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Archive 2017-2019 Political Thread

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I know a builder where I live who started construction on a house in Feb that my wife and I were interested in buying. The projected finished price of the house was in the price range we were looking at. Two months into the project, he came back with a new estimate that was $50K higher than his original estimate. He cut out 320 sq ft from the house and we decided to not have him finish the bonus room above the garage. He also down graded the interior details from custom to spec quality. The estimated price came back to the range we were interested in. Last month he came back with a new estimate and the price jumped up another $30K which was outside our range. He said that many of his cost increases were due to the tariffs.
 
Matt said:
That's a stupid comment! What do you mean "do whatever he wants" ?
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Trump said that article 2 of the constitution allows him to do whatever he wants as president. The stupid comments were Trumps.

"Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president." - DJT
 
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Kory said:
Mueller seems a bit disoriented and caught off guard by some line of questioning.
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He's not doing very well. Democrats basically just reading the report to him and asking him to confirm.

Ted Lieu has the zinger of the day so far: "The reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating that you can not indict a sitting president, correct?

Mueller: "That is correct."

Also interesting that Mueller said Trump could be charged after he is out of office.

I thought the questioning about Trump asking McGahn to lie was very interesting and damaging for Trump.
 
Kory said:
Mueller seems a bit disoriented and caught off guard by some line of questioning.
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I think he, like many of us as we get older, have a hard time hearing and deciphering what is being asked of him, especially with the rapid fire questions that are coming his way. When he gets clarification and understanding, I think he is doing a great job with his testimony. Too bad his hands are tied and can't fully disclose all he knows. Would be fascinating to have him answer every question posed by both sides instead of having stay in the lane dictated by the DOJ.
 
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gangstonc said:
He's not doing very well. Democrats basically just reading the report to him and asking him to confirm.

Ted Lieu has the zinger of the day so far: "The reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating that you can not indict a sitting president, correct?

Mueller: "That is correct."

Also interesting that Mueller said Trump could be charged after he is out of office.

I thought the questioning about Trump asking McGahn to lie was very interesting and damaging for Trump.
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This seems to be all information we've known already.

Both sides will spin this how they want and we'll be back to where we started.
 
It's interesting to watch when Mueller says he has to disagree with what a Repub is asking him, the Repub immediately starts talking over him to cut off his comments not allowing him to explain the reason for his disagreement and finish his thought.
 
Kory said:
This seems to be all information we've known already.

Both sides will spin this how they want and we'll be back to where we started.
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No doubt.

I think what will happen is people will finally form a more informed opinion. The average person wasn't going to read the report. They are much more likely to be interested in something that happened on TV.
 
ghost said:
It's interesting to watch when Mueller says he has to disagree with what a Repub is asking him, the Repub immediately starts talking over him to cut off his comments not allowing him to explain the reason for his disagreement and finish his thought.
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To be fair, that's how all politicians do. I am however surprised the republicans are trying the line of questioning they are trying, instead of sticking to the report. Maybe the report is bad for Trump?
 
Kory said:
This seems to be all information we've known already.

Both sides will spin this how they want and we'll be back to where we started.
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Anyone who thought otherwise was smoking the good stuff. It will be paraded around a week as comfirmation and then forgot about.

I do feel bad for Mueller though. Someone must had a gun up to his head for him to testify.
 
ARCC said:
Anyone who thought otherwise was smoking the good stuff. It will be paraded around a week as comfirmation and then forgot about.

I do feel bad for Mueller though. Someone must had a gun up to his head for him to testify.
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Pretty common to see men his age with hearing loss. My step-father didn't seem to have a problem until he hit about 73-74 and then all of a sudden his hearing deteroriated. Considering Mueller served in the military and saw combat, I'd imagine that didn't bode well for later hearing problems.

What's odd is that his requests to repeat the question, looking a bit befuddled, of asking "what was that?" don't seem to be consistent across the board. I noticed he struggled mightily with Collins -- who has a very strong Southern accent and speaks incredibly fast whereas he had no issue with Jayapal. I'm fact, it seems he has had considerably less problems with questions from Democrats than Republicans.

I have a few theories, but I really need to go back and re-watch earlier testimony, and I also need to see how Mueller does before the Intel committee. It seems to me that a number of people on both sides had some kind of knowledge that Mueller's hearing isn't the best. Democrats have tended to speak slower and annunciate, and to also keep their heads and mouths toward Mueller when questioning. A couple of the Republican members have spoken and questioned VERY quickly, kept their heads/mouths down when reading or questioning, or moved their head around dramatically, etc. I also think it has to do with the fact that Republican committee members generally have seats further from the witness. Has anyone noticed what I'm referring to? Jordan, Gohmert, Collins, and Gaetz all seemed to slow down sometimes when they were making a statement to the audience and speed up when questioning Mueller.

I really need to go back and re-watch, my current thought is that the Republicans and Democrats were both somewhat aware of Mueller having some kind of hearing problem, and the two sides have accommodated him very differently. It's not too hard to conclude that if you speak very quickly and/or keep your head/mouth down at times (or move it around) that a witness with a hearing problem might struggle and look like they are lost and confused. Anyone who has spent time with someone with hearing loss knows that speaking slower, annuciating, and making sure your mouth is pointed toward the person is key for that person to understand you.

That said, I also noticed Mueller have a quivering lip at times as well as have what seemed to be involuntary tremors. It wouldn't surprise me if he's now got some kind of movement disorder or Parkinson's, and because of his seemingly varied ability to understand or respond to different accents or speech patterns that may be compounded by a hearing issue. Wouldn't be uncommon for someone his age to have a hearing problem or some kind of movement disorder. Or both. And it's also possible one or the other (or both) are things that have been recently started to plague him or have been exacerbated by his recent workload as Special Counsel and the stress of the job and preparation for testimony.

So, yeah, I feel awful for Mueller. It's very possible that even six months or a year ago that whatever is ailing him wasn't anything more than a minor nuisance.
 
I think the problem with Mueller hearing Republicans instead of democrats is that the republicans are generally asking out of scope questions that Mueller doesn't know the answer to.
 
Kory said:
This seems to be all information we've known already.

Both sides will spin this how they want and we'll be back to where we started.
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For the most part, yes. But, there have been two critical things that have now been confirmed. One, Mueller told Lieu "that is correct" when he asked him if the OLC memo is the reason why he didn't indict Trump. Those of us who read the report knew that the report said this in a much less clear and caveated way. We now have explicit confirmation. In fact, one Republican Congresswoman tried to get him to retract that statement or paint it as inconsistent with the SCO report, and Mueller shut her down.

The second thing is when Lesko tried to get Mueller to agree with her that Barr's summary and public statements have been accurate. Mueller refused and told her she was leaving out the March 27th letter that the SCO sent to Barr in which the Special Counsel complained about Barr's summary of the SCO report causing confusion. DOJ had tried to claim this was due to poor media reporting. Mueller clearly doesn't think so. He clearly has an issue with how Barr summarized the conclusions of his report.
 
The excuses for Mueller's ineptness are too funny. The guy is a hack and this hearing further illustrates that fact. Good riddance to Bob Mueller!
 
gangstonc said:
I think the problem with Mueller hearing Republicans instead of democrats is that the republicans are generally asking out of scope questions that Mueller doesn't know the answer to.
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Yes, that definitely contributes to it although Mueller should've been prepared for that. But it's very possible that he's always ignored the various conspiratorial ravings by Trump's Republican allies, and thought the DOJ letter limiting the scope of his testimony would allow him to stonewall such non-pertinent questions. More likely though is that Mueller's still living in timeline in which DC and Congress weren't so nakedly partisan and willing to engage in obvious bad-faith rhetoric. You'd think his time as SC would've made it clear to him that the rules of the game, respect for our laws and political process, and Congress' behavior have all changed in remarkable ways.
 
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