Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

All your base are belong to Tunch.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

An almost top 10,000 blog!

After roe, women are no longer free.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Let there be snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Robert Mueller Speaks

Robert Mueller Speaks

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Robert Mueller has an op-ed in the Washington Post. He is getting tired of Trumpian misrepresentation.

I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office. 

It’s short and clear, something that his earlier report could have benefitted from.

We now have a detailed picture of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The special counsel’s office identified two principal operations directed at our election: hacking and dumping Clinton campaign emails, and an online social media campaign to disparage the Democratic candidate. We also identified numerous links between the Russian government and Trump campaign personnel — Stone among them. We did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its activities. The investigation did, however, establish that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome. It also established that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.

Anyhow, read the whole thing.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

241Comments

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    I haven’t read it yet, but I hope that Roger Stone isn’t the only thing he talks about.

    Robert Mueller kept silent for way too long, but I have to say that my first thought was “THIS is the thing that gets him to finally speak up?”

  3. 3.

    Emma from FL

    And I feel compelled to say I am conflicted about this. On the one hand, anything that gives the Squatter in the People’s House heartburn is welcomed. On the other hand, I wish he had fought back much earlier. It might have spared us much hurt.

  6. 6.

    Alison Rose

    Look, if it makes Trump mad, I’m all for it. His Cheetoness having a temper tantrum is a terrific birthday gift.

    (Hi today I am 40 and what even the fuck)

  7. 7.

    leeleeFL

    While none of us are surprised by this disgusting obstruction of justice we are rightfully incensed at the same time.  Mueller should have spoken out earlier, true.  But, it would likely have changed nothing.  This outcome was written before the trial even started.  The fact is, we have the testimony and the conviction as a matter of law and public record.  IF the Republic survives this period of time,  so filled with awful as to shock the soul, we have some recourse with the public records as a starting point.

  9. 9.

    MattF

    Hmm. Looks like pardoning Stone has resurrected interest in the Mueller investigation. Note also that David Frum explains, in case you missed it, why Stone’s acts were so bad.

    ETA: Yeah, I mean commuting Stone’s sentence.

  12. 12.

    TS (the original)

    From the link

    By late 2016, the FBI had evidence that the Russians had signaled to a Trump campaign adviser that they could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to the Democratic candidate. And the FBI knew that the Russians had done just that:

    The FBI knew that & Comey still decided to ensure trump won with his final attack on Hillary Clinton.

  14. 14.

    Kent

    I think his timing is fine.  Impeachment wasn’t about the Mueller investigation anyway.  That would have been a separate impeachment.   And the GOP Senate was always going to be in the tank for Trump regardless of the evidence so impeachment was always going to be for effect and because it had to be done, not because it was going to remove Trump.

    What Mueller probably should have done is pre-empted Barr’s misrepresentation of his report from the get go.  But I’m not sure there was a legal way to do that anyway.

    What we need between now and November is a constant drip drip drip of this sort of thing because every day that goes by like this is a day that Trump doesn’t get to capture the narrative with his bullshit.  Every day the focus is on Trump and his wrong-doing is a win.  We only have so many days to go.

  16. 16.

    Ken

    @MattF: Looks like pardoning Stone has resurrected interest in the Mueller investigation.

    This is the man who chose to spend the first third of his Tulsa comeback rally reminding everyone of his misadventures with a ramp and a water glass.

  17. 17.

    natem

    Another brave Republican writing a lengthy op-ed in one of the papers of record. Yeah, I’m gonna read what he has to say. Sorry, Bobby Mo, you should have let Bill Barr fire you. Que sera.

  25. 25.

    sdhays

    @Ken: And later gloated that he “recently” passed a test with questions like “how many fingers am I holding up” with flying colors and that the doctors were “very surprised” he passed. (I suppose the “cognitive test” was possibly harder than that, but still.)

  26. 26.

    Jay

    Spain's large-scale study on the coronavirus indicates just 5% of its population has developed antibodies, strengthening evidence that so-called herd immunity to Covid-19 is "unachievable," the medical journal the Lancet reported https://t.co/KRHYPTMcVq— CNN International (@cnni) July 11, 2020

  27. 27.

    Brachiator

    Mueller should have spoken out earlier, true.

    Mueller laid this all out earlier. Congress did what it could and the House impeached Trump.

    The Republicans saved Trump’s butt, and will continue to have his back.

    There is no new revelation here and nothing that will sway Trump’s biggest supporters.

    However, it is a good and useful summary for those voters who are willing to pay attention and to hold Trump accountable.

  28. 28.

    oldgold

    Robert “a day late and a dollar short”  Mueller can piss up a rope.

    His investigation was a slow moving shit show. His report a long winded joke with no punch line.

  29. 29.

    Chetan Murthy

    @bluehill: Sure he does.  He waited until it wouldn’t matter at all.

    Fuck Mueller.  No More Republican Daddies!  No Half Measures!  [h/t driftglass

    ETA: The shitbird is no longer a fucking Federal employee!  He could TODAY say that Kaiser Quisling should have been indicted, that the evidence was there, but he was forbidden from doing so.  He could say TODAY that Billy Barr is a fucking fascist traitor.  But he doesn’t.  Fuck him.

    Nobody is coming to save us.  And for sure not Fucking Mueller.\

    ETA2: “Republican Daddy Comic Timing”: “Fuck you”  “That’s the joke!”

  30. 30.

    Barbara

    @Brachiator: Mueller pulled his punches when Bill Barr blatantly mischaracterized the report.  I understand that Congress was determined to undermine his investigation.  His failure to be more forthright in defending the investigation gave others the opportunity to seize the narrative.  I am feeling uncharitable, so let me speculate that Mueller did not want to alienate those he considered to be his professional peers.  Roger Stone isn’t in the club.

  31. 31.

    SFAW

    @sdhays:

    (I suppose the “cognitive test” was possibly harder than that, but still.)

    It was.

    Doctor: “Donald, can you tell me your first name?”

    Moron-in-Chief: “President?”

    Doctor: “Almost, Donald. Try again.”

    M-i-C: “Fred?”

    Doctor: “Closer. Let’s try it one more time, Donald.”

    M-i-C: “Donald?”

    Doctor: “Excellent! You aced it! Here’s two scoops of ice cream!”

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chetan Murthy:

    He waited until it wouldn’t matter at all.

    When would it have mattered? the case with Russia is the same with all non-Covid trump scandals: Making the lumpenmittel care

    ETA:

    He could TODAY say that Kaiser Quisling should have been indicted, that the evidence was there, but he was forbidden from doing so.  He could say TODAY that Billy Barr is a fucking fascist traitor.

    then what would happen? Geoffrey Berman testified to several different crimes– or at least ethical violations that warrant impeachment– committed by Barr just the other day. Any of your non political junkie acquaintance know that? Or care

  33. 33.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mueller was called to testify.  He could have said out loud: “Of course he’s a fucking traitor, and of course you fucking GrOPers who are defending him are fucking traitors”.  He could have said it loud and proud.  Instead he chose to hide behind the letter of the law.  Fucking careerists.  Fucking careerist.

  34. 34.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Alison Rose: welcome to the rest of your life. I am 60 next year.  I am still startled some days when I look in the mirror and think who the hell is that little old lady?!?

  35. 35.

    sdhays

    @Kent: What Mueller probably should have done is pre-empted Barr’s misrepresentation of his report from the get go.

    Yeah, the thing that really bothers me about how Mueller handled the release of his report is how he let Barr explicitly lie about it for over a month. He shouldn’t have stayed silent about that, and his failure to clarify that before being called in front of Congress (reluctantly, as I recall) was an almost catastrophic mistake.

    Kay likes to mention how many institutions have failed to hold up the way we hoped under Dump, and I think Mueller’s failure to rise to the occasion was an inflection point for the DOJ. Barr’s credibility in the Village could have been shredded much faster than it was.

  36. 36.

    Dan B

    @Alison Rose: Happy Birthday!!  40 is a great age as are the next decades.  I hope we don’t have to wait for your next one for some more sanity.

    Should we ask every jackal to report good news on their birthday?

  37. 37.

    Tony Jay

    @Jay:

    To which I ask, if the Infotainment Industry is aware enough of the deliberate perversion of language involved in the ‘herd immunity’ bullshit to preface it with “so called”, why are they still using it at all?

    It’s not ‘herd immunity’, because that’s not what the concept means, it’s deliberate mass infection of the population as Government policy. They should call it that and cover – that – story. Might even get a few more viewers that way.

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    No one was ever going to “save” us.  It’s on us to win in November.  It always has been.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Adam Schiff made a dramatic case, with compelling witnesses, and had the advantage of his rhetoric being backed up by the facts of a much simpler case. He managed to persuade a slim majority of the public that trump was guilty and should be removed. He even got Mitt Romney to vote to remove. And if it weren’t for Covid, trump would be fifty/fifty for reelection and the Senate would be a possibly prohibitive long shot. I guess Schiff should have said “fuck”.

    The thing Mueller couldn’t save us from is the apathy (laziness, stupidity, disengagement, pick your term) of the majority of the American people.

  44. 44.

    Alison Rose

    Thanks for the birthday wishes, y’all! It’s a weird time for any kind of big day…although TBH I’m such a homebody and a boring old lady that even in non-pandemic times, I wouldn’t have done shit today except go hang out at my parents’ place for a couple hours. I have no problem with the age itself – never been one of those women to lie about my age (never really had to, people have always thought I was 3-5 years younger than I am) – but I wish my life were less of a mess. I don’t just mean because of stupid COVID but…eh, it’s a lot. But I’ve got family who love and support me and a bunch of good friends online, and a cranky old cat to keep me company :)

  45. 45.

    marklar

    @Alison Rose:

    When I turned 40, one of my colleagues gave me the following advice:

    “When you turn 50, you stop caring about what other people think, and start living by your own rules. Why put that off for 10 years? Begin doing that today!”

  46. 46.

    AWOL

    Mueller? Flat, wet, tasteless limp noodle with egg sulfur.

    Another fascist twerp seeking partial redemption.

    it’s a time of cowardly shits, and he’s #1.

  47. 47.

    cope

    @Brachiator: What you said.  This editorial piece is just a Cliff’s Notes of the original report we all should have read for understanding in the first place.

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    Mueller pulled his punches when Bill Barr blatantly mischaracterized the report.

    Some people feel that way. He has not said anything substantially new here.  And no one, no one anywhere in the known universe and several black holes and alternate universes is saying, “Wow, if only we knew this before we would have kicked Trump out of office.”

    Trump continues to commit high crimes and misdemeanors. The Republican Party continues to protect him.

    Mueller’s careful judgement was that Congress had the power to investigate and to impeach Trump. A lot of people hated his caution.  They still do. The hatred spewed, then and now, has no material impact on Trump or what needs to happen next. People can vote Trump out of office and new investigations can take place.

    There is nothing new here. People simply want to relive their earlier dissatisfaction with Mueller.

    And I suppose that’s OK. Not much else going on with people staying in.

    And to be clear, I do not believe that it would have made any difference had Mueller been more … whatever people think they wanted. Maybe impeachment would have come a little bit sooner. The Senate outcome would have been the same.

  50. 50.

    Kent

    @sdhays:@Ken: And later gloated that he “recently” passed a test with questions like “how many fingers am I holding up” with flying colors and that the doctors were “very surprised” he passed. (I suppose the “cognitive test” was possibly harder than that, but still.)

    It was a standard screening for dementia.   By his own words, his doctors were very surprised that he passed.  Or, more accurately, he actually said that they were very surprised by the results.  I’m not sure there is any way to spin that so he comes out good.

  51. 51.

    Tony Jay

    @WaterGirl:

    I may be misremembering, but weren’t you on the lookout for something non-gruesome to binge-watch?

    I only ask because I’ve fallen into the habit of starting every workday (from home) morning with an episode of the Jeremy Brett ‘Sherlock Holmes’ from way back in the 1980s. Intriguing, cracking acting, and somehow sooooooo calming.

  53. 53.

    Kent

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agreed.  I’m actually not really bent out of shape about Mueller.  He got what…10 convictions or indictments in pretty short order compared to about any other presidential investigation.   It was never on him to convict and remove the president.  He did his job.  The system failed elsewhere.  I don’t see where any sort of magic action by Mueller would have made any difference other than paint a giant target on his back and make him the story by a rabid GOP.  The Dem House could have taken up the report via hearings the very next day.  The chose to sit on it for months until the Ukraine scandal erupted and still haven’t really taken up the core aspects of the report in any systematic way.

  55. 55.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Brachiator:

    The Senate outcome would have been the same.

    Precisely.  If Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan had served as impeachment managers the Senate would not have voted to convict this raving lunatic.

  56. 56.

    Ken

    @Kent: Or, more accurately, he actually said that they were very surprised by the results. I’m not sure there is any way to spin that so he comes out good.

    “Usually victims are aphasic when those parts of the brain die. Amazingly, his speech center is apparently centered in the lower or ‘reptile’ brain, making no use of the higher functions of the neocortex.”

    Hmm, you’re right, hard to spin.

  60. 60.

    Geeno

    One reason I, personally, am not hyped to il Douche put on trial is mental competence hearings. He’ll be deemed non compos mentis, and the MAGAts will be all “see, he got away with it” instead of “Holy shit, we put a mental incompetent in the White House”

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    @Tony Jay:

    To which I ask, if the Infotainment Industry is aware enough of the deliberate perversion of language involved in the ‘herd immunity’ bullshit to preface it with “so called”, why are they still using it at all?

    Because the general public and most reporters are lazy and stupid. There are practically no actual scientists talking about herd immunity as a viable alternative to anything, but the general public heard the term once and can vaguely respond to it if they see it in a news story. So, reporters keep asking about it and writing about it.

    Also, Dominic Cummings may still believe in herd immunity, but that’s a story in itself.

    It’s not ‘herd immunity’, because that’s not what the concept means, it’s deliberate mass infection of the population as Government policy. They should call it that and cover – that – story.

    There’s not much of a story here. “Mass infection takes place while politicians try to keep the economy going until a vaccine maybe is developed. Hopefully, not too many people will die in the meantime.”

    I am just a curious American observer. I heard some idiot on some UK news show complain that Labour keeps nodding in approval at some of Johnson’s actions with respect to the pandemic, but has not offered any alternative proposals. But if I understand the system correctly, Labour could propose whatever they like, and the government can continue to ignore them. Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings could set the entire country on fire, but unless BoJo magically loses his majority, Labour cannot actually do anything for four years.

    And meanwhile, here in the US, we have to wait until the November election and a January inauguration of a new president. Otherwise, Trump can issue an executive order mandating that bottles of bleach be sent to every public school in the country, and many in the media would do little more than wait for snopes to fact check The Donald and declare that he was full of shit.

  63. 63.

    Tony Jay

    @A Ghost to Most:

    Agreed, and I say that as someone who grew up in Rathbone’s version. The intensity and not-quite-like-other-men physicality of Brett’s Holmes makes him definitive. I

    As an aside, the only person I’ve seen capable of stealing a scene from Brett was Peter Wyngarde’s Langdale Pike. I could have watched an entire series of those two guys just parading around Victorian London being fabulous and solving wacky crimes. Crying shame what good-old traditional homophobia did to his career.

  64. 64.

    jeffreyw

    Republicans will fuck the dog when they are in power because they can.  Dems don’t because they have a sense of right and wrong.  Advantage: Republicans.  The only way to break the country out of this asynchronous death spiral is for the Dems to Fuck That Dog.  Maybe then the parties can get together and make some change along the lines of one side cuts the cake, the other side chooses their slice.

  72. 72.

    AWOL

    @topclimber: I’ve lurked on and off for years. I rarely contribute.  I have a limited imagination with nyms. I’m a left-of-center unregistered voter who votes DEMOCRATIC PARTY down the line since 2004. I’m not  a bottom or a top.

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Speaking of pre-White House scandals, the man-child who cried “If it’s what you say it is I love it, especially later in the summer, has a new book about families using political connections to make money

    Bethany Albertson @AlbertsonB2 5m
    Points go to the copy editor who caught this and let it go.

    tell your Uncle Dub and Aunt Tootie that the money they sent to the trump campaign will be used to bulk buy this book

  76. 76.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Tony Jay: @A Ghost to Most:

    Thanks for the heads-up, I love a good Sherlock and with your hearty recommendations, I look forward to watching.

    @MagdaInBlack:

    (Its a bitter laugh)

    There’s no other kind at this point in the election year. Like those assholes could tell a Lakota Sioux from a Guadalajara Vaquero.

  77. 77.

    debbie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The publisher is Center Street, part of Hachette. If it had been Regnery, I might have thought it was stupid carelessness, but because Hachette includes LIttle, Brown and Time Warner, I have to believe it was subversive intentionality.

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Tony Jay: put me down with the people who say Brett was the best Holmes. The one with Benedict Cumberbatch and Tim from The Office is really well done, but I like my Holmes in a foggy London, with clip-clopping horses and dim lighting. Anyone know where the Brett version streams in the US?

    Edited: Martin Freeman. My apologies to him. Not to brag, but we once walked past each other in Selfridge’s.

  79. 79.

    Jay

    @Tony Jay:

    the Mayo Clinic early on in Covid 19 updated their website, to make it utterly clear to any one not an utter drooling moron that “ herd immunity for many diseases has only been achieved once there is a vaccine and 80% of the public has taken the vaccine”.

    Like I point out to the young Associates at the store, every fucken day, half the population is below average intelligence, and every day you get reminded how dumb people of average intelligence are, right?

    The US ain’t ever getting over Covid 19 because only 60% say they will get vaccinated when there is a safe and effective vaccine.

    on the bright side, Tesco et all have said nyet to chlorinated chicken and whoremone beef, so no Trumpist Trade deal to offset Brexit. Not that it would.

  80. 80.

    Geminid

    I sometimes wish Mueller had released the different sections of his report a couple days apart. The part covering Russian interference had plenty of detail as to times, people and methods. It was an important stand alone story and might have had more impact in a different news cycle.      But it was almost an afterthought as  the Trump-centric media focused on what wasn’t proven about Trump in the other parts of Mueller’s report.

  82. 82.

    Catherine D.

    @AWOL:

    @topclimber: I’ve lurked on and off for years. I rarely contribute.  I have a limited imagination with nyms. I’m a left-of-center unregistered voter who votes DEMOCRATIC PARTY down the line since 2004. I’m not  a bottom or a top

    How do you vote when unregistered?

  84. 84.

    Nicole

    @Alison Rose: Happy birthday!  The 40s are good, honest.  The best part is you REALLY run out of f*cks to give.  It’s glorious.  Wishing you a whole decade of adventures (all good ones).

  85. 85.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tony Jay: I’ve been on a Sherlock Holmes and Holmes-inspired for a while now – gotta tackle Jeremy Brett’s sometime, tho’ I still have a soft spot for Basil Rathbone’s because…sigh. Basil Rathbone. One of my big movie actor crushes.

  86. 86.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jay: Like I point out to the young Associates at the store, every fucken day, half the population is below average intelligence, and every day you get reminded how dumb people of average intelligence are, right?

    And everyday, they roll their eyes and say, “Okay, boomer,” behind your back.

  87. 87.

    SFAW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The one with Benedict Cumberbatch and Tim from The Office is really well done, but I like my Holmes in a foggy London, with clip-clopping horses and dim lighting.

    I think Cumberbatch/Freeman was generally well done, but the last scene in the series was “WTF???”

  88. 88.

    Ken

    @Jay: Tesco et all have said nyet to chlorinated chicken and whoremone beef, so no Trumpist Trade deal to offset Brexit.

    That’s a relief. We have a problem with the slaughterhouses and there might not be that much available for export. Then again, I would have thought the same about masks and other PPE, and we shipped a bunch of that to Russia.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: Yes, Basil Rathbone wins because Basil Rathbone.  He even manages to overcome the dumbass that the producers made Nigel Bruce’s Watson out to be.

  90. 90.

    Mai naem mobile

    @Alison Rose:  Happy Birthday! You share your birthday with a cousin of mine who is just one of the most genuinely nice people I know.

  91. 91.

    Tony Jay

    @Brachiator:

    1) On the issue of misuse of language, yes, journalists are lazy fuckers, but the point is that mass-infection was always the stated aim of the (British) Government before the pandemic ever arrived. They wrapped it up in the herd-immunity label as cover for what they really intended, which was to let the virus sweep through ASAP and radically cut the pension bill, because actual herd-immunity has a happy ending and, as noted, journalists are lazy fuckers. That the Infotainers are still using the tag when they know it’s a lie tells me nothing more or less than they’ll swallow any kind of raw horsecock as long as it’s a Tory doing the rough feeding.

    2) Regarding the complaints about Starmer, we’ve got a Government directly responsible for something in the region of 60,000 plus unnecessary deaths and a level of open corruption that surprises even me. And yet the Leader of the Labour Party seems incapable of opposing anything the Tories do, seeming quite happy to nod along to Tory claims about the excellence of their Coronavirus response. It’s baffling. There are 4 1/2 years until the next election, but Starmer is arguably acting like there’s one in a couple of months and all he has to do is avoid any kind of drama to slide into Downing St. Someone should actually be opposing the catastrophic mismanagement of Johnson’s regime, but the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition seems remarkably unwilling to do any such thing.

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    Precisely.  If Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan had served as impeachment managers the Senate would not have voted to convict this raving lunatic.

    Oh, bullshit, With all the evangelical Senators in the R party, I’m sure a TON* of them would have voted to convict, if Jesus told them to.

    *Where “a TON” = fewer than three.

  99. 99.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The move to modern London and update was great

    I had no problem with that, and I really liked Andrew Scott’s Moriarty. [Yes, I realize that’s a non sequitur.]

  100. 100.

    Alison Rose

    @Mai naem mobile: Did they ever try to get a free Slurpee on their birthday? I tried it once in high school and the clerk was not amused. Come on, though, being born on 7/11 ought to come with that little perk!

    (Though I was supposed to be born on June 23. My poor mother, carrying me around for three extra weeks…with her mom here the whole time LOL)

  101. 101.

    L&DinSLT

    @Delk:  I have been doing this for years! I get many compliments but now that I’m 68 I only say I’m 70.

  103. 103.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Anyone know where the Brett version streams in the US?

    You Tube

    @Omnes Omnibus

    The move to modern London and update was great, but then they strayed too far from canon.

    Agreed, I really enjoyed a lot of it but then lost real interest. I thought Cumberbun and cane-boy had good chemistry.

  104. 104.

    Mai naem mobile

    @Kelly: I doubt that. I think Donny is always going to have a problem with wearing a mask because of his make up and hair. I know it messes a little with my hair and I don’t have any fussy hairdo.

  105. 105.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: Agreed.

    He said pretty much the same thing when he testified before Congress.

    I noticed he didn’t say which “senior campaign officials” Stone talked to.  That seems like an important omission, but that’s just my impression.

    I’m glad he spoke up quickly after the commutation.  Quick push-back is important and useful.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    Steeplejack

    There are some pretty good comments on the Post piece. From someone named medianone:

    If memory serves, the Special Counsel had Trump on ten counts of obstruction which were never pursued. The reason? Because of Barr’s claims that an OLC memo (somehow superseding the U.S. Constitution) said a sitting president could not be charged or even investigated for crimes. This is the same OLC memo that the Supreme Court just tossed with the majority saying the president is not above the law.

    Yet it appears that Barr bullied Mueller into not pursuing those charges. And Mueller intimated in his testimony that it was up to Congress to pursue and bring charges. Not the Special Counsel. And we all know where oversight ends like hitting a brick wall: the Senate and the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. So by Mueller deferring to Congress, instead of bringing charges (and challenging the OLC memo that turns out to be nothing but wasted paper) and holding Trump to account for his working with the Russians (“Russia, if you’re listening . . .”) and impeding and obstructing the Special Counsel’s investigation, he let Trump off the hook, even emboldened to the point he’s beginning to think he’s a monarch or dictator.

  109. 109.

    trnc

    @sdhays: With the ability to assess several cognitive domains, the MoCA test is a proven and useful cognitive screening tool for many illnesses, including:

    • Alzheimer’s disease
    • Parkinson’s disease
    • Trumpism
  110. 110.

    AWOL

    @Catherine D.: Hi.

    My first vote was Clinton 1992 on healthcare. OK City and the failure of NHC (due to fascist propaganda) made me cynical, but insipidly angry at the better side. I stupidly voted for the Nader types until I saw how bad Bush was in 2000—actually, before. I’m “independent/unregistered”, but I donate/vote Democratic Party since 2005. I reside in a very safe state, so I am irrelevant.

    You?

  112. 112.

    TomatoQueen

    @Tony Jay:  Or, if the original and best tv Holmes episodes aren’t running (I get all five local public tv stations and nada nada nada), All Creatures Great and Small has been let loose from the vault, and what a blessing on days ending in ‘y’.

  113. 113.

    Tony Jay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I do like the modern Holmes remake, a lot of it is excellent and cracking entertainment, but it has the exact same flaws that we’d later see compressed in the same writing team’s version of Dracula.

    Great cast. Looks good. Starts brilliantly, only to wander off into the long grass of clever-clever retcon happy land as the writers get bored with the subject matter as they found it and decide that they’re going to remake the whole mythology.

    Doesn’t stop it being intensely watchable, but it’s not consistent.

  114. 114.

    zhena gogolia

    @Tony Jay:

    I adored the episode of John and Mary’s wedding, but I realize in retrospect that it’s where they went off the rails.

  116. 116.

    Tony Jay

    @Miss Bianca:

    Rathbone was awesome, but you really need to see the amount of personality Brett stuffs into his Holmes. The laugh alone tells you he’s not like the other reindeer.

  117. 117.

    Another Scott

    @Kent: The section intros in the Mueller report were deliberately written so that nothing was classified or needed to be redacted.  All people had to do was read them to know that Barr did hinky crap with his “summary”.

    Mueller made it clear that Donnie would have been indicted except for the horrible DOJ memo that says that a President cannot be.

    He did a great job, especially when Barr came in and told him to wrap it up.  I don’t know what he could have done differently to make it more pursuasive.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    CarolPW

    @Tony Jay: Brett was a spectacular Holmes, and my favorite. What I most remember (have not seen any since they originally aired) was his hands. Extraordinarily expressive.

  124. 124.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: That is truly unforgivable, and it set off an unfortunate meme of Watson as Dolt, thankfully being offset now by Martin Freeman’s and Lucy Liu’s take on the character.

    (Fun fact: My Watson is named in honor of Martin Freeman’s Watson, cuz I had just binged on Sherlock.)

  125. 125.

    catclub

    @MattF: in case you missed it, why Stone’s acts were so bad.

     

    Elliot Abrams lied to congress too. I think he got pardoned. seems to be a thing if you are a republican.

  126. 126.

    catclub

    @Another Scott: He did a great job, especially when Barr came in and told him to wrap it up. I don’t know what he could have done differently to make it more pursuasive.

     

    How about say that the indictments of Trump have already been written and await his leaving office?

  127. 127.

    Jay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    funny thing is, they don’t. They are all smart, working their way through school, know nothing at all about tools, code, construction, but they know I do, and day one starting there, December 30th, 2019, I warned them all this shit show was coming.

    Now they want my advice on investments, how Covid will change the economy, their relationships, smoothies and the best place to eat lunch, take a date.

    Jacob started the protocols mid January. End of January, his roomate got sick.  Hospitalized in late Feb. Died in early March. Jacob seems to think I saved his life somehow.

  128. 128.

    Tony Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Yes and yes. Sherlock’s descent into emotional attachment wasn’t an improvement in the characterisation. They started writing him as Doctor Who, a stuffy know-it-all desperately in need of human companions to ground him and teach him to be a real boy.

  129. 129.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: First, Watson as a dolt would have been useless as a sidekick.  Second, Watson was our window into the world of Holmes in the stories.  A reasonably bright guy who was paired someone extraordinary.  Martin Freeman’s Watson really does get it right.  I haven’t watched Elementary so I can’t comment on Liu.

  130. 130.

    Redshift

    @Kelly:

    I loved the Jeremy Brett Sherlock. I’ve mentioned here before that I had the good fortune to be in London to see “An Evening with Holmes and Watson,” a stage show that was just Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke bantering in character in their sitting room for ninety minutes. It was glorious. We waited outside the stage door to meet them afterwards, and they were very gracious.

  131. 131.

    topclimber

    @AWOL: Nice to meet you. I too lurk and comment, in ways and words so apt, that I have earned my nym on BJ.

    Just not sure what I am standing on here at the summit.

    Per my epitath in one of many possible universes, “Some saw him but few noticed.”

    Someday please explain why you have not registered Dem.

  132. 132.

    Tony Jay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Rathbone’s version of Holmes was classic but very much ‘of its time’. Pre-teen Tony loved every mannered minute, but they do lurch into wartime propaganda in a big way.

  133. 133.

    Another Scott

    @frosty: 25 was bad for me.  I was still in grad school and OMG I’VE SPENT 1/3-1/4 OF MY EXPECTED LIFE IN SCHOOL!!11

    Little did I know…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  134. 134.

    SFAW

    @zhena gogolia:

    with Holmes fighting the Nazis.

    And, closing the circle in a way: in the Brett episode linked above, the King of Bohemia is played by Wolf Kahler.

  135. 135.

    SFAW

    @Redshift:

    We waited outside the stage door to meet them afterwards, and they were very gracious.

    And then Brett broke into “On the Street Where You Live.”

  136. 136.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in the “only 60% say they will get the vaccination” stuff.  I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the answers were from people saying they’d never accept a vaccination for COVID-19 while Donnie was in office…

    “Inject bleach and swallow UV light bulbs!!11”

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  137. 137.

    Tony Jay

    @CarolPW:

    Yes! Brett gave Holmes a twitchy, snakelike grace and his hand movements were like some kind of martial arts exercise. When I binge too much I find myself doing the voice and the mannerisms, which I accept is just downright rude when you’re not a bona fide genius.

  138. 138.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Redshift: I don’t know if anyone else has visited the “museum” on Baker Street, but I did in 2010 and it was … something.  The person who was there playing Watson was probably a Nigel Farage supporting Brexiteer in waiting.  The whole thing was just so tacky.  It took a ploughman’s lunch at the Mitre in my old neighbo(u)rhood to fix me.

  139. 139.

    moops

    OT, sorry, but anyone know where this person got this package of propaganda?   Got it from an acquaintance and it looks preformed and circulating in the wild.  The email had start with casually asking me if I could locate Alexander Soros in North Berkeley (my previous address was in North Berkeley).  That put my warning signs up and I played it out  for more context:

     

    Follow the money, meant tracking down the political groups posting ads to pay people to protest against trump. Those all get traced back to political campaigns for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and also those groups are all formed under The Open Society Foundation and use ActBlue to slush fund the DNC. The Fascists that call themselves “Antifa” are directly connected and funded the same way, and what is behind them all is http://www.DSAUSA.org which outlined their goal as abolishing all police, all prisons, all borders, and making all drugs and all prostitution legal.

  140. 140.

    oatler.

    Remember when we said MAGA meant “Mueller Ain’t Going Away”?

    Those halcyon days of 2019.

  141. 141.

    moops

    @oatler.:  At least he blogosphere was not as naive as it was back during  Fitzmas.   Most everyone understood that we were going to be failed by the system.

  142. 142.

    jonas

    Remember, Mueller was appointed special counsel not because he was the most hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners prosecutor they could find to get to the bottom of the Russian interference matter, but because he was the venerable Republican Public Servant Everyone Could Agree On™, kind of like William Cohen or Howard Baker, whom Sessions and Rosenstein knew probably would stay in his lane and not go out of his way to make things too difficult for a sitting Republican president. He did a thorough, competent job that exposed the treasonous corruption in the Trump campaign and then left Congress to do what it needed to do. Of course we know what happened next: Barr got a hold of the report, redacted half of it, and then issued an executive summary declaring that it was a big nothingburger, giving Congressional Republicans cover to do nothing. Meanwhile, Mueller has been left to meekly protest about how they keep moving his desk and that he’s keeping the stapler. Fucking Bill Barr. They’re going to have to construct an extra special circle of hell just for him and Mitch McConnell to account for the damage those two monsters have done to our country.

  143. 143.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    between MAGat’s and anti-vaxers, seems the 60% is a pretty good number.

    the number needs to be 80% and then there is the 27% Kenes Factor.

    We are already seeing stories of dead people who thought Covid was a hoax.

  145. 145.

    SFAW

    @moops:

    Looks like an adult-sized portion of Alex Jones, with a chunk of Jackoff Posobiec thrown in, plus a helping of QAnon insanity. Maybe some Jimmy O’Queefe and Jagoff Wohl thrown in?

  146. 146.

    SFAW

    @jonas:

    They’re going to have to construct an extra special circle of hell just for him and Mitch McConnell to account for the damage those two monsters have done to our country.

    Too long for a rotating tag, but it deserves to be.

  150. 150.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @topclimber:

    Someday please explain why you have not registered Dem.

    I can’t speak for AWOL, but not all states require registration by party. Georgia (my home for the last 36 years) doesn’t, and I don’t recall that Michigan did when I lived there.

  151. 151.

    Patricia Kayden

    @jonas: I was kind of disappointed by the Mueller report and his waffling testimony when he was called before the House. Perhaps Democrats could call him to testify again and he’ll be more forthcoming this time.

  153. 153.

    jonas

    @Alison Rose: It’s a great decade of life — old enough to kind of have figured shit out; young enough to still (inshallah) have your health, family, and career to enjoy.

  155. 155.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tony Jay: There’s a very odd old American TV version of Holmes and Watson from the 50s that gets into some WTF territory as well. My local library has a couple DVDs worth of episodes. However, in addition to Watson being a *bit* of a Dolt (tho’ a surprisingly handy man with his fists),  it was so measured in pace that I sometimes dozed off at the end of episodes, only to wake up and go, “wait a minute, who was going to set off the bomb in the munitions dump again? Was it an anarchist bricklayer, or did I dream that bit up?”

    However, it proved surprisingly soothing as we were emerging from the depths of the ‘rona Shelter at Home orders.

  156. 156.

    Just Chuck

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I haven’t watched Elementary so I can’t comment on Liu.

    I think she does well, but I also think of the series as a rather loose interpretation of the characters.  Not a bad one, but different.  As passable as Liu’s acting is, Johnny Lee Miller overshadows her.  Though that’s of course by design.

    Tangential, but most network shows annoy the bejeezuz out of me, even without ads.  I need more continuity than just B-plots and two-parters.  I just watched Ragnarok on Netflix, and definitely recommend it.  The dubbing is perfect, don’t bother with the Norwegian.  Might still need subtitles for some of the accents tho ;)

  158. 158.

    Miss Bianca

    @moops: “The fascists that call themselves antifa”…?

    Do these people even know what the words “fascist”, “antifa”, and “delusional” *mean*?

  159. 159.

    jonas

    @Another Scott: Exactly. Everyone’s been “well, everyone’s just waiting for a vaccine.”  The same Kens and Karens who are screaming about having to wear masks at Costco are the same assholes who will refuse to get vaccines because “that’s when they get you.”

    Are Canadian or New Zealand consulates open yet to process refugee claims?

  160. 160.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Kent: Those administering the test said nothing of the sort.  They are professionals.  Such a conversation is a gross violation of ethics.

    This is Donald lying for the Nth time.

  163. 163.

    Kropacetic

    @topclimber: Someday please explain why you have not registered Dem.

    Much more important that (s)he registers as a Dem than reliably votes a D ticket.

  165. 165.

    jonas

    @Kent: Or, more accurately, he actually said that they were very surprised by the results.

    He interpreted remarks like “Dear God!!” and “I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” and “There are just no words to describe this…” as a sign that his results were just that impressive.

  166. 166.

    Redshift

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I can’t speak for AWOL, but not all states require registration by party. 

    Sure, but most of us in those states don’t describe ourselves as unregistered, because you can’t. A common case for not registering for the party you support is states which only let you vote in your registered party’s primaries, but let independents choose. (Others don’t let independents vote in either one.)

  168. 168.

    Jay

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    there was no test administered. It was left on a table for Dotus to read, take and fill out.

    he walked right by the table and then out.

    Thus, he “passed “!the test. Bigly!!!!!!!

  169. 169.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: Damn it, I thought 1984 was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a modern fucking Book of Revelations.

    ETA: Newspeak ain’t got nothing on QAnon.

  170. 170.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @catclub: Another example of Barr’s ability to prevent responsible Rethugs from facing the consequences of their criminality.

  171. 171.

    SFAW

    @jonas:

    He interpreted remarks like “Dear God!!” and “I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” and “There are just no words to describe this…” as a sign that his results were just that impressive.

    Watched a little bit of Amadeus tonight. In one scene, having just seen Salieri’s opera, Mozart uses similar seems-like-praise-but-is-actually-an-insult phrases.

  172. 172.

    Redshift

    @SFAW:

    I think Cumberbatch/Freeman was generally well done, but the last scene in the series was “WTF???” 

    The entire last season was WTF. I enjoyed the rest, and particularly liked how they played with elements of the stories, including Easter eggs at the level of the Giant Rat of Sumatra.

  173. 173.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Redshift: In Oregon, there are a plethora of parties you can declare for.  You can even mark “independent” which means there are no primaries you can participate in.

  176. 176.

    Miss Bianca

    @SFAW: I had a friend who was a master at this kind of thing: “That was…heart-rending” (must be delivered with all the oily earnestness one can muster). My favorite was always, “You should have been in the audience!”

  178. 178.

    TS (the original)

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Thanks for the link (I wrote similar on the WP comments) – I didn’t know about the Susan Collins poll that was on your twitter so thanks for that as well. (I’m not on twitter so seem to randomly fall into various tweets).

  180. 180.

    Timurid

    @dexwood: The mask stunt genuinely worries me. The Village is licking it up, but more ominously, Trump may be getting his feet back under him. Because, for the first time in weeks, he listened to his handlers. He’s returning to the proven repertoire of low effort tricks that get maximum returns from the media, that he commanded effectively for three years. For the last six weeks, he’s been so badly on tilt that I was tempted to think that This Time Really Is Different. A prime example… He refused the obvious advice to show up for the Big Speech On Race, read 30 minutes of random excerpts from Hallmark Channel movie screenplays off the teleprompter and get an ovation from the media (and a poll bump). Today, for the first time in quite a while, he listened to advice and got back on script.

  182. 182.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Omnes Omnibus: I thought Jude Law was a great Watson. Which was good, because as much as I respect Robert Downey, Jr. as an actor, I hated his Sherlock.

  183. 183.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The person who was there playing Watson was probably a Nigel Farage supporting Brexiteer in waiting.

    What did he say/do to give you that impression? A little too into the 19th century Englishman character? Praising the Empire?

  185. 185.

    Another Scott

    @moops:

    I can’t believe I have to do this, but here’s a thorough debunk of the QAnon Wayfair conspiracy theory, since it’s pervasive on civilian parts of the internet.

    — Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) July 11, 2020

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  187. 187.

    debbie

    @Tony Jay:

    Brett is by far the best Sherlock, I think even better than Rathbone. Has anyone seen The Good Soldier? The book was very good, but Brett was just awesome.

  190. 190.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    But the side effects….

    Don’t worry, there’s a disclaimer:

    “Warning: Use Plethora-B-Gone only under a doctor’s care. If you experience any side effects, please contact your physician or mortician immediately. Side effects can include: shingles, blindness, burning during urination, hallucinations, brainfarts, inappropriate laughing, dboiutg’p, illiterasee, really BAD shingles, painful swelling of … um, certain parts, cirrhosis, halitosis, itching, even worse hallucin- oh, god, get them OFF OF ME, kidney stones, gall stones, jowls, and death.”

    ETA: I realize it’s probably not your main area of legal expertise, but would that disclaimer absolve the manufacturer of any/all responsibility?

  191. 191.

    burnspbesq

    @Jay:

    ‘that’s not surprising. The rate of infection is way too low to achieve any meaningful herd immunity. Take Texas as an example. Even if you multiply the official reported case count by eight, you’re barely over two million, which is not quite seven percent of the population of 29 million.

    Herd immunity is a pipe dream, hence the importance of coming up with an effective vaccine AND REQUIRING VACCINATION WITH NO FUCKING EXCEPTIONS.

  192. 192.

    SFAW

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I thought Jude Law was a great Watson. Which was good, because as much as I respect Robert Downey, Jr. as an actor, I hated his Sherlock.

    Yeah, it was like a Marvel Comics version. Fun, after a fashion, but not high art.

  193. 193.

    Another Scott

    Trainer looks at my glistening forearm. “Are you using some kind of muscle cream or ointment?”

    Me: it’s neosporin

    Trainer: ….

    Me: the cat was mean

    Trainer: …..

    Me: these are hard can I do four instead of six

    — SellOffPuertoRicoHat (@Popehat) July 11, 2020

    rofl.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  197. 197.

    Yutsano

    @Villago Delenda Est: You’re not required to declare a party in order to register to vote in the state of Washington. Since I’m not supposed to participate in party politics (I can support Democrats and I do I just can’t join a political party) I don’t make that declaration. So technically I am also an independent but I always vote Democratic.

  198. 198.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Casually racist comments.  “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink” just us white folks together sort of things.  I was appalled.  It was rather like an experience I’d had years before in a London pub.  I was started talking to a married couple who had a cocker spaniel with them.  Since I was overseas, I was missing my dog, so we started talking dogs.  At one point, they ask what i was planning to do when I finished my degree.  I told them that I was considering the State Department and foreign service.  They told me that they thought that was great because I had the right kind of profile (meaning the right WASPy, floppy haired, non-ethnic, Anglo-American blah blah).  I backed away as quickly as I could and felt sorry for the poor cocker who couldn’t help that his people were appalling.

  201. 201.

    Bill Arnold

    @Another Scott:

    I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in the “only 60% say they will get the vaccination” stuff.

    To be fair, the mRNA vaccines being developed are a bit creepy and new. If one of them (e.g. the Moderna vaccine) emerges as the favorite for US distribution, I’ll be studying the clinical trials really carefully. But I suspect that less than 1 percent of respondents know this, at least now. The press will tell them.

  202. 202.

    Honus

    @Redshift: just to be clear, in Virginia you can’t register by party.   You just register and then vote in either party’s  primary.

  203. 203.

    Barbara

    @Kelly: I would hope someone made it clear he couldn’t set foot in the door without a mask. It’s a place where sick people are ffs.

  205. 205.

    TriassicSands

    @Brachiator: However, it is a good and useful summary for those voters who are willing to pay attention and to hold Trump accountable.

    Unfortunately, the people who might need to read this “summary” probably don’t read the Washington Post. Or any other newspaper.

    And those “voters who are willing to pay attention and to hold Trump accountable” probably don’t need to read anything in July 2020 to know what to do on November 3.

    In short, I think this Op-Ed may make Robert Mueller feel better, but I doubt is does anything substantive to make up for his past failings or to change any minds.

    It would have been helpful if Mueller could have been half as articulate in his congressional testimony. After watching the entirety of his testimony, I maintained serious doubt that he had even read the investigation report, let alone contributed to it. It may have been a product of his age and his general communication skills. In either case, he was probably the wrong choice* to represent the investigation’s findings before Congress. As he stumbled along, I kept wishing for that razor-sharp attorney who knows every fact and every interpretation of every fact and can respond to any question immediately with precise decisiveness. Such people exist. Mueller wasn’t even a faded shadow of that person.

    *Obviously, the problem here is that Mueller was the supposed American law enforcement institution, the iconic man of set jaw and unassailable integrity. Everyone knew that the investigation would be done properly. Robert Mueller would not fail us. With that understanding, how could anyone testify in his place?

  206. 206.

    Another Scott

    @Emma from FL: I assume it’s related to the thing moops posted, but I wasn’t interested enough to click over myself.

    I got my fill of ridiculous conspiracy theories as a kid reading In Search of Ancient Astronauts and The Illuminatus Trillogy and such.

    HTH a little.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  208. 208.

    dopey-o

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The thing Mueller couldn’t save us from is the apathy (laziness, stupidity, disengagement, pick your term) of the majority of the American people.

    Plato wrote “The price of apathy in political matters is to be ruled by evil men.”

    Still true. Truer.

  209. 209.

    Jay

    @burnspbesq:

    and yet,……. whoosh.

    of all the surveyed and tested Spaniards who were diagnosed and recovered from Covid 19, 5% were showing an immunity response.

    Getting Covid 19 and surviving it, convesys in the short term, possibly a 5% immunity rate. 95% of the peoplevwho were infected and recovered, can still get Covid, can still infect others, and can still die from Covid.

    China’s numbers, with a different strain are 7.6% so far.

    Sweden says 3% at best.

    Now there is an Americanized strain running epidemic.

  210. 210.

    Yutsano

    @Another Scott: If you want the crib notes version: apparently there have been mistakes on the postage or packaging (I’m not sure which and I don’t care enough to actually research it) and those mistakes are some kind of code that tells where child trafficking is occurring. How in the ever loving fuck that came to be is way beyond me and again I can’t even begin to care.

  211. 211.

    Honus

    • @Another Scott: It’s about a locking cabinet Wayfair is selling for $12,000.  At that price, the theory is that there’s a small child inside for sex trafficking. No, really, that’s the conspiracy theory.
  213. 213.

    Emma from FL

    @Another Scott: Oh good lord. They do have a lot of time on their hands, don’t they? It makes me long for the days when their largest megaphone would have been a mimeograph.

  214. 214.

    Bill Arnold

    @moops:
    Searched google for a bunch of sentence fragments of that, with no hits.
    Curiously, the second part, that starts with “The Fascists that call themselves” is flagged as possible GPT-2 generated output by “GPT-2 Output Detector Demo”.
    I don’t know how accurate that detector is (I mean, beyond some manual testing I did). But if it’s generated, that’s a bit worrying.

  216. 216.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Casually racist comments.  “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink” just us white folks together sort of things.  I was appalled.  It was rather like an experience I’d had years before in a London pub.  I was started talking to a married couple who had a cocker spaniel with them.  Since I was overseas, I was missing my dog, so we started talking dogs.  At one point, they ask what i was planning to do when I finished my degree.  I told them that I was considering the State Department and foreign service.  They told me that they thought that was great because I had the right kind of profile (meaning the right WASPy, floppy haired, non-ethnic, Anglo-American blah blah).  I backed away as quickly as I could and felt sorry for the poor cocker who couldn’t help that his people were appalling.

    Eww. I can’t recall ever specifically being in a situation like that, but I can imagine. It must have been so disappointing after having such a nice conversation with that couple. I can only imagine what that racist old English couple thought when Obama was elected President.

    “Well, love, that’s the end of the Yanks. By jove, we never should’ve let them leave in 1776. It’s all their fault we lost the Empire!”

  217. 217.

    Jay

    @Emma from FL:

    Wayfair has Industrial Storage units on sale. $12 to $15k. With girly names.

    so of course, in the Qanonaverse, that means each contains a girl being trafficked by Wayfair and Tom Hanks for sex slavery and adrenachrome Harvesting by the Soros cultists.

  219. 219.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Honus:

     

    It’s about a locking cabinet Wayfair is selling for $12,000. At that price, the theory is that there’s a small child inside for sex trafficking.

    Those QAnon people need to buy one of those cabinets and save a kid. Its the moral thing to do.

  221. 221.

    Yutsano

    @Jay: Huh. It either changed (entirely possible) or I heard something completely different. Either way it’s laughable. And of course the Qanon idiots take it seriously.

  222. 222.

    Jay

    @Yutsano:

    funny part is they were “on sale”,

    Qanon is a always changing sea of conspiracy, ever evolving, ever changing.

     

    No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

    Heraclitus

  223. 223.

    trollhattan

    @Honus:

    Can Scarlett Johansson be in the cabinet for $12k?

    Asking for a friend. Airholes and a water supply must be present; this it not negotiable.

  225. 225.

    H.E.Wolf

    @HumboldtBlue: I’m 32 minutes into A Scandal in Bohemia starring Mr. Brett and you folks could not have been more accurate. He’s absolutely wonderful

    I’ve always been partial to the episode “The Second Stain”, which has a great supporting cast including Patricia Hodge, Harry Andrews (a Lion of the British Theatre), Edward Hardwicke as Watson, and Colin Jeavons as Inspector Lestrade.

    Brett’s physical and vocal choices for Holmes are on full display in this episode.

  229. 229.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    I’m glad he spoke up quickly after the commutation. Quick push-back is important and useful.

    As opposed to how he let Barr’s lying prequel to his report set the narrative for, what, a month?

  230. 230.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    True. I fell in love with the snarky bridesmaid who hooked up with Holmes, but that definitely was the beginning of the hot mess that spread and couldn’t be contained.

  234. 234.

    Emma from FL

    @Jay: It gets worse each time. To misquote a person of some note, there’s no such thing as peak crazy.

  235. 235.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    That was part of the problem (and continues to be for the Democrats in general). Mueller proceeded like the country club audit committee looking into some minor irregularities in the summer banquet catering. Meanwhile Barr and the rest of the Republicans were/​are doing a bust-out crew in Goodfellas.

    Given the nature of the crisis, it would not have been out of line for Mueller to say something to counter Barr’s blatant misrepresentation. And if it was “out of line,” fuck ’em. Pales in comparison to what Barr was doing every step of the way.

  236. 236.

    Heywood J.

    Is Mueller’s wife still besties with Bill Barr’s wife? Asking for a friend.

    Still kicking myself for thinking Mueller was ever going to put up a real fight and make a difference. Serves me right for trusting a Republicon. Never again. Too little too late, Bob. Enjoy your retirement.

  238. 238.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Tony Jay: With respect I think you may be living in a bit of a Momentum bubble. I am Secretary of my local U3A Group so I get to talk to a lot of people aged from mid fifties upwards. Some are Tories but, even among those who aren’t, such as virtually the entire Social History Interest Group, there’s a feeling that this is a national crisis akin to WWII and the patriotic thing is to do is follow Government advice.

    They think that the time to hold the Government to account for its failures, poor decisions etc is after the storm has passed but, believe me, notes are being taken and the pressure to get to the bottom of who did what and why will be all the greater for being repressed so long. I imagine Starmer is getting the same feedback.

  239. 239.

    cmorenc

    @Tony Jay:

    It’s not ‘herd immunity’, because that’s not what the concept means, it’s deliberate mass infection of the population as Government policy. They should call it that and cover – that – story. Might even get a few more viewers that way.

    No, that’s *not* what “herd immunity” means – it actually means that a high enough % of the population has sufficient resistance against infection by a particular pathogen that when any still-susceptible members of the population do get infected, the probability of infectiously encountering other susceptible members is low enough that the disease will have run its course with most of them to a non-infectious state before they infect anyone else.    In short, pathogen spread burns out for lack of frequently-enough encountering any susceptible victims.

    Government policy *could* be about using the herd immunity principle, either benignly through vaccination or else (as with the Trump Admin) deliberately letting COVID infect such a huge portion of the population that those that survive and develop sufficient antibodies will eventually arrive at a sufficient % of the population to create herd immunity.  But the term itself has NOTHING inherently to do with government policy; it’s simply a characteristic of the biological state of a species wrt a given pathogen.

  241. 241.

    J R in WV

    @TriassicSands:

    It would have been helpful if Mueller could have been half as articulate in his congressional testimony.

     

    Watching Mr Mueller testify, he seemed detached from reality, unsure of common English usage, unable to use the ToC of his report, unprepared for the day’s material and possibly entering early stage dementia of some sort.

    I felt bad for him, because I doubt he could have done any better, and felt that he should have stayed in retirement. Way past his prime, in other words. I also suspected the Republicans knew of his condition and that’s why they picked him to run the investigation. We were lucky he wound up with a good team who could do the job properly without being micromanaged.

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