House Intelligence Committee Hearing

[Bicycle Bill]

It is not fair to expect differently from someone who is 60-ish and has never been in a long-term relationship with a woman.
He has never had or, apparently, sought an adult male relationship with a woman. how would he know any better?

yrs,
rubato

Partially correct, rubato.  For roughly the first 40 years of my life I did not seek any form of relationship with members of the opposite sex, driven in part by some of the questionable and ultimately failed relationships I had seen several of my friends and family members go through; also because once I graduated from high school I threw myself into the various jobs and employments I held, almost all of which were on the second or overnight shift, as well as embracing cycling to the exclusion of almost all other pastimes or diversions — including he-ing and she-ing.

Once I did realize that, for whatever reason, I had short-sightedly allowed a major stage of my interpersonal development to pass me by, I then ran into a different sort of problem.  When you try to put yourself "into the market" but any and all of your knowledge of "the dating game" comes from the way the game was played in the 1960s, well.... I found that it's like bringing a VW 'Beetle' to the Indy 500 and expecting to be competitive.  After enough times of doing this and feeling that one has made a complete fool of one's self, one eventually stops trying.

Now, as I approach retirement age, I am more or less resigned to the fact that any long-lasting, meaningful relationship with the opposite sex is, like my childhood fantasies of becoming a racing car driver, something that will never come to pass (although there is the one woman I did spend some time with and for whom I am still carrying a torch, almost ten years after our last face-to-face encounter, so I guess maybe there is still some small spark — one very last inch of me — that refuses to die) and that when it comes my time to shuffle off this mortal coil I will probably do so alone and with no one to miss or mourn me.

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. ~ Thomas Wolfe

[RayThom]

BB, and this was on a website talking about H.D. Thoreau. Idealism being the key word. You may feel you're alone, but you're not. Others have endured.

Thoreau clearly shared the common human craving for understanding.

Thoreau's idealism strained his relationships. Emerson wrote in his eulogy that "no equal companion stood in affectionate relations with one so pure and guileless," and went so far as to comment, "I think the severity of his ideal interfered to deprive him of a healthy sufficiency of human society." Moreover, there was an off-putting thorniness to Thoreau's personality. Elizabeth Hoar said of him (as recorded in Emerson's journal and later incorporated into the eulogy), "I love Henry, but do not like him."

Some of Thoreau's journal entries show a clear perception of the conflict between his need for friendship and closeness and his tendency toward disappointment with actual relationships. The fact that he never married (although he proposed once) likely indicates some level of understanding that his idealism worked against long-term intimacy.

The concept of constant love can be confining, but its exact opposite, desolating.

Then there is always this:
https://www.eros.com/wisconsin/eros.htm

[Lord Jim]

White House, Nunes blocked ex-acting AG from testifying

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) canceled a hearing on Russia where former acting Attorney General Sally Yates was to testify the same day the White House voiced objections to him about her planned testimony.

Yates briefly led the agency while Attorney General Jeff Sessions moved through Senate confirmation, but was fired by Trump after she refused to defend in court his executive order temporarily banning all refugees and immigrants from a handful of Muslim-majority countries.

After she was fired, it was revealed that Yates had notified the White House that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had not properly explained his contact with the Russian ambassador, according to a report published Tuesday in The Washington Post.

Flynn was later fired over the incident.

The Post report cites documents showing that the Justice Department told Yates that her testimony would have to be seriously limited because of executive privilege, which protects executive branch documents and information from having to be turned over in certain cases.

According to the series of letters, a Justice Department official told Yates's lawyer, David O'Neill, that she would need “consent” from the White House in order to discuss her conversations with the White House.

The government was told last week that testimony by Yates and former CIA Director John Brennan would conflict with comments from White House staff, according to the Post. The day after that was communicated, Nunes announced the cancelation.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer decried the Post’s report as “entirely false."[See the link to copies of the letters, below...I guess they're fake]

"The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible,” Spicer added.

In a statement responding to the story, Democratic National Committee aide Zac Petkanas tied the White House's push to block Yates's testimony to the cancelled hearing, arguing that Nunes is working with the White House to hide information.

“Now we know why Chairman Nunes canceled the hearing today. This isn’t an investigation into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia — it’s a cover-up," he said.

Nunes, who leads the investigation in the House, told reporters on Monday that he took a secret trip to the White House last week to meet with an intelligence source who provided him with information showing that Trump's transition team had been caught up in incidental surveillance.

The chairman has come under fire for that trip, which he made without telling Democrats on his panel what he had learned.

Democrats on Monday called for Nunes to recuse himself from any probe of Russia, which is accused of meddling in the election to help Trump.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... testifying

You can see the letters that were exchanged here:

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/docume ... ssia/2390/

I have to say that as cover-up efforts go, this one leaves a lot to be desired...

First, their lapdog House Intel Committee leader has been so transparent in his Trump buttboy behavior that he'll likely have to step down from the investigation (This morning I saw Devin Numbnuts Nunes ignore a question about whether he would recuse himself...I think it's a matter of time.)

And now they've guaranteed a big TV audience for Sally Yates when she ultimately does testify...

[Econoline]

Hmmm. Now why did the phrase "obstruction of justice" just pop into my mind...?