Barr - The Trump Toad - Goes Berserk With Authoritarian Babble (Applying Sedition Law To Protesters? Seriously?)

The bombastic 'Brat-in-chief' pleads with his Top Toad to go after DOJ prosecutors, medical experts, protesters and others - to help him sneak into  the Oval Office again.

Attorney General and Primo Trump Toad, errr. Toady, William Barr, told the nation’s federal prosecutors to be aggressive when charging violent demonstrators with crimes, including potentially prosecuting them for plotting to "overthrow the U.S. government", people familiar with the conversation said.  

In a conference call with U.S. attorneys across the country last week, Barr warned that sometimes violent demonstrations across the U.S. "could worsen" as the November presidential election approaches. He encouraged the prosecutors to seek a number federal charges, including under a rarely used sedition law, even when state charges could apply, the people said.     

This is, of course, totally deranged  and the calling card of an all out extremist authoritarian,  totally following in the footsteps of his authoritarian master, Dotard. It was also a prelude to more recent batshit crazy rhetoric (as media commentator Charlie Pierce noted on All In last night) showing how dangerous this guy is.  What rhetoric?  Well, appearing at Hillsdale College, in a "Breitbart-laden"  brain fart fest,  this fat toad compared pandemic lockdowns to "slavery" and  "house arrest", babbling:

"This is one of the greatest intrusions on civil liberty in American history."

Which is choice, given this is the same toad  wanted to use sedition law against protesters.   Barr in his harangue also went after DOJ prosecutors, saying:  

"Individual prosecutors can sometimes become headhunters all too often and are consumed with taking down their target.  When the most junior members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a Montessori pre-school but it's no way to run a federal agency."

The  Trump Toad didn't mention any specific cases by name but he has been rightly criticized for moving to drop the prosecution of Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn - for his collaboration with the Russkies and even admitting guilt.  Indeed,  the report from the FBI Flynn interview, known as the FBI 302, showed clearly Flynn was not coerced in any way, and further was given every chance to take an honorable out.   To that end during the interview the agents gave Flynn every opportunity to come clean, even parroting back his own words to try to jog his memory. But Flynn insisted on lying about his conversations with the Russian ambassador Kislyak - regarding U.S. sanctions and a UN vote.  Given the FBI had intercepts of the phone conversations the FBI couldn't help but notice they conflicted with the public account. 

So Barr is yapping bare bullshit. What's more, the statement filed at the time of Flynn's guilty plea showed Flynn coordinated the substance of his calls to Kislyak with a senior member of the Trump transition team.  A collusion no brainer, hell a conspiracy no brainer.

Barr in his meltdown against his own DOJ prosecutors (none of them "juniors" - but rather seasoned career civil servants) also clearly chafed at the criticism he took for wanting to lighten the sentence of career criminal and pathological dirty trickster, Roger Stone.  Recall at the House Judiciary Committee hearing in July, this  bloated Toad had the effrontery to ask (WSJ, July 29, p. A3):

"Let me ask you, do you think it is fair for a 67-year old man to be sent to prison for seven to nine years?"

When a perceptive onlooker could have pointed out that Bernie Madoff - at age 71 years - was sentenced to 150 years for his esoteric  crime of using a Ponzi scheme to bilk his investors out of millions.  

Back to his blabbery about pursuing "sedition" charges against protesters.  Barr knows damned well the chilling effect this "sedition" bunkum is bound to have on first amendment free speech rights.   Jenny Carroll, a University of Alabama law professor put it into perspective (WSJ, Sept. 15), noting that  

“There’s all these different statutes the government can use if they are worried about things like property damage. If you start charging those people, even if you don’t get a conviction, it may make people think twice before going out to exercise their right to free speech.”

As I noted in previous posts, all this proves is that Barr is Trump's devoted  lapdog or primary toady. Doing the Dotard's bidding any which way to try to shoehorn this Hitler Jr.  authoritarian into four more years of misrule and destruction of democracy.   For that is Trump's  prime directive: disrupt and lie, bring specious charges and above all, weaken all agencies in the government- from the DOJ, to the FDA, to the CDC, to the NOAA.  Oh, yeah, and increase the U.S. death toll from the virus to 6.4 million to achieve "herd immunity" a la Scott Atlas quack theory, e.g. 

• New Details Show Extent To Which Medical Professio...

Barr has already done a bang up job on the DOJ - bringing this once - venerated independent arm of justice into disgrace by turning it into Trump's personal grievance and revenge outfit.    He's undermined the DOJ to the point of even calling career prosecutors "preschoolers"  because they believed in equal justice under the actual laws, not some "Reich" version that would set  criminal rat traitors like Michael Flynn free and pond scum like Roger Stone free earlier.   Meanwhile, at Hillsdale, Barr effectively declared HE is the final arbiter of justice as he took umbrage at the criticism that he interfered in the Flynn and Stone cases.  In his words:

"What do you mean by interfere?  Under the law all prosecutorial power is invested in the attorney general."

But that does not include undermining the law to pursue righteous prosecutorial power!   As former prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg put it thusly:  "The principles articulated may be appropriate. But he fails miserably in the execution. He continues to weigh in on behalf of the friends and allies of the president, which is deeply disturbing.."

It also flouts any even-handed recognition of justice as defined in our constitution. Which document was never intended to set the AG up as a law  unto himself. 

Barr, according to many pundits, is also likely to unleash an "October surprise" (assuming the Trumpies and Pompeo don't  find a way to start a war first) targeting the FBI operation "Crossfire Hurricane". That FBI investigation started after Trump lackey George Papadopolous shot his mouth off to an Aussie about campaign connections to the Russians.   Now, Barr aims to discredit it using a puppet named John Durham. 

Recall, for perspective that a 434-page report issued by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded the FBI had an “authorized purpose” when it initiated its investigation into the Trump campaign. In doing so, Horowitz implicitly rejected GOP assertions that the case was launched out of political animus, or that the FBI broke its own rules on using informants. 

At the time Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham  -  who Barr handpicked to conduct an investigation parallel to that of Horowitz-   wasn't having any of Horowitz conclusions, issuing his own statement:

“Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

This, of course, is total codswallop. How do we KNOW this? We have foreign intercepts of meetings of Trump cronies, e.g. Carter Page, with Russian  (GRU) agents.  It was these intercepts and related documents - including  FISA warrants- that disclosed just how deep the Trumpies were in with the Russkies. For more on those connections and even conspiracy to toss the election to Trump, read the Senate Intelligence Committee report final volume, entitled :  “Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities,” 

We now know because of Barr and Durham's hijinks in trying to upend these earlier investigations,  a top aide to Durham (Nora Dannehy) has resigned (WSJ, Sept. 10, p. A4).   A colleague of Ms. Dannehy's said "the resignation was especially surprising because of her close relationship with Mr. Durham with whom she worked on complex and sensitive investigations."

But perhaps what she saw as Durham's betrayal of the rule of law, and especially cooperating with Barr in its destruction, was a bridge too far.  She likely was especially motivated to ditch the cesspool Durham was involved in after Barr told NBC News that "others would be criminally prosecuted in connection with the probe".  That includes anyone and every one involved in operation Crossfire Hurricane.   All this to try to whitewash the Mueller probe, the FBI investigation and all else that makes Trump into the conniving criminal he is.   

As Charlie Pierce said on ALL In last night:

"Not only was Barr making the argument (that you can prosecute members of the other party) he was saying that's the way the system is designed. It's crazy!  He's making the argument that the Department of Justice should operate as the political arm of whatever administration is in power.  And I'm sorry, that's just nuts."

Pierce then reminded viewers this was Bill Barr's modus operandi going back to the first Bush administration. Then he advised the elder Bush to pardon all those criminals connected to the Iran-Contra conspiracy who might testify against him.   As Pierce put it:  "Two times now he's taken the side of defending the executive branch instead of the American people and the Constitution."

That segment ended with a warning for voters to be aware of a trumped up "October surprise" and not be  misled by it.  We also need to heed Matt Miller's warning on the previous 'All In' expressing concern about what Barr might do regarding the mail ballot counts on election night or after. Especially as this Toad has - like Trump - gone after mail voting.  We need to be aware then, if his October surprise doesn't have the effect he wants, i.e. on polls,  he will try to scuttle the election's legitimacy (if Biden wins, or is leading) for his master Donnie Bonespurs.

Buckle your seat belts, kiddies, because we are in for a rough ride over the next 46 days- and beyond.

See Also:

William Barr has gone too far before, but never this far

• By Ruth Marcus

AND:

We’re all trapped in William Barr’s paranoid fantasy world

D.E.A. Totally Wrong To Lump Marijuana With Heroin As 'Schedule 1' Drug

Everyone needs to see this film  (left) to see the extent government has tried to demonize pot using cheap propaganda. Right, workers trim and cut product in Garden City, CO.

The recent Obama administration D.E.A.  ruling, keeping marijuana a Schedule 1 drug, is now coming under fire from nearly all quarters. This includes no fewer than eight Democratic senators  who had urged the DEA to reclassify it to a Schedule 2 drug, according to The New York Times (Aug. 12, p. A9)  Sen. Elizabeth Warren, no shrinking violet, blasted the decision on Twitter while Sen. Kirsten Gillebrand of New York  said in a statement: "It shouldn't take an act of congress for the DEA to get past antiquated ideology and make this change."  Indeed, but it may have to! (Unless we get a President with enough cojones to overrule the D.E.A. under his or her authority).


Such reclassification, according to the Times, "would have made it easier to get federal approval for studies of its uses and paved the way for doctors to eventually write prescriptions for marijuana derived products that could be filled at pharmacies - like other Schedule 2 drugs such as Adderall".

But in the absence of reclassifying MJ, we see it remains lumped together with cocaine and heroin, as well as being fully prosecutable under federal law.  A somewhat incredible ruling from an administration whose standard bearer and leader was part of a group in Hawaii called the "choom gang" and engaged regularly in pot smoking, see e.g. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/obama-and-his-pot-smoking-choom-gang/

And in fact, despite doing all that weed Obama and his Choom comrades turned out pretty well, never mind Obama's efforts (in one biography)  to paint the experience as negative ("club of disaffection" etc.) . As the linked ABC News piece notes:

Although Obama himself wrote that he and his pot smoking buddies were a "club of disaffection," Maraniss says that's not really true.

"In fact, most members of the Choom Gang were decent students and athletes who went on to successful and productive lawyers, writers and businessmen," Maraniss writes. One notable exception was Ray, the group's pot dealer who, known for his ability "to score quality bud," would years later be killed by a scorned gay lover armed with a ball-peen hammer.

Obama himself managed to be a pretty good student despite all the pot smoking and unconventional study habits.


So much for all the balderdash of  " inescapable" deleterious effects which also was apparent in the 1936 government -produced farce entitled "Reefer madness".  This was an obvious propaganda exploitation effort revolving around the melodramatic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try marijuana.  Their travails extend from a hit and run accident, to manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape, and descent into madness.

The obvious purpose was to scare the living bejeezus out of any kid to not even think of trying "demon weed". The message was it would wreck young lives leaving them broken husks - much like the current DEA ruling seems to suggest which is why they lump it with heroin in the Schedule 1 class.

Originally it had been financed by a church group under the title "Tell Your Children". Its primary mandate was circulation and screening to parents as a  putative morality tale, attempting to teach them about the dangers of any cannabis use by their kiddies. Perhaps two decades later any viewing of this dreck became so laughable that it emerged as a cult film - shown to audiences primarily as joke material. Which is rightly the niche to which it belongs..

Where it should belong! But evidently Obama's DEA didn't get the message. According to DEA head Chuck Rosenberg, MJ would remain a Schedule 1 drug because "it has no currently acceptable medical use in treatment in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision and a high potential for abuse."

Most of which is bunkum.  In terms of demonstrated medical benefit, the DEA head would do well to come here to Colorado and ask the thousands of vets - I am talking of vets from the Iraq and Afghan misadventures - who have found medical MJ the sole means to control their pain and vastly better than the DEA-permitted opioids like hydrocodone-oxycontin. Medical MJ has also been crucial for many cancer patients in being able to endure chemotherapy without vomiting every ten minutes if they try to ingest food.

As far as proven beneficial use,  that would be most likely to appear in published medical research. But see, the very failure to reclassify it as Schedule 2 prohibits that.   The ironic aspect of all this is that the ruling's objection to the lack of "proof"  of medical benefit is being used to keep such research from being conducted!

Commenting on this contradiction and ruling, Michael Collins, deputy director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance said (ibid.):

"They are placing researchers in a Catch 22 by saying 'We are not lifting this research barrier because there is not enough evidence'  But then say, 'We can't do research because of this barrier.'".

As for the claim of a "high probability for abuse" - not really, no where near as much as alcohol which is permitted, and which engenders thousands of deaths each year including from drunken driving. Is the DEA blind to that?

The most deplorable aspect is that it sets even more states and American citizens against the federal government, the last thing we need in this era of anti-government paranoia and rage - which helped create the likes of Trump and his Trumpies. According to recent surveys more than 60 percent of Americans now approve of marijuana use for medical and recreational purposes. According to the Times (ibid.):

"The District of Columbia and 25 states now allow the use of marijuana for a wide variety of medical conditions "

The Times article also observed "others were thrilled with the ruling that the D.E.A. didn't budge". Well, I suppose to be consistent they will also be "thrilled" as the over prescription of opioids continues with its own addictions, not to mention leading to REAL Schedule 1 drugs like heroin.

Will things change with a new administration? Don't hold your breath!

See also:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/opinion/a-small-victory-for-more-sensible-marijuana-policies.html?_r=0