“But the Mueller report doesn’t exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice”
That’s the talking point from the Democrats right now. And to be blunt, it’s a crock.
It very much reminds me of the “Kavanaugh didn’t prove he didn’t molest Christine Blasey Ford” mutterings of outraged Democrats after the attack on Kavanaugh fell though. But you can’t prove a negative. In law, there’s either evidence to sustain a charge or no evidence. Exoneration only can occur if you’re talking about something on the order of obtaining a video of the real perpetrator murdering the victim, or the fingerprints on the murder weapon being analyzed and found to belong to an entirely different person than the accused.
That sort of exonerating evidence simply is not possible in a case like this. And those who use the “it doesn’t exonerate him” reasoning as a talking point know full well it’s the case, and that what they’re saying is an aburdity. They just hope their intended audience can’t figure that out.
I wrote all of the above a moment ago, and just now I heard this from Rudy Giuliani. The whole thing is well worth listening to, but note what he says starting at around 9:50 (I’m putting it on a page that requires a click to get to it, because the video is one of those autoplay things that I detest):
Don’t forget that Trump made a complete hash of firing Comey. He got Rosenstein to write a memo explaining how Comey had violated DOJ regulations, then fired Comey and said he was doing it because Comey wouldn’t state publicly that Trump was not under investigation, all this after Trump said he expected loyalty from his FBI chief. This doesn’t amount to obstruction–after all, Wray was on the job after a few weeks– but it doesn’t look good. And most of Team Mueller hates Trump.
Gregg Jarrett pointed out today on “The Next Revolution” that Mueller’s “not exonerating Trump on obstruction of justice” was a weasel move done by any bad prosecutor when a jury acquits the defendant. They always state that acquittal does not prove the defendant’s innocence. What a crock!
And Alan Dershowitz pointed out that the job of a prosecutor is to MAKE A DECISION, i.e. yes or no on inditing. This was the last weasel statement the 13 angry democrats had after finding no evidence.
And again, when there is no crime there cannot possibly be obstruction of justice.
“They just hope their intended audience can’t figure that out.” – Neo
Well, they declared that Hillary must be innocent because she was never indicted; and since they know darn well she was guilty as sin, then Trump not being indicted can’t possibly mean HE was innocent.
Obstruction of justice to many people simply means someone obviously guilty using any means necessary to make a victim lie in favour of him in a court of law in order to allow this criminal to escape justice. Is it obstruction if you are innocent and all you did is telling someone intentionally trying to get you into legal troubles with lies to stop lying about you? Trump has been completely exonerated of Russian collusion, there could be no intentions to obstruct any investigation to cover up a crime since it has been proven no crime had been committed, any actions trump has taken within his presidential power can be interpreted simply as him using legal means to stop a malicious political witch hunt against him
Heh, falsely accuse someone of a 100% made up, bogus charges.
Drag him (and his supporters) through the mud for two years, heaping accusation upon accusation, slander upon slander on him (and them). With the perfervid assistance of a crazed, malicious, destructive media that has lost ALL sense of ethics and judgement.
Then, begrudgingly decide that there’s no evidence of a crime—but then insist that this is meaningless because Trump MUST be guilty.
By definition. (After building up a bonfire for the auto da fe, and feeding it non-stop with flammables, it’s only “proper” I guess to insist that “where there’s smoke there must be fire!”)
Then accuse HIM of obstructing justice.
(Folks, I think we have a new definition of “Chutzpa” here, courtesy of the hit-men and women—can’t forget the women—in the Democratic Party. Take a bow, you bozos!!)
Yep, these guys are pros.
Alas, they tried to whack Trump and just couldn’t do it. Did whack—good and hard—some of his supporters, though, together with their families. For which, the whackers no doubt have derived immense satisfaction. (Wouldn’t put it past them if they put some notches in their belts for these successful scalpings….)
Yep, a new definition of Chutzpa. Hey Jerry? Adam? Diane? How ’bout it? (Should we ask Dershowitz for an opinions on this?)
But GUILTY!!!
If Trump here is guilty of anything, he’s 100% guilty of obstruction of INJUSTICE.
And of DEFYING these sordid Stalinists.
Amadeus 48 on March 25, 2019 at 12:49 am at 12:49 am said:
Don’t forget that Trump made a complete hash of firing Comey. He got Rosenstein to write a memo explaining how Comey had violated DOJ regulations, then fired Comey and said he was doing it because Comey wouldn’t state publicly that Trump was not under investigation, all this after Trump said he expected loyalty from his FBI chief. This doesn’t amount to obstruction–after all, Wray was on the job after a few weeks– but it doesn’t look good. And most of Team Mueller hates Trump.
* * *
I thought this comment at PowerLine looked familiar, although at PLB he evoked a response.
Amadeus 48 • 2 hours ago
Don’t forget that Trump made a complete hash of firing Comey. He got Rosenstein to write a memo explaining how Comey had violated DOJ regulations, then fired Comey and said he was doing it because Comey wouldn’t state publicly that Trump was not under investigation, all this after Trump said he expected loyalty from his FBI chief. This doesn’t amount to obstruction–after all, Wray was on the job after a couple of weeks– but it doesn’t look good. And most of Team Mueller hates Trump.
MacTheLife Amadeus 48 • 2 hours ago
And don’t forget that the top echelons of the FBI and the DOJ and the former President and the most recent Democrat Presidential candidate all conspired to frame an elected President and have him removed from office. Don’t forget that. And so far so these evil people are allowed to walk free. They should face the most severe penalty our justice system offers for their attempt to steal and election and corrupt our law enforcement agencies in the process.
Related (from Legal Insurrection):
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/03/the-coup-has-failed-but-continues/
Not enough has been said about the fact that Andrew Weissman was rebuked by the Supreme Court in the Arthur Anderson case. The court ruled 9 to zero to reverse that conviction. Its was too late for the corporation and the 5,000 employees who lost their jobs.
Weissman was Mueller’s lead prosecutor.
What happens to a cult when it turns out their central, most important idea is proven wrong? The cult doubles down and believes in it even more!
Leftists fixate on a lot of stupid ideas. One after another those ideas are proven wrong. And leftists just believe in them harder.
A famous Sociological studies from the 1950’s(!) settled this question ‘scientifically’. See “When Prophecy Fails”
by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter.
“But you can’t prove a negative.”
Exactly! Hammer, meet head of nail.
I cannot prove that Nancy Pelosi is not an extraterrestrial alien sent to Earth to create divisions in our society prior to the final invasion.
The complaint in regard to ‘obstruction of justice’ was facially silly. There’s no need for any explicit ‘exoneration’.
Well, they declared that Hillary must be innocent because she was never indicted; and since they know darn well she was guilty as sin, then Trump not being indicted can’t possibly mean HE was innocent.
Good point.
The United States has numerous immediately obvious problems.
To name just a few—the skyrocketing number of annual deaths from drug overdoses—now around 70,000 per year and headed higher, the invasion across our Southern border, the hollowing out of the middle of our country in terms of jobs and opportunities, Islamic terrorism, the growing coasts vs. the heartland divide, the shrinking middle class, declining rates of life expectancy, schools that don’t teach, coupled with massive student loan debt that has crippled a whole generation–and prevented many of these “graduates” from getting a good job, marrying, buying house, and having children–crumbling infrastructure, the increasing challenge from China, our massive national debt, the coming wave of massive economic and societal change that robotics and AI are going to bring to this country, etc., etc.
Yet, what has Congress, what has the MSM, what have the Left and Democrats spent their time on, these last couple of years?
A phony political hatchet job aimed at a Republican President they don’t like.
What have they done about any of the major problems listed above?
Essentially nothing.
Moreover, stepping back, and looking at things from a whole Earth, Cosmic, future of the human race perspective, over the last few years evidence has been collected and accumulating that points to the Earth having been bombarded by a meteor some 12,950 years ago that broke up in the atmosphere, and whose heat and impacts caused such severe “climate change”—a period of unusual cold and flooding—that it wiped out 35 major species, including the woolly mammoths, and it looks like this meteoric bombardment probably decimated existing human populations.
Bottom-line?
If we want to have some guarantee of the survival the human race, it is imperative that we institute a massive project to get a large human breeding population off this vulnerable planet—home to every human being there is—and situated elsewhere in our solar system, transported to a location in which they would be protected against and survive, should such a catastrophic bombardment hit the Earth again–it has in the past, and it will again in the future.
That’s the kind of actually critical project the whole world and our country should be urgently focused and working on, not trying to find imaginary collision and obstruction on the part of the President Trump.
Snow on Pine bottom line you can’t get there from here. Space is too big, life is too short, and stuff happens.
I agree that other Congress has done nothing worthwhile since 1994. There was a brief period when a few reforms were accomplished. The Clinton impeachment was a huge waste and Gingrich was driven out, leaving the GOP majority in the hands of corrupt Denny Hastert. Nothing worth while happened for the next 20 years. Clinton ignored the middle east in spite of the Cole and the embassy bombings. He tried for a Nobel by bringing Arafat back from Tunisia, a huge mistake.
NASA went for making Muslims feel better for 8 years. No space travel for us.
I think defenders of the Republican Congresses which occupied office between 1994 and 2007 maintain that the House would pass reform legislation which would then die in the Senate.
The fiscal position of the United States began to improve as soon as the Democratic Party lost control of the Congressional committee architecture and the Republicans did manage to pass a consequential piece of reform legislation. Other than that, Congress did nothing of interest to anyone not employed on Capitol Hill or employed to study the work of people on Capitol Hill. A seriously reform-minded Congress would replace a menu of sectoral subsidies with an enhanced EITC and a small increment in Social Security, unemployment compensation, and veterans’ benefits. It would also dismantle the public bureaucracies which administered the subsidies. The Food and Nutrition Service and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are targets the size of Kate Smith’s rear end. (HUD in particular has a history of corruption). They go on and on.
“What happens to a cult when it turns out their central, most important idea is proven wrong?” [Tuvea @ 10:26 am]
The three most difficult words in the English language: “I was wrong!” This is especially true when one has sanctimoniously made a life and career out of being one of C.S. Lewis’ omnipotent moral busybodies.
But, perhaps, the most damning condemnation was posted by Mary Chastain over at Legal Insurrection quoting an anonymous Trump advisor:
According to the NYT we don’t need no stinking Mueller report because we know he’s guilty.
Space travel? Is it space travel you want? you haven’t seen anything yet. Keep an eye trained on south Texas.
Oh, yes. Yanks win 100, take division and Pennant. Lose Series in 7.
Space has virtually unlimited potential.
Cliche that it has become, it is obvious that Space is the “next Frontier”—unlimited room for expansion, vast resources available to be harvested and used, new space-specific techniques to be developed and used, new technologies brought into being.
But, exploring and mastering this new Frontier will take an incredible amount of work, the invention of new techniques, technologies, and substances, be very expensive, and it will inevitably involve a lot of personal risk, and death.
Companies are going to go bankrupt, programs and equipment fail, and it is certain that numbers of people—perhaps large numbers of people—are going to be injured and die exploring and mastering this new Frontier.
Not my cup of tea, but if there were still a vibrant space program —featuring manned exploration—I’m pretty sure that there would be a lot of takers, and kids would, again, want to become Astronauts.
Such deaths—regrettable as they would be—are just the “cost of doing business,” as it was when our terrestrial Frontier, here in the U.S., was being explored and settled by our ancestors. (I note that the percentage of incoming settlers who died in each of the first few years of Jamestown’s settlement was an estimated 90%).
Visited the Kennedy Space Center a couple of months ago, during the government shutdown and, nonethless, they still had open a lot of tourist type exhibits, IMAX movies, and various experiences, rides, and a large gift shop where you could purchase all sorts of NASA and space themed tchotchkes.
During our time there we had a retired former Astronaut give a short introductory lecture, and—looking at the various for a fee “experiences” they offered, I really felt sorry for the Astronaut who was part of their “have lunch with an Astronaut” experience.
What a comedown!
Past accomplishments, shiny exhibits and pieces of hardware, and tourist crap aside, it is a shame what has become of NASA, and our supposed National Space Program.
It’s now basically just unmanned probes and rovers, concept animations, videos, and drawings, visions of past accomplishments, a lot of pictures of vehicles and astronauts, and mission patches you can buy, collect, and hang on your wall.
The actual capability of American astronauts to get up out into space, to explore, and to use space?
None, nada, zip.
With the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 the United States no longer has a way to get into space, other than to beg the Russians for rides and to pay them for a ride on their rockets that can reach space.
It was such a good start when, with just seven years of national effort, we had our first maned Moon landing in1969.
But the period of those manned Moon landings (six in total) only lasted three years, ending in 1972.
Since then, no more manned Moon landings.
Moreover, as we started to see more and more astronauts get killed in the course of what is inherently an extremely dangerous undertaking—after the three Apollo I astronauts were killed in an electrical fire on the pad in 1967, after the 1986 Challenger disaster that killed all seven astronauts aboard, less than two minutes into their flight, and, finally, after the 2003 Columbia accident that killed the seven astronauts involved—a total of 17 astronauts killed in attempting space flight (plus another dozen or so killed in various training accidents)—things changed. **
NASA reportedly became more and more risk averse, more and more managers and layers of oversight proliferated, NASA became more and more hidebound and bureaucratic, and more inclined to use machines for exploration rather than men.
They apparently wanted to eliminate the possibility of error, of possible death.
The result?
We don’t really have a National manned Space Program anymore.
And if Space is, indeed, the next Frontier, unless private spaceflight entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, and companies like his Space-X are successful, Americans are not going to be the ones to explore Space, and to reap it’s benefits.
What a lack of national level imagination and guts!
**I note that, in just 2017 alone, 70,237 people here in the U.S. died of drug overdoses.
A seriously reform-minded Congress would replace a menu of sectoral subsidies with an enhanced EITC and a small increment in Social Security, unemployment compensation, and veterans’ benefits.
Bush brought up a modest Social Security reform but by that time it was far too late.
Having invested so much political capital in this issue, President Bush embarked on the first of what proved to be a long series of tours crammed with events at which he pitched his plan to the people. It soon became apparent that it would be a tough sell. Within weeks, observers noticed that the more the President talked about Social Security, the more support for his plan declined. According to the Gallup organization, public disapproval of President Bush’s handling of Social Security rose by 16 points from 48 to 64 percent–between his State of the Union address and June.
By early summer the initiative was on life support, with congressional Democrats uniformly opposed and Republicans in disarray.After Hurricane Katrina inundated what remained of the President’s support, congressional leaders quietly pulled the plug.
Buh was preoccupied with terrorism after 2001 and Congress, even in GOP hands, was far too corrupt to want fix a real problem. The “Balanced Budget” of Clinton was merely a theft of funds from the Social Security “Trust Fund.”
I don’t recall which program it was part of a few years ago but, in discussing the Social Security program, they momentarily flashed a picture on the screen of a room full of metal filing cabinets, as they said that such “trust funds” were composed of government issued securities, which were then kept in these cabinets for safekeeping.
So–correct me if I’m wrong–the government issued–i.e.printed up fancy, official looking financial instruments, which it then, in turn, gave to itself, and that is what this “trust fund” consists of; government paper.
We’re long ago off the gold standard, so there is no actual, physical gold or silver backing up government financial instruments.
You can’t just go into a bank, hand them a hundred dollar bill, or government bond and ask to be given the equivalent amount of gold or silver at today’s spot price.
But, but, then, isn’t that “trust fund” the financial equivalent of the worm Ouroboros eating his tail, just a giant pyramid scheme?
@Snow on Pine:So–correct me if I’m wrong–the government issued–i.e.printed up fancy, official looking financial instruments, which it then, in turn, gave to itself, and that is what this “trust fund” consists of; government paper.
This is exactly right.
If the trust fund bonds did not exist, then when the day came that SS benefits exceeded SS collections, on that day the government would have to a) raise taxes to pay the money, b) borrow money to pay the money, or c) cut SS benefits or other government spending.
But because the trust fund bonds exist, then when the day came that SS benefits exceeded SS collections, on that day the government would have to a) raise taxes to pay the money, b) borrow money to pay the money, or c) cut SS benefits or other government spending.
isn’t that “trust fund” the financial equivalent of the worm Ouroboros eating his tail, just a giant pyramid scheme?
It is a “pay as you go” program. In a pyramid scheme, yesterday’s investors are paid returns out of the money today’s investors bring in. But in SS, yesterday’s workers are paid benefits out of the money today’s workers bring in. So you can see the two things are completely different.
As one progressive explained to me, SS cannot by law add one dime to the deficit. Nor can it, as the word “deficit” is defined with respect to SS.
We’re long ago off the gold standard, so there is no actual, physical gold or silver backing up government financial instruments.
You can’t just go into a bank, hand them a hundred dollar bill, or government bond and ask to be given the equivalent amount of gold or silver at today’s spot price.
Honestly that wouldn’t help. It does not matter what if anything backs money. Retirees cannot eat gold or government paper. They need to eat food. You can only consume what is being produced, and production is not stockpiled to any significant degree. Retirees get to eat because they let someone consume in the past in exchange for a promise to be allowed to consume in the future. The mechanism for accomplishing this doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether those promises can actually be redeemed when due.
Money is not what people produce or consume. Money is no good if there is nothing to buy. You can only buy today what is produced today, no matter what currency you buy it in.
SS is a jury-rigged scheme for letting people have confidence that when they retire they will not starve and so they plan their lives differently from how they would if they thought starvation very likely. The necessary suspension of disbelief gets harder to sustain, but in principle it’s no different from gold hidden in the mattress or 401ks or whatever. People do not have to hoard food etc during their working lives because they count on this rain dance done with money. There are many forms this rain dance could take and still work. Otherwise, peoples’ retirement would be funded by hoards of canned goods and firearms.
Obstruction of justice is what Trudeau is accused of doing in Canada, for instance. His top justice official alleges he ordered her to shut down a criminal investigation into a company he favored. She declined to do it, resigned, and went public.
Trump fired Comey, which is within his authority as president, and did not shut down the “counter-intelligence” investigation. He did not fire Mueller, or Rosenstein. What obstruction? Criticisms in speeches and on Twitter? Please.
What “OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE”{?????
Otherwise, peoples’ retirement would be funded by hoards of canned goods and firearms.
Not totally funded but there are some of both,
The “Balanced Budget” of Clinton was merely a theft of funds from the Social Security “Trust Fund.”
Payroll tax proceeds are used to buy Treasury issues. They aren’t invested in any other instrument.
But, but, then, isn’t that “trust fund” the financial equivalent of the worm Ouroboros eating his tail, just a giant pyramid scheme?
No, it isn’t. Actual Ponzi schemes collapse in a matter of months. Bernie Madoff was quite extraordinary for keeping his running for 16 years (or 33 years, depending on whose assessment you cotton to). Social Security is, in effect, an income transfer program. There’s nothing terribly wrong with the old-age program. The structural defect has been that the retirement age was not placed on a cohort-delineated escalator to maintain a consistent ratio of retirees to working adults. (The disability program has knottier problems to address). Congress has preferred to jack-up payroll taxes at irregular intervals and institute haphazard increases in the retirement age to undertaking a sustainable repair. Because jerks. This problem could have been fixed forty years ago.
Bush brought up a modest Social Security reform but by that time it was far too late.
He wanted private accounts for a portion of your contributions. That’s OK, but one can think of other priorities.
The object I was discussing was an end to subsidies for groceries, rent, and utility bills. You scrap those and add an increment to the other programs in order to cross-compensate the elderly, the disabled, the s/t unemployed, and impecunious wage-earners for the loss of their SNAP cards and housing vouchers.
We’re long ago off the gold standard, so there is no actual, physical gold or silver backing up government financial instruments.
Our last tour on the classical gold standard was during the period running from 1929 to 1933. You don’t wanna go there.
Frederick on March 25, 2019 at 5:47 pm at 5:47 pm said:
If the trust fund bonds did not exist, then when the day came that SS benefits exceeded SS collections, on that day the government would have to a) raise taxes to pay the money, b) borrow money to pay the money, or c) cut SS benefits or other government spending.
But because the trust fund bonds exist, then when the day came that SS benefits exceeded SS collections, on that day the government would have to a) raise taxes to pay the money, b) borrow money to pay the money, or c) cut SS benefits or other government spending.
* * *
Never seen it stated better.
And the canned goods fell in the river with the guns when I took that last canoe trip….
Mike K on March 25, 2019 at 10:05 am at 10:05 am said:
…
Weissman was Mueller’s lead prosecutor.
* * *
If Weissman couldn’t frame Trump for collusion, nobody could.
Barry Meislin on March 25, 2019 at 8:56 am at 8:56 am said:
Related (from Legal Insurrection):
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/03/the-coup-has-failed-but-continues/
* * *
Makes some good points.
(quote from another link in the LI post)
“None of these allegations, however, are new. They were all aired to and considered by the voters. Here are just a tiny fraction of the major media headlines BEFORE the election:
Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia (NYT)
How Russia Pulled Off the Biggest Election Hack in U.S. History (Esquire)
Private Security Group Says Russia Was Behind John Podesta’s Email Hack (NYT Times)
Reasonable doubt in Russian hack: Column (USA Today)
The voters took into account the swarm of accusations against Trump and Hillary, and elected him. Losing sucks, I get it, but it’s not an excuse to create a constitutional crisis and uniquely destructive result of the Electors flipping the election to Hillary, or even to the House.”
Commenter addresses Swalwell indirectly:
VaGentleman | March 25, 2019 at 2:31 am
Shouldn’t someone be asking the dems who claim they have evidence: Did you share it with the SC’s investigation?
If so, in the interests of transparency, what was the evidence?
If not, why didn’t you share it? Again, in the interests of transparency, what was the evidence?
Feet, meet fire.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/03/25/swalwell_trump_can_sue_me_i_stand_by_claim_of_seeing_evidence_of_collusion.html
But you can’t prove a negative.
Neo, this is actually a classic reasoning flaw.
Mathematicians do it all the time. The way you do it is “assume” the positive, and show how that rationally leads to a position which is demonstrably false, e.g., the classic “0=1”
Granted, it’s more difficult to do in the strictest sense in The Real World, but it’s doable. One of the best “proofs” that the 911 WTC attacks were not due to demolition is to assume it was so. Anyone who knows anything about how to demolish a building knows how it is done — you strip everything off a bunch of structural columns and wrap them in shaped charges designed to shear them off on command. this is very very visible.
1) The process takes WEEKS.
2) Such are virtually always wired, leading well-shielded wires to somewhere well away from the explosives, and NEVER done via wireless connections. E.g., very very visible.
3) The building was in continuous usage. There’s no way someone would not have seen this stuff — and even if they never said anything at the time, they would have gone — “hey, waitaminnit!!” an hour after they went down.
So process one says, “Not very likely”.
Process two is Franklin’s adage, “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead…” The sheer number of people involved is enormous. HUGE. All of them have kept their mouths shut for 18 years? Nope. Someone would have written a tell-all, and released it on their deathbed. So process two says, “Not very likely”.
So two reasons to discount the idea, and zero actual evidence to support it.
It’s not proven to a mathematical truth, but it’s good enough for human life absent some new and shocking proof that gives a good reason to doubt the above.
OBloody, I can’t tell you how much your comment makes my girlish heart positively stomp and scream with joy! We hear this canard all the time, but it’s so obviously untrue as a general rule. This one isn’t even a good “blanket” rule; too many counterexamples.
For instance, I can easily prove that I did not assassinate Julius Caesar, onaccounta that was roughly 2 millenia ago and I am a babe of the 1950s. (Well, I can’t prove it that way at least to people who believe in eternal reincarnation of the dead as humans — I suppose.) I can also easily prove that I didn’t murder whoever posted the above as “OBloodyHell,” at least not before 3:36 a.m. EDT on March 26, 2019 A.D.
1. You can’t prove a negative if you haven’t got enough information to argue from.
2. You can’t prove a negative if your supporting information (your premises from which the conclusion purports to flow) is incorrect, or contradictory; similarly if you’re working from inapt definitions.
3. You can’t prove a negative if the negative of the negative is true. In other words, you can’t prove that the negation of a true statement is true.
4. And, of course the proof by contradiction as a specific technique in logic is something we all learned about in high-school geometry.
I seem to recall that the four lacrosse players from Duke University were
uncharacteristically PRONOUNCED innocent.
Not one dime in legal fees from the (unidentified) pot bangers, or (here’s your list https://www.thecollegefix.com/duke-universitys-hateful-88-where-are-they-now/) “Duke gang of 88”.
Elon Musk on March 25, 2019 at 1:51 pm at 1:51 pm said:
Fix your Tesla stock first before you put Tesla into the sun again.
Payroll tax proceeds are used to buy Treasury issues. They aren’t invested in any other instrument.
Congress actually had a bit of a dilemma then because receipts were high as the Baby Boomers were in peak earning years. The problem was that they would retire in another 20 years. What to do with all that money in the next 20 years? They could not really invest it in other securities. It would distort the markets and the incentive to cheat would be huge.
What they could have done was pay down national debt, perhaps. The blather about “a balanced budget” pretended that was what was done but they never slowed spending. When George Deukmejian was governor of California, he established a “rainy day fund” as a reserve to deal with emergencies. That was back when California was sane.