Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

No one could have predicted…

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

After roe, women are no longer free.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Russiagate Open Thread: The DNC’s Lawsuit – Early Reports

Russiagate Open Thread: The DNC’s Lawsuit – Early Reports

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Stock photo shade thrown! — Trump looks like the sweaty district manager trying to convince his skeptical boss those mysterious ‘accounting errors’ have nothing to do with him. Life’s been a little *too* real around here this week, so I’ve probably missed a lot, but just in case anybody wants a space to discuss this fascinating topic…

This looks, to my I-Am-Not-A-Lawyer eyes, like a good start at explaining the suit:


Reader Interactions

145Comments

  1. 1.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Trump looks like the sweaty district manager trying to convince his skeptical boss

    Putin looks like he’s wondering if conquering America was worth having to listen to this babbling imbecile.

    EDIT-

    Trump campaign warns of a deep discovery dive into DNC’s involvement in the development of the Steele dossier, if the Dems’ “frivolous” lawsuit moves forward.

    Please proceed, Senator.

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    Trump campaign warns of a deep discovery dive into DNC’s involvement in the development of the Steele dossier, if the Dems’ “frivolous” lawsuit moves forward.

    Knowing them, they will produce a report with the title “Here is how the DNC was involved in compiling this factual document that outlines our criminal deeds”.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    The DNC was hacked and they found nothing. I’m sure they can handle discovery better than the Trump campaign.

  6. 6.

    geg6

    I love this move. IANAL, but it seems to me that if they can talk the judge into allowing this to move forward, this is a smart strategy. Another front in the legal war and, like the DNC suit during Watergate, a failsafe for getting as much truth out as possible. Liking Tom Perez a lot more this week than I did previously.

  8. 8.

    Chyron HR

    DNC’s RICO case is ineffectually histrionic.

    Whereas the guy screaming on Twitter every day about the “special council witch hunt” is a mighty stoic oak.

  11. 11.

    cleek

    My first thought about the DNC lawsuit seemed obvious, but hours later I haven’t seen anyone say it on twitter, so now I’m wondering.
    It opens up a path to continuing legal inquiry into collusion that Trump can’t close down by firing people.

    that was my first thought, too.
    even if Trump wants to stop it all by firing Mueller, he can’t stop the DNCs suit. and the DNC will want to get access to a lot of the same stuff Mueller has/wants. it’s a backstop in case Mueller gets canned.

  12. 12.

    ericblair

    @Jerzy Russian:

    Knowing them, they will produce a report with the title “Here is how the DNC was involved in compiling this factual document that outlines our criminal deeds”.

    These idiots really believe their own bullshit, and are too lazy to check anyway. We tie ourselves up in knots here trying to figure out the angle to some odd move they make, when 99% of the time the real reason is that they’re unbelievably stupid and lazy.

  13. 13.

    clay

    @Jerzy Russian: Don’t we already know the exact details of the “DNC’s involvement in the development of the Steele dossier”? There was Congressional testimony and everything!

    EDIT: And how would it matter? The funding of the dossier has no bearing on whether it’s accurate or not. That argument is a political one, not a legal one.

  14. 14.

    Cermet

    When the extremely stupid thugs threaten this

    Trump campaign warns of a deep discovery dive into DNC’s involvement in the development of the Steele dossier, if the Dems’ “frivolous” lawsuit moves forward.

    then what can be better? Discovery requirements alone would kill the thugs since that works both ways on that dossier – yes, yes deposition various people – and the orange fart cloud – about parts of those documents

  15. 15.

    debbie

    If the only thing accomplished is freaking out Trump even more than he already is over Mueller, this lawsuit will be well worth it.

  16. 16.

    martian

    I’m amazed at the amount of, what I would call, exasperated dismissiveness I’m seeing around the tubes from people who are ordinarily bitching about neoliberal corporate sellouts. Don’t they want a fight with the fascists? I heard about this lawsuit and literally laughed with delight. Like, yes! Fight, motherfuckers, fight!!

    We’re on the edge waiting for Trump to fire Mueller, and it looks to me like the DNC has been gaming out our next moves. That’s a good thing, right?

  17. 17.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: I post a comment and up pops a new post….

    Good morning, you get a Milky Way pic! I drove up into the local mountains, to the ol’ Boy Scout Camp Road(there’s a Boy Scout camp at the end I went to a few times in my lost youth). It was FREEZING up there! I don’t mean under 60, which is cold for my thin blood, it was literally freezing(28 degrees when I left).

  18. 18.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    The DNC was hacked and they found nothing.

    This. The dog that didn’t bark with the DNC leak was any sign of obvious illegal behavior by the party. I’m sure the RNCs emails would show all kinds of actually illegal activity, like illegal coordination with SuperPACs. That the DNC hack turned up a whole McDonald’s full of nothingburgers is the strongest indication the Democrats are clean.

  19. 19.

    Wag

    It opens up a path to continuing legal inquiry into collusion that Trump can’t close down by firing people.

    Also opens up a path that Trump cannot shut down through pardons.

  20. 20.

    Raoul

    Max Kennerly’s piece is really helpful. And I am enjoying that the plaintiff in his hypothetical explainer is Bruce Wayne.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @martian:

    I’m amazed at the amount of, what I would call, exasperated dismissiveness I’m seeing around the tubes from people who are ordinarily bitching about neoliberal corporate sellouts. Don’t they want a fight with the fascists?

    No, they want to call us neoliberal corporate sellouts.

  26. 26.

    bystander

    Former Twitler henchwoman Barbara Res is on Joy Reid this morning. Superb Queens accent and a complete reading of Twitler. Pretty funny, but I end up wondering how she can diss him and hope to keep her pension. Although I now realize how foolish the idea of him funding a pension fund is.

  28. 28.

    germy

    DNC, stop this foolishness!

    It shouldn't matter how much you hate Assange or WikiLeaks. Nor does it matter if you think they're "real journalists." Any lawsuit that tries to make it illegal or a form of "espionage" to publish documents is a real menace to core journalistic freedom https://t.co/t5HonFNJ0j— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 21, 2018

    What if the RNC were bringing a suit against the HRC campaign? I suspect they’d be cheering it on.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @germy: I haven’t read the complaint yet but I assume the allegations against WikiLeaks involve more than just publishing documents.

  30. 30.

    Chyron HR

    @martian:

    Don’t they want a fight with the fascists?

    No, they want Democrats to admit that we lost because White Working Class Lives are the only thing that really Matter.

  31. 31.

    PPCLI

    If I understand correctly the DNC had to do this now or lose the option, as one of the key laws has a 2 year statutory limitation for claims to be brought. The limit would have been hit at the end of April.

  33. 33.

    Chyron HR

    @germy:

    “Well, if it’s ESPIONAGE to illegally access a computer network and steal private documents, I guess I’m a big bad SPYYYYYYYYY.”
    “Yes, that’s why we’re suing you.”
    “SKREEEEEE FREE PRESS SKREEEEEEEE”

  35. 35.

    germy

    @Baud:

    involve more than just publishing documents.

    Interesting that GG et al. are portraying this as an attack on the free press. They claim that editors from the WaPo, NYT or any other news organization that publishes stuff will be thrown into jail.

  37. 37.

    martian

    @germy: The DNC are the real fascists, I guess, just like Hillary was the real warmonger.

    Glen Greenwald is really telling on himself these days.

  38. 38.

    Mandalay

    @germy:

    The DNC’S lawsuit against @WikiLeaks poses a serious threat to press freedom

    Greenwald has it wrong; WikiLeaks staff are probably wearing diapers now because they are all pissing themselves laughing at this “serious threat”.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @germy:

    They claim that editors from the WaPo, NYT or any other news organization that publishes stuff will be thrown into jail.

    Trump will do that and GG will blame the Dems. The plot is boring now.

  44. 44.

    GregB

    Trump is smearing the very concept of law enforcement using witnesses by declaring that witnesses cannot be trusted be law enforcement writ large is so corrupt that they coerce witnesses into lying in order to win their cases.

    But he’s a law and order president.

  45. 45.

    germy

    Here’s an old story:

    http://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-rigged-hillary-clinton-dnc-lawsuit-donald-trump-president-609582

    A class action lawsuit alleging the Democratic National Committee worked in conjunction with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign to keep Bernie Sanders out of the White House has been raging on in the courtrooms for months on end–and yet, most people have no idea of its existence, in large part thanks to the mainstream media’s total lack of coverage.

    Jared Beck, a Harvard Law graduate and one of the several attorneys who filed the suit against the DNC and its former chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, wants retribution for donations made by supporters to the Vermont senator’s campaign, citing six legal claims of the DNC’s deceptive conduct, negligent misrepresentation and fraud. The DNC violated Article 5, Section 4 of its own charter by working with a single campaign to effectively choose who would win the Democratic ballot, the attorneys stated in the suit.

  47. 47.

    Fair Economist

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Great pic. I love shots of the center of the Milky Way. I envy our descendants of billions of years hence who will get a side view of Andromeda unobscured by the dust clouds, as it’s crashing into our galaxy.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    Also- the D base will like it and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with injecting politics into politics :)

    Republicans don’t apologize for it and Democrats shouldn’t either, no matter how many times media scolds them.

    Play politics. Take a side.

  51. 51.

    Fair Economist

    @germy:

    Interesting that GG et al. are portraying this as an attack on the free press. They claim that editors from the WaPo, NYT or any other news organization that publishes stuff will be thrown into jail.

    Once again exposing that they’re really working for the Russians, because the problem is that Wikileaks conspired to steal the materials, not that it published them – and they know that.

  55. 55.

    chris

    @Baud:

    No, they want to call us neoliberal corporate sellouts.

    i guess everyone is a neoliberal corporate sellout?

    Some scholars have described it as the “neoliberal thought collective” with its ideas heavily influencing the political administrations of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US, and many world leaders since.

  56. 56.

    WereBear

    the complaint charges that the Trump Campaign was a racketeering enterprise. So this is, in part, a RICO case.

    DREAMS can come true, boys and girls!

  58. 58.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @schrodingers_cat: There are places you can go that have no light pollution, There are a couple of places on my list(Alabama Hills, Amboy Crater and Death Valley) that have much less light pollution than Lockwood Valley where I was this morning.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Fair Economist:

    If people from Wikileaks had broken into the DNC building and stolen paper copies of communications does Glenn Greenwald think they can be charged with breaking and entering?

    Can I break into his house and steal his letters if I then publish them on Daily Kos as an expose? What grants the blanket immunity here? What launders the theft and makes it not a crime? Publishing?

  66. 66.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: It can look pretty bright(sort of like a moonlit cloud), but the camera captures more color. But you’re right in that the camera is capturing all the light for a longer period of time that your eye does(in the case of that picture, 8 minutes).

  67. 67.

    J R in WV

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Nice job, really sharp image! Certainly the best so far.

    A shame you can’t get to a really dark place to work on that stuff!

    Tell us about the lens settings? Did you merge multiple images again at this location? I’m vastly curious about the details.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @Fair Economist:

    Remember- Wikileaks didn’t find anything in the stolen emails. So can Wikileaks steal communications every time they suspect someone of something? It’s crucial to Greenwald’s theory that they FIND something. Otherwise they targeted people who had done nothing wrong and violated their privacy- victimized them. It’s up to Wikileaks to determine whether someone merits a Wikileaks theft of their personal information? What if they’re wrong, like they were here?

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    There’s no due process at all regarding Wikileaks thefts. The supposed “public good” of this is important people are keeping secrets and that’s why we have to steal. But the Clinton people didn’t do anything wrong and they were robbed anyway.

    There’s a real nasty (and authoritarian) punishment vibe around this whole argument. It sucks. A real disregard for who gets caught up in the “transparency” dragnet that makes me doubt that they are civil libertarians. Process for me but not for thee is NOT how people who care about civil rights think.

  74. 74.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @J R in WV: It is two images(one for the foreground and one for the sky). I’m using a sky tracker for the sky pictures so the foreground is blurry because the camera is moving to capture a longer exposure of the stars. Both shots were taken with a 12mm, f/2 lens at ISO 100. The foreground was taken with the sky tracker off and is a 6 minute exposure, the sky was taken with the sky tracker on and is an 8 minute exposure.

  75. 75.

    martian

    @schrodingers_cat: That was always true of Greens, too, thus the Al Gore parallel catastrophe. Nader is unrepentant and still won’t admit that Gore would have been better. “Just as bad in different ways” is what I recall him saying recently, and he seemed aggravated that the interviewer even brought it up. Pretty much what Stein has said about Hillary, as will any Bro, push come to shove. Bernie is of a kind, and that kind despises Dems.

  77. 77.

    germy

    @schrodingers_cat: No, they protect their friends. The guy who hired the “hang women who have abortions” writer for the Atlantic is also a New Yorker magazine staffer. The New Yorker editorialists who have something to say about everything, were silent on the subject.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    @Kay: GG was on Hayes once and specifically said Podesta was not entitled to privacy because he was a big shot. Assannge and GG are not big shots, I guess, so you aren’t entitled to dig into what they are doing.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s subjective, right? The Clinton people are “bad” people therefore it’s good and right and true that they were robbed. That’s the polar opposite of civil rights. It’s a tiny group of people deciding who gets the protections of process and who doesn’t.

    They don’t have to be good people. They just have to be people to be worthy of legal protections.

  83. 83.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Kay:

    There’s a real nasty (and authoritarian) punishment vibe around this whole argument. It sucks. A real disregard for who gets caught up in the “transparency” dragnet that makes me doubt that they are civil libertarians. Process for me but not for thee is NOT how people who care about civil rights think.

    Which is why they’re more accurately ungarnished libertarians.

    @Baud: and calling Hillary a neoliberal is incorrect.

  85. 85.

    martian

    @Kay: Greenwald’s cohort do think evidence of corruption was found, though. None of them would accept “Clintons did nothing wrong” as a premise for argument.

  87. 87.

    JWR

    Glenn Greenwald, eh? Paging Amy Goodman! We got a live one for your next show! (And I’ll lay you odds that she’ll have him on sometime next week. Ugh!)

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    How big a shot do you have to be? Maybe Glenn could draft some guidelines. 1 million in assets? 50 million? What about a county clerk? Can we steal her email account or is that not big enough?

    If he doesn’t I guess it’s just up to Assange to decide who gets process and who doesn’t. That should be a problem for a “civil libertarian” I would think. They might want to clean this theory up a little. It doesn’t hang together at all.

  90. 90.

    tobie

    Why is “IPleadtheFifthHat” so opposed to this lawsuit? I just checked his twitter feed and the posters there are absolutely convinced that the lawsuit is a train wreck on legal and political grounds.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @martian:

    Well of course it doesn’t matter! It’s subjective. They decide who merits a theft and then they decide if there was wrongdoing that merits the theft. After the fact.

    You thought they would admit there was no high minded moral reason for the theft after they did it? Then they’re just stealing.

  94. 94.

    germy

    @Kay:

    How big a shot do you have to be? Maybe Glenn could draft some guidelines.

    The guy who owned the mansion in the gated community before GG bought it is a big shot. GG (who lives their now with a large housekeeping staff) is just a regular dude.

  95. 95.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Snowden and Manning are heroes, while they out Rachel Winter and condemn her to prison without so much as a how do you do. Guidelines would only cabin their discretion.

  98. 98.

    trollhattan

    @germy:
    The voice in Greenwald’s head:

    Any lawsuit that tries to make it illegal or a form of “espionage” to publish documents is a real menace to core journalistic freedom my continued income and lavish lifestyle.

  100. 100.

    Chyron HR

    @Mandalay:

    How did Bernie “know with certainty” that Hillary was in league with Goldman Sachs to… do whatever evil thing that he never got around to specifically identifying?

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @martian:

    Then they should back Wikileaks raiding people’s homes with no process. They might find a crime! If they don’t they can just say they did after the fact and anyway- transparency, blah, blah.

    Greenwald has some kind of charity, correct? I, in my infinite wisdom, have decided that a theft of his communications is warranted on the grounds of transparency. I’ll need hard copies of the emails though, so I’ll have to break in. I promise to publish my findings, thereby bestowing immunity upon myself for the theft.

  102. 102.

    martian

    @Kay: There’s just a lot of motivated reasoning going on with Brogressives. For them to be correct, the DNC must be in the wrong, and so it is. Any relitigation of the primary or election involves reams of this. How else to be absolved of blame for not fully committing to defeating Trump if Hillary was not a self-evidently corrupt and inept candidate hardly distinguishable from Trump?

  103. 103.

    The Other Chuck

    I have Glenn Greenwald’s inbox. It’s interesting stuff, reveals names of tons of his sources, plus some relationships that I think he might not want everyone to know about. I’m gonna go ahead and publicize it. Might even get some of those sources killed. But press freedom, right Glenn?

    (No I do not actually have his inbox)

  106. 106.

    Mandalay

    @tobie:

    Why is “IPleadtheFifthHat” so opposed to this lawsuit?

    As far as I can tell he is neither for nor against it. He just thinks it’s very unlikely to succeed.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @martian:

    I don’t care that Wikileaks worked to get Trump elected. The Watergate burglars worked to get Nixon elected. No one argued it was a grave threat to freedom of the press when they were arrested and charged for the break in, because that’s fucking ridiculous. There’s not some retroactive immunity that attaches to the whole chain of events with the magical act of publishing.

  109. 109.

    martian

    @Kay: That cohort is pretty authoritarian under the skin, imo. I don’t think Wikileaks would turn up it’s nose at material someone else raided a home for. Information wants to be free and all that. But personal exemption to the standard set for others is one of an authoritarian’s first orders of business, so invading the privacy of Greenwald or Greenwald adjacents is obviously a no go because reasons.

  110. 110.

    The Other Chuck

    @Mandalay: I hear they have these things called “trials” that establish the certainty of accusations found to have merit. Does The Great Mandalay not approve?

  111. 111.

    trollhattan

    @Mandalay:
    My take was it was beyond incompetence and that they were quite willing to serve her up, part out of self-interest and the other part straight-up misogyny. They gained her trust and dropped her like a hot rock once they got the goods.

  112. 112.

    Mandalay

    @The Other Chuck:

    I hear they have these things called “trials” that establish the certainty of accusations found to have merit.

    Exactly so, fuckwit. That’s why it’s wrong to present mere accusations as facts.

  114. 114.

    martian

    @Kay: I agree with you, but no argument is going to be persuasive to people highly motivated to see it otherwise.

    At this point, I’d go so far as to say that good faith arguments are useless against characters operating in bad faith. I no longer credit Greenwald and his cohort with that kind of intellectual honesty. What their actual motivations are, is what I’m puzzling over.

  115. 115.

    martian

    @Baud: That FBI guy, right? Same kind of journalistic malpractice that snapped the mousetrap on Reality Winner, from what I recall.

  116. 116.

    WereBear

    @martian: I no longer credit Greenwald and his cohort with that kind of intellectual honesty. What their actual motivations are, is what I’m puzzling over.

    From long observation I’d say Greenwald is all about Greenwald. He found a schtick with an audience, and he’s going to work it like a Borscht Belt comedian until it stops.*

    *referring to the fact than many comedians got started in Jewish resort hotels and kept the same act for the rest of their lives. Television ruined this. And now I’m thinking of a joke:

    A man is hit by a car while crossing a Beverly Hills street. A woman rushes to him and cradles his head in her lap, asking, “Are you comfortable?” The man answers, “I make a decent living.”

  118. 118.

    arrieve

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Beautiful picture! I haven’t tried much star photography yet because I live in the middle of Manhattan and you can rarely even see stars much less photograph them. But I’m going to try on my next big trip.

  120. 120.

    hitchhiker

    Underneath so much of what happened in 2016 is an unshakeable faith that Hillary Clinton is a criminal.

    No investigation, no matter how thorough or long-lasting or deep, can ever clear her, because finding no evidence of wrong-doing or ill intent only means that she was able to hide her basic criminality. Again.

    This is what Comey thinks but can’t say. It’s what Greenwald, Putin, Assange, and every last one of the Trump voters think and routinely say.

    It justifies every outrage against her, forever.

    Reasonable people who credit Obama with great intellect, perception, and political skills believe that in the case of Hillary Clinton — the ruthless criminal — he just made a mistake by putting her at the head of State for four years and then campaigning to get her into the White House once he’d seen her up close and at that demanding work.

    It really is a derangement syndrome. Anything done against her, including theft, is fine.

  121. 121.

    Raoul

    @ericblair

    99% of the time the real reason is that they’re unbelievably stupid and lazy

    It seems there is a growing cost to the right’s reliance on Fox + Drudge + Infowars. They have no idea how all of this looks to the not-27%.

  122. 122.

    PJ

    @Kay: Not to mention that Assange forces anyone associated with Wikileaks to sign an NDA forbidding them to disclose anything relating to Wikileaks or Assange. Transparency is only important when it comes to Assange’s political targets, which, as we have seen, is anyone Assange deems an enemy (or is paid to target), which could be anyone.

  127. 127.

    martian

    @WereBear: Greenwald has a schtick and an audience, yes, but for a percentage, at least, he can lead them around by the nose. So, why this direction from him, the great civil libertarian? I feel like there’s more animating it than opportunism and the convenience of an already captured audience. There’s something more here than even the conviction that Hillary is a criminal as hitchhiker discussed. Objectively, Trump was venal and corrupt in every way and an obvious threat to civil liberties. Even accepting the premise of Hillary Clinton’s ineffable, eternal corruption, Hillary is the lesser evil. What’s pushing the blind spot that’s entirely swallowed Greenwald up?

  128. 128.

    ET

    A lot of the talk on the NBC yack shows was about how the DNC case against Nixon during Watergate was though a bit wacky until it was settled for $750,000 settlement on the day Nixon resigned.

  129. 129.

    Fair Economist

    @Kay:

    If people from Wikileaks had broken into the DNC building and stolen paper copies of communications does Glenn Greenwald think they can be charged with breaking and entering?

    Yes, he does. He’s putting up a smokescreen trying to prevent them from getting the legal punishment he knows they deserve.

  130. 130.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    I sincerely hope that part of the lawsuit is a judicial order to “preserve all emails, memos, tapes, etc”; unfortunately most judges are not prepared to exert sufficient force to make sure that the order is obeyed.

    I’m thinking “a hard kick in the nuts for every violation”.

  132. 132.

    Ruckus

    @cleek:

    it’s a backstop in case Mueller gets canned.

    Why should it be a backstop? There is no way it should interfere with the DOJ, it should proceed as a regular case. So it pisses off drumpf, that’s a massive positive in my view. If it causes him to fire Mueller I think that will backfire. He’s been in office 15 months and hasn’t figured out how to fire Mueller yet? I don’t think that he’s going to be able to fire him. He hasn’t had the balls to really even try yet, there has to be a lot of reasons for that.

  133. 133.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Beautiful, as are all of your photos, Bill.

    Where is this BS camp? Angeles National Forest? Mr opiejeanne thinks that’s where he went a couple of times as a Boy Scout.

  134. 134.

    Mnemosyne

    @martian:

    What’s pushing the blind spot that’s entirely swallowed Greenwald up?

    Misogyny. And, yes, gay men can be misogynists. See also Sullivan, Andrew, who hates all women other than Margaret Thatcher.

  141. 141.

    J R in WV

    @Mandalay:

    @Fair Economist:

    the problem is that Wikileaks conspired to steal the materials

    How do you know with certainty that this is true?

    First, certainty is never required, as we can’t know the sun will come up with certainty. Not even in a murder trial, just beyond a reasonable doubt. You don’t know this about logic and American justice?

    Secondly, I’m pretty sure they announced it with pride! If that’s wrong, I won’t apologize. It seems to be publicly acknowledged – I’m surprised you have any doubt.

    What, what??… Except that you also appear to be a Russian-leaning troll, anti-democracy in every case as well as anti-Democratic Party. As well as ignorant of American rules of government in every case.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    @hitchhiker:

    Underneath so much of what happened in 2016 is an unshakeable faith that Hillary Clinton is a criminal.

    Yes, and that belief is SO UnAmerican, because in America you are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt!

    People who never took history, or logic, or civics or political science, or read about any legal situation ever, don’t know about presumed innocent. But the founding fathers were well educated in many fields, including philosophy, logic and rhetoric – in which fields you learn that it is impossible to prove a negative. You cannot prove that you didn’t do something. It is impossible.

    This is why most legal systems today don’t require an accused person to prove they did not do the crime, the accusers must prove that that DID do the crime, beyond a reasonable doubt, which is possible.

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