The Collapse of the Mueller-Industrial Complex

Think in terms of the team that loses the Super Bowl.
Somewhere in the world where English isn't spoken, a developing nation is about to get a bunch of shirts.
You can still buy a Mueller Time t-shirt on Amazon for $18.99, but you better do it soon.

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Unfortunately for the purveyors of cutesy Mueller merchandise, however, the report that was supposed to mean the downfall of the president did not exactly do its job. The Trump campaign did not collude with Russian operatives, according to Mueller, and now, 2,374 of the items on Etsy are essentially worthless. Even the director Spike Lee created his own Russiagate merch, a T-shirt that read “God protect Robert Mueller,” where proceeds go to the nonprofit Generation Citizen. (Some of them are still available.)

A Mueller prayer candle costs $15.
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However, the real Mueller-Industrial Complex didn't revolve around t-shirts and tourist junk. Instead you need to look in the land of pundits and comedians.

Other pieces were just embarrassing, the news version of “We’re not worthy!” The story Axios released after Mueller’s Internet Research Farm indictments was entitled “We know nothing; Mueller knows all.” Axios gushed that Mueller indicted a bunch of Russians no one ever expected to appear in court without word getting out. This, they said, spoke to Mueller’s “deep, serious investigative work” which had gone “totally under radar, with zero leaks.”
...All this hyping of Mueller The Omniscient dovetailed with the preposterous mythologizing of the special counsel through consumer goods (Mueller action figures! “Mueller time!” beverage mugs! Saint Robert Muller prints!) and breathless stories like the Vanity Fair ode to the “dreamiest G-man to hunt for collusion.”

Some of the Russiagate/Hillary Dead-Enders are refusing to let it go.
Let's start with MotherJones.
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Barr’s note is clear that Mueller did not uncover evidence Trump and his gang were in direct cahoots with Russia’s covert operation to interfere with the US election and boost Trump’s odds. But the hyper-focus on this sort of collusion—as if Trump instructed Russian hackers on how to penetrate the computer network of the Democratic National Committee—has always diverted attention from a basic and important element of the scandal that was proven long before Mueller drafted his final report: Trump and his lieutenants interacted with Russia while Putin was attacking the 2016 election and provided encouraging signals to the Kremlin as it sought to subvert American democracy. They aided and abetted Moscow’s attempt to cover up its assault on the United States (which aimed to help Trump win the White House). And they lied about all this.

And, yes, there were instances of collusion—not on the specifics of the attack, but secret scheming between Trumpworld and Russia.

None of the evidence underlying this is in dispute. No matter what Mueller report contains, a harsh verdict remains: Trump and his gang betrayed the United States in the greatest scandal in American history.

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Obviously Corn is going to go down with the ship, but he isn't alone.
There is a whole Russiagate cottage industry that is so big that the Mueller report could tip the country into recession.

For Abramson and others who have immersed themselves in the drama of the probe, the events of the weekend only shift the action to new settings.

“The Mueller investigation is not something that will conclude in the way that we think of investigations concluding,” Abramson said. “It will simply transform.”

Others view the Trump-Russia affair less as a story than as a part of a collective national journey. “The Mueller report is just one more roadmark on that very long highway,” said Claude Taylor, a former director of volunteers in Bill Clinton’s White House who has made it his mission to draw attention to Trump’s Russia links on Twitter and in real life.

That highway has already taken Taylor, 55, all over the country, where he has channeled anti-Trump energy on Twitter into real-life activism on land and on sea.

In 2016, Taylor closed up his Washington photo gallery and devoted more time to assailing Trump on social media with a focus on his Russia ties. Eventually he set up Mad Dog PAC to fund his activism, including purchasing billboards around the country that linked Republican politicians to Russia.

To put this into perspective, liberals are simply following in the path of stupid that Republicans have already walked.
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gulfgal98's picture

Bad

I think I have seen everything now. (Where is the "rolls eyes" emoticon when you need one?)

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98
saint.jpg

It's a steal!

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WaterLily's picture

(That's all).

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Roy Blakeley's picture

@WaterLily millions of liberals essentially worshiping a man whose misleading testimony to Congress facilitated the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. He mislead this time too with his indictments of Internet Research Agency personnel and Russian intelligence officers. He would have indicted Trump or his campaign officials for colluding with Russia, were it not for the fact that would have had to prove the allegations in court, risking revealing that the allegations have little basis in fact.

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Cassiodorus's picture

Mueller lasted less than two, no?

OK so here's the Wikipedia page. Anyone see anything in that page that needs to be changed?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

they bet wrong

As the history of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax is being written, one group deserves a vaunted perch atop the proverbial Hall of Shame: NeverTrump “conservatives.”

For nearly three years, these Trump-hating propagandists on the Right have aided the most mendacious forces on the Left in a grievous attempt to take down the Republican president of the United States. While they preened, prattled, and proselytized about how much better they are than deplorable Trumpists, NeverTrumpers en masse abandoned their so-called traditional conservative principles in order to aid a Hillary Clinton-DNC-Obama Administration scheme to destroy the political pariah who won the presidency over their collective objection.

In the process, they tried to rewrite the fundamental tenets of American conservatism. Behavior that once would’ve sparked outrage in conservative quarters has been normalized, even justified, by self-proclaimed conservatives.

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Shahryar's picture

@gjohnsit

how depressing.

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@Shahryar
Nothing changes until her ratings fall.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@gjohnsit

For that too?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

detroitmechworks's picture

@Anja Geitz The BBC head recently said that one of the most important things they can do is prevent "Fake News" by supporting the Main Stream Media.

Now our goal is to make it work even harder. I want it to become central to our daily journalism - online, on radio, and on TV - so that audiences can benefit from our fact-checking machinery on every big story we do.

Yep, EVERYTHING needs to be fact checked by the MSM. If it isn't, clearly it's a disinformation campaign. Because remember, everyone who doesn't is actively evil...
/snark

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrKMJ8u94gc]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Anja Geitz's picture

@detroitmechworks

I think maybe the writer of that schtick was the one preoccupied with that particular female body part. Not to mention that most women use it for a mere fraction of their lives, while others don't use it at all, yet all women have to tote them around for most of our lives. Frankly, they're udderly inconvenient.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

detroitmechworks's picture

@Anja Geitz Just felt like mocking British dogma a bit, and Terry Thomas is always a good source when I'm looking for a proper portrayal of a twit. Suppose I could have gone with Python, but I LIKE them... Smile

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Anja Geitz's picture

@detroitmechworks

Some things don't mellow well with age. The movie itself is a hilarious concept with some laugh out loud bits in it. But I recently went back to the old episodes of MASH and was struck by the public's consumption and consent to the blatant objectification of women seen in the relentless skirt chasing and sexual double entendres characters said to the female characters, all for laughs.

Ha ha?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

detroitmechworks's picture

@Anja Geitz

I'm inclined to assume that shtick was ALL Terry Thomas. He often played a lecher, and was almost always extremely sexist in his material to boot. Much of that film, IIRC was just an opportunity for current popular comics to show off their stuff...

Course, that was also not a character to be Emulated, which I think we've lost track of in our current entertainment paradigm. Bad Guys can be charming, even if they're absolute slime, and he portrayed that pretty well, IMHO.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Anja Geitz's picture

@detroitmechworks

Especially in the realm of popular entertainment where hackneyed tropes about females, people who are overweight, and minorities are portrayed and the degree of consent humor gives in perpetuating them. In fact Hannah Gadsby did a searing stand up routine in her recent Netflix special that spoke to comedy as an art form, entertainment, and shaping narratives. Very powerful.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

detroitmechworks's picture

@Anja Geitz in another 50 years too. For different reasons, and for different cultural differences.

I killed my TV because I can't stand popular entertainment these days. Older stuff, while it may have its nasty moments, has a truth to it that current entertainment does not. Nowadays it feels like the only way to get people to pay attention is to denounce something or someone and create some kind of controversy, and the writers all are checking each other for proper compliance with whatever the current truth of the day is.(And there's ALWAYS at least 4 to 6 writers)

Quite frankly, I don't care one whit what anyone has to say regarding my choice in entertainment. I write pornography, for crying out loud, and I'm quite familiar with the supposed deleterious effect my work is supposed to have on society according to "Older and Wiser" heads. I've written it since my first word processor, and have been relentlessly shamed for it by family, friends, and even strangers who claim that I don't understand male sexuality at ALL. I just got to the point where I do NOT CARE what somebody else wants to say about unconscious bias or unwilling consent. (Because quite frankly, the idea that an adult cannot consent while under the influence of society means that my writing of it might be unwilling consent too. IMHO, that's ludicrously Calvinistic)

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Anja Geitz's picture

@detroitmechworks

the idea that an adult cannot consent while under the influence of society

Also, I believe you are defining the word "consent" in a context of sexual partners, while I am most assuredly not.

I am defining consent in the context of being given permission to use comedy to degrade a persons humanity and use expression of speech as an art form to defend it.

Perhaps we misunderstood each other a little?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

detroitmechworks's picture

@Anja Geitz Without being able to see or hear the other person, it's amazing how easy it is to miscommunicate.

Specifically, I was referring to "Consent under Duress" which is a current paradigm of politicians to go after sex workers, pornographers, and numerous other individuals by claiming that no right thinking person would ever CONSENT to such "horrible" things. You see it in bills like SESTA and FOSTA. It's weaponized feminist theory, stripped of all context and used to beat the poor.

However, I will absolutely concede that some humor has been used to dehumanize others. At the same time, that humor is insight into the way someone thinks, so it does have value for understanding a culture and what they value. Thomas' example might be sexist, but it does call into sharp relief the American obsession with "Sex Sells" which is one of our media's defining characteristics.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Anja Geitz's picture

@detroitmechworks

And would have to know more about it before commenting. However I am very familiar with the term "informed" consent and could certainly make an argument about the exploitation of sex workers within that frame work. But that is too hefty an argument for this venue. In most cases, perhaps not all, I don't believe women generally plan, or look forward to the day, when they can be prostitutes.

As someone whose spiritual bent is moored in eastern philosophy, I also don't believe that which exploits a person's humanity for monetary gain is necessarily enriching for the soul and risks compromising ones integrity and moral center. But by that measure, so is being a hedge fund manager, so there's that.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

detroitmechworks's picture

@Anja Geitz And we're WAY off topic. Thanks for the discussion.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Anja Geitz's picture

Believe WMD's were found in Iraq!?! That. Is. Stunning. My God, no wonder these monster in power are so smug about their veal penning.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz Many people around me are convinced TPTB have convicted “a bunch” of people for Russian collusion, hacking the election on behalf of Trump and/or Russia and all sorts of related things that absolutely have not happened. No convincing them otherwise.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Anja Geitz's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

I guess there's always the weather to talk about.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

jobu's picture

Barr’s note is clear that Mueller did not uncover evidence Trump and his gang were in direct cahoots with Russia’s covert operation to interfere with the US election and boost Trump’s odds. But the hyper-focus on this sort of collusion—as if Trump instructed Russian hackers on how to penetrate the computer network of the Democratic National Committee—has always diverted attention from a basic and important element of the scandal that was proven long before Mueller drafted his final report: Trump and his lieutenants interacted with Russia while Putin was attacking the 2016 election and provided encouraging signals to the Kremlin as it sought to subvert American democracy. They aided and abetted Moscow’s attempt to cover up its assault on the United States

Embedded in the revelation of no actual collusion is the Zombie Lie that Russia meaningfully interfered with (meddled) the election in favor of Trump. As long as this Lie keeps being spoken as it must, the RussiaGaters will have something to fall back on, as is manifest to us all in the last few days.

Below, watch David Cay Johnson continue to beat the Russia Meddling Bongo Drum with complete confident incoherence as Glen Greenwald pulls his jersey over his head and pummels him for a half hour straight.

Absolutely amazing display of straight up prevarication by DCJ and incredibly calm cool methodical take down by GGW:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fNheSHUpBk]

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snoopydawg's picture

@jobu

Embedded in the revelation of no actual collusion is the Zombie Lie that Russia meaningfully interfered with (meddled) the election in favor of Trump. As long as this Lie keeps being spoken as it must, the RussiaGaters will have something to fall back on, as is manifest to us all in the last few days.

Show us the evidence that placing 60% of ads about interfering with the 'election' actually did that. And even if Russia hacked the DNC, so what? It's a private company as gulgal has stated and again show us the prooof that happened. If that's all people are basing their interference charge on then it's dead in the water. A white whale, seagull poo and then let's now talk about the context of the information. You know, that showed that the primary was rigged.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@jobu @jobu to watch Johnston try to squirm out of it. I'm only 20 minutes in and I will watch the rest but man, my blood pressure increased just listening to him.

OK, he's apparently looking to sell books, how sad to watch that. And the old obsession with evil Russian designs on our government continues. Time for a drink.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

@lizzyh7 useful for a lot of non-Russiagate matters, but having embraced R-gate so fervently, he's now lost credibility in the other areas.

And how weasely of him to try to exculpate himself by saying he'd only appeared once or twice on the Mad Dog's show. Maybe, but it was those hundred appearances on the other similar Russiagate shows.

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Benny's picture

@jobu

As the Mueller Probe Ends, New Russiagate Myths Begin

There were too many stories that dwelled on this theme to count here, but we all saw them. New York asked, Was Trump “meeting his handler” in Helsinki? The Daily Beast asked why he dodged the question: “Is he a Russian asset?”

(Note: the extravagant use of hack spy-novel language during this period is going to look particularly ridiculous in history books decades from now.) (emphasis mine, not Taibbi's)

Some outlets didn’t even put their beliefs in the form of a question. “Trump Is Compromised by Russia” read a not-unusual editorial in the New York Times last November.

If you tried to protest that this had not been proven, that journalists should be more careful about leveling such serious accusations, the first line of response (if it wasn’t accusing you of being in league with Putin) was usually a version of: Be quiet, you don’t know what Mueller knows.

Mueller knows became the cornerstone belief of nearly all reporters who covered the Russia investigation. Journalists reveled in the idea of being kept out of the loop, thrilled to defer to the impenetrable steward of national secrets, the interview-proof Man of State. He was no blabbermouth Donald Trump, this Mueller! He won’t tell us a thing!

To the essayist's point about SNL, Taibbi mocked the skit as well:

Then there were episodes like the “All I want for Christmas is you!” song performed by the SNL cast. “I don’t need a full impeachment / I just need a little fun / Please don’t tell us we aren’t crazy / At least indict his oldest son.”

Now Santa Mueller has gone back to the North Pole, leaving just a written report. It absolutely should be released in full. It’s very possible that the full report contains a great many details that “Mueller knew” and we didn’t, and which will be embarrassing to Trump.

Yep, the witches' brew turned into weak tea.

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One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--Tennyson

WaterLily's picture

Trump interacted with Russia! And provided encouraging signals!

I never! Where's my fainting couch?!

(Seriously, do these buffoons actually think anyone gives credence to their bloviating bullshit anymore?)

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gulfgal98's picture

@WaterLily I guess that Johnston has absolutely no problem with Bill Clinton's half million dollar speech in Russia after Uranium One.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

detroitmechworks's picture

That's what they've shifted to, right? Fine. If they think that is the thing that will convince me, I'll give them the point. I'll even say that their evidence was correct without seeing it. That's how much I'll give them here.

Processing...

SO FUCKING WHAT? Straight up. If you are so pathetic that you cannot live without a computer record being kept secret, you don't deserve to be president. If your entire strategy absolutely depended on records being kept secret, you're a crappy candidate who can't adjust to the very real changing world.

And right now, that's what we need. Adap-fucking-tation. What happens when Russia hacks our power grid, like you claim happened? If that was the case, we should be diversifying, cutting corporate power, and making sure that all those power plants have manual, live operators. What? You don't want to do that? But that's the logical solution if there is a problem like that.

Seems to me that if what they are saying is true... as they keep screaming, their behavior would change because of the real threat. Since it HASN'T... I now know they are lying.

Your move, MSM. I'll be over here collaborating with a different Foreign influence.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7XWWq9w2Qw&list=RDz7XWWq9w2Qw&start_rad...

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Hawkfish's picture

@detroitmechworks

To keep things secret that need to be, then same conclusion.

The fact that those clowns had a security audit done and then ignored it tells me that they are not qualified to play with grownups in the 21 st century.

Quite apart from everything else, the idea that HRC was in some sense competent - even in a brutal realpolitik sense - is simply not supported by the evidence.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

detroitmechworks's picture

@Hawkfish with regards to depending on technological solutions.

And this was during Bush's reign, so Clinton has no excuse to ignore that intelligence, because it's a mistake made by her political ENEMIES. Technological solutions can be easily defeated by just rendering the technology pointless. Of course, nobody listened, and we just doubled down on it, integrating computer solutions into absolutely everything...

And surprise, surprise, surprise...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TnkJ8_BmSI]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Steven D's picture

believe it to be true.

Psychologists have known this for decades.

Ad execs for far longer.

Politicians since the beginning of time.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

the VIDEO in this link. Michael Isikoff and David Corn, who played key roles in inserting the Steel Dossier into our minds and into the FBI's FISA warrant process, and who wrote a book about it together, are pretty pathetic in this "panel discussion."

https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/26/msnbc-panel-mueller-steele-dossier/

MSNBC PANEL ADMITS MUELLER REPORT ‘UNDERCUTS ALMOST EVERYTHING’ IN STEELE DOSSIER
03/26/2019 | US
Chuck Ross

The two journalists most closely linked to the Steele dossier acknowledged Monday that the Democrat-funded document was debunked by the Mueller investigation, which found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

“I think one of the reasons people were so surprised by the Mueller finding is that it undercuts almost everything that was in the dossier, which postulated a well-developed conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign,” Michael Isikoff, a reporter for Yahoo! News, told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes...

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@Linda Wood these two weasels would be banned from all cable appearances for 2.5 years and confined for the duration to their narrow niche at the worthless and inconsequential MJ. Especially Corn. Note that the large ad banner for his dubious book Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of How Russia Blah Blah Blah still appears at the top of his twitter page.

I wish I had a dollar for every guest who's stayed at my place during those 2.5 yrs who has regarded me as out of touch with reality for not accepting the R-gate pseudoscandal. Try as I might, they could not be reached by fact or solid reason. As unswayable as the most zombie-like Trump supporters. For a couple of guests, Rachel's word was all they needed.

Thank our Reptilian Overlords I do not keep any guns around the house.

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@wokkamile nicely and not actively gloating too much, but I have sent some takedowns of this bullshit - no response, naturally. But hey, that is OK. One of my friends who's almost over this bullshit told me weeks ago I should be "shouting this from the rooftops" and I so badly wanted to ask her, which rooftop would that be? And if no one will listen, what in hell good does that do? So now it's my fault that "no one knows this" even though others with a far bigger "rooftop" than me have tried repeatedly to make that point?! I held my tongue though, I get more traction with her using more subtle tactics than in your face "you are wrong" any day anyway. And I will keep doing it since I really cannot keep my big mouth shut anymore.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Just scanning the headlines, it seems the emerging narrative is that Barr & gop are suppressing Mueller's report. Mueller Lives to fight another day!!!!

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"Maddow, who has consistently vied for the first or second top-rated cable news program, was sixth on Monday evening, down almost 500,000 total viewers from the previous Monday"

https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1110886363036086273

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