Here is another open-thread for the testimony of Robert Mueller:
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by David Anderson| 102 Comments
This post is in: Mueller Report, Open Threads, The Mueller Report Book Club, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome
Here is another open-thread for the testimony of Robert Mueller:
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Elizabelle
Mueller is the opposite of a dramatic witness. Seems a tiny bit hard of hearing.
Soprano2
Hehehehehe, we all know who Cohen’s client is.
Elizabelle
Lesko brings up Barr’s press conference.
Mueller dodges immediately with his letter, which speaks for itself. Mueller watches her very closely, but there is not another question.
Elizabelle
Lesko getting after him for Volume 2 being regurgitated press stories. Most of which did not come from Fox News.
Lectures him on wasting taxpayer money.
Elizabelle
Pramila Jayapal of Washington state up. Back to witness tampering.
Leto
@Elizabelle: We’ve literally just witnessed Debbie Lasko’s brain break. Kudos Mr Mueller.
Soprano2
Lesko self-owned, didn’t she?
Raven
@Elizabelle: There you go again.
Soprano2
I hope someone brings up the fact that the investigation actually made money for the government.
Elizabelle
@Raven: I am a fan of Mueller. Just saying what I notice. It is no sin to be in his 70s or whatever.
Elizabelle
@Soprano2: That is an inconvenient fact.
As is the inception of the Steele Dossier.
Raven
@Elizabelle: Find someone that was in the infantry who doesn’t have hearing loss.
Elizabelle
This tool putting words in Mueller’s mouth is a former JAG officer. Says he tried 50 terrorists or so, in Afghanistan or Iraq, I forget.
Says he finds Mueller’s investigation “unAmerican.” He’s from PA. Long name I did not catch.
Val Demings of Florida up. I love her voice. Smoky.
Soprano2
Boy, Republicans are really going all-in on the idea that the obstruction by Trump shouldn’t have been investigated at all.
Elizabelle
@Raven: So you agree he might have hearing loss?
Mind you, it is hard to be in front of a large panel and with all the cameras and distractions in the room. (Not to mention Collins and his auctioneering speech pattern.)
It’s not a criticism of Mueller. Just an observation made.
Nelle
@Elizabelle: OT – I am a fan of Mueller also and am also seeing normal signs of aging. I hope this gets others to look carefully at some of this year’s candidates too. Said by someone who is nearing 70 and seeing the signs of aging in myself.
Soprano2
@Raven: My husband is probably half-deaf in his left ear due to a bullet going off right beside his ear when he was in Vietnam. So yeah, I doubt there is anyone who served who doesn’t have some hearing loss.
Elizabelle
@Nelle: I would make an exception for Elizabeth Warren. Sharp as a tack.
Nelle
@Soprano2: Laughing a bit as my husband had three tours and when talking about Vietnam, he admits hearing loss, but when talking together at home, it is me who isn’t distinct and clear.
Haroldo
With respect to hearing loss:
As a 67 year old with brand spanking new hearing aids, I urge all who suspect the ol’ ears ain’t working like they used to work to get a pair!
The latest vintage of hearing aids are remarkable in terms of function and convenience. And very affordable if purchased at Costco.
Leto
@Raven: I know I have hearing loss in the higher range due to weapons fire, but also a lifetime spent listening to test tones. We’ll see what the VA says.
Also glad we’re back to the Clinton email server. =|
Soprano2
@Nelle: I’ve had exactly the same experience!! My husband mumbles a lot – I think he believes he’s being clear, but he’s not. He accuses me of not listening!
MazeDancer
@Soprano2:
Someone did cite the figures of Mueller’s $ haul early on. Noted Mueller’s investigation cost American people nothing. Sorry, can’t remember who said it, but it was said.
joel hanes
The Gama Goat squad vehicle in the Army combat arms TOE in the late 1970s and early 1980s featured a completely unmuffled Detroit Diesel beer-truck engine situated immediately behind the driver’s seat, and a cabin made of rubberized fabric. Driving that vehicle for any length of time was known to cause hearing damage, unless one wore earplugs the while. I attribute my own slight hearing damage to my fourteen months as a Gama Goat driver, though I often wore earplugs.
Another side-effect: later, in college, when I was living next to a bar, the sound and smell of the beer delivery trucks starting up next door would give me flashbacks to the motor pool.
Mai Naem mobile
@Leto: Just remember Debbie Lesko replaced Trent Frank who was a bigger rwnj buffoon than Lesko. She beat a really good Indian American candidate Hiral Tiparneni(sp?!) because it’s a super red district.
Anyhow I’ve been listening to the radio. I just watched a few minutes. On the radio Mueller initially came across as old and unsure of himself until he picked up steam. He looks better on teevee. Not sure any minds are being changed since there haven’t been any Perry Mason moments. I don’t care but I don’t think the Repubs are doing themselves any favors by being aggressive and rude to Mueller. He doesn’t react in kind.
feebog
I’m close to Mueller’s age. He definitely is having trouble hearing the questions. He also seems to be having trouble locating Congress critters when they start asking questions. Uh oh, Republican Steube just just stepped on his dick. Mueller denies he interviewed for FBI Director, says he was only asked to give input.
opiejeanne
Jebus! Greg Steube is an asshole.
Jager
@Raven:
Huh? What did you say?
Soprano2
Dumbass, I told you I wasn’t going to talk about that! LOL
Leto
@feebog:
Stuber is following a long tradition of asking the same answered question over and over. Because I know I got him THIS TIME!!!! No? He answered the same? Well I’m going to keep going down this road.
Cheryl Rofer
@feebog: Lighting may be a problem too. Mueller may have tv lights shining in his eyes.
Elizabelle
@opiejeanne: As was Ben Cline, out of rural Virginia.
These Republicans are frightening.
Mueller just cracked a joke about Congress. Missed exactly what, but good for him.
opiejeanne
@Mai Naem mobile: I agree. Mueller’s doing well. This has to be wearing on him, though. It’s wearing on me and I’m not 70 yet, although some of that may be due to lack of sleep.
opiejeanne
@Elizabelle: I missed Cline. The tv was off for a little while because I had to do something that needed my concentration.
lee
I just caught a bit of Cline going on about how Mueller’s interpretation of obstruction (or at least the obstruction statute he was using ) was shot down by SCOTUS.
Raven
@Elizabelle: Of course he does. I’ve had VA hearing aids for 4 years and I was not a grunt. Between the military and the Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound it’s a miracle I can hear at all.
Elizabelle
Mr. Kelly Armstrong, of North Dakota. At large.
As in: North Dakota gets one congresscritter. Reunite those Dakotas! It’s a scam to get more federal representatives.
Elizabelle
@opiejeanne: Consider yourself lucky. I had never heard of Mr. Cline. Now, alas …
from Rockbridge and Bath counties, which are beautiful highland counties in Virginia.
StringOnAStick
@Elizabelle: Speaking as a partially deaf American who needs new hearing aides but spent this year’s medical budget in new knees, rooms with a lot of background noise are hell on quick comprehension.
Having fired lots of rounds without hearing protection while in the military set Mueller up for hearing loss a long time ago and it’s continuous and progressive unfortunately. I always, always wore the required hearing protection when I worked in an industrial setting and I still have progressive hearing loss I should probably blame loud music.
BretH
I think many of the Republican questioners may be well served going to an intimate catalog to purchase, ahem, body part inflators since certain body parts are stomped flat as a pancake.
StringOnAStick
@Haroldo: May I ask which brand you bought? I’m starting to think about replacing my old ones.
opiejeanne
@Elizabelle: I just realized I heard part of his nonsense. Blah blah blah.
Soprano2
Good, he’s talking about how he hired these people. He also should mention that he wasn’t allowed to ask about people’s affiliations.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
And if you reunite the Dakotas, you get to give Puerto Rico statehood without having to redesign the national flag.
Cheryl Rofer
@StringOnAStick: I agree. We get the microphone feed, which is clear, but an echo-y room with different amplification could be difficult for many people.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: I like that idea!
Raven
@joel hanes: About 2 years after I came home I went to Jamaica and took a local bus up through the mountains. I got really squirmy and thought it was because of the jungle but it turned out to be the diesel smell.
Elizabelle
@Raven: The persistence of memory.
rikyrah
83/ The moment that Robert Mueller said to Ted Lieu (D-CA) that he would have indicted Trump but for the OLC opinion is the very moment that right-wingers on Twitter started going *crazy* about this hearing. They’re enraged and—I think—a bit terrified. They didn’t see it coming.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 24, 2019
Soprano2
Who is that woman who’s glaring at Rep. Neguse while he asks questions? She looks really mad.
Elizabelle
It’s just incredible to hear all this grandstanding by Republicans after all the crap they pulled on Benghazi! It’s like there is no such thing as history. Or a congressional record.
Going on and on about cost and an implied rogue investigation.
They sicken me. I will remember them when I get tired with canvassing later this year and in 2020.
Haroldo
@StringOnAStick:
I ended up with the Kirkland (Costco house brand). Costco puts out a request for bids to all the major hearing aid manufacturers. The winner manufactures the Kirkland brand. If you don’t need bells and whistles (e.g., Bluetooth broadcasting of TV and smart phones into the hearing aid), in my opinion (and I believe that of Consumer Report’s as well), that’d be the way to go. $1600 for the pair.
Soprano2
“Democrat investigators”. “Strozk and Page”. Wow, people are getting the whole crazy Fox News experience.
Elizabelle
What a schmuck that congressman from Louisiana is. Dreadful little jerk.
Elizabelle
Lucy McBath! So happy to see her in Congress.
Soprano2
“President Trump cooperated fully with the investigation”. Then why wasn’t he interviewed by the special counsel?
opiejeanne
I had to pause it. Mike Johnson from Louisiana is just making me too angry this morning.
Elizabelle
Would these Republicans be so batshit if they were not playing to a Fox News audience?
It is frightening. And these are the elected representatives. The public-facing ones.
Soprano2
Mr. Johnson from LA sure can read people’s minds, can’t he?
Soprano2
And he got in the idea that the Steele dossier is totally debunked, which is untrue.
burnspbesq
@Elizabelle:
I spent a year in Rockbridge County (freshman at W&L). Not sure i ever fully recovered.
Citizen Alan
I am not listening to any of the Republican traitor-swine. All of them make me want to vomit. I just pause for 5 minutes or so whenever one of them comes on and then click the Live button.
StringOnAStick
@rikyrah: Abramson is correct that they didn’t see it coming. As Adam has noted here, the current Congress critters are true believers who think FOX news is real and accurate; the first generation knew to add a wink and a nod and that Fox was part of a propaganda plan. This current set actually believe everything Fix tells them and wow is that leading to some cog dis !
oatler.
We should have let the Confederacy secede because now we’re at the mercy of those popinjays.
Elizabelle
We are Democrats watching this hearing.
But, if I were an unaffiliated American watching 20 minutes or so, I would pick out right away which party exhibits more decency. Just plain decency.
Elizabelle
@burnspbesq: Indeed. It’s beautiful countryside, though.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Don’t be so sure that others see the world the same way.
Amir Khalid
Some jackals had been afraid that Democratic reps would waste time grandstanding and preening before the cameras. But from what I’ve seen, it has been Republican reps who have been doing that. The Democrats’ questioning has been methodical, coordinated and purposeful; and all about getting facts on the record. They come off looking much better than the Republicans.
Mike R
Fun fact about hearing loss from rifle fire, if one is left handed the right ear has greatest loss and of course the right hander losses more left ear hearing.
Haroldo
@StringOnAStick:
I concur. They are totally, thoroughly the creatures of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes.
StringOnAStick
If my RW dad was watching this, and I guarantee you he’s not and will rely on Fox the give him “the straight scoop”, he’d be wrestling with how badly the R’s are treating a decorated war hero who deserves respect with his general opinion that anyone not a fellow RW true believer is a pink -o commie socialist AOC destroying our precious Constitution. I think I’ll wait a few before I make this week’s phone call….
Elizabelle
Madeleine Dean from PA and the previous Democratic rep from Arizona and this rep from Florida: I am glad to see congresspeople I did not previously know. They have all been marvelous (speaking for Team Dem).
Different type of skillsets on display, Democrats and Republicans.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I had to disconnect for a while and just saw this
so I guess we can conclude that Mueller is pro-impeachment
Lawyers: This may be too speculative, but would that kind of testimony have any effect on a judge considering Congressional subpoenas of McGahn, Donaldson et al?
ETA: and that’s a big, dramatic headline, right? I can’t judge because I can’t believe people just yawned at Fredo’s “I love it!”
realbtl
@Raven: Try The Who in a parking garage, all concrete and 25′ ceiling.
burnspbesq
Headline on NYT app at 9:04 a.m. Pacific time:
“Republicans Attack Mueller’s Investigation in Hearing.”
lamh36
.GOP Rep Buck have the Dems EXACTLY the clip they need.
Check Buck’s face when he realized what he did!
Elizabelle
Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas asks directly if Mueller recommends impeachment. Asks several ways.
Mueller says he will not get into it.
He is allergic to saying the word “impeachment” in this public forum.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: Glad to hear that it seems to be going well. I can’t personally watch it at work. I wonder if anyone in our midst will try to hold themselves to a higher standard of accountability for incorrect predictions than the average tv or press pundit.
SRW1
For someone ‘not watching’ the Mueller hearing, Trump is doing a lot of instant twittering about details of it.
Elizabelle
A little applause for Mueller as he stands to depart. Very brief.
Elizabelle
Poor guy. 30 minutes and then the Intelligence Committee.
Cheryl Rofer
Hearing adjourned. Here’s how the New York Times reporters intend to cover it.
lamh36
@StringOnAStick: the GOP spent the time raging at Mueller and Mueller was calm and pushback only when he was defending his colleagues not himself.
they got no usable soundbite except for GOP Buck getting Mueller to say what he did
StringOnAStick
@Haroldo: Thanks for responding to my question about hearing aides. What you got 2 for is nearly half of what each one cost me 10years ago. I’m a hobbyist musician so I tend to try for the best I can get for that purpose. Because I wear magnifying loupes for work, the behind the ear ones are impossible due to the strap I need to keep them from falling into my patient ‘s mouth. I’m in a slow rolling quandary.
That Mueller can keep his cool in the hot seat is an honorable thing, and it makes the R’s behavior look ageist and rude on top of hyperbolic. I did 4 days as an expert witness once; by far the hardest work I’ve ever done.
Steve in the ATL
@Elizabelle: she’s my congressperson–a breath of fresh air after Tom Price and Karen Handel!
H.E.Wolf
@oatler.:
Re: secession: Abraham Lincoln spoke far more eloquently on the matter than I could ever hope to do.
Re: the second part of your comment: we’re at the mercy of the Republicans in Congress only if we fail to do the work to replace them.
Volunteering to do some portion of that work is an ongoing boost to my spirits. I recommend it!
opiejeanne
@Elizabelle: What’s even more frightening is the that people elected them.
lurker dean
@Cheryl Rofer: absolutely disgraceful.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
We would all love to hear it, but Mueller can’t very well cry out, “Impeach the mofo!” no matter how much damning evidence on Trump his team has gathered. Whether he agrees with it or not, he is bound by the OLC opinion that a sitting POTUS is not to be indicted. Absent a prosecution it would be unprofessional and unethical for him to speculate on whether a person was guilty. And it was never in his power to demand impeachment, which is for Congress to do. And he’s too cagey to publicly recommend impeachment as some Democrats seem to be trying to persuade him to do.
Amir Khalid
@SRW1:
Trump knows what Mueller is saying without having to listen.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: It’s very much compiling a record of testimony. Only sporadically compelling TV. But useful for governance and oversight.
Steve in the ATL
@Barbara: perhaps the evening crew will have a couple of cocktails and forcefully remind them of it
@Amir Khalid: throw in Wyoming for free. Or merge Alabama and Mississippi and give DC statehood.
@rikyrah: the right wing bubble is frightening. We need reeducation camps to undo the damage.
Chris Johnson
@Cheryl Rofer: Hypothetical question: how would those two NYT reporters be acting differently if they were literally part of the Russian media system that delivered an ‘election’ to Trump and then took to defending Trump’s status for as long as possible, no matter what?
Sometimes it’s a little… brazen.
Remember it’s these same people who took great pains to make us understand that Mueller had exonerated Trump completely (citing Barr to do so).
This is a kind of war. In a sense it’s a bloodless one (except that the destruction of a country produces a HELL of a lot of collateral damage). We can be grateful I guess that the Russian front is not bombing and bludgeoning American bodies, just… reality? It’s kind of more peaceful or something I guess?
Still war. Relatively new kind (we ourselves have a long history of this, perhaps not as effectively). When we look around and see CloudCuckooLand and people who seem to live there, sometimes we’re looking at dumb people who ate a bunch of bad takes, and sometimes we are seeing soldiers. These regretful NYT flacks may actually be soldiers… not on the American side.
(who would have known thirty, forty years ago that I would become one of the bonkers Red Dawn fruitcakes, but the wingnuts would end up becoming the Russian army…)
Haroldo
@StringOnAStick:
It’s too bad ’bout the hearing aids – tho’ perhaps you can use the new pair for non-work purposes only. I am also a hobbyist musician. It’s a wonderful thing to hear sounds above 2.5 kHz again.
P.S. I’d give your old man a ring sooner than later – and, as my Aussie mates like to say, give ‘im curry.
Chris Johnson
Also it’s worth remembering that sometimes when guys like that say things like ‘Oh but this will be instantly forgotten in this frenetic news cycle’, there are times when that is an INSTRUCTION.
It’s not an observation, it’s an instruction. It is a smoke signal sent up to get people to DO a thing, namely the thing that the guy said will be done.
I think it’s the same as when people look at basic income schemes, low-income supports of various kinds meant to help citizens, and say “Oh but that is bad because all that will happen is landlords will jack up rent by exactly the same amount so that nothing will change”. That is an INSTRUCTION to a societal class, saying ‘go forth and do this’.
Kind of like stochastic terrorism. It’s an issuing of directives into the void so you can pretend there’s nobody listening. But, there are interested parties prepared to do just as you say.
The directive “this will blow over super fast in this frenetic news cycle” is like that. It’s an instruction both to bury the story like it was an Epstein or Trump story back in the day… and to come up with more frenetic news to pile on top of the inconvenient reality.
And that reality is (among other things), Mueller says he’d have indicted the President if he could have. And he expects those whose job it is to do that, to do it.
Bury that, NYT. Can we call ’em “belaya zhenshchina” now? That’s Grey Lady in russian.
Phil Snead
@MazeDancer: NPR, in into to hearing coverage
Leto
@Elizabelle: Madeleine Dean is my rep. She’s good. Glad she was able to show that.
frosty
@Raven: For me it was one concert: double bill of Black Sabbath and Grand Funk Railroad. My ears rang for a day and a half.
joel hanes
@realbtl:
Try The Who in a parking garage, all concrete and 25′ ceiling.
Live? Ouch.
I simulated with a pair of Bose 901s driven by 200W RMS in a small apartment.
Who’s Next often had me turning it up to 7 or 8, which was probably too high.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you might enjoy this (one of my all-time favorite covers), although it’s a touch ironic and not for loud :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1W6B6C6SYw
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Some jackals are panic prone and others are trying to keep their expectations low.
joel hanes
@Elizabelle:
He is allergic to saying the word “impeachment”
By his lights, that’s not a legal term — it’s a political one, and so outside his ambit.
I can’t say he’s wrong.
Sab
@oatler.: No way should we have let confederacy secede. They would have been at war with us off and on again forever, not to mention a couple of million slaves in bondage any given year.