Bits & Pieces @119

 

The question has been raised; does Attorney General Barr consider himself as the head of the justice department for the people of the United States or as the President’s personal lawyer? That question was answered definitively this week in the Senate hearings when Barr was asked whether Don McGahn should be summoned before the Senate committee to answer whether the President had asked him to fire FBI head James Comey. When asked whether or not executive privilege had been waved, Barr answered; “No wehaven’t waved executive privilege.”

“No wehaven’t…” WE?  If that Freudian slip doesn’t tell you who Barr thinks he’s lawyering for nothing will. In that one moment he declared what team he’s playing for and what job he’s doing and he did it in no uncertain terms. He isn’t the people’s Attorney General, he’s Trump’s personal liar.

And yes, he did lie to the Senate Committee, the same committee to which Bill Clinton lied and for which he was impeached.

Up until now I have been on the side of the, don’t impeach,forces simply because I thought it would, considering the makeup of the Senate, be a complete waste of time. Considering how much time the Retrumplican Senate has wasted in the last two years and how much the Republican congress wasted in the years before that, it seems criminal to waste any more.

Considering the actions of various members of the administration and the Senate like Barr, Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and Trump himself; actions that have disregarded any concept of the way people must act for a democratic government to work, it seems time for the House to move to impeach someone and that someone is Bill Barr. They must do this in order to put a stop to unlawful activities that clearly disregard many of the laws of our country, the disregard of which must ultimately lead to a dictatorship.

Immediately following the Senate hearings Barr ignored a House request for him to appear before them. By doing this he clearly showed contempt for their authority, which if ignored could only lead to further, similar actions that, in the end, would lead to anarchy.

He has already stated that he holds himself above the law, a place into which Trump has already firmly settled his fat ass.

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Bill DeBlasio, who can’t even run NYC, appears ready to declare a run for president. What a joke! This clown can’t solve traffic, schools, public transportation or housing in a city that is admittedly tough but in which he has almost no obstructing political power. How the hell does he expect to get anything done on a national level?

We already have one egomaniac in the White House, the last thing we need is a second. While DeBlasio wastes the salary the taxpayers are throwing away on him and gets a free tour of the country, the city bleeds for lack of leadership. Hopefully his idiotic shot at a job for which he has no qualifications might at least, have the result of sending him back to the private sphere.

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Mike Pompeo was on This Weekmaking a lot of sense when he spoke about North Korea and almost making sense about Venezuela but when talk turned to climate change he became just another liar for the administration. His bullshit about our government doing all that is necessary to support our national security in the area of climate change is just so much horseshit.

I understand that Pompeo is up against a President that is wrong about everything he addresses, and that he is trying to make sense out of a kingdom run by the Mad Hatter but he would be better off and so would we, if he just passed on the tough ones.

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Watched Jonathan Karl interview Bernie Sanders about his Medicare for All, program and Karl was so far off base that his questioning became a GOP rant rather than a true interview. I understand that Karl is supposed to ask tough questions and I think that’s important to a good interview but  Karl’s questioning wasn’t tough, it was dumb. Sanders explained quite clearly and concisely exactly what he had in mind for the plan and it made perfect sense. If Karl doesn’t understand simple English maybe he should get a job in another area. He’s supposed to be helping his viewers understand what his interviewees are saying, not making stupid arguments against them to promote his flawed point of view.

If given half a chance, Sander’s plan will work. It is the most comprehensive and has the most chance of success. If fully implemented, it will give the American people complete healthcare at a fraction of the current cost. It will cover everyone. Karl’s pathetic arguments about not getting the doctor you want are ridiculous. This is an insurance plan not a medical delivery plan and if Karl is too ignorant to understand this, ABC should fire him.

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Did Nancy Pelosi inch closer to changing her view on impeaching Trump this week when she openly accused Attorney General Bill Barr of lying to congress? Maybe an inch closer but this looks like another strategy, one in which she goes after Barr who is obviously making a joke of any legal progression possible under a constitution, which he is willing to ignore. At this point Nancy doesn’t need Trump’s head if she can get Barr’s, and it looks like the lesser fat liar is definitely getable. No indictment, Barr isn’t stupid enough to indict himself, but politically through impeachment he is definitely vulnerable. There are trades that can be made with the GOP for cooperation against the AG that aren’t available to get the President.

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Mike Bennett of Colorado has entered the race and the big question is why? With over 20 candidates the Dems already have diversity and a white guy from Colorado doesn’t much add to that. Listening to him on Meet the Press,he doesn’t seem to have anything new to say in an election that screams for new ways to run a dysfunctional country.

Bennett has always seemed like a nice enough guy and nobody wants t beat him down but he already has an important seat in the Senate and he should probably try a little harder to get something done there.  Unfortunately he has very little to offer as a presidential candidate.

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Fareed Zacharia addressed the crash of 2007 and its ramifications with the three men who may have been responsible for saving he nation, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and Henry Paulson.

All three, but especially Geithner reiterated that they had to save some really bad guys in order to save the majority of the innocent people who would have been crushed if they had treated this crash like the government treated the much less damaging one in the late 1980’s when 800 bankers went to jail.

That may be true. Maybe they had to use these bankers and industrialists for a while just to keep the economy afloat and keep millions of Americans from losing their life savings but there’s no excuse for not going after these crooks once the country had stabilized. That was the fault of the Obama administration and its lack of intestinal fortitude. It’s also the reason that we are back on the brink of the same thing. There’s no way to encourage crooks like not putting them in a cell.