seriously: if Mueller isn’t going to save us, can anyone? :eek:
Mueller is not going to “save us”. Even if Mueller manages to convict the vast majority of the current administration including the President and his immediate family, the Republicans will still be in power and will still be pandering to both their wealthy paymasters and the uninformed masses who have been supporting Trump all the way. Even if Pence goes too, it’ll only fall to Hatch or Ryan or Cotton or someone else of that ilk to carry on.
Trump is not the problem. Trump is the symptom. I mean, I believe all those people should be investigated and held accountable for their actions but there will still remain a big divide in America.
Minority and female voters, judging from the Alabama senate election.
Exactly. And this is another problem i had with the SNL piece, outside of its artistic merit: it represents an unfortunately prevalent sense among a lot of liberals that Mueller’s investigation is going to make everything alright again.
I would love it if Mueller did, in fact, take down a bunch of people within the Administration, but i’m not holding my breath. And the wishful thinking among American liberals that attaches so much significance to the investigation is, in my opinion, rather unproductive.
I’m going to have to agree with those who thought that sketch was not good. I’ll admit I didn’t watch until the end, though.
Yes, he’s a symptom of a larger problem, but…
I would welcome a return to “normal” right wing politics. I disagree with everything they want to do, but I’ve been in that situation several times over the past few decades. What is different this time is the rank incompetence and embarrassment of our current President. He’s utterly despicable, and I’m frankly flabbergasted that the conservatives are willing to tolerate such a man just to advance their political goals.
Well, you may have mistaken me for one of those folks, but I’m not. I also agree with what Gyrate said. Mueller is not a savior, and Trump is a symptom, not a cause. I will continue to work as hard as I am able to restore this country to something more reflective of the citizenry at large, and I have no illusions about where the responsibility to fix this mess lies.
That said, I am grateful the first blows will be struck by one as capable, steady and dedicated as Mueller. I do believe he has a trail of 7-Grain Panera loaves instead of crumbs. But I also believe there are many powerful forces arrayed against him and his success. How he conducts his prosecutions will materially affect the tools we have available as a nation to set ourselves on a corrected course. He will have to be nigh perfect. I believe he knows this. We are in a crucial moment as a nation. I would not want to bear the weight Mueller must on my own shoulders. His importance in what happens going forward can’t be minimized.
If you, like me, have felt the wanton, deliberate destruction of our institutions, standing in the world and governmental norms as keenly as if you were being daily stabbed with a butter knife, then the bit of indulgence of McKinnon’s confident Mueller impersonation was a welcome few moments of delight.
Obviously, YMMV.
This feels like a claim that those who didn’t enjoy the sketch are not keenly feeling the assault on norms. I hope that is not your meaning.
Of course not. I take mhendo at his word: He didn’t like the portrayal. But I also didn’t appreciate being impugned with the notion that this meant I want to wash Mueller’s feet – any more than you or he would appreciate the assumption that you are not keenly feeling the assault on norms.
For the record, I didn’t feel he was attacking you, though I can see why you might think so (and I wouldn’t claim my read was the only possible read).
You and I are on the same page in the vast majority of this thread and others, and I know I do a lot of nodding along, despite your TERRIBLE TASTE IN SNL SKETCHES! 
It did drag a bit. McKinnon got repetitive.
But remember that SNL’s audience for its political sketches isn’t just we Great Unwashed, but the DC power structure and particularly the administration. If they can spread the idea among the White House staff that they’re all about to face the firing squad, then the sketch has achieved its purpose.
Casting Kate McKinnon as Mueller instead of a male cast member seems odd - she does their Jeff Sessions partly as a way to annoy Trump personally by comparing his AG to a woman. It isn’t obvious to me what casting her as Mueller is supposed to achieve toward Trump, unless it’s simply that she just really wanted to do it.
LOL, fair enough. 
Cheese Louise, don’t get him started on the “Killer Bees” again!
AIUI, without having read the full complaint on my teeny tiny screen, Common Cause argues that the LLC set up by Trump’s lawyer to pay Stormy Daniels made what amounts to an in-kind donation to the campaign. They also argue that the expenditure should have been reported by the campaign since the funds were paid to influence the election.
Does Common Cause have a case here? Does the payment run afoul of campaign finance law? It seems to me that the answers to both those questions are likely “yes”, but what the hell do I know?
And, yes, of course it doesn’t matter. Trump could, as he famously claimed, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and Ryan and McConnell would express their concern and call the President’s actions “unhelpful”, and then go about their day.
That’s my guess.
The show was very heavy on despair. The longest sketch (I believe) was a ‘game show’ in which the point was that nothing Trump does matters, and that no matter how outrageously destructive to the US his antics are, they will go on. And there were other jokes along those lines in the show.
Possibly, someone said ‘we HAVE to have some counterpoint to all this gloom and all this messaging that Trump is winning.’ So McKinnon suggested playing Mueller, which didn’t make sense on any level. (As noted, the grinning portrayal was nothing like the real Mueller, and how would casting a woman add anything to it?) Some SNL cast members are more powerful than others, and if K.McK. wants to do something, she probably gets told ‘yes.’
OFCS get Garret Morris to play Mueller and be done with it.
“Our top story tonight --”
“OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT–”
“Thank you, President Trump!”
Absolutely. That way there’s at least one less maggot.
… right into the fucking ground.