054 - The Monster Idiot Fog

Guest host CHARLES STAR and RANDOLPH BRICKEY break down THE MUELLER REPORT, up to and including: The part everyone loves ... THEME ... Charles' intro ... A light 400 pages of high crimes ... No Collusion Section ... Cheating ships passing in the night ... Carter Page: Sincere Russophile ... Unanswered Page pitch emails ... Two Russian Paths: Hacking and bozos ... Russia "skeptics" capitalizing on #Resistance weirdo straw men ... Valid, independently reportable corruption stories ... Young Trump imprinting on strongmen vs. Kingly ambition ... Terminal international solipsism ... Fictional Puerto Rico ... Michael Flynn: Kidnaping and murder-for-hire plotter ... Brain-wormed mercenaries ... Let's hack the server ... Find 30,000 phantom emails ... There was and is something to investigate ... Been to Prague ... "Skeptics'" mischaracterize mainstream journalism ... BREAK ... There is only power now ... Don Jr. wanted to collude so hard ... Was something of value offered? ... No prior cases ... Was it a willful violation? ... Too dumb for culpability ... Unpursued ... Is is it de minimis/valuable enough? ... Unresolved ... How semi-cooperative ... "We didn't delete our texts and don't know why they're gone" ... Hope Hicks, Moral Person ... Footnote #489: My handwriting! ... Public service refusal ... Manafort, Randolph and Mortimer Duke ... The first moderating voice was a Ukrainian hatchet man ... BREAK ... Was it obstruction of justice? ... Ahhhh, I'm f*cked ... Bob Barr's BS framing of obstruction ... Chris Christie: Sagely corrupt ... You can't fire the FBI ... Rosenstein: Deliberate dope ... Pages of Comey vindication ... Joe Friday obstruction facts ... KT MacFarland ... Bannon and Kushner: The biggest liars ... Reince Priebus ... This everyday totally bizarre semi-legal illegal stuff ... Definitely obstruction, but unindictable ... Tolling the statute ... Untested formal rule ... Mueller: The non-conflict-of-interest golf membership ... BREAK ... Dictated statement for Jeff Sessions ... Jared Kushner originating adoption lie ... Hope Hicks, redux ... Don Jr.'s one flash of genius ... Democratic setup claim ... What acts were definitely obstructive? ... Pardon to Manafort, Cohen's statements to Congress, attempts to fire Mueller ... Failures to obstruct ... Lifelong privilege is not an affirmative defense ... Success is not a requisite for an obstruction of justice case ... BREAK ... Jerome Corsi: Dumb, with Korsakoff's Syndrome ... "That never happened" ... Inky Carter Page ... Should they impeach? ... Investigate, investigate, investigate ... If you don't enforce subpoenas, it's a constitutional crisis ... Staff up AND keep impeachment on the table ... House Oversight Committee's subpoena ... AOC ... 1880 legal citation ... Regulating finance ... Blind trust fakeout ... Preserving the House subpoena power ... Gorsuch recusal ... Goodnight! • MUSIC: "Balalaika," by Firewater • "Trans-Continental Hustle," by Gogol Bordello • "Un Jeune Homme Bien," by Petula Clark • "From Ankara to Izmir," by Douglas, Barenberg and Meyer • Intro theme courtesy of Ted Leo.