Brenda Lawrence on Impeachment

The United States is composed of three separate, yet equal branches of government and relies on a system of checks and balances to ensure cooperation and accountability. Congress has the authority to create and pass legislation, as well as conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. As a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, I take this responsibility very seriously. President Trump continues to impede our constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities. I am now calling for an impeachment inquiry into his conduct so that Congress can obtain the documents necessary to fulfill our duties. 
 

The Trump Administration has made every attempt to prevent this Congress from performing its constitutional duties of oversight. They have blocked witnesses from testifying, ignored our subpoenas, and refused to turn over documents essential to our justified investigations. Administration officials have objected to precedents that have been in place for decades, while making baseless arguments to avoid complying with congressional requests. On the rare occasions that Administration officials have agreed to testify, they have stalled, obstructed, and disrespected the legislative process. 
 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report laid out evidence that describes several instances in which President Trump obstructed justice by either trying to change the scope of the investigation or attempting to end it altogether. Given the heavy redactions made to the report, it is impossible to understand the full scope of the investigation. Special Counsel Mueller has stated on multiple occasions that his findings did not exonerate the President of a crime. The report made clear that any accountability would have to come from Congress when he explicitly wrote: “The conclusion that Congress may apply obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.” I look forward to hearing Special Counsel Mueller’s testimony in the House after months of misleading statements by the Attorney General and others in the Trump Administration. 
 

The Trump Administration is challenging the power of a separate, yet equal branch of government, a precedent established by our Founding Fathers centuries ago. The House of Representatives has been hard at work in the 116^th Congress passing landmark legislation, but President Trump continues to stand in the way of conducting meaningful oversight of his administration. I believe that we must launch an impeachment inquiry to fulfill our constitutional duties. No one is above the law, not even the President.
 

Serving as your representative in Congress is a great privilege. You can visit my website at  www.lawrence.house.gov  to send me an email or learn more about my voting record and positions on the issues that matter most to you.

Sincerely,



Rep. Brenda Lawrence
Member of Congress
MI-14

BIDEN and Healthcare

THINKING ALOUD ALLOWED: FINALLY A CANDIDATE WHO UNDERSTAND HEALTHCARE AND THE ACA: ,,,,,,,,,BIDEN KNOWS that after spending billions of tax dollars to establish the foundation of the ACA (Obamacare), that even with Trump's (and the Republican Congress) efforts to destroy the ACA healthcare for 20 million Americans, it still LIVES, because Americans want it.
He also knows that for this existing culture of healthcare in America, the SPH (Single Payer Healthcare) is not anywhere as popular as ACA for many reasons.

A. We know that ACA WORKS, but needs repair, but not enough to scuttle a health program that actually works well for millions and millions of people.
B. ONE EXAMPLE: If congress (Democratic) could change the insurance market to enable people in Wyoming, who have only one source to buy healthcare, and must pay higher premiums, to buy their healthcare insurance from Michigan or Ohio, or California or New York, where there are multiple insurance carriers, it would FORCE insurance rates to go down, and more people could enroll for more coverage at a lesser cost.

C. Preexisting Conditions, need I say more?

D, No sound thinking person would destroy a working business, without another working business already to replace it, and SPH cannot do this until such time as our government agrees on it's total concept of coverage. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO THIS NOW, OR IN THE NEAR FUTURE, BECAUSE WE HAVE THIS FRACTURED REPUBLICAN SENATE, A SPLIT DEMOCRATIC HOUSE, AND A PSYCHOTIC PRESIDENT WHO PROMISED THE BEST AND CHEAPEST HEALTHCARE IN THE WORLD, BUT KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT HEALTHCARE EXCEPT THE ACA WAS CREATED BY A MAN HE DESPISES, BARAK OBAMA

E. COST; There are no estimates on the cost of SPH, or how much, and in what manner will the funding of SPH be created.

But, we know exactly what Obamacare cost over the last 9 years, and how to fund it.

 

This alone is reason enough for me to support BIDEN for president, because with a great healthcare system you'll have a happy and great America

 

Of course it might take a few more issue like the environment, wage disparity, immigration to bring a smile to the 51% who win, hopefully Democrats

Jerry Soble

Puzder, Acosta, Epstein,Dershowitz, Trump and Vance,

  Let me try to connect the dots between all of these miscreants.  Alex Acosta, tRUMP's  labor secretary, is all over the news for the giveaway deal he made with Epstein,  the pervert monster.  Until all of this hit the fan, I had forgotten that Acosta was tRUMP's second pick for labor secretary.  His first pick was Andrew Puzder, best known for having bikini clad models eating giant hamburgers in ads for his Carl's   Jr. hamburger chain.  

              Puzder withdrew from consideration when it came out that his ex wife had publicly accused  him of multiple acts of abuse.   Those allegations were first made public when it came out that she had twice called the police  alleging abuse.   She actually went on the Oprah show in disguise to talk about how powerful men get away with beating their wives.  She said that the bruises are never visible.  A number of years later she vehemently claimed that she had made the whole thing up.

              Does this sound familiar?  Ivana tRUMP said that she made up the allegations in a sworn complaint for divorcee that tRUMP had raped her.  When she did her disavowal , she said that she did not understand the definition of rape.  All  she needed to do is to look at the facts she alleged in her  complaint for divorce which she signed under oath to understand the definition. Recanting most assuredly was a condition for getting a massive divorce settlement.

              Acosta claims that the deal he made was a good deal because it guaranteed that Epstein would do jail time.  If it was such a good deal, why did he not tell the victims as required by law?  Equally damning, why was the deal made in secret and put under seal? 

             Epstein was charged pursuant to a 53 page  federal indictment.  In order to do the deal, the federal prosecutor had to dismiss the federal charges and get the Palm Beach County district attorney to file far less serious State charges.    The deal then had Epstein plead guilty to the State charges.  

            This is an incredibly ingenious way  to minimize Epstein's penalty.   Only a Harvard professor could think of such a thing.  Lo and behold it was a Harvard Professor, namely Allen Dershowitz.  I have not heard a single legal commentator say that he or she has ever heard of such an deal.

            Rumor has it that the Palm Beach police officers who worked on the case, and the Federal prosecutors who wrote the indictment were outraged by the result.  Why did Acosta do the deal.  So far only he knows.  There has not  been a suggestion that he was paid off.  Maybe he merely succumbed to Epstein's high powered lawyers.  Maybe they made some kind of threat. No matter the reason, this case shows that Epstein got the best representation that money could buy.  It also shows that Acosta should never again be allowed to collect a penny of taxpayer money. 

           A few words about Dershowitz.  His client list includes Claus Von Bulow, and O.J. Simpson both of whom killed their wives.  Now add Epstein to the list.  As far as I know he has not killed a wife.    I don't believe that Dershowitz has been  officially retained by tRUMP, another member of the rogue's gallery.  But he is certainly acting as an unofficial member of tRUMP's team.  He is all over TV making up absurd defenses of tRUMP.

          So how does Cyrus Vance Jr. get in my subject line.? Vance is the district  attorney for Manhattan.  His staff lawyers recommended charging Ivanka and Jared with criminal fraud for duping investors in one of their buildings.    Vance rejected their recommendation.  This rejection occurred after a tRUMP fixer dropped off a $25,000 check for Vance's reelection campaign.  

   

            Fast forward to Epstein.  Vance filed a petition in a New York court to have Epstein's sexual misconduct status changed from Level 3 (highest) to level 1 (lowest)  There has never been an explanation for this petition.  Fortunately the judge who heard the request was appalled and refused to grant it.  So we now know that Vance prevented tRUMP's  daughter and son in law from being criminally charged, and tried to make a deal for tRUMP's old  pervert buddy.  

           I will always remember Michael Cohen's poignant statement to tRUMP enablers that if they continue to support him they will end up like Cohen.  So Puzder stinks, Acosta stinks,  Dershowitz stinks and Vance stinks.  Boys, join the crowd.

             As always, thanks for listening.

                                                                   Richard

Andy Levin on Impeachment

When I was sworn into the 116th Congress, I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. It's an oath I don't take lightly.

 

That's why I believe that the House must open an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Donald J. Trump. If you agree, add your name here.

 

Let me take a few moments to explain because it's important for you to understand how I arrived at this decision:

 

The evidence is clear that Mr. Trump has been violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution every day since he took office. The intermingling of his business dealings with governance and his profiting off his office is beyond improper. According to a recent analysis from  NBC News, representatives of 22 — 22! — different foreign governments have spent money at properties owned by the Trump Organization since 2017.

 

What's more — his refusal to share information about his taxes, which prevents the public from knowing the nature and extent of his conflicts of interest.  

 

As the Mueller Report makes clear, on more than ten occasions, the President obstructed justice or sought to obstruct justice — including by firing or attempting to fire people who were investigating him. And his brazen attitude towards foreign interference in our election process chills me to the bone — from his invitation to Vladimir Putin to meddle during 2016 to his comments this week about the 2020 election.

 

Until today, I have maintained the position that we should neither rush to impeach President Trump nor take impeachment off the table. However, I believe that even if our appeals to the courts continue to succeed, they will follow a timeline far too slow to meet the needs of the American people for truth and justice. 

 

After extensive discussion with colleagues on the committees of jurisdiction over various investigations, I have concluded that the only way to get to the bottom of Mr. Trump's activities and inform the public about what we learn is to consolidate and expedite the process through one select committee with the focus, power, and urgency that come with an impeachment inquiry.

 

This fight will be long and tough, but our democracy is at stake. If you agree that now is the time to begin a formal impeachment inquiry, add your name to let me know you're with me.

 

Thank you for taking action on this,

 

Andy Levin

Legacy of the Trump Presidency

What will be the legacy of the Trump Presidency?
There will likely be many, few of them good, but I think the worst (for Republicans in general and conservative evangelicals in particular, anyway) is that they have lost any moral high ground they were ever able to claim. Democrats, if their silly hearts ever led them to do so, could nominate a Harvey Weinstein candidate with a Bill Cosby running mate, and the Republicans would not be able to say a single word, not and be taken seriously, anyway. In his article, A Comprehensive List of Things Republicans Can No Longer Legitimately Criticize Thanks to Trump, here are a few of the things John Ziegler came up with:

Having no political experience.
Having no military experience.
Having actively dodged a war.
Having compared avoiding sexual diseases during a promiscuous period to going to war.
Having disparaged a war hero for having been captured.
Having claimed to have more military knowledge than our generals.
Having admitted to getting their military knowledge from watching TV.
Having been divorced, twice.
Having multiple affairs with porn stars and paying them, possibly with campaign cash, to keep them quiet.
Having a wife who posed nude in lesbian-themed photos and plagiarized her only major speech.
Bragging, on tape, about sexually assaulting women.
Running several failed businesses into the ground.
Trying to violate the Cuban embargo.
Using Chinese steel on their own buildings while decrying what China has done to our steel industry.
Pretending to be his own publicist in an effort to get media outlets to publish how much women want to have sex with them.
Settling a massive fraud lawsuit for $25 million.
Bragging about being “very pro-choice.”
Bragging about the size of their penis during a presidential debate.
Getting electoral help from an adversarial power and refusing to properly condemn or punish their meddling in our election.
Siding with a foreign adversary over our own intelligence agencies.
Claiming, without evidence, that the presidential election is “rigged.”
Obsessing and lying about, and forcing government employees to do the same, the size of the crowd at their swearing in.
Lying (or being abjectly ignorant about) the size of their election victory.
Falsely claiming, without a shred of evidence, that they lost the popular vote because of millions of illegally cast votes.
Claiming to be a Christian while having no knowledge of the Bible and claiming to never have asked for forgiveness, or hardly ever actually going to church services.
Engaging in blatant nepotism.
Threatening to take guns away from citizens without due process.
Being consistently pro-Russia and pro-Putin.
Making numerous statements indicating that they want to be a dictator and praising those foreign leaders who already are.
Referring to friendly nations as “shithole” countries.
Constantly attacking people, even political allies, based on their physical appearance.
Being abjectly ignorant of the basic functions of our government.
Not knowing basic facts about important issues.
Having a general and reckless disregard for the truth.
A Comprehensive List of Things Republicans Can No Longer Legitimately Criticize Thanks to Trump

In an article for The American Conservative, Rod Dreher (no bleeding heart liberal he) has some pretty pointed things to say about Christian Trump supporters: Quoting Michael Gerson, he writes, “Evangelicals have become loyal to a leader of shockingly low character. They have associated their faith with exclusion and bias. They have become another Washington interest group, striving for advantage rather than seeking the common good. And a movement that should be known for grace is now known for its seething resentments.” Christians Tempted By Trump Idolatry He goes on to quote himself from his book “The Benedict Opinion”: “…fair or not, conservative Christianity will be associated with Trump for the next few years, and no doubt beyond. If conservative church leaders aren’t extraordinarily careful in how they manage their public relationship to the Trump phenomenon, anti-Trump blowback will do severe damage to the church’s reputation. Trump’s election solves some problems for the church, but given the man’s character, it creates others. Political power is not a moral disinfectant.
“And this brings us to the more subtle but potentially more devastating effects of this unexpected GOP election victory. There is first the temptation to worship power, and to compromise one’s soul to maintain access to it. There are many ways to burn a pinch of incense to Caesar, and some prominent pro-Trump Christians arguably crossed that line during the campaign season. Again, political victory does not vitiate the vice of hypocrisy.” (ibid)

Conservatives have made a bed of thorns that they will be forced to sleep in for years to come.

MORE (may be a lot of repeats initially but there is new stuff also)

After Tuesday’s special election upset loss in Pennsylvania, many in the Republican Party are now resigned to the likely reality that the 2018 elections, which once set up extremely well for the GOP, are going to be a disaster for them. There are many reasons this is the case, but the most prominent, of course, is that the party has allowed itself to be completely defined by President Donald Trump.

Perhaps the most underrated aspect of having sold out so thoroughly to Trump is that the GOP is now almost completely disarmed in their ability to legitimately attack Democratic candidates and office holders on numerous issues, especially in the realm of character. After all, once you have defended and accepted certain behavior from a president, it is awfully difficult, even in a world where hypocrisy is now longer seen as politically lethal, to claim that similar acts are unacceptable for any other elected office.

With this in mind, I recently attempted to put together a comprehensive — and ever growing — list of the things that had they been been true of a Democrat, Republicans and the conservative media would have been on the warpath to destroy them. I came up with almost 100 of them. I am sure the list is incomplete, and will probably grow by the end of the day, but here it is:

Being best known as a reality TV host.
Having no political experience.
Having no military experience.
Having actively dodged a war.
Having compared avoiding sexual diseases during a promiscuous period to going to war.
Having disparaged a war hero for having been captured.
Having claimed to have more military knowledge than our generals.
Having admitted to getting their military knowledge from watching TV.
Having been divorced, twice.
Having multiple affairs with porn stars and paying them, possibly with campaign cash, to keep them quiet.
Having a wife who posed nude in lesbian-themed photos and seemingly plagiarized her only major speech.
Bragging, on tape, about sexually assaulting women.
Running several failed businesses into the ground.
Running casinos and overtly sexual beauty pageants.
Declaring bankruptcy multiple times.
Trying to violate the Cuban embargo.
Using Chinese steel on their own buildings while decrying what China has done to our steel industry.
Having greatly misled about their academic record, while also questioning the academic record of a current president.
Falsely accusing a sitting president, with racist undertones, of not being eligible for the office.
Lavishly praising and giving lots of money to prominent Democrats.
Pretending to be his own publicist in an effort to get media outlets to publish how much women want to have sex with them.
Settling a massive fraud lawsuit for $25 million.
Dramatically flip-flopping on major issues, often within hours.
Bragging about being “very pro-choice.”
Bragging about the size of their penis during a presidential debate.
Bragging about massive wealth which doesn’t seem to actually exist.
Bragging about not paying taxes during a presidential debate.
Refusing to release their taxes, promising to do so if elected, and still not doing so.
Publicly asking for, and getting help from an international hacking/terrorist group to get elected.
Getting electoral help from an adversarial power and refusing to properly condemn or punish their meddling in our election.
Siding with a foreign adversary over our own intelligence agencies.
Claiming, without evidence, that the presidential election is “rigged.”
Obsessing and lying about, and forcing government employees to do the same, the size of the crowd at their swearing in.
Lying (or being abjectly ignorant about) the size of their election victory.
Falsely claiming, without a shred of evidence, that they lost the popular vote because of millions of illegally cast votes.
Claiming to be a Christian while having no knowledge of the Bible and claiming to never have asked for forgiveness, or hardly ever actually going to church services.
Making constant and dramatic campaign promises which never come close to being fulfilled.
Being unable to get hardly anything passed through a Congress controlled by their own party.
Causing run-away spending and massive deficits.
Taking credit for stock market advances they had almost nothing to do with.
Tanking the stock market with reckless statements.
Pardoning a political supporter for purely political reasons in their first year in office.
Having close senior aides quit and be fired at an alarming rate, even after having bragged that they would hire only the very best people.
Having multiple close aides plead guilty to serious crimes possibly related to their own election.
Hiring and then firing a National Security Adviser after they were correctly warned by the prior administration they were compromised by a foreign adversarial power.
Hiring a reality TV villain to work in the White House who ended up doing nothing and didn’t even last a year before being fired, provoking a bizarre security incident.
Having much of their close staff not be able to get top secret security clearances.
Having their chief economic advisor quit over a highly unpopular plan to impose huge tariffs.
Engaging in blatant nepotism.
Having a member of their own family caught up in a serious investigation of foreign meddling in our election and of allegedly using their influence to punish and reward countries based on personal business dealings.
Being in constant and clear violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution by personally benefiting financially from foreign states because of their position.
Threatening to take guns away from citizens without due process.
Being consistently pro-Russia and pro-Putin.
Aligning themselves with blatant conspiracy theorists and supporting obvious nut jobs.
Blatantly promoting, sometimes via government resources, highly partisan and non-credible media outlets.
Actively attacking legitimate media outlets (even those they give interviews to) as “fake” simply because they don’t like what is being reported.
Actively avoiding press conferences and extensive interviews with non-friendly news media.
Making numerous statements indicating that they want to be a dictator and praising those foreign leaders who already are.
Forcing the military to hold a parade in the streets of Washington for their own personal ego gratification.
Being consistently against the First Amendment, specifically with regard to libel laws and flag burning.
Taking credit for the release of college basketball players from China when the players had already been secured before they even got involved.
Endorsing a credibly accused child molester (and general nut job) for senator in a state they won big, and then having that person lose.
Publicly backing multiple friends accused of sexual misconduct who then turned out to be at least partly guilty.
Threatening to “lock up” their political opponents.
Having sub-40% approval ratings, and seeing that as a sign of failure.
Trying to fire a Special Counsel who is investigating their own campaign.
Firing an FBI Director because they don’t like the way they are handling an investigation that directly involves themselves.
Falsely and publicly claiming they might have tapes of private conversations with their FBI Director and then bragging that it was a good strategic move to lie.
Constantly publicly criticizing, and inappropriately directing, their own Attorney General.
Releasing a partisan memo over the objections of their own Justice Department.
Publicly describing a group of NFL players as, “that son of a bitch.”
Referring to friendly nations as “shithole” countries.
Constantly attacking people, even political allies, based on their physical appearance.
Publicly mocking a disabled reporter.
Routinely tweeting badly misspelled words and inaccurate statements.
Tweeting about frivolous subjects in the middle of the night.
Threatening a foreign country led by a madman with nuclear war.
Agreeing to meet with a madman without real preconditions and without consulting any diplomatic experts.
Threatening a damaging trade war, without aides knowing about it, because they are in a bad mood.
Using the House Intelligence Committee as a piece of partisan political machinery.
Firing their Secretary of State via Twitter.
Having their personal assistant escorted off the White House grounds due to a criminal probe and then immediately hiring the assistant to work on their campaign.
Campaigning for heavily favored candidates who end up losing.
Being abjectly ignorant of the basic functions of our government.
Not knowing basic facts about important issues.
Having a general and reckless disregard for the truth.


Jon Hill, Graphic designer: autodidact: Hist., PolySci., Religion

Two Legal Systems

“Read the AJC’s 36-page “Guide for the Perplexed” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and you wouldn’t know that in the West Bank Israel maintains two legal systems, one for Jews—which guarantees due process, free movement, citizenship in the country in which they live and the right to vote for the government that controls their lives—and a second, which denies all these rights to Palestinians.
The AJC constructs a cocoon that allows its supporters to believe that Israel is a thriving democracy even as it denies millions of Palestinians basic rights, and to believe that Israel yearns for a two state solution even as Benjamin Netanyahu boasts about opposing one.
And with the exception of Sanders, the major Democratic candidates didn’t challenge that intellectual and moral bubble. They inhabited it.

“I don’t know if Sanders would make a better president than his Democratic rivals. But this much is clear: When it comes to the conflict between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, he’s the only candidate who is boldly defending the moral principles — human dignity, anti-racism and equality under the law -— that all the Democratic candidates claim to prize. And he’s doing it in front of the audiences that want to hear that message least, and need to hear it most.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that he’s also the only Jewish candidate in the race. But one day, when the occupation is a distant memory and American Jews have long since acknowledged its profound injustice, our people will look back at speeches like the one he gave this week to the AJC with pride.”
Tanya

What Mueller said and what he did not say

  In the last 24 or so hours there have  been countless analyses of the Mueller statement.  Here is one more. I must first state  that Mueller is an American hero and a man of impeccable integrity.  Having said that,  I was disappointed by Mueller's statement, but not surprised.  He did exactly what I had predicted he would do.  Mueller is the ultimate example of understatement.  There were several instances where he could have stated conclusions.  Rather than doing that, he left it to the listener to draw conclusions.  

         While Mueller's position may be admirable, it allows tRUMP and his sycophants to state their own conclusions  from Mueller's statement.  And they did. Their response to Mueller's statement  is, "see, no collusion, no obstruction."  It goes without saying that they are lying.  But Mueller enabled them to do it.  So here's my take.

           Mueller began and ended his statement by stating that Russia had a massive systematic  and sweeping program to interfere with and influence  our election.    But I have a major problem with the following sentence, "This volume includes a discussion of the Trump campaign's response to this activity as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy."  Mueller referred to the tRUMP campaign's response to the Russian campaign, but did not state what the response was..  Mueller's report explicitly stated  that the tRUMP campaign welcomed the Russian interference.  Why could Mueller not bring himself to say perhaps the most damning of all conclusions  in the report.  The vast majority of people who have not read the report would have no idea of this damning finding.

           Mueller went on to say that the Russian campaign was intended to damage a "presidential candidate."  Why could Mueller not say that it was intended to damage the Clinton campaign.  tRUMP has often said that the Russian interference was intended to help Clinton.  Mueller should have explicitly rejected that cockamamie B.S. Mueller expects people to draw the logical conclusion.  In my view, that is not enough.

            At the end of the statement Mueller praised the hard work and the integrity of the people on his team.  That praise was fine, but not nearly enough.  tRUMP has continuously called the investigation a hoax and a witch hunt being conducted by 18 angry Democrats.  tRUMP directly attacked the integrity of Mueller and his team. He accused two of them plus Comey  of treason. Barr is now investigating Mueller and his team to see if this was a political hoax.  I think it was incumbent on Mueller to explicitly rebuke tRUMP's claim.  He had a duty to maximize the protection of his team.  He needed to say that there was a sound basis for beginning the investigation and his team was not in anyway guided by political considerations.  

        Mueller said that he was constrained by the DOJ memo to not charge a sitting president with a crime.  There are plenty of legal scholars who disagree with the DOJ memo.  Mueller chose to abide by that memo.  It should be pointed out that Ken Starr did not feel the same constraint.  I would also say that two former federal prosecutors would not have felt the same constraint if they thought that Barack Obama had committed a crime.   Those former prosecutors are Giuliani and Christie.  Mueller said that the constitution had a remedy other than the criminal justice system to deal with a president who may have committed a crime.  Mueller simply could not get the word impeachment to come from his lips.  I understand why he couldn't, but he could have  just as easily told the American people what the alternative was.

    I cannot believe that Mueller chose to give high praise to Barr.  Mueller said that  at a point in time he requested that certain portions of his report be made public.  He was referring to the executive summaries of the report.  Once again Mueller could not bring himself to say what portions he was referring to.  More importantly he said that Barr made a decision to  largely make the entire report public.  Mueller than said, "I certainly do not question the attorney general's good faith in that decision."  This is just me, but I think it is outrageous for Mueller to have made that  statement.  Barr totally misrepresented the findings of the Mueller Report.  And  when Mueller saw the misrepresentation he sent  a letter to Barr urging him to release the executive summaries.  Barr refused.  So not only had Barr misrepresented,  he refused to correct the misrepresentation despite the urging of Mueller.  Again, it is extremely disappointing  that Mueller praised the good  faith of Barr.  Mueller at a minimum could have remained silent on the subject.  Now he has given Barr a pass he absolutely does not deserve.

     

        Finally, there is one  sentence which I initialed failed to understand the  significance of..  Mueller  said the investigation was important "to preserve evidence  while memories are fresh and documents available."  There is only one  reason to preserve evidence, and that is for future proceedings.  This innocuous sentence suggests that Mueller believes there may well be future proceedings, whether trials or impeachment. 

         For me, tRUMP's response to the Mueller statement is the most fascinating of all responses.  tRUMP said that there was insufficient evidence to prove there was a crime.  Therefore, case closed.  First, Mueller's reference to insufficient evidence related only to possible conspiracy by the tRUMP campaign with Russia.  Mueller never said that there was insufficient evidence that tRUMP committed the crime of obstruction of justice.  Second, the fact that Mueller said there was insufficient evidence of a crime, does not mean there was no crime.  By the way, I have read enough of the report to question how Mueller could have come to that conclusion.  I think the report contains plenty of evidence of conspiracy.  And third, it is jaw dropping that the President of the United States thinks that lack of evidence somehow vindicates him.  That is a very low bar for anyone, let alone the President.  There are plenty of crimes which are not prosecuted for lack of evidence.  That does not mean that the crime was not committed.

              I agree with both sides of the impeachment debate.  Whether or not the House moves toward impeachment,  I think the period between now and the election will reveal enumerable facts that show tRUMP is the head of a continuing criminal enterprise.  If we survive until 2020, we will boot the crime boss out of office.  Take care all.

                                                                           Richard