May 3, 2019

At the Late Morning Café...

DSC05547

... wander wherever you like.

I chose that photograph after eddie willers said — in last night's "From a walk near Boulder, Colorado" — "Make Meade run down into the picture[s] so we get scale."

86 comments:

traditionalguy said...

It's an Apache that never surrendered...oh wait, I think it's Meade because he is wearing the proper of length long pants.The Apaches wore the shorts.

That reminds me of a scene from a Paul Newman movie: Hombre. Meade walks like him too.

Ann Althouse said...

I can recognize Meade from his walk.

mccullough said...

Meade’s Gait would be a great name for a garage band

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...

This is starting to sound like the Song of Songs spotting her beloved.

mccullough said...

Did Meade grow a mullet or is he wearing a havelock?

David53 said...

The DOW and NASDAQ are soaring, Amazon stock is up almost 3%, what a great Friday!

Original Mike said...

"The DOW and NASDAQ are soaring, Amazon stock is up almost 3%, what a great Friday!"

The market has figured out that the Fed standing pat, rather than easing, is a good thing. It says they don't see the economy faltering (not that they could predict the sun rising, but that's another matter).

traditionalguy said...

The way Pelosi freaked out about Bull Barr's calm strength, it maybe time for the Dem leadership to disappear and take U-boats to Argentina.

pacwest said...

If President Trump can resolve the trade dispute with China that's when the Dow will take off. A big if thanks to our Dem friends in Congress. I'm guessing both China and the NORKS are going to try to wait it out til 2020. I don't think they could if the political situation here wasn't what it is.

gilbar said...

hadn't we seen this picture before?

Meade's Gait

Virgil Hilts said...

Check out the Drudge artistic framing using hands this morning. I don't know if I ever appreciated it before Ann started pointing it out. Also it's nice to see Matt do a combined the U.S.A. is DOING GREAT and Communism Sucks theme on a Friday. It's got me cheered up.

Big Mike said...

Now it turns out that the FBI or CIA or possibly both working together, tried to throw a honey trap at George Papadopoulos. Was all of this a rogue operation by Clapper, Brennan, Comey, McCabe, and dishonest underlings? Or did it go higher? What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? Has he been part of a massive cover-up?

Fernandinande said...

How to live without free will
(h/t Coyne)

buwaya said...

I ran across this last night.

Senhors, Per los Nostres Peccatz

"Gentlemen, because of our sins"

This is a Provencal troubadour song, by Gavaudan, in Occitan, and the language is interesting in itself. It is fun to compare and translate into either modern French and Spanish. It is ALMOST entirely comprehensible to a Spanish-speaker, or so it seems to me.

Gavaudan was apparently both a toubadour and a professional soldier in the service of the Counts of Toulouse and various Spanish kings. It is a call to crusade in Spain, against the Moors. The feelings of the age are very evident, as well as the "mixed motives" of the potential crusaders!

More interesting is the timing. There is some argument as to the dates, but it seems most likely that this was composed and distributed into Provence and wherever else the troubadours could reach, to drum up volunteers for what turned out to be the decisive campaign of the Reconquista, that against the Almohad Caliph, that culminated in the decisive victory of Las Navas de Tolosa.

Well, it is interesting to me anyway.

Maillard Reactionary said...

mccullough said: "Did Meade grow a mullet or is he wearing a havelock?"

Are we sure he ever cut his mullet?

gilbar said...

Finally!
https://babylonbee.com/news/dem-candidates-promise-relief-to-americans-sick-and-tired-of-working-all-these-plentiful-jobs

Hagar said...

And the serious leaking has begun.
Look up the article on Annie Donaldson's (McGahn's wife) notes in the WaPo.

gilbar said...

The candidates may disagree on minor points of policy as to how to provide instant relief for Americans sick and tired of working.
Bernie Sanders thinks we should tax the rich a lot more so they'll stop investing and creating jobs to provide relief.
Jo Biden says he'll just roll things back to 2008.
Kamala Harris suggested just arresting people who provide jobs.
Beto O'Rourke has proposed a law that everyone be required to get high and listen to Rush every morning instead of go to work.

Hagar said...

Once channel surfing with the remote, I came by a movie opening with a Monument Valley highway scene and a little shimmering black dot moving on the road in the distance and I said: "What the heck? That's Jane Russell! What's she doing in a B-movie?"

cubanbob said...

pacwest said...
If President Trump can resolve the trade dispute with China that's when the Dow will take off. A big if thanks to our Dem friends in Congress. I'm guessing both China and the NORKS are going to try to wait it out til 2020. I don't think they could if the political situation here wasn't what it is."

Look for the silver lining. 2020 Trumps wins and the Republicans regain the House. Then the economy grows even more and the market grows even higher setting the stage for Pence to win in 2024 as the Democrats try again another idiot, criminal or Communist candidate. Even our resident LLC Chuck isn't opposed to a Pence Administration.

gilbar said...

cubanbob said... Even our resident LLC Chuck isn't opposed to a Pence Administration.

wanna bet? Time will tell.

gilbar said...

Dem Congresswoman proposes MASS MURDER!!!
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the lead House sponsor of the sweeping “Medicare-for-all” health care plan, said this week that her proposed program would force about 1 million employees of private health insurance companies out of their jobs.

But WAIT! There's MORE!
she THEN says, that the government will “take care” of those people whose jobs are made redundant.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/medicare-for-all-would-gut-a-million-private-insurance-jobs

Mike Sylwester said...

Everyone should read this article:

Larry C. Johnson: Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump

Johnson discusses each of the eight collusion cases specified by Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller's Dossier:

1) Proposed Trump Tower Project in Moscow

2) George Papadopolous

3) Carter Page

4) Dimitri Simes

5) Veselnetskya Meeting at Trump Tower

6) Events at Republican Convention

7) Post-Convention Contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak

8) Paul Manafort

Johnson summarizes:

[quote]

One simple fact emerges -– of the eight cases or incidents of alleged Trump Campaign interaction with the Russians investigated by the Mueller team, the proposals to interact with the Russian Government or Putin originated with FBI informants, MI-6 assets or people paid by Fusion GPS, not Trump or his people.

There is not a single instance where Donald Trump or any member of his campaign team initiated contact with the Russians for the purpose of gaining derogatory information on Hillary or obtaining support to boost the Trump campaign. Not one.

Simply put, Trump and his campaign were the target of an elaborate, wide ranging covert action designed to entrap him and members of his team as an agent of Russia.

[end quote]

Johnson's article is superb.

Michael K said...

it seems most likely that this was composed and distributed into Provence and wherever else the troubadours could reach, to drum up volunteers for what turned out to be the decisive campaign of the Reconquista, that against the Almohad Caliph, that culminated in the decisive victory of Las Navas de Tolosa.

My daughter worked on a PhD in history on the Muslim period in Spain. To do so, she learned Arabic ad was already fluent in Spanish. She and her boyfriend lived a year in Spain where they had a roommate who taught her Portuguese. I took her to Madrid in 2010 at attend a conference on Arabic manuscripts that is held once a decade.

She finally decided she did not want to be an academic and quit the program. Her sister, who is an FBI agent, spent years trying to recruit her because of the Arabic.

Lawrence Person said...

Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm, including some Althouse links.

Also, if you know the history of Scientology, there's a lot more to that measles story than meets the eye...

Big Mike said...

Even our resident LLC Chuck isn't opposed to a Pence Administration.

He will be. Reid Hoffman will pay hm to take on a new persona and he will find reasons why a devout Christian has no business occupying the Oval Office.

Jim at said...

"Rep. Pramila Jayapal ..."

Who thought Jim McDermott's successor would be even worse?

She's a real piece of work.

Milwaukie guy said...

I've googled this but can't find it. With all the smart people here....

Everybody's heard something like "California has the world's sixth-biggest economy." Says who? How is a state's GDP get calculated?

I always think of Boeing. Big facilities in Washington, a big facility in South Carolina and HQ in Illinois. How does the domestic product get booked?

Washington and South Carolina actually make jet airplanes. Illinois shuffles the paper. What's Boeing's share of Illinois GDP? I think they have about 1000 people in Chicago.

tim in vermont said...

The investigative journalist Laura Loomer, one of the banned pundits, wrote:

"What’s the point of life anymore? I live in a digital gulag. Yesterday I wrote an article about how I was living in a digital gulag on Holocaust Remembrance Day. And today, even though I am a Zionist and have dedicated my life to combatting Jew hatred, these Nazis in Silicon Valley banned me during Yom Hashoah with vile Jew haters like Louis Farrakhan and Paul Nehlen. It’s disgusting. But I don’t expect anything less from these people who want me dead. They want to kill me, but I’d rather kill myself than to let them take the victory lap.”

There's quite some irony in the Holocaust Rememberance Day story. But it is not the only irony. Today on May 3rd, when we discuss these massive purges, we celebrate the World Press Freedom Day. Facebook has prepared nice fireworks to celebrate that day, indeed!
https://motls.blogspot.com/2019/05/facebook-purges-and-digital-gulag.html

rehajm said...

State GDP calculation is buried in some paper at the St Louis Fed. Start there...

rehajm said...

It will link to BEA..

Robby said...

Learning digital marketing and entrepreneurship for free, blogger tricks, tips and many more thesmartmonk 

tim in vermont said...

It’s going to be at least 24 hours before John Oliver’s moronic mug scrolls off, isn’t it?

Big Mike said...

Why isn't Meade wearing a red MAGA cap?

Achilles said...

cubanbob said...

Look for the silver lining. 2020 Trumps wins and the Republicans regain the House. Then the economy grows even more and the market grows even higher setting the stage for Pence to win in 2024 as the Democrats try again another idiot, criminal or Communist candidate. Even our resident LLC Chuck isn't opposed to a Pence Administration.

But I am.

No more GOPe cucks. No more lawyers. No more career politicians.

Of course LLR's would not oppose Pence. Pence would just be George HW Bush 2.0. 8 years Reagan worked to bring this country back and Bush betrayed every republican voter and gave us Clinton.

I see no reason to believe Pence would be any different than Bush and his big government stance on social issues is wrong.

rcocean said...

I can recognize Meade from his walk.

John Wayne walk.

David53 said...

How is a state's GDP get calculated?

It's too much for my tiny brain to understand but I found these somewhat related thoughts on the World Economic Forum website,


"The exercise by the American Enterprise Institute shows the sheer scale of the US economy, which produces almost a quarter of the world’s economy (24.5%), with only a fraction of the workforce (4.5%)...So let’s not lose sight of how ridiculously large and powerful the US economy is, and how much wealth, output and prosperity is being created every day in the largest economic engine ever in human history.”

StephenFearby said...

In other earth-shattering news of the day...

NY Daily News May 03, 1:58 PM

"Mayor [Bill] de Blasio is expected to announce he’s running for president next week, according to four sources with knowledge of the plans.

The 2020 announcement could come as early as de Blasio’s birthday on Wednesday, when he’ll turn 58, two sources said. The kickoff was initially expected this week but pushed back, according to another source."

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-de-blasio-2020-president-white-house-campaign-announcement-20190503-xsjuocb7zfhqxhh5vmoi3dup5q-story.html

Milwaukie guy said...

Thank you rehajm.

There was a lot of interesting stuff at St. Louis Fed. I couldn't find anything as granular as aircraft production which I'm sure I've seen somewhere. But anyway, there's aircraft parts work all over the country.

I guess the answer to my Boeing question would be in a footnote to some work product. There's got to be an accounting rule of thumb.

Achilles said...

Milwaukie guy said...
I've googled this but can't find it. With all the smart people here....

Everybody's heard something like "California has the world's sixth-biggest economy." Says who? How is a state's GDP get calculated?


One thing about giant corporations is that they are a relatively small part of the direct calculation of GDP. I am not going to use a bunch of jargon. Just a rambling pile of anecdotes.

First Washington State is funded primarily by Sales and Property taxes.

Now Most of the Boeing effect on GDP is the secondary business generated. There are millions of people around the Boeing plants. About 80,000 people work for Boeing.

There are hundreds of companies that supply Boeing with parts and services. Boeing employees own homes and buy stuff. The companies that supply boeing have employees that own homes and buy stuff. The people that build the houses for Boeing employees own homes and buy stuff. Restaurant owners own homes and buy stuff etc.

Boeing is a primary generator. They actually bring in capital and that generates more capital. There are several large companies like Boeing that have a similar effect in the area including Microsoft(46000) and Amazon(25000).

This must be held different from other large employers like Walmart(20000) and King County(13000). Walmart's capital investment is small, some superstores no production etc. They don't pay their employees much.

King County Government is worse. They are a dead weight loss. They take the capital put into the market out of the system. They provide some necessary services so some of that is needed. A lot of what King County does is a complete waste though.

Calculating the payroll and infrastructure/capital investment in buildings and equipment is fairly easy and probably wouldn't amount to that much in the scheme of things. It is the outside influx of capital into a region that really drives increased GDP effects that are mostly secondary.

buwaya said...

State GDP calculation methodology -

https://www.bea.gov/resources/methodologies/gdp-by-state

Download the pdf from there.

Fernandinande said...

I'm sure everyone has hear of "facial recognition", where a dog is capable of identifying or verifying a person or dog's identity from a digital image, but when dogs sniff each other's butts they're performing "fecal recognition".

JackWayne said...

Achilles, I agree. Republicans put up Pence and I go 3rd party the way I have many times.

Achilles said...

I didn't finish my thought on Milwaukee guy's post.

Boeing has to post their capital purchases in categories so they can be properly depreciated for tax purposes. It has to post costs divided into labor and parts purchased from vendors. It has to post dividends etc.

It is hard to find good numbers. Durable goods manufacturing is around 8.5% of Washington State's economy. Boeing is a fraction of that. I would not be surprised if the direct impact of Boeing on the GDP of Washington State is less than 1%.

For the most part Boeing doesn't really pay taxes. It is the secondary effects that I am looking for but are hard to find.

Darrell said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1SX_w9YzBg

tim in vermont said...

https://www.facebook.com/lauraloomerofficial/

I think the thumbs up icon is a really nice touch! Kind of like sending the bill for the bullet to the family.

Achilles said...

JackWayne said...
Achilles, I agree. Republicans put up Pence and I go 3rd party the way I have many times.

I am going to add Nicky Haley to that list. She is a straight path back to cuckdom.

Cruz is slightly different. I hope they put him on the supreme court so he can stop being bad at getting elected. He was just too slimy during the primaries and he is just bad at leading. He wears a human repellent skin. He is still a lawyer and will just lose any national election he is in.

I want to see Dan Crenshaw on the ticket instead of Pence. The second term needs to be about putting a stake through the heart of the swamp.

Pence was an olive branch to the GOPe. They were still traitors. He just needs to go.

Milwaukie guy said...

Thank you Buwaya. This looks like where the answer will be.

However, it's 51 pp long and written in accounting. I think I'll go rake something for a while.

tim in vermont said...

Of course on Twitter they are saying that the bannings were about “conspiracy theories” Why isn’t Rachael Maddow gone then?

Milwaukie guy said...

Achilles, that was one thing interesting to me in the St. Louis Fed stats.

<4 trillion of the economy is actually making durable goods, the stuff. The ~14 trillion part is the administration and logistics of the stuff plus trade, education, hospitality, etc.

We've got airplane parts right down the boulevard from me, Precision Castparts.

Milwaukie guy said...

Plus they count government value added at about 2 trillion.

tim in vermont said...

The media was tipped off an hour before Facebook banned me. They're in cahoots. Paul Joseph Watson

Bay Area Guy said...

Bill de Blasio to announce a Presidential run next week.

A more committed and destructive version of Bernie Sanders. This guy will socialize as much policy as possible.

JackWayne said...

My hope is that Trump doesn’t need Pence and replaces him for 2020. And chooses a disruptor that can run in 2024.

tim in vermont said...

We've got airplane parts right down the boulevard from me, Precision Castparts

It’s a common practice to put defense related locations in as many congressional districts as possible for obvious reasons.

FullMoon said...

Is 24 hour moderation still on?

Achilles said...

buwaya said...
State GDP calculation methodology -

https://www.bea.gov/resources/methodologies/gdp-by-state

Download the pdf from there.


I read a lot of documentation.

That pdf is a slog.

I thought I was getting somewhere then I hit the table of contents. j/k

That first diagram in the executive summary does not match the following sections though. It doesn't really match up with any of the follow on headers. This kinda bothers me.

Anchovy1214 said...

Ann lost in the woods. There is a meme here waiting to be memed.

stevew said...

"My hope is that Trump doesn’t need Pence and replaces him for 2020. And chooses a disruptor that can run in 2024."

Nikki Haley.

wild chicken said...

Johnson's article is superb.

The whole Russia interference thing is a crock, too. Mueller just took it all at face value and ran with the allegations.

Bay Area Guy said...

Think about how ridiculous the Dems are:

After 2 years of the thorough Mueller investigation, they went from indicting Trump for treason to impeaching Barr for mischaracterizing a letter.

Bay Area Guy said...

Chris "Thrills up my legs" Matthews discusses executive privilege with Kammy Harris, uses awkward metaphor "like losing your virginity."

Not quite hilarious, but good facial expression by Kammy.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Why can't we stage a humanitarian coup in North Korea?

stevew said...

Think about how pathetic the Dems are:

fify

Michael K said...

King County Government is worse. They are a dead weight loss.

They are pretty good at generating enough votes to defeat Republicans for governor.

narciso said...

yes they create proles quite effortlessly,


https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/03/azra-turk-cia-fbi-papadopoulos/

tim in vermont said...

How to get fired from Cambridge:

Abstract: Public beliefs about immigrants and immigration are widely regarded as erroneous. For example, members of the public typically overestimate the immigrant fraction of the population by ∼10–15 percentage points. On the other hand, consensual stereotypes about the respective characteristics of different groups (e.g., sexes, races, nationalities) are generally found to be quite accurate. The present study shows that, in the UK, net opposition to immigrants of different nationalities (n = 23) correlates strongly with the log of immigrant arrests rates (r = .77; p = 0.00002; 95 % CI = [.52, .90]) and with the log of their arrest rates for violent crime (r = .77; p = 0.00001; 95 % CI = [.52, .90]). This is particularly noteworthy given that Britons reportedly think that an immigrant’s criminal history should be one of the most important characteristics when considering whether he or she should be allowed into the country. In bivariate models, the associations are not wholly accounted for by a general opposition to non-Whites, non-Westerners, foreigners who do not speak English, Muslims, or those from countries with low average IQ. While circumstantial in nature, the study’s findings suggest that public beliefs about the relative positions of different immigrant groups may be reasonably accurate.

“There was a serious risk that Dr Carl’s appointment could lead, directly or indirectly, to the College being used as a platform to promote views that could incite racial or religious hatred, and bring the College into disrepute.”

None of it was inaccurate, of course. Just unhelpful to the narrative, as they say.

narciso said...

whose which poodle now:


https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-nato-russia-ukraine-crimea-west-defense-army-military/

Drago said...

Bay Area Guy: "Bill de Blasio to announce a Presidential run next week."

I continue to suspect that more and more democrats are being encouraged to run to continue slicing up the dem field so much that no one can emerge.....

....right up until the last moment when, by "spontaneous acclamation", Michelle Obama is thrust forward to unite the dems and then (wink wink) the country.

This is why DeBlasio is getting in. He knows he has no chance but can split off Bernie voters. Biden is already set up to collapse.

Bernie is, once again, the wildcard danger to the dems Chosen One.

It will be Michelle. And if you thought the media was beyond the pale already...stand by.....

Narayanan said...

..it maybe time for the Dem leadership to disappear and take U-boats to Argentina..

You do mean Argentina uboats, I'm sure.
Great suggestion.

Fernandinande said...

How to get fired from Cambridge:

[The letter, signed by over 75 Cambridge academics alongside academics at universities across the world] also demanded that the College, University, and the Newton Trust “dissociat[e] themselves from research that seeks to establish correlations between race, genes, intelligence, and criminality in order to explain one by the other”,

They demanders are righteously excited because they know they're wrong.

narciso said...

the nausea could get quite acid in that instance,

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/05/03/kneeling-and-chained/

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

hey wait a sec-con. Is that the catacombs?

JackWayne said...

Stevew, NOT Haley! She’s too deep in the goo. I know a lot of people will scoff and laugh but Trump Jr. is about the only guy I see regularly defending deplorables. That’s the kind of disruptor I want. Someone not a standard politician.

Darrell said...

Real Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j_TcdJNI8Q

Drago said...

Note the deafening silence.

The utter silence from the Establishment republicans regarding to the dem/media/lefty/LLR-lefty assault on William Barr.

William Barr is EVERYTHING the LLR's told us they loved and respected. Everything.

But Barr is standing strong for the rule of law and against tyranny.

And for that he must be destroyed.

And the establishment LLR's are silent.

Which means they were leftists all along.

Not that we didnt already know that.

Nichevo said...

Bernie is, once again, the wildcard danger to the dems Chosen One.

It will be Michelle. And if you thought the media was beyond the pale already...stand by.....


Why do people think Michelle Obama wants to be president? I don't think she does. She's seen what it's done to her husband. I imagine she would at this point like to just eat her waffle.

More likely to dredge up Hillary again. But I say no, it's Bernie Sanders' time. He's the only human being among them. Biden is melting. He may not survive to 20/20. The rest are protocol droids.

Now I think Sanders will lose, but I imagine that he will have extremely fervent support en masse, countered by perhaps a lack of it from Democrat Masters, and will heighten the distinctions usefully. His defeat, I hope, will be cleansing, cathartic, and lead to D change.

I'm confident in this but things can always change. For instance, by assassination, Heaven forbid. But let not your hearts be troubled, peeps. That doesn't mean complacency, that means confidence. President Trump is not like all those other guys. He needs and deserves our support, his friends and allies need our support, his opponents and enemies need our every effort against them. If your grocer voted for Clinton, shop somewhere else.

Nichevo said...

My concern is that Barr comes to bring peace, not a sword. He might be the kind of Bush apparatchik that would come to get everybody off of President Trump's back and then make sure that nothing went too far the other way, find some Usual Suspects, some token heads to roll and shut down the whole cycle. I hope I'm wrong, because that's not what I want.

And that's why I think Sanders will be the guy, because I don't think that's what the Democrat masses want. I think they're as tired of business as usual as we are.

Nichevo said...

Pence, no. Haley, no. Crenshaw, possibly, but bears watching. More names, where's that deep bench? Ah, but it's a RINO/GOPe bench, innit. Who are the next rebels out there?

Mark said...

So I'm watching the second episode of The Romanovs and the song Those Were The Days comes on. Next I start to google "those" and sure enough the full title is first in the auto-populate list.

It's not THAT much of a natural and obvious fill-in.

Drago said...

"Why do people think Michelle Obama wants to be president?"

Who said she wanted to be President? Maybe she will simply answer the call to revolution.

traditionalguy said...

IMO Barr is a better trained inside DC warrior than Trump. He doesn't hesitate or take any crap. Trump still has to go slow and figure out how to test each staff guy for loyalty. Barr has a well developed insider's set of enemy recognition perceptions and is 100% loyal to Trump's MAGA plan.



Bruce Hayden said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bruce Hayden said...

“My concern is that Barr comes to bring peace, not a sword.”

I was more worried a week or two ago. But what has come out in the last couple days about how he got the job has relieved much of that worry. Last spring/summer Trump’s attorneys were stymied by Mueller and his prosecutors who had come up with a very expansive, aggressive Obstruction of Justice interpretation that would essentially cover not just current investigations, but future ones. Early last June, Barr provided them with a heavily researched refutation. Apparently, Trump wanted to replace Sessions with Barr before the election, but then Justice Kennedy announced his retirement, and his replacement was a higher priority before the election.

Barr apparently worked with Trump’s attorneys starting almost a year ago. They all knew that the only way to shut down the Mueller investigation before 2021, or even later, was to replace AG Sessions, who had allowed himself to be recused, allowing the compromised DAG Rosenstein to supervisor, and his refusal to rein in the expansive Weissman/Wittes Obstruction theory made Sessions’ replacement necessary, if not urgent.

It very much looks like Barr was the only candidate considered by Trump for AG. But once burned, Trump appears to have had a heart to heart discussion with Barr before formally nominating him. And, at a minimum, he appears to have promised two things to get the job. One was to shut down the Mueller investigation. That took him six weeks. The other was to prosecute the people who spied on Trump, and who had foisted the Russian hoax on the American public. None of this was possible as long as the Mueller investigation was ongoing. It’s over, and Barr has repeatedly said that the cleanup is underway.

Now potentially comes the fun part. The Mueller investigation was utilized to prevent the cleanup that now is apparently underway. But the investigators knew from the beginning that it was launched based on bogus intel and evidence. It was only kept alive over the last at least year by going after Trump for Obstruction of Justice. Since there never was a legitimate reason for the investigation, and instead its primary purpose was to prevent an investigation of the spying, FISA abuse, etc, then why wasn’t the operation of the Mueller investigation for at least its last year Obstruction of Justice (esp under the Weissman/Wittes aggressive interpretation)?

Michael K said...

why wasn’t the operation of the Mueller investigation for at least its last year?

Did you ever poke a squid ?