StupidiNews!

• Canadian officials have confirmed finding the bodies of three professional mountain climbers Sunday after an avalanche last week on Banff National Park's Howse Peak.
• Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain has withdrawn his name from nomination for the Federal Reserve, it's widely believed his nomination would not have survived Senate confirmation.
• Sri Lanka's government is invoking an emergency powers law blaming Sunday's deadly bombings on "international networks" of terrorists, the law gives police broad powers to detain suspects.
• Iran is countering the Trump regime's announcement of ending sanctions waivers for Iranian oil by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, which could block a fifth of the world's oil supply.
• New York state officials have reached a settlement with cable giant Charter, the company will have to agree to merger conditions and pay the state $12 million to fund rural broadband upstate.

Last Call For The Reach To Impeach

House Democrats will not be trying to impeach Donald Trump anytime soon, it seems.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team told lawmakers Monday that they had no plans to immediately open impeachment proceedings against President Trump and would focus instead on investigations.

In an evening conference call, the leaders described the near-term strategy after the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report last week, with some in the Democratic Party pressing for the House to initiate steps to oust Trump.

According to three officials on the call, leaders told rank-and-file lawmakers — who were scattered across the nation, back in their districts for a two-week congressional recess — that investigative committees would continue their inquiries and see where they lead.

Even House Financial Services Chairman Maxine Waters, who last week warned that “Congress’ failure to impeach is complacency in the face of the erosion of our democracy and constitutional norms,” did not push the matter. Instead, the California Democrat, a vocal Trump critic who is probing the president’s business practices before he won the 2016 election, made a point of clarifying that she is not pressuring lawmakers to join her effort.

The call came just hours after Pelosi appeared to tap the brakes on impeachment discussions, arguing in a letter to her colleagues that while Democrats would hold Trump accountable for his actions in the Mueller report, they could do so without initiating impeachment hearings. The California Democrat wrote that Congress “will scrupulously assert Congress’s constitutional duty to honor our oath of office to support and defend the Constitution and our democracy” by investigating the president.

“Whether currently indictable or not, it is clear that the president has, at a minimum, engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior which does not bring honor to the office he holds,” Pelosi wrote.

But the speaker offered a word of caution on impeachment — a step pushed by some 2020 presidential hopefuls, most notably Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in the days following the Mueller report. Without ruling out the concept altogether, Pelosi noted “it is … important to know that the facts regarding holding the president accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings.”

“While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth,” Pelosi said, trying to strike a note of unity.

She added: “As we proceed to uncover the truth and present additional needed reforms to protect our democracy, we must show the American people we are proceeding free from passion or prejudice, strictly on the presentation of fact.”

So that's it, then.

Democrats are still acting like there's a non-impeachment solution to Donald Trump, and they will spend the next however many months looking for it.

As Trump grinds those efforts to a halt and slow-walks them through the Supreme Court, we'll be left cleaning up the mess of Trump's daily assaults on rule of law and his continuing normalization of his kleptocratic regime.

Perhaps we'll see a series of televised hearing where House Democrats lay out the case, but they will be drowned out in televised Senate Republican hearings where Obama administration officials and Clinton campaign people are grilled as traitors.


Still, Pelosi is basically asking us to trust her.  For now, I don't think we have a better choice until we reach the point we're taking to the streets.

We'll see.

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

The Trump regime is suing to block the release of Donald Trump's financial records, saying that House Democrats are purely abusing political power as no doubt Senate Republicans are salivating over the tax information of all Democrats being fair game for 2020.

President Trump and his business sued House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of his financial records on Monday.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent Trump’s accounting firm from complying with what his lawyers say is an improper use of subpoena power by congressional Democrats.

“Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family,” the filing by Trump claims. “Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”

The filing, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, further escalates a clash between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House over congressional oversight.

Last week, Cummings subpoenaed Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump.

For more than a decade, Mazars and a predecessor firm signed off on financial statements for Trump that he used when seeking loans. Some of the statements include frequent exaggerations or inaccuracies and were accompanied by a note from the firm saying it was not responsible for the accuracy of the information.

The Oversight Committee on March 20 asked the company for copies of “statements of financial condition” and audits prepared for Trump and several of his companies, including the one that owns the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. The panel also requested supporting documents used to produce the reports and communications between the firm and Trump.

The company said last week that it “will respect the legal process and fully comply with its legal obligations.”

Lawyers for the president and the Trump Organization previously wrote in a letter to Mazars’s counsel that an expected committee subpoena “would not be valid or enforceable.”

Not easy being Mazars, I guess.  If they don't comply with Cummings, they face contempt of Congress.  If they do comply, they face a guaranteed FBI raid and Justice Department prosecution.  Either way, this is going to the Supreme Court, and it's a coin flip as to who wins this fight, it's all going to come down to how Chief Justice Roberts feels that day.

Stay tuned.

 

It's Mueller Time, Con't

The Trump regime's gaslighting is getting out of hand, they believe they've achieved total victory and from here on it should be smooth sailing and a steady stream of Democrats going to prison and immigrants going to camps.

President Trump on Sunday continued to wage an attack against special counsel Robert Mueller, calling his investigation's report a "hit job" and claiming it was written by "The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats."

"The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats who wrote the Mueller Report were devastated by the No Collusion finding," Trump tweeted Sunday morning. "Nothing but a total 'hit job' which should never have been allowed to start in the first place!"

Trump added in a separate tweet that Democrats' investigations into him and his administration would cost them in the 2020 election.

"Despite No Collusion, No Obstruction, The Radical Left Democrats do not want to go on to Legislate for the good of the people, but only to Investigate and waste time," he said. "This is costing our Country greatly, and will cost the Dems big time in 2020!"

Trump's minions are spreading the gospel of absolution over Easter.

President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said while he would have advised the Trump campaign to avoid Russian help, he thought there was nothing wrong with a campaign taking information from Russia. 

"There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians," Giuliani said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." 

Asked by CNN's Jake Tapper if he would have taken information from a foreign source, Giuliani said, "I probably wouldn't." 

"I wasn't asked," Giuliani said. "I would have advised, just out of excess of caution, don't do it."

Trump believes he's gotten away with the crime of the century.

Just days after the release of the highly anticipated Mueller report, one of President Donald Trump's top advisers, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday the investigation found Trump committed no crime -- and even predicted another term for the president.

"The job of a prosecutor is to gather evidence and decide whether to indict or to decline to indict. They declined to indict," the White House counselor said on “This Week." "The president is not going to jail. He's staying in the White House for five and a half more years. Why? Because ... they found no crime, no conspiracy. That was the central premise."

Until the Democrats make it clear impeachment is coming, Trump is 100% correct, and he most likely will be reelected.

StupidiNews!

• Sri Lankan officials have lifted curfew after eight explosions killed several hundred and injured hundreds more as churches and hotels in the country were attacked by terrorists.
• Police in Northern Ireland have released without charge two men in connection with the shooting death of journalist Lyra McKee last week, police say they are still searching for the shooter.
• The Trump regime says it will end waivers on sanctions for any country buying Iranian oil on May 2, oil prices worldwide have spiked on the news.
• Exit polls in Ukraine show TV comic Volodymyr Zelenskiy has won an overwhelming victory in Sunday's presidential runoff election, taking more than 70% of votes.
• Toyota is investing another $1 billion in ride-sharing giant Uber's self-driving car technology, this marks the third time the automaker has invested major capital into autonomous vehicles.

Sunday Long Read: Proof Is In The Pudding

Happy Easter to all who celebrate, I'm taking the day off but leaving you with a bittersweet story from the LA Times about Lent, love, and a family recipe for capirotada.

Easter is this Sunday, which concludes my favorite food holiday: Lent.

Cuaresma for Mexicans is a time for reflection and penance — but it’s also 40 days of gluttony. Have fun with your fish fries, fellow Catholics: We Mexicans are gorging on tortitas de camarones, shrimp fritters served alongside grilled cactus and doused in a fiery chile de árbol salsa. On gorditas stuffed with refried beans and cotija, dolloped with crema. I especially loved my mom serving crispy potato tacos from a pan filled with bubbling manteca as if she were pulling dishes from the sink.

And the showstopper: capirotada, the layered bread pudding that’s the de facto Mexican dessert for Lent.

Every family bakes their own version; Mexicans on social media fight about whether it should include cheese (duh), nonpareils (of course), coconut flakes (maybe) or apple slices (no).

My mom’s is the best, of course. She uses queso añejo from her home state of Zacatecas for a salty touch, and sprinkles a judicious amount of raisins and almonds. The finished product doesn’t look elegant: bumpy and brown, and put into Tupperware once it’s cooled down. But her capirotada is sweet and earthy, crunchy (because of the fried bolillo slices she uses) and mushy (those bolillos get soaked in cinnamon-spiked syrup).

Cultura y amor in a baking pan.

The only thing I never liked about capirotada is its seasonality. From the time I was a kid, I’d beg Mami to make it throughout the year, a request she has always refused.

“Nomás se hace para Cuaresma,” she’d always scold — only for Lent, and that was that.

Once I became an adult, she took pity on me and prepped enough Lenten dishes to tide me over the year. I have enough goodies in the freezer to let me survive whatever comes after the Big One. And this spring, I dug through my freezer and found a small bag of capirotada, from a batch my mom made two years ago. I don’t think I’ll ever eat that one, though, because it’s from the last batch Mami ever made.

She is about to enter hospice, with weeks to live.

Ask your family for those recipes, guys.  Keep them and use them when you get them.  Pass them on.

Have a Happy Easter and I'll see you in the morning.

The Drums Of War, Con't

Having been at least temporarily halted in his desire for war with Iran and/or Venezuela, the Trump regime is now backing the newest proto-strongman on the block, Libyan "Field Marshal" Khalifa Hifter.

President Trump on Friday abruptly reversed American policy toward Libya, issuing a statement publicly endorsing an aspiring strongman in his battle to depose the United Nations-backed government.

The would-be strongman, Khalifa Hifter, launched a surprise attack on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, more than two weeks ago. Relief agencies said Thursday that more than 200 people had been killed in the battle, and in recent days Mr. Hifter’s forces have started shelling civilian neighborhoods.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement a few days after Mr. Hifter’s militia began its attack that “the administration at the highest levels” had made clear that “we oppose the military offensive” and “urge the immediate halt to these military operations.” Most Western governments and the United Nations have also condemned the attack and demanded a retreat.

Mr. Trump, however, told Mr. Hifter almost the opposite, the White House said Friday.

A militia leader who has given himself the title of Field Marshal, Mr. Hifter, 75, has long sought to portray his fight for power over Libya — including his advance on Tripoli — as a battle against “terrorism.” In the statement on Friday the White House said Mr. Trump had called Mr. Hifter on Monday to endorse that campaign.

Mr. Trump called “to discuss ongoing counterterrorism efforts and the need to achieve peace and stability in Libya,” the White House said in the statement. “The President recognized Field Marshal Hifter’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources, and the two discussed a shared vision for Libya’s transition to a stable, democratic political system.”

Analysts said Mr. Trump’s endorsement would embolden Mr. Hifter and hamper United Nations efforts to call for a cease-fire. It could also increase the likelihood that his regional sponsors like Egypt or the United Arab Emirates might intervene on his behalf, as each has in the past in Libya.

The policy reversal came as a surprise in part because Mr. Hifter’s forces also appear to be losing ground. His promises of a quick victory have proved false, and his forces appear outmaneuvered by those aligned against them. Most analysts say that he has little hope of exerting his authority over all of Libya any time soon, so his continued campaign may only prolong the country’s instability.

In the meantime, the battle for Tripoli has now diverted the attention of most of the Libyan militias that had been engaged in combating the fighters of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, said Frederic Wehrey, an expert on Libya at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“It is nuts,” Mr. Wehrey said of Mr. Trump’s statement. “Even judging by the hard-nosed American goals of stabilizing the flow of oil and combating terrorism, this is completely shocking.”

Mr. Trump’s endorsement is the clearest evidence yet of his preference for authoritarianism as the best response to the problems of the Middle East, a sharp departure from the professions of support for democracy by previous American presidents of both parties.

And that's the real issue here.  Trump wants strongmen loyal to him and what the US can offer.  It's a laughable sentiment considering he yips around Putin ankles most days, but I think it's because he wants to build his own cadre of bullies because the man in the Oval Office wants most to be the man in the Kremlin.

Depressing as that is.

That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

Early polls in the wake of the redacted Mueller report find Trump back at his lows for the year and only headed lower, I would think.

The number of Americans who approve of President Donald Trump dropped by 3 percentage points to the lowest level of the year following the release of a special counsel report detailing Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll.

The poll, conducted Thursday afternoon to Friday morning, is the first national survey to measure the response from the American public after the U.S. Justice Department released Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report that recounted numerous occasions in which Trump may have interfered with the investigation.

According to the poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15 and matching the lowest level of the year. That is also down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after U.S. Attorney General William Barr circulated a summary of the report in March.

America's opinions of Trump are also dismal and possibly getting worse.

The poll found that 50 percent of Americans agreed that “Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election,” and 58 percent agreed that the president “tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration.”

Forty percent said they thought Trump should be impeached, while 42 percent said he should not.

The poll responses were sharply split along party lines, with Democrats much more critical of Trump than his fellow Republicans.

For now, impeachment is still on the table for the American people.

Democrats should pay attention.

Last Call For Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Another week, another arrest of a monster spurred on by Trump who wanted to kill Democrats, especially black Democrats.

Federal authorities today announced that John Kless, a 49-year-old resident of Tamarac in Broward County, called three Democrats at their Washington, D.C. offices April 16 and left voicemail messages threatening murder. The lawmakers included California Congressman Eric Swalwell, Detroit Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

In all three messages, Kless referenced his hatred for Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — repeatedly calling her a "towel head" and a member of the Taliban. In his message to Tlaib's office, Kless referenced Omar's recent "some people did something"comments about 9/11 — a statement Omar made to argue that all Muslims should not be punished for the actions of the few who committed the attacks. But conservatives have taken Omar's comments entirely out of context to falsely argue that Omar was diminishing the impact or tragedy of 9/11.

"It was your Taliban bitch, the one who opened up her fucking towel-head mouth about how 'some people did it,'" Kless allegedly said in his message to Tlaib. "You know what? She's lucky she's just getting death threats, bitch. So are you. All right? You're lucky they're just threats, motherfucker, 'cause the day when the bell tolls, whore, and this country comes to a war, there will be no more threats. Your life will be on the fucking line."

Kless allegedly continued to say the following: 

No one wants to fucking hear you or that other little whore. I'd like to take that bitch and throw her right off the Empire State Building, that fucking whore. Tell her to shut her fucking mouth. You fucking fuck her all the time probably. So tell her to shut the fuck up, all right? From one towel head to another. You stanking, fucking, smelly, fucking bitch. Fuck off. I wish all of you the worst. You can go fuck off in life. Fuck you, and fuck Mohammed too, you bitch fucking cunt.

Kless also allegedly criticized Swalwell's stance on gun control. Kless reportedly said if Swalwell enacted gun-safety laws, someone would kill the lawmaker. He also called Swalwell a communist.

"The day you come after our guns, motherfucker, is the day you'll be dead," Kless said, according to a federal indictment. He added, "You're gonna die. Don't wanna do that shit, boy. You'll be [on] your deathbed, motherfucker, along with the rest of you Democrats. So if you want death, keep that shit up, motherfucker."

Kless repeatedly used the N-word to refer to Booker and called him a "monkey," according to court records, adding he wanted to kill black men like the senator. "You're a fucking disgrace," Kless allegedly said. "We need to kill all you motherfuckers, man, every fucking one of you, man." He added that the terror attack in Charlottesville, Virginia — in which a white supremacist drove a car into progressive protester Heather Heyer — killed only "one fucking person." He then said Booker should tell his "colleague with the towel on her head to shut up about 9/11."

Wonderful man.

Really is a race at this point to see if Capitol Police and the FBI can keep Democrats safe from Trump fans.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Two things we did learn from the redacted Mueller report this week, one, that Russia definitely interfered with the 2016 elections, and two, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were a part of that interference and Assange used the tragic death of DNC staffer Seth Rich to further his conspiracy.

Julian Assange not only knew that a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer wasn’t his source for thousands of hacked party emails, he was in active contact with his real sources in Russia’s GRU months after Seth Rich’s death. At the same time he was publicly working to shift blame onto the slain staffer “to obscure the source of the materials he was releasing,” Special Counsel Robert Mueller asserts in his final report on Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election.

“After the U.S. intelligence community publicly announced its assessment that Russia was behind the hacking operation, Assange continued to deny that the Clinton materials released by WikiLeaks had come from Russian hacking,” the report reads. “According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an ‘inside job,’ and purported to have ‘physical proof’ that Russians did not give materials to Assange.”

Thursday’s long-anticipated release adds new details about Assange’s interactions with the officers in Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate. Still, it leaves one question unanswered: Why was Assange so determined to exonerate the Russian intelligence agents who gave him the material?

As laid out by Mueller, Assange’s involvement in Russia’s election interference began with a June 14, 2016 direct message to WikiLeaks’ Twitter account from “DC Leaks,” one of the false fronts created by the Russians to launder their hacked material.

“You announced your organization was preparing to publish more Hillary's emails,” the message read, according to Mueller’s report. “We are ready to support you. We have some sensitive information too, in particular, her financial documents. Let's do it together. What do you think about publishing our info at the same moment? Thank you.”

A week later, WikiLeaks reached out to a second GRU persona, Guccifer 2.0, and pitched WikiLeaks as the best outlet for the hacked material. On July 14, 2016, GRU officers used a Guccifer 2.0 email address to send WikiLeaks an encrypted one-gigabyte file named “wk dnc link I .txt.gpg.” Assange confirmed receipt, and on July 22 he published 20,000 DNC emails stolen during the GRU’s breach.

By then, it was no secret where the documents came from. The computer security firm CrowdStrike had already published its technical report on the DNC breach, which laid out a trail leading directly to Moscow and the GRU. Analysts at ThreatConnect independently presented evidence that Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks were fictional creations of that agency.

But rather than refuse to comment on his sources, as he’s done in other cases, Assange used his platform to deny that he got the material from Russians, and make statements at an alternative theory. On August 9, 2016, WikiLeaks’ Twitter feed announced a $20,000 reward for “information leading to conviction for the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich.”

We'll run this back one more time for the folks in the cheap seats:

• The Russians stole the DNC emails.
• The Russians gave them to WikiLeaks to disseminate them.
• The plan was to do as much damage to Clinton as possible.
• Donald Trump knew the leaks of the stolen emails were coming before they happened.
• After the leaks happened, Assange continued to stay in contact with his Russian sources.
• Assange covered for them by lying and saying Seth Rich was his source.

Any questions?

Deportation Nation, Con't

America's white supremacist terrorist problem is so bad that we've gotten to the point now where armed white supremacist militia groups are openly kidnapping migrant families at gunpoint and handing them over to ICE and Border Patrol.

A right-wing militia group operating in southern New Mexico has begun stopping groups of migrant families and detaining them at gunpoint before handing them over to Border Patrol agents, raising tension over the tactics of armed vigilantes along the border between the United States and Mexico.

Members of the group, which calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots, filmed several of their actions in recent days, including the detention this week of a group of about 200 migrants who had recently crossed the border near Sunland Park, N.M., with the intention of seeking asylum. They uploaded videos to social media of exhausted looking migrant families, blinking in the darkness in the glare of what appeared to be the militia’s spotlights.
Professed militias have long operated along the border with attempts to curb the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States. But targeting the recent influx of families, who are legally allowed to request asylum and often quickly surrender to Border Patrol agents, is raising tension with human rights activists in this part of the West.

The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the militia’s actions in a letter on Thursday that asked New Mexico’s governor and attorney general to investigate the group. The A.C.L.U. said the militia had no legal authority under New Mexico or federal law to detain or arrest migrants in the United States.

“We cannot allow racist and armed vigilantes to kidnap and detain people seeking asylum,” two lawyers for the A.C.L.U., María Martínez Sánchez and Kirsten Greer Love, said in the letter.

In a statement, Hector Balderas, New Mexico’s attorney general, said: “These individuals should not attempt to exercise authority reserved for law enforcement.”

History tells us these groups will be deputized to assist Border Patrol duties as Trump's personal brownshirts. It's only a matter of time before they injure or kill migrants and Trump will be under tremendous pressure to authorize this violence on the ground. 

At the very least, Trump will look the other way as the bodies pile up, or more likely, use the violence as an excuse to implement "emergency powers".

This is all happening according to plan, guys.  Trump is absolutely counting on militia groups like these to keep him in power regardless of the outcome of elections or of impeachment.

It won't take many of them, either.

StupidiNews!

• Car-sharing app Car2Go says that dozens of cars may have been stolen through its mobile app in the Chicago area, several people have been charged in connection with the fraud ring.
• Watergate-era investigative reporter Carl Bernstein says that the Mueller report paints a "vast narrative of a presidential cover-up".
• Game-maker Nintendo stock jumped by more than a sixth in value as the company announced a partnership with Chinese retailer Tencent to sell the Nintendo Switch console in China.
• ISIS forces are claiming their first ever attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo, near the Ugandan border, in what is being termed a "major development".
• NASA says ISS astronaut Christina Koch will extend her stay aboard the station to 328 days, Koch arrived on the station last month along with two other astronauts.

Last Call For Finally, Mueller Time

The Atlantic's Yoni Applebaum calls the Mueller report for what it is: Robert Mueller's impeachment referral of Donald Trump to Congress.

The redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report released on Thursday runs 448 pages. But its most important implication can be summarized in a single sentence: There is sufficient evidence that President Donald Trump obstructed justice to merit impeachment hearings.

A basic principle lies at the heart of the American criminal-justice system: The accused is entitled to a fair defense and a chance to clear his name. Every American is entitled to this protection, from the humblest citizen all the way up to the chief executive. And that, Mueller explained in his report, is why criminal allegations against a sitting president should be considered by Congress and not the Justice Department. The Mueller report, in short, is an impeachment referral.
In his report, Mueller took pains to detail why he “determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment” as to whether the president had broken the law by obstructing justice. He began by noting that he accepted the opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—which issues guidance for the executive branch on questions of law—that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

That, Mueller explained, posed an insurmountable problem. A normal investigation would end with a prosecutor deciding to bring charges, or to drop the case. It’s a binary choice. But “fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought.” Ordinarily, a criminal charge would result in “a speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case.” But if Mueller were to state plainly that, in his judgment, the president had broken the law and obstructed justice, it would afford “no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.” In other words, because a sitting president cannot be indicted, making such a charge publicly would effectively deny Trump his day in court, and the chance to clear his name.

Mueller also pointed to the OLC’s guidance on seeking sealed indictments, which could be unsealed when a president leaves office, or leveling such charges in an internal (and, presumably, nonpublic) report. Secrecy, the OLC counseled, would be difficult to preserve—and so either step could place a president back in the same unfair situation, accused of a crime without the chance to clear his name.

Crucially, the same concerns don’t operate in reverse. If—examining the evidence and the law—a prosecutor were to determine not to charge an individual, there would be no fear that public disclosure of that decision would be unfair. But if Mueller believed he could not fairly say that the president had committed a crime, he also believed he could not honestly say that he hadn’t. “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” the report explained:

Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him

Attorney General William Barr reviewed the same evidence, though, and came to a different conclusion. In his summary of the report, he wrote, “Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

There is a vital distinction here between the two findings. Mueller wrote that his evidence was not sufficient to clearly establish that the president had not committed a crime; Barr insisted that it was not sufficient to establish that he had. It’s possible to read the two conclusions as different ways of stating the same finding; it’s equally possible to read them as fundamentally at odds with each other.

This points back to Mueller’s basic concern about fairness. In the report, he laid out 10 specific incidents his team examined, each of which might constitute—singly or in aggregate—evidence of obstructive conduct on the part of the president. “The Special Counsel’s decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime,” Barr wrote.

But there is another, simpler way to understand Mueller’s report. A footnote spells out that a criminal investigation could ultimately result in charges being brought either after a president has been removed from office by the process of impeachment or after he has left office. Mueller explicitly rejected the argument of Trump’s lawyers that a president could not be guilty of obstruction of justice for the conduct in question: “The protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person—including the President—accords with the fundamental principle of our government that ‘[n]o [person] in this country is so high that he is above the law.’”

But if Mueller believes a president could be held to account after he leaves office, he also spelled out another concern with alleging a crime against a sitting president: the risk that it would preempt “constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.”

The constitutional process for addressing presidential misconduct is impeachment.

House Democrats immediately dumped cold water on this.

After the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told CNN that impeachment of President Trump is not worth the trouble with an election just 18 months away. “Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point,” Hoyer reportedly said. “Very frankly, there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgement.” Earlier Thursday, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said that impeachment was “one possibility.” “We obviously have to get to the bottom of what happened and take whatever action seems necessary at that point,” he told reporters in a news conference. “It’s too early to reach those conclusions. It’s one reason why we wanted the Mueller report, we still want the Mueller report in its entirety and we’ll want other evidence too.”

So impeachment is not going to happen.

It has to or else.

America now has to decide if we're willing to go on with a president who was elected with Russian help and then tried to obstruct an investigation into that help — 10 times. What we're learning for sure is something Russia has known for years: Trump is eager and willing to accept its help, even if that means lying to the American people.

The Republican Party and Barr have made their decision — to let Democrats carry this burden alone. They know the responsibility to impeach a president will be a distraction for a party that just took over the House by campaigning on issues voters care about, like health care and corporate tax cuts.

But with an attorney general willing to do almost anything to protect this president, the question isn't "What's politically advantageous?" It's what will be left of our democracy if Congress doesn’t do its job.

Mueller brought the case for doing it. And so at this point, we are reduced to hoping that 2020 is a free and fair election that Democrats can even win, and that Trump will somehow leave office if he is defeated.

That's it.

That's where the story is right now.

We've bet our country on November 2020.

Louisville Slugged By Google

The whole Google Fiber disaster in Louisville is officially dead, and the tech giant will pay the city nearly $4 million as it was no match for incompetent installations, structural mishaps, legal roadblocks and its own greed.

Google Fiber yesterday shut off service in Louisville, Kentucky, and has agreed to pay the local government $3.84 million to remove exposed fiber cables left behind by the ISP's failed nano-trenching experiment.

Google Fiber service was scheduled to be shut off at midnight last night, according to a Louisville Metro Government (LMG) announcement of the exit agreement. Google Fiber had announced its intention to leave Louisville two months ago, admitting that it did such a bad job with fiber installation that it would have to "essentially rebuild [the] entire network" in order to fix the problems.

In Louisville, Google Fiber reportedly was burying cables in nano-trenches that were just two inches deep. The method was supposed to speed up deployment, but it didn't work as Google Fiber expected.

Google Fiber's payments totaling $3.84 million will be made over 20 months and cover the costs for "removing fiber cables and sealant from roads; milling and paving activities where needed; [and] removal of above-ground infrastructure," Louisville Metro said.

"Louisville Metro Government and Google Fiber agreed to these payments to fulfill the company's obligations under its franchise agreement and local regulations, which require restoration of rights-of-way should a service provider end service in Louisville," the announcement said.

The city said it will repair the roads itself over the next 20 months. Google Fiber had been offering service in Louisville since late 2017.

"The agreement addresses network installations in Portland, Newburg and the Highlands, where Google Fiber offered services," Louisville Metro said. "Where necessary, construction will begin as part of the Public Works paving season currently underway."

With the city instead of Google Fiber performing repairs, Google Fiber General Manager Mark Strama said the agreement will let the local government "prioritize and execute all aspects of the required work based on the needs of the community."

In addition to the $3.84 million payment, Google Fiber is donating $150,000 to the Community Foundation of Louisville's Digital Inclusion Fund to support projects such as "refurbishing used computers for low-income individuals and the enrollment of public housing residents in low-cost Internet access through other companies providing service in Louisville." Google Fiber will also donate 275 refurbished computers to the Louisville Metro Housing Authority.

Good on Google to throw a pittance at the city before slinking away, but the reality is Google screwed up cabling so badly in order to do it cheap and fast that the entire infrastructure had to be scrapped.  If this were any other company on Earth, they'd have been driven into bankruptcy by the bad press from this alone.

Instead, Louisville now has one of the least competitive internet markets in America as a direct result, with 90% of service now falling to AT&T and Spectrum, and entire neighborhoods locked into one provider or the other with zero competition.

So yes, I believe the big tech companies need to be broken up, and what Google did to Louisville is a perfect example why.

Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Ten years ago, Dave Neiwert warned us of what the white supremacist GOP was becoming with his book The Eliminationists in which he described the right's violent rhetorical reaction to Obama's election as a precursor to what was coming in deeds, not just words, should they ever regain power. 

Eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination.

Neiwert saw this coming a decade ago.  Here in 2019, the Anti-Defamation League has defined the next step in the process as the eliminationists have now become the accelerationists, to turn the words and strategy of eliminationism into the collapse of societal norms into chaos in order to take advantage.

Accelerationism is a term white supremacists have assigned to their desire to hasten the collapse of society as we know it. The term is widely used by those on the fringes of the movement, who employ it openly and enthusiastically on mainstream platforms, as well as in the shadows of private, encrypted chat rooms. We have also recently seen tragic instances of its manifestation in the real world.

The concept of acceleration has existed for years as a fringe philosophy. Some of the earliest examples are rooted in a Marxist notion that the intensification of an unhinged force, such as capitalism, for example, will inevitably result in that force’s own self-destruction. However, some white supremacists have adopted the terminology and determined that a societal collapse is both imminent and necessary. On March 21, 2019, one anonymous 8chan user, who promoted white supremacist views, wrote, “I used to think acceleration was a marxist [sic] trick…Now, however, I see its value.”

Brenton Tarrant, the alleged perpetrator of the mosque massacres in New Zealand, subscribed to accelerationism -- the concept was specifically articulated in his manifesto, which he posted moments before his shooting spree. Tarrant dedicates an entire section of his manifesto to this concept under the heading “Destabilization and Accelerationism: Tactics for Victory.”

Tarrant’s actions seemed to breathe new life into the discussion of accelerationism and spurred a resurgence of references, paired with praise for his actions, on platforms including Gab, YouTube, Reddit, 8chan and others.

The term “acceleration” references and encompasses two opposing forces. On one end, extremists identify “acceleration” as the perceived escalation by nefarious entities to advance “degenerate” values and influences such as multiculturalism, liberalism and diversity, among others. In line with deeply anti-Semitic views that dominate white supremacist beliefs, Jews are often blamed for their perceived role in promoting these elements—which white supremacists believe contribute to an imminent “genocide” of the white race. This view is expressly articulated by Discord user EagleJarl on November 4, 2017, “The jews [sic] are the real accelerationists.” Discord is a chat platform for gamers to communicate with each other in real time.

Accelerationism, however, also serves as a reactionary call against the antagonistic forces that are causing society to spiral out of control. In one Discord post from December 22, 2017, user Dr. Goebbowls wrote, “Anyone with half a brain and enough time can find the information to realize that accelerationism is the last resort of the white man of the modern age.”

Fueled by the perception that the future of the white race is bleak, these white supremacists believe they must employ any means necessary to expedite the collapse of the current system. Solutions to bring down the system range from the most extreme form, violence, to deliberate political engagement that supports destructive and divisive societal elements. For example, Tarrant referenced the need to bring about collapse by leaning in to disruptive forces, even those antithetical to white supremacist beliefs, writing, “A vote for a radical candidate that opposes your values and incites agitation or anxiety in your own people works far more in your favour than a vote for a milquetoast political candidate that has no ability or wish to enact radical change.”

Accelerationists believe that setting off a series of reactions, even if they result in changes that directly threaten the white race, can actually be a useful tool for motivating more reticent white supremacists. Following an extremist terrorist attack such as the Tree of Life shooting or Christchurch rampage, accelerationists identify a domino effect that is set into motion – a chain of societal reactions that further exacerbate the feeling of alienation among white supremacists, and, theoretically, a greater impulse to engage in violence or other destructive behavior.

And if this doesn't succintly explain what is going on right now, from the White House on down to the grubby social media cesspools of Discord, Reddit, and Gab, I've yet to see a better explanation.

Break the world, indeed.