"When Trump says repeatedly that he fired the F.B.I. director James Comey because of the Russia investigation, Barr spins it as, 'Unfortunately, President Trump exacerbated things himself with his clumsy miscues, notably making imprecise comments in an interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt and joking around with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador the day after firing Comey.' The just-joking defense is a favorite for Barr, as it is for the former president. In a strikingly humorless book, there is one 'funny' line from Trump: '"Do you know what the secret is of a really good tweet?" he asked, looking at each of us one by one. We all looked blank. "Just the right amount of crazy," he said.'"
"'For all his urbane affect, Obama was still the left-wing agitator who had patiently steered the Democratic Party toward an illiberal, identity-obsessed progressivism,' Barr writes; no doubt actual 'left-wing agitators,' who have regularly denounced Obama for centrism, would like to have a word.
Barr’s version of Trump, meanwhile, contains multitudes: The former president may have 'an imprecise and discursive speaking style,' even a tendency for 'madcap rhetoric,' but Barr also believes Trump has 'a deep intuitive appreciation of the importance of religion to the health of our nation.'
"... and that it is time for Republicans to focus on rising new leaders in the party.
The release of the former attorney general’s 600-page book, 'One Damn Thing After Another,' is coming as Mr. Trump, who remains the GOP’s dominant figure, contemplates another presidential run. Mr. Barr writes that he was convinced that Mr. Trump could have won re-election in 2020 if he had 'just exercised a modicum of self-restraint, moderating even a little of his pettiness.' 'The election was not "stolen,"' Mr. Barr writes. 'Trump lost it.' Mr. Barr urges conservatives to look to 'an impressive array of younger candidates' who share Mr. Trump’s agenda but not his 'erratic personal behavior.' He didn’t mention any of those candidates by name."
A 600-page book called "One Damn Thing After Another"? It sounds like a caption for a New Yorker cartoon. But it's really perfect, isn't it? This isn't a book to be read — what political book is? — but a thing to wave around as the author/"author" appears on TV. Steel yourself for Barr appearances on shows advising Republics to pick someone less old and less divisive than Trump. Or just don't watch the shows. That's my approach.
...Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, an outstanding person, will become Acting Attorney General. Highly respected Richard Donoghue will be taking over the duties of Deputy Attorney General. Thank you to all! pic.twitter.com/V5sqOJT9PM
Attorney General William Barr has known about a disparate set of investigations involving Hunter Biden’s business and financial dealings since at least this spring, a person familiar with the matter said, and worked to avoid their public disclosure during the heated election campaign....
On Thursday night, Mr. Trump tweeted his frustration about the Justice Department and the FBI’s failure to disclose the Hunter Biden investigation earlier. “Why didn’t the Fake News Media, the FBI and the DOJ report the Biden matter BEFORE the Election,” he wrote.
Justice Department guidelines advise investigators against taking overt actions in a run-up to an election so as not to be seen as affecting the outcome....
Lou Dobbs absolutely loses it over Bill Barr saying there's no evidence of widespread voter fraud, accusing Barr of joining "the Deep State and the Resistance" before saying this:
The issues Trump’s campaign and its allies have pointed to are typical in every election: Problems with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postal marks on mail-in ballots, as well as the potential for a small number of ballots miscast or lost.
But they’ve also requested federal probes into the claims....
Barr didn’t name [Sidney] Powell specifically but said: “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that,” Barr said.
"In case after case, we have advanced and defended hyper-aggressive extensions of the criminal law. This is wrong and we must stop doing it.... We should want a fair system with clear rules that the people can understand. It does not serve the ends of justice to advocate for fuzzy and manipulable criminal prohibitions that maximize our options as prosecutors.... Advocating for clear and defined prohibitions will sometimes mean we cannot bring charges against someone whom we believe engaged in questionable conduct. But that is what it means to have a government of laws and not of men.... If criminal statutes are endlessly manipulable, then everything becomes a potential crime. Rather than watch policy experts debate the merits or demerits of a particular policy choice, we are nowadays treated to ad na[u]seum speculation by legal pundits — often former prosecutors themselves — that some action by the President, a senior official, or a member of congress constitutes a federal felony under this or that vague federal criminal statute. This criminalization of politics is not healthy. The criminal law is supposed to be reserved for the most egregious misconduct — conduct so bad that our society has decided it requires serious punishment, up to and including being locked away in a cage. These tools are not built to resolve political disputes and it would be a decidedly bad development for us to go the way of third world nations where new administrations routinely prosecute their predecessors for various ill-defined crimes against the state. The political winners ritually prosecuting the political losers is not the stuff of a mature democracy.... Our job is to prosecute people who commit clear crimes. It is not to use vague criminal statutes to police the mores of politics or general conduct of the citizenry. Indulging fanciful legal theories may seem right in a particular case under particular circumstances with a particularly unsavory defendant—but the systemic cost to our justice system is too much to bear."
[The mem0] gives Mr. Barr 14 days to identify “anarchist jurisdictions” where officials have “permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures,” although it does not specify particular cities.
[Russell T. Vought, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget,] has 30 days to direct “heads of agencies on restricting eligibility of or otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist jurisdictions in the receipt of federal grants,” according to the memo.
Among the factors that Mr. Barr is to consider in determining such jurisdictions are “whether a jurisdiction forbids the police force from intervening to restore order amid widespread or sustained violence or destruction,” whether a jurisdiction has pulled back law enforcement after being prevented access to a certain area and “whether a jurisdiction disempowers or defunds police departments.”...
Many onlookers are expressing shock, but conditional federal funding is a mainstay of federal legislation. When the conditions are not met, you don't get the money. I don't think it's good federalism, but there's so much of it and it's been going on for a long, long time!
I was just watching this new Biden ad — discussed in the previous post — and it flaunts the very same idea — withholding federal funds from cities that don't meet conditions that have been imposed. Here, I'll go right to the relevant spot:
I'll transcribe it for you: "Reforming policing in this country means creating a national standard on use of force and conditioning federal funds for police departments on adoption of that standard."
That is, Biden is relying on the same idea that Trump is using. Money isn't simply given to the cities for their police departments. Standards are imposed and they are enforced by a threat to withhold the money.
"Today they finally had their chance, as Barr testified, at long last, before the House Judiciary Committee. For Trump and Barr’s toughest critics, however, it was a frustrating experience.... Many of the committee’s senior Democrats chose to use their limited time not to seek answers from Barr but to make speeches. 'Reclaiming my time' quickly became the anthem of the day. 'This is a hearing,' the attorney general complained at one point. 'I thought that I was the one who was supposed to be heard.' The Democrats who did interrogate the attorney general often interrupted him before he could respond, or neglected to follow up when he did.... Frequent viewers of congressional hearings might say, understandably: Well, what did you expect? Hearings have long been venues for grandstanding and partisan bickering as much as oversight."
That's the best I could come up with as I looked for articles covering yesterday's hearing and mostly noticed the absence of news articles. The top of the NYT homepage is full of items about various longterm ongoing struggles: the coronavirus, the wealthy, Trump. If Our Masks Could Speak, Amazon Has Too Much Power, Trump Is Trying to Bend Reality to His Will. I'm not doing parody. Those are all real headlines at the top of the NYT today. I'm just documenting the absence of coverage of what happened at the Barr hearing and too lazy to make links for things I don't believe are worth clicking on. I'm citing them as evidence of a vacuum.
“The current situation in Portland is a telling example. Every night for the past two months, a mob of hundreds of rioters has laid siege to the federal courthouse and other nearby federal property. The rioters arrive equipped for a fight, armed with powerful slingshots, tasers, sledgehammers, saws, knives, rifles, and explosive devices. Inside the courthouse are a relatively small number of federal law enforcement personnel charged with a defensive mission: to protect the courthouse, home to Article III federal judges, from being overrun and destroyed.
"To identify criminal organizers and instigators, and to coordinate federal resources with our state and local partners, federal law enforcement is using our existing network of 56 regional FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF). The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly."
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, or JTTFs, are our nation’s front line of defense against terrorism, both international and domestic. They are groups of highly trained, locally based, passionately committed investigators, analysts, linguists, and other specialists from dozens of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies....
I've never given a damn about George Conway and his predictable anti-Trumpism, and, in fact, I have yet to read "There is no one to stop Trump now." But I'm delighted with his column, because I read the title and said "What's that song? Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now?" And 2 seconds later, I had my memory refreshed: "Oh! It's Starship!" And I was mesmerized by this trip back to 1986 (replete with stuff from the romcom "Mannequin"):
It's a festival of 80s hair — wet and dry. The notion that nothing is going to stop women who are mannequins is... interesting. I've never seen the movie, but in the video, the love of a man brings mannequins to life. One of the women is Grace Slick and one is so good looking that I thought Grace Slick should have had the clout to demand that in her videos there can be no woman who is better looking than she is.
Researching the underlying movie, "Mannequin," I see that other woman is Kim Cattrall (familiar to me only as Samantha on "Sex and the City"). I guess the movie came first and Grace was going along with a package deal. I see: "At the time, [the song] made the 47 year old Grace Slick the oldest woman to have a number-one single in the United States, surpassed only by Cher, who was 52 when her song 'Believe' reached #1 in early 1999."
Imagine the thrill of achievement to be in a place where you are surpassed only by Cher.
Imagine the thrill of achievement to be George Conway.... Wait. Let me skim this thing so I can get out of this post quickly now that I've had my 80s-retrospective fun.
When the subject of Attorney General William P. Barr comes up these days, it’s hard not to think of John S. McCain. Not the late senator, mind you, but the USS John S. McCain, the naval destroyer named after his father and grandfather.
That's hilariously nonsensical. Of all the things I find hard not to think about when I think about Bill Barr, the USS John S. McCain is nowhere on the list. Anyway, that turns out to be about how the ship was once kept out of Trump's line of sight, not because Trump demanded it, but "[a]nticipating Trump’s narcissistic whims and desires." So, you get it, that's what Barr must be doing.
I thought this column was going to be about how the Democrats have no one who can stop Trump from getting reelected. I was surprised to think Conway would concede that. He didn't. Now, I will go back to my original position of never reading Conway columns.
“The President has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case.” A.G. Barr This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!
I'm tired of reading all the articles about it. Or, more accurately, I'm averse to reading much of anything about it. But I do assume that Barr is helping Trump. Deliberately, of course.
“I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody….whether it’s Congress, newspaper editorial boards, or the president," Bill Barr tells @ABC News.
"'In his State of the Union, President Trump delivered a message of genuine optimism filled with an unapologetic faith in God and in American greatness and in the common virtues of the American people: altruism, industriousness, self-reliance and generosity,' he read, deadpan. Trump, he went on, 'loves this country,' and 'he especially loves you.' The boot-licking performance continued, about Trump’s wise leadership, his unbroken promises and even the just-impeached president’s passionate belief in the 'rule of law.' Then Barr turned to the enemy. He attacked 'rogue DA’s' and 'so-called social-justice reformers,' who are responsible for 'historic levels of homicide and other violent crime' in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Chicago and Baltimore. Politicians in sanctuary jurisdictions, he said, prefer 'to help criminal aliens evade the law.'"
From a Dana Milbank column in The Washington Post with the somewhat strange headline "Why Bill Barr’s DOJ replaced Catholic Charities with Hookers for Jesus." That headline focuses on something that appears at the top of the column, the news that a group called Hookers received a grant from the Justice Department for its work with victims of human trafficking. I know nothing about the group, but Milbank is simply expecting us to register instinctive contempt for prostitutes, but that's glaringly inconsistent with empathy for the victims of human trafficking.
The description of Milbank at the bottom of his column is: "He sketches the foolish, the fallacious and the felonious in politics." So, in this case, it's Barr — jowly Barr, in his large round glasses — who I think bears a strong resemblance to Elton John at the Oscars — looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid...
It's pretty easy to mock someone for being fat and wearing glasses. It's the cheapest shot of all, perhaps even foolish, fallacious, and felonious.
And what about those Hookers for Jesus? Milbank links to this Reuters article, which says:
Hookers for Jesus, which received $530,190 over three years, is run by a born-again Christian trafficking survivor who has lobbied against decriminalizing prostitution.... Hookers for Jesus operates a safe house for female adult trafficking victims that, in 2010 and in 2018....
Hookers for Jesus founder Annie Lobert denied that her organization requires safe house residents to attend services at her church. “We are not going to discriminate toward anyone,” she said. “But,” she added, “we are Christian. And there is an understanding before they come in here that we are Christian.”...
Annie Lobert (born September 26, 1967) is an American former call girl and sex industry worker, who founded the international Christian ministry Hookers for Jesus.... Lobert worked as a prostitute in Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Hawaii for 16 years. She left the sex industry with the support of Al Nakata, one of her regular customers, who had fallen in love with her....
In 2008, Hookers for Jesus established a safe house program in the Las Vegas area with one of The Church at South Las Vegas intern homes. The program, titled "Destiny House", is a safe haven for victims of sex trafficking and primarily serves prostitutes and local sex trade workers. Annie left CSLV (Church of South Las Vegas) and currently has a new Destiny House Estate.
What's wrong with giving this group a federal grant?
ADDED: From the comments over at WaPo:
Dana, once again, you've shown this President and his jackboots to be naked partisans, willing to sacrifice the good of our Nation for Trump's own personal gain....
That raises 2 questions: 1. Are you really naked if you're still wearing shoes/boots? and 2. If you read about victimized prostitutes and then you feel moved to talk in terms of nakedness, is your heart in the right place?
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