As I sip my coffee this morning, I wonder where in the hell Cheeto finds his senior cabinet officials or maybe what he is feeding them. My thoughts focused on the Attorney General's comments this week at Hillsdale College.
I have made it no secret that I agree with many who are more schooled in law than I am who believe that Bill Barr is not only a corrupt Attorney General who acts as Cheeto's personal lawyer, but is polluting the Department of Justice with a partisan political culture that will be a damaging legacy that will take a long time to fix.
His comments this week at Hillsdale College were, being kind here, totally asinine. In case you missed them, he responded to questions about the pandemic by saying, " You know putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest. It's - you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restrain, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American History." It appears that Barr is about as good a historian as he is an Attorney General, which is to say, pretty shitty. I can think of two events in U.S. History has might rank as higher intrusions - The "Trail of Tears" and Japanese Interment during WWIII seem to be pretty major intrusions on civil liberties that perhaps rival the mythical 'stay at home orders' referred to by Barr. One suspects he might be mirroring his boss' comments about face masks rather than any sheltering down 'orders' by some state and local authorities. How you can compare the inhumane legacy of slavery to a social health issue like the Coronavirus is amazingly insensitive and outright moronic.
He went on to suggest that politicians are in a better position for making decisions on the pandemic than medical authorities. He said, " The person in the white coast is not 'grand seer' who can come up with a right decision for society. A free people makes its decisions through its elected representative. The last time I checked, the medical community typically advises elected officials but has no statutory authority. I seem to remember one "elected" official recommending the consumption of Clorox and UV therapy as a response to the virus. How well did that go?
Barr is a freakin' disaster and his comments are scary. His intrusion in the Michael Flynn sentencing, pardoning of Roger Stone, and commitment of DOJ resources to defend Cheeto against civil cases are examples of the mismanagement of his office and the corruption of the role of U.S. Attorney General. No wonder his own law school, George Washington University, called for his censure and resignation. Not a heart warming endorsement of its alum.
On that note I am moving on to more java this morning and a couple of toasted crumpets.