The Robert Mueller Investigation

[triplehorn 2664]

I have to wonder if they're being more careful in light of what happened after public release of the Michael Cohen search warrant. 

In one section where they redacted 18 consecutive pages, they forgot to black bar the pesky header  "The Illegal Campaign Contribution Scheme"

 

Spoiler

 

There's so much shit outstanding right now.

[WhatTheBuck 28904]

5 hours ago, Anastasis said:

And there would be people lining up here to defend it. 

That's easy to say. But it's academic because this never would've happened under Obama. Or any other president. 

[WhatTheBuck 28904]

5 hours ago, Anastasis said:

If WiFi goes down on my flight that would suck. 

For you, sure.

[Anastasis 23699]

17 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

For you, sure.

No mueller drop so I just binge watched a few GOT episodes. 

[jimmyjazz 46976]

13 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

No mueller drop so I just binge watched a few GOT episodes. 

Damn.  At least get a couple of scotches and do something productive.

[Anastasis 23699]

3 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Damn.  At least get a couple of scotches and do something productive.

Why not both?

[Gatorubet 30631]

1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

There's so much shit outstanding right now.

 

Don't believe the Fake News!  Believe the man who said he his family was Swedish (instead of German) until recently.  

[immortal13 4059]

6 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

There probably would be.  I wouldn't be one of them.  I guess that's the difference between the right and the left (and yes I mean exactly what you think I mean -- the left is more principled).

Lmao!!

[Gatorubet 30631]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Damn.  At least get a couple of scotches and do something productive.

58 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Why not both?

Damn right.  A surgeon took out a bunch of my guts on Monday, and I got sent home yesterday.  I quit pain pills today long enough so I could have 18 year-old Scotch and watch the Masters without oxi-alcohol related respiratory failure.  And, because I'm a pussy and did not think to ask: "What would Bolverk do"? *

But have a  Scotch for God's sake.  It's the fucking Masters...

*Which, on second thought, would prolly involve drugs, alcohol, the St. Louis Cemetery and some kind of five-some with MFC  Danger Girl fucking not yet healed abdominal incisions with a  strap-on . 

[bolverk 30231]

5 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

Damn right.  A surgeon took out a bunch of my guts on Monday, and I got sent home yesterday.  I quit pain pills today long enough so I could have 18 year-old Scotch and watch the Masters without oxi-alcohol related respiratory failure.  And, because I'm a pussy and did not think to ask: "What would Bolverk do"? *

But have a  Scotch for God's sake.  It's the fucking Masters...

*Which, on second thought, would prolly involve drugs, alcohol, the St. Louis Cemetery and some kind of five-some with MFC  Danger Girl fucking not yet healed abdominal incisions with a  strap-on . 

Dude, haven't you heard? She got herpes and fat. Plus, she moved back to San Antonio a few months ago to take care of her older sister who's even more batshit crazy than her. So, you'll have to relocate your fantasy to Helotes and somehow work in Vic and shaved eyebrows.

Moreover, it'd have been Lafayette Cemetery where my ancestors are "buried" or whatever those above-ground tombs are called. Oh, and did I tell you I tracked down their fresh-off-the-boat address? A couple of generations lived very close to the intersection of Jackson and Constance back in the 1800s, according to Census records. I guess they don't call that area the Irish Chanel for nothing.

By the way, I still owe your old ass a dinner. Hope you get well soon!

[bolverk 30231]

Sorry for being off-topic, everybody, but I've got one more question for Gator. I'm curious if you ever ran into in the wild again. When she was still living on Harmony before moving over into the Quarter, she had two bars that she haunted: Verret's and Lucky's. I doubt you would've ever run into her at the former (because you're classy like that) but I could see you grabbing a cold one at the latter.

[GW Hayduke 1957]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style/wp/2019/04/11/mad-libs-but-for-democracy-the-timeless-intrigue-of-redactions/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ca5b6467f796

Quote

On Oct. 26, 1918, a U.S. soldier stationed in Europe sat down with a gray pencil to compose a letter to his wife, Clara. It arrived eventually, minus a word. “We are billeted in a little [redacted] town,” wrote John Kennelly, a private first class. His descriptor was erased by a military censor. It was a simple, surgical excision on behalf of a powerful government, which had love letters to deliver but secrets to keep.

Last month, 100 years later, a former Marine Corps captain sent his own letter through official channels, to the attorney general. It’s at least 300 pages longer than Pfc. Kennelly’s — and probably lacks his amorous sign-off (“With Worlds of Love”) — but the report of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is now enduring similar censoring at the Justice Department, with input from Mueller’s office. This week officials are sleuthing for words to strike, in the name of national security or privacy, so that it’s fit for the rest of us to see.

Whatever we get from them will not be enough. Or it may be too much. Redactions are a Rorschach test, with black bars instead of blots. Some people will see a conspiracy to block reality. Some will see a surrender to a witch hunt. Either way, the redactions will symbolize the ongoing tug-of-war between discretion and truth, between a government that knows what we don’t need to know and a citizenry that desires the whole story.

That desire is inflamed after two years of theorizing about the Mueller report. Redactions “will only fuel suspicions,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) Wednesday to Attorney General William P. Barr, who testified that the report will be released with four categories of redactions, color-coded and explained for skeptics.

I’m “going to try to be as transparent as possible,” Barr stated.

This means we’re going to get something in between: a redacted document, scabbed by blemishes in need of examination.

“I think it’s going to be more disappointing than not, and frustrating to many,” says D.C. attorney Mark S. Zaid, who handles cases involving national security and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “I’m hoping they’re not going to have heavy blocks of redactions.”

But he knows that’s possible. Zaid once sued the government for records related to the death of Princess Diana and the FBI surrendered reams of material. Zaid was thrilled, until he opened the boxes. Two thousand pages of redactions. Every page, blacked out.

ADVERTISING

“I have always interpreted that was done on purpose,” Zaid says, “to say, ‘Mark, screw off.’ I still laugh about it.”

It’s a funny word, “redaction.” It exudes both boredom and intrigue. The original meaning of “redact,” in the 15th century, was “organize” or “make ready for publication,” according to William Safire. Sometime in the 1800s it began to mean “edit.” Now it means to remove. Poof.

“By dramatizing the word or sentence cut out with a glaring black line,” Safire wrote in 2007, “a redaction fairly cries out, ‘Catch me if you can!’”

For a judgment so definite, the act of redacting is often subjective.

“The problem is that, in the end, this is not a scientific process,” says former Defense secretary and CIA chief Leon Panetta, and “the poor sons of bitches that have to make those judgments are the ones that take the heat for it.”

In most cases they are FOIA officers, who wrangle public requests for government information. Each day, around the country, they scrub documents of sensitive material. They work with Adobe software or a computer program called FOIAXpress, though occasionally they rely on tools of yore: black markers and X-ACTO knives.

“When it was paper pages, in some regards it was a bit easier,” says J. William Leonard, who 40 years ago sanitized documents for the Defense Department. “But if you didn’t do it right — if you weren’t exact with your knife, or your marker was running dry — people could still glean what the withheld information was.”

And people can still do that in the digital age. In 2003 the Department of Justice released a 186-page report on its hiring practices, and half of it was blacked out; an anthologist in Arizona wiped the redactions electronically. In 2004 a graduate student in Ireland cracked a redacted word in a memo to George W. Bush by using a digital dictionary and text-analysis software. In January, lawyers for Paul Manafort filed a document whose redactions could be revealed by highlighting the black bars, copying the underlying material, and pasting it elsewhere.

“Thank you to everyone who can’t redact documents properly,” went an ensuing headline on the website of the Columbia Journalism Review.

American leaders brag about transparency but their agencies historically have cultivated a “culture of caution” in matters of classification, “with every incentive to avoid risk rather than manage it,” according to a 2012 report from the Public Interest Declassification Board. By the turn of last century at least 1.5 billion documents over 25 years old were kept from the public because of national security concerns; every year agencies heave petabytes of classified information into a metaphysical vault. Classification cost the federal government $18.49 billion in fiscal year 2017 alone.

Redactions can be cosmetic, or historic. The wide streak of black marker smeared across the subject line of a 1969 letter from J. Edgar Hoover to the Atomic Energy Commission. The 14 blank pages of a 2002 Pentagon assessment of Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program. History’s missing puzzle pieces.

Redactions can be vital, for masking private information such as Social Security numbers or protecting intelligence sources. And for all it obscures, a redaction is the midwife of revelation.

“It’s a paradoxical undertaking because, in the case of declassified documents, the redactions make it possible to publicly release the unredacted portions,” says Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. “So it’s kind of a bargain.”

But redactions can be reckless or useless. When 19,045 documents related to the John F. Kennedy assassination were released last year, Nate Jones of the National Security Archive was struck by the banality of the information the government had insisted on keeping secret for years. To him it was emblematic of a government that, even in the present day, puts more trust in itself than its citizens.

“I see a lot of these over-redactions and unnecessary secrecy” as director of the FOIA project for the archive, Jones says, “and I see a government bureaucracy that often holds the public in disdain.”

When former counterintelligence officer Mark Fallon gave a manuscript of his book to the Defense Department for a legally mandated review, it came back to him with more than 100 actual redactions. Fallon and his publisher decided to print the black bars, to show readers how the government uses redactions to cloak embarrassment or manipulate a narrative — in this case, Fallon’s argument that the George W. Bush administration conspired to torture terrorism suspects and violate human rights.

“They redacted things that were part of congressional testimony — it’s already out there in the public domain,” Fallon says. “To me that’s not protecting national security information. That’s protecting a narrative and a political position of an institution that I think is wrong.”

Mueller’s team might have made it easy for the Justice Department by bunching the sensitive material into an appendix, “so that someone later doesn’t have to make Swiss cheese out of it,” says David Kris, a former national security official in the Justice departments of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Regardless, “I’m sure people are burning the midnight oil on this,” says Kris, now founder of Culper Partners consulting firm. In some cases redactions can be “very easy and mechanical, and in other cases it’s very difficult and does require judgment.”

Redactions give people an opportunity to see what they want to see, or avoid seeing what they don’t.

 

[GW Hayduke 1957]

 

[Red Five 41596]

"Yes it totally exonerates me and no you can't see it!". 

[retread 2951]

Sounds pretty sure that Barr has this problem under control.

[Enchubben 5598]

19 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Guilty people usually blame the investigators for their crimes. 

Innocent people are typically angry when they are getting investigated as well (and assumed guilty by half the American public witthout results of said investigation)

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13619]

Trump: The Mueller Special Counsel exonerates me!

Also Trump: Don't trust the Mueller Special Counsel! Full of Dirty Cops!

[wildcat09 29556]

18 hours ago, Anastasis said:

So I guess you have some problems with Obama colluding on tape with the Russians to give him some room to operate during the election season, explicitly stating that he would have greater flexibility in negotiating with Russia after they let him clear the election. I think that was the same election season during which he scored political points by attacking publically the notion that Russia was America’s greatest geopolitical threat. After which the Russians apparently ran train on American democracy by posting on Facebook. 

I mean you wouldn’t be one of those right?

This is so amazingly disingenuous I'm actually in awe.

[Pam Cummings 9823]

18 hours ago, Anastasis said:

And there would be people lining up here to defend it. 

That's the thing, because there fucking absolutely would not be. The only intellectually dishonest side is yours.

[Pam Cummings 9823]

8 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

Innocent people are typically angry when they are getting investigated as well (and assumed guilty by half the American public witthout results of said investigation)

Yeah well when there is reasonable evidence to support something then people tend to believe it.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Pam Cummings

[Anastasis 23699]

5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

This is so amazingly disingenuous I'm actually in awe.

 

You well know that if you had Trump caught on an open mic asking the President of Russia to give him some room to operate during the election season and that he would be more flexible after he was reelected, you would be losing your mind.  That is precisely the quid pro quo type of interaction that would be a hallmark of a pretty compelling conspiracy indictment against Trump.  

Edited April 13, 2019 by Anastasis

[wildcat09 29556]

1 minute ago, Pam Cummings said:

Yeah well when there is reasonable evidence to support something then people tend to believe it.

No, no, you don't get it. Anastasis is above sides because he knows the truth: everything and everyone are the exact same and equally bad and nothing matters.

[wildcat09 29556]

2 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

 

You well know that if you had Trump caught on an open mic asking the President of Russia to give him some room to operate during the election season and that he would be more flexible after he was reelected, you would be losing your mind.  That is precisely the quid pro quo type of interaction that would be a hallmark of a pretty compelling conspiracy indictment against Trump.  

...how would Obama stand to personally benefit in that scenario?

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13619]

Trumpkins: The investigation is over. Move on.

Also Trumpkins: Congress can't see the unredacted results of the investigation because there's ongoing investigations.

[Anastasis 23699]

1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

...how would Obama stand to personally benefit in that scenario?

Russia gives him space during the election, presumably to allow him to pivot around minimizing the role of Russia as a geopolitical foe of the US, which undermines his political opponent on one of his key foreign policy distinctions? 

[jimmyjazz 46976]

26 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

Innocent people are typically angry when they are getting investigated as well (and assumed guilty by half the American public witthout results of said investigation)

Innocent people with the power to prove their innocence to the public at large usually do so.

[jimmyjazz 46976]

19 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

 

You well know that if you had Trump caught on an open mic asking the President of Russia to give him some room to operate during the election season and that he would be more flexible after he was reelected, you would be losing your mind.

Nope.  It's a vague statement with no discernible teeth.  I would, however, want to know what the hell he was talking about.

[BradInATX 9208]

Russia gives him space during the election, presumably to allow him to pivot around minimizing the role of Russia as a geopolitical foe of the US, which undermines his political opponent on one of his key foreign policy distinctions? 

Political maneuvering, albeit shady, is quite different from a quid pro quo around personal financial enrichment for the candidate and release of illegally obtained emails. (If that's what happened). You have to see that. Two wrongs don't make a right, but one is typical politician sleaze and one is unbridled corruption.

[Anastasis 23699]

7 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

No, no, you don't get it. Anastasis is above sides because he knows the truth: everything and everyone are the exact same and equally bad and nothing matters.

I actually never said those things. What I do believe is that our political system has evolved into a dysfunctional duopoly that has been captured by non-democratic interests, polarizing not only the political apparatus but creating a polarization feedback loop with the electorate, resulting in an environment where political compromise is not achievable and rational voices are marginalized in favor of the lunatics.  I believe that we are in a political and cultural death spiral that has been fed the energy of a dysfunctional electorate channeled through the corruption of a two party political system.  And yes, until we start actually addressing that, nothing else really matters. 

[Gatorubet 30631]

6 hours ago, bolverk said:

Dude, haven't you heard? She got herpes and fat. Plus, she moved back to San Antonio a few months ago

 

Paging Vic on line 1...

[SubliminalHorn 6995]

57 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I actually never said those things. What I do believe is that our political system has evolved into a dysfunctional duopoly that has been captured by non-democratic interests, polarizing not only the political apparatus but creating a polarization feedback loop with the electorate, resulting in an environment where political compromise is not achievable and rational voices are marginalized in favor of the lunatics.  I believe that we are in a political and cultural death spiral that has been fed the energy of a dysfunctional electorate channeled through the corruption of a two party political system.  And yes, until we start actually addressing that, nothing else really matters. 

You keep talking about the faults of our two party system. It would take fundamentally changing our system to allow more than two viable parties. Probably for another thread, but how the hell do you propose we go about doing so?

[bolverk 30231]

1 hour ago, Enchubben said:

Innocent people are typically angry when they are getting investigated as well (and assumed guilty by half the American public witthout results of said investigation)

You asked a couple of simple "nonbiased and honest" questions the other day: 1) Do we know if Putin supported Trump or Hillary and 2) Who would've been tougher on Russia?

You were answered with multiple answers, affirming with evidence, that Putin preferred Trump. It is known. What don't know, and is nearly impossible to determine, is who would be tougher. We also know, for a fact, that his son was brazen enough to type out "that's great" to a known Putin ally.

Either you're incredibly misinformed or you're only interested in sowing doubt.

 

[retread 2951]

It's interesting to consider why Trump's main concern with the original Russia investigation was getting Comey to say he was innocent. If you knew you were completely innocent, why wouldn't you focus on getting to the bottom of Russian meddling? The facts will all shake out, and you have nothing to worry about.

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

No, no, you don't get it. Anastasis is above sides because he knows the truth: everything and everyone are the exact same and equally bad and nothing matters.

This is actually true. He has achieved the self actualization level of “both sides.” 

That’s rare indeed. 

[tucker 238]

Why are the people who complain about the system being broken always the same people pouring gasoline onto the burning house?

[suddenly shaggy 929]

6 minutes ago, retread said:

It's interesting to consider why Trump's main concern with the original Russia investigation was getting Comey to say he was innocent. If you knew you were completely innocent, why wouldn't you focus on getting to the bottom of Russian meddling? The facts will all shake out, and you have nothing to worry about.

Narrator: Trump was guilty. 

[TwiceHorn 31987]

22 minutes ago, retread said:

It's interesting to consider why Trump's main concern with the original Russia investigation was getting Comey to say he was innocent. If you knew you were completely innocent, why wouldn't you focus on getting to the bottom of Russian meddling? The facts will all shake out, and you have nothing to worry about.

Part of Trump's psychosis is that there is no objective truth.  Perception, his perception and the perception that he can "sell" to people, is all that matters in his world.

Example here, it only matters if Comey will say he's innocent.  His actual innocence is irrelevant.

Edited April 13, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[RomaVicta 30501]

2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

 

You well know that if you had Trump caught on an open mic asking the President of Russia to give him some room to operate during the election season and that he would be more flexible after he was reelected, you would be losing your mind.  That is precisely the quid pro quo type of interaction that would be a hallmark of a pretty compelling conspiracy indictment against Trump.  

As an isolated incident? We'll never know. Trump's involvement with and lies about his involvement with Russia as well as the number of associates he chose who were involved with Russia provide the real context for judging Trump. 

Obama doesn't have an entire history of lying, cheating, gyping, and evading that might set off more alarms if we see him whispering with a foreign leader. Or meeting a foreign leader with no one to take notes. Or laughing it up with the Russian ambassador in the Oval Office while boasting of firing the head of the FBI over the Russia thing.

But you know all that.

Edited April 13, 2019 by RomaVicta

[Red Five 41596]

 
You well know that if you had Trump caught on an open mic asking the President of Russia to give him some room to operate during the election season and that he would be more flexible after he was reelected, you would be losing your mind.  That is precisely the quid pro quo type of interaction that would be a hallmark of a pretty compelling conspiracy indictment against Trump.  

It would have been the most normal thing Trump has done in two years and no one would have batted an eye because it wouldn’t have been news.

[Enchubben 5598]

54 minutes ago, bolverk said:

You asked a couple of simple "nonbiased and honest" questions the other day: 1) Do we know if Putin supported Trump or Hillary and 2) Who would've been tougher on Russia?

You were answered with multiple answers, affirming with evidence, that Putin preferred Trump. It is known. What don't know, and is nearly impossible to determine, is who would be tougher. We also know, for a fact, that his son was brazen enough to type out "that's great" to a known Putin ally.

Either you're incredibly misinformed or you're only interested in sowing doubt.

 

I don’t understand the point you are trying to make. What does the honest question about who Putin preferred as president have to do with him being upset about being accused and investigated for collusion?

[wildcat09 29556]

56 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

This is actually true. He has achieved the self actualization level of “both sides.” 

That’s rare indeed. 

 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11856]

8 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

I don’t understand the point you are trying to make. What does the honest question about who Putin preferred as president have to do with him being upset about being accused and investigated for collusion?

Well for starters, because regardless of any other truth, he cannot stand for anyone to think he couldn’t win the greatest election in the history of the world, ever, without help.

[Prepuce of Doom 21260]

1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

 

@dril has always been the embodiment of Buddhist enlightenment. 

[retread 2951]

32 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Part of Trump's psychosis is that there is no objective truth.  Perception, his perception and the perception that he can "sell" to people, is all that matters in his world.

Example here, it only matters if Comey will say he's innocent.  His actual innocence is irrelevant.

Lying has always gotten him what he wants. I think part of it is just lying for the thrill of it. Plus it gives him control over people. He can say anything to craft perception, and many people will believe that is reality.

It is pretty scary to realize that he really thought that Comey declaring his innocence would end that problem. Comey wouldn't do it, so he fires Comey thinking that would end the problem.

[Anastasis 23699]

1 hour ago, SubliminalHorn said:

You keep talking about the faults of our two party system. It would take fundamentally changing our system to allow more than two viable parties. Probably for another thread, but how the hell do you propose we go about doing so?

I am not sure that we will ever be able to break from that without drama. There is a lot of inertia. But ideally, we engage a series of constitutional amendments addressing the conduct and financing of ballot access, political campaigns, and elections as a starting point. Realistically, I don't think that things change meaningfully without a great amount of blood shed.

[Brisketexan 106621]

I am not sure that we will ever be able to break from that without drama. There is a lot of inertia. But ideally, we engage a series of constitutional amendments addressing the conduct and financing of ballot access, political campaigns, and elections as a starting point. Realistically, I don't think that things change meaningfully without a great amount of blood shed.

Huh.

I say the exact same thing, and I’m the overreacting guy on a ledge and such. Interesting indeed.

[GW Hayduke 1957]

Is a constitutional amendment going to prevent people from voting for a morally challenged corrupt liar? 

Is it the system or is it that one Party is currently susceptible to demagoguery?

Edited April 13, 2019 by GW Hayduke

[jimmyjazz 46976]

As a not particularly apropos aside:  anyone remember when electronic voting machines started showing up and some people immediately wondered about hacking, and then other people loudly shouted them down as luddites?

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Part of Trump's psychosis is that there is no objective truth.  Perception, his perception and the perception that he can "sell" to people, is all that matters in his world.

Example here, it only matters if Comey will say he's innocent.  His actual innocence is irrelevant.

Spot on.

[bolverk 30231]

1 hour ago, Enchubben said:

I don’t understand the point you are trying to make. What does the honest question about who Putin preferred as president have to do with him being upset about being accused and investigated for collusion?

For one, we know Trump is lying.

• He tried to make a deal with Putin for the tower while campaigning as president.
• His son met with someone who promised dirt with someone who stated that the Russian government wanted to help the campaign.
• His son-in-law attempted to create a backchannel for communications with Russia.
• His campaign succeeded in changing the Republican Pary platform in favor of Russia.
• His advisor tried to work a deal to lift sanctions before Trump was president.

Being angry about these accusations isn't a thing because these are all actual facts that took place. An honest man would want them investigated because they are all shady as shit.

Because you haven't yet addressed the evidence that was laid out for you showing that Putin wanted him elected, I'm questioning whether you ever actually wanted an "honest and unbiased" answer. Instead, I think you're just playing dumb and simply "asking questions" at this point.

In other words, I feel like I'm addressing someone who is not interested in an "honest and unbiased" answer.