In my last post (here) I expressed some puzzlement.
Why did the Democrats insist that Mueller testify?
I think the answer is that they are desperate. Consider what will very likely consume media air time in the year before the 2020 elections. The odds are good — now even better — the Department of Justice will begin prosecuting the people who spied upon and tried to frame President Donald Trump with the crime of treason.
I considered beginning this post with the picture of a cornered rat. However, Democrat leaders are just beginning to know fear, and that is just as well. Instead of being impatient and angry, we should thank God for the slow turn of events. It gives those who have believed and still believe the lies time to reflect and reconsider. Without that time, instead of just appearing silly and stupid in our divisions, we would be a nation in turmoil.
Citizen Tom 
t salmon(s) Doug
Interested in what millions of people polled want to do to “Break the Neck of the Mueller Report?
https://rudymartinka.com/2019/07/27/king-solomon-break-a-neck-of-the-mueller-report/
Regards and goodwill blogging.
Tom,
The message of the Mueller Report is so simple that one has to try to avoid it. The simple truth is that, because it was in their interests, the Russians sought to elect Donald Trump. Trump and members of the Trump campaign, for their own pecuniary interests, actively welcomed Russian help and in fact, coordinated the whole Trump campaign around various forms of Russian influence. When the Special Council investigated Russian influence, Trump and key members of the Trump Campaign sought to obstruct justice to hide their own complicity, and in so doing, many members of Trump’s campaign have been convicted of crimes related to their efforts at coverup. All this is well documented.
You can deflect and dodge. You can dishonor yourself by seeking to impugn the reputations of our betters, particularly Mueller who should humble both of us with his career of loyal service to the country.
However, putting your hatred of all things Democrat aside, is this alright with you? Is this the behavior you would have represent you? As they said at the hearing, is the embracing of our adversaries out of pure selfish greed the new normal that you are willing to embrace for the sake of winning some hollow victory so that you can have a hedonist in charge, as long as he’s your hedonist?
@tsalmon
You are projecting. Look at that log in your own eye.
Trump is an outsider. Lots of Republicans were not happy with his election. He is too unconventional, and the accusations against him frightened them. Then it slowly came out that the Democrats had paid for the “evidence” used against Trump, that much of that “evidence” in the news media had been planted in the news media by Democrat operatives and the news media wanted to be so used. The give awards for it. That’s when Republicans finally started having some success moving Trump’s agenda forward.
Mueller and his team has had years to ruin people, charging people with “crimes” that only became “crimes” because of their association with Trump. None of these “crimes” had anything to do with a Trump conspiracy with the Russians.
The Clintons had associations with the Russians far more suspicious than anything the evidence suggests about Trump. That’s why Republicans were furious with a supposedly doddering old man. He declared anything to do with investigating Democrats outside his purview. He could not even address the validity of the evidence used as an excuse by the Obama administration to spy on the Trump campaign.
Mueller’s report is unethical. He did not charge Trump. He had no business smearing someone he did not have the evidence to indict.
The simple truth is that, because it was in their interests, the Russians sought to elect Donald Trump.
“The Russians” being an obscure very rookie troll farm. No reason to believe Russian trolls are better than corporate sponsored US trolls. And they must be worse because some of it was anti-Trump and pro-Hillary, but heh….all part of the great plot right? Where did the information from the Democratically funded, British-colluded unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable dossier come from?
Oh, yeah….the Russians. And this isn’t in any way awkward for you?
Trump and members of the Trump campaign, for their own pecuniary interests
Yeah, lots of evidence the billionaire has cashed in big on the job. He recently inexplicably made a 1000 percent profit on cattle futures and set up a foreign funded “Foundation”. Now he’s a bazillion-jillionaire.
actively welcomed Russian help and in fact, coordinated the whole Trump campaign around various forms of Russian influence. When the Special Council investigated Russian influence, Trump and key members of the Trump Campaign sought to obstruct justice to hide their own complicity, and in so doing, many members of Trump’s campaign have been convicted of crimes related to their efforts at coverup. All this is well documented.
Not being a lawyer, it seems to the layperson if they were complicit in crimes and a coverup, and this were all so “well documented” as you claim, they would have been charged with complicity or something related to a crime.
Let’s start here: We know for a fact now that the Trump campaign was under heavy surveillance by politically motivated people who wanted to get rid of him. And STILL they have nothing.
I’m reminded of a comic I saw recently that sums the situation up really well.
Susie says to Calvin: “Hey that isn’t fair! You just accused me of conspiracy and collusion without any evidence whatsoever!”
Calvin turns to Hobbes and says, “See, Hobbes, now she’d guilty of obstruction.”
You’re right. It really is simple.
@Liz
😂Calvin and Hobbes was hilarious, and that joke sounds in character.
What tsalmon refuses to admit is that the Democrats have turned our system of justice upside down. The people they hate have to prove their innocence. The people they support are immune from scrutiny.
Why is the depth of the partisanship that is dividing our nation so great? What is reason we cannot even balance the budget? Why do Liberal Democrats scream accusations at every Republican President? The answer is that Conservatives are unreasonable. We don’t want bureaucratic busybodies running our lives. So we must be terrorized or destroyed because we are so hateful.😟😕😢
It is kind inconvenient that slaves don’t like being enslaved. Makes setting up a Utopia a much more challenging endeavor.
This may be confusing to some people, but no underlying crime needs to be proven to charge either obstruction of justice or lying to investigators.
Two obvious reasons exist for this:
1. One should not be rewarded with innocence simply because he thwarted the investigation that would have established his guilt,
2. This is related. Perfect evidence of the underlying crime is not necessary, just the attempt to hide some bad act by somehow obstructing the investigation. .
Personally, I see no grand masterminds of giant conspiracies by anyone on either side of this. I don’t think Trump competent to “mastermind” anything. There is also no evidence that, prior the election, either Clinton or Obama used the mounting evidence that Trump and his campaign were coordinating with foreign powers who sought to elect Trump, not Clinton. In fact, the opposite seems true. They withheld evidence of Russian meddling in favor of Trump at Republican request. Everyone thought Trump would lose anyway.
Unfortunately, Trump acolytes will believe anything rather than the obvious – that you elected a self serving scoundrel.
@tsalmon
This is funny. We are suppose to believe that people who fabricated evidence of a crime and revealed the fabricated evidence withheld the actual evidence?
Tom,
Honestly, it’s seems like you will believe just about anything if you will believe Trump.
I don’t make it all about Trump. Think it through. You are projecting.
Did you learn a new psychological word? Good for you.
Now, think it through. Learn what it actually means. Learn also what repression means. Learn what cognitive dissonance means. Learn about acute narcissistic disorder. Learn about about sociopathic behavior. Or step it up and learn what psychopathic disorder is. Delve into the human mind, and Trump, like a pathology, jumps out at you.
But you have to be more than a one word, one trick pony. Read. Open your mind. Never stop learning.
And I advise treatises by experts rather than faux news or some alt-right equivalent. Just read more. We are old, but we can still learn about ourselves. We can be a little more wise.
@tsalmon
I think you have too much faith in self proclaimed experts. I don’t think it wise to trust people anymore than we must. Yet here you are accusing me of trusting my expert, Donald Trump, when what actually offends you is that I don’t trust your experts.
I voted for Trump hoping he would reduce the power of experts to screw up our lives.
It seems that God has rewarded the trust of those who rely on Him. Surprise! Against ferocious resistance Trump has actually tried to keep his campaign promises. Why? I don’t know the man any better than you know Obama or H. Clinton, but I guess he cares about our country. At least, I hope so.
Is Trump flawed? Yes. King David, a man after God’s own heart committed murder and adultery. That is why we should not trust the experts.
We don’t pray for our leaders because they are experts or because we love them. We pray for them because just like us they too need God’s providence.
We are all scoundrels. We all begin our lives in rebellion to our Maker. Only a fortunate few repent and are born again, called by Him to turn to Him.
Yea. Don’t trust the experts. Better to do your own brain surgery.
Pretty much Trump’s whole schtick appeals to tribalistic hatred, distrust and fear, and his racism represents a significant aspect of Trump’s tribalist demagoguery.
Trump embodies just one of a number of nationalist demagogues in the world who are playing into fear and loathing of the stranger and proclaim a return to tribalistic nationalism.
This is the issue of this time in history: Whether the racism and xenophobia of nationalist tribalism will supplant the unusual era of liberal world order that reigned for a short moment on the winning side of the Cold War? If tribalism succeeds, then perhaps we will see Europe, Asia and the rest of the world in their more natural state of endless wars and in Huntington’s endless Clash of Civilization.
The odd thing for the Trump supporting Christian nationalists here is that Christianity clearly breaks with such tribalism, so much so that if there actually exists a cure for the disease of hatred and fear that possesses us in tribalism and manifests itself in the prejudices of racism, xenophobia and religious bigotry, it is the true teachings of God’s Love represented in the words, the life, the sacrificial death and the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are all of every faith, color and culture made in the image of God, and we must seek beyond our prejudices discover the image of God in ourselves that is also breathing in the spirit of even the most bazaar stranger, indeed even in our actual enemies. To do otherwise is to believe Jesus did not die for everyone, it is to believe Christ died only for your own selfish tribal lie, it is to believe Christ died for nothing.
I have no high hopes that Christianity will cure this return to our worst nativist impulses that is Donald Trump and instead we will continue spread the more Christian liberal order around the world, but as a Christian, I must try to hope. It seems that without a common existential threat like the old Soviet Union, this is, absent a state of God’s grace, the state of sin that we must crave most.
I can still hope that those of you here who call themselves Christian will reflect on how actually opposite to Jesus’ message Trump’s demagoguery is. I can only hope for a backlash to Trump’s self proclaimed nationalist tribalism and that Trumpism is not the destiny of the last, best chance on Earth, but maybe destiny has nothing to do with it. As Cassius said, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
@tsalmon
When I go looking for a brain surgeon, I go looking for someone who can demonstrate he has the skills I need. Liberal Democrats cannot do that. So all they do is what you are doing. They attack anyone who disagrees. Look at what you are doing, mostly just attacking Trump and his supporters with racism.
How does the irony and the hilarity of the party of identity politics, Democrats, the party of slavery, attacking others as racist and tribalistic escape you? How blind do you have to be to miss the racism and tribalism of a political party that cannot talk about anything else?
You have a vision of America? Great! I do too. Would you mind if letting me pursue my vision while you pursue yours without all the stupid name calling and arm twisting?
Pretty much Trump’s whole schtick appeals to tribalistic hatred, distrust and fear, and his racism represents a significant aspect of Trump’s tribalist demagoguery.
What people seem to “miss” about Trump is…he is an equal opportunity “offender”. He was elected on the promise that he would not be PC, and that he would fight for America, and Americans.
If you think about that for…one tenth of one second (or less), that’s actually the job description of “President of the United States of America”.
Liberals who seem to only see people in terms of race do not understand this. Their world view precludes it. He told the British ambassador to “go back to where he came from”….but cognitive dissonance just washes over that.
Back when Obama was president, I rated him a “B” grade. I actually kind of liked him (truly). The last six months or so soured him in my estimation, when he made obviously politically motivated policy decisions that would effect only his predecessor, but not himself (changes in immigration policy, transgenders in the military, et al).
I don’t foresee Trump doing that. He hasn’t benefitted financially in any way as far as I can tell…quite the contrary. I think he knew this going in. No, he didn’t know exactly how bad it would be (how could he? He’d had good press for decades, up and until he ran against the officially annointed Clinton crime family) but he knew this would be a hard job.
Eek…need an edit button. Not predecessor, successor, should’ve been.
Just to add (obviously feeling chatty after clamming up for a whole week),
Imagine the (hypothetical) president of a company who didn’t fully support his company, but talked about how intrinsically and historically damaged it was, on numerous levels. Imagine the company president hiring people to make crucial decisions who really didn’t like their own company or most of the people. Who seemed to prefer other companies.
How would that go? This isn’t so different from nations. Or teams, for that matter.
One might call all of this “tribal” but humans are designed to work better that way.
Too many people and the group becomes de-personalized (see: Mao, Stalin, and that “one is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic” bit.
Who would “a wall” benefit most?
Poor American citizens.
-Liz out
@Liz
Liberal Democrats ain’t on our side. That’s why they say and do what they do.
Liberal Democrats ain’t on our side. That’s why they say and do what they do.
Kind of interesting (and this is the last post of the day, promise, and thanks for your tolerance 🙂 )…I’m listening to my brother (and his wife, a liberal New York jew) all week, and just kind of smiling and nodding…their goals and ours are so similar, but their opinions on how to get there so different. I’m sure they thought we were equally liberal (their daughter and son were here too, get kids, they did an excellent job). Obviously (as mentioned before) my spouse is hispanic and I’m sure they thought we were on the same page, and my husband is hugely socially intelligent so none of this was awkward at all. Just interesting.
My brother noted something about how, no matter what, he grew up a white man of privilege….and I was thinking (he’s my Dad’s younger son from his first marriage, mom was his second wife) he grew up poor with a single mom. By contrast, the only other person we knew well who came from this area before we got here was black (rare beyond words here, I think I noted this before). I’m pretty sure he was better off than my brother.
People either divide by belief systems/interests, or they divide by other things. It’s noteworthy that prison is the quintessential example of division by race. People just don’t have anything else (hobbies/interests) to divide by, so they are far more likely to go by what people look like.
Trump is playing to tribal nationalism which includes a dose of racism. Just because you want to ignore it doesn’t make it go away. The Democrats once being racist segregationists doesn’t make Trump right either.
I’m not affiliated with any political party. Right now I have a sign for Republican candidate for state senate in my front yard. Why? Because I think she’s a good loving person who will serve our community well. Partisan politics, by both sides, is just a form of unchristian tribalism. Christians need to look at the bigger picture, and such partisan, racist, nationalistic, xenophobic tribalism simply does not comport with the fundamental message of Jesus. It just doesn’t, and we can’t force God to believe in our tribe, even if we think we are the good tribe. It’s all just too much pride.
@tsalmon
When a Liberal Democrat calls someone a racist, it doesn’t mean anything except that someone has a politically incorrect opinion.
Your excuse for spouting baseless accusations is Christian love. That crappy excuse only works on ignorant people, people with itching ears, people who hear only what they wish to hear. Unfortunately, that describes lots of people. That’s why the Jews and their Roman rulers crucified Jesus.
The Apostle John said Jesus was full of grace and truth. To love otherwise doesn’t much matter.
@tsalmon
BTW, I looked up the definition of nationalism in our 1956 Funk & Wagnall’s. The word was once equivalent to patriotism. The globalists, of course, did not like that. So the news media has worked to change the connotation. Since the Nazis were the National SOCIALIST….., it seems to me another example their bias.
They have done similar things to words like: individualism, ideology, religion, discrimination, liberal,….
Anyway, here is a post that links to series of posts on how people abuse words => https://citizentom.com/2014/05/08/of-twisted-words-feminism/
“You know, they have a word, it sort of became old fashioned, it’s called a nationalist,” Trump said in October. “And I say, really, we’re not supposed to use that word. You know what I am, I’m a nationalist.”
Do you think there might be a reason “we’re not supposed to use that word”?
Here is a quote I recently read from the one time maven of conservatives who hated words like nationalism just a few short years ago, “to think in terms of ‘our’ industry or resource is only a short step away from demanding that these national assets be directed in the national interest.” Your journey from “nationalism” to “nationalization” for the benefit of oligarchs can be in a heartbeat. Just look at what happened to Russia after the Soviet collapse. Just look at the recent dismantling of press freedoms and the loyal opposition parties by self proclaimed “nationalists” around the world.
It is not enough that you just disagree with Democrats on policy and political philosophy, but agree that we all hold in common certain qualities in liberalism (original definition), of what it means to be an American. You have fallen for Trump’s propaganda that considers the other party an existential threat to your own perfect nationalistic truth and believe that this evil competition must be destroyed, haven’t you?
You are right to disdain “identity politics” as racist, unamerican and counter to Christ’s example. However, can’t you see that Trump is simply calling for one form of identity politics to superimpose itself over all the others? As one Never Trump Republican recently wrote, Trump has taken the many differences that make up the melting pot and weaponized them to turn us against one another.
If you are going to call Trump’s bashing of the stranger and telling them to “go back to where they came from” something Christians should approve of, then I must respectfully demure. It is, among other bigotries, pure racism. That is just the truth whether the truth hurts your sensitive feelings about how well that that shoe fits, or not.
@tsalmon
I vote for people who will peacefully represent the interests of my country, that is my nation’s national interests. If you want to vote for someone who runs around the world apologizing for you, someone who represents the interests of terrorists better than he represents us, I think you have a problem. That problem is not the meaning of the word nationalism.
This may be confusing to some people, but no underlying crime needs to be proven to charge either obstruction of justice or lying to investigators.
Two obvious reasons exist for this:
1. One should not be rewarded with innocence simply because he thwarted the investigation that would have established his guilt,
2. This is related. Perfect evidence of the underlying crime is not necessary, just the attempt to hide some bad act by somehow obstructing the investigation.
Yeah…there was a time when the above didn’t seem so confusing to me.
But a person in power destroyed evidence following the subpoena of said evidence…and I was assured this wasn’t terribly important and this person (all evidence to the contrary) was the most qualified ever to hold office, by the people now telling me I’m a Trump acolyte if I’m not terribly concerned about…well, really nothing at all by a score of 1000 here.
…by comparison.
@Liz
I think tsalmon only listens to the Liberal Democrat news media, the “experts”. So if you want him to understand your point, you will have to explain the reference.
Liz,
Huh?
So if you want him to understand your point, you will have to explain the reference.
Heh, looks like you’re right. Nevermind.
My brother’s visit was great, but he is liberal.
Kind of funny, I’m sure if I’d been willing to talk about politics at all (didn’t want to sour their visit, I try to be a considerate hostess) it would’ve gone about like the discussions I read between you and TSalmon here. 😆
Observations about my brother now, compared to my brother prior to Trump. He talked about racism. A lot. A lot, a lot. Like it was the biggest problem in the world. It was odd because I don’t remember him ever mentioning it before a single time. Democrats seem obsessed with race but most of them seem to have given up on the Russia collusion hoax that TSalmon continues to embrace as fact here.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/prescription-drug-prices-arent-rising-theyre-falling-for-the-first-time-in-47-years-2019-03-12
The cost of pharmaceuticals is down for the first time in 47 years.
in a nutshell, to continue making life in the US miserable
Cannot say you are wrong. It is difficult to be amused by such malicious foolishness.