attrayant

Just now, Hanaguma said:

Now the best that can be mustered is a lame stab at obstruction. Obstruction that has no related criminal charge. Obstruction that didnt actually happen. Mueller at no time said that his investigation was in any way impeded. 

I am getting tired of listening to you pretend that you don't understand that obstruction of justice is a crime, regardless of the outcome of the criminal investigation.

By your reasoning, if a president obstructs an investigation sufficiently so that investigators would be unable to collect enough evidence and therefore unable to come to a conclusion of whether or not there was a crime, the president would be in the clear?  Is that really what you are saying?  

18 minutes ago, riclag said:

There was no crime to  obstruct

(1) That was not Mueller's finding, and (2) it doesn't matter.  Obstruction of justice (meaning the process of determining whether or not there is a crime) is itself a crime.

I can't believe this is so hard to understand.  

1 minute ago, pedro01 said:

Are you suggesting that Barr re-investigate all evidence?

 

He should evaluate the underlying evidence; not just be a rubber stamp.  Otherwise how does he know if he agrees with Mueller's findings?  Some of the things Barr said in his summary were in stark contrast to what Mueller said.

7 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

As to obstruction, there was no testimony in the original Mueller report that Trump or his people actually obstructed anything. Sure, he was mad and made angry comments and stupid requests. But none were actually carried out.

Obstruction of justice is itself a crime, whether successful or not.  The Nixon articles of impeachment included attempts at obstruction of justice:

1. Making false statements to investigators;
2. Withholding evidence and information from investigators;
3. Approving or condoning false testimony by his aides;
4. Interfering with investigations by the FBI, Department of Justice, special prosecutor, and congressional committees;
5. Approving or condoning “the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purposes of obtaining the silence” of witnesses or potential witnesses;
6. Attempting to abuse the CIA;
7. Giving aides material from the Justice Department to help them evade criminal charges;
8. Making “false or misleading statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States” into believing that a full investigation of the Watergate scandal had been completed and that none of his aides or campaign staff had engaged in any misconduct; and
9. Leading defendants to believe that they would receive favorable treatment in exchange for silence or misleading testimony.

20 minutes ago, pedro01 said:

His summary focused on the outcome, he mentioned this in his testimony and gave examples.

 

Barr himself admitted he did not base his summary on the underlying evidence - in fact he did not even review the underlying evidence.

20 minutes ago, pedro01 said:

At this point, it's like picking an empty nostril.

 

That depends: are you doing it in full view of the public?  Seems like Barr is.

It's obvious that people who are screaming "TRUMP WAS CLEARED" have not read the report.  At 488 pages, I can't say that I blame them.  But at least read Mueller's executive summaries to each volume of the report.  That is only fifteen pages long and is still quite troubling.

Full Text of the Mueller Report's Executive Summaries

And if you can't even manage that, read the conclusion.

"Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

And if you aren't interested in even that, you're probably Donald Trump.

7 minutes ago, DoctorG said:

Hope you are not one of the posters who say "but, but, Hillary" when anyone tries to point out that Democrats do worse.

Why do you hope that?

Dishonest debating tactics, such as tu quoque, deserve to be pointed out.

20 minutes ago, teacherofwoe said:

According to your graph, could you tell us what caused measles mortality to drop to zilch three or four years prior to the introduction of the vaccine? Also, would you provide details from then covering the last fifty six years please? Thank you.  

The usual answer to this is improved medical attention and understanding of the disease brought the mortality rate down.  While based in truth, this is intellectually dishonest.  To use a bette example, death rates from polio declined before the discovery of a vaccine thanks in part to the iron lung.  Wonderbar!  We don't need a vaccine at all, just stick everyone who gets polio into an iron lung.  Then just get somebody to draw a graph showing death rates approaching zero, and... problem solved!

Also the graphic shows mortality, not morbidity, which is a common anti-vax tactic.  Apparently they don't care about the children who have to be hospitalized, get brain damage, go deaf or catch pneumonia, as long as they live.  The graphic comes from a website called Physicians for Informed Consent.  This motley group of assorted "professionals" carries no weight in the medical community and has a board membership consisting of chiropractors, sociologists, plastic surgeons, computer scientists, authors and - prepare to be completely shocked - personal injury lawyers.  Read more about them here: Physicians for Informed Consent – another radical anti-vaccine group.

25 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I'm confused. Far as I know, Trump has the right to fire any political appointee to the Justice department, but some are saying he doesn't have that right.

 

Anyone know for sure?

Intent matters.  Many of these rights that people think are absolute, are not.  

The right to terminate appointments if done with "bad intent", such as a president firing an investigator in order to prevent him from finding incriminating evidence of presidential misdeeds, would be obstruction of justice.

The right to pardon, if done to convince a witness into not testifying against a president, would be obstruction of justice and felony witness tampering.

Listen to Fox "News" legal expert Judge Andrew Napolitano explain it:

"When the president asked Corey Lewandowski, his former campaign manager to get Mueller fired, that’s obstruction of justice.

When the president asked his then WH council to get Mueller fired and then lie about it, that’s obstruction of justice.

When he asked Don McGahn to go back to the special counsel and change his testimony, that’s obstruction of justice.

When he dangled a pardon in front of Michael Cohen in order to keep Cohen from testifying against him, that’s obstruction of justice."

7 hours ago, webfact said:

A MAJORITY OF Thai workers want the minimum daily wage set at a flat rate of Bt400 once the new government is in place. But, fearing a hike in prices of necessities because of the move, they also called for price controls

In other words, "I want to get paid more, but I don't want the cost of things to increase".  I wonder where they expect this extra money to come from?

4 hours ago, webfact said:

The Thai government’s plan to turn Thailand into a cashless society has prompted local banks to remodel their business plans to cater to changing consumer lifestyle.

 

Customers will no longer have to visit bank branches to expedite their financial transactions because they can now execute their transactions on their mobile phones.

Aaaand just like that Thailand leaps into the 90s.

3 hours ago, ezzra said:

When you have leading Democratic candidates as Bernie Sanders labeling Israel as "right wing racist" and garbage caricature in the New york times where Israel PM and portrayed as dog and Trump a blind jewish needing a dog, what do you expect?

You're right - I fully expect an armed mass-shooting as a response to people speaking and publishing cartoons.  What was I thinking; this is a perfectly balanced response!

11 minutes ago, Thainesss said:

 

A vaccine safety panel is....  ....unreasonable? 

It's a waste of resources.  Vaccines already undergo clinical research trials to identify efficacy and safety.  If there is anything a "vaccine safety panel" might do that a medical study does not already do, the smart thing would be to roll that step into the existing development & release process.

7 minutes ago, Boon Mee said:

But Joe is so slow of brain, he can't remember that far back. 

 

If only his memory was as good as Trump, who answered with some form of "don't know/can't recall/don't remember" 86% of the time on his response to questions about things that happened just 2-3 years ago.

7 minutes ago, Pravda said:

 

How much over? Itn't the penalty 800b?

"Fork over" as in pay, surrender, give.  I had to pay 800B.