All_Pro_Bills

One legal problem is you've got two counts of conspiracy and two counts of obstruction but no "real" crime. Typically, prosecutors add these charges to an indictment, and they do not constitute a standalone charge by themselves. Looks weak.

So what's Smith's legal argument. Trump knew he lost the election but pretended not to know in order to continue pressing his view the election was stolen?

I'm not sure what that would prove. I'm not saying they're morons. Just hateful and obnoxious people. When you have show hosts such as Joe Scarborough that represents the traits I've identified much better than any guest or "expert".

Its not my star witness or my story. Its the House Committee's witness and story. The truth is Joe's as dirty as a pig in the mud hole and as far as the 2024 race goes he's a dead man walking. He's finished. They better find a new Presidential candidate acceptable to the reality denying cult ASAP. Good luck with that.

They're building a case for criminal referrals. Following the process. And the reality is, and we all know it, even if they released a transcript of the witness statements not a single major news outlets, all of which pretend the story doesn't exist, wouldt even acknowledge the existence of said transcript.

Their arsenal of excuses and denials has proven to be ineffective which leaves only the last resort of playing "kill the messenger".

Being under oath isn't a prerequisite for telling the truth nor does being under oath inhibit a witness from lying under certain circumstances. Public statements can be used to help or hinder a case or situation. The main problem is there was no mobilization of troops so whether or not it was discussed is irrelevant. It leaves you with a charge of conspiracy to commit an illegal act of mobilizing national guard troop without committing the act itself. It's BS. Hypothetically if somebody said to another person, "how about you and I go down to the local bank and rob the place?" And the other party responds "no" then there is no robbery. So do you want to charge everyone that discusses something that might be illegal in some interpretation of the law, where no action is taken, with a conspiracy charge under which they can be prosecuted? No, that's why in real life legal situations you see conspiracy charges only as an additional supplemental charge of an indictment for the actual commission of a crime. Unless they've got an axe to grind against the suspect they're trying to nail on anything no matter how flimsy the case.

And yet on the other end of the thought continuum we have overwhelmingly liberal MSM outlets proclaiming anyone that objects to or voices disapproval of Democratic ideologies or programs as Nazi fascist insurrectionists racist white supremacist bigoted gun-loving intellectually inferior homophobic transsexual haters bent on transforming America into a one-party dictatorship as all the on-screen talking heads nod simultaneous to demonstrate their approval and concurrence in that assessment.

We're absolutely way beyond the "theory" stage here and have enough corroborating evidence to remove the "theory" word from any discussions. This is as real as real gets. Still, there is an active conspiracy theory. It's not that Joe Biden had a critical role. Quite the opposite. The conspiracy theory in play here the idea that Joe Biden had no active role in the scheme. One piece of what's missing in the understanding of the arrangement the Biden's had was exactly what all the people making the payment's to "Hunter's business" received in return? In one case we know Burisma got VP Biden to pressure the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor that was investigating the company. Ironically an investigation of corruptions which included participation by the Biden's. So in getting the prosecutor fired Joe Biden was actually covering his own ass too. But for money received from Chinese entities for example, what did they receive in return? Given the status of China as a threat to the US its incomprehensible our law enforcement and intelligence agencies ignored any potential or real national security threats. Lots of people in lots of places have a lot of explaining to do. Namely, they knew what was going on and rather than take action against it, as required by their duty to country, instead either ignored it or inhibited others from investigating. For me, that's an even bigger transgression than what the Biden family business perpetrated. Another is that if anyone wants to make an intelligent argument Joe Biden was not involved then they're obligated to explain who else among the players in this arrangement had any capacity to influence or control government policy, actions, or involvement? To this point the correct answer is nobody. So why is any foreign entity seeking to influence US government actions going to pay Hunter, a guy with no ability to directly influence anything millions of dollars without the knowledge and commitment that Joe would step up and help them out?

A couple comments to the second bullet point. I'd suggest we add a couple items to the insolvency watch. First Medicaid. Another is obligations governments at the Federal, State, and Local levels have made to their employees. Upon retirement providing a series of monthly payments in specific amounts until death, sometimes after death if the pension stream can legally transfer to a spouse or domestic partner. Along with this generous health care benefits. Governments have committed the taxpayers to paying these obligations without regard for their ability to do so along with most pension funds being under-funded. The same is true for many private company pension plans. On the third bullet what a federal default might look like would differ significantly from how a private person or a corporation might resolve "bankruptcy". We need to acknowledge the Treasury, unlike you or I when we might get into a cash crunch, has the ability to "print" money. They could simply through edict or legislation "call in" those bonds and pay off the holders 100 cents on the dollar. Of course, that might result in a lack of confidence in the currency. But Washington would not say, sorry you're not getting your money back. So, some additional thought might be helpful for us to understand what a default event could look like and what might be the consequences.

Something I like to watch is cardboard and box production. It's basic and also a good leading indicator. As almost everything made and sold and bought comes in a box. The numbers aren't seasonally adjusted, or subject to other statistical slight of hand. Production of cardboard was down 9% in Q2. Which means there was less stuff being packed up and moved around and less business activity. My guess is the slowdown gets obvious in Q3 while the lag in the impact of interest rate increases makes itself felt by business, consumer, and government.

VP Harris is incapable of forming basic coherent arguments.

No, you're pathetic. I'm saying they didn't attempt to alter the vote count because you clowns love to mis-represent the facts. No votes were altered. No attempt was made to alter the functioning of the voting machines. Did they violate the law? That's up to the court and a jury to decide. But they didn't alter the results. Let's be clear.

This case involves no attempt to alter the actual vote count. Specifically, the charge is they attempted to download and in 5 instances succeeded in downloading the voting log to "audit" the machine count vs. the official vote tally. Apparently the State for one reason or another denied a requests to perform validation counts. And remember, the threshold of evidence applied when someone supported by your cult of denial is involved. Unless we actually have the evidence in our hands and in front of our eyes there is no evidence anyone did anything. An indictment is not evidence. Its an acknowledgement that a grand jury has heard the prosecutors presentation, heard witness testimony, and concluded an indictment is appropriate.

There's absolutely zero evidence any document in Trump's possession was disclosed to anyone which resulted in a national security exposure. But various clowns here still claim he sold secrets. Idiots.

The most obvious reason is the media blackout, pretending the story doesn't exist so they'd never cover any such release. Besides its a matter of following the process. Prosecutors and investigators building a case don't run to the microphone every time they find a piece of incriminating evidence. What they'll do is use testimony like yesterday's to corroborate other pieces of evidence they've collected independent of each other. Do the dates and times everybody states match? Are the same people confirmed to be involved? Do all the witness statement tell the same story? Rather than make a series of public statements the House Committee will refer a series of indictable offenses to the DOJ for prosecution. That's when you'll start hearing details. That will put the pressure squarely on the DOJ and AG Garland to do something. Ignoring the thing for the media or the justice department won't be an option at that point. Lots of people will be surprised when they hear the story for the first time! My guess is Garland will recuse himself and appoint a special prosecutor. There won't be any softball plea deals at this point either.

Hunter Biden could be doing 10 to 15 and Joe could be impeached, or run out of office via the 25th amendment, or be forced to resign and they'd still refuse to believe. But whether they accept it or not, reality will continue to exist without them.

This might need its own topic soon. France is recommending all EU citizens leave Niger and evacuating anyone wishing to leave. Other European nations are urging their citizens to take them up on the offer. Meanwhile, Burkina Faso and Mali, two nations previous under France's domination, have said that they will consider an attack against Niger by West African ECOWAS states as a de-facto carrying out France’s bidding and as such a declaration of war. Of note, the US has two military bases in the country. One under the Pentagon and the other the CIA.

Corruption is systemic. Once you're in the Washington country club you're granted license to steal, cheat, and lie and provided protection from anyone objecting or attempting to expose your actions and immunity from any legal action.

The missing part of the story is what the Biden's provided to their foreign contacts in return for those payments? Sure, we can conclude at a minimum Hunter was trading on the Biden name. But Hunter had/has no capacity to deliver anything of value to those players, namely favors or influence over government policy or actions. The only family member with that capability was/is Joe Biden. Just using some logical extrapolation would implicate the President.

Saw this too. What isn't clear is the reason or cause. The IDC10 code I see for leprosy is A30.9. I'm going to run a diagnosis code search this week on medical data I have access to and see what pops up.

The most likely cause of outlier results in any series of surveys of the same purpose is the demographic composition of the poll is not representative of the population as a whole.

If anyone still believes in Joe's innocence at this point they're either lying to themselves or incapable of rational thought. But then again these are the same folks that believe Trump sold nuclear top secrets. Even though not a single charge mentioned it. And absent a shred of evidence or proof. But they heard it from Joe Scarborough. So it must be true! And they insist the other guys are in a cult. Comical. Just comical.

What the testimony showed is Joe Biden lied when he said he and his son never discussed his son's business dealings. Now we know Joe not only discussed but participated as well. But still no evidence. My suggestion to anyone expecting House Oversight committee chairman Comer to step up to the microphone and proclaim "now we got him!" needs to temper their expectations here. What we should expect is a series of criminal referrals to the DOJ, 10, 20, 50 counts of some criminal violation. Against various participants. What Comer is going to say to Garland is here is all the evidence and recommendations for criminal prosecution. But everything I'm giving you is everything you already know, The DOJ and the FBI already know about the extent of the Biden family bribery and payoff operation. But you've done nothing. Because you've been told to do nothing. We both know this, everybody in Washington knows this too. You've been ordered not to investigate or prosecute anything. By some person or group of persons. Given this, I suggest that nailing the Biden's here will accomplish little to nothing in the big scheme of things. Take out Joe and another player steps up to the plate for their swing at the cash ball. The real target is something entirely different. Let me explain. Let's start with the laptop. The DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc, all know the laptop and its contents are authentic and belonged to Hunter. They know it was not a classic Russian disinformation operation. They know the contents would be personally and professionally and legally damaging to Joe Biden and to his family. Barr at DOJ knew it was authentic, Garland knows it's authentic, Comey at the FBI knew it was authentic, Wray knows this too. So why did they bury the story and the machine in some basement storage room? Why did they and 51 former IC members that signed a letter concluding it was Russian disinformation lie and continue to lie? Why didn't the CIA and FBI step up and provide evidence during the Trump impeachment that would have confirmed the President had reasonable and probably cause to suspect wrongdoing by the Biden's in relation to Ukraine? More importantly, who gave these people the orders, and who continues to give orders such as the one to to bury that PC in that basement storage room and who told those IC members to lie? What's the identity of the Wizard behind the curtain giving the orders to these people? Who's running the swamp? That's really it. Who's running the protection racket that enables politicians, including the Biden's but so many more, to line their pockets? Who gave the order to the IRS director telling them to stop IRS agents from investigating the tax returns of Hunter Biden and the financial transaction record of the Biden family? The goal isn't to just take down Biden. Its to take down the mafia-like system that enables these kinds of operations to fester. Its the system that provides protection, that calls out FBI SWAT teams in the middle of the night to harass people causing problems, initiates investigations and searches for legal transgressions against dissenters, buries evidence and proof of payoffs, and silences people asking too many questions. Its an organized system of corruption that permeates the leadership of our government. It needs to be taken down to ensure the continuation of our Democracy and Constitution system of government.

That's because outrage is dependent on the actor rather than the act.