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[Karnewarrior]

Toady and Threetoe are basically an example of a Monarchy actually working really well when the king is competent.

Shame that Monarchies IRL are so prone to having shit rulers, otherwise they'd be the bestest.

[hector13]

Mm, the best way to choose a political leader is because of who you popped out of or by whom your mum was shagged.

[Karnewarrior]

No, but having one person in power means a sort of total solidarity in government you can't really replicate with multiple leaders (like in a republic). It's hardly ever worth it, though, unless you've got a Great Person as your monarch.

Isn't monarchy the term for having just one person rule a country even without the lineage selection method anyway? Or am I confusing it for some other word?

[Trolldefender99]

I wonder how this will effect (if at all) the 2020 elections

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/robert-muellers-report-into-collusion-between-donald-trump-and-russia-more-than-300-pages/news-story/a692b0b1343941a8d6fa202d749fb214

Its pathetic that fox news topped viewership of both CNN and MSNBC combined (which was mentioned above in the link and I saw it on another article but can't find link now)...yet this makes me very fearful, along with Trump's not very much (if barely any) drop in his base support, that 2020 could be a very terrible year as far as politics go. Still have the entire year for hopefully something major to come along, since Russia investigation didn't pan out that great. It could be even if Trump is elected again, democrats take both house that they already control and senate...that at least be a big improvement over now. And maybe put more democratic supreme judges on board, since its a republican dominate supreme court last I heard. With a democrat senate AND house though, even if trump was elected, he'd be useless and pretty much defeated.

[smjjames]

Hasn't Fox News topping at least two center-left news organizations combined been a thing for a while? It's just reflective of the fact that the favored news organization on the right is Fox news while the favored one on the left is split between more than one.

It's basically the 'Republicans fall in line, Democrats fracture' trope, though the Republicans can be just as fractitious as the Democrats, if not more, at times.

[Lord Shonus]

It has more to do with demographics. For a variety of reasons, conservatives are more likely to have a current cable subscription, so the conservative leaning cable news station has a stronger position.


Honestly, it is a good thing that Fox is the leading conservative news source. The competition (such as One America News) is far more biased, and far less accurate.

[Baffler]

I wonder how this will effect (if at all) the 2020 elections

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/robert-muellers-report-into-collusion-between-donald-trump-and-russia-more-than-300-pages/news-story/a692b0b1343941a8d6fa202d749fb214

This reads to me like a bit of last-minute cope tinged with panic, in the same vein as "here's how Bernie can still win!" "The report is really long u guise, that's really a lot of words, Drumpf is guilty for sure!" What a farce. And why is almost 1/3 of the article dedicated to calling Trump a meanie for being happy that the people who have been doing their level best to convince the country that he was a traitor for the last three years have apparently been proven liars?

[smjjames]

Most candidates are still on 'lets wait for it to be released'. I don't think it'll affect 2020 all that much because there was a poll earlier this week that said 80 something % of people said that the full release of the Mueller report isn't going to change their minds or won't affect their overall position. Basically, the positions have already been staked out for most people and just reflects the tribalism.

Of course though, there can always be something in it that does change the mind of some of those people.

[Frumple]

The length thing is mostly just a thing suggesting barr didn't excercise due diligence. It's not exactly a small thing to properly summarize a 300 page report about two years worth of high level investigation, after all, much less in something like less than two days. Would lead one to think that maybe barr didn't properly summarize said report, y'know?

Though trump would probably love it if the last three years had been monofocused on proving him a traitor, heh, particularly under as limited a circumstance as election interference in active conjunction with a foreign power. Unfortunately for the shitgibbon it's been more about corruption and surrounding himself with corrupt individuals, which meuller's criminal related stuff alone has dug up plenty of evidence for, never mind everything else that's going on or the issues that arise if mueller's investigation was as limited as barr's summary suggests.

[Trekkin]

"The report is really long u guise, that's really a lot of words, Drumpf is guilty for sure!" What a farce.

You can make anything sound farcical if you try hard enough (cf. Trump's tweets), but the core of the argument is sound: At this point, we know only that Mueller declined to prosecute Trump but did not find evidence to exonerate him. It is entirely possible that he based this decision on the strength of the evidence alone, but it is also possible that he was driven by jurisdictional or prudential concerns, the most commonly cited of which is the possibility that he felt impeachment was the only forum suitable for proceedings against a sitting President, both due to DOJ guidance and to their longstanding policy not to publicize information about individuals they have decided not to indict.

It must be borne in mind that Mueller had only two options regarding Trump: prosecute, or decline to do so. Anything relating to a declination of prosecution would have to go through Barr, who we know has taken a permissive (and legally shaky) stance on whether Trump's official actions could even theoretically be illegal and could readily have declined to prosecute an otherwise strong case on those grounds.

So, there are four essential possibilities regarding obstruction:

1. Mueller found out everything he wanted to know and concluded it's inconclusive either way.
2. Mueller did not find out everything he wanted to know and concluded it would fall to other prosecutors to determine.
3. The case is conclusive, but relies on grand jury proceedings or intelligence sources or some other procedural block to making that case in a court of law.
4. The case is conclusive, but Mueller has determined that a President cannot be tried anywhere but Congress.

You can, I trust, see how the Congress would be interested in determining which is the case.

[Baffler]

The length thing is mostly just a thing suggesting barr didn't excercise due diligence. It's not exactly a small thing to properly summarize a 300 page report about two years worth of high level investigation, after all, much less in something like less than two days. Would lead one to think that maybe barr didn't properly summarize said report, y'know?

Though trump would probably love it if the last three years had been monofocused on proving him a traitor, heh, particularly under as limited a circumstance as election interference in active conjunction with a foreign power. Unfortunately for the shitgibbon it's been more about corruption and surrounding himself with corrupt individuals, which meuller's criminal related stuff alone has dug up plenty of evidence for, never mind everything else that's going on or the issues that arise if mueller's investigation was as limited as barr's summary suggests.

I never said anything about monofocus, and I also don't doubt that Dems will comb through the report to find something, anything, to complain about. But again, this represents a major change in both the tone and the content of their typical rhetoric. It is as though nobody had ever said anything about Trump being a traitor or colluding with Russia in the first place, which is of course not true, but is anyone going to be held accountable for deliberately lying about it or pushing unsubstantiated rumors as fact out of partisan allegiance? Will anyone even acknowledge having done so? My guess is no.

-snip-

This sounds like more cope, playing word games so that he can still be guilty in your mind if not in actuality. Barr's words were "no evidence" of collusion, not "not enough evidence to prosecute." Unless you're just calling Barr a liar as Nancy Pelosi is, and I admit that it is technically possible if unlikely that he could be, that seems fairly solid to me. There is also no point in speculating about possibilities regarding obstruction, since Barr clearly reports that there was not enough evidence to support a charge of obstruction of justice. He could still be impeached based on the contents of the report since Congress is not beholden to the same standards for evidence and procedure as the Judiciary, but if there isn't any criminality to report or there isn't any good evidence as Barr claims it would be incredibly foolish for them to do so. Even with the current political climate being what it is I'm not convinced even a great many Democrats would be too pleased with such a blatant coup, let alone the average Republican.

[thompson]

Well, there was the Clinton impeachment, so we have a precedent. If Trump has ever committed perjury (which he probably has) then he could be kicked out. Not quite treason, but in US politics belonging to the opposite party is treason enough.

[Folly]

Barr's words were "no evidence" of collusion, not "not enough evidence to prosecute." Unless you're just calling Barr a liar as Nancy Pelosi is, and I admit that it is technically possible if unlikely that he could be, that seems fairly solid to me.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
And Barr was hired solely on the principle that he considers the president to be above the law. If you honestly consider it unlikely that he would choose to interpret evidence of presidential wrongdoings in a manner which favors the president, then you're just being willfully biased.

[Frumple]

... more than that, Barr's summary doesn't actually say no evidence of collusion. At all. I just re-read the thing, and found a searchable version just to make sure I didn't miss something. Those are literally not words the summary uses. Nor does it use 'no evidence of conspiracy', or any possible related variant you care to spit out. The closest it comes is barr saying meuller did not find that it had happened -- which, as should be noted, without further context would at most mean he didn't find sufficient grounds for DoJ standards to prosecute, which is a fuck damn long distance from 'no evidence' -- and barr quoting the report saying the investigation didn't establish it. Which, again, without context is a major, major difference from 'no evidence'.*

Barr's wording also pretty strongly suggests meuller's investigation didn't actually touch on the substantial cases for conspiracy people have been clamoring about, which would be a whole different set of problems. The actual report would clear up a lot of things that barr seems to have gone out of his way to obfuscate, really. Some of it might even be better for trump's lot than this current bullshit (though given how much GOP folks seem to be suddenly fighting the release it's probably pretty unlikely, ha).

Though, all that said, there's definitely been some tone shifts. Issue there is more the fourth estate fucking its job up one side the proverbial street and down the other. Reporting on the subject has just been kinda' fucked the last handful of days (at a minimum). That people have been picking up the message 'no evidence of collusion' is case in point.

E: * Like, the crazy thing is that people paying attention didn't expect there to be any indication of conspiracy over the election, especially not specifically with russia's IRA or drect government agents. That the report seems to have said they couldn't establish it, instead of some other wording, suggests that the investigation actually fucking found something, that they uncovered enough evidence to begin establishing a case but not enough to meet DoJ 90+% confidence standards. Which would actually be kinda' wild, out of left field when the much more likely collusion/conspiracy issues involved other shit entirety.

[Dorsidwarf]

There's definitely an undercurrent of hostility running through this "American Subcontinent bad jokes and governmental memes thread" right now. Lighten up guys. Saying that "Barr summarised the report in an overly vague way therefore trump did something bad =and his whipping boy is covering it up!" isnt really any more helpful than "you're all liars and you should be punished for believing that collusion ever happened"