At House Judiciary Hearing Barr Proves He's The Disreputable Trump Toad We Suspected.

Bill Barr proved he remains Trump's personal Toad ....errrr  toady, at the House Judiciary hearing yesterday.

Bill Barr, Trump's pet AG,  toady and gofer, faced a combative grilling during a House Judiciary hearing yesterday that proved how cannily he had mastered the dark arts of dissembling, distraction and disinformation.  In other words, Barr emphatically confirmed he was the Trump toad we always suspected: a shameless, clueless, pandering toady who'd do or say anything to protect his lord and master, Dotard.

Democrats on the House Judiciary committee pointed to the  reprobate's use of federal law enforcement to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, Washington D.C. last month.  This was so Trump could stage a photo op with a bible so toady Barr ordered a harsh crackdown using pepper spray, flash bangs and non-lethal projectiles  The same weaponry being used on protesters in Portland, Oregon.

Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler was blunt in describing to Barr what Trump was  up to:

“The president wants footage for his campaign ads, and you appear to be serving it up to him as ordered,” 

Adding:

"You use pepper spray and truncheons on American citizens. You did it here in Washington. You did it in Lafayette Square. You expanded to Portland. Now you are projecting fear and violence nationwide in pursuit of obvious political objectives. Shame on you, Mr Barr. Shame on you.”

Eliciting a question as I watched:  How do you shame a Toad?

Barr, of course,  denied the interventions were motivated by Trump’s re-election:

.

“I just reject the idea that the department has flooded anywhere and attempted to suppress demonstrators. The fact of the matter is, if you take Portland, the courthouse is under attack.The federal resources are inside the perimeter, around the courthouse defending it from almost two months of daily attacks where people march to the court, try to gain entrance and have set fires, thrown things, used explosives and injured police, including just this past weekend, perhaps permanently blinding three federal officers with lasers.”

But Rep. Pramila Jayapal wasn't having any of the toad's B.S.,  e.g.

“You take an aggressive approach to Black Lives Matter protests but not to armed right wing extremists' threats to lynch and behead a governor if it's for the president's benefit."

Pointing out bluntly that he went after the D.C. and Portland protesters because they are affiliated with Black Lives Matter, while he left the armed white nationalist,  extremist protesters  in Michigan alone- even when they invaded a state capitol building, e.g. 

 

The implication was clear: Barr and Trump are invested in protecting the Right's domestic terrorists and radical extremists (like the "Proud Boys"  and Boogaloo Bois)  who side with Trump, e.g.

Armed conservative groups are deploying to the front lines of the culture war

But not the innocent, peaceful BLM protesters  whose ranks have been infiltrated  by Agent provocateurs on the Right- who then use violence to impugn the protests as "violent"..  Barr actually responded:

“We are on the defensive. We’re not out looking for trouble"

Defensive, baloney!  Of course he wants 'trouble' lots of it.  Enough to incite images in protests that can be integrated into Trump campaign rally ads in the fall.  All to pump up the "law and order" theme and meme which is the only card Trump has left to play given his total fuck up in the pandemic response.  All of which justified Jerrold Nadler's harsh assessment of Barr's M.O in his opening remarks, e.g.

“The message these actions send is clear: in this justice department, the president’s enemies will be punished and his friends will be protected, no matter the cost,” 

And then there was the histrionic Reich buffoon Jim Jordan, a close Trump ally and serial bootlicker. He  chimed in his 0.02, echoing a Reich conspiracy claim that's been repeatedly debunked:

“Spying. That one word. That’s why they’re after you, Mr Attorney General!”

No,  they're after Barr because he deliberately misrepresented the Mueller Report, then went on to undermine the DOJ's cases against Trump's co-conspirators in the Russian plot - including Michael Flynn and Roger Stone,

Jordan, now on a tear, also said Barr has spoken “the truth” that Barack Obama’s administration spied on the Trump campaign, a claim that has repeatedly been debunked.

He then proceeded to play a selectively edited video for nearly eight minutes which showed TV hosts and Obama saying the words “peaceful protests”, then cut to the grieving family of David Dorn, an African American retired police captain killed last month in St Louis, Missouri, then to undated, un-located footage of people jumping on cars, buildings ablaze, an injured officer, a looted shop and people yanking and chainsawing a fence.

The clips echoed talking points by Trump and conservative media,  but they glaringly showed how the Right has almost uniformly become Trump's enablers and accessory traitors.

In his own opening statement, Barr acknowledged that “the horrible killing” of George Floyd  by a white police officer in Minneapolis saying it  “jarred the whole country”.  But then he insisted police forces were more diverse than "ever before".  Which statistics show is not true.  Well, check that- unless your reference point is the Jim Crow era of the 1950s.

Barr added in his typical disingenuous style: 

“Unfortunately, some have chosen to respond to George Floyd’s death in a far less productive way – by demonizing the police … and making grossly irresponsible proposals to defund the police … Violent rioters and anarchists have hijacked legitimate protests to wreak senseless havoc and destruction on innocent victims.”

Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas questioned Barr on whether he considered the killing of Floyd to be indicative of a systemic problem in policing. He said: 

“I don’t agree there is systemic racism in police departments generally in this country.”

Again resorting to a semantic ploy, given the  systemic racism typically  resides in police  unions.  

Barr then faced hard-hitting questions for pushing for a more lenient prison sentence for Trump’s ally Roger Stone, convicted of witness tampering and making false statements, a move which prompted the entire trial team’s departure. Trump eventually commuted Stone’s sentence, sparing him prison..

Barr said in reply: “Stone was prosecuted under me. I said all along I thought that was a righteous prosecution. I thought he should go to jail.”

Yep,  but he then insisted the original  sentence was far too harsh for an "esoteric" crime, as opposed to say a "meat and potatoes" crime. E.g.(WSJ, today, p. A1):

"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?"

Forgetting 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. But in Barr's reckoning all tax cheats as well as the college scandal cheats (and presumably Madoff),   merited only relative wrist slaps because their crimes were "esoteric". As opposed to say, out and out armed robbery.

But he cleverly parsed the difference this way:

“I agree that the president’s friends don’t deserve special breaks but they also don’t deserve to be treated more harshly than other people and sometimes that’s a difficult decision to make, especially when you know you’re going to be castigated for it.”

Please, Barr, spare us the fake rectitude.    You merely show even more why you need to be impeached  like your master, Dotard.

Hopefully, the  House will do this sooner rather than later.   Especially given how Barr has essentially destroyed any trust in the rule of law-  and equal treatment - in this nation.

See Also:

William Barr

Bill Barr Goes to Congress

by Heather Cox Richardson | July 30, 2020 - 6:38am | permalink

And:

Homeland Security

To Stop Trump’s Military Police State, the House Needs to Withhold Funding From Trump’s Department of Homeland Security

Impeach Barr If He Tries To 'Blow Up' The Impeachment Hearings With A Fake Conspiracy Narrative

You can tell the Reeps are getting desperate when their co-No. 1 Trump ass kisser Devin Nunes - even as I write- is bloviating out of his vapid mouth that the current impeachment hearings are merely an extension of the 3 year "Russia hoax".  Of course, Mueller's report contained no hoax but verifiable evidence of a Russian conspiracy to take down Hillary Clinton. So much so that Mueller's team had the wherewithal to slam down 12 indictments of GRU agents.

Anyway, this week we know Nunes, Jordan and the other Reeptards will be really climbing the walls as a parade of  witnesses - starting this morning - offer the first hand accounts they've been demanding.  (This despite the fact as I noted in a previous (Nov. 14th) post,  the second hand accounts still constitute evidence.)   The desperation is now at the point that William Barr feels he has no choice but to jump in and protect Trump again - like he did in issuing his whitewash ''summary" of the Mueller report back in April.

The disturbing news over the weekend that  Barr, aka Trump's #1 Toady, plans to 'blow up' the impeachment inquiry and hearings using a false narrative was disturbing to say the least.  E.g.  from Daily Kos Sunday:

• William Barr is racing to deliver a report that blows up the impeachment inquiry--and everything else

Excerpt:

"Attorney General William Barr is racing to complete a new “report” before Thanksgiving. And if Barr’s very poor summary of the Mueller report threw Trump a lifeline by distorting the real findings of the special counsel investigation, this new report looks to be more like an atom bomb, designed to incinerate Washington by putting the whole Justice Department behind a conspiracy theory that rewrites history and declares open warfare on political opponents. And Republicans are already meeting with Barr to plan a “roll out” for this supposedly classified report in order to maximize its impact."

This follows a Friday night appearance of Barr at the Federalist Society where he invoked the now discredited "unitary executive" bunkum (first propounded by John Yoo - the Bush flunkie who tried to justify CIA tortures).  That is, that a president has almost absolute power and the Article I powers of congress are subjugated to the executive's Article II powers.

At the Friday night venue, Barr spouted that:

"Trump’s opponents 'essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple by any means necessary a duly elected government,'.  

Which is total bollocks. The truth is that Trump is unfit for office and is a stone criminal who's already committed numerous impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors - from flouting the Emoluments clause, to multiple 'pay for play' schemes, to violation of federal financing laws, to collaboration with foreign powers (Russia, Ukraine)  to advance his own personal election chances.  The most recent crime on full display in Friday's impeachment hearing when he openly threatened witness Marie Yovonavitch, e.g.


Tweeting at her in real time, causing her to visibly react in a new assault that added to the ones she experienced as Ambassador, from a dedicated smear campaign-  led by Giuliani, two of his associates — Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who have since been indicted — and the right-wing news media.

The precise details of the relevant  conspiracy idiocy -  I won't dignify it with "theory" -  are mind-numbing in themselves.  They apparently involve George Papadopoulos, who served as an adviser to the Trump campaign, a London-based Maltese professor named Josef Mifsud, and assorted characters. The sum of the accusations, speculations and misinformation are enough to blow a hole into the sanity and mind of a normal person, but would do a QAnon zombie proud.  To be sure they are absolutely  ridiculous, almost on the level of the "Pizzagate"  rubbish that pushed the hare -brained malarkey that Hillary was operating a child sex slave ring in the basement of a D.C.  pizza parlor.

You laugh, but one Trumpie imbecile actually took a rifle to the suspected establishment to mete out justice and a tragedy was only averted by quick thinking - and reaction.  Needless to say I am not going to waste time (or blog space)  regurgitating this latest horse shit. Anyone who really wants
 more information can obtain from previously published material at A block and this Vox Vox piece from September.

Why is Barr acting as the lawless protector of a lawless president?  Because he basically wanted desperately to get into the spotlight of national affairs again. To that end he had prepared and published a 19- page memo  eight months ago, asserting presidents can't be found guilty of obstruction of justice. Basically, he'd written a "Look, hire me as AG and I'll set you free!"  job proposal (or audition) for the approval of Trump and his deranged,  legal maggots.

After getting confirmed as AG, which most Dems now regret (those that voted for him) he one-upped his op-ed performance by releasing a  four-page summary of the Mueller Report.  This perfidy twisted the report into a 'get out jail free' card.

As one legal specialist on a CNN panel said at the time: "For law abiding Americans this result is both appalling and confusing. They will ask how could a president who acted in so disruptive a manner even giving aid and comfort to an enemy (Putin) not be found guilty by a legal standard? How does that level of disruption not rise to the level of legal culpability?"

This summary  from Barr, at just four pages long, described the evidence for obstruction as “not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense”. Furthermore, Barr insisted in his letter the decision not to prosecute was not made based on any limitations related to the indictment of a sitting president.  But in fact it certainly was: the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Note this is not an ironclad rule or a law, but a mere opinion.  Mueller could have chosen to override it but didn't.  

Thanks to Barr's whitewash, Trump - his master- was left unchained and unencumbered by any laws or even threats. Indeed, he felt "vindicated".  See e.g.

Trump and his allies plan to use Barr’s summary of Mueller report as cudgel against critics


Excerpt:  "Trump and his allies sought to put his adversaries on the defensive and cement the view that Mr. Mueller’s report represents complete vindication.  

Hence, no surprise Trump - criminal that he is at heart  - was emboldened to commit his next crime:  the shakedown of the Ukraine president to get dirt on his political opponent, Joe Biden.  Indeed, over the past months we've beheld the sorry spectacle of the AG Toad globe hopping to try to secure supplemental "investigative" info to dig up evidence the "deep state" was involved in outing Trump's alliance with Putin and Russia in 2016.   But there was NO such deep state outing, Trump the dumbass did that to himself when he blurted back in June, 2016:

"I will tell you this, Russia if you're listening, I hope that you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. You will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens."

So Trump, in full public view, asked Russia to hack his political opponent.  Did this just come out of the blue as a brain fart blurt? Not at all, given we know Russia has been funding Trump since the late 1980s.  On account of that funding and other Kompromat materials (e.g. the piss video revealed in the Steele dossier), we know Donnie Dotard is  Putin's puppet,  with multiple strings that can be puled at will.

As per The New Republic (Aug./Sept. 2017, . p. 29):

"A review of the public record reveals a clear and disturbing pattern: Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia. Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, or even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money .....Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics....It's entirely possible that Trump was never more than a convenient patsy for Russian oligarchs and mobsters."

Now, according to new  reports in  The Washington Post  we will have to anticipate an "alternative reality" Barr report that attempts to supersede  and neutralize the impeachment hearings and all that we know of the depraved Trump hitherto.  Despite all of Barr's complaints about a "war to cripple a duly elected government", a federal judge has already ruled the impeachment inquiry is totally legal, e.g.

Impeachment Inquiry Is Legal, Judge Rules, Giving Democrats a Victory

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/2

But since Barr values Trump's protection over any law- or the Constitution- many predict his next move will be a whitewash on steroids .  According to The Post (ibid.):

"Republicans hope the report will give them ammunition to argue the FBI was corrupt in its pursuit of the president and his alleged ties to Russia, according to a person involved in the GOP discussions. Congressional Republicans have defended Trump amid the ongoing impeachment inquiry centered on his effort to convince Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Trump’s supporters have long called for officials to “investigate the investigators,” and some GOP lawmakers have predicted the inspector general’s findings will prove their accusations that a “deep state” cabal of anti-Trump bureaucrats sought to thwart his presidency."

Mathew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman during the Obama administration clearly sees this as a test of Barr's independence from Trump, and is quoted as saying:

 "The first question is whether the report shows any basis for Barr’s pretty aggressive implications that the Justice Department did something wrong in opening the [Trump] investigation, If the report finds missteps by the FBI, 'even minor ones', it will be used as a rhetorical tool for the president."

But we've already seen Act One earlier, when Barr pushed out his summary of the Mueller report, giving the Trump cabal tons of rhetorical ammo to fight off an impeachment (at that time) based on the Mueller report.  This new iteration, of course, is what the Reeptards have been salivating at for the past three months, and will allow them to claim a parallel "real" investigation, but which is nothing more than a sham for the lower IQ end of the populace, namely the Trumpie walking dead, e.g.

What we cannot permit, is this lot to take over our nation and government. We cannot have their cockamamey claptrap conspiracy ideations displacing the rule of constitutional law in the impeachment process. For this reason, if Barr goes through with this shameless charade he will need to be impeached just like his master Trump.

Trump insists he has exculpatory evidence - in documents, records, witnesses- that would prove he has done nothing wrong. But if that were really so he wouldn't have implemented a full tilt stonewall of all relevant documents, and direct witnesses.  So again, he merely lies to distract, like his GOP enablers and defenders. 

See also:

William Barr

Bill Barr's Fascist Manifesto: Is This Man the Real Threat to American Democracy?

And:

Donald Trump

For Trump, It's the White House or the Big House

And:

Conservatives and the Right

Trumpers Will Lie and Gaslight on Ukraine and Impeachment. Here's What I Learned Debating One on TV.

And:

• 'Corrupt': Congresswoman shreds The Hill for publishing conspiracy theories as 'opinion' columns 

Trump Proves He's No Different From A Mafia Don After His Witness Intimidation Attack On Marie Yovonavitch

You can't make this stuff up even if you dreamed up the hokiest political thriller for a novel. A two bit, con man criminal and  human sewage - who somehow got shoehorned into the presidency  - but now finds himself in the cross hairs of impeachment, suddenly transmutes into his own worst enemy.  Even as Marie Yovanovitch was testifying about “the smear campaign against me,”  Trump hurled new insults at her on Twitter, in real time.

As I watched this brave professional's shoulders slightly sag and her complexion blanch at the insults, I realized then this animated 2-legged turd called Trump had finally succeeded in hanging his miserable ass in real time.  All the Republican efforts to defend this slime now went into the dumpster, i.e. in efforts to combat the narrative that Giuliani had mounted a smear campaign against her, given she left her post in April.  So how could she have first hand knowledge of the plan?   It was all "hearsay"  all over again.

And then Donny Dotard delivered his twitter smears before nearly 15 million live viewers, e..g.

“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.”

Forget about trying to twist the language into literal pretzels to now absolve him because of unclear "intentions" - those were supremely evident  for all to see - especially given Ms. Yovonavitch was in the middle of being asked about the smear campaign-  led by Giuliani, two of his associates — Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who have since been indicted — and the right-wing news media.  Hell, even FOX News' Chris Wallace was taken aback ruminating on whether the Repuke defenders like Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan,  would be able to protect their master with any kind of straight face.  Another pundit on CNN said "It would have been better, more strategic, for Trump to have not interjected himself. The GOP planned defense that Yovonavitch could not have first hand knowledge was just destroyed in real time in an impeachment hearing."

But as Chris Matthews pointed out, this orange derelict is a guy who always wants to "punch back"at anything remotely threatening his fragile ego or wannabe autocracy.  After all, what was this POS doing during Monday's hearing? He was entertaining one of his favorite autocrats in the White House: Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

 As Nicole Wallace chimed in:

"Donald Trump is now squarely on the side of the corrupt actors in the Ukraine."

Justifiably then, Democrats accused the degenerate  presidential pretender of real-time “witness intimidation” and tampering,  suggesting it could form the basis for an article of impeachment.  Well, indeed it is impeachable and committed in front of millions on live television. At the very moment she was testifying about how Trump had denigrated her, the repulsive POS was assailing Ms. Yovanovitch, insulting her diplomatic career and reasserting his right to remove her, prompting Democrats to suggest he was trying to intimidate a witness.

Earlier Ms. Yovanovitch said she was "devastated"  when she came under fire from Trump’s  fake personal attorney and Trump's reprobate spawn Don Jr.  last spring.  But she then admitted she was even more stunned in September this year when she learned that Trump himself had disparaged her in his now-famous July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president.

Again, let's remind ourselves all of this was out in the open, especially  given the transcript of the actual  referenced phone  call eventually made its way into daylight.   So the deflecting issue of "second hand" information and experience  ("She wasn't there for the actual phone call") was basically irrelevant - points I also made cogently in my post yesterday re: Jim Jordan's idiotic "it's all hearsay" babble.  

“It was a terrible moment,” she told the House Intelligence Committee on the second day of public impeachment hearings. “A person who saw me actually reading the transcript said that the color drained from my face. I think I even had a physical reaction. I think, you know, even now, words kind of fail me.”

In regard to the Reeps' claim that "a president can appoint anyone he chooses and you serve at his pleasure", Yovanovitch did not disagree - only observing he could have simply dismissed her from her position as opposed to also smearing her reputation, then insinuating his added  threats, i.e. she "was going to go through some things,”.   A comment that Ms. Yovanovitch told the committee had taken her breath away when she read a reconstructed transcript of the call.

But let's remind ourselves again this guy we have for a president is really little different from a Mob boss.  He believes he can dispense threats - not even veiled (like to the whistle blower)- and not have any kind of payback.  Worse, the maggot thinks he has "free speech" to bark out these threats when anyone with sense  - as former Sen. Claire McCaskill pointed out - knows that means you are not entitled to abuse that power. Like tweeting out witness intimidation in the middle of a damned impeachment hearing when the witness is there delivering her testimony.

What I liked most about the hearings, apart from Marie Yovanovitch's courage in the face of all those cameras and the intimidating circumstances, was Adam Schiff's willingness to bang the numerous Reeptard efforts to disrupt (with spurious 'points of order') into oblivion. 

Bang! Bang! Bang! 

Mr. Schiff's gavel repeatedly went down just before the witness read her opening statement - as Reep after Reep tried to sow chaos. 

'Moron of the day'  award today goes to Utah's  Reepo Chris Stewart as he opened his line of  supposed questioning by grandstanding, i.e. blathering:

"For three years we've heard these outrageous and frankly unbelievable accusations about Russian collusion that we now know are absolute nonsense! "

All of which is somewhat amusing - and pathetic - given the fact that less than four years ago he had compared Trump to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.  This according to Richard Gehrke in The Salt Lake Tribune 2 days ago.. We also now know, after the Mueller report (Part I) release, e.g.

www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

 The accusations made weren't "nonsense"  at all. Indeed, the failure to launch a coherent and compelling impeachment proceeding at that time (largely owing to AG William Barr's whitewashing of the report using his own 'summary') - actually emboldened the Traitor-in chief to then use the subsequent  Ukraine bribery ploy to try to take down Biden.  If he got away with it once  with the Russkies (targeting Hillary Clinton)  he could do it again, right?  Only this time using Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.. Same M.O.,  different country. Same objective: steal an election.

All in all it was a good day for the good guys and we can only look forward to the day, the hour, when the whole corrupt Trump Imperium collapses as even more professionals from the State Dept. and other agencies have their say.

Update: Nov. 16

As might be expected Trump's slimey toad enabler (William Barr)  has now seen fit to defend his master, invoking the discredited myth of the "unitary executive".  That is, that a president has almost absolute power and the Article I powers of congress are subjugated to the executive.  Thus, wielding this bunkum, he asserted at  a Friday  night Federalist Society spiel (NY Times today):

 "Trump’s opponents 'essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple by any means necessary a duly elected government,'. 

 Uh no, you arrogant, obtuse, animated offal. We see it as a constitutionally sanctioned effort to check and remove a pestilence and traitor - who was NEVER "duly elected".  He was shoehorned into power with the help of Vladimir Putin and the Russians.  (Which the Mueller report makes clear and which you sought to dilute with your whitewash summary.)

MY advice? Go suck a raw root, Trump's toad.

The fat toad added: "While the president has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook and punctilio, he was up front about what he wanted to do and the people decided they wanted him to serve as president,”

No, Toady, I didn't "decide" nor did more than 67 million other people-  who voted against Trump-   so don't conflate "the people".  Especially  given the majority non-Trump voters led to his popular vote minority. So don't try to turn a turd into a Tootsie roll.   Now, go back to your toad hole and cease interjecting yourself into a justifiable process to correct what went awry back in 2016.  The swine has abused his powers with a clear bribe in order to damage Biden and help his reelection, and now he's got to pay!

See Also:

• William Barr is racing to deliver a report that blows up the impeachment inquiry--and everything else

Excerpt:

"Attorney General William Barr is racing to complete a new “report” before Thanksgiving. And if Barr’s very poor summary of the Mueller report threw Trump a lifeline by distorting the real findings of the special counsel investigation, this new report looks to be more like an atom bomb, designed to incinerate Washington by putting the whole Justice Department behind a conspiracy theory that rewrites history and declares open warfare on political opponents. And Republicans are already meeting with Barr to plan a “roll out” for this supposedly classified report in order to maximize its impact."

And:

Donald Trump

Trump Engaged in Witness Tampering During Ambassador’s Testimony

And:

Eric Boehlert

Impeachment Hearings Confirm Republican Party Is Detached from Reality. What Does the Press Do Now?

Barr Disgraces DOJ By Invoking Cockamamey "Russiagate" Conspiracy Idiocy - To Justify Criminal Investigation Of DOJ

"You shall do my bidding catching  flies as a go-fer conspiracy toad until I say no more!"


"I think this is the most concerning development out of the Justice Department we've seen since Donald Trump became president.  Look, obviously if there was a crime committed it ought to be investigated. But we know more about the Russia probe than probably any investigation in the Justice Department's history.  Bob Mueller wrote a 450 page report that became public, the DOJ released a FISA application which it's never done before in its history...and through all of that we've never seen a single evidence of a crime, or an allegation of a crime that would give a single predicate for an investigation. 

I think it's notable in this story it doesn't say what the allegation of a crime is that the Department is now investigating.   I don't think it's a coincidence that the day after an ambassador goes up to the hill and gives incredibly damning evidence about the president extorting a foreign government that we see this leak from the Department of Justice. And I think it's incredibly concerning about the administration of justice and the rule of law in this country."  -   Matt Miller, former Director of Public Affairs, Justice Department, on 'Last Word' Thursday night.

"What do you do when one party stakes its faith — and ultimately government itself — on observable, measurable realities while the other has made the cynical decision to cast these principles away? How do you strategize? How do you cope?"  - Jennifer Senior, NY Times Friday,

Assume for the sake of argument there is a parallel reality in which one nation's political party believes it can control that nation's governance in perpetuity. Impose an indefinite rule of autocratic, one party fascism if you will.  That nation has a constitution which decrees a separation of powers and the existence of a co-equal branch of government to the executive. However, this political party fancies it can rig the system - with the right president-  to remain in power as long as it wants. Also to render the co-equal branch a neutered nonentity. How to do it?

First define a 'unitary executive' doctrine giving an authoritarian president not only total power over the executive branch but also transcendent power over all branches.  

Second, enable this power to be tested with the election of the "right" candidate. Preferably a flouter of norms who also believes the constitution is just a piece of paper and that he can bully or intimidate any group in the nation: intelligence agencies, media, any other political parties, or other voters, i.e. who never voted for him.

Get this character to then commit impeachable offenses, say collaborating or conspiring with a foreign power to steal an election to shoehorn him into office. Then challenge any supposed co-equal branch to hold him in check or administer  constitutional justice. Such that even if he shot someone on the parallel reality's 5th avenue there'd be no crime, and he'd get away with it.

Then third, to escape any predicament of accountability (by media and the co-equal branch), recruit an attorney general who will not be independent but do this odious autocrat's bidding and investigate the investigators of the original debacle and conspiracy, i.e. that got him into office.   This will come in especially handy when he's later caught shaking down the head of another foreign power to dig up dirt on a political opponent.

Far fetched nonsense? Nope, it's already unfolding even as we've seen William Barr now commence a criminal inquiry into the alleged "Russiagate" conspiracy despite Mueller's judicious probe (involving dozens of FBI agents and others) that led to the Mueller report, e.g.

www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

In other words, Barr and his Justice Department is in the process of opening a criminal inquiry into its own  Russia investigation.  See e. g.  NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/politics/john-durham-criminal-investigation.html

How can this head popping anomaly be, you ask? Well, because the DOJ has now been taken over by rank authoritarians and puppets of such who intend to push the specious doctrine of the unitary executive to its limits, devil take the hindmost.  

No surprise then that Barr has mutated into an officious, hop scotching  human toad -   hopping all over the world trying to dig up dirt on his own agency, the intelligence agencies under its roof (the FBI) and ancillary investigators who probed the Russian infiltration into the 2016 election.  Except in this case it isn't to go after the Russkies (and Trumpies who collaborated with them), but those who investigated the conspiracy to steal the election for Donald Trump. In other words Barr has debased the DOJ by converting it into an expeditious vehicle for Trump's political revenge.

Of course, by shamelessly acting on Trump's behalf, Barr has now put himself into impeachment jeopardy. . He's also created enormous embarrassment for the nation in his desperate antics, even as everyone with a brain knows exactly what he's up to: providing an alternative "criminal inquiry" to counter and offset the Democrats justifiable impeachment inquiry. One, I might ad, that now has even more ballast after a federal court judge deemed it legitimate and that the DOJ and Barr now must turn over all previously concealed (e.g. grand jury) materials from the Mueller probe.  See:

Impeachment Inquiry Is Legal, Judge Rules, Giving Democrats a Victory

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/us/politics/house-impeachment-subpoenas.html

As for embarrassing the nation, Giuseppe Conte,  the  Italian prime minister was asked by Italian lawmakers to explain what in the world the U.S. attorney general wanted. The New York Times published this striking account yesterday:

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy said his country’s intelligence services had informed the American attorney general, William P. Barr, that they played no role in the events leading to the Russia investigation, taking the air out of an unsubstantiated theory promoted by President Trump and his allies in recent weeks.

“Our intelligence is completely unrelated to the so-called Russiagate and that has been made clear,” Mr. Conte said in a news conference in Rome on Wednesday evening after spending hours describing Italy’s discussions with Mr. Barr to the parliamentary committee on intelligence. 

Mr. Conte publicly acknowledged for the first time that Mr. Barr had twice met with the leaders of Italy’s intelligence agencies after asking them to clarify their role in a 2016 meeting between a Maltese professor and a Trump campaign adviser on a small college campus in Rome, Link Campus University.

As bizarre as this may seem, Barr appears to have also gone to other allied nations in his Quixote- like tilting at fantasy conspiracy windmills. The toad was driven by the need to find something, anything to save Trump's butt, looking for damaging information about American officials involved in "Russiagate" , which he thought might help Donald Trump.

Italy, not surprisingly, had no such information, and seemed baffled as to what the United States’ top law-enforcement official was looking for.

The precise details of the relevant  conspiracy idiocy -  I can't dignify it with "theory" -  are mind-numbing in themselves.  They apparently involve George Papadopoulos, who served as an adviser to the Trump campaign, a London-based Maltese professor named Josef Mifsud, and assorted characters. The sum of the accusations, speculations and misinformation are enough to blow a hole into the sanity and mind of a normal person, but would do a QAnon zombie proud.  To be sure they are absolutely  ridiculous, almost on the level of the "Pizzagate"  rubbish that pushed the hare -brained malarkey that Hillary was operating a child sex slave ring in the basement of a D.C.  pizza parlor.

You laugh, but one Trumpie imbecile actually took a rifle to the suspected establishment to mete out justice and a tragedy was only averted by quick thinking - and reaction.  Needless to say I am not going to waste time (or blog space)  regurgitating this latest horse shit. Anyone who really wants
 more information can obtain it from Thursday night’s A block and this Vox piece from last month. Be sure you ration your neural exposure time!

In the end, sadly, the Trumpies and their cabal have succeeded in literally reducing our country to a laughing stock.  If my Revolutionary War ancestor Conrad Brumbaugh was alive to day to see this, he'd puke. The United States – the world’s preeminent superpower, ostensibly the global leader on matters of international affairs – has an attorney general who has gone to foreign countries, cap in hand, looking for dirt on his own country’s officials, begging for help with a ridiculous conspiracy, only to be told by our allies, “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

If that doesn't embarrass any red-blooded American I don't know what would.

See also:

https://www.salon.com/2019/10/25/bill-barrs-alternate-universe-investigation-has-a-goal-right-wing-authoritarian-rule/


And:

The Trump Administration | 2016 Elections | William Barr

Watch Out for Bill Barr's Flunky John Durham to Fabricate a Report That Would "Absolve" Russia of 2016 Election Interference

And:

Donald Trump | Republicans

What Would Republican Senators Do If Trump Shot Someone on Fifth Avenue?

And;

Donald Trump | Republicans

The GOP: Trading Its Future for a Criminal

R.I.P. Elijah Cummings - Chair of House Oversight Committee

The Hon. Elijah Cummings, Chair of the House Oversight Committee,  died in the early hours of Thursday due to complications from longstanding health problems, his congressional office announced today.

A sharecropper’s son, Cummings became the powerful chairman of the House of Representatives oversight committee, one of the three committees leading the investigation into Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

Cummings was a formidable orator who fervently advocated for the poor in his black-majority district, which encompasses a large portion of Baltimore, as well as richer suburbs. Most recently, he came out in powerful defense of his home city of Baltimore after the Swine-in-Chief tried to slime it as rat-infested.  

Cummings invited people to come and see Baltimore for themselves, rather than accept the words of a consummate liar, con man and racist traitor.  

Last summer, Cummings expressed singular  objection to Trump’s tweet barking that four Democratic congresswomen of color should “go back” to "their home" countries. Cummings shamed the thug for his blatant racism and admonished: "You need to represent all the people."  It was in the wake of that reprimand the orange thug attacked Baltimore, otherwise known as "Charm City".

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris tweeted:

 “We lost a giant today. Congressman Elijah Cummings was a fearless leader, a protector of democracy, and a fighter for the people of Maryland. Our world is dimmer without him in it.”

Not only that but I fear the House Democratic impeachment effort will be less robust without Cummings as the head of the powerful Oversight Committee.

At the very least, his articulate and passionate voice for social justice will be sorely missed.

Cummings’ long career spanned decades in Maryland politics. He rose through the ranks of the Maryland house of delegates before winning his congressional seat in a special election in 1996 to replace Kweisi Mfume, who left the seat to lead the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  Cummings, in summary,earned his place as a leader, unlike Trump who conned his way into power and got the help of the Russians as well. (Which Mueller's report makes clear,)

As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings led multiple investigations of Trump's  governmental dealings, including several in 2019 related to Donnie Dotard’s family members serving in the White House.

Rest in peace, Elijah.  It is a pity that decent and honorable men like yourself die at a relatively young age while a depraved degenerate like Trump keeps fouling the air with his rhetoric and wasting space with his bloated, fungal self. He keeps on, in violation of all the laws of biology and nutrition (given the crap he consumes),  and  contaminates the nation and people with his toxic tweets and other vile effluent.

See also:

Peace & Justice

Rep. Elijah Cummings on What Could Have Been