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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Comments
Saint Mueller???????????
I think I have seen everything now. (Where is the "rolls eyes" emoticon when you need one?)
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Only $18 for the poster
It's a steal!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
(That's all).
What a nauseating spectacle this has been
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.
Joe McCarthy did his thing for four years.
Mueller lasted less than two, no?
OK so here's the Wikipedia page. Anyone see anything in that page that needs to be changed?
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
End of the line for Never-Trumpers
they bet wrong
she's still at it!??
how depressing.
This surprises you?
Nothing changes until her ratings fall.
I wonder if she'd blame the Russians
For that too?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
They're on that already.
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.
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]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Its a Mad Mad Mad World
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.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Eh, it was the 60's...
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...
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Yeah, I hear ya
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?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Well, considering the writers were a husband and wife team...
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.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I think greater minds than I have debated that topic
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.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I think we will look back and cringe...
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)
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Who says this?
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?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Quite possibly.
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.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I am not familiar with that terminology of consent
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.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
And you're right, wrong venue.
And we're WAY off topic. Thanks for the discussion.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Over Half of Republicans
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.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Not surprised.
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.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
My condolences
I guess there's always the weather to talk about.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
The underlying Zombie Lie remains
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]
This is the next step to kill the beast
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.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
How absolutely pathetic
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.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
DKJ is or was probably
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.
Matt Taibbi's Column Was Priceless
As the Mueller Probe Ends, New Russiagate Myths Begin
To the essayist's point about SNL, Taibbi mocked the skit as well:
Yep, the witches' brew turned into weak tea.
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
Gasp!
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?)
Well,
I guess that Johnston has absolutely no problem with Bill Clinton's half million dollar speech in Russia after Uranium One.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
So... the big issue is that Russia hacked the DNC, right?
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...
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Or if you are too incompetent
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.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
General Riper proved the insanity of American policy
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]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
You repeat a lie long enough and people
believe it to be true.
Psychologists have known this for decades.
Ad execs for far longer.
Politicians since the beginning of time.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
Watch
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."
In a more honest world
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.
I have been behaving rather
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.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
If TOP is any indication.
Just scanning the headlines, it seems the emerging narrative is that Barr & gop are suppressing Mueller's report. Mueller Lives to fight another day!!!!
BTW. Maddow down 500,000 viewers on Monday.
https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1110886363036086273