3509

Poor Pat, he tried to get out of it and failed.

3510
3511

I regret ever thinking that Barr might be an honest AG.

3512

I was very impressed with Barr when I was at GTE Labs and he was corporate counsel. With a combination of manipulating the FCC into imposing grossly unfair regulations and vicious litigation in the federal courts, he pretty much single-handedly destroyed the entire CLEC industry that all the established phone companies were worried about during the 90s.

I realized then he was an unprincipled bastard of a lawyer, but I didn’t realize he was actively evil, too. That had to wait till he attached himself remora-like to Trump.

3513

Barr is beating out Kelly, for top spot in the category: Guys, I thought would have a positive impact on Trump, but instead had their souls eaten. In Barr’s case, it sounds like there decent chance he never had soul to begin with.

3514

I was going to say “Barr 25 to 30 years ago seemed like a fairly standard issue Republican of that time, but then by the time he auditioned for Trump by writing legally BS and highly partisan critiques of the Mueller probe he showed he had drunk the Cool-Aid and become a lawless, power at all costs, pwn the Libs Trump advocate.” Then I realized that what I was actually saying was that 25 to 30 years ago, Barr was a fairly standard issue Republican of that time, and then now he is also a fairly standard issue Republican of the present time. What’s changed is the GOP.

Also, in terms of expectations of Barr, I think it was apparent before Trump appointed him that he had gone all in on partisan polemic at all costs: his published legal “analysis” on Mueller et. al. were perhaps not John Yoo level bad but pretty damn bad. That should have been a red flag.

3515

I feel like it’s possible to interpret Barr’s past actions through a lens of principle, but his recent actions have shown that he doesn’t actually have principles.

Those past actions, while they could have been guided by principles… likely were not. They were likely guided by pure partisanship.

He just happened to be doing them in service to someone who was less overtly corrupt than Trump. Now that Trump has no principles himself, defending him requires a complete abandonment of principle, and Barr has shown himself more than willing to do that.

3516

Who would of thought that a guy who helped cover up the Iran-Contra scandal would be lacking in principle.

3517

I don’t see the change. Back then he (and the GOP) helped cover up the crimes of a Republican President and administration in return for conservative policies and goals, and now he (and the GOP) help cover up the crimes of a Republican President and administration in return for conservative policies and goals.

Maybe the problem is in the observer in this case. When I see someone doing something that looks like corruption, I don’t squint at it in an effort to make it look principled. I think my method is better.

3518
3519

Our Attorney General is a big fan of the First Amendment.

3520

White House occupants maybe?

After all, the current one has a LOT of harsh things to say about the FBI, etc.

^_^

3521

Oh, he has a principle, that of enabling a Police State.

3522

I still keep coming back to the sense that 2019 doesn’t feel like 1986. I dunno. Maybe it’s just that Reagan didn’t lead chants to lock up Jimmy Carter, didn’t say he would abide by the results of the election ‘if I win,’ didn’t repeatedly call the media ‘the enemy of the people,’ didn’t seem like it was pulling teeth for him to even say anything complimentary about democratic values generally or disparage the actions of tyrants.

Maybe it just comes down to style points. I do find those things alarming in a new way, like something we haven’t seen in my lifetime. I was, however, quite young during the Iran-Contra hearings.

3523

slow blink

3524

“Caller, what is DJT ‘doing’? Thanks for your detailed response”

3525

Well, Reagan was no saint, but it’s certainly true that one difference is that Trump says the quiet parts out loud. One consequence of that is you encourage others to do the same. A notion of the unsayable, of shaming shameful behavior and words, of excising from the body politic hateful ideas and shunning people who espouse them is IMO the main way to suppress the baser impulses of people.

But as a practical matter, what they’re doing now — rallying around a President who is obviously guilty of consequential crimes — is what they did before. They just stroked their chins and pretended to be thoughtful while they did it, rather than gibbering, jeering and flinging poo.

3526

Don’t give that man a pass. He pushed the lies of welfare queens to divide the races for a win. He watched a disease decimate an entire population, read kill, because they weren’t the right people. He destroyed our tax code to give the wealthy more wealth. That man was not civil; he was just subtle but just as horrific. The GOP as it is today is not happenstance, and Reagan and his Southern strategies are a HUGE part of it.

3527

I’m not giving him a pass. I’m saying American democracy didn’t feel under threat in 1986 as it does now. There have been lots of bad presidents whose terms didn’t seem to be existential threats to the republic.

Again, maybe it’s all in my head. My Spidey Sense is not an easy thing to quantify thing but it’s been buzzing like hell since 2016.

3528

2019 is far worse than 1986.

In 1986 the GOP saw themselves as a viable political party who could abide by rule of law, work mostly within the bounds of acceptable norms and campaign on platforms that appealed to the masses and win elections. Sure, we can look back in hindsight and see the groundwork being laid for what was to come, but it’s not like most members of the GOP in '86 were openly and cartoonishly repugnant.

In 2019 the party is desperate and knows the only way they remain viable is to pretty much destroy American democracy as we know it and subvert the rule of law. They are openly defying the Constitution and social and poltical norms at every turn, and they use their state media arms to control the narrative to their base and openly lie so often that the lies become facts in the minds of an America that has been under-educated and bred to thrive on identity politics and short attention spans for years now. It’s the perfect storm of evil, apathy and stupidity. If Trump wins a second term there is a good possibility we all find ourselves rounded up and cooling our heels in re-education camps before 2024. At the very least America will start to look a lot like Hong Kong if Trump wins in 2020.