This is a great read:
In June of 2018, while he was still a private citizen, Barr, of his own accord, wrote a nineteen-page memo to senior officials of the Justice Department asserting that, in light of the President’s inherent constitutional powers, Trump could not have obstructed justice. This memo probably played no small part in Trump’s decision to choose Barr in the first place. Barr has now turned his outsider’s judgment (which is likely wrong on the merits) into an official vindication of his new boss. In all, Barr has taken every possible step to lessen the sting of the Mueller report—and, so far, to block it from view altogether. Senator Moynihan was educated not only in the halls of academe but in the streets of New York, and he might well have reached an earthy conclusion about this Attorney General and his President: the fix is in.
The fix is in. Are you going to stand for it?
FlyingToaster
Every time I think we’ve reached the bottom of the abyss, these fucking guys drop the bottom out again.
James E Powell
No one seems to recall that there was a time that the Attorney-General had to recuse herself because she had one conversation with the husband of the person under investigation.
Suzanne
I tend to be of the opinion that impeachment is not a wise strategic move, since it will probably raise Trump’s approval right before the election rather than lower it.
But GODDAMN, it just makes me SICK that these people will not get any karmic fucken justice for this shit. FUCKEM.
I miss you, efg. Your voice is needed here now.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: Exactly. Justice. All we want is justice. It doesn’t seem like that should be too much to ask.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I want KARMIC justice, though. Like OOPS Trump got hit by a truck smuggling immigrants and will spend the rest of his life eating and breathing through a tube, with a Latinx doctor (who is a Dreamer but is able to gain citizenship and attend medical school thanks to President Harris) caring for him.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
I’m not sure that this would be the case. But sadly, it doesn’t matter. The Senate will never vote to convict the president, not on the basis of even the most damning reading of the Mueller Report.
trnc
@Suzanne:
The dreamer would probably take his oath seriously. I want a legacy kid with a medical degree from Trump University caring for him.
Cheryl Rofer
It’s fine for Toobin to try to understand Barr’s words, but ultimately the way we get the report is by keeping the pressure on. And it looks like the media is cooperating so far.
dww44
John, thanks for the link. Toobin is about my favorite guest pundit over at CNN, mostly seen/listened to, on my frequent respites from Mathews’ weeknight MSNBC show, when his constant interrupting of his guests is a tad more than I can tolerate. Yep, the fix is in, and honestly, don’t you and readers agree that even the GOP and Trump supporters know this, even if they don’t have courage enough to own up to it? Too many of the Trump supporters in my world are not uneducated and/or dumb. So, like with GWB, they won’t talk about the President;they mostly hope that no one brings it up. Official GOP world in these parts is very much supporting DT
O/T this a.m. on the CBS Sunday Morning magazine show, the 2019 recipient of the Profiles in Courage award was announce. Nancy Pelosi! There was a photo from the JFK White House dinner/event showing a quite young Nancy meeting the young President. And wow, does Caroline’s son have a whole bunch of his maternal grandmother’s and maternal uncle’s genes!
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
Thanks, Suzanne, you did that so well~!! Just like efg was here this
morningafternoon. Seriously, keeping the legend alive !!Fuck’em indeed!!!
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne:
Could it be some smoke spewing, rebel flag waving, MAGAt sticker covered POS van with expired plates, on the way to one of his “events?”
dww44
@Cheryl Rofer: I agree that Dems and others must keep the pressure on. Steve M over at his blog, NMMNG, is opining that he agrees with Mulvaney (appearing on one of today’s Morning shows) that we will never see Trump’s tax returns. Since Steve is always either a pessimist or a realist, depending on one’s view, I’d be interested in your take.
Suzanne
@MagdaInBlack: Sure.
I remember when my first car got totaled. I was stopped at a light and I was rear-ended by a complete dumbass driving a full-size pickup (with nothing in the bed, of course). The truck was so tall that the bottom of the bumper was well above the top of my bumper, so all he hit was metal and the back half of the car was toast. Anyway, the dipshit hopped out of the car and said, “I’ sorry ’bout that, I wuz lookin’ on da floor uh mah truck fir mah cellphone.”
That dude could be driving the truck that accidentally nails him.
Cheryl Rofer
@dww44: I don’t know if we’ll get to see Trump’s tax returns while he is in office. But a fight over them will emphasize that he is afraid to release them, that they probably contain something shocking or incriminating. That’s the message to get out.
And the fight just might make people look twice at other candidates who won’t release their tax returns. Or I’ve even seen a suggestion that the Democratic Party might make releasing them a condition for running. I won’t mention any names.
James E Powell
@dww44:
If the Democrats in congress understand their base voters, they will make Trump’s tax returns a major issue. The law says they get to see them. Every Republican must answer why Trump refuses to follow the law. Every day. Every appearance.
ETA – What Cheryl Rofer says
Kay
The authoritarian part will come to the fore more and more, I think, as the disparity between how ordinary people are treated under the law and how powerful/wealthy people are treated becomes wider and wider.
debbie
@Suzanne:
Oh, he’ll get it, alright, before he slips this mortal coil. Not as soon as I’d like, but at some point.
Kay
Watching the period between when a new low quality Trump hire comes on and the new low quality Trump hire is given the benefit of the doubt, only to immediately prove they, too, are corrupt is disheartening. I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve watched this exact realization play out.
He hires bad people. It’s a job requirement. They’ll never get better, only worse. Barr is worse than the last one, because that’s how this works.
James E Powell
@Kay:
What concerns me is that such disparities are rarely modified by elections & legislation. The American ruling class has convinced the RW white supremacists that stomping on the poors is not only virtuous, but necessary for their survival and therefore, not as illegal as one might suppose. The general lack of alarm is alarming.
Emerald
My prediction: somebody (somebody) with access to the full report will sit on it until Barr issues his full redactions. (I mean, I’d faint if Barr has the only copy.)
Then that person will dump it on the Washington Post. We’ll get to find out what Barr took out, and it won’t be pretty.
Ruckus
@dww44:
I don’t know if dumb is the proper word for a lot of Trump supporters. Not that they aren’t but it’s more that they are, well, evil. They want people to be hurt, they want people to suffer, just because. They are desperate to be seen as better than someone else, to be seen as having a higher stature/station in life. They can’t get there on their own because a lot of them seem to not want/have the ability to play by any rules other than they can do anything they want and you can’t. I was reminded once again last night about one I know and have known for decades, he can’t seem to understand rules/guidelines/limitations that all of us face, he thinks he’s
goodentitled enough to “win” no matter how he plays the game. I think that describes a lot of Trump supporters that I’ve known. What’s really funny most of those could do well if they actually played by the rules, they aren’t stupid and they are reasonably talented in what they do. But for most of them, they have in some way stepped on their own dicks in an effort to get ahead outside whatever the rules are in their game.Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Seems amazing to say this, but I miss Jeff Sessions.
Jharp
My pitchfork is ready.
Time and date?
And I have plenty of time.
Shalimar
@Kay: Bernie is right, but it still feels like he is only interested in a progressive global order based on human solidarity if he is the leader.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
“The fix is in. Are you going to stand for it?”
Of course the fix is in. What the fuck am I supposed to do about it?
plato
Fuck bob mueller.