My friend and blogvesary has more questions about the Russia probe, but, suffice to say, Warren Zevon just went home with a waitress with Russian ties and that ended badly—offhand this seems much worse. Here’s another long comment from my friend that deserves a more in depth response. Enjoy!

Pokey: Here’s some of your recent quotes, Zano: “Trump’s peeps lied across the board,” “web of wrongdoing,” “Trump’s clear felonies.” These are more generalizations. Specifics please.

[Winslow: you crashed the server again, Zano. Think summary.]

Zano: If you can’t follow today’s politics, always remember four Americans died in Benghazi and how Republicans weaponized all that bullshit into a series of investigations that ultimately elected an ass-clown. Fine. For those only listening to AM radio in some man cave, here’s my ever-growing list of Trumpian affronts to mankind:

The presidential barrier is the only thing standing between these two and indictments:

1. Obstruction of justice: specifically dealings with Comey, Flynn and Sessions. Mueller lays out pretty specifically how to nail Trump on the way out the door, but if he’s reelected he blows beyond some of the statutes of limitations (again, pointed out by the Special Counsel). Mueller’s failing was to not indict, as the evidence clearly dictated. “Any other person who had engaged in those acts would certainly have been indicted for obstruction of justice,” Hillary Clinton.
2. Campaign finance violations including paying off hush money to prostitutes. Remember, the person who arranged these payments is sitting in jail. Former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi, “I would have presented to the grand jury in August, an indictment against Donald Trump. The only reason he is not currently indicted is he’s the president.” The Hill.

See? Both The Hill and the Hillary agree on something …and that happens, uh, never. And Mueller didn’t “choose not to indict”, he was acting from the false premise that you can’t indict a sitting president.

Some, but not all, of the impeachable offenses:

1. It is accurate to call the president a pathological liar.
2. The president and his minions repeatedly lied about plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow.
3. Not even acknowledging, let alone protecting our next election from Russian hacking.
4. The level of collusionary efforts from Trump and his minions is arguably impeachable as well (maybe not treason, but certainly not cool). Kidding, you can’t be cool and Republican. Einstein’s Special Theory of Irrelativity?
5. Not identifying or firing foreign agents within his inner circle in a timely fashion, namely Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. Hey, maybe just picking foreign agents to help run our government in the first place… Hmmm. But only the best foreign agents!
6. If you don’t believe this president is profiting from his presidency then you don’t need a list, just turn up the old Miracle Ear. Emolu-mental Clause?
7. Trump’s open support of alt-right and neo-Nazi factions post-Charlottesville was unacceptable behavior for a Commander in Chief. This one is not in and of itself impeachable and yet in the context of the rest of this list…
8. Trump’s weaponizing of pardons, including Sheriff Joe’s pardon, his attempts to use them to obstruct the Russia probe, and last week’s gem: Trump offered the acting head of Homeland Insecurity, Kevin McAleenan, a pre-pardon to break the law on asylum seekers with the promise of a Get Out of Jail Free card.
9. The president is clearly emotionally and psychiatrically compromised, although today it’s admittedly tough to tease this out from our average Republican politician. How can you defund mental health services and deprive Republicans the care they need? It’s like biting the hand that medicates you. Nurse Ratched, there’s a registered Republican in room two.
10. The indictable offenses listed above.
11. Because our impeachable offenses go to 11! No one mentions this one, and it’s more of an opinion, but destroying the planet out of greed and stupidity should be an impeachable offense. Polluting our air and water unfettered should be a crime against humanity. I realize this one is vague, but this level of blatant irresponsibility at this crucial juncture in history rises to the level of impeachment. And it’s my ultimate reason for despising this man.

Crimes on the horizon:

1. Whatever Mueller is handing off in his 14 investigations that relate to presidential wrongdoing.
2. Some of the other ongoing investigations, perhaps not in Muellerville, including, but no limited to: inauguration committee misdeeds, the Trump tax scheme uncovered by the NYT, the Elliott Broidy shenanigans, Deutsche Bank loan irregularities, the investigation into the Trump Foundation etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, and one baby zebra.
3. All things Cohen.
4. All things Stone.
5. All things great and Trump. There will likely be other white collar crimes exposed as well, such as fraud and money laundering, but only because these are the business practices Mr. Trump has employed to build his empire.

Maybe you can’t see the lies, because they’re all lies, or you can’t see the crimes, because they’re all criminal. I don’t know, I think the answer probably lies more on the willful side of conservatism. And if Trump dodges all of this shit, which is possible, he will still be ranked among the bottom ten U.S. presidents in history, and I am actually betting on the rock bottom tier. The pattern of abuse and the damage to our republic and its institutions will be mind boggling. The only thing more mind boggling is this: how can someone outright ignore all this?

But by no means am I suggesting we bypass any legal proceedings. I wouldn’t miss them for the world! But I also realize this is a much steeper climb because, well, the president now appears to be above the law. Great timing. What could possibly go wrong?

Pokey: Here’s another of your recent quotes: “Mueller thought people could still read.” It is not a prosecutor’s role to release allegations against a person who he chooses NOT to indict. That’s called slander. Why do you take this prosecutor’s allegations as gospel truth? The Constitution guarantees that a person have their day in court to defend themselves against a prosecutor’s allegations. This prosecutor says that there is not enough evidence to indict Trump and take him to court; but he’s still going to release allegations about Trump of which Trump has no chance to defend himself. That is unethical and unconstitutional. Oh, that’s fair game for Zano and the Soviets (I mean the Democrats).

Zano: Power to the Resistors! Slander is Power! Freedom is Slavery …well, at least the way you people do it. Yes, Mueller should have indicted Trump for obstruction, but instead he left it up to the flawed, partisan-filled buggerama known as Congress. Bad Idea Jeans? Mueller should have been even clearer with his recommendations. If you haven’t noticed, the right can drive a fertilizer farm through even the smallest of ambiguities. It’s what they do. Kidding …you haven’t noticed.

Pokey: Let’s step back for a moment, Zano. This whole narrative that you have bought into doesn’t make any sense. Here’s the (bullshit) story that the high-ranking FBI officials tell us to justify their investigation including the Special Counsel–in late 2015 or early 2016 they became aware that the Russian government was attempting to infiltrate the Trump campaign, so they informed President Obama.

I know that you will avoid this very simple question because it shatters the entire narrative that you have so passionately embraced, but please consider this one simple question and give me any reasonable answer: what exactly did President Obama do (to thwart the Russians schemes) when these high-ranking FBI officials reported to him in late 2015 or early 2016 that Russians were working to infiltrate Trump’s campaign?* There is no evidence that Obama took any action against the Russians until after Trump was elected. Please let that sink in.

Zano: I was waiting for that one. What took you so long? Well, I have a couple of thoughts on this one. In short, it’s not acceptable on Obama’s part either. Of course, Obama didn’t have the clear picture we have today, aka evidence provided by the Mueller investigation. The report laid out the details of the impact of this coordinated and in-depth hacking campaign. These were much less clear under Obama’s watch as the intelligence community was only just becoming aware of the scope of the problem.

Also, there was a very real fear Republicans would spin these attacks to their favor on the lead up to the election. I am not saying it’s an excuse, but I understand the concern. Not knowing how known liars will react to events is something our last two Democratic presidents really struggled with. It’s a dangerous time, for sure, which is in part why I’ve called for the disbanding of The GOP in favor of something, anything …maybe just a conservative Meetup group …that doesn’t meet up.

Besides, President Obama did eventually slink over to Mitch McConnell’s office and share the intelligence community’s findings on the lead-up to the election. At that time McConnell threatened the president with all kinds of Hannitized propagandic Foxal nuggets if he went public (as expected).

“McConnell refused. As the Washington Post reported in 2017, when national security officials told congressional leaders about Russia’s interference, it was McConnell who not only didn’t want to alert the public, he also questioned the validity of the intelligence.” And, “Brian Beutler put it this way: “McConnell ran interference for Trump during the campaign to stop Obama from warning the country about things Trump was lying publicly about.”

—MSNBC

Please, let that sink in.

So, yes, Obama should have been quicker on the draw, but there’s always a resistance to the truth from our Republican friends. It’s simply not their thing. But to have a full blown attack on our election play out, with details as presented by the special counsel, and to ignore them outright …well, that is a far far more egregious crime, isn’t it?

Some information = Obama tries to warn congress 

Two years later.

488 pages of proof and indictments = Trump ignores

It reminds me of when Barney Frank, the man Republicans blame the subprime mortgage crisis on, came to George W. Bush (two years before the crash) saying we have a housing bubble issue, but Bush shooed him along because his friends were making too much money to give a shit.

You’re forgetting the algorithm, Poke. Start with the premise that Republicans are dead-wrong and when liberals do blunder—and they do blunder—it’s the Republican’s unpatriotic duty to somehow top that shit. It.Never.Fails.

Pokey: I know that you don’t want to hear this, Zano, but it doesn’t make any sense unless the high ranking FBI officials are lying and Sean Hannity is correct. Wait, wait, wait, don’t float off into Hyperbolic Generalization-land. Put your need to prove your rightness on hold for just a moment. Doesn’t it bother you at all that you are not able to give a reasonable answer to that one simple question? If you take that question seriously and research it to it’s conclusion (as I have done) you will understand the truth of this matter: the Obama administration was never seriously concerned about Russian interference until after Trump was elected. Obama directed the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign (not for reasons of justice or national security, but) for political reasons. Honestly, doesn’t that make sense to you?

Zano: I disagree, you research things to someone else’s conclusions. And to your point, no, things that make sense to me have to make sense to me. In your defense, whereas I have access to the news, you are only allowed tidbits that support a growing AM radio-spawned upside down. I usually understand the liberal political brain and their choices, but Republican thought processes and decision making is wholly irrational in the 21st century. Today’s GOP …well, envision Ozzy Osbourne and Jerry Garcia co-conducting a bullet train full of nukes heading toward a reactor.