I thought Garland was a milquetoast Republican Manchurian candidate plant at the DOJ?

Last edited Wed Sep 4, 2024, 02:32 PM - Edit history (1)

But there are dozens of others whom that shoe fits perfectly.

But he's milquetoast. He's as milque as toast can be. The milquetoastest.

If by milquetoast you mean dog shit soaked in battery acid with bits of broken glass sprinkled on top.

Cuz that’s what’s being served to hundreds of J6 insurrectionists, some of whom will be dining on Garland’s brand of milquetoast for decades…

And the current GOP nominee has spent hundreds of millions trying to avoid even a nibble of Garland’s milquetoast.

So in that case, I agree that Garland is the milquetoastiest, and good on him for it.

If Justice were a restaurant, Garland would be the head chef, and Jack Smith the maître’d ensuring that Garland’s recipe is served piping hot, despite interference from the busboys res critics and corrupt health inspectors.

Some even, heaven forbid, simply walk out to find a deli.

in this context I prefer Brazilian cuisine. The Brazilian government was right on top of Bolsonada's coup attempt. Of course they have had decades of practice. Maybe their left wing upper caste is also not as dismissive, at least publicly, of the threat to democracy.

Rec

The system is broken.

justice system are its practitioners. Everyone could/should seek to improve the DOJ but the performers on that stage seem to fall in two general categories: realists and idealists. Both positions are ineffectual and delusional as one acknowledges iniquities but sees a mountain-too-high and the other, while equally acquainted with its deficiencies, sees no-better-methodology.

The answer is political. In a rationally structured government, it always is. Much of the corruption and irresolution would simply evaporate with a very few and relatively moderate alterations. Two actually; term limits for Supreme Court justices and elimination of the Electoral College.

Perhaps if we made "interference with election integrity" a mandatory capital offence in both state and federal law. That should entertain the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin devotees for a few decades.

Rec

So far, the only people who've faced any form of justice are the bottom-feeders licking crumbs off of the floor, while Trump and his cronies have been gorging themselves at the buffet more or less nonstop since the restaurant opened.

Here's how the discussion usually goes:

Person 1: No one of real consequence has faced any real consequence for January 6th.

Person 2: What do you mean? Here's a long list of anonymous fools who've gotten mostly trivial sentences.

Person 1: Oh. And what about the the ringleaders?

Person 2: Why don't you call Joe Biden and tell him that you think he's terrible for picking Garland, since you obviously have access to all of the evidence and classified information as well as the history of the proceedings, and you know better than all of the lawyers and all of the investigators? My well-placed sources tell me blah blah blah blah blah.

Florence supermax
Solitary confinement 23.5 hours per day

I've thought of him that way for three years now.

And still do.

...horrific situation. How many cases will they bring before the election? Before the election-denying state election officials attack the results? I have ZERO faith that this DOJ has done the necessary work to head these traitors off with anything stronger than this feeble warning.

ONLY if Harris wins will any of this ever be pursued by the DOJ.

Offering a $10 million reward for info on foreign interference isn’t “nothing”.

...or you have just literally misquoted me twice.

I really think of him as the appendix I'll thr Biden administration. He is there but non-functional and useless

It’s far from useless! It’s actually a reservoir of your natural gut bacteria, which allows your digestive tract to replenish itself after
say, a bad case of diarrhea. The concept of it being useless pretty much fell by the wayside back in the early ‘00s.

🖖

Fair enough. I guess there is nothing more useless than Garland

Thanks for standing up for the appendix. Appendices are historically underrated.

Just ask many books, they'll tell you about it! ....

I hadn't heard that before.

I suppose that describes Mr Garland's timidity, mollycoddling and impotence adequately over the past 3 years. I might also suggest pusillanimous and possibly even poltroon.

Mr Garland is the leading legal official in our current government. Another man who tried to overthrow that government three years ago and stole Top Secret legal documents from that government and commits felonies in broad daylight almost weekly against that government....is a free man and running for president of that government that he tried to overthrow.

People all around the world see that that is wrong and think that something should have been done about it. Either Mr Garland just hasn't gotten around to it yet or can't quite put his finger on whether committing crimes is indeed illegal.

Just four more months until poor Mr. Garland can finally crawl out from under his desk and go on home for good.

One that is created from the absence of evidence.

I prefer to exist in the evidence based reality community.

Sick of all this anti-Garland ish. There's so much evidence and plenty of real numbers to shut the mouths of Garland detracter/haters here, but they don't deserve the help when they refuse any search of the facts for themselves.

All they have to do is consider the average daily caseload of the DOJ.

I'm sick of it, too.

A positive video was posted with words of encouragement from Merrick Garland. That was a good thing.

Unfortunately, the first post following that video was an attack by YOU. Before any other DU opinions on Garland's statements were offered, you scrambled to your keyboard and initiated a preemptive strike on those of us on this site who are frustrated, disappointed and angry that our DOJ, in three full years, can't seem to catch the bad guy.

I have only been posting here for a few weeks, but for several years now, Democratic Underground has been where I start my day.

Your posts are quite predictable.

He is a respected AG working for a democratic administration that is in the middle of a difficult election. The US justice system is the problem not Garland, the bashing really needs to stop.

If any of those bashing Garland even bothered to research the facts instead of using insinuations, they might actually learn something.

Garland has led near 8,000 prosecutions in the 3 years, 5 months and 25 days he has been Attorney General.

Yes, I ran the numbers and his work time.

"The US justice system is the problem not Garland,..."

You do know that garland is in charge of the U.S. Justice system, right?

However a clear use of a thesaurus.

the complaint is he hasn't done ENOUGH, and it is VALID

and anything short of that is failure. No one seems to take the time to run the numbers that best define "enough" of what the Garland DOJ has accomplished in getting justice.

We're never going to need to have that conversation with this DOJ.

the timeline and quality of justice through that timeline. When you say there isn't "enough" it's a catchall for all kinds of imagined shortcomings of the AG despite no proof.

the narrative now does it.

the joke is on you.

indulging baseless cynicism is easier.

nm

Better than the nothing we have been getting though, I guess.

IF MG had not sat on his rump his first year and started real investigations, many of the bad court decisions would have been headed off. Garland is a contributor to the threats to democracy. History will so regard him. Garland de facto gave us Aileen Cannon. Remember he is a member of the Federalists and only appointed Jack Smith, kicking, too little ,too late.

I think his initial impulse was to let Trump's role in Jan. 6 slide. He should have looked into that much more aggressively much earlier. Most of the stuff Trump was eventually charged with didn't even stem from the riot, they were related to conspiratorial behavior that could have been investigated in 2021. The DOJ went after all the Q shamen, and I doubt any of them even end up testifying at Trump's Jan. 6 trial.

He does deserve credit for appointing Jack Smith, though. He went with someone aggressive and I don't think that was by accident.

Maybe the fairest line on Garland, would be that he was slow to appreciate the degree of Trump's menace to the system, but he's gotten there over time.

The absence of public information is not evidence of Garland “dragging his feet”.

In fact, Garland persisted despite resistance and obstruction from Trump loyal FBI career employees.

Thanks to Garland, when Cannon dismissed the docs case and voided all evidence and testimony collected by Smith, there was still a substantial core of evidence remaining that Garland’s team had collected from the search at Mar a Lago before Smith was appointed.

The argument over Garland’s investigations of Trump has been debated for years on DU, with verifiable facts consistently revealing the truth when compared to emotional arguments based on opinions derived from the lack of public information available during the first couple of years of the investigations.

The fact that Garland bashing has resurfaced now means we are in a post Labor day news lull, and things are going so well for Harris that some folks need something to argue about, and I guess this is it.

Because, if you actually read the report, it reveals that Garland persisted with investigating Trump in the face of resistance and obstruction from Trump-loyal career employees.

Notice the headline says “DOJ resisted” and not “Garland resisted” because the latter isn’t true. Some of the DOJ resistance documented in the report came prior to Garland even being sworn in.

The authors of the WaPo report tried to create a Garland hit piece, using quotes from Trump loyalists with an axe to grind, but in the end, the evidence showed the opposite.

Here’s an evidence based analysis that refutes the standard take that the WaPo report proves Garland dragged his feet on investigating Trump, as well as showing that the WaPo report was incomplete and inaccurate in telling the whole story:

https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/06/19/the-wapo-shows-there-should-be-more-scrutiny-of-steve-dantuono/

He wanted the evidence to "bubble up" and force his hand. Well, he got that eventually, but we haven't gotten a Trump J6 or classified documents trial and might never.

I understand that Garland has a difficult job, and that overreach can be a real problem, but I also haven't forgotten watching orange man commit treason in broad fucking daylight, and hearing Glenn Kirchner opine that there was sufficient evidence already being reported in the media to charge the bastard. That was like two full years before we got our first Trump indictment.

You can claim that the rank and file at DOJ were the problem, but it is in fact, his job to get them on board with his agenda. Leaders don't get to evade responsibility by blaming their subordinates.

Not to mention confusion and misinformation.

Most TV lawyers tell you what they think you want to hear.

I don’t believe Steve D’Antuono’s name ever passed Kirchner’s lips, yet it was D’Antuono, not Garland, who did the lion’s share of foot dragging around the Trump investigations. Garland, as head of the DOJ, had the responsibility to circumvent these obstructions, but unlike TV crime shows, that doesn’t happen with the snap of one’s fingers.

Did you read the emptywheel article?

Let me know when those show up.

I'm done arguing. We'll see if Harris keeps Garland on if she wins. I'm betting she won't.

Although we have different perspectives on the realistic timetables for those results.

I don’t expect Harris to keep Garland, which is fine by me. Whoever is the next AG, I don’t expect to see results from existing cases any quicker, mostly because the bulk of existing cases are currently under the control of the Judiciary branch, not the DOJ.

As for possible new investigations or charges, well, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?

It's domestic that is continuing the coup. Until we have teeth for going after and punishing domestic terrorists, we're screwed IMNSHO.

This is important national news

We shall see, time will tell, if, they are really serious. Hopefully they are, but...

There were indictments

fed's are playing catch up, now, or trying to. If, the convicted felon wins, all those charges will disappear.
Time that has passed 46 months since 2020 election and now we have indictments, less than 70 days before 2024 election.
Mueller report, election interference, un-redacted, not yet 7 years ago +/-. No indictment. Statute of Limitations ran out 2 years ago +/-.

Well the convicted felon (by a state court) has put that old myth, 'no one is above the law', in its grave.

But we are warning, don't let it happen again. See what we have done, now.

a fraction will ever be charged.

Which is ridiculous.

“Cross this line, you die! OK, cross this line, you die!”
😁
*From part of his stand up routine back in the ‘80s, making fun of Muammar Qaddafi, and his “lines of death.”

are we better armed.? Why does TSF want to shut down gov't?... to help foreign actors?

That is all

I bet they're really afraid that he'll get to charging them with crimes in the next decade or so.

with early voting starting before that.

and we will hold you accountable.

a warning mention how many hundreds had been indicted.

So why the F isn't he doing something about the blatant voter suppression happening in Texas? 1M voters purged from the registry, executing search warrants on abuelitas' homes who are community organizers and are only trying to GOTV among Hispanics!

exactly ZERO of those ultimately behind this ongoing threat to democracy. They haven't even chosen the knives they'll assiduously carry into this gun fight.

Do you - there is a task force - there are more lawyers hired.

lock em up

Just delay, delay until it runs out.
I sure wish we'd done them like Brazil.

So the doj is proactively "detecting and combatting" FOREIGN threats to our elections, and are willing to respond to violent threats against pollworkers and officials (they specifically did NOT say 'domestic threats') after those threats have been made or acted upon.

But I guess it's still up to volunteers like Mark Elias and the American Bar Association election task force to try to stop this election from being interfered with by the American rightwing.

Oh well.

Because that oughta do it.

...in a long, boring, monotone ramble about other things designed to get the viewer to either fall asleep or switch to anything else.

...statements, so I guess it worked.

Link to tweet

It means any performer or reporter who is recorded live on radio or television.

The term is used to indicate a person's function in the broadcast and is not meant to imply anything about their ability or the quality of their performance.

I suspect the quotes were used here because it was part of the material quoted from the unnamed media company's website (the rest of which is highlighted in blue).

somewhat related, during the Alex Jones trial, one of the company representatives called InfoWars a "single-talent company", which i thought was funny because InfoWars has numerous on-air people other than Jones.

The views speak volumes😀

Garland is milquetoast in temperament etc.; I have always said that the only issue with Garland is that he has the disposition of a Judge, that said, I stand by that statement.

And I like it! Trumpsters can go suck eggs.

ago about this issue. They seemed to me to be taking a 'sky is falling' approach, and I pointed out that our job is to get out the vote and make sure people are registered, have a plan to vote and are working together. Not to mention voting ourselves

I went on to tell the person that there are others (you know Harris and Walz are ON THIS), and it is good to see DOJ involved as well.

You know what I'm thinking is that as much noise as Trumpy will make about 'bloodbaths' and so on, and these weird people who plan to 'monitor' voting sites with open-carry assault weapons, DOJ is gonna be on it, as well as a legion of lawyers. There was a number posted that people could save and call in case someone was trying to intimidate them while they are trying to vote.

This Garland thing is great because hopefully it will serve as a deterrant and instead of a horrible Jan 6 type mob, we will get a bunch of whimpers instead.

I'm in Colorado, so don't anticipate much trouble of that kind here, but there are others in different states, like TX and GA that may be in a different boat.

I did not save that 'who to call if people are intimidating you at the polling place' phone number, and if anyone sees this, and has the number voters can call, can you please post - maybe in its own OP, because it is that important.

Nice post.

instead of another school shooting.

It’s getting lots of coverage now

Talk is cheap. MORE should've done and long ago.

Which is precisely why Texas' criminal AG, Paxton, has been emboldened enough to be pulling NAZI like raids on Latinos, and Latino voter organizations, harassing and intimidating Democratic counties, and obstructing the mailing of voter registration forms.

These vote suppressing, fascist insurectionists should've been locked the fk up, long ago.

I'm going to say something that many (not you) are going to say is "apologist".

First of all, I have a long history of cops in my family, including my youngest son. For those of you who think things aren't moving fast enough IN THE OPEN, consider that any LEO who conducts his or her investigation like that, wouldn't be able to pass the case along for prosecution. A good investigation is a QUIET investigation. We can see the details in court, in the filings and the trials, and not before.

Secondly, AG Garland had to clean up the mess in DOJ left by his predecessors, so that he COULD start getting these important investigations underway. Bear in mind he doesn't personally do it, but the thousands across multiple departments, DO. Again, silence is actually golden in a solid investigation. Why on earth would DOJ or any other law enforcement agency have to be obligated to show every way in which they are proceeding with an investigation? That way lies a loss in court. That is not what any of us wants.

Finally, as the one woman was saying, this has been an ongoing thing, and they have gotten convictions already.

Is this taking much longer than I like? Of course it is. But, it is moving, and moving in the right direction. You all might want to remember this is the biggest investigation in all of its different parts, that DOJ has ever undertaken.

Is this taking much longer than I like? Of course it is. But, it is moving, and moving in the right direction. You all might want to remember this is the biggest investigation in all of its different parts, that DOJ has ever undertaken.

in their efforts to weaken American democracy, including relentless flooding the zone with bullshit. They have suckered the magats into submissive obedience, that's for sure.

First part

But this shit should have been tackled head on after 2020...ruling out 2016-2020 altogether.

Justice delayed is justice denied. And here we are.

So glad he is with us!

I appreciate hearing directly from AG Garland, rather than talking heads who too often speak merely to fill time between prescription meds commercials.

Anyone interested in reading the 32 page indictment:

https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/u.s._v._kalashnikov_and_afanasyeva_indictment_0.pdf


I have to say, the amount of pressure and responsibility on this man's shoulders NONE of us could possibly imagine, because if some folks did, they would not be so quick to criticize and belittle and demand. It's disgusting to see.

You're welcome.

Rec