I was hoping CG would look at those pictures.
Likely he would experience a bit of congestive dissonance. From his comment on this thread
“ IMHO President Trump is a disgrace to the US for his clownishness, naked bigotry, and authoritarian impulses.”

I read the report. If even one of those "events" had truly been obstruction do you think that crew would have let it slide? NBL. They would have jumped all over it. Mueller would have at the least said they found obstruction but couldn't indict or charge a sitting President. that would have given the House all they needed for impeachment hearings to start. Now we are going through the travesty of the hearings trying to get Mueller to say soothing he withdrew after the 9 1/2 minute mumble fest.
I don't think he will willingly go through another retraction of statements like he had to do.
He may be getting senile but he's not there yet.

"Obstruction of justice" is a legal term pertaining to impeding the administration of justice under the law. It is now being re-packaged as a political concept meaning to object in any way, including the use of one's own legal rights, to try to thwart the Democrats' political agenda. "Obstruction of justice" does not mean obstruction of collectivist 'social justice'.

The Mueller "investigation" was not charged with investigating a crime. It was instituted as a fishing expedition against Trump, in the name of Russian "colluuuusion" (which isn't a crime either, no matter it is pronounced), because the instigators, including anti-Trump officials in the FBI, believed that Trump must be guilty of something.

They didn't believe it possible that such a person could win an election against the establishment because they think they are so superior in so many ways, and know that the system is rigged on their behalf against outsiders. Ergo, they concluded that Trump must have committed a "crime" to get elected.

They conducted an "investigation" not into a crime, but a person, believing that if they only looked enough they would find a crime which in turn could be leveraged to force Trump out of office, which was the intent from the beginning. That is the mentality of a kangaroo court, not "administration of justice", and not the way the American system of justice is supposed to work. We investigate known crimes for which there is at least plausible evidence that they exist, not as a of putting someone away you want to "get" from the outset because you consider your political enemies to be criminals by nature.

The Mueller squad was itself of dubious Constitutionality. It was not established under statute -- the law authorizing politically "independent" special prosecutors expired long ago -- and Mueller was appointed with de facto powers greater than those held by Constitutional officers for which Senate confirmation is required. No crime was specified for investigation, only an open ended personal investigation in search of criminality.

Mueller proceeded to hire politically motivated anti-Trump activists, including Clinton campaign activists, who shared the real goal of the kangaroo investigation. This included the infamous Andrew Weissmann known for unethical prosecutorial tactics.

Despite the strong-arm tactics in its "investigation" the Mueller organization could find no crime, let alone criminal guilt, probable cause, or proof.

The Mueller organization proceed to write a prosecutorial "report" indicting by innuendo, including employing Weissman's overly broad redefinition of "obstruction of justice" already rejected by the Supreme Court with its 9-0 overturning of Weissmann's prosecutorial conviction of the Arthur Anderson accounting firm in the Enron case.

They had no legal case and knew it, but cast their "recommendations" into the political arena, begging Congress to pursue impeachment in order to keep the game going for the original intended political purpose of forcing Trump out of office. In that deliberate switch in the audience and intent for the report they exceeded their authority to report back to the Attorney General on the feasibility of specific prosecution for indictable crimes committed, if any.

Part of the politics of the ongoing political flim flam of treating a prosecutor's "report" as if it were an independent investigation with an objective conclusion, to be politically accepted and acted on.

A prosecutor makes a "case" for his prosecution. He is not the judge and does not make a judicial determination. Under a legitimate legal proceeding the defendant is also allowed under the law to make his case and there is an argument before the court. The biased, politically oriented Mueller "report" does not do that and is not the "last word". It even deliberately left out exculpatory evidence in its selective "quoting" and reinterpreting of witness statements in its overtly political appeals.

Yet we are to believe that the hysterical accusations have been objectively established in a "report" by independent scholars only interested in objective law, not a prosecutor looking something to prosecute, and not a prosecutor's organization with a political intent.

Even with that strategy, all they had left for their promotion was the vague, politically-redefined "obstruction of justice" accusation condemning Trump for daring to employ his own rights as a citizen, and presidential authorities, in speaking out against the corruption.

Without the "investigation" that Trump and many others denounced for what it was, there could be no possibility of obstruction of justice -- it's another attempt at a "process crime" created by the investigators themselves -- and there is still no evidence of a crime to investigate or to "obstruct" under the legal meaning of that term.

The Mueller organization and its supporters still cannot believe that Trump committed no crimes to win the election, just as they still can't face the fact that he did win. They believe, and we are expected to believe, that Trump must have done something to destroy or hide evidence of his "guilt", and so the game continues. They have no evidence of Trump destroying evidence, but their feelings are all they need, and we are all constantly badgered to feel the same under their dark conspiracy theory that did not survive their own "investigation".

Such is the nature of the politically-inspired "obstruction of justice" accusations that we are now told to take at face value. Objective people do not jump onto such hysterical band wagons.

Accusations and what-ifs. In America we have something called burden of proof.

In the case against President Trump, there was no evidence to destroy, nor was there any indication that anything had been tampered with. All subpoenaed documents were handed over, and all witnesses subpoenaed testified. Only if you imagine there must have been some item of evidence that had been so well hidden that no one suspected it even existed can you apply your destruction/tampering/hiding evidence case. The very weak charges of obstruction are based solely on statements the President made out of frustration, and on which he took no action.

"Is this true? "

Yes.

The Mueller report makes repeated statements that there was no underlying crime identified or able to be charged. It lays out a timeline that clearly shows that at no time were they even considering Obstruction until Trump fired Comey - something the report also demonstrates is itself not obstruction of justice.

"Couldn't someone obstruct justice by successfully destroying evidence? In this scenario, there would be enough evidence to prove obstruction but not the alleged crime the destroyed evidence may have pointed to?"

No. You're make the predefined assumption there was a crime for which there is evidence to destroy. This is not how proper investigation and law enforcement works. This is where the "no crime, no obstruction" assertion comes from. If there is no crime, there is no evidence to destroy or hide. If there is no crime, thus no evidence to destroy, how do you charge someone with destruction of evidence?

That said, there is a loose and vague description which says you can obstruct in spite of no actual crime. However, the bar is set much higher - as admitted by Mueller's report. As the report laid out, there are three absolutely critical aspects to a proper charge of obstruction.

1. There has to be an "obstructive act",
2. There has to be a "nexus" (ie. a direct and incontrovertible connection) between the act, and
3. A corrupt intent to obstruct.

If any of those fail, there is no legal charge of obstruction possible. The Mueller report repeatedly shows that in every case they investigated, they lacked the necessary trifecta. Every. Single. Case. Note that a crime being committed is not listed in that criteria. Thus the lack of an original crime is, indeed, irrelevant.

I detailed much of the report in https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... so I won't repeat it here. However, lets run with your alleged scenario.

If there is no crime, there is no evidence to destroy, thus this does preclude - in your scenario - the act of "destroying evidence" to be an obstructive act. Thus right off the bat the lack of a crime means that whatever was destroyed was not an obstructive act, thus failing the first criteria. But lets step away from the destruction of evidence example because the lack of a crime automatically eliminates it from the realm of possibility. Let us look at Trump firing Comey.

Trump firing Comey is not an obstructive act, for several reasons. We can even assume there is a crime in there somewhere Trump could theoretically be wanting to hide. The act was no obstructive because 1) Comes repeatedly told Trump he was not being investigated 2) Trump fired him because he wouldn't tell that to the public, and 3) Trump explicitly told him to keep investigating the possible Russia interference even if it meant people in his campaign.

Because there was no investigation for him to obstruct, there was no nexus. Because Trump explicitly told him to keep investigating, we have evidence that there was no act that could even be considered obstruction. Because the reason for firing was not to corruptly stop an investigation or impede it, the act of firing can not be deemed corrupt.

Finally, as I detailed in that thread I referenced above, there has to a reasonable expectation that the an action would naturally lead to the alleged result. Trump could literally gone to the Secretary of the Department of Education, said he wanted Comey out to prevent him from investigating Trump for a crime he committed, instructed her to fire Comey, and it would fail the tests Mueller's report correctly outlines. Why? Because there is no reasonable way that would have resulted in the outcome expressed.

Similarly, on a much broader scale, a defendant pulling the fire alarm on their way to the court, or a person if interest pulling the fire alarm on their way into the precinct (or even when the police enter their building) is not obstruction because there is no reasonable expectation that the former leads to producing the outcome. On that grounds as well, even the firing of Comey fails the test.

Even more deeply let us assume a crime happened, and evidence was destroyed. Do we have obstruction? Not yet. The person doing it had to do it with corrupt intent. This is the underlying reason there is so much behind the "no crime == no obstruction". How do you prove a corrupt intent if there was nothing to cover up? That has to be a very high bar. How would you prove murder if the "victim" is still alive?

So your second question is answered: "nope".

I think there is a case to be made for this on different grounds. It is still something I'm reasoning through, but the gist of it is that just from a basic standpoint we are too large. The combination of size and geographical diversity is too much for a functioning representative government.

By geographical diversity I mean the vast functional differences between region. Ignore the political difference and even just look at the social and economic differences between, lets say NYC,NY and even Austin, TX.

The economic differences alone preclude the ability to set any national policy that adequately considers and covers both of these two. Even is "trivial" as minimum wage can't be resolved - it is far cheaper to live in Austin than NY for starters. Housing costs (rent) alone are often more than double in NY compared to Austin (ATX). For purchasing it is 2-3 times as much - and that is comparing on an apartment basis, not even the house market.

The median 3BR, 2Bath home price in Austin is around 325k - and as someone who has shopped in that area that is a rather nice property level, too. In Manhattan that'll be around 2 million. And I'd put money on that Austin house being significantly larger. Food costs run 60-80% more expensive in NYC vs. ATX. Virtually every metric is higher in NYC than ATX. No minimum wage set to ATX levels will come near being enough in NYC. Any minimum wage based on NYC will be a princely amount in ATX and cause massive shocks to the economy - and not good ones, either.

Conversely, tax rates based on NYC would annihilate ATX families, and ATX rates would starve the NYC government (lets assume that to be a bad one just to play nice, here. ;) ). Any government covering those areas that went beyond the absolute bare bones functionality would look nothing like today, and very much like the kind in the early 1800s - when it had so little power and influence over the lives of the populace that people valued sitting on a porch with some tea or lemonade over shlepping down to somewhere to vote for some schmoe who could neither help nor hinder you.

We know beyond reasonable doubt that the human brain is wired for small group societies, not large ones. When a small group of smaller groups spread out over a large territory and no illusion of proximity because of things like going from coast to coast physical in less than a day or talking with someone anywhere in the country - or indeed in the world - immediately, we could manage it fine.

People often describe this as the world getting proverbially smaller. I used to as well, but I am leaning more and more toward a different phrasing: the world isn't getting smaller, our perceived individual world, and our individual reach, is getting larger. When it'd take a week to contact someone two states away, you mostly didn't care what they did. When you feel like they are (or they physically are) on the other side of a thin wall, you suddenly find you care much more.

There might be a way to diminish this by combining a more stringent, layered federalist setup (one which is continued further down, ie. fed -> sate, state -> county, county -> city style) with strict limitations on population density and district size, but that is probably less likely than splitting us up into smaller jurisdictions. Yet I find it to be more likely to be effective.

I'm not sure at what set of ratios or numbers we reach the tipping point toward collectivism, but I'm confident it is there. In a similar vein it has been pointed out that when it came to seeing women as equals, it was never the rough and ready areas where women stood shoulder to shoulder with men out on the ranch or farm that had a problem with it - indeed they were letting women own property, vote, and run for office even before the country was founded. Even more pointedly, the last places to allow women the privilege to vote were the high density places where women didn't do the hard work.

I know of one time and area in history where this problem was avoided despite the density. The pre-Civil War not-so-wild West. Honestly the details we have of that era and area was one of the most shocking revelations from history to me.

The federal government had a small military presence, but it was only there in case there was trouble between the citizens and the local indians that were not able to be handled by them - and intervention of that style was exceedingly rare prior to the Civil War. I've only been able to find a few recorded incidents, which orders of magnitude more places where peaceful coexistence was the norm - ad virtually, if not all, took place under Lincoln.

So absent the federal government, what did they do? In a sense the broke up the government. There was no regional government monopoly. You had various legal entities with their own laws and system. If you were part of it, which was voluntary (you could choose another and "switch") you were under that jurisdiction. If you got into a conflict with someone in a different jurisdiction, the systems of each, if they had not already established an inter-system mechanism would hash it out. If you didn't like the result you could try to get into a different one and try again, but that wasn't assured.

It sounds absolutely bonkers, I know. And we even have a word for it, one that I was absolutely against because I believed it unworkable until I discovered that history. But before I note it, I want to address one more aspect of the above system: you could be kicked out of a jurisdiction.

This wasn't a physical thing, but more a no longer covered thing. This was bad. This was very bad for you. Think of it like a very real and immediate excommunication from a church. This put you "outside of the law". It meant that you had no law protecting you. You could kill someone "outside of the law" and suffer no penalty because they had no protection.

This put significant pressure to behave, and if you did get kicked out to try like hell to find some group to let you in. You did not want to be an "outlaw".

Further, and tying that back into the topic of splitting up a large nation, groups could split or dissolve by vote or choice. If enough of you didn't like a decision of your cattleman's association you could band together and form a new one, and enter it to an agreement, much like treaties, with the previous one or with new ones. There are no recorded incidents that I have found (and boy have I tried!) of this involving violence or bloodshed.

When crime sprees would get out of hand, these various jurisdictions would band together, raise a temporary posse, put down the spree, and disband. We have the records demonstrating this in what are now large cities in California. Mostly these events were very short-lived as they were highly effective.

What was this system? They didn't call it this at the time, but we could now, and some well researched historians have done so: anarcho-capitalism.

There was no central authority, associations were voluntary, dissolvable, and privately created, while often being centered on an economic activity such as mining, farming, ranching, etc.. There was a "market for law", and the competition one would expect. They were based on individual freedom and private property.

Even in the more communal or business partnership style associations where there was "collective use property", the property remained under private ownership and authority. Government was as minimal is it could be. There was no standing police force in the vast majority of associations, no standing courts, and often no lawyers. Sometimes there were even barred by law. That is a sentiment I suspect many of us could get behind, even some of my lawyer friends.

But notice the key distinction there: there was a market and competition for law and order, privately run and managed, with geographical overlap. Each "government" was pretty small and, the tendency of cattleman's associations to use hired guns for final resolution where they felt they had no choice, largely non-coercive. Internally there had to be some, sure. But you were free to appeal, and ultimately free to take your own property and go somewhere else if they'd have you. Crime was shockingly low as well.

That pretty much started coming to an end as Lincoln began trying to establish more central control, and ended absolutely with the Civil War's ending. In many places murder was recorded as very rare - sometimes you'd go years without one - while in the more dense areas back east, it was commonplace. As the federal government went for total control they'd send out lawyers and police to "protect" the frontier families from "killers" - to places that had never had a murder. In every such case I've seen, murders followed. This was even reported on and recorded contemporaneously.

So it may also be the case that being divided isn't a problem, but perhaps not being divided enough could be. Ultimately, it is looking to me more and more that we've exceeded our political carrying capacity, to coin a phrase.

How do you propose to "split up the country", house by house in neighborhood by neighborhood? There are people supporting the false alternative spread across the country in all states, with the worst premises spreading everywhere.

"Time for a splitup of the country is some way. Its totally divided anyway"
If the government were strictly limited in power and spending, it wouldn't matter. I don't know a practical way it could happen, but it seems like limiting government gets at the root cause more than creating separate governments.