Back from a road trip and I've got the world up my ass as far as work for my shop so I'll try to be brief and to the point here.
First and foremost, there is no outcome here that doesn't result in me eating a big steaming pile of my own shït, so let's just acknowledge that up front. I said I'd own it if I was wrong and I will. In short, anything I said, any insult I tossed out, regarding Trump being guilty of a criminal conspiracy now applies to ME. I will go more specifically into that once we know for sure where things stand, but yes, "you" flat out wiped the floor with me in that regard. You won, I lost. Bad.
The reason I'm hedging slightly is that contrary to what Ack said on the exercise forum- more on that below- we have not seen the Mueller report. We've seen the Barr summary. The line Barr quotes makes it pretty clear he found no criminal conspiracy, hence me owning that, but since we supposedly get to see a redacted full report in a couple short weeks, that's as far as I'm willing to concede things until then. There are several baffling things we KNOW, not from anonymous-sourced WaPo stories or whatever, but from indictments and court documents, that need explained. For instance, we have Trump's campaign manager sending a known Kremlin-linked oligarch internal polling data. I'd like to hear the full story about that, because that reeks to high heaven right on its face. There's a couple more things of that nature, as well. As y'all took great pains to point out, collusion is not a crime! As*I* took great pains to point out, collusion would be pretty fücked-up from a POTUS or his campaign. Anyway, before I eat THAT pile of my own [bleep], I'd like explanations for some known facts, and I'm guessing the full Mueller report will shine light there.
(It's important to realize that high-level prosecutors speak very precisely. The quote Barr pulled said in essence that there was no conspiracy with the Russian STATE. Wiki, for instance, is not the Russian state; yet it was an instrument being used by the Russian state to attack us. Does the paragraph or pages after what Barr pulled, go into that? Trump knew Wiki was aligned with Russia. I'd like to know more there, and my guess- yeah, yeah, yeah, I know- is that there's gonna be some pretty interesting stuff there. So I'm gonna wait the two weeks and see, before I concede that.)
But I'm under no illusions here, generally speaking. At a bare minimum I was purely wrong about a large swath of this, and it's probably gonna be worse than that.
I'm gonna piss "you" off here by pointing out that you were largely wrong too. You were full-throated participants in the purely partisan effort to tear down an honorable American and to a degree, the rule of law itself. ANYONE could see this mess needed looking into. From POTUS on down, everyone involved was lying their fool asses off at every turn. If there's an innocent explanation for that, too, I want to hear it. And I'd hope you would acknowledge, even just internally, that it wasn't just me who went full-retard on this whole thing. You did too. Being "right" doesn't change that any more than it would if I was "right". You guys had this all set up to discredit Mueller, he was the devil incarnate, which makes it pretty ironic that suddenly you are his best buddy... I said I'd accept his findings either way, but my point is,
you did not. So a huge swath of what you were presenting as a vast deep state conspiracy turns out to be bullshït. Will you acknowledge THAT? Will you own your own crap, like I am? I'm interested to see what quality of folk I'm dealing with here in that regard.
Finally, if you want me to actually see and acknowledge the shït you want me to eat, STAY OFF THE EXERCISE THREAD. I will plonk you into the ignore folder in a heartbeat. Ask Deflave about that. He follows me around like a plaintive little kid begging for my attention and I don't see a word of it. That'll be your fate as well if you go to that thread with this crap. Fair warning. I'll take my medicine HERE, like I said I would, but you go there and screw that thread up, I'll never see another word you type.
And finally finally, this is all GOOD NEWS! Hell, I'd much rather eat a plate of my own shït than have a POTUS in league with an adversary. Anyone who's paid attention to my political views over the years knows that I share at least some of the major planks of Trumpism. I was talking crap about NATO and our global military footprint long ago, right here on this forum, before it was a twinkle in many of your eyes, in fact many of you gave me crap for it. I was preaching a form of economic isolationism then, too. In short, I want this country to be great and with Russian conspiracy off the table I can give my support to the parts of Trump's agenda I do support, and I will, and that actually feels kinda good!
Enjoy the win, you deserve it, and I'll be back once the full report drops, and STAY OFF THE EXERCISE THREAD in the meantime if you ever want me read what you type again. Serious about that, starting now.
