This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1238019
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1238019
I can see why this article was written this way, although I disagree with the implied assertion that Mueller did not move the needle.
Sometimes I get impatient with these sports-analogy dramatic depictions of solvable problems.
Mature adults do not need “thanks I needed that” depictions all the time. Ground WAS covered in the Mueller hearings, and those who we trust our nation to (and I am talking about the Dem House Brain Trust) had better get cracking.
But we should have known THAT before this hit piece.
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This is becoming a massive distraction. Every day spent discussing the issues of Russian interference, co-option of the Trump campaign, is a news cycle not devoted to the core pocketbook issues that will move the electorate next November.
I grew up in the house of a small-town Democratic party operative in a Republican county north of New York City. My father taught me that of primary importance is getting elected;. Our focus has to be on issues – health care, education, economic growth – that affect the lives of real people.
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Also tired of hearing about how the story had to be told differently, yada yada. Look if you were someone who didn’t know about the Mueller report it doesn’t matter if they reversed the hearings or not, the issue is that people who don’t understand whats in it are not the ones who watched hours of congressional hearings.
The point of the hearing was to get Mueller to say that what drump/Barr has been saying about the report is lies, and that is what happened. Would of been better if Mueller was willing to do more, but he wasn’t.
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Okay, Trump is a disgusting, mendacious, incompetent fraud…we can all agree on that. But, he’s a symptom, not a cause. I blame the limp, inept, cowardly Democrats for ever allowing this shit stain to get elected in the first place. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the HRC campaign are as much to blame for Trump’s presidency. We liberals must stop blaming Russia for Trump’s election. Russia is a convenient distraction so the Democrats don’t have to own up to their profound campaign incompetence and their total lack of messaging skills. And, keep in mind that Israel meddles/manipulates our elections FAR more than Russia ever has. Then, there’s the whole thing about the USA meddling in elections all over the globe, and engaging in illegal regime change whenever it seems expedient. I’m so god damn sick and tired of the Democrats blaming Russia for Trump’s election. If the Dems knew how to fight, how to WIN, then we’d have a majority in the House, in the Senate and there’d be a Dem POTUS.
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What I don’t understand is why anyone thought that Mueller was going to play the hero and bring Trump down. If that were the case, and who the man wanted to be, we would have had signs of it long ago, and we didn’t. All we ever got from him were signs that he is the consummate public servant and bureaucrat.
Sometimes the ability to mistake real life for a movie, even among those who really should know better, astounds me.
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Agree with this 100%. It’s not going anywhere. Take up Mueller’s advice, spend all of our energy ensuring his defeat in 2020 and then use the report as the roadmap to prosecute him. As much as I hate trump and want to see him personally humiliated and broken, we need to leave our emotions at the door and look at this situation strategically. Run against him as a liar, and as a criminal who needs to be sent back to being a private citizen in order to face prosecution.
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I agree with you
And, actually, I believe that Mueller gave us enough. For whatever the reason things are going as they are. As for me, I am awaiting the Town Halls on Recess.
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Also, NP needs to wait until the budget deal is signed. We can’t have Republicans using that as a tool to blame Democrats for it not getting done because they are focused on impeachment, once that is signed then i am fine with them opening the impeachment hearings, even if it is just to shut up people attacking NP to do it (not that it will stop them from continuing).
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Last time I checked the GOP has introduced “ZERO” election security bills. In texas the only bill that passed, SB 9, was a controversial bill by both election administrators, voter advocacy groups, and citizens alike.
I am not sure what is going on in other states, but what is obvious to everyone is that the POTUS, and the GOP are complicit in ensuring that America takes “ZERO” measures to harden our election system to known adversaries. They are derelict of their duty and cowards.
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Oh I think he gave us enough too. No question about that. He just didn’t play a gunslinger instead of a hard of hearing somewhat confused old man and everybody wants to bring the curtain down on him because of that. Fuck them. The man did what he believed he should do, the way he believed he should do it.
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This is not the Dems problem. This is America’s problem. ONE problem that the Dems share with all Americans…is that one whole Party refuses to follow the rule of law and is destroying everything that was meant to keep criminals from criming, and is helping the criminals and doing what they can to ratfukk everyone who cares about the laws.
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I don’t disagree with anything. I would like to add this:
Bring back the Independent Counsel that was used to investigate Nixon. Republicans weaponized it out of sheer politics against Clinton and that’s why Dems lost all taste for re-authorizing it. Both parties allowed it to die because they feared what the other would do with it. Damnit, We The People should insist on this shit.
Barr’s lies about the report changed the way the report was received because only wonks have digested it, so the media gets to decide the narrative. The media are selling advertising, not tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
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This author is full of horseshit…fully placing the blame of Russian interference and everything that has occurred since at the Dems feet. The Dems couldn’t authorize a long-distance collect phone call from election day 2016 until the new congress was seated. Dems did not kick-start the special Counsel, nor choose Mueller. Nor install a criminal Barr. But it is all their fault, obviously.
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Democrats are foolishly hoping the impeachment momentum will grow organically because they lack the whisperers to coax the blossom to bloom. Were they to take the lead to create / build momentum (much like Trump and his allies do on a daily basis), they at a minimum would enthuse the democratic base.
Democratic leadership has expressed concern that impeachment in the house…followed by no action in the senate is a losing strategy. I agree that nothing will happen in the senate…but that can work both ways. If the Democrats carried the impeachment torch / built the narrative, a loss in the senate only creates outraged and enthused voters determined to oust Trump in 2020.
Fearing a loss in the senate is shortsighted and not impeaching because of that is a mistake. It will only demoralize the anti-Trump voters…reinforcing the belief that Democrats surrender too soon, which leads to voter apathy. In other words, if Democrats won’t even fight the fight, why put them in office?
Claimed convictions ring hollow if one is afraid to live them out. If you think Trump is guilty, say so, act so - live your convictions and the voters will come.
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Violation of the Constitutional oath of the president should never be written off as a “distraction,” massive or otherwise. Once the oath is seriously violated, everything nonessential in government should stop until the president is investigated by Congress and tried by the Senate. Otherwise we’re treating the Constitution like toilet paper.
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Democrats had hoped there might be a smoking gun; or at a minimum, some sensational new revelation that would revive and perhaps stoke the interest of an American public that seems ready to move on from the Mueller Report and potential impeachment proceedings.
Democrats hoped nothing of the sort. This assertion is pulled straight out of where the sun don’t shine.
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I suspect that he would testify again under an impeachment inquiry as he is a stickler for process.
If we were to take that up courts would rule for disclosure to Congress which could free him up to say more.
He will do it, if we pursue Impeachment.
ETA: He will have reserved his position as a more neutral party by not going farther yesterday.
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It is in the Dems hands. This is why they were given power by the people last November. Checking Trump was an overall driver of the turnout and the make up of the electorate. We overcame high GOP turnout with even higher turnout of pro-Dem demos because of fear of Trump.
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