Has Anyone Seen Ghouliani Sober?

[AmazonGrace]

This thread is for Deep Thoughts by Rudy.

I'll start.

The hell is he talking about?

Edited December 5, 2020 by Coconut Flan

[Gobsmacked]

Seriously, is Rudy capable of any true independent thought these days? He is a sad husk of the man he was in the days after 9/11. Surely his family can see that? I would hate for a family member of mine to be remembered in the History books in the way Rudy will be.

What a plonker he has become. 

( I am in no way a supporter, just sad to see a person, any person, unravel in public the way he has).

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

He's saying he meant if Comey says something and Trump says something it's a word against word and  no one can tell who's telling the truth and that's why Trump would be prosecuted for perjury. Which is not really making sense.

Anyway if Comey is a liar shouldn't Trump be testifying so you can get on the record that Comey is a liar?

[GreyhoundFan]

John Oliver had a great piece on Ghouliani last night. Bonus -- after that section, he talks about a couple of horrible Dumpy-like politicians in Australia:

 

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

This thread is for Deep Thoughts by Rudy.

I'll start.

The hell is he talking about?

I think Rudy is tweeting in regards to this:

IANAL, but the Addled Apricot really shouldn't be egging people on like this. Discovery works both ways, and Rufus only knows what goodies Brennan's lawyer might find while going through Donnie's stuff.

[Gobsmacked]

Addled apricot!!!! Love it. 

[47of74]

I think Rudy is tweeting in regards to this:
IANAL, but the Addled Apricot really shouldn't be egging people on like this. Discovery works both ways, and Rufus only knows what goodies Brennan's lawyer might find while going through Donnie's stuff.

Said addled apricot probably thinks he can just bury it all under Presidential privilege. Which of course will lead to furious tweet storms when some judge says no.

[GreyhoundFan]

Alexandra Petri's take on the nut job: "Rudy Giuliani does not exist"

Spoiler

Rudy Giuliani: When you tell me that [Trump] should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, that’s so silly, because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth.

Chuck Todd: Truth is truth.

Giuliani: No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth.

The thing you have to understand is that there is nothing to testify about. Certainly, objective reality does not exist. None of my actions have consequences because there is no world outside myself. That is why I work for the Trump administration. (Which does not, of course, exist — a fact that is a constant balm to the consciences of those who work there, assuming they can be said to work for a thing whose existence is in doubt, and assuming they possess consciences.)

You, Chuck, are, I believe, limited by the notion that we share a frame of reference. That what one of us does affects another. This is, of course, untrue.

When I move my hand in front of my face, in reality there is no hand. When someone shouts “Lock her up!” at a rally, it does not make a sound. The only thing keeping Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court is his belief that he is not on the Supreme Court.

Don’t you see? You are trapped in a prison created by your own mind, is what I would like to tell the children at the border, who, again, do not exist, and are only stimuli generated by a bored demon tormenting my mind in a jar.

All I know is the line between law and crime, between truth and untruth, between reality and fantasy — there is no line. They are infinitely fungible. Everything is real, or, perhaps, more simply, nothing is real. This is a belief system that the president and I share, although he is of course not real, merely a cruel joke concocted by my mind, like a dream metaphor that feels too on-the-nose. (I often have dreams that are too pointed; flying, falling, mainly falling. I have not troubled myself to understand them.)

You can give me money for information, Chuck. You can give me information in exchange for the promise of influence. You can meet me in a place — let us call it Trump Tower. I will laugh, because, of course none of these things actually exist.

There was no meeting, no influence, no money, no information, because, fundamentally, none of these concepts are anchored in anything that can be called a shared reality. People may think they had a meeting. Porn stars may think they accepted hush money. But really — nothing happened, because no one is real but myself. I shut my eyes, and the world is snuffed out.

I am not here and (of course) you are not here with me. It is no insult to call the news fake: Everything is fake.

The point is, it is good that I work for the Trump administration.

Why should we not lock Hillary Clinton up? Why should we not pack the courts with judges? Why should we not build the wall?

I snap my fingers — the wall exists already! It is beautiful and tall. I close my eyes; my hands become enormous, large enough to engulf entire cities. I merely wish, and I am an expert upon any subject. The instant I cease to recollect the existence of Puerto Rico, it ceases to be a problem. I am the measure of all things. When I say that there are good people on all sides, it becomes so. Global warming is, of course, not real, because, again, nothing exists.

Why should we not do whatever we wish, truly? This is not reality. This is a playground for our minds.

History is a series of agreed-upon lies. It has no objective existence; we like to imagine we will be seen and judged, but we are neither seen nor judged. The only lesson I took from “Hamilton” (a musical my mind invented for my own amusement) is that if two people walk into a room and no one else is in the room when it happened, literally it is impossible to say what occurred in that meeting. And that assumes you live in a universe where a meeting is possible, which, again, I am not certain I accept.

Maybe there is no one in the White House. Maybe there are no insides to other people, and you can act on them however you wish. Certainly that must be true of women.

Maybe there is no morality or law. Does the Constitution exist? Is not the existence of any kind of law or truth not the greatest lie of all?

Our actions have no consequences, and we move aimlessly in a void. How do I sleep at night? How do you know I am not sleeping now?

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Rudy has lost whatever marbles he once had:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[AmazonGrace]

 I guess he missed Lanny Davis saying Cohen has things to say to Mueller. 

[AmazonGrace]

Rudy: If you impeach us there will be TANTRUMS!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[AmazonGrace]

Rudy: Mueller can prove he's not a partisan hack by releasing a partisan hack report 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Wife's lawyer: I'm sure you can see he's nuts 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Rudy: Mueller is ghosting us

 

[AmazonGrace]

Rudy is an expert on Romania now 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Rudy opines on laws he doesn't understand to attack a public servant 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Just saying.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Giuliani says Trump will try to block Mueller’s report. Could it work?"

Spoiler

Over the weekend, the New Yorker published a long profile of Rudy Giuliani, who is sometimes said to be President Trump’s lawyer, based on the fact that he regularly plays that role on TV.

In the piece, Giuliani tells author Jeffrey Toobin that Trump’s team doesn’t believe special counsel Robert S. Mueller III will ever indict the president, which seems very likely to be correct, and which means the real danger Trump faces is the possibility of impeachment:

The only risk to Trump [is] that Mueller’s report could lead Congress to impeach the President, a process that is political as much as it is legal. With impeachment, Giuliani explained to me, “the thing that will decide that the most is public opinion,” and the perception of Mueller is as important as that of Trump. “If Mueller remains the white knight, it becomes more likely that Congress might at some point turn on Trump,” he told me.

That’s why Trump and Giuliani spend so much time attacking Mueller. But those attacks are a bust, and Mueller’s report, which is likely to focus heavily on Trump’s efforts to obstruct the probe, among other possible serious findings, could play a big role in swinging public opinion further against the president.

Which is why Trump’s legal team is mulling a move to block as much of its release as possible:

Mueller will file a concluding report with Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, at the end of the investigation, and, in theory, Rosenstein has the option of releasing the report to Congress and to the public. But Giuliani pointed out a little-known aspect of the agreement that Trump’s original legal team struck with Mueller: the White House reserved the right to object to the public disclosure of information that might be covered by executive privilege.

I asked Giuliani if he thought the White House would raise objections. “I’m sure we will,” he said, adding that the President would make the final call. In other words, the conclusion of the special counsel’s investigation could be the beginning of a contentious fight over whether Rosenstein is allowed to release a complete version of Mueller’s report.

Could this work? On Tuesday, I spoke to Andrew Kent, a professor at Fordham University School of Law. The short answer is: Probably not, but there are scenarios under which it could have some success, and a lot may turn on whether Democrats win back one or both chambers of Congress.

Under the special counsel regulations, Mueller is supposed to provide a “confidential” report explaining his conclusions to the attorney general — or, in this case, to Rosenstein, since Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself. Rosenstein, not Mueller, is then supposed to provide the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate judiciary committees with an “explanation” for the Justice Department’s decision to conclude the investigation.

This explanation can be released publicly if the Justice Department official overseeing the probe decides it would be “in the public interest.” In this scenario, Rosenstein would have a great deal of discretion to decide how much to put in that report — he could keep it very brief, or supply a lot of detail.

Kent tells me the White House could try to override the regulations and stop the report’s release to Congress — or at least part of it — by claiming executive privilege covers certain information in it. Kent says most of the information in the report probably would not plausibly be covered by any such claim, but that Trump might try to assert that much of it is, anyway.

“The White House could make to Rosenstein absurdly broad claims of executive privilege, arguing that much of the information in the report must be withheld,” Kent says.

If Trump ordered Rosenstein to refrain, he could threaten to resign. At that point, Trump might say, “good riddance,” and install his own deputy attorney general to block the report’s release to Congress, or Trump could conceivably fire Sessions and replace him with a loyalist who, having not recused himself, could do the same.

Then, the question would become whether Congress would act — say, by subpoenaing the report. If it did, and Trump defied that, Kent says, the courts would almost certainly rule in favor of Congress.

But it’s not clear that a Republican-controlled Congress would actually try to subpoena the report. (If you don’t think the GOP Congress is capable of such a dramatic abdication to protect Trump, you haven’t been paying attention.) And if the GOP Congress did abdicate in this way, Kent points out, the only way the report might then be subpoenaed — and released — is if Democrats assume the House or Senate majority next year.

“A huge amount comes down to whether Democrats get one or both houses of Congress,” Kent said. “My intuition is that whatever the report [says] about obstruction of justice is going to be pretty damaging to Trump, and that they’re going to try to do what they can to block it, in whole or in part.”

Have we mentioned that the only way we’re going to get real accountability on Trump is if Democrats take back the House?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[47of74]

That’s the GOP mindset in a nutshell. They figure they won’t have to face the consequences of their actions while their great grandchildren will.

Fornicate Ghouliani and his friends. Especially that orange SOB.