I hope I find it as easy to wear off of Robert Mueller as I did with beer. It shouldn’t be hard, I’ve had more than my fill, and it’s time to stop before I wake up on the floor with the cat scooping litter over me.
God knows that Robert Mueller himself is sick of this shit. And since even people who took the time to read the damn report still seem to be incapable of comprehending simple English, Bob Mueller did everything but shout it through a bullhorn. William Barr is full of shit, but at least he released the report without making it look like an old IBM punch card. Even if they had found a canceled check from His Lowness to Vlad the Imp, they couldn’t make a conclusion on conspiracy due to the OLC rule, and the same thing goes for obstruction of justice. And if they bother to call Mueller before congress, what we’ll end up with is an audio boo of the Mueller report with video of the author reading it.
Mueller couldn’t have been more crystal clear, he never even bothered to think about indicting Trump because he couldn’t indict Trump if he wanted to, but his meaning was clear to anybody who listened, especially when he made the very pointed reminder that if they had been able to clear the President of obstruction, they would have done so in their report. He flat out came out and said that the legal arena was not the venue for this issue, there was a separate protocol in place to deal with this issue.
Hello congress, can you hear me now? In saying that in any testimony that he gave, he would not go beyond what was already written in his report, Mueller basically screamed, “Fuck me! What more do I have to do?!? You don’t have to do anything but copy and paste to write out your articles of impeachment, I already did all of the heavy lifting for you!” And of course, immediately afterward, Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell came out and said that of course they were going yo hear from Robert Mueller in committee, we all paid for this investigation, the least he can do is to repeat himself on camera. Did Swalwell not listen to a word that Mueller said?
So please, spare me. Either open an impeachment inquiry, or go back to passing stuff that Yertl the McConnell won’t even call to the floor for a vote full time. The same exact questions you ask a witness in front of a House committee hearing can just as easily be asked in front of a House impeachment hearing, and with greater effect. Besides, impeachment hearings would be most likely carried live on all major media outlets, including network television. Meaning that people might actually have to miss a few episodes of “The View!? *GASP* But it will educate what basically amounts to a captive audience. Personally, I think that most people would leave a test pattern with a beep on for background noise while doing the dishes, rather than actually have to think about anything, so they’d at least hear what’s going on.
Democrats should be too embarrassed to even show up for work right now. I mean, sweet Jesus, you have a lone libertarian Republican, not only calling for the impeachment of his own president, but facing down his own constituents to do so, and being rewarded with standing ovations for his courage!. MSNBC interviewed one woman coming out who admitted that she got her news from conservative media, and admitting that she was unaware that there was one word about Trump in the Mueller report, because nobody on FOX had ever mentioned it. Now that she knew, she was in favor of impeachment, even if it would fail in the Senate, because the situation required at least an attempt to accountability. Obviously you can’t reach everybody, but you sure as hell can weaken Trump’s hold on some of his less fervid supporters.
Look, I have no secret microphones or hidden video cameras, but I have a strong suspicion that I know what’s going on in Democratic senior leadership, especially with Nancy Pelosi. She was the newly minted Speaker of the House in 2009, when President Barack Obama made his push for his signature piece of legislation for his first term, the Affordable Care Act. The GOP ate the Democrats lunch on messaging the new bill, and it was underwater in popularity from the get go.Pelosi called in every chip she had to get the bill passed. It ended up costing the Democrats control of the House, cost her her speakership, and saddled us with 8 years of the Boehner-Ryan cabal.
Fast forward to 2019. Pelosi once again has the gavel in her hot little hands. Again she is immediately confronted with an uncomfortable, no win situation, And again the GOP has beaten the Democrats to the punch in terms of messaging, basically because of a constant, nonstop hammering of “No collusion, no obtruction” from Glorious Bleater, and impeachment is no more popular in 2019 than the ACA was in 2009. Pelosi is loathe to riwsk making the same mistake again.
But you know what Madame Speaker told her caucus in a closed door session just prior to the floor vote on the ACA in 2009? he basically told them that they weren’t elected for the sole purpose of getting reelected, they were elected to do the peoples business. And even if al of those dumb sheeple out there didn’t know it yet, this was for their own good, and she expected her caucus to do the right thing. Maybe Speaker Pelosi should listen to a little of her own advice right bout now.
Not very long ago we learned of the heroism of a teenager who ran towards an armed classmate, and died on his own classroom floor so that his classmates could live. Is there a Democrat out there that can look any of us in the eye, and tell us with a straight face that voting to impeach a criminal president is too great a risk to take because it may cost them their soft, plush, cushy job? If so, shame on them, and shame on us for sending the gutless cowards there in the first place.
I say this with love, Murf…calm…the eff…down. As I see it, the main holdup on Congress going anywhere on this, aside from Yertl, is solid, corroborative evidence. That’s why DT keeps pushing CT while using lawsuits to cover his tracks. That’s why the report got suppressed in the first place. And that’s why Robert Swan Mueller III hit the podium today to help break the logjam.
I keep saying two points over and over again and yet no one seems to believe me. One, as we did not get here overnight, we are also not getting out of here overnight. Pretending otherwise is a dangerous delusion. Two, we only get ONE shot at getting Trump out in a timely manner. We blow that shot, we got a worst case scenario of another four years we may well not have. That’s why I got no patience for the “impeach him now!” argument (which may well work to energize the people we want to stay out of the voting booth) nor the panicked cries of how much damage will happen if we don’t do it now (which is baked into the cake regardless). We can do this fast or we can do it right. We cannot do both.
The problem with that is that most of the stuff they’re requesting is financial, and most will be from before he was in office…In the obstruction caes Mueller lists, he already HAS the quotes from witnesses in the report, along with his own notes on how the pieces fit together,,,The longer we waste, the less tije there is for Trump’s inevitable copout in the Senate to fade before 2020…And meanwhile, the base is asking why something so clear cut to them i so hard for congress to wrap their tiny little brains around…Hell, they already know that the Senate won’t convict Trump, but they want to humiliate him with impeachment and a trial, and I’m al in for anything that humiliates Trump…
In other words, the base wants revenge…and EFF them for being that goddamn selfish. They get to feel better, the country gets to continue falling apart. That solves NOTHING and I spit on the very notion that it will.
And seriously, Murf…notes? Witness statements? We both know neither of those are as good as documented proof, especially when it comes to the spin game. We don’t need most of what they’re requesting…just enough of the right pieces will do the trick just fine. Someone’s going to get us that…a question of when, not if. It’s always later than you think.
I never said that the base said fuck ’em, what the base wants is the same thing pretty much everybody wants, accountability for highly likely criminal conduct…There’s no guarantee that an impeachment hearing results in articles of impeachment, but it i true that at least some if not most of the underlying documents from Muellers investigation would become available to congress for an impeachment hearing…
No, Murf, sorry, I can’t agree on that being what the base actually wants. As I said, what they really want revenge for two and a half bad, scary years none of us have enjoyed. Accountability is just a happy side effect, nothing more. That thirst for blood takes precedence over the actual good of this country, which is why I am off that bandwagon until further notice.
Also, I fail to see how getting the evidence out there via a failed impeachment hearing solves any damn thing. The only message that sends is “this is exactly what we did and we got away with it.” Don’t you think that it could be used in better ways than THAT?
I don’t see it quite the same way.
In 2009, Speaker Pelosi faced a decision – push for investigation of the Bush administration and possible impeachment, or push for the policy objectives Obama ran on. She chose policy, opting for progress even though there was reason to investigate Bush. She knew the caucus would pay for that progress, and she chose it anyway. I think she’d do it again.
Now she faces the investigate and impeach question with no possibility for policy gains. Her strategy is proving to be different because the playing field is different. And I don’t see this strategy as being gutless – I see it as being smart. She is slowly but surely arranging the chess board the way she wants it. Consider the big picture – her pieces, Nadler, Schiff, Waters, etc, are gaining power and position. Nothing that has happened has diminished their ability to move forward on this issue…with every move they grow stronger, not weaker. Meanwhile, bit by bit Trump’s pieces, Barr, etc, are becoming less powerful.
Good chess is about strategy, not ramming your pieces forward in a Leroy Jenkins attempt to take a single piece.
Tp be perfectly honest, I never even considered the Bush scenario, mainly because any investigation would have been post mortem, and wouldn’t change a thing, since you can’t impeach a departed president…
I agree, Mueller laid out Trump’s crimes in paint by number terms….
The only reason I can think of that Pelosi resists going forward with impeachment is the whole Russian thing is basically heresay…..there are 1000 ways to twist and spin the conclusion of a he said/she said scenario, and the Group Of Pricks will spin Mueller’s conclusion like…..well, like they have been doing.
…..but the financial disclosures, when they are released, will not be full of perceived actions, they will state facts, irrefutable facts as 1+1=2. You can’t spin this fact and it will never be 1+1=3. Numbers do not lie and presented with the facts of money laundering/tax evasion even the biggest Trump azz kisser in the Senate will HAVE to vote for impeachment.
It’s Al Capone all over again…..the players have changed, but the song remains the same.
Weren’t you just advocating for no impeachment 10 days ago?
To be fair to Murf and despite my disagreement with him, it’s worth noting that 10 days ago, Robert Mueller had yet to speak.
He didn’t say anything we don’t already know.
That’s the point…And he also indicated that he ain’t GOING TO SAY anything we don’t already know under questioning, so stop looking at HIM like he’s some kind of a silver bullet for a lack of guts…
He did his job, time for Dems to do theirs….
Hell Dino, just a couple of days ago I wrote here that I was like a fat hula dancer, with one foot in each camp and swaying back anf forth…lol But the fact is that we are NEVER going to get 67 votes in the Senate, and this problem isn’t going to go away, so the sooner we get this over and done with, the more time we have for memories to do their usual work and start forgetting shit…
I’m SICK of Pelosi and her cowardly ways; Schumer too. If IMPEACHMENT of that fu**king traitor fake president doesn’t start within a month, I will NOT vote Democratic in 2020. I don’t care who wins the nomination for coward-democratic president!! I’m never voting republiklan but I won’t vote for Dems who don’t care enough about this currently crumbling Democracy to fight trump, vladmir, crazy steve, mitch or whoever. The reason why that sell-out Muller had the nerve to tell us the American people who paid his damn salary for two years, to f*ck off, “he would prefer not going to Capitol Hill to testify,” ( say what!!??) is because Pelosi, Schumer, et.al are WEAK, spineless, scared of trump, scared of trump’s minions, selfish, unprincipled and compromised themselves, by taking the 1%’s money for their campaigns. EVERYBODY with a working brain KNOWS THIS. Nancy better move or we voting Democrats need to pressure HER to remove herself from Democratic leadership; and QUICK!!! So that we can get a real leader in the House of Reps. whose NOT afraid to take the traitor faux-president DOWN.
Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s drive thru window….
With all due respect, I got no sense from the above post on what SHOULD be done here. Love them or hate them, the Dems look like the only peaceful viable alternative to what we currently have to me. Beyond that is a pathway I do not care to walk.