BeginnersMind

Please don't do this whiney baloney. Teachers get an easy degree and are paid well, with great benefits, in most of the country. It's an important job but stop it with the "Woe is me" stuff. If you want more money, pick another job. If you want to teach, teach and stop whining. The reason teachers don't get paid more is not because the job is not valuable: It's because so many people can do it. They are paid what the economy dictates. You answered your own question. Owing at the end of the year is not Trump's fault.

Sorry friend “retcon” must be a term of art in your Q community. English translation please.

You could have just thumbs-upped my post T-money. I’m feeling the love today am I right? Now we are building community.

Lots of people here didn’t believe the intelligence community conclusion. Maybe not you—bravo! Your obsession is showing!

To follow Tom-rhetoric strategy 3.8, “And do you know who else was an Alpha Male?” OCinBuffalo, that’s who.

Really good comparisons to obstruction. Oh no, they are not. Intent to obstruct on many of his lies to America and McGahn not following through on firing Mueller on an actual act where there was intent...are the two things that probably got him off. It was a lot closer than you care to admit. And either way, it does not paint a picture of a stable truthful president.

Are you honestly complaining about the economy in any way? Back on topic: Looks like Biden is finally launching. He’s a guy that would worry Trump. He can namecall creepy Uncle Joe but he speaks to the states Trump must win. Biden, Bernie big drop to anyone else having a chance with Mayor Pete taking a lot of wind out of the remaining hopefuls lately. I did not see him coming at all.

I wonder if Sessions would have reached the same conclusion as Barr. I hope so and I’m sure someone will ask him. Whether he will answer though...

Volume I supports the Intelligence Community’s conclusion from 2.5 years ago that Russians attempted to interfere. Took a long time for people to buy that, and here they were right all along.

Schools matter. Teachers matter. Parents and family and friends matter more. I chose private schools as a parent. I based that on things that mattered to me. There have been pluses and minuses to that choice, and I respect others decisions, including to home school.

Well said Magox. I might quibble with you on a few points, in particular in telling McGahn to fire Mueller, he got a lucky save that it didn’t happen. And he may have also gotten a lucky save on some aspects of the ultimately fruitless Trump Tower meeting. But the Dems and the majority of the media, if they had just been able to sit back and say, “Let’s see what the report says” for two years, would be on much firmer ground. They could have applauded the report and its diligence. And then skewered Trump’s conduct. But by continuously trumpeting “conspiracy,” a mantra that Trump baited them to keep up, they screwed themsleves and handed over control of the narrative to Trump, who committed no conspiracy. The final political card the Ds should play before 2020 is to get Mueller to testify. If they get 2 hours of testimony on Volume II, that would be a win. Then don’t impeach. Don’t have more hearings. Let it lie and let the candidates and voters use the report—and the more accessible testimony—to decide Trump’s fate. Having to choose between Trump and a likely socialist will not be pleasant. But I would choose Trump!

If they are not setting up the Carville-Matalin thing for future appearances, it is indeed strange.

It will never come to that. The Dems want that testimony for 2020.

It’s not this subpoena that concerns Trump. But if Mueller testifies, look out. It’s pretty clear he thought there was obstruction. And if he lays that out in something short of 448 pages in televised soundbytes and America can follow, that would be terrible for Trump.

RUSSIA HAS WON WASHINGTON—Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report is unambiguously clear on this point: Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and sought to help Donald Trump win the White House. That has been the unanimous view of the intelligence community for nearly 2½ years. But it is laid out in unprecedented detail across nearly 200 pages of the special counsel’s report, which also describes Russian efforts to forge ties with members of Trump’s campaign to further the Kremlin’s interference goals. https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-has-won-mueller-report-details-the-ways-russia-interfered-in-the-2016-election-11555666201?mod=mhp

You can obstruct without guilt guilt of an underlying crime. This is not a deep legal concept. If I feel like trolling, you’ll know it. I’m just saddened by the tolerance for POTUS’s behavior very clearly delineated in this report. The blind eye most here turn to it is willful. Remember when I said there was collusion? Yeah. Me either. But I do remember saying the opposite over and over again. Back to your pod Borg.

Read the report. Read the statute. Your question shows a lack of legal understanding. See above and read the report. Sure. Trump has been pretty effective on many fronts but is a huge disappointment in character and judgment, as this report shows. And im much more concerned about the winner in all this: Russia.

Lose what?

The president lied, directed others to lie and mislead, attempted to block the investigation, and only his role as president stopped an obstruction charge. But PPP focuses on so much winning. Don’t stop believing the fairy tale kids. This was not a good report for Trump. He’s just convinced you it is.

Two great guys.

The obstruction line was fine. In a criminal prosecution against Joe Blow, that question would have gone to a grand jury. The prima facie elements of the crime were all present according to Mueller. But he couldn’t prosecute the president while he’s sitting, as he notes and was so told, so he kicked that to Barr and/or after Trump leaves office. Trump won the narrative game and most people here follow that, but Mueller did not paint him flatteringly on obstruction at all. He didn't lie and hinder the investigation. He only actively engaged in misleading country. Not that people would hold him to a standard that would preclude him from doing that. I’m glad Barr is not pressing charges for the sake of ‘merica but Trump in some ways avoided some real trouble almost by accident. He should feel luckier more than clean. And I can’t say this enough times. It is great that no American colluded according to this.

Another interesting piece. The preface to the obstruction section notes at the outset that they would not recommend whether to prosecute or not because of the office of legal counsel memo that said that a president cannot be prosecuted while president. Thus Mueller decided not to evaluate the president’s conduct under the rubric of whether he committed any crimes because that could result in a judgment that the president committed crimes. And he did not consider making a sealed indictment because that could be leaked resulting in the president having to defend himself while president. So basically he acted simply to preserve evidence so that others later when Trump was out of office could decide. In this case, Barr intervened. It's a curious framing.

The law: That he was doing "opposition research" wouldn't matter. And apparently there's a willfulness element of this that the people in the meeting did not meet, in Barr's eyes, but Mueller saw this question as quite close. DR is talking nonsense about me stretching the truth. In fact, all I've done is note what Mueller said and what the law is. Nice to see Rod Rosenstein get a shout out from Barr today for his great work, eh guys?

The prime issue for Mueller on that meeting was whether there was willfulness to violate the law. He thought it was a very close call. Just clarifying that. There's nothing new there, but Mueller's conclusion is not exculpatory on that meeting.

The presser will be seen by the left as the AG acting as good PR for the president in advance of the report's release, which in some ways it was. I prefer to see it as pre-messaging like this. "It's not all good, what is in this report, but the bottom line for America is the most important one: Trump/campaign did not collude with Russia." That's been his important message all along and he keeps saying it. He didn't want to really discuss obstruction except to try to help the president with what will be damage control on that topic. Trump will not come out of that part of the report smelling like roses, I suspect, but not charging him is a judgment I trust unless there's something truly egregious that we don't know in the report, and even then, I defer to Barr absent a real doozie.