting themselves benefits from the treasury had done so for a sustained period of time.

(Don't write some dumb response blaming this all on one party, Ty. That's a dullard's discussion.)

Aesop Shrugged
 

This whole wolf and sheep device is dipshittery.

Re: Changing email topic
 

Is it someone older? They may be using the email as a way to say something, anything, back to the person, like a slower text message where the subject line doesn't matter.

I used to work with a partner who would send me email and then come down the hall to see if I got them.

Re: Changing email topic
 

I still call people about stuff. I text re: scheduling meetings, and I'll reply to email if it's something that can be addressed concisely. But on substance, I like to change my mind, or think through a situation as I'm discussing it. Sometimes you call with one idea and realize as a result of the call that another idea is better.

I think some people these days view being called as rude. They're either young and can't hold a useful conversation, or they want to frame the matter at hand as they want it framed.

Fuck you. We'll frame it cooperatively, fairly, and constructively. As polite adults should do.

I do miss the days of working in a larger organization sometimes. Among the amusing moments was walking down to someone's office to reply to a CYA email that framed an issue in a self-serving manner.

"Did you get my email?"

"That's why I'm here. To respond to it in person."

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

We have a default rule that doesn't make sense, and it remains the default rule because inertia is a powerful thing. Obviously, the Electoral College is good for the few swing states and bad for the rest. No need to pretend there's some principle justifying it.

Re: Changing email topic
 

I think you're correct that they're trying to say anything. Anything but what's been asked.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

There's a huge principle justifying it. The country would collapse if we allowed a few states to control everything.

You can't give people the right to vote for what they want because they'll just keep voting for more and more things that benefit them. Exhibit A on this issue is the corporate control of our economy. The rich get whatever they want, everybody else gets scraps. If we gave NY and CA control of the country, we'd see this reversed. Regular people would vote themselves all sorts of benefits.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

It will go away as soon as the GOP decides it's not in their interest anymore. Just don't know when that will be, as at they moment they're the party of empty land and tyranny of the minority.

Re: Changing email topic
 

It's fun to add Slack to the mix also.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Voters in states like Iowa and New Hampshire have much more of a say than voters in states like California and Texas. That is true regardless of party. Californians and Texans are taken for granted with the Electoral College, because their votes won't matter. So we spend money on ethanol instead of mass transit. With a national popular vote, politicians would be likelier to cater to swing voters everywhere, rather than just the swing voters in swing states.

Re: Changing email topic
 

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

There will always be flaws. But are you aware of any truly pure democracy that's worked?

And I say pure democracy because merely eliminating the electoral college is inadequate to render all voters' power equal. You also have to get rid of the 2 senators per state structure, which confers unfair power to voters in less populated states.