"Elder Care" should have intervened to protect Mueller

"Much as I hate to say it, this morning’s hearing was a disaster. Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it. The effort to save democracy and the rule of law from this lawless president has been set back, not advanced."  Lawrence Tribe

----------------

I am 79.  Mueller is 75.  I recognize the symptoms of degenerative old age.  He looked very much today like someone who was too old to have accepted the role of Special Counsel in the blackhearted campaign to unseat Trump and restore the momentum of the globalist unifying revolution.  He was not at all in command of the document, his document, a document that will be his major legacy in history.  He fumbled around endlessly and had to be told over and over again where to look in his own report for materials referred to by questioners.  Particularly sad was his exchange with a Democrat congresswoman who had been a career policeman and chief of police in Orlando Florida.  She tried repeatedly to lead him to the paragraph she wanted to talk about and she just could not manage it. 

Trump is a boorish, rude, specimen typical of New York commerce and its leadership and perhaps of the city itself, but I agree with his economic and immigration policies and will continue to do so unless he caves in to his enemies in these matters.  In the ME he has shown himself to be the servant of Israeli imperialism and the anti-shia hatreds of the murderous Gulf Arabs.  And then, of course, there is the matter of his neocon  helpmates.

Nevertheless, the Democrats tried once again today to make something out of very little.  The American electorate is watching.  pl

https://www.foxnews.com/media/anti-trump-harvard-law-prof-laurence-tribe-calls-mueller-hearing-disaster-that-helped-the-president

Comments

[Bill H]

What made him take on this task? He was asked and declined to answer.

Watching this made me want to feel sorry for him, but he walked into it and performed the task in the manner he saw fit. This is what he reaped. Nobody wins.

[Larry Johnson]

Remember Porky Pig's sign off? "T tttttthats all folks." Mueller did a good impression of an elderly Porky Pig. I know this for certain. If Mueller's performance at 75 is the standard, Colonel Lang is a 60 year old. No stuttering from the Colonel.

[turcopolier]

All

My dad used to say that he wanted to trade dear old mom in for a couple of thirties. Hmmm!

[SRW]

I agree with you on Israeli policies and that we should not be involved in the '30 years war' between the Gulf Arab states and Iran. BTW I read several years ago that there were more Shia than Suni in the ME. Don't know if true or not.
As for economic policy, Trump's statement that "Trade wars are easy to win" is not proving true, especially for my soybean farming relatives. In addition, his one economic 'win', the 2017 tax bill has not had any positive effects on the average Joe and has resulted in huge deficits that if a Democrat was in the white house, would be causing the Republicans to scream bloody murder.
I view his immigration policy mainly as a vehicle to get his base all worked up to make sure they hit the voting booth in 2020. In 2012 or 2013 the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill that the Republican led House refused to take up. If he really wanted to do something about immigration he would revisit it and put some pressure on the Senate to get busy on such a bill. That will not happen as any bill would have to be a compromise with Pelosi's House and his followers do not want any compromise with those socialist amoral Democrats.

[Vegetius]

Sir,

You and your readers might enjoy reading the Z-Man. He also does a Friday podcast.

Here's a recent one:

http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=18151

[Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12)]

I guess more 4 years of MAGA (or MIGA--depending on POV), hopefully some GOPers will help with the wall if they get a majority. Here me and DJT are in the same boat absolutely. As per Democrats, good grief--is there anything redeemable in this collection of cretins and crooks running this freak show. They surely make GOP (and the bar is set extremely low here) look almost stately.

[Fred]

So Mueller didn't know who Fusion GPS was? Are we really supposed to believe that?

[akaPatience]

Laurence Tribe is absolutely unhinged when it comes to Trump. I have doubts that Mueller's poor performance today will stop his insufferable impeachment mantra.

[The Twisted Genius]

"The Intelligence Committee hearings are altogether different. If the morning put people to sleep, the afternoon should be a loud wakeup call: Russia illegally helped Trump win, with his active encouragement and criminal cover-up. Real treachery. Not a witch-hunt. Not a hoax."
"The bottom line today is that the Trump presidency is being exposed as the corrupt fruit of Russia’s ongoing attack on our democracy — an attack Trump invited, exploited, and is repaying with disloyalty to America. Now Congress must act."

This is what Laurence Tribe wrote after that first quote of his cited above. That's more or less how I felt after watching most of the afternoon session. However, Mueller definitely shattered the illusion created by his firm jawed visage and silence over the past three years. I'm sure his often halting style and his lack of aggressive combativeness disappointed many on the left. The biggest take away I got was the ongoing FBI CI investigation. Whether we hear anything from this before the 2020 election is an unknown.

I think we will eventually see an impeachment in the House, although the Senate will quickly vote it down if they even bring it to a vote. I don't think this will happen until next Spring. Until that time, House committees will continue to open and run investigations concerning foreign election interference (Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia), money laundering (Trump, Epstein, DB) and probably other issues. These investigations and hears will bore all of us and exasperate many, but they will lead to the eventual House impeachment proceedings carrying into the election season.

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Every aging David needs an Abishag.

[turcopolier]

TTG

Yes. Tribe backpedaled to save his status in the Left. IMO you will wait a long time for a majority in the House that will vote a Bill of Impeachment.

[turcopolier]

ex PFC Chuck

Send us a picture of yours.

[JamesT]

I keep arguing that this "shia vs sunni" narrative is largely propaganda. I have Israeli friends who have bought into it - how Israelis can actually believe that the rank and file citizenry of Bahrain/UAE/KSA are now pro-Israel is just astounding to me - but a lot of people will just gulp down whatever propaganda they are spoon fed.

Here is a video of Palestinians harassing a Saudi national visiting the temple mount as part of a Saudi make-nice-with-Israel trip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp7pNKiVwDU

The Palestinians are mostly Sunni. The (mostly Sunni) Egyptians who watch this clip are not going to be on the side of the Saudi.

[catherine]

''As for economic policy, Trump's statement that "Trade wars are easy to win" is not proving true, especially for my soybean farming relatives. In addition, his one economic 'win', the 2017 tax bill has not had any positive effects on the average Joe and has resulted in huge deficits that if a Democrat was in the white house, would be causing the Republicans to scream bloody murder.''

True. As for as the farmers, Trump signed a 15 billion dollar bail out for them BECAUSE of the losses caused by his trade war with China...so that's 15 billion out of our tax money with no return. Some people are under the impression that his tariffs make money for the US--they don't..US producers still have to buy raw materials from overseas and the tariff cost is passed on to the consumer in the products. In addition Trump is pressuring the FED to lower interest rates even more to keep the economy roaring...which is going to lead to even more speculative borrowing...There will be an implosion.

[GeneO]

Wasn't Abishag just 12 years old? I never bought that story that she was just warming the old man's feet. Every pedo has some type of similar cop-out. It seems David was an Iron Age Epstein.

[Bill H]

Since SWMBO retired she has been on a house organizing spree. She's doing a very nice job, and I'm loving the results, until she told me that she is "throwing out everything that's old and worn out." I found that statement rather alarming until she assured me that no, that did not include me.

Interestingly, she did not claim that I am not old and worn out, merely that she is not throwing me out.

[johnf]

I wonder if Abishag is where the English slang for having sex - a shag - comes from?

[J]

I for one want our tax dollars back that Mueller used and abused in his Trump snipe hunt .

Just in......Mueller is now eying a book deal worth at least $10 million, however Russian Oligarch Deripska wants his $25 million back that he fronted Mueller for the State Department failure known as the Robert Levinson extraction that went south thanks to then SecOState Clinton State Department's thumbs down.

How much of Mueller's $10 million plus do you think will ever be paid to the U.S. Taxpayers who have fronted Mueller's snipe hunt. We'll be shorted by Mueller just like he shorted Russian Deripska.

J

[TonyL]

From Robert Mueller's testimony.

"Ken Buck: 04:53 Okay. But could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?

Robert Mueller: 04:59 Yes.

Ken Buck: 05:00 You believe that you could charge the President of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?

Robert Mueller: 05:05 Yes."

[Anonymous]

Is it speciman or specimen.

[JMH]

He reminded me of Vinnie "The Chin" Gigante:

"The Oddfather" and "The Enigma in the Bathrobe" by the press, Gigante often wandered the streets of Greenwich Village in his bathrobe and slippers, mumbling incoherently to himself. -wiki

Vinnie the Chin used this tactic masterfully in order to deflect all matter of inquiry into his affairs.

[CK]

I am reminded of the punch line to an old mathematics joke:
20 guzinta 80 many more times than 80 guzinta 20. The speaker of the punchline is tbd.

[confusedponderer]

SRW,
as far as laws are concerned - they require seriousness, compromises, attention to details, thinking, general attention and an attention span beyond what's needed for tweeting.

How many laws were made in Trump's presidency so far? Certainly one, for christmas - a tax reduction for the rich, and him (aka the not so rich). Perhaps there was another one that I don't remember.

How many solo acts like these presidential orders (don't know the exact name) - a couple hundred, perhaps more than thousand. Trump is a solo boy. He likely runs the Whitehouse like his companies.

I don't expect him to go a way of laws. Rather he'll likely call out a few more urgent national emergencies to be able to contiunue solo without having to talk with, say, the parliament or his ministers.

I recall a nice line from an anonymous big company lawyer who, like many other colleagues refused to work for Trump's in his numerous cases. The reson in two sentences: He doesn't listen. He doesn't pay.

That IMO rather well describes being a boorish rude in practical effect.

[turcopolier]

confusedponderer

You are incorrect. The tax law and reductions in regulations have greately benefited the middle class and the working class as well. Have you not seen the numbers on unemployment by sectors and increased]s in GDP? At the same time europe is stumbling along like Mueller at his hearing.

[turcopolier]

Anonymous

Thank you.