I’m home today and will watch as much as I can stand. I have low expectations for any major ground to be covered or opinions to be changed, but I’m glad it’s happening and I hope it clarifies some truths about what Mueller said in the Report.
I’m nervous and my stomach hurts.
2.
Jerzy Russian
Is it too late for Mr. Mueller to bring in Samuel L. Jackson as an assistant? Mr. Jackson did a good job during the Kavanaugh hearings (can’t find the clip at the moment).
I read that as a “bunch of KITTENS on Instagram”, but then came to the “knitting” part later. Maybe I should just go back to bed, since it is still (semi) dark here.
10.
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No. Nadler made it pretty clear his train is on the impeachment track.
11.
Soprano2
Already the first lie, that the investigation found “no conspiracy” with Russia. It only found that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that it happened.
12.
Scotian
Must see TV from my hospital bed. All I heard in my head when the hearing started was the voice over from Mortal Kombat: It has begun!
The R (Collins?) is talking too fast. I’m in my office with the door open to the living room where the TV is, and I can’t understand what he’s saying.
14.
Soprano2
Boy, he sounds angry, doesn’t he? Almost as if the report didn’t actually “prove” that Donald Trump was “innocent”.
15.
Elizabelle
Collins is a tool. Kind of glad he’s rabbiting through his statement in that Southern accent, because it makes it a little hard to follow.
Signals the GOP is going to go heavy on the investigation being a rogue operation. Good luck with that.
ETA: And now he’s wailing that the investigation and its aftermath has stopped them from addressing the border crisis. Now he’s mentioning his own much-loved family. All the greatest hits.
“Our border is on fire, and in crisis.” — direct quote, straight from the tool’s mouth
16.
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He’s lying about the report and talking about Trump’s “innocence”.
That would be awesome. The dude sitting behind Mueller’s right shoulder, viewer’s left, has a resting da phuq face listening to Collins. Mustache dude needs to up his face game.
20.
Elizabelle
@Scotian: Good morning, David. Lovely to have you with us.
21.
guachi
We have this on at work. But it’s on Fox News so I’m not watching. That and the angle isn’t conducive to reading the subtitles.
I’ll live vicariously through your comments.
22.
Elizabelle
@TS (the original): “Majority” of the one branch the Democrats control.
I plan to putter around the house on a couple of small projects I have going on, meet a fellow retiree teacher and a current working stiff for lunch at a renowned wing joint, come back home and putter around some more. Later today, probably while the rains are raining, I will get on the computer and read about the fallout of this morning’s show. I have no expectations or hopes and am not going to bother trying to count the dancing angels on the head of the pin.
I am all in on the Rude Pundit’s assertion that no explosive investigative report, no self-incriminating outburst by the president*, no hearing or meeting or uncovered video footage will save us. Only we can save us.
28.
TS (the original)
So Mueller respects the law – but trump and the GOP do not.
29.
Soprano2
“SPIT TAKE” He says he can’t answer questions about the Steele dossier! Wow, there went half the Republicans planned questions. LOL
30.
Elizabelle
Cuts them off at the pass. Cannot address the opening of the investigation, which occurred months before his appointment.
31.
MomSense
Mueller sounds a little out of breath to me.
32.
Elizabelle
He will not comment on the actions of the Attorney General.
Damn.
Although, Zebley is mentioned in next breath. So maybe Zebley can comment there …
33.
opiejeanne
WAPO Headline:
“While bemoaning Mueller probe, Trump falsely says the Constitution gives him ‘the right to do whatever I want’”
34.
guachi
@Walker: It actually has been. I work at the NSA and someone complained that most of the TVs are set to Fox. Didn’t change anything.
35.
Gin & Tonic
BBC reporting that Alexei Navalny has been detained again.
Nadler is doing a good job of setting the stage for later questions. Not messing around. The Democrats’ rehearsal and coordination of questions looks good so far.
44.
Raven
He’s saying more than I thought he was going to.
45.
Tinare
Nadler is a badass.
46.
Raven
Now this cracker-ass motherfucker.
47.
Elizabelle
@raven: Good morning. It’s more concern for having Mr. Mueller around a good, long time.
Collins notes he’s been told to slow his speech down. Hasn’t worked, though.
48.
zhena gogolia
So much for the wimpy Democrats. Nadler did a great job.
49.
Elizabelle
Mueller tells Collins he’s speaking too fast.
Collins slows down, as though Mueller is slow on the uptake. A bit humorous.
I guess Collins has got a lot of questions to get through really, really fast.
52.
Soprano2
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..NO!!!
53.
Nicole
Gadzooks, I am a fast talker, but Collins leaves me in the dust. I’m getting about every 4th word. He needs speech therapy, stat. Or not; maybe the less we understand of the garbage coming out of his mouth the better.
54.
Elizabelle
Collins’ questions are only going to be easy to follow in the record, and suspect he’s going for loading it.
Mueller asks for Collins to repeat a question about collusion vs. conspiracy.
Collins tries to elicit that conspiracy and collusion are synonyms.
Mueller says no.
Collins trying to trip Mueller up on language.
55.
Dog Mom
Posting again from the post below:
Anticipated, but not expecting more than we know to come out. Hoping it makes some waves with a larger audience.
As for me, I have to turn off the TV, close this tab and prep for an interview for a much needed and desired job. If you need a breather around 11:30 EST, please clear your head and send some positive energy/prayers/goodness for my success.
I hope that those of you that are able to watch, please take breaks if needed to keep your blood pressure down and your psyche safe.
I will add that I glanced up quickly and thought the chyron said “Collins, Ranting Member”.
Definitely turning it off now.
56.
Elizabelle
Collins is such a fucker.
Staff found one incidence in the Mueller report that conflates collusion with conspiracy.
57.
Elizabelle
@Dog Mom: Good luck with the interview, DM. We can multitask and keep fingers crossed for success for you, too.
58.
Tinare
I was yelling at the tv that the report said “largely” synonymous not just synonymous. So no not the same thing.
59.
Soprano2
Funny that Collins couldn’t get Mueller to say conspiracy and collusion are the same thing. Also glad he said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove conspiracy.
60.
Elizabelle
Lofgren question: who shared polling data with the Russians.
Mueller says look at the report; she says they don’t have the unredacted version.
Going for “Manafort” (or an associate) there.
61.
opiejeanne
It would be Trimp. Uh, Trump. Haha!
62.
Nicole
@Dog Mom: Sending you energy to knock it out of the park on your interview!
@Nicole: it’s an attempt to rattle the witness. It worked at least once.
64.
TS (the original)
@Elizabelle: Republicans are so rude when speaking to anyone that doesn’t bow down before them. There is zero need for them to act in this fashion – it just highlights that they are 100% concerned with self – and not with truth.
65.
Elizabelle
@Tinare: There won’t be a good sound bite on that. Speeding bus delivery, and convoluted.
66.
Another Scott
Nadler was good. Lofgren is good.
I like how Mueller ran out the clock on Collins. Heh.
@raven:
Mueller was neverthe trial or appellate court oratory genius. He is a steely-eyed investigator, committed public servant, and a remarkable manager/leader. It is funny/sad how much entertainment presence has replaced honesty and experience as truth markers.
But I guess Nixon made the same complaint about Kennedy. Oops –No. Everyone knew Nixon was a dishonest liar by 1960.
Does this moron know that Donald Trump wasn’t the subject of the investigation?
72.
Soprano2
It’s so funny, this dude thinks he has a point. Doesn’t he know that the DOJ has said the president cannot be indicted?
73.
Tinare
Burden of proof being twisted by a Republican to say that they are unfair by not charging a sitting President on evidence that would resulted in charges for anyone who is not President.
74.
opiejeanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: They are awful. Ratcliffe is yelling at him and accusing him of …. oh damn, he just called us Socialists!
75.
MomSense
I don’t think the word respectfully means what you think it does, Ratcliffe.
76.
Soprano2
So we can see what the Republican plan is, to totally play to Trump. They need to give Mueller a copy of the report!!! Someone get the man a report!
I don’t think the Republicans understand that a prosecutor cannot just ignore evidence of a crime.
It seems the Republicans are making a coordinated effort to get Mueller to break down on the stand, hence the hard interrogator style. Libeling him to his face doesn’t help much, either.
80.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I want to listen to this, it’s historic whatever happens and an important [baby] step in the process.
But unfortunately these things always have Republicans talking. And that makes me want to throw up after just a sentence or two.
I need a filter that plays tuba music whenever a Republican talks.
81.
Soprano2
I think we were worried about nothing; it’s obvious that the Democrats on the committee coordinated, and are mostly doing without the usual speechifying that characterizes these kind of hearings.
82.
Jerzy Russian
@Tinare: Wait what? So they are saying the president should have been charged? I can’t watch what is going on at the moment.
83.
Elizabelle
Ratliff’s secured his invite to Fox News tonight. He spoke clearly, although I did not hear him get much out of Mueller. (Was in the kitchen; might have missed some …)
84.
oatler.
The live comments on the Youtube feed looks like a neo-Nazi chat room.
85.
Elizabelle
Sheila Jackson Lee (I think) got Paul Manafort’s name into the record a few minutes ago, as he who passed polling data on to the Russians. Mueller did not respond (I think, again, in kitchen …)
86.
opiejeanne
Oh shoot me now. Sensenbrenner.
87.
Elizabelle
Le sigh. Another Republican up, who is a stickler for rules. More schooling on the Special Counsel’s statute.
It’s James Sensenbrenner.
88.
Soprano2
So, it’s the Republican’s assertion that the special counsel should ignore evidence of a crime. It sounds like that’s what they’re hanging their whole case on, that he should have ignored evidence of the president’s attempts to obstruct the investigation.
@Elizabelle: Ratliffe spent almost his entire time ranting at Mueller and accusing him of… something. There was no actual question and he left no time for an answer by Mueller.
92.
Soprano2
None of this questioning by the Republicans is going to play well on TV, because they’re trying to lawyer him to death.
93.
Elizabelle
Sensenbrenner accuses Mueller of “fishing.”
The projection, it is strong with this one.
ETA: Ooh. He gets in “Clinton impeachment” and Kenneth Starr too.
94.
Soprano2
This questioning by Republicans is falling pretty flat so far.
95.
opiejeanne
@Soprano2: And they’re not very good lawyers. I wouldn’t hire a one of them.
96.
Luciamia
Ugh, so early. Don’t these usually start at 10 a.m.?
97.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@wvng: Unmuted. Heard some idiot (turns out to be Sensenbrenner) say “let me read the special prosecution law to you”. Bleah. Muted again.
Unmuted. Sensenbrenner babbling something about 182 pages that don’t comply with the law or something. Bleah. Muted again.
98.
Elizabelle
Steve (?) Cohen up now.
99.
Elizabelle
Trump: “I’m f**cked.”
Read in as “I’m effed.” That’s a first for Congressional testimony, no?
100.
TS (the original)
Reading sections of a report and saying “Is that correct” – is being used by the GOP in an attempt to confuse and give trump some quotes for his tweeting. Absolute nonsense way to do anything. trump really has his minions giving up on any form of propriety or any attempt to follow any previous procedures related to congress activities.
101.
Soprano2
I think this is funny; the Democrats are basically reading the report to him to give the press quotes to use on the news! Republicans are trying to get him to admit he shouldn’t have investigated obstruction in the first place. LOLOLOL
102.
Tinare
@Jerzy Russian: No they are trying to paint the Mueller report as an over reach because they didn’t charge the President with a crime, but detailed his actions. So unfairly suggesting that he did something wrong, but not having enough to charge him. So prosecutorial overreach and poor victim Trump.
Leaving aside the DOJ can’t charge a sitting President rule that he followed.
103.
Elizabelle
Cohen: “Is the Attorney General supposed to be the AG of the US, or the consigliere of the President?”
Mueller says of the US.
Take that, Barr. Love the “consigliere” term.
104.
Soprano2
Also, the Republicans are trying to make some kind of hay out of the fact that Mueller didn’t say Trump should be impeached. That wasn’t part of his mandate!
105.
Sab
Does anyone know who the two guys directly behind Mueller are (scowling blue necktie on left, big white mustache on right)?
106.
Elizabelle
Steve Chabot up now.
ETA: bringing up the Steele report, Fusion GPS.
107.
donnah
Republicans are not asking any questions about the findings or facts. They are all going after the legal aspects and trying to distract Mueller and jam him up. They look angry and accusatory and desperate.
I hope Mueller can keep up and block out the noise.
108.
Soprano2
Also it was smart of the Democrats to have those slides to project parts of the report on a screen.
109.
Arm The Homeless
Benghazi worked because the GOP found ‘Teh Server!!!! 1!!1!!!!’ and then made that the point of the whole debacle. Dems would be wise to do that as well.
That would also involve these preening chuds to agree on a strategy
trying to paint the Mueller report as an over reach because they didn’t charge the President with a crime, but detailed his actions.
When reading this I just thought…
Comey, Comey, Comey….
117.
wenchacha
Goddammit. It would be awesome if Mueller had the voice of James Earl Jones, but he doesn’t. Part of me wonders if this is some of the reason he didn’t want to have to testify like this. Was Mueller a better public speaker in earlier days? ( Is he perhaps ill?)
That would also involve these preening chuds to agree on a strategy
Who are the preening chuds?
119.
Soprano2
Republicans think they have some kind of point with the idea that Clinton was the real colluder with Russians! Funny how Mueller kept saying that was out of his pervue or being investigated by someone else.
120.
Immanentize
I hope that someone makes one thing clear–
Trump was “not charged” because he didn’t commit a crime, he was “not charged” because an internal employee policy prohibited him from being charged.
Chabot was the most effective Republican up so far, even though he got about 3-4 answers of “not in my purview.”
His closing remark was that the Mueller Report left out anything that might be positive for the President, after dragging the Clinton Campaign in as having paid for the Steele report.
(Which, to my recollection, actually started with Jeb! Bush’s campaign; was that the case?)
he was “not charged” because an internal employee policy prohibited him from being charged.
If I ever get my own company I will be sure to get that same policy in place.
125.
Elizabelle
@wenchacha: Mueller had prostate cancer in 2001. Successfully treated, at the time.
126.
Soprano2
@Elizabelle: I think that’s right. I know it started with a Republican campaign.
127.
Tinare
Oh goody. Gohmert.
128.
Soprano2
Gohmert, this is going to be amazing!
129.
TS (the original)
Cannot listen to the republicans – just cannot
130.
Immanentize
@Raven: I don’t know.
But the Republicans are sure trying hard to bury that simple fact. So it must be important to them….
131.
Elizabelle
Asparagus Goehmert up. Drops a copy of
Robert Mueller Unmasked
into the record. It’s some white pamphlet. No idea who wrote it.
132.
Raven
goober up
133.
Sab
@Elizabelle: Chabot is wasting his whole 5 minutes questionning Mueller about why he didn’t investigate things outside his purview, when the Republicans’ main underlying argument has been that Mueller wandered outside the limits of his mandate/purview.
Ohio Republicans doing us proud//
134.
Elizabelle
Gohmert lecturing Mueller on the importance of credibiilty.
“It goes to your credibility.”
You cannot make this stuff up.
135.
Soprano2
Know what? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
136.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle:
Almost all men have prostate cancer at some point. As my Dr. says, “You probably will get prostate cancer some day, but it probably won’t be what kills you.”
137.
Elizabelle
Gohmert hitting on Comey and Peter Stzok.
138.
Tinare
Why are the Republicans so focused on an affair.
139.
wvng
Gohmert on now. I may need to use lye to clean the stupid out of my brain.
140.
zhena gogolia
This guy is making me vomit.
Strzok-Page FTW!
141.
Elizabelle
And Lisa Page.
I think Trump wrote Gohmert’s talking points.
142.
oatler.
More rich Gohmerty goodness.
143.
gene108
Gohmert isn’t allowing Mueller to answer.
Jerk.
144.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Chris Megerian @ ChrisMegerian
Rep. Jackson Lee made an important, but perhaps subtle, point in her questioning. She established that Mueller found that Trump had motive to impede the Russia investigation, contradicting William Barr, who said Trump was merely frustrated.
145.
Elizabelle
Gohmert screaming hate, hate, hate, hate in his questions.
Wow, that was crazy! The point could be made that if a person was innocent they wouldn’t try to obstruct or impede the investigation, and would happily sit down with the investigators to show their innocence. Also, he says without any evidence that Mueller’s people hated the president. He was, as usual, pretty unhinged.
I didn’t know he was, like, you know … Not that it matters!!
150.
donnah
Gohmert is like one of those stupid scrawny little dogs that run around biting your ankles and yapping incessantly. I wish someone would boot him across the room.
151.
gene108
At a hospital waiting for labs.
Hohmert attacks Mueller
Dems try to get Mueller to expand on report, but he refuses
(Which, to my recollection, actually started with Jeb! Bush’s campaign; was that the case?)
I believe that is the case.
This sentence also triggered two thoughts:
1. Is logic taught in schools anymore? The Steele report is perhaps bullshit or not (or maybe a combination), but whatever that is doesn’t depend on where it started.
2. Jeb! can be read as “Jeb factorial”. The factorial function can often lead to a very large number (in this case a large number of Jeb-like things), and I found that to be disturbing. Then I remembered that Jeb is a zero, so Jeb!=1, thereby limiting the bad outcome.
154.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: No clue. And I am not sure it is Mueller who said it. (Listening, not watching, at that point. Because. Gohmert.)
155.
zhena gogolia
Haha, “You were BARRED from indicting a sitting president.”
Mueller said, “I take your question.” Twice. I don’t know what it means.
158.
some lurker
@Jerzy Russian:
It wasn’t a GOP campaign that started the investigation that lead to the Steele dossier. It was a conservative newspaper, The Washington Free Beacon.
159.
Elizabelle
Ms. Robi or Rubi or something. Don’t know her. Also, audio problems with C-Span.
Going over Mueller interactions with the AG (Barr, at the time report was delivered).
160.
Immanentize
@Jerzy Russian:
“WE’RE # 0!”
just doesn’t have a ring to it.
Nadler and his boring ass intro, specifically. But my issue mainly stems from the lack of any sort of cohesive strategy or narrative about how the criming of the Trump admin is affecting normal Americans. The Dems are trying to nuance a position, rather than learn from the GOP that in highly polarized electorates, feeding your base is more important than getting cooing sounds from Sunday news-readers.
162.
TS (the original)
I hope I’m right – but I see the democrats getting the point across – that trump obstructed justice – the republicans are trying to refute that – by bringing in many red herrings & accusing Mueller of bias – but this is not working – only Fox media will report the nonsense of the republicans.
The chairman also clearly got Mueller to state that the president* wasn’t indicted because the DOJ said he could not be indicted – not because they didn’t have evidence against him.
I also get intensely sad to see any woman representing the GOP in congress – they are working against their own interests and the interest of their children.
163.
Raven
@zhena gogolia: Where is Ari Melber when we need him??
164.
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia:
It’s Old person legal speak for: “Whatever, Dude.”. It is not a comment but a way of disregarding without engaging.
It is often followed in the mind by, “… and shove it up your ass.”
165.
Elizabelle
Odd. Roby asks who wrote Mueller’s letter to Barr after Barr went obfuscating the original report (my summary, not her words). Mueller would not say that he wrote the letter.
Asks who leaked the letter, after two years without a leak.
@Elizabelle: Ms. Robi or Rubi or something. Don’t know her. Also, audio problems with C-Span.
Martha Roby, who famously asked HRC if she was alone when she got the Benghazi news in the middle of the night, and IIANM barely survived a primary challenge for insufficient loyalty to the Great Beast.
169.
Soprano2
I think the Republican woman was trying to get Mueller to admit that he wrote the letter just so it could be leaked to the press to make the DOJ look bad. She didn’t succeed, though.
170.
zhena gogolia
McGahn, not McCann!
171.
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia:
It is meant to be utterly unclear and completely neutral. It is funny how it really pissed people off when that is all they get for a reply.
The Steele report is perhaps bullshit or not (or maybe a combination), but whatever that is doesn’t depend on where it started.
The Steele report was supposed to be a collection of corroborated (but not necessarily proven) non-public information about Trump. It was supposed to function as a guideline for further investigations. Because it is a *collection* of materials, you would expect some to be true, some false, and some impossible to determine. Finding one particular claim is untrue doesn’t disprove the rest, and in any case it’s not “bullshit” in any sense.
I also get intensely sad to see any woman representing the GOP in congress – they are working against their own interests and the interest of their children.
I get so tired of that complaint. It assumes that creating and maintaining a white supremacist oligarchy isn’t an “interest.”
181.
zhena gogolia
Wow, we even have spies around the world trying to defend our interests! What a revelation!
182.
Elizabelle
Mueller just looks sad when he’s listening to some of these Republican congresscritters.
He looked sad about something it was hearing from Gohmert, and looks a tad aghast at Jim Jordan.
183.
Soprano2
So Gym Jordan has decided to testify.
184.
Immanentize
@Raven: are you saying the GOP is just made up of
Poor dumb rednecks rollin logs….
185.
zhena gogolia
Gym’s been watching a lot of old Matlock episodes. Or maybe Perry Mason.
I think the Dems are trying to reach the kind of voter who doesn’t like trump but when things get complicated tell themselves, “Oh, it’s all just politics”, an empty phrase that they can tell themselves is high-minded. They get their news “at the top of the hour”, or while waiting for sports and weather while they get the kids ready for school or fix dinner. Headlines like that can cut through. We’ll see.
187.
Leto
Gym Jordan going off script and admitting it wasn’t the Steele dossier that started the investigation.
188.
zhena gogolia
OMG, Gym, I don’t think CAA is hiring right now. Better luck next time.
189.
Elizabelle
Jordan is fillibustering. Fox News has its video for tonight.
Missed his century. Would have been an incredible witchhunter, a la Matthew Hopkins.
Time expired. Break coming up.
190.
Elizabelle
@Leto: Well done. Thank you for seeing through that squid ink.
191.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I turned off the TV cause this five minute format drives me nuts, and I figure the good parts will be all over the tubes and TV later, but this is interesting. I’m sure MSNBC will trumpet it, will CNN show it to all those people half-watching in airports?
Tim O’Brien @ TimOBrien
“Does your report state there is sufficient factual and legal basis for further investigation of potential obstruction of justice by the President?” — Lee
I’m an “older” citizen and most of my friends still watch “the six o’clock news” – I hope that headline would get through to them. I haven’t watched a commercial news bulletin in years – might check out how they report this hearing.
@opiejeanne: Not quite, Trump. It’s Catch-22*: You have the right to do anything we can’t stop you from doing.
* Not the usual phrasing, it’s buried in the book.
203.
Another Scott
@Jerzy Russian: Plus, the inconvenient fact that the counter-intelligence investigation started before McCain received the Dossier.
IIRC.
It’s noise, and Barr’s “investigation” of it is just another attempted smoke screen to protect Donnie.
Cheers,
Scott.
204.
Another Scott
@Arm The Homeless: The narrative from the Democrats is clearly stated at the end of their questioning (at least the ones that I’ve heard): Nobody is above the law.
I get so tired of that complaint. It assumes that creating and maintaining a white supremacist oligarchy isn’t an “interest.”
Women like these R’s—no matter how much they have benefitted and taken full advantage of the freedom and equality Progressives have fought for and won for us—are just as invested in what that white supremacist oligarchy gives them. They secretly long for the days of “Mad Men”, and all it’s sexist, traditional limitations, because they’re so very sure they would be a part of the protected class.
Phyllis Schaffley was onto something.
208.
Elizabelle
Can hear the camera shutters. Mueller is back.
Cedric Richmond of Louisiana.
I like his name.
209.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: Raven and I appreciate that you have our backs
210.
zhena gogolia
Their improper citation method bugs me. It should be Vol. II, page XXX, not page XXX, vol. II.
211.
opiejeanne
@frosty: I was just really happy to see that headline in WaPo this morning. Not really awake. It’s 7:20 on the Left Coast but something woke me up at 4 and I’ve been groggy ever since.
212.
Raven
@Steve in the ATL: Night games kill me but this one should be a doozy!
213.
zhena gogolia
Oh, no, Gaetz.
214.
Elizabelle
Matt Gaetz. Back to the Steele dossier.
Suggesting it may be part of the “Russian disinformation campaign.”
215.
Steve in the ATL
@zhena gogolia: citation pedantry—you’re openly flirting with the lawyers here, aren’t you?
I had to pause it, so I’m behind now. One thing I like is that the composition of each party’s members on the committee highlights how much Democrats represent everyone, and Republicans represent white people.
Matt Gaetz is a bully. His manner is ridiculous for this hearing.
These people have “congressman” mixed up with “disc jockey” or “talk show host.”
220.
Arm The Homeless
@Another Scott:
That’s great, but which bloody-shirt are they all going to be waving by tonight? What singular point will speak to that belief that no one is above the law?
221.
zhena gogolia
I’m hoping Mueller will treat Gaetz the way he treated the Vietcong. We saw a flash of it just now.
As Yeats said, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of Gaetz.
230.
Elizabelle
Hakeem Jeffries up.
Jeebus, Matt Gaetz is an asshole. I hope karma hits him hard, three or four times.
231.
Ella in New Mexico
OMFg Now it’s Meathed Matt Geitz pounding on every Sean Hannity conspiracy theory with absolutely no factual basis or relevancy to the investigation.
Seriously, do the Republicans have ANYONE elected to Congress that isn’t a complete moron who thinks they’re there to do a perpetual audition for a Right-Wing Call-in show on AM radio?
Seriously, do the Republicans have ANYONE elected to Congress that isn’t a complete moron who thinks they’re there to do a perpetual audition for a Right-Wing Call-in show on AM radio?
Think we all sadly know the answer to that.
235.
TS (the original)
Gaetz is making a speech – doesn’t seen to have any questions.
Seriously, do the Republicans have ANYONE elected to Congress that isn’t a complete moron who thinks they’re there to do a perpetual audition for a Right-Wing Call-in show on AM radio?
Ella! You can read Mueller’s mind! (I think he got more respect from the gangsters he was prosecuting.)
Roby looked slightly less insane. For a minute I thought she was a Democrat.
238.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
anybody asked why Fredo didn’t testify yet?
239.
raven
@zhena gogolia: Minor point to most. Muller got there in July, 68.
. Is it true that after the Tet Offensive, the Viet Cong were no longer considered an effective fighting force?
Reports from U.S. Army Intelligence and subsequent PAVN reports show us that not only was it true, the North had to prop them up.*
After the conclusion of the Tet Offensive, when the dead were collected and tallied, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong had lost a collective total of over 180,000 troops in 1968 alone. The Viet Cong had just witnessed the irrecoverable destruction of its command structure and internal infrastructure in the wake of the failure of Tet. The ten years the North had spent meticulously building the Viet Cong and been all but drained into the gutter. The North was forced to fill in the gaps with over two thirds of the Viet
Cong being manned by NVA regulars by 1970.
To make things worse for the Viet Cong was the rising effectiveness of the CIA’s Phoenix Program, their attempts to specifically target and assassinate the leaders of the Viet Cong. The program coupled with the Chieu Hoi defection program seriously weakened the Viet Cong’s combat capability with the CIA claiming to know the structure of every Viet Cong cell in every province. By the end of 1969, South Vietnam was virtually free of communist held territory with over 70 % of Viet Cong in the south being Northerners.
The Viet Cong were finished as an independent fighting force.
240.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Yeah. I was wondering that too, except for the rotation schedule.
Yes. Before his father set him up in politics, his job was an outside-the-club heavy for a strip club. Outside, because Matt is the kind of guy that the managers of a strip club do not trust to work inside the club.
243.
Soprano2
The rest of the country is being exposed to all of the crazy Fox News right-wing radio conspiracies about the special counsel investigation today. I guess they’ve dropped the Q-Anon theory that Mueller and Trump were actually working together.
244.
zhena gogolia
“accommodations”? I think he means “commendations.”
245.
Elizabelle
Ken Buck. He also sounds noncrazy.
246.
Nelle
@Elizabelle: But he says that they don’t hold press conferences about people not charged. Isn’t that what Comey did?
247.
Tenar Arha
@TS (the original): Yes it’s sad. Unfortunately, it’s probably not what she thinks is true. Even if her life & livelihood & status don’t actually depend directly on her husband, a white woman of her social class’ self-conception & career is entirely dependent on propping up white patriarchy. In fact even if she’s essentially breaking the mould she’s supposed to fit herself to, she may conceive her actions to be to the benefit of her offspring, essentially passing down. a future role & social place for either a daughter or a son.
248.
Elizabelle
@joel hanes: I was wondering what jobs Gaetz’s skillset would allow. What a shame Florida sent him to Congress.
He would not even make a good salesman, because no listening or apparent empathy.
249.
Soprano2
Boy, Republicans sure are ignoring the fact that the DOJ has said they cannot charge a sitting president with a crime.
Nadler made it pretty clear his train is on the impeachment track.
No one seems to believe me when I say the impeachment hearings will officially start after Labor Day when all of the reporters’ summer vacations are over.
You never roll out a new product before Labor Day.
256.
Steve in the ATL
@Soprano2: I saw a pickup (of course) with a Q-Anon bumper sticker in Florida last time we were at Mayo. Near my home in Atlanta I saw a pickup (of course) with a 3 percenter sticker, but it had Florida tags (of course).
It freaks me out when I see nut jobs in the real world; I prefer to believe that they exist only in ghetto sections of the internet.
Seriously, do the Republicans have ANYONE elected to Congress that isn’t a complete moron who thinks they’re there to do a perpetual audition for a Right-Wing Call-in show on AM radio?
They’ve been working hard to primary any such people out since 1994 at the latest, that is, since Newt Gingrich decided that scorched earth politics was the right thing for Rethugs (and only Rethugs).
So is Fox going with “Mueller admits he’s a poopy-head and Trump is totally innocent”? Or with pretending the hearings aren’t happening and going with “Ann Coulter shows this summer’s hot beachwear”?
271.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: Dave is good (not watching, just saying based on his track record.)
272.
laura
Who are the Waldorf and Statler sitting behind Meuller?
Latin-derived, of course, and related to the “culpa” in “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”
274.
TriassicSands
Maybe they should charge current members of the HJC with obstruction of justice.
Mueller strikes me as a less than fully competent witness. Has he read his own report?
275.
Raven
@TriassicSands: That’s bullshit, crawl back under your rock.
276.
PenAndKey
I’ve been reading along with the live commentary here but my new boss (I started a new job two weeks ago) just turned on Fox news to watch their coverage of the hearing in the office right across from my desk.
Holy hell, I remember why I refused to be in the same room as that “news” channel years ago. I’m glad I brought headphones and nobody cares if I listen to music, because that channel is cringe-worthy.
For the most part it seems to me that the Republicans are beclowning themselves by asserting that news reports about conspiracy theories are something that Mueller should take seriously.
284.
Amir Khalid
I’ve only been sampling Mueller’s testimony, but it strikes me that the Democratic Representatives’ collective questioning of the Special Counsel has been, despite the fears of some commenters here, methodical and coordinated to bring up details from it that are particularly damning. It looks like they’re doing very well.
@Steve in the ATL: Saw a faded “Women for Trump” sticker on a vehicle that was very probably not driven by a woman yesterday. It was a beat up modified pickup with a flat-bed and was obviously someone’s work truck. That that person was somewhere inside the restaurant we’d just left was a bit disturbing. I don’t want them in my community, not anywhere in the Real World.
290.
wvng
@Amir Khalid: My concern is that in classic Dem fashion they are drilling into details and losing the over arching message.
Nixon’s impeachment hearings started in February. He resigned in August in the vain hope that it would get less coverage since reporters would be on vacation.
293.
Arm The Homeless
I take back my previous complaint about Nadler. I see that Lieu and an assortment of GOP morons already got the soundbite for this thing.
“Candidate X is working for you; Trump is working to stay out of prison” – – I approve this message
294.
PenAndKey
@joel hanes: I plan to keep my head down. I’m highly liberal in a strongly conservative farming community in an industry that supplies material to farmers, and my new role is a major leadership position at one of the largest suppliers in my industry. Not talking politics is basically a Fight Club rule for liberals around here.
@Mnemosyne:
I have been saying this ALL YEAR!
It is the sensible timing frame for maximum impact.
Maybe more like mid-October. There still needs to be more demand stirred up (post summer vacations). And every day, Trump both increases demand for impeachment AND weakens overt opposition to impeachment.
ETA clarity, I hope.
298.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
Was it a white pick up? This seems to be the right wing fad now.
The color of the only true flag of the Confederacy — Total unconditional surrender.
@Immanentize: both were black, like, I presume, the young boys in their naughty fantasies.
I’m always stunned by the number of black cars I see in Florida.
302.
Immanentize
@PenAndKey:
But you can talk politics here at BJ whenever you want. Consider it a pressure valve! I certainly do.
303.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
And I’m stunned by the number of white ones in Boston. For seven months a year, they cannot be kept clean!
304.
Steve in the ATL
@opiejeanne: I know a fair number of Southern Baptists (sadly). The women are not allowed to work (unless the husband doesn’t earn enough to support his family, in which case material desires trump sincerely held religious beliefs). In public, these women are rabidly pro-trump, pro-republican, and anti-women. In private, many will admit that they find these beliefs repugnant and secretly voted for Hillary.
305.
Central Planning
@Baud: “Baud counted to infinity, and then kept counting”
Yeah, I know this thread is dead but just catching up.
related to the “culpa” in “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”
You rang?
307.
Uncle Cosmo
@Elizabelle: Non exculpa, non exculpa, maxissima non exculpa – or somesuch. (Where da fuq did I get “nea” on the first go-round??)
308.
opiejeanne
@Steve in the ATL: I have a whole family of them, Southern Baptists and went to church with them when we visited them in Missouri in the summer. As a teen in the 60s I thought they were mostly laughable but my Southern Baptist cousins were very offended by the overt racists among the family, one uncle in particular. This was long before they were taken over by the extremists. Most of the first cousins have been attending mainline churches or have left religion entirely now. The ones who haven’t, well, we don’t have to see them too often (or ever).
309.
opiejeanne
@Central Planning: No thread is ever entirely dead, at least not until I kill it.
310.
Uncle Cosmo
@Raven: Yeah, go pound some Triassic Sand up your Jurassic Ass. (ETA: Just to be sure all&sundry understand the imperative was directed at the yobbo Boss Crow was responding to & not the Bird-Man of Bulldog Land hisownself.)
311.
Dog Mom
@scuffletuffle: Thanks – I think it went well, but have to wait and see!
Spent my earliest years in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood, one block from Holy Family Church and Holy Family School and the convent, but nope, we churched as liberal Presbyterians and I’ve been a hard atheist since the age of fourteen or so.
What you’re hearing is four years of Latin classes in middle and high school.
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donnah
I’m home today and will watch as much as I can stand. I have low expectations for any major ground to be covered or opinions to be changed, but I’m glad it’s happening and I hope it clarifies some truths about what Mueller said in the Report.
I’m nervous and my stomach hurts.
Jerzy Russian
Is it too late for Mr. Mueller to bring in Samuel L. Jackson as an assistant? Mr. Jackson did a good job during the Kavanaugh hearings (can’t find the clip at the moment).
Cheryl Rofer
I’ll be in and out during the hearings. Got lots of things on the schedule IRL. Will try to comment and tweet.
Elizabelle
And Mueller arrives.
MomSense
It’s Mueller time!
japa21
Nadler doing a good job of framing Mueller as a dedicated, honorable public servant.
MomSense
Bunch of knitters on Instagram are posting photos of what they are knitting while they watch/listen to Mueller!
Dorothy A. Winsor
Nadler is not tiptoeing around.
Jerzy Russian
@MomSense:
I read that as a “bunch of KITTENS on Instagram”, but then came to the “knitting” part later. Maybe I should just go back to bed, since it is still (semi) dark here.
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No. Nadler made it pretty clear his train is on the impeachment track.
Soprano2
Already the first lie, that the investigation found “no conspiracy” with Russia. It only found that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that it happened.
Scotian
Must see TV from my hospital bed. All I heard in my head when the hearing started was the voice over from Mortal Kombat: It has begun!
Dorothy A. Winsor
The R (Collins?) is talking too fast. I’m in my office with the door open to the living room where the TV is, and I can’t understand what he’s saying.
Soprano2
Boy, he sounds angry, doesn’t he? Almost as if the report didn’t actually “prove” that Donald Trump was “innocent”.
Elizabelle
Collins is a tool. Kind of glad he’s rabbiting through his statement in that Southern accent, because it makes it a little hard to follow.
Signals the GOP is going to go heavy on the investigation being a rogue operation. Good luck with that.
ETA: And now he’s wailing that the investigation and its aftermath has stopped them from addressing the border crisis. Now he’s mentioning his own much-loved family. All the greatest hits.
“Our border is on fire, and in crisis.” — direct quote, straight from the tool’s mouth
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He’s lying about the report and talking about Trump’s “innocence”.
Chyron HR
@Soprano2:
The Russian conspiracy to elect Donald Trump had nothing to do with Donald Trump!
TS (the original)
They forget so quickly what they have done – or do they remember &reflect it in their words.
“Majority dislike of this president” – which President Obama suffered for 6 years.
MomSense
@Jerzy Russian:
That would be awesome. The dude sitting behind Mueller’s right shoulder, viewer’s left, has a resting da phuq face listening to Collins. Mustache dude needs to up his face game.
Elizabelle
@Scotian: Good morning, David. Lovely to have you with us.
guachi
We have this on at work. But it’s on Fox News so I’m not watching. That and the angle isn’t conducive to reading the subtitles.
I’ll live vicariously through your comments.
Elizabelle
@TS (the original): “Majority” of the one branch the Democrats control.
The whining is strong with that one.
Walker
@guachi:
Playing Fox at work should be reportable to HR.
Nicole
@Scotian:
Ha! Thank you for the only genuine laugh I’m going to get out of watching the testimony.
Elizabelle
“Sweeping and systematic” interference by Russians.
Soprano2
Wow, he twisted the knife by saying they didn’t investigate collusion, since that’s not an actual legal concept! LOL
cope
I plan to putter around the house on a couple of small projects I have going on, meet a fellow retiree teacher and a current working stiff for lunch at a renowned wing joint, come back home and putter around some more. Later today, probably while the rains are raining, I will get on the computer and read about the fallout of this morning’s show. I have no expectations or hopes and am not going to bother trying to count the dancing angels on the head of the pin.
I am all in on the Rude Pundit’s assertion that no explosive investigative report, no self-incriminating outburst by the president*, no hearing or meeting or uncovered video footage will save us. Only we can save us.
TS (the original)
So Mueller respects the law – but trump and the GOP do not.
Soprano2
“SPIT TAKE” He says he can’t answer questions about the Steele dossier! Wow, there went half the Republicans planned questions. LOL
Elizabelle
Cuts them off at the pass. Cannot address the opening of the investigation, which occurred months before his appointment.
MomSense
Mueller sounds a little out of breath to me.
Elizabelle
He will not comment on the actions of the Attorney General.
Damn.
Although, Zebley is mentioned in next breath. So maybe Zebley can comment there …
opiejeanne
WAPO Headline:
“While bemoaning Mueller probe, Trump falsely says the Constitution gives him ‘the right to do whatever I want’”
guachi
@Walker: It actually has been. I work at the NSA and someone complained that most of the TVs are set to Fox. Didn’t change anything.
Gin & Tonic
BBC reporting that Alexei Navalny has been detained again.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Go, Nadler! He just got Mueller to say his report did NOT clear the president.
Elizabelle
Nadler leads with the money quote. Not exonerated. Mueller agrees.
@MomSense: He looks a bit gaunt and tired. Noticed that when he entered.
Soprano2
So far so good, Nadler is asking good questions and not speechifying.
Elizabelle
“Explain to the American people” and uses “exculpated.” Thanks, Bob!
Soprano2
@Elizabelle: Yeah, I thought the same thing. Doesn’t he know what “plain language” means.
raven
@Elizabelle: @MomSense: Ever taken an AK round? The dude is 75 years old.
Soprano2
I’m impressed with Nadler’s questioning. If all the Dems are the same, this will at least get information out there to the public.
Cheryl Rofer
Nadler is doing a good job of setting the stage for later questions. Not messing around. The Democrats’ rehearsal and coordination of questions looks good so far.
Raven
He’s saying more than I thought he was going to.
Tinare
Nadler is a badass.
Raven
Now this cracker-ass motherfucker.
Elizabelle
@raven: Good morning. It’s more concern for having Mr. Mueller around a good, long time.
Collins notes he’s been told to slow his speech down. Hasn’t worked, though.
zhena gogolia
So much for the wimpy Democrats. Nadler did a great job.
Elizabelle
Mueller tells Collins he’s speaking too fast.
Collins slows down, as though Mueller is slow on the uptake. A bit humorous.
raven
@Elizabelle: Every day is a gift.
Soprano2
I guess Collins has got a lot of questions to get through really, really fast.
Soprano2
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..NO!!!
Nicole
Gadzooks, I am a fast talker, but Collins leaves me in the dust. I’m getting about every 4th word. He needs speech therapy, stat. Or not; maybe the less we understand of the garbage coming out of his mouth the better.
Elizabelle
Collins’ questions are only going to be easy to follow in the record, and suspect he’s going for loading it.
Mueller asks for Collins to repeat a question about collusion vs. conspiracy.
Collins tries to elicit that conspiracy and collusion are synonyms.
Mueller says no.
Collins trying to trip Mueller up on language.
Dog Mom
Posting again from the post below:
Anticipated, but not expecting more than we know to come out. Hoping it makes some waves with a larger audience.
As for me, I have to turn off the TV, close this tab and prep for an interview for a much needed and desired job. If you need a breather around 11:30 EST, please clear your head and send some positive energy/prayers/goodness for my success.
I hope that those of you that are able to watch, please take breaks if needed to keep your blood pressure down and your psyche safe.
I will add that I glanced up quickly and thought the chyron said “Collins, Ranting Member”.
Definitely turning it off now.
Elizabelle
Collins is such a fucker.
Staff found one incidence in the Mueller report that conflates collusion with conspiracy.
Elizabelle
@Dog Mom: Good luck with the interview, DM. We can multitask and keep fingers crossed for success for you, too.
Tinare
I was yelling at the tv that the report said “largely” synonymous not just synonymous. So no not the same thing.
Soprano2
Funny that Collins couldn’t get Mueller to say conspiracy and collusion are the same thing. Also glad he said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove conspiracy.
Elizabelle
Lofgren question: who shared polling data with the Russians.
Mueller says look at the report; she says they don’t have the unredacted version.
Going for “Manafort” (or an associate) there.
opiejeanne
It would be Trimp. Uh, Trump. Haha!
Nicole
@Dog Mom: Sending you energy to knock it out of the park on your interview!
Raven Onthill
@Nicole: it’s an attempt to rattle the witness. It worked at least once.
TS (the original)
@Elizabelle: Republicans are so rude when speaking to anyone that doesn’t bow down before them. There is zero need for them to act in this fashion – it just highlights that they are 100% concerned with self – and not with truth.
Elizabelle
@Tinare: There won’t be a good sound bite on that. Speeding bus delivery, and convoluted.
Another Scott
Nadler was good. Lofgren is good.
I like how Mueller ran out the clock on Collins. Heh.
So far, so good.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@TS (the original): Also, they’re wound up tight and it shows.
opiejeanne
Ratcliffe is a ratfucker.
Immanentize
@raven:
Mueller was neverthe trial or appellate court oratory genius. He is a steely-eyed investigator, committed public servant, and a remarkable manager/leader. It is funny/sad how much entertainment presence has replaced honesty and experience as truth markers.
But I guess Nixon made the same complaint about Kennedy. Oops –No. Everyone knew Nixon was a dishonest liar by 1960.
MomSense
@raven:
I’m not criticizing- more concerned.
Soprano2
Does this moron know that Donald Trump wasn’t the subject of the investigation?
Soprano2
It’s so funny, this dude thinks he has a point. Doesn’t he know that the DOJ has said the president cannot be indicted?
Tinare
Burden of proof being twisted by a Republican to say that they are unfair by not charging a sitting President on evidence that would resulted in charges for anyone who is not President.
opiejeanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: They are awful. Ratcliffe is yelling at him and accusing him of …. oh damn, he just called us Socialists!
MomSense
I don’t think the word respectfully means what you think it does, Ratcliffe.
Soprano2
So we can see what the Republican plan is, to totally play to Trump. They need to give Mueller a copy of the report!!! Someone get the man a report!
I don’t think the Republicans understand that a prosecutor cannot just ignore evidence of a crime.
TS (the original)
@MomSense: ditto
Dorothy A. Winsor
I have to go to the gym. I look forward to catching up when I get back.
Raven Onthill
It seems the Republicans are making a coordinated effort to get Mueller to break down on the stand, hence the hard interrogator style. Libeling him to his face doesn’t help much, either.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I want to listen to this, it’s historic whatever happens and an important [baby] step in the process.
But unfortunately these things always have Republicans talking. And that makes me want to throw up after just a sentence or two.
I need a filter that plays tuba music whenever a Republican talks.
Soprano2
I think we were worried about nothing; it’s obvious that the Democrats on the committee coordinated, and are mostly doing without the usual speechifying that characterizes these kind of hearings.
Jerzy Russian
@Tinare: Wait what? So they are saying the president should have been charged? I can’t watch what is going on at the moment.
Elizabelle
Ratliff’s secured his invite to Fox News tonight. He spoke clearly, although I did not hear him get much out of Mueller. (Was in the kitchen; might have missed some …)
oatler.
The live comments on the Youtube feed looks like a neo-Nazi chat room.
Elizabelle
Sheila Jackson Lee (I think) got Paul Manafort’s name into the record a few minutes ago, as he who passed polling data on to the Russians. Mueller did not respond (I think, again, in kitchen …)
opiejeanne
Oh shoot me now. Sensenbrenner.
Elizabelle
Le sigh. Another Republican up, who is a stickler for rules. More schooling on the Special Counsel’s statute.
It’s James Sensenbrenner.
Soprano2
So, it’s the Republican’s assertion that the special counsel should ignore evidence of a crime. It sounds like that’s what they’re hanging their whole case on, that he should have ignored evidence of the president’s attempts to obstruct the investigation.
Jerzy Russian
@Soprano2:
You mean “some of us …”
wvng
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I feel much the same. Drum solos would also work.
opiejeanne
@Elizabelle: Ratliffe spent almost his entire time ranting at Mueller and accusing him of… something. There was no actual question and he left no time for an answer by Mueller.
Soprano2
None of this questioning by the Republicans is going to play well on TV, because they’re trying to lawyer him to death.
Elizabelle
Sensenbrenner accuses Mueller of “fishing.”
The projection, it is strong with this one.
ETA: Ooh. He gets in “Clinton impeachment” and Kenneth Starr too.
Soprano2
This questioning by Republicans is falling pretty flat so far.
opiejeanne
@Soprano2: And they’re not very good lawyers. I wouldn’t hire a one of them.
Luciamia
Ugh, so early. Don’t these usually start at 10 a.m.?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@wvng: Unmuted. Heard some idiot (turns out to be Sensenbrenner) say “let me read the special prosecution law to you”. Bleah. Muted again.
Unmuted. Sensenbrenner babbling something about 182 pages that don’t comply with the law or something. Bleah. Muted again.
Elizabelle
Steve (?) Cohen up now.
Elizabelle
Trump: “I’m f**cked.”
Read in as “I’m effed.” That’s a first for Congressional testimony, no?
TS (the original)
Reading sections of a report and saying “Is that correct” – is being used by the GOP in an attempt to confuse and give trump some quotes for his tweeting. Absolute nonsense way to do anything. trump really has his minions giving up on any form of propriety or any attempt to follow any previous procedures related to congress activities.
Soprano2
I think this is funny; the Democrats are basically reading the report to him to give the press quotes to use on the news! Republicans are trying to get him to admit he shouldn’t have investigated obstruction in the first place. LOLOLOL
Tinare
@Jerzy Russian: No they are trying to paint the Mueller report as an over reach because they didn’t charge the President with a crime, but detailed his actions. So unfairly suggesting that he did something wrong, but not having enough to charge him. So prosecutorial overreach and poor victim Trump.
Leaving aside the DOJ can’t charge a sitting President rule that he followed.
Elizabelle
Cohen: “Is the Attorney General supposed to be the AG of the US, or the consigliere of the President?”
Mueller says of the US.
Take that, Barr. Love the “consigliere” term.
Soprano2
Also, the Republicans are trying to make some kind of hay out of the fact that Mueller didn’t say Trump should be impeached. That wasn’t part of his mandate!
Sab
Does anyone know who the two guys directly behind Mueller are (scowling blue necktie on left, big white mustache on right)?
Elizabelle
Steve Chabot up now.
ETA: bringing up the Steele report, Fusion GPS.
donnah
Republicans are not asking any questions about the findings or facts. They are all going after the legal aspects and trying to distract Mueller and jam him up. They look angry and accusatory and desperate.
I hope Mueller can keep up and block out the noise.
Soprano2
Also it was smart of the Democrats to have those slides to project parts of the report on a screen.
Arm The Homeless
Benghazi worked because the GOP found ‘Teh Server!!!! 1!!1!!!!’ and then made that the point of the whole debacle. Dems would be wise to do that as well.
That would also involve these preening chuds to agree on a strategy
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
If only he’d pronounced it correctly!
Elizabelle
Mueller says Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS is “outside my purview.”
Chabot has a staffer who excels at smirking behind him.
Jerzy Russian
@Tinare: Thanks. I guess the GOP knows when they see unfair fishing expeditions since they have conducted many of them in the recent past.
danielx
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Bronx cheer would work.
zhena gogolia
Visinetskiya!
Haha
Elizabelle
@donnah: Mueller seems to be relaxing, actually.
Immanentize
@Tinare:
When reading this I just thought…
Comey, Comey, Comey….
wenchacha
Goddammit. It would be awesome if Mueller had the voice of James Earl Jones, but he doesn’t. Part of me wonders if this is some of the reason he didn’t want to have to testify like this. Was Mueller a better public speaker in earlier days? ( Is he perhaps ill?)
Jerzy Russian
@Arm The Homeless:
Who are the preening chuds?
Soprano2
Republicans think they have some kind of point with the idea that Clinton was the real colluder with Russians! Funny how Mueller kept saying that was out of his pervue or being investigated by someone else.
Immanentize
I hope that someone makes one thing clear–
Trump was “not charged” because he didn’t commit a crime, he was “not charged” because an internal employee policy prohibited him from being charged.
Raven
@wenchacha: Imm addresses that above
Elizabelle
Chabot was the most effective Republican up so far, even though he got about 3-4 answers of “not in my purview.”
His closing remark was that the Mueller Report left out anything that might be positive for the President, after dragging the Clinton Campaign in as having paid for the Steele report.
(Which, to my recollection, actually started with Jeb! Bush’s campaign; was that the case?)
Raven
@Immanentize: Will it matter?
Jerzy Russian
@Immanentize:
If I ever get my own company I will be sure to get that same policy in place.
Elizabelle
@wenchacha: Mueller had prostate cancer in 2001. Successfully treated, at the time.
Soprano2
@Elizabelle: I think that’s right. I know it started with a Republican campaign.
Tinare
Oh goody. Gohmert.
Soprano2
Gohmert, this is going to be amazing!
TS (the original)
Cannot listen to the republicans – just cannot
Immanentize
@Raven: I don’t know.
But the Republicans are sure trying hard to bury that simple fact. So it must be important to them….
Elizabelle
Asparagus Goehmert up. Drops a copy of
Robert Mueller Unmasked
into the record. It’s some white pamphlet. No idea who wrote it.
Raven
goober up
Sab
@Elizabelle: Chabot is wasting his whole 5 minutes questionning Mueller about why he didn’t investigate things outside his purview, when the Republicans’ main underlying argument has been that Mueller wandered outside the limits of his mandate/purview.
Ohio Republicans doing us proud//
Elizabelle
Gohmert lecturing Mueller on the importance of credibiilty.
“It goes to your credibility.”
You cannot make this stuff up.
Soprano2
Know what? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Immanentize
@Elizabelle:
Almost all men have prostate cancer at some point. As my Dr. says, “You probably will get prostate cancer some day, but it probably won’t be what kills you.”
Elizabelle
Gohmert hitting on Comey and Peter Stzok.
Tinare
Why are the Republicans so focused on an affair.
wvng
Gohmert on now. I may need to use lye to clean the stupid out of my brain.
zhena gogolia
This guy is making me vomit.
Strzok-Page FTW!
Elizabelle
And Lisa Page.
I think Trump wrote Gohmert’s talking points.
oatler.
More rich Gohmerty goodness.
gene108
Gohmert isn’t allowing Mueller to answer.
Jerk.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Elizabelle
Gohmert screaming hate, hate, hate, hate in his questions.
And he is out of time.
Mueller says “I take your question.”
Elizabelle
Ted Deutsch of Florida up now.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
What does “I take your question” mean?
Soprano2
Wow, that was crazy! The point could be made that if a person was innocent they wouldn’t try to obstruct or impede the investigation, and would happily sit down with the investigators to show their innocence. Also, he says without any evidence that Mueller’s people hated the president. He was, as usual, pretty unhinged.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle:
I didn’t know he was, like, you know … Not that it matters!!
donnah
Gohmert is like one of those stupid scrawny little dogs that run around biting your ankles and yapping incessantly. I wish someone would boot him across the room.
gene108
At a hospital waiting for labs.
Hohmert attacks Mueller
Dems try to get Mueller to expand on report, but he refuses
raven
@zhena gogolia: Yea, what?
Jerzy Russian
@Elizabelle:
I believe that is the case.
This sentence also triggered two thoughts:
1. Is logic taught in schools anymore? The Steele report is perhaps bullshit or not (or maybe a combination), but whatever that is doesn’t depend on where it started.
2. Jeb! can be read as “Jeb factorial”. The factorial function can often lead to a very large number (in this case a large number of Jeb-like things), and I found that to be disturbing. Then I remembered that Jeb is a zero, so Jeb!=1, thereby limiting the bad outcome.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: No clue. And I am not sure it is Mueller who said it. (Listening, not watching, at that point. Because. Gohmert.)
zhena gogolia
Haha, “You were BARRED from indicting a sitting president.”
Raven
@Elizabelle: it was
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Mueller said, “I take your question.” Twice. I don’t know what it means.
some lurker
@Jerzy Russian:
It wasn’t a GOP campaign that started the investigation that lead to the Steele dossier. It was a conservative newspaper, The Washington Free Beacon.
Elizabelle
Ms. Robi or Rubi or something. Don’t know her. Also, audio problems with C-Span.
Going over Mueller interactions with the AG (Barr, at the time report was delivered).
Immanentize
@Jerzy Russian:
“WE’RE # 0!”
just doesn’t have a ring to it.
Arm The Homeless
@Jerzy Russian:
Nadler and his boring ass intro, specifically. But my issue mainly stems from the lack of any sort of cohesive strategy or narrative about how the criming of the Trump admin is affecting normal Americans. The Dems are trying to nuance a position, rather than learn from the GOP that in highly polarized electorates, feeding your base is more important than getting cooing sounds from Sunday news-readers.
TS (the original)
I hope I’m right – but I see the democrats getting the point across – that trump obstructed justice – the republicans are trying to refute that – by bringing in many red herrings & accusing Mueller of bias – but this is not working – only Fox media will report the nonsense of the republicans.
The chairman also clearly got Mueller to state that the president* wasn’t indicted because the DOJ said he could not be indicted – not because they didn’t have evidence against him.
I also get intensely sad to see any woman representing the GOP in congress – they are working against their own interests and the interest of their children.
Raven
@zhena gogolia: Where is Ari Melber when we need him??
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia:
It’s Old person legal speak for: “Whatever, Dude.”. It is not a comment but a way of disregarding without engaging.
It is often followed in the mind by, “… and shove it up your ass.”
Elizabelle
Odd. Roby asks who wrote Mueller’s letter to Barr after Barr went obfuscating the original report (my summary, not her words). Mueller would not say that he wrote the letter.
Asks who leaked the letter, after two years without a leak.
Elizabelle
Karen Bass of California up.
zhena gogolia
@Immanentize:
That was my impression, but it’s totally unclear.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Martha Roby, who famously asked HRC if she was alone when she got the Benghazi news in the middle of the night, and IIANM barely survived a primary challenge for insufficient loyalty to the Great Beast.
Soprano2
I think the Republican woman was trying to get Mueller to admit that he wrote the letter just so it could be leaked to the press to make the DOJ look bad. She didn’t succeed, though.
zhena gogolia
McGahn, not McCann!
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia:
It is meant to be utterly unclear and completely neutral. It is funny how it really pissed people off when that is all they get for a reply.
I hope it becomes this week’s meme.
Raven
@zhena gogolia: Compared to what?
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Thank you. Do not encounter that phrase much.
Or “exculpate.”
Raven
@Immanentize: Thanks! I’m old but I’ve never heard that.
zhena gogolia
Oh, boy, Joseph Mifsud!
Where is he, by the way?
ETA: Maybe he’s in the basement of the Gym.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
I find this imagery adorable :)
Elizabelle
Jim Jordan. No jacket.
Starts off about Joseph (?) Mifsud.
Leto
Jungle Gym Jordan finally up. Blah blah blah. Oh, illegally spying on American citizens and Steele report. Kewl.
Fair Economist
@Jerzy Russian:
The Steele report was supposed to be a collection of corroborated (but not necessarily proven) non-public information about Trump. It was supposed to function as a guideline for further investigations. Because it is a *collection* of materials, you would expect some to be true, some false, and some impossible to determine. Finding one particular claim is untrue doesn’t disprove the rest, and in any case it’s not “bullshit” in any sense.
Citizen Alan
@TS (the original):
I get so tired of that complaint. It assumes that creating and maintaining a white supremacist oligarchy isn’t an “interest.”
zhena gogolia
Wow, we even have spies around the world trying to defend our interests! What a revelation!
Elizabelle
Mueller just looks sad when he’s listening to some of these Republican congresscritters.
He looked sad about something it was hearing from Gohmert, and looks a tad aghast at Jim Jordan.
Soprano2
So Gym Jordan has decided to testify.
Immanentize
@Raven: are you saying the GOP is just made up of
Poor dumb rednecks rollin logs….
zhena gogolia
Gym’s been watching a lot of old Matlock episodes. Or maybe Perry Mason.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TS (the original):
I think the Dems are trying to reach the kind of voter who doesn’t like trump but when things get complicated tell themselves, “Oh, it’s all just politics”, an empty phrase that they can tell themselves is high-minded. They get their news “at the top of the hour”, or while waiting for sports and weather while they get the kids ready for school or fix dinner. Headlines like that can cut through. We’ll see.
Leto
Gym Jordan going off script and admitting it wasn’t the Steele dossier that started the investigation.
zhena gogolia
OMG, Gym, I don’t think CAA is hiring right now. Better luck next time.
Elizabelle
Jordan is fillibustering. Fox News has its video for tonight.
Missed his century. Would have been an incredible witchhunter, a la Matthew Hopkins.
Time expired. Break coming up.
Elizabelle
@Leto: Well done. Thank you for seeing through that squid ink.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I turned off the TV cause this five minute format drives me nuts, and I figure the good parts will be all over the tubes and TV later, but this is interesting. I’m sure MSNBC will trumpet it, will CNN show it to all those people half-watching in airports?
Elizabelle
@Soprano2:
LOL. Pretty much.
Immanentize
That was fun! Later ‘Gators.
And Dawgs, too.
TS (the original)
@Citizen Alan:
No – it assumes women should know who has their best interest at heart & it sure isn’t republicans
Elizabelle
New thread, for when testimony resumes? (Hopefully, a lot of the testimony will be by Mueller.)
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
They really should have started this hearing at ? thirty because it would make a helluva drinking game.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
I know!
I’m so out of it, I thought it would be later when I could really watch it. Now I’m watching instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing.
Jerzy Russian
@Fair Economist: No it is not bullshit. My point was the items on the file stand on their own, and that should not depend on who started the file.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
TS (the original)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m an “older” citizen and most of my friends still watch “the six o’clock news” – I hope that headline would get through to them. I haven’t watched a commercial news bulletin in years – might check out how they report this hearing.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Props for that reference.
frosty
@opiejeanne: Not quite, Trump. It’s Catch-22*: You have the right to do anything we can’t stop you from doing.
* Not the usual phrasing, it’s buried in the book.
Another Scott
@Jerzy Russian: Plus, the inconvenient fact that the counter-intelligence investigation started before McCain received the Dossier.
IIRC.
It’s noise, and Barr’s “investigation” of it is just another attempted smoke screen to protect Donnie.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Arm The Homeless: The narrative from the Democrats is clearly stated at the end of their questioning (at least the ones that I’ve heard): Nobody is above the law.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
Session beginning again. Mueller not present yet.
joel hanes
@Tinare:
Nadler is a badass.
Agreed. But if I remember correctly, some jackass hopes to primary him from the left
Ella in New Mexico
@Citizen Alan:
Women like these R’s—no matter how much they have benefitted and taken full advantage of the freedom and equality Progressives have fought for and won for us—are just as invested in what that white supremacist oligarchy gives them. They secretly long for the days of “Mad Men”, and all it’s sexist, traditional limitations, because they’re so very sure they would be a part of the protected class.
Phyllis Schaffley was onto something.
Elizabelle
Can hear the camera shutters. Mueller is back.
Cedric Richmond of Louisiana.
I like his name.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: Raven and I appreciate that you have our backs
zhena gogolia
Their improper citation method bugs me. It should be Vol. II, page XXX, not page XXX, vol. II.
opiejeanne
@frosty: I was just really happy to see that headline in WaPo this morning. Not really awake. It’s 7:20 on the Left Coast but something woke me up at 4 and I’ve been groggy ever since.
Raven
@Steve in the ATL: Night games kill me but this one should be a doozy!
zhena gogolia
Oh, no, Gaetz.
Elizabelle
Matt Gaetz. Back to the Steele dossier.
Suggesting it may be part of the “Russian disinformation campaign.”
Steve in the ATL
@zhena gogolia: citation pedantry—you’re openly flirting with the lawyers here, aren’t you?
Another Scott
OT – One for Jay – Phys.org – How to build a Moon base.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
I had to pause it, so I’m behind now. One thing I like is that the composition of each party’s members on the committee highlights how much Democrats represent everyone, and Republicans represent white people.
zhena gogolia
@Steve in the ATL:
I guess academics always do.
Elizabelle
Matt Gaetz is a bully. His manner is ridiculous for this hearing.
These people have “congressman” mixed up with “disc jockey” or “talk show host.”
Arm The Homeless
@Another Scott:
That’s great, but which bloody-shirt are they all going to be waving by tonight? What singular point will speak to that belief that no one is above the law?
zhena gogolia
I’m hoping Mueller will treat Gaetz the way he treated the Vietcong. We saw a flash of it just now.
Raven
@Arm The Homeless: That the media lost vietnam. . .
zhena gogolia
Haha, “anti-Trump Russians”! There are some, I can attest, but they have no power.
joel hanes
@Jerzy Russian:
Jeb! can be read as “Jeb factorial”
In some programming languages, the exclamation is used as the symbol for logical negation, the NOT operator. So I have always read that as
Jeb NOT
raven
@zhena gogolia: Muller was probably up against the NVA.
Steve in the ATL
@Raven: you’re close to the ΣAE house—should be easy to score some white to keep you up for night games!
Soprano2
Does Gaetz know that Trump wasn’t our president when the dossier was compiled?
zhena gogolia
@raven:
I knew I was going to get that wrong.
oatler.
As Yeats said, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of Gaetz.
Elizabelle
Hakeem Jeffries up.
Jeebus, Matt Gaetz is an asshole. I hope karma hits him hard, three or four times.
Ella in New Mexico
OMFg Now it’s Meathed Matt Geitz pounding on every Sean Hannity conspiracy theory with absolutely no factual basis or relevancy to the investigation.
Seriously, do the Republicans have ANYONE elected to Congress that isn’t a complete moron who thinks they’re there to do a perpetual audition for a Right-Wing Call-in show on AM radio?
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
The name Cedric makes me think of either this or this.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
“Assumes Russians not in evidence.”
trollhattan
@Ella in New Mexico:
Think we all sadly know the answer to that.
TS (the original)
Gaetz is making a speech – doesn’t seen to have any questions.
Elizabelle
@Ella in New Mexico:
Ella! You can read Mueller’s mind! (I think he got more respect from the gangsters he was prosecuting.)
zhena gogolia
@Ella in New Mexico:
Roby looked slightly less insane. For a minute I thought she was a Democrat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
anybody asked why Fredo didn’t testify yet?
raven
@zhena gogolia: Minor point to most. Muller got there in July, 68.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Yeah. I was wondering that too, except for the rotation schedule.
Baud
@Jerzy Russian:
Baud! 2020!, by contrast, will take America to infinity and beyond.
joel hanes
@Elizabelle:
Matt Gaetz is a bully
Yes. Before his father set him up in politics, his job was an outside-the-club heavy for a strip club. Outside, because Matt is the kind of guy that the managers of a strip club do not trust to work inside the club.
Soprano2
The rest of the country is being exposed to all of the crazy Fox News right-wing radio conspiracies about the special counsel investigation today. I guess they’ve dropped the Q-Anon theory that Mueller and Trump were actually working together.
zhena gogolia
“accommodations”? I think he means “commendations.”
Elizabelle
Ken Buck. He also sounds noncrazy.
Nelle
@Elizabelle: But he says that they don’t hold press conferences about people not charged. Isn’t that what Comey did?
Tenar Arha
@TS (the original): Yes it’s sad. Unfortunately, it’s probably not what she thinks is true. Even if her life & livelihood & status don’t actually depend directly on her husband, a white woman of her social class’ self-conception & career is entirely dependent on propping up white patriarchy. In fact even if she’s essentially breaking the mould she’s supposed to fit herself to, she may conceive her actions to be to the benefit of her offspring, essentially passing down. a future role & social place for either a daughter or a son.
Elizabelle
@joel hanes: I was wondering what jobs Gaetz’s skillset would allow. What a shame Florida sent him to Congress.
He would not even make a good salesman, because no listening or apparent empathy.
Soprano2
Boy, Republicans sure are ignoring the fact that the DOJ has said they cannot charge a sitting president with a crime.
Soprano2
@Nelle: Yep, that’s exactly what he did.
Elizabelle
Buck accuses Mueller of “you threw a bunch of stuff up against the wall to see what would stick.”
Projection, projection, projection.
I saw a flash of Mueller thinking he would have indicted but for the OIC guideline.
David Cicilline of Rhode Island up now. Buck was from Colorado.
Jerzy Russian
@Baud: America will need logarithms to deal with Baud! Speaking of which, what is your position on logarithms: natural or common?
Captain C
@Elizabelle:
Whatever floats his boat, but isn’t that wildly inappropriate behavior in the workplace?
Soprano2
I think Buck made the opposite point of what he was striving for!!! LOL
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
No one seems to believe me when I say the impeachment hearings will officially start after Labor Day when all of the reporters’ summer vacations are over.
You never roll out a new product before Labor Day.
Steve in the ATL
@Soprano2: I saw a pickup (of course) with a Q-Anon bumper sticker in Florida last time we were at Mayo. Near my home in Atlanta I saw a pickup (of course) with a 3 percenter sticker, but it had Florida tags (of course).
It freaks me out when I see nut jobs in the real world; I prefer to believe that they exist only in ghetto sections of the internet.
Steve in the ATL
@Nelle:
It is indeed. Read that sentence as “[people who are not right wing hacks] don’t hold press conferences about people not charged.”
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: I think so too.
I have never, ever thought that Pelosi and Democrats are not doing anything.
Elizabelle
WaPost and NY Times headlines have both gone with Mueller said “not exculpated.”
Could we have that in Latin? (Is it Latin?)
JWR
@Mnemosyne:
I do, I do! (No really, I do.)
Captain C
@Ella in New Mexico:
They’ve been working hard to primary any such people out since 1994 at the latest, that is, since Newt Gingrich decided that scorched earth politics was the right thing for Rethugs (and only Rethugs).
Steve in the ATL
@Elizabelle:
Then you must not be a Balloon Juice commenter!
zhena gogolia
Good, Swalwell.
I don’t think anyone understood what that last guy was going for. Some kind of collusion between Rosenstein and Mueller, I guess.
Elizabelle
Jim Jordan is in the background of the congressman who’s up. (Biggs of Arizona?)
Jordan is eating, drinking, and very active. Like a racehorse behind a gate, or an overactive child.
Eric Swalwell.
laura
Ted Leiu!!
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: I think that’s part of their theory that Mueller was “conflicted” and shouldn’t have been special counsel at all.
hells littlest angel
@Mnemosyne: Yup. It’s all good and well to do the right thing, but this is a case where you have to do it at the right time.
Citizen Alan
@TS (the original):
I dunno. Aunt Lydia and Serena Joy seem to be mostly okay with it.
raven
“V” device!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Notably absent from that list: anything from Fox.
So is Fox going with “Mueller admits he’s a poopy-head and Trump is totally innocent”? Or with pretending the hearings aren’t happening and going with “Ann Coulter shows this summer’s hot beachwear”?
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: Dave is good (not watching, just saying based on his track record.)
laura
Who are the Waldorf and Statler sitting behind Meuller?
joel hanes
@Elizabelle:
Is it Latin?
It’s an English word, and not _that_ unusual.
Latin-derived, of course, and related to the “culpa” in “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”
TriassicSands
Maybe they should charge current members of the HJC with obstruction of justice.
Mueller strikes me as a less than fully competent witness. Has he read his own report?
Raven
@TriassicSands: That’s bullshit, crawl back under your rock.
PenAndKey
I’ve been reading along with the live commentary here but my new boss (I started a new job two weeks ago) just turned on Fox news to watch their coverage of the hearing in the office right across from my desk.
Holy hell, I remember why I refused to be in the same room as that “news” channel years ago. I’m glad I brought headphones and nobody cares if I listen to music, because that channel is cringe-worthy.
Baud
@Jerzy Russian:
Natural is based on e, which is irrational, but common is based on 10, which smacks of the metric system. As a proud American, I choose e.
smintheus
@Elizabelle: non sine culpa est
Leto
Tom McClintok looks like the same named character from Veep. I’m sure his questions will be just as relevant as what the character would ask.
JWR
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: “
My eyes!!1!
Yellowdog
@Mnemosyne: Nixon resigned in August.
Elizabelle
New thread up, re hearing.
Soprano2
For the most part it seems to me that the Republicans are beclowning themselves by asserting that news reports about conspiracy theories are something that Mueller should take seriously.
Amir Khalid
I’ve only been sampling Mueller’s testimony, but it strikes me that the Democratic Representatives’ collective questioning of the Special Counsel has been, despite the fears of some commenters here, methodical and coordinated to bring up details from it that are particularly damning. It looks like they’re doing very well.
joel hanes
@PenAndKey:
my new boss (I started a new job two weeks ago) just turned on Fox news
I respectfully suggest that you
A. keep your head down
B. keep your resume up-to-date
Leto
We’ve literally just witnessed Debbie Lasko’s brain break. Kudos Mr Mueller.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: Yeah, but just for the record…Ken Buck *is* crazy.
smintheus
@Leto: First reply to Lesko’s tweet promoting her questioning:
https://twitter.com/RepDLesko/status/1154044598223691778?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
opiejeanne
@Steve in the ATL: Saw a faded “Women for Trump” sticker on a vehicle that was very probably not driven by a woman yesterday. It was a beat up modified pickup with a flat-bed and was obviously someone’s work truck. That that person was somewhere inside the restaurant we’d just left was a bit disturbing. I don’t want them in my community, not anywhere in the Real World.
wvng
@Amir Khalid: My concern is that in classic Dem fashion they are drilling into details and losing the over arching message.
danielx
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I totally could done without that latter image.
Mnemosyne
@Yellowdog:
Nixon’s impeachment hearings started in February. He resigned in August in the vain hope that it would get less coverage since reporters would be on vacation.
Arm The Homeless
I take back my previous complaint about Nadler. I see that Lieu and an assortment of GOP morons already got the soundbite for this thing.
“Candidate X is working for you; Trump is working to stay out of prison” – – I approve this message
PenAndKey
@joel hanes: I plan to keep my head down. I’m highly liberal in a strongly conservative farming community in an industry that supplies material to farmers, and my new role is a major leadership position at one of the largest suppliers in my industry. Not talking politics is basically a Fight Club rule for liberals around here.
scuffletuffle
@Dog Mom: Fingers and toes crossed for you!
Miss Bianca
@PenAndKey: I feel you.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne:
I have been saying this ALL YEAR!
It is the sensible timing frame for maximum impact.
Maybe more like mid-October. There still needs to be more demand stirred up (post summer vacations). And every day, Trump both increases demand for impeachment AND weakens overt opposition to impeachment.
ETA clarity, I hope.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
Was it a white pick up? This seems to be the right wing fad now.
The color of the only true flag of the Confederacy — Total unconditional surrender.
burnspbesq
@Dog Mom:
That would not have been inaccurate.
Immanentize
@joel hanes: your Catholic is showing….
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: both were black, like, I presume, the young boys in their naughty fantasies.
I’m always stunned by the number of black cars I see in Florida.
Immanentize
@PenAndKey:
But you can talk politics here at BJ whenever you want. Consider it a pressure valve! I certainly do.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
And I’m stunned by the number of white ones in Boston. For seven months a year, they cannot be kept clean!
Steve in the ATL
@opiejeanne: I know a fair number of Southern Baptists (sadly). The women are not allowed to work (unless the husband doesn’t earn enough to support his family, in which case material desires trump sincerely held religious beliefs). In public, these women are rabidly pro-trump, pro-republican, and anti-women. In private, many will admit that they find these beliefs repugnant and secretly voted for Hillary.
Central Planning
@Baud: “Baud counted to infinity, and then kept counting”
Yeah, I know this thread is dead but just catching up.
O. Felix Culpa
@joel hanes:
You rang?
Uncle Cosmo
@Elizabelle: Non exculpa, non exculpa, maxissima non exculpa – or somesuch. (Where da fuq did I get “nea” on the first go-round??)
opiejeanne
@Steve in the ATL: I have a whole family of them, Southern Baptists and went to church with them when we visited them in Missouri in the summer. As a teen in the 60s I thought they were mostly laughable but my Southern Baptist cousins were very offended by the overt racists among the family, one uncle in particular. This was long before they were taken over by the extremists. Most of the first cousins have been attending mainline churches or have left religion entirely now. The ones who haven’t, well, we don’t have to see them too often (or ever).
opiejeanne
@Central Planning: No thread is ever entirely dead, at least not until I kill it.
Uncle Cosmo
@Raven: Yeah, go pound some Triassic Sand up your Jurassic Ass. (ETA: Just to be sure all&sundry understand the imperative was directed at the yobbo Boss Crow was responding to & not the Bird-Man of Bulldog Land hisownself.)
Dog Mom
@scuffletuffle: Thanks – I think it went well, but have to wait and see!
joel hanes
@Immanentize:
your Catholic is showing
Spent my earliest years in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood, one block from Holy Family Church and Holy Family School and the convent, but nope, we churched as liberal Presbyterians and I’ve been a hard atheist since the age of fourteen or so.
What you’re hearing is four years of Latin classes in middle and high school.