A frank conversation with the former Attorney General on Trump's "extortion" of the GOP, Russiagate, the most awkward White House moment, and much more.
The bottom line on Trump is that his rhetoric was off the charts but the actual governance from his administration was actually pretty staid and conventional. Trump Derangement Syndrome was a reaction from liberals to the rhetoric, a focus on symbolism rather than substance. When words are violence there can be no other reaction.
Now of course all indications are that Trump will be the GOP nominee in 2024 and the result will be widespread civil chaos.
I love that Barr spends half the interview talking about TDS and Bari’s TDS won’t let her focus on anything else.
By policy Trump was the best president of the last 50 years, at least, and it’s not especially close.
Of course stating that requires that we define what a “good” President is, which the left fundamentally won’t do - and ESPECIALLY the elite left - because then you can keep score. The left NEEDS it to be all about feelings to have a chance at competing (they know all their policies are awful for actual people) so they keep it all about feelings. That’s what Russiagate was - it kept it emotional. It’s what COVID was, and it’s what being the 5th losing presidential candidate in a row to challenge the results of the election but be the first to be decried as a “threat to democracy” for doing so is about.
I’d like to put a challenge down to Bari and/or anyone that writes for her to actually define what they would view as political success and then let’s see how their beacons - like Obama - did, relative to that scorecard. It’d be a very interesting game to play…
totally agree - can someone explain how otherwise intelligent people can allow themselves be so brainwashed? Is it a comfort of the hive thing? Too much "feelings" for sure, but how can people completely ignore reality and rationality. Mystifying.
A mystery to me too, I live with a few. My sense of the matter is that the hatred of Trump takes over any and all other rational thought. And they choose to ignore the carnage - inflation, crime, high gas prices, no boarder, Afghanistan, etc…. Either that, or this is what they want and it was planned, but they remain silent.
Trump received 74,221,000 votes in the 2020 election, the second most votes ever. More than the 69,498,516 votes Obama received in 2008 and second only to the 81,284,000 ballots that were credited to Biden. Think about that, Trump received more votes than Obama and still lost to a senile, lifelong political joke who never managed to attract more than 50 people to one of his “rallies” when he dared venture out of his basement.
I agree that feelings can be a powerful force and undoubtedly the leftists and their media flunkies successfully manipulated them, but clearly something more sinister was involved.
I know an operative (with ties to billionaires I might add) who figured out a way for Dems to get 2 votes each and termed it the "Democrat Voting Superpower". It involved requesting an absentee ballot AND voting in person, no matter what "jt" says below.
You're just repeating what Trump told You. He said, IIRC, that *nobody* could lose to Biden. It wasn't *possible* to lose to Biden. Painted himself into a corner with that.
But Biden did win. People voted in numbers *against* Trump. Probably as many as voted *for* Biden. That's why it was biggest turnout in history.
Folks, the answer is non-obvious but becoming more clear. Watch "the Social Dilemma". Our social media algorithms effectively use human emotions to create greater engagement with the platforms, in ways that create deep viscerally held opinions in the people that use them.
Trump plays the heel, specifically intending to trigger reactions. Social media spreads the word and triggers strong reactions in both constituencies, and become deeply held and felt issues for many folks. Journalists were among the first to use Twitter and the first to become way more indoctrinated than usual in this manner, and then through their work spread this effect well beyond the social media users.
Pew research shows that the massive shift leftward of Democrats happened from about 2010-2015 and the nearly as big shift rightward of GOP voters happened from 2015-2017. This correlates almost fully with social media adoption in these groups, which was later in those on the right.
I actually wonder if medium to long term, groups that prefer longer form content like substack and podcasts versus short social media posts will outperform those that make less rational group decisions because of the inherent failures of short form communication.
Funny. You're the second today that recommended "the Social Dilemma."
Was that where they were harping on how *addictive* it is, or was that a different article?
Point is: Yup. The only social media I use is Substacks, and I need to cut back on that. (Now I remember where I saw that first article.) I saw a book today about how bad dopamine addiction is and what it does to people. Probably never read it, but put it on the list.
These tech giants? Surely everybody knows by now that they do *not* have Your best interests in heart. The exact opposite. If they can keep Your attention as long as they can, and anger does that about as well as anything, then they can sell You the shiny baubles their AI has determined You should need.
Don’t forget the labor shortage and subsequent small business closure, Communists at the gates, elite-enforced farm-failure, threat of worldwide famine, squashing of protest, mandates for an experimental shot that’s sickened and maimed thousands…
It appears that many on the left want the high gas prices which are helping to cause the high inflation. Every time I hear people like Jennifer Granholm, Mayor Pete or Biden use the phrase, “necessary transition from fossil fuels”, it highlights that fact. They are on record for making gas as expensive as possible to reduce consumption and force people into electric vehicles. Widespread support amongst Progressives for Soros supported AG’s like Gascon, Boudin, Fox, etc. also seem to show that a lotta people that are perfectly fine with high crime rates.
Bari Weiss gets a very bad feeling when Barr speaks of the deaths of horrific murderers by relatively painless injection. Does this feeling represent her “thoughts” on the matter. I get a feeling of revulsion when I hear of these murderers’ murders, but I do
My best to do a cost/benefit analysis to arrive at my opinion. I do
Not believe
In the huge expense of life sentences. It robs society of more precious uses of OUR resources.
Both can happen at the same time, Trump supporters can ignore his toxic personality and at the same time, be puzzled about what it is the left seeks to accomplish. Ignoring Trump’s personality does not negate the question about the left.
But I would say that it's just a question of ignoring Trump's "toxic personality" as ignoring his being totally unfit for the office. It's not *only* a question of personality, but even *more* a question of character.
Me? I got *plenty-a* questions about the left. Just *more* about the right for the reason *Barr said.* The Right has a *golden* opportunity to stop the left dead in it's *tracks,* right? But will piss that opportunity away, because they idolize Trump so much.
Jarring! Pedophilia is just the next thing that is going to be foisted on us as being on the normal spectrum of human sexual behavior. We will all have to be accepting and supportive of our minor-attracted co-workers, even elevating their need to feel validated above our own need to speak the truth, or we will be fired or cancelled, or some such other nonsense. We should have taken a stand with all the trans crap and maybe that would have saved some children the irreparable harm of hormone tampering and surgeries that cannot realistically be reversed. Normalizing pedophilia is criminal. I will never use the words minor-attracted person. These people are sick and should seek help, not ask the rest of us to endorse their untreated mental illness as normal behavior.
Yes, but not turning over power is not turning over power. Making a lot of noise, blasting out a lot of rhetoric, and floating legal theories that fail is very clearly not "not turning over power". It's "not turning over power gracefully."
Sorry, but I view that argument as hinging on a technicality.
Yeah, Trump *literally* did end up handing over power. Very UNgraciously.
But, You see, making *plans* to overthrow the elected government to *keep* power goes a fair bit *beyond* the idea that he didn't turn over power "gracefully," right? Trying to pressure Pence to help him *overthrow* the elected government isn't a question of gracefully or not gracefully, right?
It's like Barr said. When the electors were certified, the election was OVER. Except according to Trump, and his looney-tunes advisers who told him what he wanted to hear.
I would say the Pence entreaties and then anti-Pence rhetoric were the worst thing by far, as they are the only thing (pending your answer to more specificity) that went beyond pushing within an existing system, exhorting someone to take a step that pushed beyond boundaries. But it's like suggesting that someone be aggressive on their taxes in a way you think might be legal but aren't sure, and is a world apart from not moving your stuff out and pulling guns. And, honestly, you introduce a bipartisan bill to clarify that that's not acceptable and you completely imply that it might have been.
In 1876 the election was even more contested, and in a similar way. The results were that one candidate won by one electoral vote, but the party that at first lost ended up getting their President into office after claiming that black people were denied the vote in too many circumstances for the election to be certified as it stood. The initial results of the election were overturned. Was that "not turning over power"?
Man, I've posted this so many times my fingers bleed. Don't make me repost the links.
Read "John Eastman vs. Eastman's memos." That was the plan. That was so far beyond the system that Eastman took the fifth during the House investigations.
I think You're referring.. Yeah, You are. Hayes. That was in no wise the same as the election of 2020, right? You're not gonna make a comparison are You? That'd be a false comparison, if You do try it.
jt, if Trump had done the things you asserted, six plus months of hearings would have turned up evidence to charge him with treason. Instead, it has resulted in a daily torrent of "news" releases merely repeating the false assertions. You and your fellow deranged accusers have turned up nothing to support your assertions.
Zuckerberg just admitted the FBI lied about Hunter's laptop! So Trump was right - the election was rigged! And let's not forget Hillary saying how Trump stole the election!
I totally agree, it is a shame that president Obama refused to peacefully turn over the presidency to President Trump in 2016, instead resorting to trumped-up FBI surveillance, falsified affidavits seeking FISA warrants, and never-ending politically motivated investigations embroiling our government and our fellow Americans in what has become years of divisiveness and turmoil.
Not at all, Ma'am. Your Trump prejudice is coloring Yours.
The point isn't whether we've had piss poor presidents, right? It's whether there was one that was *so* piss poor he didn't leave office "amicably." He gave every effort so he wouldn't leave office at *all* which is a little different still.
So, you're talking about Obama? Who literally spied on the incoming administration and tried to have them removed before they were brought in through faking evidence to drive Russiagate? And tell me about how Trump didn't leave amicably? I realize you've watched a lot of CNN and MSNBC but show me actual facts about how Trump's actual departure from office was actually any different than anyone else's?
He screamed about voter fraud like Hillary screamed about voter fraud like Al screamed about voter fraud, and on, and on, and then he peacefully transferred power. I'm confused by what you think happened here exactly?
What You say is technically true. He did leave office. Surely true.
I'm no debater. You can probably tell me what kind-a argument states a fact, which in no way, shape, or form covers the situation under discussion.
That's what You're doing here.
You and I *both* know that it's not what happened on Jan. 20 that's at issue. Mebbe this is what's called a strawman argument. No matter. It doesn't work.
What happened from mid-December on is what matters. Trump showed his true colors, and showed beyond *any* shadow of a doubt that he isn't a man fit for the office of President.
I believe (without rereading) that's the *only* thing I disagree with Barr about.
The POINT is that You show right here, with a very INsubstantial argument, how *extremely entrenched* Your position is.
It's not that You *couldn't* see it. It's that You do not *wish* to see Trump for what he *is.* And *that's* why there's no need for further discussion. It's all on You.
My personal take on Trump has little to do with his rhetoric at all, and a lot more to do with his actual policies, and his basic integrity and/or character. I thought he was a terrible president not because of his loudmouthed demagoguery (although that didn't help), but rather the things he actual accomplished while in office, and his overall leadership (or lack thereof) as someone befitting the office.
If you ask me, TDS applies to his reality-altering supporters, not his detractors. For the life of me, I still don't understand how anyone can look at his presidency in a positive light. And I'm not a lefty at all, just a reasonably-minded (I believe) independent.
Barring his behavior, please explain what things he accomplished as President that would lead you to say he's the best president in the last 50 years at least. Extra points if you can do so without an obvious nod to some sort of conservative ideology...i.e. good for everyone and not just anyone on the right.
Abraham accords - the most substantial movement towards peace in the Middle East since WWII.
The return of manufacturing to the US, the build up of small business, the lowest unemployment for Blacks and Hispanics, the reduction in ILLEGAL immigrants proving fairness to LEGAL immigrants, and giving a sovereign country a real border so it can retain its sovereignty, making rich Germany start to pay for our protection, countering Chain. Gotta go - just off the top of my head.
Murder rate reduced in 2017, 2018, and 2019 (after back to back increases in 2015 and 2016). Then it went up in 2020 with leftist cities rioting and return to soft on crime / anti-police policies.
The Abraham accords were indeed something substantial, but whether or not it improves the peace in the Middle East is not very clear at all. It formalized and improved some of the relations between Israel, U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, a few other minor nations. Yet it also further isolated Iran, which could be good or bad depending on how a lot of chips fall. And it also did almost nothing for the giant elephant in the room: Palestinian sovereignty and/or nation hood. Recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and moving our embassy there didn't exactly make relations better either, but that wasn't a part of the Accords. Ultimately it did little to really solve any of the old rivalries in the region, but economically it was a net positive. So okay, slight edge there I guess.
American manufacturing as a % of GDP has stayed at the same level, or very slightly declined, since 2009. Not sure how you can say it's 'returned'.
Small businesses; I'm assuming you mean his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act? Yeah the pass-through deductions and individual cuts are nice...but they all expire in 2025. By contrast the corporate tax cut is permanent. It was much better for corporations than it was for small business owners.
Black and Hispanic low unemployment rate. They both have been trending down for a decade, which Trump policy did you think was helping push this down? Or push down faster?
Immigration and Borders. Yes, illegal immigration went down. Net positive for Trump.
NATO/UN (Germany). Yes, he did get some European nations to foot more of the bill. Net positive for Trump.
China. No...hell no. No idea how you think he made relations with China better, or is somehow countering them better. Pompeo rightly called it our (and the West's) biggest threat. But Trump, if anything, made things worse with China. And calling out the origin of Covid doesn't count.
R U kidding about Iran? Obama & Biden are giving them the atomic bomb. Of course, Iran should be isolated and deprived of the bomb. And that is exactly what Trump was doing. I am very
Close to Israel and Israelis. They adored Trump. You have to be an Islamist who buys the woke narrative on Palestinians and Iran. Were you happy with the stabbing of Salman Rushdie? It is the most dangerous exporter of terror.
I was a furniture manufacturer for 28 years. I crossed the border nearly every day for 16+ years because I had a very large factory in Mexico. Those who are not familiar with the border have no idea how open it has been until Trump did everything against the open border crowd to give us a border. As an entrepreneur who knows hundreds of entrepreneurs including many Hispanic entrepreneurs, I know how he helped small businesses and manufacturing. I find your obvious bias may lead you to throw out false stats too obscure to research in a timely way for this forum. So I’ll just say I suspect your stats. Over and out.
"You have to be an Islamist who buys the woke narrative on Palestinians and Iran. Were you happy with the stabbing of Salman Rushdie? It is the most dangerous exporter of terror."
This is what I'd expect if You were a MAGA-head. Are You?
And it's really convenient to just say You suspect the stats. "Over and out." That's what it almost always comes down to when Centrists start pulling out the *facts* of the matter. Sorry.
Trump was the one who backed out the nuclear deal, which was created precisely for preventing Iran from acquiring bombs...not sure how you can read that another way.
I'm not close to Israel in particular. Or Palestinians. Or biased toward any of the people over there really...the specific religions and/or cultures are non-factors in how I approach an opinion on anything over there.
Rushdie, no...it was a tragedy. Freedom of speech is a sacred right. Same with Khashoggi. If you're going to judge Iran in that light, then do so for Saudi Arabia too. Not saying Joe would have done anything different, believe me, but Trump did nothing about Kashoggi's grisly murder. If anything he simply disregarded it completely when cozying up to bin Salman.
I already stated Trump was a net positive on the border.
Entrepreneurship is great, but that's like 1% of the population. The other 99% simply want a decent job. The vast majority of people can't and shouldn't be entrepreneurs, it's simply not close to being possible. I don't know why entrepreneurship is always put on this grandiose pedestal as if it's the pinnacle of all wealth and commerce or something. They're just the guys with good ideas, but most of the economy is simple transactions and bland supply and demand.
I literally got my facts by doing simple wikipedia and/or google searches while writing it, and disregarded any obvious biases like MSNBC and FOX. Look them up yourself if you like.
Small note- the Abraham accords and the trump moving the embassy were and still are very important. There is a lot going on because of this. It has had a big effect on the region. Making israel strong makes the region more stable and helps israel when dealing with the Palestinian issues esp if they have negotiations. When the american government tries to make nice with the Palestinians the Palestinians abuse that and the opposite is achieved. The Palestinians rejected the peace plan before they even saw it, before it was released. If they truly want peace, they have a partner. But one can’t force peace if the other side isn’t serious about it. The rest of the Middle East coming together against Iran is a very good thing. It’s going to have a major impact on the future. Of course if the Americans give the Iranians 100 billion dollars and freedom to plot horrors that will not be a good thing.
I think some of the above posters just want a lot of people to pay attention to them and reply so they can haughtily dismiss every great achievement like some spoiled children… they abuse and slander Trump supporters while apparently knowing few of them well… they have to have the last word yet seem very little experienced with real life… overeducated for their intelligence probably :P
It's interesting how you say you're Independent and reasonable... Don't we all self-report the same thing?
What I appreciated most about Trump was his internal and external transparency. He had strong opinions, and made everyone know exactly where he stood in real time. He had extensive (too much, IMO) media availability with adversarial journalists, who did what journalists are supposed to do... Ask tough questions and follow up with tough questions. [Where's our current President? Vacation?]
The external transparency was how he exposed the ugliness and unprofessionalism of the mainstream American news business.
They criticized everything, every day without context. The systemic bias in news organizations, something Ms. Weiss fans understand all too well, jumped off the page and screen. "The Emperor had no clothes!"
Now as far as his substantiative policies:
1) Controlled Immigration - which benefits low wage Americans
2) Eliminated ISIS Threat
3) De-escalated North Korea
4) Forced European countries to contribute more to NATO
5) Didn't get us in a war
6) Energy Independence
7) Raised Taxes on Rich by eliminating SALT deduction
8) Gave a voice to often forgotten "deplorables"
9) Oversaw economic conditions that benefitted full Economic spectrum (not perfect, but more equitable than Obama) -- even while the Fed began to taper QE (reducing their balance sheet)
10) Kept American life interesting and engaging
There are more, that people have mentioned, Abraham Accords, improved NAFTA, hard negotiating with China, etc...
E-Diddy, Let's consider some promises made, promises, kept, promises kept that didn't work out as he said they would, and promises made but not delivered.
1. Trump promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. He failed to repeal and never had a promised "beautiful" plan to replace. He lied.
2. Trump promised to pass a giant infrastructure bill bringing us beautiful new airports, highways, and bridges. He never had a bill and delivered not a thing.
3. Trump promised to win a trade war with China, saying it would be easy. His tariffs drove up prices for American firms and consumers, the trade deficit grew, and China did just fine. Total failure. What's more, the tariffs have contributed to the supply chain disruptions that sparked inflation.
4. Trump promised and delivered on a promise to cut taxes, but the plan did not, as he promised pay for itself and it did include loopholes for big real estate tycoons that benefitted guys like Trump. The reduction in the corporate tax break did not spark a significant increase in capital investments; instead, the corporations used the breaks for executive bonuses and stock buybacks. The average taxpayer hardly noticed a thing.
5. The economy grew for the most part at the same pace sustained for eight years during the Obama administration. More jobs were added in the last eighteen months of the Obama administration than in the first eighteen months of Trump's rule. The tax cuts and spending increases blew the deficit wide open and when Covid hit, it exploded.
6. Trump repeatedly claimed that average household income grew by $5,000 due to his policies. In fact, a Census survey shows that median household income growth actually slowed in Trump's first three years to 2.1% annually compared with 2.6 percent under Obama.
7. Trump's love affair with Kim Jong-un was a fiasco that led absolutely nowhere but elevated a murderous dictator on the world stage.
8. Trump promised to revive coal mining in America. Thank goodness he failed; mining jobs actually declined. He promised explosive growth in the manufacturing sector. In fact, manufacturing jobs in America peaked in 1979 and saw growth only briefly during the Clinton years. Even Harley-Davidson closed a plant with Trump in office.
9. Trump promised to build an "impenetrable" wall along the Southern border and Mexico would pay for it. In fact, he completed about 250 miles of his wall and it's been penetrated more than 3,000 times using common power tools. Mexico, of course didn't pay a thing, so Trump took money from the Pentagon budget, which killed some much-needed housing repairs on our military bases. Failure.
I could go on, but most historians and Presidential scholars place the Trump years near the bottom in their rankings of American Presidents. I pray that we won't be subject to a second term.
A year and a half of Biden & America's best and brightest
1. Afghanistan fully & quite disorderly transferred a country to the Taliban. Including 7.1 billion dollars of weapons, ammunition, and vehicles. An organization that believes oppressing, raping and disallowing education to women is a right. 23 million women. Iran is looking at negotiating with the Blinken and Biden crew, mostly likely thinking- holy crap how did we get this lucky? Not a single person at State Department was held accountable. Why is Blinken still the Secretary of State?
2. As of yesterday mortage are on track to more than double for every American seeking to buy a home. At least 2-2.5% higher interest rate coming in the next year per the fed. The combination of higher mortgage and lending rates will flatten any gains of the half a trillion dollar student debt stunt (addressed below).
3. Parents groups are being reported to the FBI by school boards who disagree with policies that are negatively affecting their children.
4. Supply chain & transportation erosion in the US. Due to health and environmental policies. Due to health & environmental policies regardless of massive damage to citizens and communities across the US. Again, no legislation, no representation. Instead, governance by fiat.
5. Shutting off wide swaths of domestic energy production as the first presidential act of the Biden administration was the direct cause & one step away from the birth of violent upward inflation. The US consumes 20% of global supply. What did you think was going to happen? The oval office manufactured this with a Presidential order signed by JB. This will take a decade to fix economically.
6. A half of a trillion dollars of national treasure spent with no congressional oversight on student. Not one issue of the underlying cost or value of higher education was addressed or solved. Presidential fiat almost like a King would do, of course using basically an emergency order, like a doctor's note to spend half a trillion. This is not an investment in the interest of 80% of US citizens. Questions like; How do we change things so students and parents do not become enslaved to educational debt? How can we hold high school counseling and colleges responsible for horrible advice in personal spending? There is $1.7 billion dollars of debt that financed this mess- Should colleges and universities be taxed if their tuition is above a certain dollar value? Can a few thousand institurions who have raked in trillions of dollars still legitimately be considered non-profit institutions? How healthy would these types of conversations be for the US and it's citizens? However, we were deprived of this debate by fiat.
7. The DOJ investigating his son without a Special Counsel. It would be one thing if the American public did not see the pictures and all the emails. However, about a 100 million people have seen them & it's the kind of corruption you cannot just waive away.
8. The lowest amount of press conferences of any modern President.
Barr's assessment of Trump is spot on. I could never vote for him. Never did either. But if I had to keep Biden out of office- I might.
Matt, thanks for your civil comment. I had hoped to focus this thread on the original subject -- Trump. I share many of your comments regarding Biden's shortcomings, but many need to be put in context.
1. Yes, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a debacle. But Trump agreed to a May withdrawal. Biden pushed it into August. A clean withdrawal with evacuations of all our Afghan allies would have required another major escalation, and the Taliban would have resumed its attacks and the Afghan military would have collapsed -- it was worthless without U.S. leadership and air support. Biden was right in opposing the 2011 surge -- a major mistake of the Obama administration. Trump failed to end it and left the mess to Biden. Just like Vietnam (I'm a vet) we never should have intervened, and our intervention only made things worse.
2. Your comments relating to inflation: I'm among those who warned about impending inflation for years. We've been propping the economy up with funny money since the Bush Great Recession and the chickens have come home to roost. I opposed Biden's third pandemic rescue plan and thought the first two under Trump were far too sweeping and poorly regulated. Retired folks like me who neither lost jobs nor income did not need government handouts. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been scammed by fraudsters making phony claims for PPP support and the cost of prosecuting them will outweigh any money regained. But inflation is a global problem, sparked primarily by the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and a tight labor market. Biden will take the blame, but the same things would have occurred with Trump in office.
3. Parents groups are being reported for disrupting meetings, threatening officials, and intimidating school boards. They should be. Same for those who threaten election officials. What policies are "negatively affecting their children?" Teaching a truthful version of American history? Explaining human sexuality in accordance with the best science? These angry parents have been triggered by mendacious reports about CRT and "grooming" of children. Parents worried about their children being "groomed" and abused should look to the three largest institutions responsible for child sex abuse, all conservative: The Catholic Church, the Southern Baptists, and the Boy Scouts. We have a nationwide teacher shortage, and our public schools are being ruined by meddlesome parents who don't know what they're talking about.
4. I'm not with you on the supply chain interruptions "due to health and environmental regulations." Trump's trade war sparked the supply chain problems and they were exacerbated by the pandemic. I take climate change and other environmental crises very seriously and favor doing far more than we have to preclude far worse summers of wildfires, drought, and flooding than we've seen across the planet this year. "Transportation erosion" follows years of neglect of our infrastructure. Trump promised to do something about it and of course, he failed. Biden, finally, passed a major infrastructure bill that will address our crumbling roads, bridges, ports, and airports.
5. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In his first year in office, Biden issued 34% more drilling permits than did Trump. The escalation in oil and gas prices is a demand problem exacerbated by the loss of refining capacity due to fires and storms, and the oil companies reluctance to resume drilling. American oil production largely depends on fracking, an expensive and inefficient process. The last time the oil companies took out huge loans to support fracked drilling the rug was pulled out from under them when the pandemic shut down demand. They lost a fortune. That's why I'm less critical about the "windfall profits" Big Oil is making now after years of losses. Gas prices have dropped more than a dollar a gallon since June. Biden consented to make nice with the Saudis and approved a major release from the strategic reserve. I didn't approve of either move.
6. I largely agree on the student loan executive order.
7. I have far more faith in an independent DOJ under Merrick Garland than I did under Trump and Barr. Several investigations have uncovered nothing of substance on Hunter Biden. Joe Biden, a softie on family issues, erred egregiously in approving Hunter's elevation to the Board of Burisma; the appearances are terrible, and he's paid the price for wanting to help his son recover from addiction. I'm wait-and-see on this.
8. Everyone knows Biden is prone to gaffs. It was a prudent decision to limit the number of formal Presidential news conferences and let Cabinet and administration officials explain policy. The daily press briefings are far more open and truthful than they were under Trump who banned reporters he didn't like. Presidential press conferences often are noting more than caustic exchanges with gotcha questions and carefully crafted messaging. Obama was occasionally funny and interesting to listen to at a press conference. The best press conference shows in my lifetime were staged by JFK. He was very clever, often self-effacing, and, when needed, effectively confrontational. Haven't seen another as good since, but that didn't preclude serious mistakes like the Bay of Pigs or the coup and murder of President Diem in Vietnam that led directly to our escalation.
If we're lucky, we won't have either Trump or Biden on the ballot in 2024, but stranger things have happened. Be well. I'd be happy to provide documentation for any of my comments. Here's a good one on the drilling issue:
Will we be reviewing the promises of every President in history?
Including Mr. Clinton's?
Don't forget, Trump was not exactly a Republican.
In the four year term he faced a Russian spy probe, an impeachment, a Pandemic, and another impeachment.
I'm not making excuses, just giving the political the environment. If you don't like Trump, that's fine. I'm not on Trump's payroll. He's suboptimal, but he was a first salvo for "Silent Majority" that is completely disgusted by the greed, corruption, and mismanagement of our institutions.
So many are looking to Drain this Swamp. It's the one promise I wish he kept. We are headed off a cliff, and our galant gentry, elite.
Well said, E-Diddy. I share your anger about the greed and corruption that pollutes our body politic and political discourse. But Trump ran the swampiest administration in memory. Wall street bankers running Treasure and Commerce. A flunky for Big Oil running the EPA. A billionaire tool of for profit "educational institutions" running Education. The wife of Mitch McConnell running Transportation where she steered business to her family's shipping business. I could go on.
And I forgot to mention that one promise Trump kept in spades -- he packed SCOTUS with three activist right-wing judges who will ensure that large corporations and the wealthiest Americans will continue to pour money into the coffers of lobbyists and political campaigns sustaining the power structure you call "the swamp." A Chicago billionaire just dropped more than a billion dollars on a far-right group that operates as a non-profit under our scandalous tax laws. If you think this group aims to advance the interests of average working Americans I have several bridges in Brooklyn I'd be glad to sell.
I fall somewhere between a supporter and a detractor since I voted for Obama in '08, non establishment candidates in both '12 and '16, and then Trump in '20, on the basis of his record alone. I'm not a republican, I'm certainly not a "Republican,", though I'm sure I share many things with them just as I, almost by default, do with "Democrats." I'd most aptly describe myself as a classical anarchist.
I view presidents through a simple lens - was the country more free and more just during their time. That's it.
Trump's criminal justice reform issues speak for themselves, I believe, but he reduced literally millions of petty drug offenses. He's the first president in my life to not start any foreign wars. He increased economic mobility by reducing corporate regulation at the fastest rate in 70 years - he is literally the first president in the last 70 years to increase real purchasing power of the bottom quintile of income earners.
He increased labor participation rate to the highest level since the 80's, violent crime fell off a map, we saw a 1 year increase in life expectancy in '19 before the ridiculous lockdowns undid all the progress that had been made regarding medical freedom.
I have no idea what "traditional conservative ideology" is, and I mean that generally, but those are the things I care about. He made the poor better off (Obama, on the other hand, made them literally worse off AND made the top 1% almost 400% wealthier - I covered it in my stack on big government eating the American dream), he reduced regulation returning energy independence to the US (once again gone) and he actually protected the border which saw fentanyl deaths take a two year decline as well (before once again skyrocketing in '20).
Those are the things I care about - and by those things he's the best president of the last 50 years, and again, this is from a guy who didn't even vote for him during his only actual term in office.
Just brilliant! I am a classical liberal with a steel backbone to preserve freedom. Whatever your ideology, we are aligned. I love those few people left who see thru the BS and realize we need to fight hard to preserve freedom. If it is a man with an obnoxious personality, I do not care. Freedom is far too
1. "He made the poor better off." Actually income disparity exploded under Trump thanks to his wasteful tax cuts. "Under Trump, the share of total income going to the prosperous and wealthy grew by a whopping 17 percent between 2016 and 2019."
2. "We saw a one year increase in life expectancy in 2019." You have no data to show that the small improvement in life expectancy was due to anything Trump did. It's far more likely attributable to the greater number of Americans who were covered my health insurance thanks to Obamacare. Trump, of course, failed to repeal that act as he promised, and never had an alternative replacement plan although he had promised that as well during the campaign. The U.S. lags far behind other G7 countries in life expectancy, maternal and infant mortality rates and other standards. We pay far more for healthcare and get far less for what we pay. It's disgraceful. That's your idea of "medical freedom" I suppose.
As for your comments about Covid deaths (you can't bear to mention the word) under Trump: "US health status worsened dramatically under President Trump when compared with the other G7 countries, a major study from the Lancet Commission1 has concluded. If the US had death rates equivalent to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK, some 461 000 fewer Americans would have died in 2018, and 40% of US deaths during 2020 from covid-19—around 188 000 people—would have been averted, the study estimated."
3. "returning energy independence to the US (once again gone) . . . " The claims of energy independence have been found to rest on manipulated data by numerous fact checkers.
4. ". . . he actually protected the border which saw fentanyl death take a two year decline . . ." Deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl did drop modestly in 2018 before resuming their upward spiral in 2019. Trump's porous border wall, penetrated more than 3,000 times with ordinary tools, has done nothing to reverse the trends beyond a single, small reduction in 2018.
5. "Trump's criminal justice reform issues speak for themselves . . ." I'm glad Trump signed the bi-partisan reform bill but calling it Trumps's reform is a stretch. Democrats had been calling for these reforms for years and were happy to negotiate with Jared Kushner to realize the much needed changes.
6. Obama "made the top 1% almost 400% wealthier . . ." When he came to office the wealthiest 1% took (I won't say earned) 12.3% of personal income. After Obama raised taxes on the rich, that percentage dropped below 9% but as they always do, the rich and their tax lawyers found loopholes in the law and the percentage had climbed back to 10.9% by the time Obama left office, still lower than when he began. Meanwhile, the Republicans continued to reduce the IRS budget and audits of the rich kept dropping. The Republicans, predictably, are spreading hysterical claims about Biden's plan to augment the IRS staff and increase audits on the wealthiest Americans.
7. Obama made the poor "worse off." Nice try, Mr. Data, slipping in a comment without any context or factual data. Obama came to office as the economy was imploding in the worst recession since the great depression, a debacle caused by lax regulation (yes Clinton signed on to some of provisions that led to the debacle) and lax enforcement under Bush. Millions lost their jobs and the number of Americans living below the poverty line exploded. Obama's rescue plan and efforts by the Fed turned things around. At the start of Obama's Presidency, 13.2% of Americans were living below the poverty line. The number rose above 15% at the peak of the recession in 2010 and then began declining. By the time he left office the economy was growing steadily and the poverty rate was down to 12.7% and dropping. The final numbers for the Obama Presidency:
"The economy gained a net 11.6 million jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to below the historical norm.
Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 4.2 percent after inflation. The gain was 3.7 percent for just production and nonsupervisory employees.
After-tax corporate profits also set records, as did stock prices. The S&P 500 index rose 166 percent.
The number of people lacking health insurance dropped by 15 million. Premiums rose, but more slowly than before."
Mr. Data, you appear strong on claims, but weak on substantiation. And your claim about Trump being a great President is laughable. Reputable historians and political scientists put him near the bottom of the rankings:
2. The data very clearly shows the increase in life expectancy was directly attributable to the decline in overdose deaths and murder. Nothing else about health has improved. No one agrees more that the US medical system is a DISASTER, but Obamacare made it worse, not better, and the data very clearly shows that in accelerating mortality trends, decreasing life expectancy and increased medical costs - https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/obamacare-has-doubled-the-cost-individual-health-insurance. So yes, our medical system is a disaster, we certainly agree on that. You don't actually think Obamacare is responsible for a 1 year decline in deaths do you? And here's the high level data - show me how obamacare helped? https://www.statista.com/statistics/184955/us-national-health-expenditures-per-capita-since-1960/
4. Sounds like we agree here, you just seem not to care, which is certainly fine. Or expect perfect, or, I'm not really sure but we're saying the same thing.
5. Again, we seem to agree.
6 & 7. I point you back to number 1 again. If you care, read through the piece, it outlines the data. You can agree with the assessment or disagree, but, as always, the data are what the data are when it comes to the complete destruction of economic mobility under Obama and the largest wealth transfer in US history.
I certainly agree that everyone who has a vested interest in the US government being as large as possible hate Trump. No argument there.
1. Thank you for your civil response. I look forward to reading your commentary about the decline of the American dream. I will come to it with my own views on the subject -- that the decline began in the 1970s and accelerated in the 80s under Reagan's trickle down, supply-side economic policies and his hostility toward working people and labor unions.
I'll be 78 years old in little more than a week. I grew up in the 50s and 60s when America had the world by a string. Europe and Japan lay in ruins, American corporations had little serious competition and labor and management took easy growth for granted. We reacted slowly and poorly when Volkswagens and Datsuns began to arrive on our shores. Detroit continued to build gas-guzzling behemoths strong on chrome and horsepower, but slow to adopt new engineering advances like fuel injection, disc brakes, and independent suspensions. The UAW beat Japanese imports with sledgehammers and attacked Asian Americans, killing at least one. Then came the Arab oil embargo, recognition of China, and a transformation of the American political economy that increasingly benefitted the wealthiest and best educated. Little has been done to reverse these trends. The financial sector grew and a new hi-tech sector emerged. Income disparity exploded and the middle class stagnated while the lowest income sectors slid into poverty
We need a Marshall plan for rural America and the rust belt to revitalize these sectors, to support family farms and rebuild the decaying infrastructure, especially in the decaying rust belt. Biden's infrastructure plan addresses some of these problems. Transforming the energy sector away from fossil fuels to renewables can also help. But labor and management must abandon dreams of a return to the easy days of the 50s and 60s. Manufacturing will become increasingly automated with robotics and the high dollar jobs will go to skilled technicians who keep the robots functioning. Job training and retraining is needed to address these changing realities.
2. "Nothing else about health has improved" since the advent of Obamacare. Not true. The difference is clear in states that expanded Medicaid. A detailed study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that states that expanded Medicaid (generally the blue states) witnessed "a 9.4 percent reduction (in annual mortality) over the sample mean, as a result of the Medicaid expansions." The Red states that declined to expand Medicaid under Obamacare saw no such improvement. Of course, the Republicans fought to eliminate the individual mandate and struggled to repeal the entire act which has reduced the number of uninsured Americans by more than 20 million individuals.
3. The article I cited in my previous comment affirmed my argument that "energy independence" is an abused and misleading term. You say Biden failed to "stay out of the way" and suggest that this ended our energy independence. In fact, Biden issued 34% more drilling permits in his first year in office than did Trump.
The spike in oil and gas prices is due almost entirely to the war in Ukraine and a sharp rise in demand as the global economy reopened. American oil companies were reluctant to expand drilling and pumping because they got burned so badly when the pandemic shut the economy down. They had taken on billions in loans to finance their fracking operations only to see the market grind to a halt. That's why I don't fall for the facile criticism progressives make about recent "windfall profits" among the oil giants. Those profits came after years of heavy losses and the oil executives are wary that another pandemic spike or the war in Ukraine may throw another wrench into the global energy market.
Gas prices have dropped more than a dollar a gallon since June, not because Biden stayed out of the way, but because he took action and ordered a record release from our strategic reserves and met with Saudis, however distasteful that may have been, and came away with a commitment to increase production. The spike in prices was demand driven and exacerbated by refinery closures from hurricanes and fires, not from Biden's interference.
Concluding remarks. "Everyone who has a vested interest in the government being as large as possible hate(s) Trump." Not true. As was the case for so many of Trumps promises, he failed in his commitment to shrink the government and "drain the swamp." According to the conservative Reason Magazine: "So under Trump's signature, before any true crisis hit, the annual price tag of government went up by $937 billion in less than four years—more than the $870 billion price hike Obama produced in an eight-year span that included a massive federal response to a financial meltdown. . . .So how about executive branch employment? According to the St. Louis Fed, crunching numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Trump inherited a civilian workforce of 2.815 million and kept that basically flat until it started rising around last July, presumably because the 2020 Census started to jack the number northward. No cuts."
And Trump ran the swampiest administration in my lifetime. Wall street magnates at Treasury and Commerce. A fossil fuel lobbyist running the EPA. McConnell's wife running Transportation and directing contracts to her family's shipping business. A billionaire with ties to the corrupt for-profit education industry at Education. A "developer" at Interior who was forced to resign for his corruption. I could go on. More cabinet and high level administration officials in the Trump administration were forced from office for their corruption than in any administration in my lifetime. Then come his temporary appointments -- unqualified loyalists and toadies willing to execute his majesty's commands. Not my idea of a great or even an acceptable President. Be well.
IMV (In My View), it's Trump that gets in the way of it.
There are people, I think a lotta people, who could agree with most-a what You guys say. I'm one. But if You can't see through Trump and the harm he's, what can I say?
Again, in case everyone's forgotten. I've "said" repeatedly he's done a lotta good things. On balance? Nup. No question. See Charles Knapp and a few others.
Basically, what it comes down in favor of Trump is seeing things through the lens of a MAGA-head. I've posted this before. Take a sheet of ruled paper and draw a line down the middle.
Put all the things You like about Trump on the left side. All the things You dislike on the right. *Weight them accordingly.*
Most-a You would have blanks on the right side. And if You somehow managed a few items on the right, You wouldn't give them the proper weight. And the reason for most-a You (not all) is because You're *emotionally* invested in Trump.
And that's why a logical, really *organized* team will *likely* never happen. (Not impossible, Celia.) People with that big-a blind side get in the way, rather than helping.
You call that an argument? I see this repeatedly in these here comments.
Trumps trying to overthrow the election trumps all.
You're a MAGA-head and are deranged. DTS. Deranged Trump supporter.
You want some other bad policy decisions?
Again, Jan. 6 tops the right side-a the list (alluding to comment above).
Doing even more than Obama to divide the country into two sides that absolutely hate each other. A *lot* more than Obama. All it accomplished was empowering the Woke.
Cozying up to the totalitarians of the world. Getting a bad deal in Afghanistan. And I'm pretty sure he got a bad deal with China. Xi absolutely punked Trump when it came to the Wuhan virus. And here we are. His ambivalent actions during the pandemic cost thousands of lives. Nobody will ever know how many. His spending so much time on Twitter, rather than going over the daily Security Threats report.
That's without putting any thought into. The right side of my sheet could go on longer. The line at the top tho? Outranks anything You could put on the left side.
I used to agree with that. Feelings are a large part, but since the Left has hijacked, once venerable, institutions, they can also just change operational definitions ad hoc.
So they can quickly appeal to rational actors by being more artful in their "statistics" and having their media cohorts quickly disseminate and popularize deeper rationales without much critical vetting.
Joe Public, doesn't think twice about how "deadly" COVID is for everyone, or how there are so many more "named storms" due to climate change, how "safe" the vaccine is for "everyone," and how Trump is an "election denier" because he perpetuates "the big lie."
Very well put E. When operational details are applied or challenged to the feelings-based rationales it's a mess.
As an example, electric cars, the universal solution to save the world, pure myopic thinking at its best. California declares no gas cars in 2035- well the average age of an electrician is 58. They've made a bunch of money and are retiring. There are 40 million cars in the state and no one to hook them up by 2035. How are colleges and their bailed-out students going to fix this whopper? The intellectual incest at these institutions- college, law, media, and the progressive religion is awe striking. I guess it needs to collapse to get a reset. It's hard to watch.
Actually, it was a great interview. Best if listened to to get the nuances of Barr's answers. That Bari comes with a set of biases of her own was obvious - you got it - to listeners. That did not interfere with Barr's responses nor the significance of this interview.
By policy, Bill Clinton was a better president than Trump, and arguably the best of the past 50 years. Fiscally, under Clinton (and Bush 1), Democrats and Republicans passed bipartisan legislation in 1990 and 1993 that turned burgeoning budget deficits into surpluses within the decade, which also spurred economic growth. Clinton also championed and signed landmark legislation such as the crime bill and elimination of welfare.
Clinton's first two years were not good, with the health care debacle, but after he got his butt handed to him he figured out how to govern and produced great results his last six years.
On fiscal responsibility, Clinton gets an A, or maybe a B at worst. Bush 2, Obama, Trump, and Biden all rate a D- or F.
I'm sure many will argue Reagan was a better president than Trump, though Reagan was at best a C or C- on fiscal responsibility as his policies caused deficits to balloon. Bush 1 was a B or B-.
I like this, and Clinton did get a lot of things right. Of course Clinton's admin also carries the vast majority of the responsibility for the housing crisis in '08, and that can't be overlooked. Clinton's "everyone deserves a home" policy did not create economic freedom. He forced banks to give loans at sub market terms, they forced banks to do NINJA loans, and the rest is market catastrophe history.
Clinton was good on crime and welfare reform, I totally agree.
But, again, I used the analysis of freedom, and Clinton messed with the free market in a major way and we all paid for it handsomely in '08. He forced "freedom" isn't freedom.
Also, I want to be very clearly on the record as stating that on my grading curve the only way to get an A is to eliminate the 16th amendment. You could get a B if you cut government spending by 15% and tax revenue by 20%, which no one has even been close too.
I'd give Trump a C-. I'd give everyone else a D or worse. You get points for freedom and justice, you lose points for expansion of government (by definition a reduction of freedom) and lose TONS of points for injustice (starting wars really hurts here), and Clinton did some things right but he drastically expanded the bureaucracy, sent more soldiers overseas, and was responsible for massive financial market manipulation that crippled a generation.
Clinton ushered in the destruction of local media... And accelerated the global transfer of American jobs. China became a member of WTO under his watch.
Basically Clinton started centralizing power, increasing the scope of the Federal government. Main Streets in nook and crannies of this country were sold out, left to the dust bins of forgotten history.
He also helped NATO establish a more Offensive posture... which is great for the Neo-Con war machine AND Neo-Liberal global capitalism... Both which I would argue are bad for humanity, as a whole.
Bush II just continued many of the Clinton ways, but did so with a tax cut... And with more military stuff.
Bush was worse than Clinton, but the Trump years were invigorating. His policies I agreed with 75% of the time, as he looked to turn the lights of Main Street back on.
Decentralizing power in general.
His energy was a breath of fresh air. However, I have thick skin and am more of an 'actions speak louder than words' kind of person.
I agree with your take on Bari's TDS. When talking about Jan 6th she went out of her way to talk about the rebel flag and people with nazi emblems. As if that was a majority of the people. What about the vast majority of people with american flags? My favorite were the photos of the wild, out-of-control "insurrectionists" that calmly walked between the velvet ropes in the hallways. Yea, a truly dangerous bunch.
Overall I thought this was a very good interview. There is a lot for people who like/hate Barr or like/hate Trump to react to. Barr is very critical of Trump's temperment, and he backs it up with example. But then he still said he would probably vote for Trump depending on who was the democratic nominee.
Very often, the problem was the Left's total lack of a sense of humor or grasp of irony. Many of Trump's hilarious comments were intentionally distorted and presented as if they were meant to be taken literally. But anyone who watched the rallies and saw the context could plainly tell the man was joking and often poking fun at himself.
Trump Derangement Syndrome was the trauma of the Left who could never accept that half the country rejects their pursuit of utopia.
Every quote published by the MSM from Trump would always be the punchline, without the setup. And shame on us when we didn't do a little research to discover that.
Ideological utopianism murdered millions and defined the 20th Century. The political system our Constitution put in place to insure human dignity and worth is compromised and the willingness of the DNC to paint American citizens as "terrorists" while exploiting Marxist tactics and pathology for their own ends is a threat to America and the world. There is no such thing as "soft" totalitarianism. The Democratic Party has held Americans hostage to a lie for too long. With or without Trump it needs to go.
I agree. Or the D party needs to change. I know, You likely can't conceive of a change they'd make that would be for the better. You *could* be right, but that's too far down the road for anyone to say for sure.
Except for certain people on the right, who can't conceive of it.
Yes. One of my favorite quotes from 2016 was that Trumps opponents took him literally but not seriously while his supporters took him seriously but not literally
That's a rich one, Donna. So when Trump, speaking from the White House, suggested that Covid could be cured by injecting bleach or shining ultraviolet light inside one's body, he was being facetious or ironic and the poor fools who were injured when they followed his suggestion just failed to get the joke, right? And when he told the MAGA cultists gathered at a rally to "beat the crap out" of a protester, he was being ironic and the beating the protester sustained was all in fun. Or when a man from Arizona OD'd on Chloroquine because Trump advocated it as a COVID remedy, the man actually died from an inadequate sense of humor. And now, thanks to you, I understand what he meant when he called himself "a very stable genius." That's uproariously funny.
Trump’s comments initially were funny and the left got bent out shape by them. Their skin was too thin. Then the left attacked, and showed how thin Trump’s skin was. But as you stated, his later comments got outside the rails and were destructive. He was his own worst enemy and the reason he lost in 2020.
I'm not gonna argue about when Trump was being hilarious and when he was to be taken literally.
This You can take literally, straight from his mouth:
"Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation.”
So even Trump's supporters can't be *absolutely* sure about what Trump was up to, *all* the time, right? No matter.
The point is that Deranged Trump Supporter syndrome is similar. The trauma that *more* than half the country doesn't love Trump as much as You guys and gals do.
Like I've said *from the beginning,* Trump had his good side and one horrifically terrible bad side. Which made him unfit for the office. I disagree with Barr on that one point.
The "it's all in your head" gaslit distortion of American political reality by compromised and second rate D.C. leadership is the problem. There is no question that both parties are capable of manipulating and/or rigging an election. Rigged or not, the distrust, disgust and ever more justified anger "..we the people.." feel at being forced to watch a transparently criminal machine butcher everything it touches makes it possible to believe the reality of a rigged election is a certainty.
Why, in the face of modern technology, medicine, communications, thought and scientific advance does American political leadership remain opaque and unable to create practical solutions and pathways to a brighter future? The answer can be found in a homeless encampment near you.
A poll showed that 5% of voters who voted for Biden had they known about Hunter’s laptop would have voted for Trump instead - making him win re-election.
Actually the number is 17% and not 5% - from the Media Research Center - an article from the Federalist, November 2020 - google = poll Vote change Hunter Biden laptop. I also saw a poll that said 5% but can’t find that citation….makes you wonder how many voters really want Joe Biden to be President .
It takes a giant leap of faith to believe this. There are not that many persuadable Americans period. Let alone that many to be swayed by the unknown contents of a candidate's son's laptop.
Actually Barr said the DOJ investigates fraud and the rule changes, etc. were up to the states. He said there was no demonstrable evidence of fraud. He did not way in at all on the integrity of the election. IMO Trump failed in two important respects. First he was played by Fauci. The covid crisis made the second possible - he was played by the left with all the last minute changes to voting rules, influx of money to solicit votes, etc.. But we were all played by the latter and because we did not call for accountability it will happen again.
Correct me if I'm wrong. The states make up the election laws. Each state has to be held accountable on it's own. And that's up to the state's residents.
Me in Ohio? I'm plenty satisfied. You? Aren't You signed up to monitor the election? ICBW. Point is, it'll happen if people let it happen. And what it is that really bothers me is that there may be some Rs elected to office who will override the will of the voters, and place their own people as electors. Nothing I can do about that, tho.
Yes the states handle election procedure. Usually through the Secretary of State. And yes I am an election volunteer in Texas so I am confident our elections are fairly run. But even here there were what I would call election integrity issues as a result of covid. For example Harris County, the 3rd most populous County in the U.S., allowed drive up voting ostensibly to facilitate covid concerns. But people were coming by the carful. So much for privacy at the voting booth. Plus the election worker who brought the voting machine out were in no position to monitor whether the voter was being improperly influenced by the others in the car or improper use of cell phones, for example. It certainly presented an opportunity for misconduct. And yes jt that stuff matters. As I have said before I thought huge donations to secure block-walking/ballot harvesting was fraud but apparently it was legal in some states. So again even if the election was legal it was certainly sketchy. I understand why Trump was upset.
When You first said, long ages ago, that the election was legal but was.. I forget how You put it.. "morally corrupt" or something along those lines...
... I accepted it as fact first time I read it. I disagree if You think there shouldn'a been any allowances for COVID. I voted by mail first time in my life. *I* sure didn't wanna go in person. But, like I explained before if You recall: In my country the mailed an application out to everybody so they could *request* a mail-in ballot. Everybody didn't just automatically get one. You filled that out, and then filled out the ballot when it came. It was a double hassle, actually, but I thought it was worth it. And then there was a website to say if they got Your ballot and if it was rejected. I think all that was under R administration. Pretty sure.
Point is, there's a right way and a wrong way, and I've never said that everything was done the wrong way.
But, if You actually *think* about things, Trump's whole M.O. was being upset. Besides that, he wasn't just upset. He was claiming fraud when he knew there wasn't any. I recall You saying we should give him a pass because he mebbe really *believed* there was fraud.
He believed that because of a couple basic character flaws. The majority of his insiders were telling him lost. Like Barr said, he made a conscious choice to listen to Sidney Powell. Guiliana who he ended up stiffing even paying him. John Eastman. And the character is so *basic.* Sure, it's a lot *easier* to listen to people who tell You what You wanna hear.
That's one-a the *worst* qualities a President can have, right? If Your an adult, and even if Your a reality TV star, You don't take the option of listening to people who tell You what You wanna hear. That's the oldest story in the *book,* right?
And like I said, he was just a poor loser. Convince *all* the MAGA crowd the election was stolen. *He* really was elected!!
Great move. That really helped. And all because he was a sore loser.
If You think this is unreasonable, then I'll add IMO.
It would be nice IF all but valid mail-in votes could be cast on same day with ID. Fact, I've always thought (and written) it should be a national holiday.
But, sorry. Anybody can come up with an if like that. No way to base that on anything real.
(That's disregarding the reality the IF was no way in the cards on that day to begin with.)
They were discussing the actual voting and election. The things that were manipulated outside of that are sort of in their own category. They certainly affected the election. I don’t know that it would have made a difference, bc the left thought of getting rid of trump as their holy war, and tried to reach everyone possible with their message. A lot of shady stuff happened. But Barr was talking about his actual job and the election process itself.
I voted for Trump. I liked his policies and he did what most president never do and that is fulfill his campaign promises. But every time he spoke he made me cringe. I truly believe he is a megalomaniac who loves the sound of his own voice. He spoke without a filter. What popped into his mind, came out of his mouth.
I don't know if he is like Joe Biden who when he tells a lie he actually believes it's the truth. But then, Joe doesn't know what planet he's on.
LonesomePolecat. I always, after the initial shock of his over-the-top personality, paid attention to what he did and it was extremely good for the country. And, I agree with you, when he spoke, I cringed too.
Trump was the first President (in my 65 years) that I would actually watch when he gave speeches. He would be 30-40 minutes into a very powerful, historic speech, and then throw out some totally unnecessary and outrageous line that would negate everything he said up until that point. That line would be the MSM headlines and the rest of the speech would disappear. If you could put Obama's statesmanship with Trumps policies, it would be the perfect President.
I agree with you except, Obama was statesman. He wasn't. Obama said in a televised interview that he was lazy and I agree with him. He played more golf in his 8 years than Tiger Woods. He promised he would heal the racial divide in this country. He did more to widen the divide than anyone in modern times. I could go on but it would just make my blood boil so I won't.
True. Trump needed to be more statesmanlike and stop talking to the press so much. When he talked to press It never ended well because they hated him. Fewer press conferences would’ve helped him
Now, Obama *himself?* I just finished reading a book about the cause of the Great Recession. It was a bipartisan affair. Republican had a lot to do with repealing the regulation of Glass-Steagle (I think it's called). Gramm-somebody-somebody bill. Fought for by Gramm's wife who was head of Commodity Futures whatever, who SHOULD-a been regulating the over-the-counter crap.
But it was Clinton who signed that mess. Bush had no clue. Granted, most-a the bankers *involved* didn't really know. They thought the bubble would just go on forever. (Not *likely,* in my experience.)
Anyway, Obama's admin was made up of a lotta the guys that *caused* the problems. And one-a them, I was surprised to learn, was the recently interviewed Larry Summers. Oh yeah, he was *all* fired up by deregulating the OTC crap. One-a the main movers and shakers who did away with regulating the things.
Correct for the most part, JT. America had been dragged so far to the right by the Reagan years that the only way a Democrat could be elected was by moving to the center and adopting Republican policies like deregulation. Clinton and Summers do bear responsibility for the policy changes that sparked the financial bubble that led to the Great Recession. And, yes, Bush had no clue and the gaggle of economic advisors surrounding him were all Republican trickle-down, supply-side clowns who fiddled while Wall Street peddled packages of liar loan mortgages all over the world. The result was predictable. Unregulated capitalism always leads to corruption, excesses, financial malfeasance, and economic disasters. And then government steps in and bails out the "too big to fail" Wall Street giants, while average Americans are laid off to suffer.
Yeah, of all the billions, I think there was a pittance to help homeowners. I never saw the actual results of that. But heard so many anecdotes about how many people lost their homes that I think it didn't help much.
The banks? Couldn't be doing better. Yeah, they repaid the money they got. With interest. They never paid for the massive recession they caused, and all the harm that did for *years.*
I believe you are correct. The anti-Trump forces rioted after he won in 2016 because if they lose an election then democracy is at risk. So they show their support for democracy by rioting and trying to overturn an election with hoaxes.
The anti-Trump side set the precedent for not accepting the outcome of an election which the other side adopted on Jan 6.
I couldn’t help but think about the attempted character assasination of Justice Kavanaugh and the left’s attack on the Supreme Court after the Dobbs decision. How is that any different from January 6, except they are going after the Supreme Court in their homes, not in a building?
The "beast" seems to use manufactured hysteria and crisis to make it impossible for the average person to hold even recent political and social events in a workable daily context. I'm more aware of the growing homeless encampments in my city every day but can find no political discussion, and that's why we elect political leadership, that presents any rational discussion of or solution to the problem.There is opinion without end but national context and a dialogue based on practical cause and effect solutions and the implementation of such is entirely absent. TDS or not the homeless stay homeless. Drug use escalates and crime goes exponential.
It seems, in my opinion, that our elected political leadership has been totally subsumed and compromised by avaricious elitist finance which has abandoned America and moved to the world stage. It destroyed our economy and our industrial centers and is now in the final stages of gutting our remaining resources and installing a pretend Marxist feudal totalitarianism.
My point is that Americans, intentionally or not, have been stretched to the limits of survival. You're absolutely correct about the necessity of holding a clear sense of history and events but the psyop in place creates a power vacuum intended to prevent solutions that would benefit you and I.
And all over the mainstream media they are telling stories of right wing extremism stepping over the line and engaging in violence. But never at all discussing why those folks have been pushed over the line. As if it was spontaneous and not caused by anything.
That’s the demented story of the 21st century. The MSM, Big Tech and the Democrats have framed a narrative about MAGA, the Right wing and about President Trump. They have to keep selling it otherwise what do they have left . Covid has all but disappeared. President Trump hasn’t. It’s becoming terrifying to live in America especially after the raid on the President home. Not sure if you listen to Dan Bongino , he has pleaded with level headed Americans not to do anything stupid hope we all listen!
TDS and the maliciously false and baseless allegation of Russian collusion preceded Trump’s mean tweets. He was fighting back. How would you react if you were falsely accused of treason?
Slaw - Agree. Trump needs to take a different role, maybe as speaker of the house where he could get into some of the excesses and possible illegalities the Dems have committed.
But if he's the nominee for president I think it would be an escalation of this ongoing chaos and I sense we're about at the breaking point as it is.
The chaos is caused by the left because they won't accept the outcome of an election. The riots after Trump's election in 2016 were the precursor to Jan 6.
With more than 2 years to go until the next presidential election I think it's likely that the left will exhaust itself. But they will cause a lot of harm and probably loss of life. (The "mostly peaceful" riots in the 14 days following the killing of George Floyd resulted in 19 deaths.)
If Trump is the GOP nominee, we lose and the party that is moving further and further to the left wins. I believe the Dem party is fast becoming the Communist Party.
What will matter is a) the state of the economy and b) how far Hispanic voters shift to the GOP. If inflation is still an issue in 2024 or the country is in the midst of a recession triggered to lower inflation then any Republican candidate will have a sizable advantage over the Democratic incumbent--and that includes Trump.
It doesn't matter what you think. Poll after poll has shown Trump at over 50% support for the next presidential primary with the next closest nominee at around 25%. That is dominating. The only thing that can stop Trump from getting the GOP nomination is a heart attack.
Next, regardless of who the GOP nominee is they will probably have a sizable advantage over the incumbent just because the economy is likely to still be screwed up. That means Trump, or whoever, will have a sizable advantage.
And the other wild card as I mentioned is the Hispanic vote. If it really does split 50-50 there is nothing the Democrats will be able to do to avoid defeat.
I get what you're saying and I hope you're right. I just know people that STILL with everything they see now would stand by their Biden vote. Even though they wouldn't let him run their personal business or watch their children. They also claim they would vote for anyone over Trump. I think they are so deranged they would vote for a rock instead.
The issue isn't politics, it's economics. No recession means high inflation for the next five or so years. And if there is a recession it will probably run through 2024.
IMV (In My View), that's the *only* way Trump could win. Like You "say," pretty good chance the economics works out that way. So, yeah, he certainly *could* win.
But I'm not sure how many people are just gonna forget about Jan. 6 and all that led up to it. And given Trump's track record, he's liable to energize the Ds as much as, or more than, his base.
I don't think anyone other than Trump could *possibly* lose in '24, based on what I know now.
Trump is leading Biden in polls for the 2024 matchup and he is the favorite of the betting markets. A lot can happen in two years but the point that everyone should take away is that Trump is absolutely viable. He was defeated because of Covid, not because the country as a whole finds him intolerable.
Yeah, COVID did him in. At the same time, the majority *did* find him intolerable. At least I'm convinced that it took both-a those, and the latter was the most important.
How else You explain that *both* candidates got more votes than any candidate ever did before in history? You loved Trump, or You hated him. To his demise. It could be a repeat in '24. It would be, IMO, except Biden's been so bad (and had some bad luck to boot).
C'mon man! You and I both know that polls now mean nothing. In fact, polls the day before the election mean nothing. I can't recall, *exactly.* But I don't recall any polls being very accurate going back to Dubya. Especially not lately. Their method is, apparently, biased so bad they can't see straight, AFAIK (As Far As I Know).
Yeah, Trump *could* win like I've been saying over and over. I still think he's the *only* R that *could* possibly lose. I have my reasons for guessing that.
I don't disagree. But, see, I interpret it differently. The further the Ds move left, the quicker I believe it's likely there will be a backlash and a true reckoning against them.
Same with the Rs and Trump on the right, AFAIK.
And if they both continue in the directions they've *been* heading this past decade, I wouldn't rule out a viable third party in '28 or '32. That's just me.
From what I know of Andrew Yang, he's just like all-a them. Dishonest. But mebbe better days are on the horizon. (Gotta be part-fool to hope for things, but why *not?* ;-)
“Following a victory in appeals court, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington obtained the secret Department of Justice memo then-Attorney General Bill Barr pointed to in order to undermine the Mueller Report and justify not charging then-President Donald Trump with obstruction.
The memo presents a breathtakingly generous view of the law and facts for Donald Trump. It significantly twists the facts and the law to benefit Donald Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law of obstruction of justice or the facts as found by Special Counsel Mueller. Among many other problems, it is premised on the fact that there was no underlying criminal conduct, which is not what Mueller found, and waves its hand at there being no exact precedent to compare it to.
The memo supports the chilling conclusion that any president can interfere with any investigation if they believe it could damage them politically. It is clear why Barr did not want the public to see it.”
You mean, like when Obama and Biden got together with Comey et al to entrap Michael Flynn after the case agents had cleared him, so that he couldn’t serve as the next National Security Advisor? That kind of Presidential interference?
Dean, Mueller identified nearly a dozen instances of Trump obstructing justice. More than a thousand former federal prosecutors from both parties signed a letter affirming their belief that the evidence was more than sufficient to prosecute Trump for that crime. Barr blew it off. Trump called the Secretary of State of Georgia and asked him to "find" the votes he needed to "win" that state. That's called election tampering and is being investigated for prosecution. He called elected officials from Michigan to his office and leaned on them to block the certification of results in that state. I could go on. He's now quite rightly being investigated for removing highly classified documents and holding them in his personal residence. And, of course, his company is being investigated for tax, insurance, and banking fraud in NY for which its CFO has admitted guilt. If you think Trump wasn't in on all this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd be happy to sell you.
How many of those former federal prosecutors were Democrats? 90%? 99%?
You make lots of allegations but can show no violation that he could be charged with. If there were nearly a dozen instances of obstruction of justice the Democrats on Mueller's team would have made that charge. They couldn't because they didn't have a case.
As far as the NY prosecution goes that is as highly politicized as it gets. NY attorney general made a campaign promise to investigate everyone in Trump's family and all of his business connections. That is a general warrant and is as unconstitutional as it gets.
Wrong, Dean. Mueller did not make charges of obstruction because he left that up to Barr who ducked under DOJ policy that forbad prosecuting a sitting President. Then Barr issued a statement falsely suggesting that DOJ officials advised him that there was insufficient evidence to pursue prosecution. A Trump appointed federal judge has now reviewed the DOJ memo and has slammed Barr for misrepresenting its contents. A conservative group, Republicans for the Rule of Law, produced a video advocating prosecution for obstruction. The former federal prosecutors included: Donald Ayer, deputy attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush, Paul Rosenzweig, deputy assistant secretary of Homeland Security under former President George W. Bush and Jeffrey Harris, deputy associate attorney general for former President Ronald Reagan. I notice you had no excuse for Trump's repeated efforts at election tampering, especially since the call to Georgia was recorded.
The Georgia call was recorded and when it came out there was no evidence of tampering. They purposely misrepresented what was said.
If there was any opportunity to charge Trump, they would have done it far before Barr came in and ruined their party .As for the Republicans for the Rule of Law, Never Trumpers have all sorts of organizations united in their hate - that doesn't make them any more legit than the Lincoln Project.
So three people out of a thousand. The makes it 99.7% Democrats.
You haven't shown anything that Trump did that would be obstruction of justice.
And it was 50 out of 50 former intelligence officials who claimed that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation. You probably believe that too.
I didn’t read the entire report but enough of it to be certain that obstruction of justice, was clearly established. Mueller, for all his cowardice in the matter, concluded that if Trump had been exonerated by the investigation, they would so state, and they could not do so. And handed off the hot potato. That’s the bare minimum anyone but a liar has to concede. But it works this way on all fronts. I know leftists who will act like Putin’s lawyer when somebody gets poisoned by his people and talk about innocent until proven guilty. OJ Simpson is still innocent, too. Back to Trump, that’s just this tiny matter of obstruction on a particular case for Trump. He has built his entire empire on fraud and brags about it. There were times in history, the times Bill Barr likes, when somebody who called for a hostile foreign power to interfere in our elections could have been shot for treason before the election had a chance to conclude. He has a severely psychopathic personality and would best be locked up along with the other habitual offenders Bill Barr talks about. But Barr won’t see it that way because Trump is HIS goon. The entire Bible Belt of this crazy country endorses a guy who exhibits all the traits for which even Jesus might beat the crap out of him. Dick Cheney can’t even take it, the erstwhile favorite of the far right mob.
That's hyperbole at best. Mueller's team was loaded up with Democrats and they couldn't find anything criminal to charge him with.
When did Trump ever call for a foreign power power to interfere in our election? That's another falsehood.
The "Bible belt", as you call them, rejected a government establishment that oversaw the destruction of their opportunity in this country. On the Democrat side Bernie Sanders would have won their nomination if the Dem establishment hadn't fallen in line behind Hillary. Both sides rejected their establishments.
Since 2014, the United States has provided nearly $1.5 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine to help them fight off Russia which invaded the country in August of that year.
By July 2019, the Trump Administration had not delivered nearly $400 million in US support – including weapons, training and advisors – that Congress had previously approved for Ukraine’s continued efforts.
On July 25th, 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked about the aid on a phone call with President Trump, to which Trump now infamously responded, “I want you to do us a favor though.” Trump asked the Ukrainian President to investigate Vice President Joe Biden – a potential political opponent in the 2020 presidential election. Withholding desperately-needed military aid for a political favor is, by definition, a quid pro quo.
On September 26, 2019, the White House released a summary of the phone call that confirms President Trump’s effort to pressure the Ukrainian president into searching for political dirt on Vice President Joe Biden.
On October 17, 2019, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s acting Chief of Staff, admitted at a White House news conference that President Trump froze the military aid in an effort to pressure Ukraine into investigating Democrats. After confirming the existence of a quid pro quo, Mulvaney said: “Get over it.”
You left out the fact that Joe Biden, while vice president, threatened to withhold financial aid to Ukraine unless they fired a prosecutor who was investigating the company that Hunter Biden worked for. Joe famously bragged of his influence pedaling saying "Well son of a bitch. He got fired."
Does that meet your definition of a quid pro quo, or is that kind of cover up OK with you?
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida, Wednesday morning after the second night of the Democratic convention. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens.”
“The elements required for a conviction on an obstruction of justice charge differ by code section. For a person to be convicted of obstruction of justice, they must have acted with the specific intent to create an obstruction. The statute criminalizes "endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede" the legal process, even if those endeavors were unsuccessful. Seemingly innocuous acts could become criminal activity if they have the intended effect of impeding justice.”
Admiring your patience in suggesting this material to the demented Kommentariat of this newsletter. Would add that this interview was very interesting, giving insight into the mind of an ideologue who can make perfect sense on a lot of issues and then justify his further allegiance to a criminal that he would put back into the oval office just so that the heathens can't wreck the place with stuff like healthcare for all. And he talks about schools in "Europe". I actually went to one, which is why I know what a functioning public school system is like that works without prayers and pledges of allegiance and all the other 18th century crap. The idea that there would be an even tax base for all schools is the kind of atheist evil we have to prevent by putting the psychopath back in power. This time for good. And, oh, it's so difficult to find the right label for January 6th. That's just giving me angst. Hitler tried a coup first and got locked up. Then people like Bill Barr put him in power. And I mean, people exactly like Bill Barr. But you knew that already. Try explaining it to the dimwits who overwhelmingly read this source....
1) What does Trump have to do with property taxes funding local schools? That's completely irrelevant.
2) What put Trump in power was NAFTA and trade with China. That kicked off the long chain of events that bankrupted blue collar workers and led to the current political climate.
Riots are parties for the deranged, whether it's January 6 or the federal building in Portland. What matters is not that there different versions of the deranged but that the former was orchestrated by a president who lost reelection and tried to stage a coup d'etat that failed. Putin, Orban, Bolsonaro, Erdogan etc. didn't require NAFTA or trade with China. Democracy ends sooner or later because it's too frustrating for enough people, so they band together and take over before the other tribe does. Just look out your window. You can see Antifa gathering at the gates. Joe Biden is their puppet. Time to act.
What does matter is that there are different varieties of the deranged. The issue isn't Trump, the issue is that both sides have weaponized and for the left that means that Democrats have weaponized against Trump. Hence the fake Russiagate scandal that resulted in a bogus impeachment, etc. Of course the response of Trump and the GOP is going to be extreme in the face of that extremism.
The issue is that both sides are spinning the country apart. The global populist movement is a symptom of a massive and growing schism between elites and everyone else. That's the underlying phenomenon but the specific dimensions are going to vary from country to country. In Brazil and the Philippines the catalyst was crime: in Brazil elites lives behind gated compounds with private security. Everybody else worries about getting shot on the way to the airport and that resentment is tearing the country apart. In the US the issue is economic uncertainty. Elites don't have to worry about losing their factory job and making do with 30 hours a week of driving delivery.
If the issue is a looming civil war the responsible thing for Biden to do would be to stop throwing gasoline onto the fire. Comparing Jan. 6 to Pearl Harbor? That's completely irresponsible, reckless, insane, etc.
Ok, so there's agreement on some root causes, i.e. the insane wealth gap in the US and disenfranchised white middle class etc as the breeding ground for populist demagoguery. The disagreement is about the notion that Trump is a victim of some weaponized Democrat strategy. That's just as silly as the daily drumbeat about systemic racism on the left, for instance. Trump is no more innocent than Nixon ever was. It may turn out to be true that the DOJ handed him the nomination by having the FBI get the classified material they formally and repeatedly requested for months and months and we're lied to about. But it was the lawful and correct thing to do and signed off by a magistrate who had to be convinced of probable cause. That's one of your many witch hunt stories and it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Finally, so what if Biden is a bit of a fool? Why is that the moral equivalent of what Trump and his associates have been doing? Answer: because any tortured logic will do to justify the horror people feel when they are made to believe that only Trump stands between them and the clown show from San Francisco coming to their town.
Hi again, M. Slaw. Sorry I didn't get back to You on ACX. You probably noticed I'd gotten banned, so couldn't. I forget what it was about now.
I agree with everything You "said" except the last paragraph. It may be a bit of a stretch to compare it to Pearl Harbor. OTOH (On The Other Hand) both were an attack on the heart of the country. One on Hawaii. The other on our Constitution and the certifying of the Constitutionally elected President.
Pretty sure I heard Democrat Congress people ( Waters, etc.) and Senators (Warren, Schumer, etc.) urging people to go after the Supreme Court justices, attack them in restaurants, etc.
So you're part of the pompous "we-wear-watches-that-are-older-than-your country" set whose compatriots can't be bothered to stand up for Western Civilization and who are ceding Europe to young, determined, and unforgiving immigrants. Good for you.
If Trump planned to overthrow the government on Jan 6 so that he could stay in power, that was the worst coup d'etat ever carried out. What sinister megalomaniac bent on installing himself as president-for-life authorizes 20,000 National Guard troops two days before the coup (Pelosi and Mayor Bowser turned down the offer of extra security)? Also, what power-crazed despot to-be launches an attack on the most powerful seat of power in the world without a single armed person to carry out the plot? Instead, the so-called insurrection was led by a goof ball with a viking horn hat and a bunch of idiots who wanted pictures of themselves from inside the halls of Congress. Also, what tyrant tells his insurrectionists to "peacefully march and make your voices heard"? How's that going to stoke the necessary fervor to overthrow a government? Finally, even in third grade "Theory of Revolution" as taught in Venezuela, the kids learn that Hugo Chavez gained the backing of the military before he took power. Everybody knows that you need the guys with the biggest guns to take and hold power. I didn't see any "Tanks for Trump" streaming out of the Pentagon...
Check Politifact on those 20000 guard troops and Pelosi rejecting them. Just for a start. But I bet you're going to stick to Hannity and stay way to the right of even Rupert Murdoch on Trump's behavior on January 6. Then there's confusing the issue: nobody here said it wasn't a good idea for Europe to step up on it's own defense. And the fact that a lot of the people in the capitol that day were idiot partiers alongside the oath keepers and other armed lunatics proves nothing. When your own generals still understand that they have to protect the republic from YOU, you're going to incite an idiot crowd and say something only under pressure several hours later, blackmail Raffensperger in Georgia and file 60 frivolous lawsuits etc etc.
"...so that the heathens can't wreck the place with stuff like healthcare for all." As soon as you make goods or services provided by one individual to another a "right" for the second person (i.e. mandatory), you make the first person a slave.
@Slaw - I really hope Trump gets out of the game. He is screwing every chance Republicans have in front of them. E.g., Mastriano and Oz in PA elections.
I did see your comment on the latest Freddie deBoer piece on PPP loans vs Student Loan Debt
"forgiveness". I upvoted it. I can't comment there for precisely the reason of his sort of "analysis" (with lots of "whataboutism, which I recall, he purports to deplore) I'd cancelled my subscription. He has some real cognitive biases, albeit he is a good writer. I was no fan of the PPP program - mainly in the complete forgiveness aspect - but enabling firms to pay employees was a benefit beyond the "1%", which deBoer and many of his sycophant fans can't understand - to them it is all class warfare, all day, everyday.
I would like to know how much research Barr has done on the 2020 election. I'm not sure he's done any and simply relies on what his DC circle tells him.
There is ABUNDANT evidence of fraud, and I don't believe for one second that 80+million people voted for Biden. I do believe 80+ million ballots were counted for Biden. I am getting really tired of Bari dismissing claims of election fraud. She doesn't have to agree with them, but she should at least recognize that there is some merit in them.
How about she do an in depth interview with Mollie Hemingway or Dinesh D'Souza? Does she have the courage to truly listen to the other side of this argument?
For that matter, let’s think bigger and have Bari interview Zuckerbucks, who $funded$ the mail in ballot army in the swing states that tipped the scales.
Interesting that Barr admits "There was fraud, but not enough to tip the election..." Well, fraudsters cover up their fraud...and there is no way to know whether or not it "tipped" the election. But election fraud, on any level, that's something that should NEVER happen again if we want this country to survive.
There has always been fraud, but probably never with such high stakes, except for maybe the election of 1960, which some historians believe Richard Nixon technically won.
Barr says Trump alienated key constituencies needed to truly build a big tent Republican government. I question that, because America of 2020 is not the same place as America of 1980. The World War Two generation were capable of compromise and big-tent-ism; their children and grandchildren, not so much. The Internet has only made that worse, as well.
If Trump had garnered just a few hundred thousand more votes... out of 170 million ballots cast... he would have won. He just needed a few thousand votes in 5 states. Of course, that is why everyone on the Right is suspicious; when Arizona and Georgia were lost by only 10K or 12K, it's well within the margin of error/fraud. Why did Michigan turn on Trump and squeak by with Biden? Trump fought really hard to keep heavy industry in Michigan, and the low fuel prices also helped them tremendously. This is why people are so suspicious; it just doesn't add up.
I think the 2020 election was a one-time phenomenon. No one believes the dropboxes were a legitimate voting device, and in fact it's not allowed in other democracies. Nor are mail-in ballots; it's considered insecure... DUH! Changing the rules to accommodate mail-in voters is also a no-no, yet was done in Pennsylvania, approved by partisan elected judges.
This is all going to have to be litigated eventually. Ballot harvesting, dropboxes, mail-in are all a threat to democracy. Were it not for that, Trump would have handily won reelection, and it's entirely possible the Senate would have stayed Republican as well.
I knew it was stolen when they stopped counting in five states simultaneously. I must credit the left with the best fraud operation in history to paraphrase Biden
Part of the problem with "fraud" is how can you prove it in the time allowed. Barr is legally correct; not enough evidence of actual fraud. HOWEVER, plenty of evidence of electoral malfeasance such as the PA Sec'y of State unilaterally and illegally changing voting regulations, and similar stunts in other states. Perhaps the most serious – and least discussed – is the resistance to cleaning up the voting rolls in the big cities. I firmly believe that the reason the Dems were so vehemently against GA's ballot bill had nothing to do with "voter suppression" and everything to do with Fulton County finally facing some serious consequences if it doesn't clean up its voter rolls.
yes, American elections tend to be messy, particularly if you don't have a comfortable 5-10% margin of victory. When it comes down to a fraction of a percent that decides the outcome, fraud and plain old human error actually are the deciding factors. I believe 2020 was a coin toss. If not for the virus, Trump would probably have had that 5% margin because let's face it, Biden was obviously not up to the job, and the country was doing so well. The virus opened the door to all sorts of shady shenanigans like drop boxes and massive ballot harvesting, incorrectly filled-out mail-in ballots etc.
This gets back to one of Trump's core problems. His inability to manage and lead his staff, and his inability to attract the talent needed to do the job. When Covid was building in early 2020 it was clear that the Nov election would be affected. Democrats got out front and got voting processes "adjusted" in a way that would benefit them. There is no reason Republicans, under direction from the WH, shouldn't have been able to do the same thing. The WH lacked the super talent needed at that moment. So, they got played. I don't think it is fraud. And even if there was fraud, it is almost impossible to prove in the time between voting and certification of results.
Trump's staff was chaotic, but not because of him. He inherited a White House full of TDS-afflicted Obama holdovers who did everything possible to undermine him, up to and including felonious crimes like leaking state secrets to the press in violation of their oaths of office, as well as outright lying about Trump to create an impression of incompetence that would further weaken his standing and harm his chances of reelection.
Many of these people were eventually rooted out and fired, a few were prosecuted, but I believe they never got all of them. A couple of them hid behind whistleblower protection, Vindeman and that other guy who made spurious claims. The Dems of course seized on these things, exaggerated them, called Trump a criminal, and eventually impeached him twice, unsuccessfully. They cheapened the meaning of impeachment, which should never be used lightly, and turned it into a casual weapon to take down a President with whom they had strong policy differences (and who was nominating too many conservative judges and Justices for their taste).
Trump's biggest mistake, therefore, was trusting people. He brought in a few experienced people, including several generals, who turned out to be completely wrong for the job and had to be fired. I attribute this to Trump's being a political novice. He's used to the private sector where people have a slightly different attitude. You don't come into a company as CEO and fire all the staff; you trust them to continue doing their jobs because they want the company to keep making money. Not so government workers, it would seem.
I interpreted Barr's quotes a bit differently. I read him to say that if Trump had just a couple ounces of couth in his 260 pound body -- i.e. if he had even trace levels of civility, respect for others, and the ability to STFU just once in a great while -- he'd have won hands-down, by 10 million votes, and still be implementing his policies that you and Barr agree are good ones.
Looking at how Trump has ambushed his own party's Senate candidates and Senate chances, it's hard to disagree with Barr's summary view that Trump is (a) his own worst enemy, and (b) apparently determined to be the GOP's worst enemy.
Nonsense. Trump would have won hands-down, if the Democrat ground operation had not harvested a couple hundred thousand votes in key swing districts, flipping key swing states. Their job was made easier by the virus, allowing them to collect ballots and dump them off at tabulation centers with no chain-of-custody. It allowed them to solicit mailed ballots door to door from people who never otherwise voted. It allowed them to use dropboxes helpfully (and illegally) provided by Facebook's billionaire founder Zuckerberg, which in theory were supposed to have cameras to prevent fraud but many of the cameras were mysteriously not working. The Dems also successfully promoted the false notion that the pandemic was Trump's fault, the deaths were on him, the vaccines didn't work, and state leaders like Cuomo were "more presidential" than Trump in their daily briefings. The major networks stopped carrying Trump's daily briefings that featured Pence's pandemic task force, Fauci, Birx, et al, because Trump's approval ratings were rising too fast. So they would just show a bit of it, then cut away to an "expert" who would contradict or ridicule whatever Trump said, take it out of context, make him look like a fool, whatever they could do to undermine the country's leader in the midst of a grave crisis. Trump was never properly credited with the amazing work of bringing several effective vaccines to the public in record time, probably saving a lot of lives. Meanwhile, the New York "presidential" material guy was never held to account for the deaths of tens of thousands of nursing home residents who were needlessly exposed to virus carriers. Even Trump's initial decision to halt travel from China, back in February 2020, was criticized as "xenophobia" by Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, and others. Pelosi was featured at an Asian fair in San Francisco, insisting people should get out and enjoy life. Kamala Harris and others declared they would "never take the vaccine while Trump was in office", thus discouraging countless people from using the only known preventative; then once they were totally in power, they imposed a near-fascist regime, forcing everyone to take the vaccine and firing anyone, military or medical or anything else, who resisted.
To say that if only Trump has been nicer, he would have won by a landslide, is to ignore the multitude of vicious, dishonest, and likely illegal means the Democrats used to take him down. Yes, they succeeded. But in doing so, they caused great damage to our democracy because tens of millions of Americans lost faith in the electoral system. About 50% of Republicans consider the 2020 election fraudulent to some extent, and even 10-20% of Democrats would agree, according to polls from a year or two back. When 25% to 40% of the country has lost faith in elections, and considers the current government illegitimate, we are in a very dangerous situation that could potentially erupt into civil war. What the Democrats did was unethical and stupid and, in my opinion, treasonous.
Would you say the pro-Trump voters used dropboxes and mailed ballots? or voted mostly in person, like in the rest of the country?
What would the Florida results have looked like had there been no mail-ins and dropboxes?
If you don't know the numbers and hypotheticals, your statement is of little import.
By the way, I'm not opposed to solicited mailed ballots. Even Donald Trump voted by mail. But just spamming out unsolicited ballot cards to everyone including people who no longer live at that address... it opened the door to unknown amounts of fraud, anecdotal but certainly happened.
If this is correct (I must say that since few people agree on facts anymore..) - but according to the above 1.5 million registered Republicans voted by mail in Florida in 2020. With a million more independents joining them..(clue in on the mailed in ballots returned)
Trump won - and I'm betting that close to two million votes came via the US Postal Service..
Barr is a legal beagle and for him it’s all about the probability of conviction based on actual evidence and election fraud is nearly impossible to prove since chain of custody is broken once the ballot is separated from the mail in envelope.
I just saw an article, can't remember what site, where the Post Office just found a box of ballots for the 2020 election sitting on their shelves. There's been so many weird things like that. Plus the shenanigans on election night. I personally don't know who really won but it was not a clean election.
We will continue to find these for years to come. This was the most fraudulent election ever in our history perpetrated by the Leftist Communist Democrats and media along with Democrats controlled social media.
The thumb was on the scale to ensure Trump lost, the is true but does not make the election ilegitimate. ON the other hand if the FBI sat on evidence of influence peddling by the Biden and called it disinformation, that would bring the idea of a fraudulent election to a whole new level.
There are several "streams" of fraud: ballot fraud, influence peddling, and private management of elections are the direct ones. Then you have the indirect ones like the work Elias's group was doing to change election laws, unconstitutional laws in PA, etc...
It wasn't the thumb on the scale, it was the whole damn hand, arm, and torso. I do think, if ever honestly done, a full study on the 2020 election will show it to be illegitimate.
Neil did you see the most recent scam? Census Bureau over counting blue states and undercounting red in 2020?
Those costly errors will distort congressional representation and the Electoral College.
The states whose populations were undercounted were Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.
Congress needs to use its oversight authority to investigate and determine why these errors happened, particularly since they didn’t occur in the 2010 census.
You have to be willfully blind not to see these as systemic issues that adversely effect free and fair elections. The truth always outs. Thanks for doing your homework.
Mark if you mean Trump did everything in his power to bar illegal aliens from being counted by having a question on the census that said "are you a citizen of the USA" then yes Trump did that.
Keep in mind Obama removed that question and Wilbur Ross tried to put it back on the Census.
From the Supreme Court case syllabus:
"The census additionally serves as a means of collecting demographic information used for a variety of purposes.
There have been 23 decennial censuses since 1790. All but one between 1820 and 2000 asked at least some of the population about
their citizenship or place of birth. The question was asked of all
households until 1950, and was asked of a fraction of the population
on an alternative long-form questionnaire between 1960 and 2000.
In 2010, the citizenship question was moved from the census to the
American Community Survey, which is sent each year to a small
sample of households.
In March 2018, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced in
a memo that he had decided to reinstate a citizenship question on the
2020 census questionnaire at the request of the Department of Justice (DOJ), which sought census block level citizenship data to use in
Stan, it's not surprising that the Heritage Foundation reported this story in a manner that fits its agenda. What actually happened with the overcount can more likely be attributed to Trump's efforts to disallow the counting of non-citizens. In its review of the data, the Bureau found undercounts of Black, Latino, and indigenous peoples: “statistically significant undercounts for the Black or African American alone or in combination, American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination, Some Other Race alone or in combination, and Hispanic or Latino populations.” There is no evidence of fudging the data for political purposes. In 2010, under President Obama, the Bureau conducted the count without pressure from the White House. End of story.
They happened because the Trump administration did everything in its power to bar illegal aliens from being counted. And the red states joined with him. It turns out that there are a lot of illegal aliens in red states.
But that is Barr's point - fraud is a legal term and the DoJ could investigate but saw no evidence of substantial.fraud. Election integrity is the province of each state. The states let that crap slide. And it was crap. The election may have been legal, at least at the federal.level, but it was absolutely immoral.
If Trump had won I don't think we'd have had those horrid vax mandates. That coercive petty punitive useless policy of Biden's has had an incalculable impact on people and families. The institutions and 'experts' that we should be able to trust showed us that they're a bunch of partisan clowns. I was shocked at some of the stupid counter-intuitive and counter-productive decisions coming from the White House and the expert class.
They didn't want to find any fraud. And there is not nearly enough time to uncover, analyze, compile, and file fraud, which by its nature is covert.
Republicans need to stop whining and get as good at, um, "influencing" elections as are the Dems. Voters don't care much about fraud, states don't want to find it, and there is not enough time to make any corrections should fraud be found. Play the game before you, not the game you want to play.
I cannot like that, but I fear you are correct. As for the state's actions I have heard tidbits about misdeeds but I can't keep up with all 50 states. My instinct is that the 2020 election was manipulated.
Barr said very clearly that the DOJ investigates fraud but [election integrity] is up to the states. "Fraud" is a legal term and has an element of intent. So insistence that it was fraud deflected from the real.problem. election integrity [late rule changes, ballot harvesting, drive by voting, etc.] .
Neil, if it is inconceivable to you that "80+million people voted for Biden", that is not a sign that they didn't. It is a sign that you are living in a bubble. I don't say that to rag on you; we all live in bubbles of some kind. Look at the people still walking around outside with masks on now -- their ideological bubble is causing them to try to create a physical bubble. :-) However, once you're aware that you live in an ideological bubble, it's wise to make a concerted effort to get out of it.
I do not want to debate whether Trump lost the election. It doesn't matter. My point is that your criticism of Barr is that he's living in a DC establishment bubble, but your own statements imply that you are living in a Trump/MAGA bubble.
I agree that I would love to see Bari interview Dinesh D'Souza. But I fear such an interview would fairly quickly degenerate into the weeds of specific precincts, boxes pulled from under tables, footage of strange vans pulling up at loading docks, voting machine conspiracies, drop box stuffing, etc. For people interested in ideas, this would not be a particularly enlightening interview. The Barr interview is.
You are right that whether Trump won or lost nothing would change. And it is interesting that you don't seem to think the "weeds" are important - those are the very things that make up "the real". You simply cannot understand ideas if you don't understand the details behind them. You don't have to be an expert, but you must understand them. Other wise your ideas are build on sand.
My bubble is "fair play and the rule of law". From what I've read - and it is a substantial amount - the 2020 POTUS election was far from that.
I know I should remove myself from my bubble because that is not the way the US works now. But it's hard because I watched too much "good guy" TV when I was young. I need to learn to play the game even with it's immoralities.
While we may disagree about the election, we agree on the death of "fair play and the rule of law". The only question is when and how the Right is going to embrace the same post-liberal philosophy that the left already has.
I believe that 80+ million people voted for Biden, or let's put it this way, 80+ million ballots were tabulated for Biden; how many of those were people who actively voted, versus massive door-to-door harvesting campaigns ("I'm going to register you to vote then just sign this at the bottom") to get just enough of "our guy's votes" to flip the district, is certainly not well defined.
The Democrats used these harvesting approaches to successfully flip some traditionally Republican congressional districts in southern California; 2-3 of them were later flipped back when the Republicans used the same techniques in those districts. Ballot harvesting, by the way, had been illegal in California until the mostly-Democrat legislature legalized it, opening the door to massive fraud (or what used to be considered fraud, but today is considered "winning by any means necessary", no matter how much it demoralizes the opposition and undermines perceived electoral integrity.
I don't think there is "ABUNDANT evidence of fraud." Rather I think that the elections in certain states were "ILLEGAL". The difference between "fraud" and "illegality" is vital in this question. The "illegal" voting stemmed from fact that the legislatures in various states (I cite Pennsylvania as one) did not approve of changes to the election law (as provided by the U.S. Constitution). Yet those changes were approved by the States (in the case of Pennsylvania, by the State Supreme Court).
Call it illegal or fraudulent. Either way we have a problem that needs to be solved. Mail in ballots is not a vote of integrity. Australia at the turn of the 20th Century threw their mail in’s out of their voting system for the very reason that we should have thrown it out as well. First of all you have no chain of custody over the votes. Our votes were comprised from that moment on the rest as they say is history. It went belly up from 2020 till God know when it will improve.
The person I know that was telling Democrats to request ballots by mail AND voting in-person for the same election, hinted that there would be no chain identification for the mail-in ballot, so they would essentially get “two votes” per person.
Curious, Neil -- is there a web site, or article, or series of articles, that best summarizes all the known instances of voting fraud and irregularities that took place in 2020? It would be really interesting to see a full rundown of what was alleged to have happened in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, etc., and which have these have been proven, disproven, or neither.
There obviously are a lot of people who think the election result was illegitimate. If anyone has sewed all this together, and made a case that the actual electoral count should have been XXX-to-YYY, I'd love to see it.
While I'm sure there was some fraud, I don't think the election was stolen. I believe that had all of the states used the same laws that existed in 2016, Trump would have won. As I was watching the various states extend the number of days to count, the emphasis on mail in ballots, ballot harvesting etc. I saw the writing on the wall. It's crazy that Trump did as well as he did.
Well, I've done A LOT of reading on this, and I disagree with you. I'm probably 80% certain the election was stolen. But I also know that's not going to change anything. It never will - cheating in elections pays. Republicans better get in the game.
I knew people (my own wife, even) who were volunteering to call potential (Democrat) voters in Georgia and other purple states and get them registered. The DNC is quite the vote machine.
Okay, for all you subscribers that torch Bari when she invites a guest to publish who you may not agree with, this column is why I value CS as much as I do. Brilliant interview.
I agreed with half his points and disagreed with the other. Trump was something totally foreign to DC, and Bill Barr. He was a horrible figurehead (the opposite of Obama and JFK), but was, by far imho, the best CEO of the US (the opposite of Obama and JFK) I've ever experienced.
He took on problems that have been metastasizing in our federal government for decades, and didn't give a shit about the political fallout. When I read Barr's comment, he pretty much says that the policies were good, but his diplomacy was not. In my career I learned to separate personality from performance. Many in this country can't do that.
I also believe that he, and some in his circle believed that there was fraud in the 2020 election. I believe it too, but it would be impossible to prove. I don't think that the election was stolen, but I believe that if all of the states used the same election laws in place during the 2016 election, Trump would have won.
Anyway, Thank you Bari for this wonderful interview.
We love Bari, not Barr. Like others here I would rather she interview someone outside the Swamp who served in the Swamp like Bob Lighthizer who almost singlehandedly saved our economy advising Trump on deregulation and lowering the corporate tax rate from the highest in the world(40%) to 21%. We are not in full recession because of these actions. Barr is essentially a nobody who lived his life around failures in government.
She is about to be a mom. If she is a good one, and I suspect she will be, now it will be about what her child's life depends on. Stay tuned, I expect changes will be forthcoming.
Bari is a good interviewer. Also I think there's a difference between simply not liking Trump and TDS, which Barr admitted does exist.
I'd like to hear Bari interview AOC. That would be a hoot - Common Sense vs abject silliness. But I doubt AOC would submit to a real interview unless maybe she could be assembling something from Ikea while they talk.
Good post, Jon. I also agreed with half of Barr's points, and disagreed with the rest. Which points I disagreed with might be different with yours, since I think we view Trump differently from each other - but your main point of this interview being brilliant I totally agree with. It's frank, filled with nuance and the questions were for the most part direct and concise, with Barr responding in kind.
I think the interview is in itself newsworthy.
The performance/personality connection is an interesting one. In my mind Trump never mastered the personality trait of showing praise to a rival in order to gain support. If he had he would gotten quite a few Democrats on his side early on, especially when he wanted to put through an infrastructure bill, among other things. He was just too interested in pleasing his base.
I think Trump has too much of an ego to throw any accolades to any possible opponent - and that's where personality could affect performance.
I'd be curious what half You disagreed with, Sir Lee. I'd hafta reread it after Your reply (if any, no NEED).
I didn't find much to disagree with. In fact, I believe I'm vindicated by what he said. He said a lotta things I've *been* saying all along. So, no, I didn't find much to disagree with.
There is a lot to unpack in that interview, that's for sure. But on just two points of his I'll comment on. He supports capital punishment, and I do not. Too many innocent people have been found on death row.
And he intertwines the discipline of a religious life with limited government as envisioned by the framers of the Constitution - which I never read anywhere in any history book (and I've read a few..). In any event it's a not a view I subscribe to. You can be all for limited government and be an atheist..
Capital punishment is a tough issue. I've gone back and forth on it over the decades.
Yeah, You can be for limited government and still be an Atheist. But look at The Federalist Papers for the quote about Religion being necessary. He (Madison? Hamilton?) didn't say it was necessary for a limited goverment. He said it was necessary for a Democracy like they put together in the Constitution to function properly.
The Federalist Papers - read too long ago for me to remember, but well worth another look..
More proof, perhaps, that the Constitution is merely a product of its time, albeit an enlightened one, but based on the values and monoculture of that era, and not entirely flexible enough to encompass what our society has become, and will be.
Well, long day done. But before that, we could not possibly disagree more than on this point.
I think You're taking the view that the Constitution is outmoded because now us Atheists now much more now. (Granted, I'm only 50% Fundamentalist Atheist.) That we don't need Religion, and that actually gets in the way. Mebbe I'm misinterpreting Your views, so there is that.
But the point is that the Constitution is flexible, and open to interpretation. There's nothing that I can see that would be better than that. In fact, a whole lotta countries to our Constitution in mind when they developed theirs. I don't think that's any accident.
Longer discussion required, because that's a *very* deep difference we have.
I've been at the keyboard probably 12 hours (with a couple short breaks) and I'm played, Sir Lee. Mebbe tomorrow. Mebbe not. Have a good 'un.
Just offering a different perspective... Trump was always a gentleman to his opponents. Until they attacked and he punched back which is a first since Newt or Reagan. The media clearly attacked him at all times and he simply pushed back instead of taking their shyte. The thing that kills me is that he was willing to work with democrats, say, on immigration; "I will grant amnesty for 2M illegals, but I want a border wall." They emphatically said no and shut down the government. The 2M number is what they had talked about for years and then? No.
Another was McCain who actually campaigned on dismantling Ocare in 2018 and then abruptly thumbed down at the moment of repeal. All to spite Trump after telling voters he would do it.
When you are not dealing with reputable people, well, Trump was right to get nasty. I work with some executives who make Trump look humble; that is who they are: HIGHLY competitive, ladies and gentlemen until the other side gets nasty, very successful and competent, and treat others as professionals - until their adversary goes dark.
This is the real Trump and the rest in leadership at the federal government, including Barr, are incompetent at other than self preservation. Remember, Barr was AG when Ruby Ridge went down and an innocent mother was shot in the face and a 14 yr old boy was shot in the back by his employees.
I too enjoyed the interview but I respect and generally agree with Barr. And I agree with all you said above but with one critical difference. I'll support Trump if it is my only republican choice but DeSantis is a better option.
I sympathize with the fear and anger Trump feels, we are absolutely in a battle for the soul and preservation of the America I want to my kids to live in. And if we do not stand up for it against this neo marxist orthodoxy that the Democrat Party has devolved into, the country will likely degenerate into a hard left, fascist state with excesses that will likely cause it to self-destruct and take down the rest of the somewhat free world with it.
Here's my point of difference, he doesn't listen to the people he himself chose to surround himself with. It is not, oh they are Rino's or they are from the swamp, it is that he wants to rule and not lead. We need someone with his toughness but also who has enough self-control and wisdom to lead us out of the abyss we are falling into. The problem is so large, so complex, so intractable, that only a strong leader, who knows how to listen to, and follow good advice when he gets it will be successful. There will be hard to explain, new ways of approaching the problem, that will need both a hard and a soft touch. I think DeSantis' legislative work is a good example of that. If you haven't read it, read the Anti-Woke ACT here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/7/BillText/er/PDF
I too would prefer DeSantis, but the Mar-a-Lago raid pretty much makes this Trump's nomination if he wants it. The cynic in me wonders if that was the intention as the left fears DeSantis more than Trump in 24.
I love DeSantis as well, but the big money donors are already 'giving'. Trump belongs to nobody and that is precisely why he was ousted. The "Liberal International Order" - Globalism - must proceed with the decline of America.
An excellent interview, and professionally done. It's the type of piece we'd have seen in the Washington Post or New York Times back when they were actual news organizations rather than adjuncts of a political party.
So happy to be supporting Bari's journalism instead of those other outfits. I'll be forwarding this article to several friends who still (inexplicably) rely on MSM sources, with a note that says, "Here's what an objective, professional interview looks like... since you don't get that sort of thing anymore from your preferred news sources."
I'm not sure even Barr was against Trump per se, he just hated him blasting everything out via Twitter.
Trump could have have given a five minute press conference every day, not tweeted and probably won going away. (as long as he didn't get too crazy in the 5 minutes)
You may not agree. Likely won't. I think that's just a lame excuse for Trump's outrageous behavior on Twitter. And I believe the *main* reason Trump tweeted like he did was simply because he was narcissistic. Granted, I'm not a psychologist, but I don't think it takes one to see that.
I don't Twitter much but I did hear that his aides were doing some of the tweets. That said, Trump seemed to disrespect the office of president while at the same time loving the country and doing good for it. Sort of like a bi-polar effect.
"When I read Barr's comment, he pretty much says that the policies were good, but his diplomacy was not. In my career I learned to separate personality from performance. Many in this country can't do that."
You should learn to do it, Jon, IMO.
The policies are the shallow part of governing. The leading is the main thing, and Trump was one-a the worst leaders this country has ever seen.
So that balances out. And no. Anyone that thinks he's ONE-A THE BEST OF ALL TIME?
It balances out, but on balance, not in his favor. Jan 6 he showed his true colors. Skunk.
Point is, his unpredictability was like a lotta his actions. Totally UNcontrolled. He was a "high-flyin, I'm number one, and everybody get outta my WAY, kind-a guy. Despite the number of bankruptcies, I assume he was successful. But, see? BILLIONAIRES can get away with a lotta that kind-a *crap* that most people learn to stay clear from.
In "The Leader of the Free World?" That kind-a BILLIONAIRE crap is a DISadvantage.
That is precisy why Barr and the rest of the federal barista's hated him. He was uncontrollable and that is the way it should be. Same as Reagan and Nixon; they successfully took Nixon and Trump out using the FBI.
China, NoKo, Iran and Russia respected Trump? I'm not so certain.
Now Trump respected *them* no doubt. All the totalitarians. But, IMO, Xi played Trump for a fool, for example, when the Wuhan virus came out. Xi "respectfully" declined to cooperate with Trump right at the beginning. "No," and that was the end of the call.
All our politicians any more are millionaires on their way to becoming billionaires, whether from business or mysteriously 'made' during their time in office. Bartender and economic genius AOC is now reportedly 'worth' $29m
Naw, it takes a certain kind-a ruthlessness to become a Billionaire.
Granted, a *lotta* the politicians these days have that kind-a ruthlessness. But I don't think that's most-a them. But, then, ICBW about that. Been wrong before a time or two. ;-)
I have tried yo refrain from comments antagonistic to yours on this article. I understand your prejudice and am not likely to reach you with reason, but for heaven's sake man you said formulation of policy is the easy part, that "leadership" is the hard part. History is replete with charismatic leaders who were awful - Hitler, Jim Jomes, that odious little Dr. Fauci.
Lynne - agree. For us out here in society-land what matters is the policies instituted that affect us. For that I like Trump, also I personally thought he was funny.
I'd say most of the hatred for him has nothing to do with what he actually did but is Dems venomous talking points - racist nazi fascist etc. thrown at him like childish schoolyard taunts.
Yeah, I noticed that. I appreciate it. But I'm not at *all* sure *You're* amenable to reason.
I'm not saying Trump *wasn't* charismatic. And Your examples make my point about the results.
I wouldn't even require Trump to be muchuva leader if he could-a only acted like an *adult.* It wasn't in him. Character of slime mold, and all that. Yeah, that's the hard part in most people's lives. Living up to principles. Some have trouble more than others, Yours one-a the least troubles of all.
I do not think Trump was charismatic. Far from it. I think Barr's analysis of Trump was spot on. All of it. But, like Barr, I think Trump was very much needed and his policies were very good for the country. Had Trump been afforded a modicum.of respect, which the office deserves, by the Dems or the MSM he might well have had an opportunity to be more "Presidential". But he was not afforded that opportunity from day one (remember that odious Comey did not even eant to brief him)and so he tweeted. BFD. I think he demonstrated how meaningless the press really is. And at some level I think this demonstrates the old substance or appearance dilemma. I equate Trump's policies with substance and I will take that over appearance any day.
I dunno what BFD means. And I agree with Barr too. I guess we interpret it differently.
No, it's not a question of substance or appearance. Or rather, You've got the two mixed up.
The *substance* was him not turning power over. The appearance was his charisma. That's how he duped You all into thinking he was great because of his policies. He didn't get respect, because he didn't deserve it, for the most part.
But, yeah, the office deserves some. He never made any effort to assume the office, as an adult would, was the problem.
So. Yeah, I take substance over appearance every day. Trump had no substance, is the fact of the matter. Was he needed at that time? He served a useful purpose. I think I learned a lot about the political/economic/social situation from him. That's history.
Today, I don't see why You can't see what I'm "saying" here.
Biden is as Biden has always been, mean and inconsiderate to the American people. He believes he is above us all and doesn't have the sense to hide it. He's the biggest moron the White House has ever seen. He makes Bush Jr. look like Einstein.
I have an insider's view on what they think, because many members of my family have a permanent case of TDS. So I have to disagree with you. They see the rest of the country not as an abstraction but as something very real and terrifying, i.e., an incorrigible mass of half-witted dirt farmers, miscreants, religious fanatics and members of the KKK. Yes, it is that bad.
The day that Bill Barr came out and said he didn’t think there was enough fraud to overcome the results I accepted that as the truth. I trust what Barr says. That doesn’t mean that the Democrats didn’t use Covid as an excuse to change election rules to favor themselves, because they did. And it doesn’t mean that Zuckerberg’s $375 million dollars didn’t help the Democrats, because it did. What it means is that the Republicans didn’t do enough in the months before the election to fight these activities from happening, maybe intentionally. We should learn from these mistakes. Bill Barr was a good and honest AG, unlike Garland. I hope Trump retires and stays out of the election. He’s just too chaotic.
I think Barr doesn't want to find fraud, because there was plenty of it from what I've read. I also don't think Barr as looked into it very deeply and just assumes things about election fraud.
Ponder on this pilgrims: let's say that there is irrefutable proof that the 2020 POTUS election was stolen during vote counting. Let's say that proof is highly disseminated. What would happen? The repercussions would be beyond 9/11+Pearl Harbor - globally.
It is much safer to just say "nothing to see here, move along".
That's why Republicans need to play the game. It will never be clean and fair. Accept and adjust.
I think there's a distinction between "fraud", prosecutable on a Fed level and what some of the discrepancies were. Allowing drop boxes uncontrolled? State responsibility. Allowing a billionaire to come in and spend 100's of millions to get out the vote in blue districts? State responsibility. etc, etc, etc
Bees - they see us pretty much as we see them, but instead of dirt farmers we see them as half-witted child groomers, miscreants, climate-religious fanatics and founders of the KKK
I don't see my family or progressives in general as any of those things you mention. (Founders of the KKK?) And I know many, because I live in Liberal Land. I volunteer at a local church and the parishioners I work with are nice and kind people. Problem is, they’re woke up the wazoo, complete with the dopey pronouns. It’s a problem of intellectual and emotional capture induced by fear and a hefty portion of white guilt.
Progressives are not groomers, generally speaking, but through their dead-eyed, brain-dead, unquestioning support of gender ideology, they empower the groomers. The problem is, they don’t believe there are groomers. When you’ve been told over and over again that Chris Rufo and James Lindsay are nazis, you don’t check for yourself. That’s the difference between them and me. They live in a comfy media bubble from which they never stray. Even Substack is suspect. Fear has made them incurious and very sure of themselves. It’s a wonderment.
Take it from me: you can't divorce your family. You can laugh at them, though - without comment. Be sure to NEVER comment, no matter how much they bait you. Drives them out of their minds, so at least you get a little bit of retribution that way. And they leave you alone about politics.
Well gee, that sounds familiar. I mistakenly uttered Tucker Carlson’s name once at dinner, and my brother-in-law almost had a coronary. We had to talk him down with a piece of chocolate cake..
You right Doc the best medicine is not to take the bait. But what seriously drives me mad is when they all scream blue murder at the injustices of Covid vaccine and mask mandates or Dr Fauci’s incessant lying , or worse still the raid on President Trump’s home which they all thought was a total witch hunt on the President - yeah go figure I’m living in a nuthouse🤣🤣
Haha…nah, it’s shocking and disheartening, but I love my family. There are some very kind people among them.
It’s an interesting exercise in tolerance and detachment, because despite the perfect world they envision, this country will never conform to their rigid beliefs. Anyway, I’m way too old to start over.
I struggle with two D Sisters. I'm pretty sure Older-Sister is Woke, so I don't talk with her much about anything that I find interesting. (Come to think, it's been a while since we chatted in emails.)
I yelled and swore at Younger-Sister last call. Doesn't do either of us any good. Normally I don't get frustrated by any-a that, but that day it was too much.
We're all in our 60s and 70s, so yeah. WAY too old to start over.
I don’t see how people got that Barr is anti-Trump. He gave his account of what he experienced and gave his opinions about Trump, negative AND positive. I found him authentic and Bari did a great job with her questions.
Indeed. This addiction to "..I'm so shocked who would have thought they'd do his to poor little me.." speaks directly to some deeper damage holding us in thrall to forces that mean us ill. At the core, the POWER does reside with "..we the people.." People and institutions willing to lie directly in our faces have no respect for our lives or our country.
Your comment is interesting to me because somewhere in the interview Barr was asked if he would vote for Trump again if he was up against suggested Dem challengers and he answered yes..
I still say DeSantis will not run in 2024 and if I were him I wouldn't. WHY would he?
He's leading a state that loves him. The national media can't touch him really. Once he hits the campaign trail all bets are off. They will devour him. Why would any sane person want to deal with that in today's society?
I agree. The country will be better off if DeSantis stays right where he is so our governors can observe and copy his approach to policy and take as much advantage of states' rights as he does. The problem is that not every elected official is as confident and clearheaded as he is when it comes to dealing with the media and progressive rhetoric. He's immune to bullying.
DeSantis is still young. I think he will eventually run but maybe not in 2024. He seems open to a bigger office but another term in Florida might make him stronger.
So - who would be an alternative to Trump? It seems like we have a sad dearth of leadership/sane people anymore, whether GOP or Dems. Partisanship has taken over and I think Barr covered that well.
Yes, no one in their right mind would subject themselves and their family to the attacks associated with running for public office. This is why we have terrible candidates running for public office. The brain drain in American politics is stunning and We The People are suffering terribly from it.
I agree, but I sure wish he would. I am so over all things Trump. Can you imagine what his campaign will sound like? This time around it’ll be about all the terrible things that were done to him. That sure isn’t what independents will want to hear. I voted for him twice, and I don’t want to be forced to vote for him again because obviously I can’t ever vote for a democrat after the places this admin has taken us. 2024 will be all be about revenge for Trump.
I voted for him twice and I don't want him to run again. I just wish the Democrats and the media would have just ignored him. Instead they put him back in the spotlight 24/7. Most people were ready to move on.
I will say this, because so many people had reservations about the election outcome the Democrats did zero things to try and make future elections more secure. It's as if they accept how elections are run now as being completely free from fraud. That will never fly with many Trump supporters.
Linda - my thoughts exactly. Trump has a chip on his shoulder now (and rightly so, but still) and half the country hates him. It would be chaos.
But at this point I'd cut off my hand before I'd vote for a Dem. Voting for one Dem means you vote for them all and Pelosi is just too vile. She's like a geriatric Chucky.
I like your thinking on this--and really do wonder whether DeSantis in actual fact has more power as governor of this model state than he would lodged in the Deep-State mess of Washington.
Of course that's Trump- I never said otherwise. But his policies were good, thousand times better than Biden IMO. But like I said I don't want him running again. I would like to see the next candidate have similar policies.
I like DeSantis but being a good governor is not the same as going up against the DC Bureaucratic machine, fresh off the destroy Trump campaign. Our State Dept, Intel Agencies, and all the alphabet agencies have experienced new found clout and power having bested Trump. I consider what was done to Trump by these bureaucrats to be Treason if as seems to be the case they were intentionally lying in an attempt to remove a duly elected President.
Why would he? Because he wants to be President. All governors of big states salivate at the idea of being President. It's one of the traits that got them to where they are at now lol.
If you hadn’t noticed, DeSantis is rallying in other states. No one does that if their eye is only on remaining governor of one state.
I think it’s good that both DeSantis and Youngkin are helping out in the senate races. If those people win, then it is good for their resumes. If they lose, then at least they introduced themselves to the voters in other states. And if the guys they help win, they get good time tokens from the voters and the elected officials.
Plus, they can rally in other states without the baggage Trump carries at this delicate time.
William Barr can dissemble, shuffle, shuck, and jive all he wants. I am not a young player, and I still have a very good memory; I not only remember election night 2020 perfectly, I remember the months leading up to the election, with Trump rallies - sometimes three or more per day - attended by tens of thousands, while Biden couldn't get three men, a boy, and a dog to listen to him without hanging a pork chop around the boy's neck for the dog. I have reviewed the videos and cell phone tracks of people who made repeated trips after midnight to ballot dropboxes. I have reviewed the video of suspended vote counting - never EVER done before - with subsequent ushering-out of observers, followed by suitcases of ballots appearing from under covered tables - the coverings themselves even illegal. I have reviewed cases where courts flatly refused to hear evidence - not evidence, proof - of fraud, lest it then be immortalized in the public record. I watched testimony of experts who were able to scan ballots to determine if they had been folded - necessary for them to be mailed instead of just photocopied - who were dismissed and their offers refused. I watched a live demonstration of a white-hat hacker's invasion of a Dominion voting machine from the next room. I reviewed traffic logs that showed Dominion machines' over multiple jurisdictions synchronizing to reveal exactly the same percentages for Trump on every one and synchronized percentages on each for Biden. I was born at night, but not LAST night. I know what happened as well as I know I'll take my next breath, and so do millions - no, tens of millions - of others.
Bill Barr is a lifelong product of the Unelected Deep State, is more than anything committed to preservation of the Permanent Deep State and defending it against damage from those "temporary" politicians who change every four years. He is bright - very bright, and he managed to hold the line for a while. But a great number of people are awake now - not woke, awake - and it may be possible, just may, to restore this great Nation to honesty and integrity. This Republic needs a giant enema, and while Barr may not be the first evacuated, if there is a God in heaven, I believe that his time will come.
LOL. I always say I want to be king, not president, not prime minister. King, so if I say it, it happens. But only 24 hours. Any longer and I might start liking it.
But after 24 hours, I'll give you back a nation that nobody under a hundred years old will remember. And a nationwide rope shortage to go with it.
Having read his book and listened to all of this interview, I'm not inclined to accept your opinion of Barr. He says he had the justice department investigate the claims of fraud but found them to be dead ends, unsubstantiated, finding no irregularities that would have come close to changing the outcome of the election. I doubt your review of the "evidence" went any deeper than his, or that you had the privileged access to the evidence needed to determine its veracity beyond a reasonable doubt. So I have a hard time understanding what real motive Barr might have had for undermining claims of fraud given his qualified support of Trump and his policies, your characterization of the man notwithstanding. It doesn't add up. On the other hand, I can easily believe that this was Trump's election to lose and he did just that. I voted for him because Mike Pence was on the ticket, the only sane and sensible candidate I saw in the debates, and because I could see that what was coming with Biden as President would be much worse (though I only saw the half of it at the time).
I could refute that line by line, but today's article by Conrad Black sums it up very well:
"It seems clear that in the 2020 presidential election, where Trump could have prevailed in the Electoral College if 50,000 votes had flipped in Pennsylvania and any two of Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, that millions of ballots potentially passed through hands that could not be identified. All of this occurred in swing states where rules were changed ostensibly to facilitate voting during the pandemic. But in the case of a number of states, contrary to the Constitution, these changes were determined not by the state legislatures but by executive branches or state judiciaries. In every one of the 19 lawsuits launched to attack these questionable changes to voting and vote counting rules, the judiciary, including in the case of the Texas attorney general’s action against the swing states and supported by 18 other state attorneys general, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear any of these cases on their merits; they were disallowed for technical reasons, some of those quite spurious."
William Barr, like many others born, bred, and raised in the DC Swamp, is absolutely dedicated to preservation of the Deep State - which, as I have said, he views as sacrosanct - "career officials," as opposed to those "temporary" elected ones. That someone steeped in decades of loyalty to those institutions would put his finger on the scale in favor of preserving them "adds up" quite well, thankyouverymuch.
Well said, Jim. As George Carlin said "It's a big club.... and you ain't in it." Indeed, they are about preserving the establishment and the D.C. corrupt business model. Trump was disrupting trillions of that Swamp - your tax dollars back into your pockets - and had to go.
You dont find irregularities if you dont look for them. He didnt audit a thing. Just a 'gentlemans' wink among fellow government employees who profit from not rocking a boat.
There were 10s of thousands of signed affadavits from poll workers no legal entity even entertained. Easier that way. For Barr.
Your characterization of Barr doesn't make sense to me given what I've read and observed. There were plenty of irregularities due to changes in the voting rules during the Covid crisis. Barr acknowledged as much and that they did provide opportunities for fraud. Democrats have seen those opportunities to be in their favor and so oppose reasonable measures being taken since by some states to help ensure the integrity of the process. When Barr's staff did look into the irregularities they didn't amount to fraud on a scale that would have made a difference in the outcome. As for the "10s of thousands of affidavits", where are they? How do we know they're legit? We've been told many things like this and have been told things about what we're seeing in obscure online video and commentary indicating voter fraud as if there could be no larger context that would cast doubt on what we're being told. Forgive me for being skeptical. I'm not new to the games played on the internet either. It's made me all too familiar with the way many people are led to believe what they want to believe no matter what their political persuasion.
Fair comment. This is just me personally... Donald Trump was up by 800,000 votes at 9:30 pm in PA. And then they stopped counting in the six swing states where they have never done that before. Watch '2000 Mules' which highlights how republicans have used the same tactics. Common sense. Bill Barr, probably rightly, had no interest in walking into a shitstorm where every force in America was waiting to attack him. I was afraid to go into battle on behalf of this nation and into I went. You gotta do what is right. Please consider this:
No, you find them if they are there. And of course, with more than a hundred million votes, you WILL find them. That's not the question. The question is, "Were there enough irregularities to change the outcome?"
C'mon man. I guy that couldn't even get 50% of the vote doesn't know what actually works. Or he would-a adjusted, the way Barr recommended. He couldn't. He lost because-a that.
And he was the opposite of being for ALL Americans, right?
Don't waste your time with jt. He's trolling any inkling of a positive comment about Trump and saying everyone has TDS or DTS. I think he might be an actual paid troll, but not sure. He writes oddly (because-a) and just seems off. I would ignore his comments entirely.
I don't think You could conceive of even one bad quality of Trump that makes him unfit for office, right? And there's more than one. I think some 80 or 90K of them, meaning the votes against.
Ooops. I always make a lotta mistakes. Because, as I've stated before numerous times, I NEVER look at what I type. I never claimed to be a writer, and I don't write the way they do.
IOW, yeah, I meant M. You got the point, didn't You. I rest my case. ;-)
I don't mean to pick on you, but in my court you just forfeited.
I have a friend who says that: "It's just me being me." My response? "That's no excuse. If you can't do better, then be somebody else."
Typos happen; everybody knows that; everybody has trouble with commas. But writers write. If you are going to write, then write. Don't excuse your dirty pants at dinner by saying, "I've been working on the car all day." Change your pants. Proof your copy. Check to see if you are using acronyms (my pet peeve) whose meaning is known only to a few - or one.
Sorry pal. I've seen that kind-a advice. I wrote on Medium.com and read more advice than I care to think about.
All I gotta say is I'm not gonna do it Your way. I have NEVER have written that way in spite of all the advice and am not about to start now. I don't claim to BE a writer. If that offends Your sensibilities, then I advise You to skip over my comments.
In the meantime, I'll write by instincts and not put a whole lotta thought into what I write at all. Sorry. But that's the only way I know.
Agree with the Trump energy and momentum, and the shenanigans on election night. It's like certain states saw 2016 happening again and had to shut down and regroup. Very suspicious.
"I think Trump did serve a historic purpose: He was sort of the wrecking ball and against progressive excess. People were mad about it, and they wanted a no-nonsense person who would be a wrecking ball, and he did that."
Our political establishment has failed working Americans and benefited the Davos crowd. Think John Kerry flying a private jet across the Atlantic to accept an award for his environmental activism and now Democrats say we need higher energy prices. That's the kind of thing that makes people angry.
So, um, when will we get an interview with someone who isn't a lackey for the establishment?
I like Bill Barr well enough. I figure there was nothing he could do within the law about the election. But when he says Trump wasn't "disciplined" enough, he's not really saying what you and I would think: meaning Trump needed to put his phone down and text a whole lot less, maybe read a few history books and law articles. What Bill Barr means is Trump didn't "play the game." And it is all a game.
And Chris Wray is a vermin of the swamp. Trump's biggest fault was picking people from within the swamp to head the swamp, and as much as I want to give Bill Barr the benefit of the doubt, he is no less a swamp creature than anyone else, just perhaps not as scaley.
Trump's greatest virtue - his willingness to be a bare-knuckle fighter when no one else was willing - has gained him tremendous loyalty. But it's also his greatest failing. As Barr notes, he had his day in court. Perhaps if he had made better use of it, things would have been different. Perhaps if he had "played the game," we wouldn't be having this debate. The "game" is not playing to the emotions of your constituency. It's proving your case.
Proving election fraud on a major scale doesn't happen through anecdotal evidence, a few here and a few there. After a few hundred such, can we assume - or at least, strongly suspect - there's a "there there"? Sure, but that's not evidence.
Indeed the window is short, which is why Barr notes correctly it's a bad idea to waste it. Not wasting it requires discipline. Which was lacking.
Has the country been damaged? Certainly. And it's fairly evident that if Biden had confidence in his 80 million votes there is much he could have done to stamp out fraud and restore public confidence in the integrity of the election. But bear in mind it's his team that wants to abolish the electoral college. Those who wish to change the rules rarely waste energy enforcing them.
Republicans would be wise to take Barr's observation to heart, be disciplined, and make good use of the short window between the midterms and 2024.
ICBW, but I believe, just from what You've written, that You're one-a the people with tremendous loyalty to Trump. Me? No problem with that. It just indicates how to read what You right. Very glad to see You recognize some-a his failings. Actually agree with most-a what You "said."
When you said you agreed with about half (or most?), you had me curious because I thought you’d tell me which half, one way or another. That would enrich the debate.
Instead, you want to guess at my motivations. I can’t think of anything less interesting.
Anybody who looked at Trump realistically would see that Barr saw the situation through and through. Unless You think he would recommend Trump read a book. I don't think Barr is *that* silly. But, yeah, Barr meant what people would *think* he meant, because he's talking the truth of the situation that anybody can see.
Two things can be true at once: (1) Trump is a buffoon who is easy to persecute and not very professional nor "presidential," and (2) Barr only cares about those facts in so far as they affect the mass's buy-in of the status quo power structure and, perhaps, his party's chances at returning to power.
Okay, if You wanna be technical about it, there's *always* two things that aren't aligned which can be true at once.
That's a meme that's overdone, as far as I'm concerned.
I agree with most, but I'm not at all sure that Barr only cares about the status quo. And can You see any good reason why he *shouldn't* care about his party's chances at returning to power.
I'm guessing You're not as concerned about that as he is, if You're thinking on supporting the buffon who is not only *not* presidential, but unfit for the office.
That meme is far from overdone. It's something people have forgotten. We're constantly trapped in a prism of two ideas, as Greg Gutfeld puts it so well.
And speaking of prisms of two ideas, there's a difference between supporting and voting for. If the Democrats give me no choice (meaning they run another "anointed" candidate like Hillary or Biden) and Republicans choose Trump, I'll vote for Trump again. But that's what people miss. We haven't had a "presidential" president in a long time. From Clinton onward (Clinton being the first president I can remember well), they were all unfit for office, more in it for the glory or the prestige or the money than for the public service. They all have the same narcissism as Trump. The only difference is Trump is more open about it (vastly more open). And Trump is by far the least immoral/amoral among them, though that is frightening to say given what he did for a living.
I care about what things *are*. Barr is all over the right about being outraged about the raid on Mar-a-Lago, but the right has a right to be outraged. Bill Barr says we need to vote people in to change things, but forgets the precedent of 2020 where we're all supposed to forget the shenanigans, from the censorship to the last minute rule changes to, yes, fraud however much there was. How do you "vote people in" in a rigged system? Barr's a smart man, a very smart man, so why is he not asking the most simple of questions.
I have news for Bill Barr. The Republican party is now the inconvenient party. It's not that it's more noble. It just didn't win the game of musical chairs. The Democrat party is useful at the moment because of its divisive dedication to idpol and will continue to be because the "deplorables" are flocking to the Republican party, and by "deplorables," I mean the mass of working and middle class that see the wild transfer of wealth upward in the guise of "public health" or "social justice" or "climate change," that are tired of the rules for thee but not for me approach we've seen over the last three years at least. If Bill Barr wants to save his party, he'll open his eyes. It's slated as the villain in this Hollywood piece, not because it did anything wrong or right, but because that has to be the story to keep the elite and the permanent state in power.
I can see You're very passionate about this. But I think it colors Your perception about what Trump is. I find a lotta very complimentary things about Trump. I don't see anything the *isn't* complementary.
So I can't accept, at face value, how You imply that You may vote for Trump but You're not necessarily a supporter.
There are some things You "say" that I agree with. But the overall tone? Not so much.
I think it's You who should open Your eyes. Bill Barr isn't interested in keeping the elite and the permanent state in power. And he sees a lot clearer where the pitfalls are and what needs to be done.
If we knew Bill Barr a little better, I don't think he'd disagree with You on very much. Just the crap about the election being stolen and the aftermath of all that which Trump did. I think he has his eyes wide open and sees things pretty clear, since he was there at the time.
The only thing I'd disagree with Barr about is that I *probably* could never get myself to vote for him. I want the Rs to do well, but I'm not as attached to the party as he is. Other than that, I can't find much to disagree with him about.
And I have a little trouble understanding how someone can't understand the difference between a voter and supporter. The only people I've come across who don't seem to be able to see that difference are the ones with TDS. There's always a difference between a voter and a supporter.
As a very deliberative attorney I think he speaks quite precisely when he wants to. And then there is his family connection to Epstein...and how many connections to Epstein's clients? Which is to say, I see good reasons to wonder how far from the swamp and its stench Barr truly is.
I don’t see him as an “establishment” (traditional power structure) figure as much as a Constitutionalist. Case in point 1: he says clearly it was up to states to pursue claims of voter fraud. That is, by law, correct. And that has happened, in Wisconsin, Florida, and Arizona. Case in point 2: he correctly calls out both sides for their extra-Constitutional excesses: the impeachments, the riot at the Capitol.
Barr has great respect for the office of President, and while supporting Trump’s policies, deplored Trump’s irrationality in the role. I pretty much agree with that, and also agree Trump’s actions now risk a pivot to more rational governance as he pursues his detractors for electoral vengeance. Gotta move on, gotta figure out how not to get even, but to win.
So you really only have two choices with Bill Barr: establishment lackey or so naive it's painful. I suppose there's a third: myopic. None of those choices are good. I read the article article quickly but then I went searching for terms making sure I didn't miss something, and I didn't. I can explain why I call him a lackey with the following: You *cannot* talk about the last election w/o addressing the abuse of emergency powers to change election procedures, the censorship of the New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop, the abuse of the security services, and "Zuckerbucks." Bill Barr is pretending that the only thing of note in that whole election was that Donald Trump refused to concede. It wasn't. That was an election that would make banana republics go "Damn, wish I'd thought of that." And Bill Barr is only worried about what happened because it made "Republicans look bad."
As I said, I like Bill Barr just fine, but he's so deep in the DC swamp that he has no idea why people were enraged and none of that bothered him. It seems like he thought it was just "business as usual," and maybe it was, just a little too in-your-face. Trump might have lost the ballot count (might, I'm having more trouble with the idea that there was no measurable fraud the more Democrats push to make the "pandemic" election rules, which were little more than a free-for-all, permanent), but that does not in any way mean the election was anything remotely resembling democratic and wasn't "rigged."
The problem with the above and with the undermining of our institutions with what Barr calls partisanship but I think is closer to servitude to a very specific subset of interests (the establishment) that are really pretty apolitical is that a country, let alone a democracy, *cannot* survive without faith in elections and faith in our governing institutions. Trump did not shake people's faith in those. The Democrats, the Republicans, and the bureaucrats did in their quest to keep up this game where they give lip service to serving their constituencies but behind closed doors serve themselves and their donors. And Bill Barr is part of that system and has been for a long time. It doesn't mean I hate him. He's just part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
And the reason he defended Trump up to that last stretch is that Trump is not really a threat to the elite either. The people Trump attracted are, but Trump is not. Unless because of him people start to realize how crooked the system actually is and people start going to the source of the problem, which is to say to Capitol Hill. That is where Trump lost Barr. However corrupt the system is, Barr still can't think outside it.
I can hear your passion and I share your concerns about the integrity of elections. I just don’t interpret Barr’s words and actions the same way you do. On a scale of 1 to 100, I would still put Barr at about 80 for upholding the Constitution, and trying to do what was best for the country.
You didn't even try to take in what the Lady wrote, did You.
Deranged Trump Supporter, probably.
I dunno the Lady in the Lake *personally* but i *seriously* doubt she thinks there are no guilty people in prisons. But to You guys, that's just the kind of attack I would expect You to make.
"These ideas—that Trump was working with Putin; that he received unfair help in the election from Russian meddling—were ideas that many supposedly serious people endorsed every single night on television and in our newspapers. These ideas were mainstream. "
Only someone from the Democrat-media complex could say that those ideas were mainstream. And they would have to be intellectually dishonest to believe them. They knew that in all the overblown "reporting" they did on Russiagate that there was no evidence of collusion at all.
How can Barr say how deranged people are against Trump and then say there was no fraud which would have exactly been in lockstep with the derangement?
And the biggest tell on fraud? The screams of the left when legislatures want to have rules about requiring voter ID and how to request a ballot and how to return a mail in ballot. If there is no fraud, there wouldn’t be any screams of frustration.
Regardless, I’d just like to move on. We need a neutron bomb so we can start over.
I think red counties need to form a new country, and the blue counties on the left coast and New England form the own countries. I don't see how we go forward with election fraud unchecked. Why should we all have to be subjected to the Democrat party that is now setting the narrative to throw out the Constitution? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/opinion/liberals-constitution.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur
LA - there's a book series by a conservative author, a dystopian version of the US where the country fractures into different zones based on politics and culture. The author is Kurt Schlichter. I read part of the 1st in the series. Not great literature but an interesting premise in the EndofheWorld/Apocalypse genre.
So, the CLINTON Administration tried to hang Putin around President Trump? Not one word about about President Obama's administration going along with it - no mention of overlooking Putin's foray into Crimea, Hillary's bungled Russian reset. Really?
"But Trump did it [fired Comey] at the height of the Mueller investigation. Do you think that it was unwise to do so then?" Barr answers accepting this incorrect factual predicate.
Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017. Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017.
It seems telling that both sought to obscure this fact, perhaps it was an honest mistake. Trump fired Comey only 4.5 months after his inauguration, and it is reasonable to see the immediate appointment of Mueller as payback or as a tool to prevent repercussions for such things as the Carter Page wiretap and the taking of the Steele dossier seriously. If so, mission accomplished.
Another one coming out of the woodwork to diminish Trumps success of exposing the DC swamp for what it is. A bunch of lying no good SOB's who could care less about those of us who grind it out everyday and play by the rules.
Pathetic.
Barr did squat to hold any of the swamp to account for their BS.
I don’t see it that way. He appointed John Durham as a Special Counsel, the correct way to investigate the origins of Russia Collusion, in my opinion. He seems to me to be a by-the-book Attorney General. He gives ample credit to Trump’s policy initiatives and places blame squarely where it belongs: on progressives, who rationalized their tactics and on Trump’s own intemperance. I think we can all agree with his statement that if Trump could have simply restrained some of his unseemly behavior, he would have been re-elected and would have been a truly great President.
It wasn't Trump's behavior; it was his mouth. That's all. He said out loud the things a lot of us were thinking, which is what made him as popular as he was. His actions were good; his decisions were for the most part very well done.
At some point, people are going to have to face reality. Not every single person that says what you don’t want to believe about Trump is a lying liar. Barr didn’t have to take the job. He did take it because he felt Trump was being persecuted and wanted to correct the historical record concerning Trump and the Russian collusion hoax. He was, perhaps, the only person that Trump hired that had an ounce of integrity.
Trump has the personality that Barr described. He wasn’t a mellow leader. He had mental faults that were electorally devastating. He was so egotistical that he held the J6 rally at the Capitol, knowing full well that the swamp would set him up in some manner. He only considered his own ego. He didn’t think about how a riot would effect every single Republican across the nation and how it would degrade the party. He was not a thoughtful leader. He can’t win again. Get over it.
Not really. It’s sort of sad that people won’t accept the fact that Trump had a nasty temper, treated people that were there to help him like shit and couldn’t understand that the swamp really was a swamp out to get him. How many different people that worked for Trump have to say he was a lousy leader before it penetrates some voters minds that it’s possible those people are telling the truth?
I wish Bari would have asked him about Zuckerburg's 400 million dollar donation to help finance local elections in swing states and the impact on the 2020 Presidential election along with voter harvesting.
Interesting read, Sounds Like Muller was a placeholder brought in for gravitas while underlings crafted the script. After his testimony I always suspected Muller never actually read the Mueller report. IN regards to RINOS and such, I think Barr is making a mistake about why goer's get upset. For decades now there has been a wing of the Republican Party that never met a war or a wiretap they wouldn't support, toss in free trade and platitudes about how awesome Regan. All the while America's interest suffer, working and middle class find life harder and harder and The DC crew and surrounding areas become engorged. I was just reading about how the student loan forgivable is going to be a boondoggle to congress and white house staffers and I would assume the host of NGO workers who hover for that sweet Fed money. Trump said "F You" and wouldn't listen! Sure and most Trump supporters including myself would say so what, who is the perfect President ? Clinton, a man who sexually exploited women and abused his position, W Bush, really? Obama, Barr has an issue with radical progressives, how about the guy who turned Title IX into a weapon against women and due process. Either way thanks for the interview was quite enlightening.
Years ago right after after Muller's team was put together I was at a speaking event with Howard Dean and Ed Rollins, Dean and Rollins were chuckling about Trump better be ready since these guys were brutal.
Weissmann was the guy that ignored the Brady rule when going after some of the investment banks for Enron. Those guys landed in jail for a while before Sydney Powell got them out. Her book, Licensed to Lie, was very good. Weissmann is plotting his ascension to Director, FBI. It’s clear as day.
Bill Barr is an opportunist. Trump was in many ways a terrific president but he was vulgar which set off major pearl clutching by the self-satisfied elites. What about the millions of Americans who voted for him? Don't they deserve a proper election review?
Didn't they deserve to have 4 years of governance from the man they voted for without constant fake accusations from the Dems? Why aren't the people who created the Russia hoax - which traumatized and divided a nation -- going to jail? Barr in his own way is no better than Sam Harris. The people deserved to know the truth -- and Bill was a coward who wanted back on the DC/ Martha's Vineyard dinner party circuit. Not a hero. Not a genius just TDS in a Conservative suit. Trump is a flawed guy who brought peace and prosperity not to mention hope for the working class. I call bullshit on Bill Barr.
Vulgar statements and tweets definitely explain the attitudes that will shape a policy. I voted for Trump the first time because of Hillary Clinton's statement "What does it matter (how they died)" because to have that sentiment about the death of an ambassador and his staff in Benghazi is a tell about how her administration would value the lives of people serving in the military. I also believe that her comments reflected a policy that cost US military and their allies lives in Afghanistan under Biden. Trumps vulgar tweets and statements were also a tell that cost him the election with thoughtful pearl clutchers!
"Trump is a flawed guy" is minimizing what he's done to the point that You've taken Mt. Everest and made it into a mole hill.
The guy was such a sore loser he tried to overthrow the election. That's not a flaw. That's a man who has the character of slime mold. He's still doing damage to this very day.
After being called a Nazi, Putin collaborator, the dubious impeachment plus being the focus of a Dem controlled attack-dog media who lied constantly -- how would you behave?
Biden is also "slimey" in a multitude of likely criminal ways connected to Hunter, JFK was a sex addict who risked national security with his screwing around and Bush lied the country into a misbegotten war that killed hundreds of thousands and maimed and killed young Americans. Not to mention the PDB that warned of 9/11 before it happened that was ignored by Bush and Condi.
Trump's narcissism and Vegas-type bad taste plus sketchy business deals pre-Whitehouse aren't any worse than these guys. He's just not part of the club and threatens the on-the-take grift in DC.
Read the Time Magazine piece about how virtually everyone from Big Tech, to media, to all the DC muscle firms ganged up to ensure Trump lost. They actually proudly admit that. You actually believe given their hatred of him, they wouldn't have rigged the election.? You forget they rigged the primaries against Bernie.
Of course Trump was a sore loser. He felt he was cheated. Because of corrupt Dems and media nothing about his presidency was fair and that should be acknowledged regardless of how distasteful he is.
I referred to that Time article elsewhere. You missed the point of the article.
Yeah, they rigged the primaries against Bernie, but they won the ability to do that in court. Turns out the DNC can run the primaries any way the wanna, no matter what.
How does that pertain to Trump running in '24?
All that about Biden is well and good, but it means nothing to me because the chances I'd ever vote for Biden are slim to none. The chance of me voting for Trump is from slim to less than zero, so there is that.
Okay, I acknowledge a lotta what he got was unfair. To the *extreme.* As Barr pointed out, You notice.
But how would *I* have behaved. That's pretty simple. Like an adult. That Trump couldn't, and probably never can, do that is really sad.
In 2016 a few days after the election, the Swamp (led by the FBI and CIA, and abetted by the DoD in collusion with the Democrat party and the Clinton campaign), created and circulated a fabricated assessment that concluded that Trump was a Russian asset. The point of this assessment was to delay or block Trump's inauguration. Nothing has been done to investigate this. Now, that is some bullshit.
The bottom line on Trump is that his rhetoric was off the charts but the actual governance from his administration was actually pretty staid and conventional. Trump Derangement Syndrome was a reaction from liberals to the rhetoric, a focus on symbolism rather than substance. When words are violence there can be no other reaction.
Now of course all indications are that Trump will be the GOP nominee in 2024 and the result will be widespread civil chaos.
I love that Barr spends half the interview talking about TDS and Bari’s TDS won’t let her focus on anything else.
By policy Trump was the best president of the last 50 years, at least, and it’s not especially close.
Of course stating that requires that we define what a “good” President is, which the left fundamentally won’t do - and ESPECIALLY the elite left - because then you can keep score. The left NEEDS it to be all about feelings to have a chance at competing (they know all their policies are awful for actual people) so they keep it all about feelings. That’s what Russiagate was - it kept it emotional. It’s what COVID was, and it’s what being the 5th losing presidential candidate in a row to challenge the results of the election but be the first to be decried as a “threat to democracy” for doing so is about.
I’d like to put a challenge down to Bari and/or anyone that writes for her to actually define what they would view as political success and then let’s see how their beacons - like Obama - did, relative to that scorecard. It’d be a very interesting game to play…
Yes, it is all about feelings.
I know this first hand from family members.
The left has hijacked their feelings with false morality.
When feelings get hurt, there is no more conversation.
Full stop.
And yes, your challenge is a very good one.
What the fuck does this look like if the left succeeds in their quest ?
I’ve never seen this defined.
totally agree - can someone explain how otherwise intelligent people can allow themselves be so brainwashed? Is it a comfort of the hive thing? Too much "feelings" for sure, but how can people completely ignore reality and rationality. Mystifying.
A mystery to me too, I live with a few. My sense of the matter is that the hatred of Trump takes over any and all other rational thought. And they choose to ignore the carnage - inflation, crime, high gas prices, no boarder, Afghanistan, etc…. Either that, or this is what they want and it was planned, but they remain silent.
Trump received 74,221,000 votes in the 2020 election, the second most votes ever. More than the 69,498,516 votes Obama received in 2008 and second only to the 81,284,000 ballots that were credited to Biden. Think about that, Trump received more votes than Obama and still lost to a senile, lifelong political joke who never managed to attract more than 50 people to one of his “rallies” when he dared venture out of his basement.
I agree that feelings can be a powerful force and undoubtedly the leftists and their media flunkies successfully manipulated them, but clearly something more sinister was involved.
I know an operative (with ties to billionaires I might add) who figured out a way for Dems to get 2 votes each and termed it the "Democrat Voting Superpower". It involved requesting an absentee ballot AND voting in person, no matter what "jt" says below.
Biden won because mail in ballots tipped the scales.
There is no other explanation.
Sorry, I've seen that argument before.
You're just repeating what Trump told You. He said, IIRC, that *nobody* could lose to Biden. It wasn't *possible* to lose to Biden. Painted himself into a corner with that.
But Biden did win. People voted in numbers *against* Trump. Probably as many as voted *for* Biden. That's why it was biggest turnout in history.
Folks, the answer is non-obvious but becoming more clear. Watch "the Social Dilemma". Our social media algorithms effectively use human emotions to create greater engagement with the platforms, in ways that create deep viscerally held opinions in the people that use them.
Trump plays the heel, specifically intending to trigger reactions. Social media spreads the word and triggers strong reactions in both constituencies, and become deeply held and felt issues for many folks. Journalists were among the first to use Twitter and the first to become way more indoctrinated than usual in this manner, and then through their work spread this effect well beyond the social media users.
Pew research shows that the massive shift leftward of Democrats happened from about 2010-2015 and the nearly as big shift rightward of GOP voters happened from 2015-2017. This correlates almost fully with social media adoption in these groups, which was later in those on the right.
I actually wonder if medium to long term, groups that prefer longer form content like substack and podcasts versus short social media posts will outperform those that make less rational group decisions because of the inherent failures of short form communication.
Funny. You're the second today that recommended "the Social Dilemma."
Was that where they were harping on how *addictive* it is, or was that a different article?
Point is: Yup. The only social media I use is Substacks, and I need to cut back on that. (Now I remember where I saw that first article.) I saw a book today about how bad dopamine addiction is and what it does to people. Probably never read it, but put it on the list.
These tech giants? Surely everybody knows by now that they do *not* have Your best interests in heart. The exact opposite. If they can keep Your attention as long as they can, and anger does that about as well as anything, then they can sell You the shiny baubles their AI has determined You should need.
All that to say... TYTY for You comment.
Don’t forget the labor shortage and subsequent small business closure, Communists at the gates, elite-enforced farm-failure, threat of worldwide famine, squashing of protest, mandates for an experimental shot that’s sickened and maimed thousands…
I dunno who the "they" is You're referring to, Sir Brian.
I'm sure there are a *lotta* Ds and Centrists who don't like *either* Biden or Trump, right?
But if You really think there are a lotta people (not saying none) that want inflation and crime and high gas prices and all that? I dunno about that.
It appears that many on the left want the high gas prices which are helping to cause the high inflation. Every time I hear people like Jennifer Granholm, Mayor Pete or Biden use the phrase, “necessary transition from fossil fuels”, it highlights that fact. They are on record for making gas as expensive as possible to reduce consumption and force people into electric vehicles. Widespread support amongst Progressives for Soros supported AG’s like Gascon, Boudin, Fox, etc. also seem to show that a lotta people that are perfectly fine with high crime rates.
My liberal friends usually use broad "compassion" for all but take responsiblity for no one.
Bari Weiss gets a very bad feeling when Barr speaks of the deaths of horrific murderers by relatively painless injection. Does this feeling represent her “thoughts” on the matter. I get a feeling of revulsion when I hear of these murderers’ murders, but I do
My best to do a cost/benefit analysis to arrive at my opinion. I do
Not believe
In the huge expense of life sentences. It robs society of more precious uses of OUR resources.
I suppose You're a Trump supporter? If so, You don't have much call to support him *now.*
Or IF so, *You'd* be the one to ignore reality and rationality. No mystery at all. DTS says it all.
Both can happen at the same time, Trump supporters can ignore his toxic personality and at the same time, be puzzled about what it is the left seeks to accomplish. Ignoring Trump’s personality does not negate the question about the left.
I replied somewhat along these lines above.
But I would say that it's just a question of ignoring Trump's "toxic personality" as ignoring his being totally unfit for the office. It's not *only* a question of personality, but even *more* a question of character.
Me? I got *plenty-a* questions about the left. Just *more* about the right for the reason *Barr said.* The Right has a *golden* opportunity to stop the left dead in it's *tracks,* right? But will piss that opportunity away, because they idolize Trump so much.
Jarring! Pedophilia is just the next thing that is going to be foisted on us as being on the normal spectrum of human sexual behavior. We will all have to be accepting and supportive of our minor-attracted co-workers, even elevating their need to feel validated above our own need to speak the truth, or we will be fired or cancelled, or some such other nonsense. We should have taken a stand with all the trans crap and maybe that would have saved some children the irreparable harm of hormone tampering and surgeries that cannot realistically be reversed. Normalizing pedophilia is criminal. I will never use the words minor-attracted person. These people are sick and should seek help, not ask the rest of us to endorse their untreated mental illness as normal behavior.
It may be the preferred term of the Feelings Police. My preferred term for child molesters is, "the late pedophile."
NAMBLA must be rejoicing...
I'm a Centrist, but the answer is pretty simple. A good president is one that turns over power to the elected President, tho he doesn't like to lose.
The rest is statistics.
Yes, but not turning over power is not turning over power. Making a lot of noise, blasting out a lot of rhetoric, and floating legal theories that fail is very clearly not "not turning over power". It's "not turning over power gracefully."
👏👏👏👏👏
Nup.
Sorry, but I view that argument as hinging on a technicality.
Yeah, Trump *literally* did end up handing over power. Very UNgraciously.
But, You see, making *plans* to overthrow the elected government to *keep* power goes a fair bit *beyond* the idea that he didn't turn over power "gracefully," right? Trying to pressure Pence to help him *overthrow* the elected government isn't a question of gracefully or not gracefully, right?
It's like Barr said. When the electors were certified, the election was OVER. Except according to Trump, and his looney-tunes advisers who told him what he wanted to hear.
Be more specific on *plans*
I would say the Pence entreaties and then anti-Pence rhetoric were the worst thing by far, as they are the only thing (pending your answer to more specificity) that went beyond pushing within an existing system, exhorting someone to take a step that pushed beyond boundaries. But it's like suggesting that someone be aggressive on their taxes in a way you think might be legal but aren't sure, and is a world apart from not moving your stuff out and pulling guns. And, honestly, you introduce a bipartisan bill to clarify that that's not acceptable and you completely imply that it might have been.
In 1876 the election was even more contested, and in a similar way. The results were that one candidate won by one electoral vote, but the party that at first lost ended up getting their President into office after claiming that black people were denied the vote in too many circumstances for the election to be certified as it stood. The initial results of the election were overturned. Was that "not turning over power"?
Man, I've posted this so many times my fingers bleed. Don't make me repost the links.
Read "John Eastman vs. Eastman's memos." That was the plan. That was so far beyond the system that Eastman took the fifth during the House investigations.
I think You're referring.. Yeah, You are. Hayes. That was in no wise the same as the election of 2020, right? You're not gonna make a comparison are You? That'd be a false comparison, if You do try it.
jt, if Trump had done the things you asserted, six plus months of hearings would have turned up evidence to charge him with treason. Instead, it has resulted in a daily torrent of "news" releases merely repeating the false assertions. You and your fellow deranged accusers have turned up nothing to support your assertions.
On the contrary, they turned up plenty of evidence. You just didn't take it seriously.
That's the old "attempted murder shouldn't be a crime because nobody ended up dying" defense.
No, attempted murder would be not moving out your stuff when the new pres came, pulling your guns out, but then getting ousted anyway.
Attempted murder in this case is calling up Georgia's top election official and telling him to "find 11,000 more votes"
Which should be, and is, a crime
See my point to Lynne below.
And see the article I referred to above. I don't You'll be able to see the point, but it's there for those who have eyes to see.
Attempt can, and is, a crime - attempted murder, attempted possession of a controlled substance, etc..
Which is why it's weird that Trump supporters think he should get a mulligan on his coup attempt because "it was only an attempt".
C'mon! This whole discussion below is ludicrous.
Attempted overthrowing the election is the issue, right? You guys are extending the analogy to the point of forgetting the point.
The odds of Trump being prosecuted for *anything.* IIRC (If I Recall Correctly) Barr addressed that in this very article. You want me to look it up?
Zuckerberg just admitted the FBI lied about Hunter's laptop! So Trump was right - the election was rigged! And let's not forget Hillary saying how Trump stole the election!
Trump didn't get a fair shake from the media.
But it really depends on what You mean by "the election was rigged" doesn't it?
I totally agree, it is a shame that president Obama refused to peacefully turn over the presidency to President Trump in 2016, instead resorting to trumped-up FBI surveillance, falsified affidavits seeking FISA warrants, and never-ending politically motivated investigations embroiling our government and our fellow Americans in what has become years of divisiveness and turmoil.
We had several piss poor presidents who left office amicably. So surely your Trump.prejudice is coloring your statement.
Not at all, Ma'am. Your Trump prejudice is coloring Yours.
The point isn't whether we've had piss poor presidents, right? It's whether there was one that was *so* piss poor he didn't leave office "amicably." He gave every effort so he wouldn't leave office at *all* which is a little different still.
So, you're talking about Obama? Who literally spied on the incoming administration and tried to have them removed before they were brought in through faking evidence to drive Russiagate? And tell me about how Trump didn't leave amicably? I realize you've watched a lot of CNN and MSNBC but show me actual facts about how Trump's actual departure from office was actually any different than anyone else's?
He screamed about voter fraud like Hillary screamed about voter fraud like Al screamed about voter fraud, and on, and on, and then he peacefully transferred power. I'm confused by what you think happened here exactly?
No. I'm not talking about Obama at all. Read what I say, rather than putting false words into my mouth.
BTW, TV I bought a year ago is still in the box. So You're batting 0-fer.
Read my other posts to see how OBVIOUSLY it was different than anyone else's in history.
Leaving office amicably is the most basic, necessary thing a president can do.
I absolutely disagree. And as another commenter stated Trump did leave office, just not amicably.
And as I replied on a different comment.
What You say is technically true. He did leave office. Surely true.
I'm no debater. You can probably tell me what kind-a argument states a fact, which in no way, shape, or form covers the situation under discussion.
That's what You're doing here.
You and I *both* know that it's not what happened on Jan. 20 that's at issue. Mebbe this is what's called a strawman argument. No matter. It doesn't work.
What happened from mid-December on is what matters. Trump showed his true colors, and showed beyond *any* shadow of a doubt that he isn't a man fit for the office of President.
I believe (without rereading) that's the *only* thing I disagree with Barr about.
The POINT is that You show right here, with a very INsubstantial argument, how *extremely entrenched* Your position is.
It's not that You *couldn't* see it. It's that You do not *wish* to see Trump for what he *is.* And *that's* why there's no need for further discussion. It's all on You.
Let’s give him a cookie!
So not since 2008.
You mean what happened 2016? I dunno anything happened in 2008.
The last time a president turned over power to the elected president without any BS was 2008. That's what I was getting at.
Ah. True.
Oops. Too fast.
The difference being that Obama *did* turn power over *PEACEFULLY.*
*UNLIKE TRUMP.*
But what was done after was like Barr said. That's what I meant by "true."
Ok, I'll bite.
My personal take on Trump has little to do with his rhetoric at all, and a lot more to do with his actual policies, and his basic integrity and/or character. I thought he was a terrible president not because of his loudmouthed demagoguery (although that didn't help), but rather the things he actual accomplished while in office, and his overall leadership (or lack thereof) as someone befitting the office.
If you ask me, TDS applies to his reality-altering supporters, not his detractors. For the life of me, I still don't understand how anyone can look at his presidency in a positive light. And I'm not a lefty at all, just a reasonably-minded (I believe) independent.
Barring his behavior, please explain what things he accomplished as President that would lead you to say he's the best president in the last 50 years at least. Extra points if you can do so without an obvious nod to some sort of conservative ideology...i.e. good for everyone and not just anyone on the right.
Abraham accords - the most substantial movement towards peace in the Middle East since WWII.
The return of manufacturing to the US, the build up of small business, the lowest unemployment for Blacks and Hispanics, the reduction in ILLEGAL immigrants proving fairness to LEGAL immigrants, and giving a sovereign country a real border so it can retain its sovereignty, making rich Germany start to pay for our protection, countering Chain. Gotta go - just off the top of my head.
Murder rate reduced in 2017, 2018, and 2019 (after back to back increases in 2015 and 2016). Then it went up in 2020 with leftist cities rioting and return to soft on crime / anti-police policies.
The Abraham accords were indeed something substantial, but whether or not it improves the peace in the Middle East is not very clear at all. It formalized and improved some of the relations between Israel, U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, a few other minor nations. Yet it also further isolated Iran, which could be good or bad depending on how a lot of chips fall. And it also did almost nothing for the giant elephant in the room: Palestinian sovereignty and/or nation hood. Recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and moving our embassy there didn't exactly make relations better either, but that wasn't a part of the Accords. Ultimately it did little to really solve any of the old rivalries in the region, but economically it was a net positive. So okay, slight edge there I guess.
American manufacturing as a % of GDP has stayed at the same level, or very slightly declined, since 2009. Not sure how you can say it's 'returned'.
Small businesses; I'm assuming you mean his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act? Yeah the pass-through deductions and individual cuts are nice...but they all expire in 2025. By contrast the corporate tax cut is permanent. It was much better for corporations than it was for small business owners.
Black and Hispanic low unemployment rate. They both have been trending down for a decade, which Trump policy did you think was helping push this down? Or push down faster?
Immigration and Borders. Yes, illegal immigration went down. Net positive for Trump.
NATO/UN (Germany). Yes, he did get some European nations to foot more of the bill. Net positive for Trump.
China. No...hell no. No idea how you think he made relations with China better, or is somehow countering them better. Pompeo rightly called it our (and the West's) biggest threat. But Trump, if anything, made things worse with China. And calling out the origin of Covid doesn't count.
R U kidding about Iran? Obama & Biden are giving them the atomic bomb. Of course, Iran should be isolated and deprived of the bomb. And that is exactly what Trump was doing. I am very
Close to Israel and Israelis. They adored Trump. You have to be an Islamist who buys the woke narrative on Palestinians and Iran. Were you happy with the stabbing of Salman Rushdie? It is the most dangerous exporter of terror.
I was a furniture manufacturer for 28 years. I crossed the border nearly every day for 16+ years because I had a very large factory in Mexico. Those who are not familiar with the border have no idea how open it has been until Trump did everything against the open border crowd to give us a border. As an entrepreneur who knows hundreds of entrepreneurs including many Hispanic entrepreneurs, I know how he helped small businesses and manufacturing. I find your obvious bias may lead you to throw out false stats too obscure to research in a timely way for this forum. So I’ll just say I suspect your stats. Over and out.
C'mon man!
"You have to be an Islamist who buys the woke narrative on Palestinians and Iran. Were you happy with the stabbing of Salman Rushdie? It is the most dangerous exporter of terror."
This is what I'd expect if You were a MAGA-head. Are You?
And it's really convenient to just say You suspect the stats. "Over and out." That's what it almost always comes down to when Centrists start pulling out the *facts* of the matter. Sorry.
Trump was the one who backed out the nuclear deal, which was created precisely for preventing Iran from acquiring bombs...not sure how you can read that another way.
I'm not close to Israel in particular. Or Palestinians. Or biased toward any of the people over there really...the specific religions and/or cultures are non-factors in how I approach an opinion on anything over there.
Rushdie, no...it was a tragedy. Freedom of speech is a sacred right. Same with Khashoggi. If you're going to judge Iran in that light, then do so for Saudi Arabia too. Not saying Joe would have done anything different, believe me, but Trump did nothing about Kashoggi's grisly murder. If anything he simply disregarded it completely when cozying up to bin Salman.
I already stated Trump was a net positive on the border.
Entrepreneurship is great, but that's like 1% of the population. The other 99% simply want a decent job. The vast majority of people can't and shouldn't be entrepreneurs, it's simply not close to being possible. I don't know why entrepreneurship is always put on this grandiose pedestal as if it's the pinnacle of all wealth and commerce or something. They're just the guys with good ideas, but most of the economy is simple transactions and bland supply and demand.
I literally got my facts by doing simple wikipedia and/or google searches while writing it, and disregarded any obvious biases like MSNBC and FOX. Look them up yourself if you like.
Small note- the Abraham accords and the trump moving the embassy were and still are very important. There is a lot going on because of this. It has had a big effect on the region. Making israel strong makes the region more stable and helps israel when dealing with the Palestinian issues esp if they have negotiations. When the american government tries to make nice with the Palestinians the Palestinians abuse that and the opposite is achieved. The Palestinians rejected the peace plan before they even saw it, before it was released. If they truly want peace, they have a partner. But one can’t force peace if the other side isn’t serious about it. The rest of the Middle East coming together against Iran is a very good thing. It’s going to have a major impact on the future. Of course if the Americans give the Iranians 100 billion dollars and freedom to plot horrors that will not be a good thing.
I think some of the above posters just want a lot of people to pay attention to them and reply so they can haughtily dismiss every great achievement like some spoiled children… they abuse and slander Trump supporters while apparently knowing few of them well… they have to have the last word yet seem very little experienced with real life… overeducated for their intelligence probably :P
I appreciate your patience with them.
It's interesting how you say you're Independent and reasonable... Don't we all self-report the same thing?
What I appreciated most about Trump was his internal and external transparency. He had strong opinions, and made everyone know exactly where he stood in real time. He had extensive (too much, IMO) media availability with adversarial journalists, who did what journalists are supposed to do... Ask tough questions and follow up with tough questions. [Where's our current President? Vacation?]
The external transparency was how he exposed the ugliness and unprofessionalism of the mainstream American news business.
They criticized everything, every day without context. The systemic bias in news organizations, something Ms. Weiss fans understand all too well, jumped off the page and screen. "The Emperor had no clothes!"
Now as far as his substantiative policies:
1) Controlled Immigration - which benefits low wage Americans
2) Eliminated ISIS Threat
3) De-escalated North Korea
4) Forced European countries to contribute more to NATO
5) Didn't get us in a war
6) Energy Independence
7) Raised Taxes on Rich by eliminating SALT deduction
8) Gave a voice to often forgotten "deplorables"
9) Oversaw economic conditions that benefitted full Economic spectrum (not perfect, but more equitable than Obama) -- even while the Fed began to taper QE (reducing their balance sheet)
10) Kept American life interesting and engaging
There are more, that people have mentioned, Abraham Accords, improved NAFTA, hard negotiating with China, etc...
E-Diddy, Let's consider some promises made, promises, kept, promises kept that didn't work out as he said they would, and promises made but not delivered.
1. Trump promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. He failed to repeal and never had a promised "beautiful" plan to replace. He lied.
2. Trump promised to pass a giant infrastructure bill bringing us beautiful new airports, highways, and bridges. He never had a bill and delivered not a thing.
3. Trump promised to win a trade war with China, saying it would be easy. His tariffs drove up prices for American firms and consumers, the trade deficit grew, and China did just fine. Total failure. What's more, the tariffs have contributed to the supply chain disruptions that sparked inflation.
4. Trump promised and delivered on a promise to cut taxes, but the plan did not, as he promised pay for itself and it did include loopholes for big real estate tycoons that benefitted guys like Trump. The reduction in the corporate tax break did not spark a significant increase in capital investments; instead, the corporations used the breaks for executive bonuses and stock buybacks. The average taxpayer hardly noticed a thing.
5. The economy grew for the most part at the same pace sustained for eight years during the Obama administration. More jobs were added in the last eighteen months of the Obama administration than in the first eighteen months of Trump's rule. The tax cuts and spending increases blew the deficit wide open and when Covid hit, it exploded.
6. Trump repeatedly claimed that average household income grew by $5,000 due to his policies. In fact, a Census survey shows that median household income growth actually slowed in Trump's first three years to 2.1% annually compared with 2.6 percent under Obama.
7. Trump's love affair with Kim Jong-un was a fiasco that led absolutely nowhere but elevated a murderous dictator on the world stage.
8. Trump promised to revive coal mining in America. Thank goodness he failed; mining jobs actually declined. He promised explosive growth in the manufacturing sector. In fact, manufacturing jobs in America peaked in 1979 and saw growth only briefly during the Clinton years. Even Harley-Davidson closed a plant with Trump in office.
9. Trump promised to build an "impenetrable" wall along the Southern border and Mexico would pay for it. In fact, he completed about 250 miles of his wall and it's been penetrated more than 3,000 times using common power tools. Mexico, of course didn't pay a thing, so Trump took money from the Pentagon budget, which killed some much-needed housing repairs on our military bases. Failure.
I could go on, but most historians and Presidential scholars place the Trump years near the bottom in their rankings of American Presidents. I pray that we won't be subject to a second term.
Richard-
A year and a half of Biden & America's best and brightest
1. Afghanistan fully & quite disorderly transferred a country to the Taliban. Including 7.1 billion dollars of weapons, ammunition, and vehicles. An organization that believes oppressing, raping and disallowing education to women is a right. 23 million women. Iran is looking at negotiating with the Blinken and Biden crew, mostly likely thinking- holy crap how did we get this lucky? Not a single person at State Department was held accountable. Why is Blinken still the Secretary of State?
2. As of yesterday mortage are on track to more than double for every American seeking to buy a home. At least 2-2.5% higher interest rate coming in the next year per the fed. The combination of higher mortgage and lending rates will flatten any gains of the half a trillion dollar student debt stunt (addressed below).
3. Parents groups are being reported to the FBI by school boards who disagree with policies that are negatively affecting their children.
4. Supply chain & transportation erosion in the US. Due to health and environmental policies. Due to health & environmental policies regardless of massive damage to citizens and communities across the US. Again, no legislation, no representation. Instead, governance by fiat.
5. Shutting off wide swaths of domestic energy production as the first presidential act of the Biden administration was the direct cause & one step away from the birth of violent upward inflation. The US consumes 20% of global supply. What did you think was going to happen? The oval office manufactured this with a Presidential order signed by JB. This will take a decade to fix economically.
6. A half of a trillion dollars of national treasure spent with no congressional oversight on student. Not one issue of the underlying cost or value of higher education was addressed or solved. Presidential fiat almost like a King would do, of course using basically an emergency order, like a doctor's note to spend half a trillion. This is not an investment in the interest of 80% of US citizens. Questions like; How do we change things so students and parents do not become enslaved to educational debt? How can we hold high school counseling and colleges responsible for horrible advice in personal spending? There is $1.7 billion dollars of debt that financed this mess- Should colleges and universities be taxed if their tuition is above a certain dollar value? Can a few thousand institurions who have raked in trillions of dollars still legitimately be considered non-profit institutions? How healthy would these types of conversations be for the US and it's citizens? However, we were deprived of this debate by fiat.
7. The DOJ investigating his son without a Special Counsel. It would be one thing if the American public did not see the pictures and all the emails. However, about a 100 million people have seen them & it's the kind of corruption you cannot just waive away.
8. The lowest amount of press conferences of any modern President.
Barr's assessment of Trump is spot on. I could never vote for him. Never did either. But if I had to keep Biden out of office- I might.
Matt, thanks for your civil comment. I had hoped to focus this thread on the original subject -- Trump. I share many of your comments regarding Biden's shortcomings, but many need to be put in context.
1. Yes, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a debacle. But Trump agreed to a May withdrawal. Biden pushed it into August. A clean withdrawal with evacuations of all our Afghan allies would have required another major escalation, and the Taliban would have resumed its attacks and the Afghan military would have collapsed -- it was worthless without U.S. leadership and air support. Biden was right in opposing the 2011 surge -- a major mistake of the Obama administration. Trump failed to end it and left the mess to Biden. Just like Vietnam (I'm a vet) we never should have intervened, and our intervention only made things worse.
2. Your comments relating to inflation: I'm among those who warned about impending inflation for years. We've been propping the economy up with funny money since the Bush Great Recession and the chickens have come home to roost. I opposed Biden's third pandemic rescue plan and thought the first two under Trump were far too sweeping and poorly regulated. Retired folks like me who neither lost jobs nor income did not need government handouts. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been scammed by fraudsters making phony claims for PPP support and the cost of prosecuting them will outweigh any money regained. But inflation is a global problem, sparked primarily by the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and a tight labor market. Biden will take the blame, but the same things would have occurred with Trump in office.
3. Parents groups are being reported for disrupting meetings, threatening officials, and intimidating school boards. They should be. Same for those who threaten election officials. What policies are "negatively affecting their children?" Teaching a truthful version of American history? Explaining human sexuality in accordance with the best science? These angry parents have been triggered by mendacious reports about CRT and "grooming" of children. Parents worried about their children being "groomed" and abused should look to the three largest institutions responsible for child sex abuse, all conservative: The Catholic Church, the Southern Baptists, and the Boy Scouts. We have a nationwide teacher shortage, and our public schools are being ruined by meddlesome parents who don't know what they're talking about.
4. I'm not with you on the supply chain interruptions "due to health and environmental regulations." Trump's trade war sparked the supply chain problems and they were exacerbated by the pandemic. I take climate change and other environmental crises very seriously and favor doing far more than we have to preclude far worse summers of wildfires, drought, and flooding than we've seen across the planet this year. "Transportation erosion" follows years of neglect of our infrastructure. Trump promised to do something about it and of course, he failed. Biden, finally, passed a major infrastructure bill that will address our crumbling roads, bridges, ports, and airports.
5. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In his first year in office, Biden issued 34% more drilling permits than did Trump. The escalation in oil and gas prices is a demand problem exacerbated by the loss of refining capacity due to fires and storms, and the oil companies reluctance to resume drilling. American oil production largely depends on fracking, an expensive and inefficient process. The last time the oil companies took out huge loans to support fracked drilling the rug was pulled out from under them when the pandemic shut down demand. They lost a fortune. That's why I'm less critical about the "windfall profits" Big Oil is making now after years of losses. Gas prices have dropped more than a dollar a gallon since June. Biden consented to make nice with the Saudis and approved a major release from the strategic reserve. I didn't approve of either move.
6. I largely agree on the student loan executive order.
7. I have far more faith in an independent DOJ under Merrick Garland than I did under Trump and Barr. Several investigations have uncovered nothing of substance on Hunter Biden. Joe Biden, a softie on family issues, erred egregiously in approving Hunter's elevation to the Board of Burisma; the appearances are terrible, and he's paid the price for wanting to help his son recover from addiction. I'm wait-and-see on this.
8. Everyone knows Biden is prone to gaffs. It was a prudent decision to limit the number of formal Presidential news conferences and let Cabinet and administration officials explain policy. The daily press briefings are far more open and truthful than they were under Trump who banned reporters he didn't like. Presidential press conferences often are noting more than caustic exchanges with gotcha questions and carefully crafted messaging. Obama was occasionally funny and interesting to listen to at a press conference. The best press conference shows in my lifetime were staged by JFK. He was very clever, often self-effacing, and, when needed, effectively confrontational. Haven't seen another as good since, but that didn't preclude serious mistakes like the Bay of Pigs or the coup and murder of President Diem in Vietnam that led directly to our escalation.
If we're lucky, we won't have either Trump or Biden on the ballot in 2024, but stranger things have happened. Be well. I'd be happy to provide documentation for any of my comments. Here's a good one on the drilling issue:
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/new-data-biden-slays-trumps-first-year-drilling-permitting-by-34-2022-01-21/
Will we be reviewing the promises of every President in history?
Including Mr. Clinton's?
Don't forget, Trump was not exactly a Republican.
In the four year term he faced a Russian spy probe, an impeachment, a Pandemic, and another impeachment.
I'm not making excuses, just giving the political the environment. If you don't like Trump, that's fine. I'm not on Trump's payroll. He's suboptimal, but he was a first salvo for "Silent Majority" that is completely disgusted by the greed, corruption, and mismanagement of our institutions.
So many are looking to Drain this Swamp. It's the one promise I wish he kept. We are headed off a cliff, and our galant gentry, elite.
Well said, E-Diddy. I share your anger about the greed and corruption that pollutes our body politic and political discourse. But Trump ran the swampiest administration in memory. Wall street bankers running Treasure and Commerce. A flunky for Big Oil running the EPA. A billionaire tool of for profit "educational institutions" running Education. The wife of Mitch McConnell running Transportation where she steered business to her family's shipping business. I could go on.
And I forgot to mention that one promise Trump kept in spades -- he packed SCOTUS with three activist right-wing judges who will ensure that large corporations and the wealthiest Americans will continue to pour money into the coffers of lobbyists and political campaigns sustaining the power structure you call "the swamp." A Chicago billionaire just dropped more than a billion dollars on a far-right group that operates as a non-profit under our scandalous tax laws. If you think this group aims to advance the interests of average working Americans I have several bridges in Brooklyn I'd be glad to sell.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-conservative-group-gets-1-6-billion-donation-from-chicago-businessman-11661260649
Spot on!
I agree with most all. Could make a good case against a few, but no matter.
I fall somewhere between a supporter and a detractor since I voted for Obama in '08, non establishment candidates in both '12 and '16, and then Trump in '20, on the basis of his record alone. I'm not a republican, I'm certainly not a "Republican,", though I'm sure I share many things with them just as I, almost by default, do with "Democrats." I'd most aptly describe myself as a classical anarchist.
I view presidents through a simple lens - was the country more free and more just during their time. That's it.
Trump's criminal justice reform issues speak for themselves, I believe, but he reduced literally millions of petty drug offenses. He's the first president in my life to not start any foreign wars. He increased economic mobility by reducing corporate regulation at the fastest rate in 70 years - he is literally the first president in the last 70 years to increase real purchasing power of the bottom quintile of income earners.
He increased labor participation rate to the highest level since the 80's, violent crime fell off a map, we saw a 1 year increase in life expectancy in '19 before the ridiculous lockdowns undid all the progress that had been made regarding medical freedom.
I have no idea what "traditional conservative ideology" is, and I mean that generally, but those are the things I care about. He made the poor better off (Obama, on the other hand, made them literally worse off AND made the top 1% almost 400% wealthier - I covered it in my stack on big government eating the American dream), he reduced regulation returning energy independence to the US (once again gone) and he actually protected the border which saw fentanyl deaths take a two year decline as well (before once again skyrocketing in '20).
Those are the things I care about - and by those things he's the best president of the last 50 years, and again, this is from a guy who didn't even vote for him during his only actual term in office.
Just brilliant! I am a classical liberal with a steel backbone to preserve freedom. Whatever your ideology, we are aligned. I love those few people left who see thru the BS and realize we need to fight hard to preserve freedom. If it is a man with an obnoxious personality, I do not care. Freedom is far too
Important.
That's pretty much my ideology. Yet, we're not aligned. Funny that.
(I hope You caught the comment above where I praised You highly, so there is that. :-)
OK, Mr. Data, let's check some of your claims:
1. "He made the poor better off." Actually income disparity exploded under Trump thanks to his wasteful tax cuts. "Under Trump, the share of total income going to the prosperous and wealthy grew by a whopping 17 percent between 2016 and 2019."
https://inequality.org/research/trump-income-inequality/
"The distance separating America's highest and lowest income brackets grew by almost 9 percent annually under Trump."
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/535239-how-trump-fueled-economic-inequality-in-america/
2. "We saw a one year increase in life expectancy in 2019." You have no data to show that the small improvement in life expectancy was due to anything Trump did. It's far more likely attributable to the greater number of Americans who were covered my health insurance thanks to Obamacare. Trump, of course, failed to repeal that act as he promised, and never had an alternative replacement plan although he had promised that as well during the campaign. The U.S. lags far behind other G7 countries in life expectancy, maternal and infant mortality rates and other standards. We pay far more for healthcare and get far less for what we pay. It's disgraceful. That's your idea of "medical freedom" I suppose.
As for your comments about Covid deaths (you can't bear to mention the word) under Trump: "US health status worsened dramatically under President Trump when compared with the other G7 countries, a major study from the Lancet Commission1 has concluded. If the US had death rates equivalent to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK, some 461 000 fewer Americans would have died in 2018, and 40% of US deaths during 2020 from covid-19—around 188 000 people—would have been averted, the study estimated."
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n439
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trumps-policy-failures-have-exacted-a-heavy-toll-on-public-health1/
3. "returning energy independence to the US (once again gone) . . . " The claims of energy independence have been found to rest on manipulated data by numerous fact checkers.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/18/the-myth-of-u-s-energy-independence-has-gone-up-in-smoke/?gclid=CjwKCAjwgaeYBhBAEiwAvMgp2po0pNFY9TM0DAa4qQ7v9mZK76NKwOd4x-2NI1xXiz5Kdye-4DBOyxoCWIsQAvD_BwE
4. ". . . he actually protected the border which saw fentanyl death take a two year decline . . ." Deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl did drop modestly in 2018 before resuming their upward spiral in 2019. Trump's porous border wall, penetrated more than 3,000 times with ordinary tools, has done nothing to reverse the trends beyond a single, small reduction in 2018.
https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates
5. "Trump's criminal justice reform issues speak for themselves . . ." I'm glad Trump signed the bi-partisan reform bill but calling it Trumps's reform is a stretch. Democrats had been calling for these reforms for years and were happy to negotiate with Jared Kushner to realize the much needed changes.
6. Obama "made the top 1% almost 400% wealthier . . ." When he came to office the wealthiest 1% took (I won't say earned) 12.3% of personal income. After Obama raised taxes on the rich, that percentage dropped below 9% but as they always do, the rich and their tax lawyers found loopholes in the law and the percentage had climbed back to 10.9% by the time Obama left office, still lower than when he began. Meanwhile, the Republicans continued to reduce the IRS budget and audits of the rich kept dropping. The Republicans, predictably, are spreading hysterical claims about Biden's plan to augment the IRS staff and increase audits on the wealthiest Americans.
7. Obama made the poor "worse off." Nice try, Mr. Data, slipping in a comment without any context or factual data. Obama came to office as the economy was imploding in the worst recession since the great depression, a debacle caused by lax regulation (yes Clinton signed on to some of provisions that led to the debacle) and lax enforcement under Bush. Millions lost their jobs and the number of Americans living below the poverty line exploded. Obama's rescue plan and efforts by the Fed turned things around. At the start of Obama's Presidency, 13.2% of Americans were living below the poverty line. The number rose above 15% at the peak of the recession in 2010 and then began declining. By the time he left office the economy was growing steadily and the poverty rate was down to 12.7% and dropping. The final numbers for the Obama Presidency:
"The economy gained a net 11.6 million jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to below the historical norm.
Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 4.2 percent after inflation. The gain was 3.7 percent for just production and nonsupervisory employees.
After-tax corporate profits also set records, as did stock prices. The S&P 500 index rose 166 percent.
The number of people lacking health insurance dropped by 15 million. Premiums rose, but more slowly than before."
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/
Mr. Data, you appear strong on claims, but weak on substantiation. And your claim about Trump being a great President is laughable. Reputable historians and political scientists put him near the bottom of the rankings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States#:~:text=Abraham%20Lincoln%20has%20taken%20the,bottom%20of%20all%20four%20surveys.
1. If you're so inclined give this a read, it lays out all the data. You can agree or disagree, but the data are what the data are - https://butthedatasays.substack.com/p/has-the-american-dream-been-eaten
2. The data very clearly shows the increase in life expectancy was directly attributable to the decline in overdose deaths and murder. Nothing else about health has improved. No one agrees more that the US medical system is a DISASTER, but Obamacare made it worse, not better, and the data very clearly shows that in accelerating mortality trends, decreasing life expectancy and increased medical costs - https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/obamacare-has-doubled-the-cost-individual-health-insurance. So yes, our medical system is a disaster, we certainly agree on that. You don't actually think Obamacare is responsible for a 1 year decline in deaths do you? And here's the high level data - show me how obamacare helped? https://www.statista.com/statistics/184955/us-national-health-expenditures-per-capita-since-1960/
3. Here's a reasoned take - and I appreciate the honesty here that the free market created energy independence and all the president's, both Trump and Obama, needed to do was stay out of the way. Trump did, Biden did not... - https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2021/11/14/is-the-us-energy-independent/?sh=231fbeb21387
4. Sounds like we agree here, you just seem not to care, which is certainly fine. Or expect perfect, or, I'm not really sure but we're saying the same thing.
5. Again, we seem to agree.
6 & 7. I point you back to number 1 again. If you care, read through the piece, it outlines the data. You can agree with the assessment or disagree, but, as always, the data are what the data are when it comes to the complete destruction of economic mobility under Obama and the largest wealth transfer in US history.
I certainly agree that everyone who has a vested interest in the US government being as large as possible hate Trump. No argument there.
1. Thank you for your civil response. I look forward to reading your commentary about the decline of the American dream. I will come to it with my own views on the subject -- that the decline began in the 1970s and accelerated in the 80s under Reagan's trickle down, supply-side economic policies and his hostility toward working people and labor unions.
I'll be 78 years old in little more than a week. I grew up in the 50s and 60s when America had the world by a string. Europe and Japan lay in ruins, American corporations had little serious competition and labor and management took easy growth for granted. We reacted slowly and poorly when Volkswagens and Datsuns began to arrive on our shores. Detroit continued to build gas-guzzling behemoths strong on chrome and horsepower, but slow to adopt new engineering advances like fuel injection, disc brakes, and independent suspensions. The UAW beat Japanese imports with sledgehammers and attacked Asian Americans, killing at least one. Then came the Arab oil embargo, recognition of China, and a transformation of the American political economy that increasingly benefitted the wealthiest and best educated. Little has been done to reverse these trends. The financial sector grew and a new hi-tech sector emerged. Income disparity exploded and the middle class stagnated while the lowest income sectors slid into poverty
We need a Marshall plan for rural America and the rust belt to revitalize these sectors, to support family farms and rebuild the decaying infrastructure, especially in the decaying rust belt. Biden's infrastructure plan addresses some of these problems. Transforming the energy sector away from fossil fuels to renewables can also help. But labor and management must abandon dreams of a return to the easy days of the 50s and 60s. Manufacturing will become increasingly automated with robotics and the high dollar jobs will go to skilled technicians who keep the robots functioning. Job training and retraining is needed to address these changing realities.
2. "Nothing else about health has improved" since the advent of Obamacare. Not true. The difference is clear in states that expanded Medicaid. A detailed study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that states that expanded Medicaid (generally the blue states) witnessed "a 9.4 percent reduction (in annual mortality) over the sample mean, as a result of the Medicaid expansions." The Red states that declined to expand Medicaid under Obamacare saw no such improvement. Of course, the Republicans fought to eliminate the individual mandate and struggled to repeal the entire act which has reduced the number of uninsured Americans by more than 20 million individuals.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w26081
3. The article I cited in my previous comment affirmed my argument that "energy independence" is an abused and misleading term. You say Biden failed to "stay out of the way" and suggest that this ended our energy independence. In fact, Biden issued 34% more drilling permits in his first year in office than did Trump.
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/new-data-biden-slays-trumps-first-year-drilling-permitting-by-34-2022-01-21/
The spike in oil and gas prices is due almost entirely to the war in Ukraine and a sharp rise in demand as the global economy reopened. American oil companies were reluctant to expand drilling and pumping because they got burned so badly when the pandemic shut the economy down. They had taken on billions in loans to finance their fracking operations only to see the market grind to a halt. That's why I don't fall for the facile criticism progressives make about recent "windfall profits" among the oil giants. Those profits came after years of heavy losses and the oil executives are wary that another pandemic spike or the war in Ukraine may throw another wrench into the global energy market.
Gas prices have dropped more than a dollar a gallon since June, not because Biden stayed out of the way, but because he took action and ordered a record release from our strategic reserves and met with Saudis, however distasteful that may have been, and came away with a commitment to increase production. The spike in prices was demand driven and exacerbated by refinery closures from hurricanes and fires, not from Biden's interference.
Concluding remarks. "Everyone who has a vested interest in the government being as large as possible hate(s) Trump." Not true. As was the case for so many of Trumps promises, he failed in his commitment to shrink the government and "drain the swamp." According to the conservative Reason Magazine: "So under Trump's signature, before any true crisis hit, the annual price tag of government went up by $937 billion in less than four years—more than the $870 billion price hike Obama produced in an eight-year span that included a massive federal response to a financial meltdown. . . .So how about executive branch employment? According to the St. Louis Fed, crunching numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Trump inherited a civilian workforce of 2.815 million and kept that basically flat until it started rising around last July, presumably because the 2020 Census started to jack the number northward. No cuts."
https://reason.com/2020/08/27/no-donald-trump-did-not-shrink-government/
And Trump ran the swampiest administration in my lifetime. Wall street magnates at Treasury and Commerce. A fossil fuel lobbyist running the EPA. McConnell's wife running Transportation and directing contracts to her family's shipping business. A billionaire with ties to the corrupt for-profit education industry at Education. A "developer" at Interior who was forced to resign for his corruption. I could go on. More cabinet and high level administration officials in the Trump administration were forced from office for their corruption than in any administration in my lifetime. Then come his temporary appointments -- unqualified loyalists and toadies willing to execute his majesty's commands. Not my idea of a great or even an acceptable President. Be well.
Looks like you and I are the same team, even though it's not really an organized team. I wish it were, but it seems that will never happen.
IMV (In My View), it's Trump that gets in the way of it.
There are people, I think a lotta people, who could agree with most-a what You guys say. I'm one. But if You can't see through Trump and the harm he's, what can I say?
Again, in case everyone's forgotten. I've "said" repeatedly he's done a lotta good things. On balance? Nup. No question. See Charles Knapp and a few others.
Basically, what it comes down in favor of Trump is seeing things through the lens of a MAGA-head. I've posted this before. Take a sheet of ruled paper and draw a line down the middle.
Put all the things You like about Trump on the left side. All the things You dislike on the right. *Weight them accordingly.*
Most-a You would have blanks on the right side. And if You somehow managed a few items on the right, You wouldn't give them the proper weight. And the reason for most-a You (not all) is because You're *emotionally* invested in Trump.
And that's why a logical, really *organized* team will *likely* never happen. (Not impossible, Celia.) People with that big-a blind side get in the way, rather than helping.
Elliott
Trump’s policies and the results of same were excellent. You don’t cite one bad policy decision. You have incurable Trump derangement.
You call that an argument? I see this repeatedly in these here comments.
Trumps trying to overthrow the election trumps all.
You're a MAGA-head and are deranged. DTS. Deranged Trump supporter.
You want some other bad policy decisions?
Again, Jan. 6 tops the right side-a the list (alluding to comment above).
Doing even more than Obama to divide the country into two sides that absolutely hate each other. A *lot* more than Obama. All it accomplished was empowering the Woke.
Cozying up to the totalitarians of the world. Getting a bad deal in Afghanistan. And I'm pretty sure he got a bad deal with China. Xi absolutely punked Trump when it came to the Wuhan virus. And here we are. His ambivalent actions during the pandemic cost thousands of lives. Nobody will ever know how many. His spending so much time on Twitter, rather than going over the daily Security Threats report.
That's without putting any thought into. The right side of my sheet could go on longer. The line at the top tho? Outranks anything You could put on the left side.
We fought for freedom and choice in the 70's! Freedom to wear a bra or not! To work or stay at home and raise children!
Our journalist were not part of the establishment!
The college professors have become kings!
Then you obviously weren't paying attention!
Peace in the Middle East?
I used to agree with that. Feelings are a large part, but since the Left has hijacked, once venerable, institutions, they can also just change operational definitions ad hoc.
So they can quickly appeal to rational actors by being more artful in their "statistics" and having their media cohorts quickly disseminate and popularize deeper rationales without much critical vetting.
Joe Public, doesn't think twice about how "deadly" COVID is for everyone, or how there are so many more "named storms" due to climate change, how "safe" the vaccine is for "everyone," and how Trump is an "election denier" because he perpetuates "the big lie."
Emotional? Definitely. Logical? Maybe. Factual? Laughable.
Very well put E. When operational details are applied or challenged to the feelings-based rationales it's a mess.
As an example, electric cars, the universal solution to save the world, pure myopic thinking at its best. California declares no gas cars in 2035- well the average age of an electrician is 58. They've made a bunch of money and are retiring. There are 40 million cars in the state and no one to hook them up by 2035. How are colleges and their bailed-out students going to fix this whopper? The intellectual incest at these institutions- college, law, media, and the progressive religion is awe striking. I guess it needs to collapse to get a reset. It's hard to watch.
Actually, it was a great interview. Best if listened to to get the nuances of Barr's answers. That Bari comes with a set of biases of her own was obvious - you got it - to listeners. That did not interfere with Barr's responses nor the significance of this interview.
I agree. Barr’s responses were very nuanced and measured. He is a very deep thinker.
By policy, Bill Clinton was a better president than Trump, and arguably the best of the past 50 years. Fiscally, under Clinton (and Bush 1), Democrats and Republicans passed bipartisan legislation in 1990 and 1993 that turned burgeoning budget deficits into surpluses within the decade, which also spurred economic growth. Clinton also championed and signed landmark legislation such as the crime bill and elimination of welfare.
Clinton's first two years were not good, with the health care debacle, but after he got his butt handed to him he figured out how to govern and produced great results his last six years.
On fiscal responsibility, Clinton gets an A, or maybe a B at worst. Bush 2, Obama, Trump, and Biden all rate a D- or F.
I'm sure many will argue Reagan was a better president than Trump, though Reagan was at best a C or C- on fiscal responsibility as his policies caused deficits to balloon. Bush 1 was a B or B-.
I like this, and Clinton did get a lot of things right. Of course Clinton's admin also carries the vast majority of the responsibility for the housing crisis in '08, and that can't be overlooked. Clinton's "everyone deserves a home" policy did not create economic freedom. He forced banks to give loans at sub market terms, they forced banks to do NINJA loans, and the rest is market catastrophe history.
Clinton was good on crime and welfare reform, I totally agree.
But, again, I used the analysis of freedom, and Clinton messed with the free market in a major way and we all paid for it handsomely in '08. He forced "freedom" isn't freedom.
Also, I want to be very clearly on the record as stating that on my grading curve the only way to get an A is to eliminate the 16th amendment. You could get a B if you cut government spending by 15% and tax revenue by 20%, which no one has even been close too.
I'd give Trump a C-. I'd give everyone else a D or worse. You get points for freedom and justice, you lose points for expansion of government (by definition a reduction of freedom) and lose TONS of points for injustice (starting wars really hurts here), and Clinton did some things right but he drastically expanded the bureaucracy, sent more soldiers overseas, and was responsible for massive financial market manipulation that crippled a generation.
😂😂😂... You're funny. I respectfully disagree.
Clinton ushered in the destruction of local media... And accelerated the global transfer of American jobs. China became a member of WTO under his watch.
Basically Clinton started centralizing power, increasing the scope of the Federal government. Main Streets in nook and crannies of this country were sold out, left to the dust bins of forgotten history.
He also helped NATO establish a more Offensive posture... which is great for the Neo-Con war machine AND Neo-Liberal global capitalism... Both which I would argue are bad for humanity, as a whole.
Bush II just continued many of the Clinton ways, but did so with a tax cut... And with more military stuff.
Bush was worse than Clinton, but the Trump years were invigorating. His policies I agreed with 75% of the time, as he looked to turn the lights of Main Street back on.
Decentralizing power in general.
His energy was a breath of fresh air. However, I have thick skin and am more of an 'actions speak louder than words' kind of person.
I think we’re saying exactly the same thing…
I agree with your take on Bari's TDS. When talking about Jan 6th she went out of her way to talk about the rebel flag and people with nazi emblems. As if that was a majority of the people. What about the vast majority of people with american flags? My favorite were the photos of the wild, out-of-control "insurrectionists" that calmly walked between the velvet ropes in the hallways. Yea, a truly dangerous bunch.
Overall I thought this was a very good interview. There is a lot for people who like/hate Barr or like/hate Trump to react to. Barr is very critical of Trump's temperment, and he backs it up with example. But then he still said he would probably vote for Trump depending on who was the democratic nominee.
Very often, the problem was the Left's total lack of a sense of humor or grasp of irony. Many of Trump's hilarious comments were intentionally distorted and presented as if they were meant to be taken literally. But anyone who watched the rallies and saw the context could plainly tell the man was joking and often poking fun at himself.
Trump Derangement Syndrome was the trauma of the Left who could never accept that half the country rejects their pursuit of utopia.
Every quote published by the MSM from Trump would always be the punchline, without the setup. And shame on us when we didn't do a little research to discover that.
Ideological utopianism murdered millions and defined the 20th Century. The political system our Constitution put in place to insure human dignity and worth is compromised and the willingness of the DNC to paint American citizens as "terrorists" while exploiting Marxist tactics and pathology for their own ends is a threat to America and the world. There is no such thing as "soft" totalitarianism. The Democratic Party has held Americans hostage to a lie for too long. With or without Trump it needs to go.
Yes.
I agree. Or the D party needs to change. I know, You likely can't conceive of a change they'd make that would be for the better. You *could* be right, but that's too far down the road for anyone to say for sure.
Except for certain people on the right, who can't conceive of it.
Plus he tweeted to get around the MSM. Which made the MSM double down in their disapproval until it was full-blown hatred.
Yep.
That’s is true , his enemies took him literally , his supporters simply chuckled
Yes. One of my favorite quotes from 2016 was that Trumps opponents took him literally but not seriously while his supporters took him seriously but not literally
Which ironically is now what progressives say about BLM and Defund the Police.
"Defund the Police" was (apparently) supposed to be taken seriously but not literally.
Feelings are raw.
They get hurt.
Dialogue stops.
Yep.
That's a rich one, Donna. So when Trump, speaking from the White House, suggested that Covid could be cured by injecting bleach or shining ultraviolet light inside one's body, he was being facetious or ironic and the poor fools who were injured when they followed his suggestion just failed to get the joke, right? And when he told the MAGA cultists gathered at a rally to "beat the crap out" of a protester, he was being ironic and the beating the protester sustained was all in fun. Or when a man from Arizona OD'd on Chloroquine because Trump advocated it as a COVID remedy, the man actually died from an inadequate sense of humor. And now, thanks to you, I understand what he meant when he called himself "a very stable genius." That's uproariously funny.
Trump’s comments initially were funny and the left got bent out shape by them. Their skin was too thin. Then the left attacked, and showed how thin Trump’s skin was. But as you stated, his later comments got outside the rails and were destructive. He was his own worst enemy and the reason he lost in 2020.
Very true, Barr strikes me as a hypocritical coward
I'm not gonna argue about when Trump was being hilarious and when he was to be taken literally.
This You can take literally, straight from his mouth:
"Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation.”
So even Trump's supporters can't be *absolutely* sure about what Trump was up to, *all* the time, right? No matter.
The point is that Deranged Trump Supporter syndrome is similar. The trauma that *more* than half the country doesn't love Trump as much as You guys and gals do.
Like I've said *from the beginning,* Trump had his good side and one horrifically terrible bad side. Which made him unfit for the office. I disagree with Barr on that one point.
The "it's all in your head" gaslit distortion of American political reality by compromised and second rate D.C. leadership is the problem. There is no question that both parties are capable of manipulating and/or rigging an election. Rigged or not, the distrust, disgust and ever more justified anger "..we the people.." feel at being forced to watch a transparently criminal machine butcher everything it touches makes it possible to believe the reality of a rigged election is a certainty.
Why, in the face of modern technology, medicine, communications, thought and scientific advance does American political leadership remain opaque and unable to create practical solutions and pathways to a brighter future? The answer can be found in a homeless encampment near you.
Because for the machine/blob it’s a feature not a bug.
A poll showed that 5% of voters who voted for Biden had they known about Hunter’s laptop would have voted for Trump instead - making him win re-election.
Citation needed.
Actually the number is 17% and not 5% - from the Media Research Center - an article from the Federalist, November 2020 - google = poll Vote change Hunter Biden laptop. I also saw a poll that said 5% but can’t find that citation….makes you wonder how many voters really want Joe Biden to be President .
It takes a giant leap of faith to believe this. There are not that many persuadable Americans period. Let alone that many to be swayed by the unknown contents of a candidate's son's laptop.
Actually Barr said the DOJ investigates fraud and the rule changes, etc. were up to the states. He said there was no demonstrable evidence of fraud. He did not way in at all on the integrity of the election. IMO Trump failed in two important respects. First he was played by Fauci. The covid crisis made the second possible - he was played by the left with all the last minute changes to voting rules, influx of money to solicit votes, etc.. But we were all played by the latter and because we did not call for accountability it will happen again.
I always make mistakes. I may have implied that I thought the Zuckbucks were okay. But if You recall from my previous comments, I think the opposite.
There was no change-up here. Your simply making things up in Your head.
I've *always* said the Zuckbucks should never have happened.
Because I tell the truth is a really good reason for You to mute me. I'll give You that one.
Correct me if I'm wrong. The states make up the election laws. Each state has to be held accountable on it's own. And that's up to the state's residents.
Me in Ohio? I'm plenty satisfied. You? Aren't You signed up to monitor the election? ICBW. Point is, it'll happen if people let it happen. And what it is that really bothers me is that there may be some Rs elected to office who will override the will of the voters, and place their own people as electors. Nothing I can do about that, tho.
Yes the states handle election procedure. Usually through the Secretary of State. And yes I am an election volunteer in Texas so I am confident our elections are fairly run. But even here there were what I would call election integrity issues as a result of covid. For example Harris County, the 3rd most populous County in the U.S., allowed drive up voting ostensibly to facilitate covid concerns. But people were coming by the carful. So much for privacy at the voting booth. Plus the election worker who brought the voting machine out were in no position to monitor whether the voter was being improperly influenced by the others in the car or improper use of cell phones, for example. It certainly presented an opportunity for misconduct. And yes jt that stuff matters. As I have said before I thought huge donations to secure block-walking/ballot harvesting was fraud but apparently it was legal in some states. So again even if the election was legal it was certainly sketchy. I understand why Trump was upset.
When You first said, long ages ago, that the election was legal but was.. I forget how You put it.. "morally corrupt" or something along those lines...
... I accepted it as fact first time I read it. I disagree if You think there shouldn'a been any allowances for COVID. I voted by mail first time in my life. *I* sure didn't wanna go in person. But, like I explained before if You recall: In my country the mailed an application out to everybody so they could *request* a mail-in ballot. Everybody didn't just automatically get one. You filled that out, and then filled out the ballot when it came. It was a double hassle, actually, but I thought it was worth it. And then there was a website to say if they got Your ballot and if it was rejected. I think all that was under R administration. Pretty sure.
Point is, there's a right way and a wrong way, and I've never said that everything was done the wrong way.
But, if You actually *think* about things, Trump's whole M.O. was being upset. Besides that, he wasn't just upset. He was claiming fraud when he knew there wasn't any. I recall You saying we should give him a pass because he mebbe really *believed* there was fraud.
He believed that because of a couple basic character flaws. The majority of his insiders were telling him lost. Like Barr said, he made a conscious choice to listen to Sidney Powell. Guiliana who he ended up stiffing even paying him. John Eastman. And the character is so *basic.* Sure, it's a lot *easier* to listen to people who tell You what You wanna hear.
That's one-a the *worst* qualities a President can have, right? If Your an adult, and even if Your a reality TV star, You don't take the option of listening to people who tell You what You wanna hear. That's the oldest story in the *book,* right?
And like I said, he was just a poor loser. Convince *all* the MAGA crowd the election was stolen. *He* really was elected!!
Great move. That really helped. And all because he was a sore loser.
If You think this is unreasonable, then I'll add IMO.
I believe that IF all votes were required to be cast on election day, in person and with valid ID, Trump would've won.
It would be nice IF all but valid mail-in votes could be cast on same day with ID. Fact, I've always thought (and written) it should be a national holiday.
But, sorry. Anybody can come up with an if like that. No way to base that on anything real.
(That's disregarding the reality the IF was no way in the cards on that day to begin with.)
They were discussing the actual voting and election. The things that were manipulated outside of that are sort of in their own category. They certainly affected the election. I don’t know that it would have made a difference, bc the left thought of getting rid of trump as their holy war, and tried to reach everyone possible with their message. A lot of shady stuff happened. But Barr was talking about his actual job and the election process itself.
I noticed that omission as well.
Would-a been a good question.
But Barr was talking about the election *counts.* And, IMO, You can take what he said to the bank.
I voted for Trump. I liked his policies and he did what most president never do and that is fulfill his campaign promises. But every time he spoke he made me cringe. I truly believe he is a megalomaniac who loves the sound of his own voice. He spoke without a filter. What popped into his mind, came out of his mouth.
I don't know if he is like Joe Biden who when he tells a lie he actually believes it's the truth. But then, Joe doesn't know what planet he's on.
LonesomePolecat. I always, after the initial shock of his over-the-top personality, paid attention to what he did and it was extremely good for the country. And, I agree with you, when he spoke, I cringed too.
Trump was the first President (in my 65 years) that I would actually watch when he gave speeches. He would be 30-40 minutes into a very powerful, historic speech, and then throw out some totally unnecessary and outrageous line that would negate everything he said up until that point. That line would be the MSM headlines and the rest of the speech would disappear. If you could put Obama's statesmanship with Trumps policies, it would be the perfect President.
I agree with you except, Obama was statesman. He wasn't. Obama said in a televised interview that he was lazy and I agree with him. He played more golf in his 8 years than Tiger Woods. He promised he would heal the racial divide in this country. He did more to widen the divide than anyone in modern times. I could go on but it would just make my blood boil so I won't.
I agree, Obama was “smooth” which I found nauseating, but never a statesman.
Obama was opaque and impossible to pin down. Trump was transparent and child-like in has myriad personal foibles.
I suppose 'Figurehead' would be a better term. He had an effective style, but was extremely shallow from a functional standpoint.
Shallow describes him perfectly.
True. Trump needed to be more statesmanlike and stop talking to the press so much. When he talked to press It never ended well because they hated him. Fewer press conferences would’ve helped him
What's not to hate? But you are right. He should stop speaking to the press. But I think Trump will never do that. he loves the camera too much
Yeah, that'd be the ticket.
Now, Obama *himself?* I just finished reading a book about the cause of the Great Recession. It was a bipartisan affair. Republican had a lot to do with repealing the regulation of Glass-Steagle (I think it's called). Gramm-somebody-somebody bill. Fought for by Gramm's wife who was head of Commodity Futures whatever, who SHOULD-a been regulating the over-the-counter crap.
But it was Clinton who signed that mess. Bush had no clue. Granted, most-a the bankers *involved* didn't really know. They thought the bubble would just go on forever. (Not *likely,* in my experience.)
Anyway, Obama's admin was made up of a lotta the guys that *caused* the problems. And one-a them, I was surprised to learn, was the recently interviewed Larry Summers. Oh yeah, he was *all* fired up by deregulating the OTC crap. One-a the main movers and shakers who did away with regulating the things.
Correct for the most part, JT. America had been dragged so far to the right by the Reagan years that the only way a Democrat could be elected was by moving to the center and adopting Republican policies like deregulation. Clinton and Summers do bear responsibility for the policy changes that sparked the financial bubble that led to the Great Recession. And, yes, Bush had no clue and the gaggle of economic advisors surrounding him were all Republican trickle-down, supply-side clowns who fiddled while Wall Street peddled packages of liar loan mortgages all over the world. The result was predictable. Unregulated capitalism always leads to corruption, excesses, financial malfeasance, and economic disasters. And then government steps in and bails out the "too big to fail" Wall Street giants, while average Americans are laid off to suffer.
TY for all Your replies, Sir Richard.
Yeah, of all the billions, I think there was a pittance to help homeowners. I never saw the actual results of that. But heard so many anecdotes about how many people lost their homes that I think it didn't help much.
The banks? Couldn't be doing better. Yeah, they repaid the money they got. With interest. They never paid for the massive recession they caused, and all the harm that did for *years.*
Funny that.
I share your frustration.
I believe you are correct. The anti-Trump forces rioted after he won in 2016 because if they lose an election then democracy is at risk. So they show their support for democracy by rioting and trying to overturn an election with hoaxes.
The anti-Trump side set the precedent for not accepting the outcome of an election which the other side adopted on Jan 6.
I couldn’t help but think about the attempted character assasination of Justice Kavanaugh and the left’s attack on the Supreme Court after the Dobbs decision. How is that any different from January 6, except they are going after the Supreme Court in their homes, not in a building?
Very good point. Another double standard from the media.
People, especially Jan 6 scaremongers, tend to forget history.
The "beast" seems to use manufactured hysteria and crisis to make it impossible for the average person to hold even recent political and social events in a workable daily context. I'm more aware of the growing homeless encampments in my city every day but can find no political discussion, and that's why we elect political leadership, that presents any rational discussion of or solution to the problem.There is opinion without end but national context and a dialogue based on practical cause and effect solutions and the implementation of such is entirely absent. TDS or not the homeless stay homeless. Drug use escalates and crime goes exponential.
It seems, in my opinion, that our elected political leadership has been totally subsumed and compromised by avaricious elitist finance which has abandoned America and moved to the world stage. It destroyed our economy and our industrial centers and is now in the final stages of gutting our remaining resources and installing a pretend Marxist feudal totalitarianism.
My point is that Americans, intentionally or not, have been stretched to the limits of survival. You're absolutely correct about the necessity of holding a clear sense of history and events but the psyop in place creates a power vacuum intended to prevent solutions that would benefit you and I.
Nup. And I'll add that Jan 6 deniers tend to forget the Constitution.
I agree, it will get very ugly before this is all over.
Based on the outright attack on the Constitution that Nancy has overseen to attack a former President, you are understating the situation.
And all over the mainstream media they are telling stories of right wing extremism stepping over the line and engaging in violence. But never at all discussing why those folks have been pushed over the line. As if it was spontaneous and not caused by anything.
That’s the demented story of the 21st century. The MSM, Big Tech and the Democrats have framed a narrative about MAGA, the Right wing and about President Trump. They have to keep selling it otherwise what do they have left . Covid has all but disappeared. President Trump hasn’t. It’s becoming terrifying to live in America especially after the raid on the President home. Not sure if you listen to Dan Bongino , he has pleaded with level headed Americans not to do anything stupid hope we all listen!
Dan is correct to ask for civility in the face of these attacks.
I just don’t know how long people can put up with this.
I’m very worried.
They plead for the same thing on the Clay & Buck show. Please please don't do anything stupid.
Yeah we got to keep our heads!!
Exactly.
People just don’t do stupid shit, they have to be pissed off enough to do so.
Exactly Jon you don’t have to be a rocket scientist!
If ever it’s over, I think it has just begun and what’s more I don’t think it’s going to end well for all of us.
I agree.
TDS and the maliciously false and baseless allegation of Russian collusion preceded Trump’s mean tweets. He was fighting back. How would you react if you were falsely accused of treason?
Tell that to Ted Cruz' wife.
Slaw - Agree. Trump needs to take a different role, maybe as speaker of the house where he could get into some of the excesses and possible illegalities the Dems have committed.
But if he's the nominee for president I think it would be an escalation of this ongoing chaos and I sense we're about at the breaking point as it is.
The chaos is caused by the left because they won't accept the outcome of an election. The riots after Trump's election in 2016 were the precursor to Jan 6.
With more than 2 years to go until the next presidential election I think it's likely that the left will exhaust itself. But they will cause a lot of harm and probably loss of life. (The "mostly peaceful" riots in the 14 days following the killing of George Floyd resulted in 19 deaths.)
And a billion in property destruction.
If Trump is the GOP nominee, we lose and the party that is moving further and further to the left wins. I believe the Dem party is fast becoming the Communist Party.
What will matter is a) the state of the economy and b) how far Hispanic voters shift to the GOP. If inflation is still an issue in 2024 or the country is in the midst of a recession triggered to lower inflation then any Republican candidate will have a sizable advantage over the Democratic incumbent--and that includes Trump.
I think if Trump runs we lose. Otherwise I think we've got this. TDS is the most powerful feeling for a whole bunch of people.
It doesn't matter what you think. Poll after poll has shown Trump at over 50% support for the next presidential primary with the next closest nominee at around 25%. That is dominating. The only thing that can stop Trump from getting the GOP nomination is a heart attack.
Next, regardless of who the GOP nominee is they will probably have a sizable advantage over the incumbent just because the economy is likely to still be screwed up. That means Trump, or whoever, will have a sizable advantage.
And the other wild card as I mentioned is the Hispanic vote. If it really does split 50-50 there is nothing the Democrats will be able to do to avoid defeat.
I get what you're saying and I hope you're right. I just know people that STILL with everything they see now would stand by their Biden vote. Even though they wouldn't let him run their personal business or watch their children. They also claim they would vote for anyone over Trump. I think they are so deranged they would vote for a rock instead.
I still go by what I "said" above.
2 years is a long long time from now politically. Anything can happen.
The issue isn't politics, it's economics. No recession means high inflation for the next five or so years. And if there is a recession it will probably run through 2024.
I hope you are right.
IMV (In My View), that's the *only* way Trump could win. Like You "say," pretty good chance the economics works out that way. So, yeah, he certainly *could* win.
But I'm not sure how many people are just gonna forget about Jan. 6 and all that led up to it. And given Trump's track record, he's liable to energize the Ds as much as, or more than, his base.
I don't think anyone other than Trump could *possibly* lose in '24, based on what I know now.
Trump is leading Biden in polls for the 2024 matchup and he is the favorite of the betting markets. A lot can happen in two years but the point that everyone should take away is that Trump is absolutely viable. He was defeated because of Covid, not because the country as a whole finds him intolerable.
Ooops. Always mistakes.
Yeah, COVID did him in. At the same time, the majority *did* find him intolerable. At least I'm convinced that it took both-a those, and the latter was the most important.
How else You explain that *both* candidates got more votes than any candidate ever did before in history? You loved Trump, or You hated him. To his demise. It could be a repeat in '24. It would be, IMO, except Biden's been so bad (and had some bad luck to boot).
C'mon man! You and I both know that polls now mean nothing. In fact, polls the day before the election mean nothing. I can't recall, *exactly.* But I don't recall any polls being very accurate going back to Dubya. Especially not lately. Their method is, apparently, biased so bad they can't see straight, AFAIK (As Far As I Know).
Yeah, Trump *could* win like I've been saying over and over. I still think he's the *only* R that *could* possibly lose. I have my reasons for guessing that.
Agree with both points.
I don't disagree. But, see, I interpret it differently. The further the Ds move left, the quicker I believe it's likely there will be a backlash and a true reckoning against them.
Same with the Rs and Trump on the right, AFAIK.
And if they both continue in the directions they've *been* heading this past decade, I wouldn't rule out a viable third party in '28 or '32. That's just me.
I would love a centrist third party.
From what I know of Andrew Yang, he's just like all-a them. Dishonest. But mebbe better days are on the horizon. (Gotta be part-fool to hope for things, but why *not?* ;-)
Yang can't be any worse than the rest of those morons running for office.
“Following a victory in appeals court, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington obtained the secret Department of Justice memo then-Attorney General Bill Barr pointed to in order to undermine the Mueller Report and justify not charging then-President Donald Trump with obstruction.
The memo presents a breathtakingly generous view of the law and facts for Donald Trump. It significantly twists the facts and the law to benefit Donald Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law of obstruction of justice or the facts as found by Special Counsel Mueller. Among many other problems, it is premised on the fact that there was no underlying criminal conduct, which is not what Mueller found, and waves its hand at there being no exact precedent to compare it to.
The memo supports the chilling conclusion that any president can interfere with any investigation if they believe it could damage them politically. It is clear why Barr did not want the public to see it.”
https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/press-releases/crew-gets-secret-barr-memo-on-trump-obstruction/
You mean, like when Obama and Biden got together with Comey et al to entrap Michael Flynn after the case agents had cleared him, so that he couldn’t serve as the next National Security Advisor? That kind of Presidential interference?
Name any criminal conduct on the part of president Trump in the Mueller report. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Dean, Mueller identified nearly a dozen instances of Trump obstructing justice. More than a thousand former federal prosecutors from both parties signed a letter affirming their belief that the evidence was more than sufficient to prosecute Trump for that crime. Barr blew it off. Trump called the Secretary of State of Georgia and asked him to "find" the votes he needed to "win" that state. That's called election tampering and is being investigated for prosecution. He called elected officials from Michigan to his office and leaned on them to block the certification of results in that state. I could go on. He's now quite rightly being investigated for removing highly classified documents and holding them in his personal residence. And, of course, his company is being investigated for tax, insurance, and banking fraud in NY for which its CFO has admitted guilt. If you think Trump wasn't in on all this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd be happy to sell you.
How many of those former federal prosecutors were Democrats? 90%? 99%?
You make lots of allegations but can show no violation that he could be charged with. If there were nearly a dozen instances of obstruction of justice the Democrats on Mueller's team would have made that charge. They couldn't because they didn't have a case.
As far as the NY prosecution goes that is as highly politicized as it gets. NY attorney general made a campaign promise to investigate everyone in Trump's family and all of his business connections. That is a general warrant and is as unconstitutional as it gets.
Wrong, Dean. Mueller did not make charges of obstruction because he left that up to Barr who ducked under DOJ policy that forbad prosecuting a sitting President. Then Barr issued a statement falsely suggesting that DOJ officials advised him that there was insufficient evidence to pursue prosecution. A Trump appointed federal judge has now reviewed the DOJ memo and has slammed Barr for misrepresenting its contents. A conservative group, Republicans for the Rule of Law, produced a video advocating prosecution for obstruction. The former federal prosecutors included: Donald Ayer, deputy attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush, Paul Rosenzweig, deputy assistant secretary of Homeland Security under former President George W. Bush and Jeffrey Harris, deputy associate attorney general for former President Ronald Reagan. I notice you had no excuse for Trump's repeated efforts at election tampering, especially since the call to Georgia was recorded.
The Georgia call was recorded and when it came out there was no evidence of tampering. They purposely misrepresented what was said.
If there was any opportunity to charge Trump, they would have done it far before Barr came in and ruined their party .As for the Republicans for the Rule of Law, Never Trumpers have all sorts of organizations united in their hate - that doesn't make them any more legit than the Lincoln Project.
So three people out of a thousand. The makes it 99.7% Democrats.
You haven't shown anything that Trump did that would be obstruction of justice.
And it was 50 out of 50 former intelligence officials who claimed that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation. You probably believe that too.
Well done, patiently going down the abbreviated list!
I didn’t read the entire report but enough of it to be certain that obstruction of justice, was clearly established. Mueller, for all his cowardice in the matter, concluded that if Trump had been exonerated by the investigation, they would so state, and they could not do so. And handed off the hot potato. That’s the bare minimum anyone but a liar has to concede. But it works this way on all fronts. I know leftists who will act like Putin’s lawyer when somebody gets poisoned by his people and talk about innocent until proven guilty. OJ Simpson is still innocent, too. Back to Trump, that’s just this tiny matter of obstruction on a particular case for Trump. He has built his entire empire on fraud and brags about it. There were times in history, the times Bill Barr likes, when somebody who called for a hostile foreign power to interfere in our elections could have been shot for treason before the election had a chance to conclude. He has a severely psychopathic personality and would best be locked up along with the other habitual offenders Bill Barr talks about. But Barr won’t see it that way because Trump is HIS goon. The entire Bible Belt of this crazy country endorses a guy who exhibits all the traits for which even Jesus might beat the crap out of him. Dick Cheney can’t even take it, the erstwhile favorite of the far right mob.
That's hyperbole at best. Mueller's team was loaded up with Democrats and they couldn't find anything criminal to charge him with.
When did Trump ever call for a foreign power power to interfere in our election? That's another falsehood.
The "Bible belt", as you call them, rejected a government establishment that oversaw the destruction of their opportunity in this country. On the Democrat side Bernie Sanders would have won their nomination if the Dem establishment hadn't fallen in line behind Hillary. Both sides rejected their establishments.
Since 2014, the United States has provided nearly $1.5 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine to help them fight off Russia which invaded the country in August of that year.
By July 2019, the Trump Administration had not delivered nearly $400 million in US support – including weapons, training and advisors – that Congress had previously approved for Ukraine’s continued efforts.
On July 25th, 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked about the aid on a phone call with President Trump, to which Trump now infamously responded, “I want you to do us a favor though.” Trump asked the Ukrainian President to investigate Vice President Joe Biden – a potential political opponent in the 2020 presidential election. Withholding desperately-needed military aid for a political favor is, by definition, a quid pro quo.
On September 26, 2019, the White House released a summary of the phone call that confirms President Trump’s effort to pressure the Ukrainian president into searching for political dirt on Vice President Joe Biden.
On October 17, 2019, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s acting Chief of Staff, admitted at a White House news conference that President Trump froze the military aid in an effort to pressure Ukraine into investigating Democrats. After confirming the existence of a quid pro quo, Mulvaney said: “Get over it.”
You left out the fact that Joe Biden, while vice president, threatened to withhold financial aid to Ukraine unless they fired a prosecutor who was investigating the company that Hunter Biden worked for. Joe famously bragged of his influence pedaling saying "Well son of a bitch. He got fired."
Does that meet your definition of a quid pro quo, or is that kind of cover up OK with you?
"When did Trump ever call for a foreign power power to interfere in our election?"
When he said on live TV "Russia, if you're listening, please hack and publish Hillary's emails"
That is a false quote. Here is what he said:
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida, Wednesday morning after the second night of the Democratic convention. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens.”
https://time.com/4426272/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-russia-emails/
That link from time.com has video of Trump's comment.
Why is it that Trump haters won't tell the truth even when there is video evidence showing that what they say is false?
“The elements required for a conviction on an obstruction of justice charge differ by code section. For a person to be convicted of obstruction of justice, they must have acted with the specific intent to create an obstruction. The statute criminalizes "endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede" the legal process, even if those endeavors were unsuccessful. Seemingly innocuous acts could become criminal activity if they have the intended effect of impeding justice.”
https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-charges/obstruction-of-justice.html
Hunter Biden, etc.
Admiring your patience in suggesting this material to the demented Kommentariat of this newsletter. Would add that this interview was very interesting, giving insight into the mind of an ideologue who can make perfect sense on a lot of issues and then justify his further allegiance to a criminal that he would put back into the oval office just so that the heathens can't wreck the place with stuff like healthcare for all. And he talks about schools in "Europe". I actually went to one, which is why I know what a functioning public school system is like that works without prayers and pledges of allegiance and all the other 18th century crap. The idea that there would be an even tax base for all schools is the kind of atheist evil we have to prevent by putting the psychopath back in power. This time for good. And, oh, it's so difficult to find the right label for January 6th. That's just giving me angst. Hitler tried a coup first and got locked up. Then people like Bill Barr put him in power. And I mean, people exactly like Bill Barr. But you knew that already. Try explaining it to the dimwits who overwhelmingly read this source....
1) What does Trump have to do with property taxes funding local schools? That's completely irrelevant.
2) What put Trump in power was NAFTA and trade with China. That kicked off the long chain of events that bankrupted blue collar workers and led to the current political climate.
3) Riots are the voice of the powerless, right?
Riots are parties for the deranged, whether it's January 6 or the federal building in Portland. What matters is not that there different versions of the deranged but that the former was orchestrated by a president who lost reelection and tried to stage a coup d'etat that failed. Putin, Orban, Bolsonaro, Erdogan etc. didn't require NAFTA or trade with China. Democracy ends sooner or later because it's too frustrating for enough people, so they band together and take over before the other tribe does. Just look out your window. You can see Antifa gathering at the gates. Joe Biden is their puppet. Time to act.
What does matter is that there are different varieties of the deranged. The issue isn't Trump, the issue is that both sides have weaponized and for the left that means that Democrats have weaponized against Trump. Hence the fake Russiagate scandal that resulted in a bogus impeachment, etc. Of course the response of Trump and the GOP is going to be extreme in the face of that extremism.
The issue is that both sides are spinning the country apart. The global populist movement is a symptom of a massive and growing schism between elites and everyone else. That's the underlying phenomenon but the specific dimensions are going to vary from country to country. In Brazil and the Philippines the catalyst was crime: in Brazil elites lives behind gated compounds with private security. Everybody else worries about getting shot on the way to the airport and that resentment is tearing the country apart. In the US the issue is economic uncertainty. Elites don't have to worry about losing their factory job and making do with 30 hours a week of driving delivery.
If the issue is a looming civil war the responsible thing for Biden to do would be to stop throwing gasoline onto the fire. Comparing Jan. 6 to Pearl Harbor? That's completely irresponsible, reckless, insane, etc.
Ok, so there's agreement on some root causes, i.e. the insane wealth gap in the US and disenfranchised white middle class etc as the breeding ground for populist demagoguery. The disagreement is about the notion that Trump is a victim of some weaponized Democrat strategy. That's just as silly as the daily drumbeat about systemic racism on the left, for instance. Trump is no more innocent than Nixon ever was. It may turn out to be true that the DOJ handed him the nomination by having the FBI get the classified material they formally and repeatedly requested for months and months and we're lied to about. But it was the lawful and correct thing to do and signed off by a magistrate who had to be convinced of probable cause. That's one of your many witch hunt stories and it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Finally, so what if Biden is a bit of a fool? Why is that the moral equivalent of what Trump and his associates have been doing? Answer: because any tortured logic will do to justify the horror people feel when they are made to believe that only Trump stands between them and the clown show from San Francisco coming to their town.
Hi again, M. Slaw. Sorry I didn't get back to You on ACX. You probably noticed I'd gotten banned, so couldn't. I forget what it was about now.
I agree with everything You "said" except the last paragraph. It may be a bit of a stretch to compare it to Pearl Harbor. OTOH (On The Other Hand) both were an attack on the heart of the country. One on Hawaii. The other on our Constitution and the certifying of the Constitutionally elected President.
Donald Trump is the accelerant
https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-hate-speech
Trump’s incendiary Texas speech may have deepened his legal troubles, experts say
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/07/donald-trump-incendiary-speech-texas-legal-troubles-experts
Pretty sure I heard Democrat Congress people ( Waters, etc.) and Senators (Warren, Schumer, etc.) urging people to go after the Supreme Court justices, attack them in restaurants, etc.
T247, I believe you have idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality!
So you're part of the pompous "we-wear-watches-that-are-older-than-your country" set whose compatriots can't be bothered to stand up for Western Civilization and who are ceding Europe to young, determined, and unforgiving immigrants. Good for you.
If Trump planned to overthrow the government on Jan 6 so that he could stay in power, that was the worst coup d'etat ever carried out. What sinister megalomaniac bent on installing himself as president-for-life authorizes 20,000 National Guard troops two days before the coup (Pelosi and Mayor Bowser turned down the offer of extra security)? Also, what power-crazed despot to-be launches an attack on the most powerful seat of power in the world without a single armed person to carry out the plot? Instead, the so-called insurrection was led by a goof ball with a viking horn hat and a bunch of idiots who wanted pictures of themselves from inside the halls of Congress. Also, what tyrant tells his insurrectionists to "peacefully march and make your voices heard"? How's that going to stoke the necessary fervor to overthrow a government? Finally, even in third grade "Theory of Revolution" as taught in Venezuela, the kids learn that Hugo Chavez gained the backing of the military before he took power. Everybody knows that you need the guys with the biggest guns to take and hold power. I didn't see any "Tanks for Trump" streaming out of the Pentagon...
Check Politifact on those 20000 guard troops and Pelosi rejecting them. Just for a start. But I bet you're going to stick to Hannity and stay way to the right of even Rupert Murdoch on Trump's behavior on January 6. Then there's confusing the issue: nobody here said it wasn't a good idea for Europe to step up on it's own defense. And the fact that a lot of the people in the capitol that day were idiot partiers alongside the oath keepers and other armed lunatics proves nothing. When your own generals still understand that they have to protect the republic from YOU, you're going to incite an idiot crowd and say something only under pressure several hours later, blackmail Raffensperger in Georgia and file 60 frivolous lawsuits etc etc.
"...so that the heathens can't wreck the place with stuff like healthcare for all." As soon as you make goods or services provided by one individual to another a "right" for the second person (i.e. mandatory), you make the first person a slave.
Indeed!
@Slaw - I really hope Trump gets out of the game. He is screwing every chance Republicans have in front of them. E.g., Mastriano and Oz in PA elections.
I did see your comment on the latest Freddie deBoer piece on PPP loans vs Student Loan Debt
"forgiveness". I upvoted it. I can't comment there for precisely the reason of his sort of "analysis" (with lots of "whataboutism, which I recall, he purports to deplore) I'd cancelled my subscription. He has some real cognitive biases, albeit he is a good writer. I was no fan of the PPP program - mainly in the complete forgiveness aspect - but enabling firms to pay employees was a benefit beyond the "1%", which deBoer and many of his sycophant fans can't understand - to them it is all class warfare, all day, everyday.
I would like to know how much research Barr has done on the 2020 election. I'm not sure he's done any and simply relies on what his DC circle tells him.
There is ABUNDANT evidence of fraud, and I don't believe for one second that 80+million people voted for Biden. I do believe 80+ million ballots were counted for Biden. I am getting really tired of Bari dismissing claims of election fraud. She doesn't have to agree with them, but she should at least recognize that there is some merit in them.
How about she do an in depth interview with Mollie Hemingway or Dinesh D'Souza? Does she have the courage to truly listen to the other side of this argument?
For that matter, let’s think bigger and have Bari interview Zuckerbucks, who $funded$ the mail in ballot army in the swing states that tipped the scales.
That would be big, but Zuck would never give a straight answer and Bari would only lob softballs at him.
I agree. The unwritten rule is very powerful.
Interesting that Barr admits "There was fraud, but not enough to tip the election..." Well, fraudsters cover up their fraud...and there is no way to know whether or not it "tipped" the election. But election fraud, on any level, that's something that should NEVER happen again if we want this country to survive.
There has always been fraud, but probably never with such high stakes, except for maybe the election of 1960, which some historians believe Richard Nixon technically won.
Barr says Trump alienated key constituencies needed to truly build a big tent Republican government. I question that, because America of 2020 is not the same place as America of 1980. The World War Two generation were capable of compromise and big-tent-ism; their children and grandchildren, not so much. The Internet has only made that worse, as well.
If Trump had garnered just a few hundred thousand more votes... out of 170 million ballots cast... he would have won. He just needed a few thousand votes in 5 states. Of course, that is why everyone on the Right is suspicious; when Arizona and Georgia were lost by only 10K or 12K, it's well within the margin of error/fraud. Why did Michigan turn on Trump and squeak by with Biden? Trump fought really hard to keep heavy industry in Michigan, and the low fuel prices also helped them tremendously. This is why people are so suspicious; it just doesn't add up.
I think the 2020 election was a one-time phenomenon. No one believes the dropboxes were a legitimate voting device, and in fact it's not allowed in other democracies. Nor are mail-in ballots; it's considered insecure... DUH! Changing the rules to accommodate mail-in voters is also a no-no, yet was done in Pennsylvania, approved by partisan elected judges.
This is all going to have to be litigated eventually. Ballot harvesting, dropboxes, mail-in are all a threat to democracy. Were it not for that, Trump would have handily won reelection, and it's entirely possible the Senate would have stayed Republican as well.
I knew it was stolen when they stopped counting in five states simultaneously. I must credit the left with the best fraud operation in history to paraphrase Biden
Part of the problem with "fraud" is how can you prove it in the time allowed. Barr is legally correct; not enough evidence of actual fraud. HOWEVER, plenty of evidence of electoral malfeasance such as the PA Sec'y of State unilaterally and illegally changing voting regulations, and similar stunts in other states. Perhaps the most serious – and least discussed – is the resistance to cleaning up the voting rolls in the big cities. I firmly believe that the reason the Dems were so vehemently against GA's ballot bill had nothing to do with "voter suppression" and everything to do with Fulton County finally facing some serious consequences if it doesn't clean up its voter rolls.
yes, American elections tend to be messy, particularly if you don't have a comfortable 5-10% margin of victory. When it comes down to a fraction of a percent that decides the outcome, fraud and plain old human error actually are the deciding factors. I believe 2020 was a coin toss. If not for the virus, Trump would probably have had that 5% margin because let's face it, Biden was obviously not up to the job, and the country was doing so well. The virus opened the door to all sorts of shady shenanigans like drop boxes and massive ballot harvesting, incorrectly filled-out mail-in ballots etc.
This gets back to one of Trump's core problems. His inability to manage and lead his staff, and his inability to attract the talent needed to do the job. When Covid was building in early 2020 it was clear that the Nov election would be affected. Democrats got out front and got voting processes "adjusted" in a way that would benefit them. There is no reason Republicans, under direction from the WH, shouldn't have been able to do the same thing. The WH lacked the super talent needed at that moment. So, they got played. I don't think it is fraud. And even if there was fraud, it is almost impossible to prove in the time between voting and certification of results.
Trump's staff was chaotic, but not because of him. He inherited a White House full of TDS-afflicted Obama holdovers who did everything possible to undermine him, up to and including felonious crimes like leaking state secrets to the press in violation of their oaths of office, as well as outright lying about Trump to create an impression of incompetence that would further weaken his standing and harm his chances of reelection.
Many of these people were eventually rooted out and fired, a few were prosecuted, but I believe they never got all of them. A couple of them hid behind whistleblower protection, Vindeman and that other guy who made spurious claims. The Dems of course seized on these things, exaggerated them, called Trump a criminal, and eventually impeached him twice, unsuccessfully. They cheapened the meaning of impeachment, which should never be used lightly, and turned it into a casual weapon to take down a President with whom they had strong policy differences (and who was nominating too many conservative judges and Justices for their taste).
Trump's biggest mistake, therefore, was trusting people. He brought in a few experienced people, including several generals, who turned out to be completely wrong for the job and had to be fired. I attribute this to Trump's being a political novice. He's used to the private sector where people have a slightly different attitude. You don't come into a company as CEO and fire all the staff; you trust them to continue doing their jobs because they want the company to keep making money. Not so government workers, it would seem.
I interpreted Barr's quotes a bit differently. I read him to say that if Trump had just a couple ounces of couth in his 260 pound body -- i.e. if he had even trace levels of civility, respect for others, and the ability to STFU just once in a great while -- he'd have won hands-down, by 10 million votes, and still be implementing his policies that you and Barr agree are good ones.
Looking at how Trump has ambushed his own party's Senate candidates and Senate chances, it's hard to disagree with Barr's summary view that Trump is (a) his own worst enemy, and (b) apparently determined to be the GOP's worst enemy.
This is correct. And Barr is correct.
Nonsense. Trump would have won hands-down, if the Democrat ground operation had not harvested a couple hundred thousand votes in key swing districts, flipping key swing states. Their job was made easier by the virus, allowing them to collect ballots and dump them off at tabulation centers with no chain-of-custody. It allowed them to solicit mailed ballots door to door from people who never otherwise voted. It allowed them to use dropboxes helpfully (and illegally) provided by Facebook's billionaire founder Zuckerberg, which in theory were supposed to have cameras to prevent fraud but many of the cameras were mysteriously not working. The Dems also successfully promoted the false notion that the pandemic was Trump's fault, the deaths were on him, the vaccines didn't work, and state leaders like Cuomo were "more presidential" than Trump in their daily briefings. The major networks stopped carrying Trump's daily briefings that featured Pence's pandemic task force, Fauci, Birx, et al, because Trump's approval ratings were rising too fast. So they would just show a bit of it, then cut away to an "expert" who would contradict or ridicule whatever Trump said, take it out of context, make him look like a fool, whatever they could do to undermine the country's leader in the midst of a grave crisis. Trump was never properly credited with the amazing work of bringing several effective vaccines to the public in record time, probably saving a lot of lives. Meanwhile, the New York "presidential" material guy was never held to account for the deaths of tens of thousands of nursing home residents who were needlessly exposed to virus carriers. Even Trump's initial decision to halt travel from China, back in February 2020, was criticized as "xenophobia" by Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, and others. Pelosi was featured at an Asian fair in San Francisco, insisting people should get out and enjoy life. Kamala Harris and others declared they would "never take the vaccine while Trump was in office", thus discouraging countless people from using the only known preventative; then once they were totally in power, they imposed a near-fascist regime, forcing everyone to take the vaccine and firing anyone, military or medical or anything else, who resisted.
To say that if only Trump has been nicer, he would have won by a landslide, is to ignore the multitude of vicious, dishonest, and likely illegal means the Democrats used to take him down. Yes, they succeeded. But in doing so, they caused great damage to our democracy because tens of millions of Americans lost faith in the electoral system. About 50% of Republicans consider the 2020 election fraudulent to some extent, and even 10-20% of Democrats would agree, according to polls from a year or two back. When 25% to 40% of the country has lost faith in elections, and considers the current government illegitimate, we are in a very dangerous situation that could potentially erupt into civil war. What the Democrats did was unethical and stupid and, in my opinion, treasonous.
Common sense at last!!❤️
Mail in ballots are very popular in Florida and figured largely ( as well as drop boxes..)
in the election there in 2020. Of which Trump won handily.
Would you say the pro-Trump voters used dropboxes and mailed ballots? or voted mostly in person, like in the rest of the country?
What would the Florida results have looked like had there been no mail-ins and dropboxes?
If you don't know the numbers and hypotheticals, your statement is of little import.
By the way, I'm not opposed to solicited mailed ballots. Even Donald Trump voted by mail. But just spamming out unsolicited ballot cards to everyone including people who no longer live at that address... it opened the door to unknown amounts of fraud, anecdotal but certainly happened.
https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/FL.html
If this is correct (I must say that since few people agree on facts anymore..) - but according to the above 1.5 million registered Republicans voted by mail in Florida in 2020. With a million more independents joining them..(clue in on the mailed in ballots returned)
Trump won - and I'm betting that close to two million votes came via the US Postal Service..
And mark my words, the evil leftist have plans already in place to pull the same election schemes since it worked so well in 2020!
Barr is a legal beagle and for him it’s all about the probability of conviction based on actual evidence and election fraud is nearly impossible to prove since chain of custody is broken once the ballot is separated from the mail in envelope.
yet by definition, mail-in is totally insecure. Even in-person voting is not secure, obviously, but it's the best of a set of bad choices.
Mail-in is an election integrity issue. Elections are controlled by the states.
I just saw an article, can't remember what site, where the Post Office just found a box of ballots for the 2020 election sitting on their shelves. There's been so many weird things like that. Plus the shenanigans on election night. I personally don't know who really won but it was not a clean election.
We will continue to find these for years to come. This was the most fraudulent election ever in our history perpetrated by the Leftist Communist Democrats and media along with Democrats controlled social media.
The thumb was on the scale to ensure Trump lost, the is true but does not make the election ilegitimate. ON the other hand if the FBI sat on evidence of influence peddling by the Biden and called it disinformation, that would bring the idea of a fraudulent election to a whole new level.
There are several "streams" of fraud: ballot fraud, influence peddling, and private management of elections are the direct ones. Then you have the indirect ones like the work Elias's group was doing to change election laws, unconstitutional laws in PA, etc...
It wasn't the thumb on the scale, it was the whole damn hand, arm, and torso. I do think, if ever honestly done, a full study on the 2020 election will show it to be illegitimate.
Neil did you see the most recent scam? Census Bureau over counting blue states and undercounting red in 2020?
Those costly errors will distort congressional representation and the Electoral College.
The states whose populations were undercounted were Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.
Congress needs to use its oversight authority to investigate and determine why these errors happened, particularly since they didn’t occur in the 2010 census.
You have to be willfully blind not to see these as systemic issues that adversely effect free and fair elections. The truth always outs. Thanks for doing your homework.
https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/census-bureau-admits-overcounting-7-blue-states-just-1-red-state
Here's the Supreme Court case which decided in Trump's favor re: the Census Count. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf
Mark if you mean Trump did everything in his power to bar illegal aliens from being counted by having a question on the census that said "are you a citizen of the USA" then yes Trump did that.
Keep in mind Obama removed that question and Wilbur Ross tried to put it back on the Census.
From the Supreme Court case syllabus:
"The census additionally serves as a means of collecting demographic information used for a variety of purposes.
There have been 23 decennial censuses since 1790. All but one between 1820 and 2000 asked at least some of the population about
their citizenship or place of birth. The question was asked of all
households until 1950, and was asked of a fraction of the population
on an alternative long-form questionnaire between 1960 and 2000.
In 2010, the citizenship question was moved from the census to the
American Community Survey, which is sent each year to a small
sample of households.
In March 2018, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced in
a memo that he had decided to reinstate a citizenship question on the
2020 census questionnaire at the request of the Department of Justice (DOJ), which sought census block level citizenship data to use in
enforcing the Voting Rights Act (VRA)."
Stan, it's not surprising that the Heritage Foundation reported this story in a manner that fits its agenda. What actually happened with the overcount can more likely be attributed to Trump's efforts to disallow the counting of non-citizens. In its review of the data, the Bureau found undercounts of Black, Latino, and indigenous peoples: “statistically significant undercounts for the Black or African American alone or in combination, American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination, Some Other Race alone or in combination, and Hispanic or Latino populations.” There is no evidence of fudging the data for political purposes. In 2010, under President Obama, the Bureau conducted the count without pressure from the White House. End of story.
They happened because the Trump administration did everything in its power to bar illegal aliens from being counted. And the red states joined with him. It turns out that there are a lot of illegal aliens in red states.
No I hadn't seen that. This is my shocked face...
But that is Barr's point - fraud is a legal term and the DoJ could investigate but saw no evidence of substantial.fraud. Election integrity is the province of each state. The states let that crap slide. And it was crap. The election may have been legal, at least at the federal.level, but it was absolutely immoral.
If Trump had won I don't think we'd have had those horrid vax mandates. That coercive petty punitive useless policy of Biden's has had an incalculable impact on people and families. The institutions and 'experts' that we should be able to trust showed us that they're a bunch of partisan clowns. I was shocked at some of the stupid counter-intuitive and counter-productive decisions coming from the White House and the expert class.
They didn't want to find any fraud. And there is not nearly enough time to uncover, analyze, compile, and file fraud, which by its nature is covert.
Republicans need to stop whining and get as good at, um, "influencing" elections as are the Dems. Voters don't care much about fraud, states don't want to find it, and there is not enough time to make any corrections should fraud be found. Play the game before you, not the game you want to play.
I cannot like that, but I fear you are correct. As for the state's actions I have heard tidbits about misdeeds but I can't keep up with all 50 states. My instinct is that the 2020 election was manipulated.
Barr said very clearly that the DOJ investigates fraud but [election integrity] is up to the states. "Fraud" is a legal term and has an element of intent. So insistence that it was fraud deflected from the real.problem. election integrity [late rule changes, ballot harvesting, drive by voting, etc.] .
Good observation, yes.
Biden got 16 million more votes than Our Lord and Savior Barack Obama just 8 years later?!?
Oh yes, I believe that.
🤪😂😂😂
Neil, if it is inconceivable to you that "80+million people voted for Biden", that is not a sign that they didn't. It is a sign that you are living in a bubble. I don't say that to rag on you; we all live in bubbles of some kind. Look at the people still walking around outside with masks on now -- their ideological bubble is causing them to try to create a physical bubble. :-) However, once you're aware that you live in an ideological bubble, it's wise to make a concerted effort to get out of it.
I do not want to debate whether Trump lost the election. It doesn't matter. My point is that your criticism of Barr is that he's living in a DC establishment bubble, but your own statements imply that you are living in a Trump/MAGA bubble.
I agree that I would love to see Bari interview Dinesh D'Souza. But I fear such an interview would fairly quickly degenerate into the weeds of specific precincts, boxes pulled from under tables, footage of strange vans pulling up at loading docks, voting machine conspiracies, drop box stuffing, etc. For people interested in ideas, this would not be a particularly enlightening interview. The Barr interview is.
You are right that whether Trump won or lost nothing would change. And it is interesting that you don't seem to think the "weeds" are important - those are the very things that make up "the real". You simply cannot understand ideas if you don't understand the details behind them. You don't have to be an expert, but you must understand them. Other wise your ideas are build on sand.
My bubble is "fair play and the rule of law". From what I've read - and it is a substantial amount - the 2020 POTUS election was far from that.
I know I should remove myself from my bubble because that is not the way the US works now. But it's hard because I watched too much "good guy" TV when I was young. I need to learn to play the game even with it's immoralities.
While we may disagree about the election, we agree on the death of "fair play and the rule of law". The only question is when and how the Right is going to embrace the same post-liberal philosophy that the left already has.
Yes, if the Right does not adopt the same post liberal philosophy of how to play the game, it’s over very fast.
The Barr interview was enlightening, you're right. And on the bubbles? Right again..
I believe that 80+ million people voted for Biden, or let's put it this way, 80+ million ballots were tabulated for Biden; how many of those were people who actively voted, versus massive door-to-door harvesting campaigns ("I'm going to register you to vote then just sign this at the bottom") to get just enough of "our guy's votes" to flip the district, is certainly not well defined.
The Democrats used these harvesting approaches to successfully flip some traditionally Republican congressional districts in southern California; 2-3 of them were later flipped back when the Republicans used the same techniques in those districts. Ballot harvesting, by the way, had been illegal in California until the mostly-Democrat legislature legalized it, opening the door to massive fraud (or what used to be considered fraud, but today is considered "winning by any means necessary", no matter how much it demoralizes the opposition and undermines perceived electoral integrity.
The Barr interview was filled with ideas and very interesting. I agree.
A million ❤️❤️ for this post. But Bari won’t she part of TDS crowd.
I don't think there is "ABUNDANT evidence of fraud." Rather I think that the elections in certain states were "ILLEGAL". The difference between "fraud" and "illegality" is vital in this question. The "illegal" voting stemmed from fact that the legislatures in various states (I cite Pennsylvania as one) did not approve of changes to the election law (as provided by the U.S. Constitution). Yet those changes were approved by the States (in the case of Pennsylvania, by the State Supreme Court).
Call it illegal or fraudulent. Either way we have a problem that needs to be solved. Mail in ballots is not a vote of integrity. Australia at the turn of the 20th Century threw their mail in’s out of their voting system for the very reason that we should have thrown it out as well. First of all you have no chain of custody over the votes. Our votes were comprised from that moment on the rest as they say is history. It went belly up from 2020 till God know when it will improve.
The person I know that was telling Democrats to request ballots by mail AND voting in-person for the same election, hinted that there would be no chain identification for the mail-in ballot, so they would essentially get “two votes” per person.
There is both illegality and fraud.
Exactly.
I don't think the election was stolen, but had it been conducted in each state the way 2016 was, Trump wins the electoral and popular vote.
There's also abundant evidence that Trump personally flew both the hijacked planes into the World Trade Center towers, so the man is a terrorist.
When will Bari recognize the abundant merit to claims of Trump being singlehandedly responsible for 9/11?
Obama was co-pilot; everyone knows that.
LOL
Curious, Neil -- is there a web site, or article, or series of articles, that best summarizes all the known instances of voting fraud and irregularities that took place in 2020? It would be really interesting to see a full rundown of what was alleged to have happened in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, etc., and which have these have been proven, disproven, or neither.
There obviously are a lot of people who think the election result was illegitimate. If anyone has sewed all this together, and made a case that the actual electoral count should have been XXX-to-YYY, I'd love to see it.
Rigged, a book by Mollie Hemingway is a great source. But there are many others...
Great question. I'd love to see it as well.
While I'm sure there was some fraud, I don't think the election was stolen. I believe that had all of the states used the same laws that existed in 2016, Trump would have won. As I was watching the various states extend the number of days to count, the emphasis on mail in ballots, ballot harvesting etc. I saw the writing on the wall. It's crazy that Trump did as well as he did.
Well, I've done A LOT of reading on this, and I disagree with you. I'm probably 80% certain the election was stolen. But I also know that's not going to change anything. It never will - cheating in elections pays. Republicans better get in the game.
I can't say you're wrong, but I haven't seen the smoking gun, and I haven't done a lot of reading, nor have I seen 2000 mules
I knew people (my own wife, even) who were volunteering to call potential (Democrat) voters in Georgia and other purple states and get them registered. The DNC is quite the vote machine.
I agree, Democrats wanted it more than Republicans and the result is evidence of this.
That position is nothing more than "to the victor go the spoils" and at that point the rule of law is dead.
Jet beams can't melt steel fuel. 7/11 was an inside job!
Okay, for all you subscribers that torch Bari when she invites a guest to publish who you may not agree with, this column is why I value CS as much as I do. Brilliant interview.
I agreed with half his points and disagreed with the other. Trump was something totally foreign to DC, and Bill Barr. He was a horrible figurehead (the opposite of Obama and JFK), but was, by far imho, the best CEO of the US (the opposite of Obama and JFK) I've ever experienced.
He took on problems that have been metastasizing in our federal government for decades, and didn't give a shit about the political fallout. When I read Barr's comment, he pretty much says that the policies were good, but his diplomacy was not. In my career I learned to separate personality from performance. Many in this country can't do that.
I also believe that he, and some in his circle believed that there was fraud in the 2020 election. I believe it too, but it would be impossible to prove. I don't think that the election was stolen, but I believe that if all of the states used the same election laws in place during the 2016 election, Trump would have won.
Anyway, Thank you Bari for this wonderful interview.
Obama was a figurehead of guilt who promoted systemic racism and began the divisive tribalism we now face.
Agreed
We love Bari, not Barr. Like others here I would rather she interview someone outside the Swamp who served in the Swamp like Bob Lighthizer who almost singlehandedly saved our economy advising Trump on deregulation and lowering the corporate tax rate from the highest in the world(40%) to 21%. We are not in full recession because of these actions. Barr is essentially a nobody who lived his life around failures in government.
Victor Davis Hanson would be fun.
Victor is brilliant.
Outstanding choice! Lord Conrad Black would be another.
He is also very good
She is about to be a mom. If she is a good one, and I suspect she will be, now it will be about what her child's life depends on. Stay tuned, I expect changes will be forthcoming.
You can already sense a change in Nellie.
Bari is a good interviewer. Also I think there's a difference between simply not liking Trump and TDS, which Barr admitted does exist.
I'd like to hear Bari interview AOC. That would be a hoot - Common Sense vs abject silliness. But I doubt AOC would submit to a real interview unless maybe she could be assembling something from Ikea while they talk.
Sorry, friend. You're the RINO here.
It's not about Trump over all. It's about Rs winning a majority, right?
Barr is the RINO, it is about Trump's policies which means the middle class being included in our country instead of being raped.
Anybody can have those policies, right? IMO, *only* Trump could possibly lose the election in '24.
He could easily win if conditions stayed the same, but I would rather not find out.
Too far down the road to say "easily," but I agree.
Good post, Jon. I also agreed with half of Barr's points, and disagreed with the rest. Which points I disagreed with might be different with yours, since I think we view Trump differently from each other - but your main point of this interview being brilliant I totally agree with. It's frank, filled with nuance and the questions were for the most part direct and concise, with Barr responding in kind.
I think the interview is in itself newsworthy.
The performance/personality connection is an interesting one. In my mind Trump never mastered the personality trait of showing praise to a rival in order to gain support. If he had he would gotten quite a few Democrats on his side early on, especially when he wanted to put through an infrastructure bill, among other things. He was just too interested in pleasing his base.
I think Trump has too much of an ego to throw any accolades to any possible opponent - and that's where personality could affect performance.
*FINALLY!* A discussion about the interview.
I'd be curious what half You disagreed with, Sir Lee. I'd hafta reread it after Your reply (if any, no NEED).
I didn't find much to disagree with. In fact, I believe I'm vindicated by what he said. He said a lotta things I've *been* saying all along. So, no, I didn't find much to disagree with.
(Per usual, TYTY. :-)
There is a lot to unpack in that interview, that's for sure. But on just two points of his I'll comment on. He supports capital punishment, and I do not. Too many innocent people have been found on death row.
And he intertwines the discipline of a religious life with limited government as envisioned by the framers of the Constitution - which I never read anywhere in any history book (and I've read a few..). In any event it's a not a view I subscribe to. You can be all for limited government and be an atheist..
Capital punishment is a tough issue. I've gone back and forth on it over the decades.
Yeah, You can be for limited government and still be an Atheist. But look at The Federalist Papers for the quote about Religion being necessary. He (Madison? Hamilton?) didn't say it was necessary for a limited goverment. He said it was necessary for a Democracy like they put together in the Constitution to function properly.
I'm lately starting to wonder if he wasn't right.
The Federalist Papers - read too long ago for me to remember, but well worth another look..
More proof, perhaps, that the Constitution is merely a product of its time, albeit an enlightened one, but based on the values and monoculture of that era, and not entirely flexible enough to encompass what our society has become, and will be.
Well, long day done. But before that, we could not possibly disagree more than on this point.
I think You're taking the view that the Constitution is outmoded because now us Atheists now much more now. (Granted, I'm only 50% Fundamentalist Atheist.) That we don't need Religion, and that actually gets in the way. Mebbe I'm misinterpreting Your views, so there is that.
But the point is that the Constitution is flexible, and open to interpretation. There's nothing that I can see that would be better than that. In fact, a whole lotta countries to our Constitution in mind when they developed theirs. I don't think that's any accident.
Longer discussion required, because that's a *very* deep difference we have.
I've been at the keyboard probably 12 hours (with a couple short breaks) and I'm played, Sir Lee. Mebbe tomorrow. Mebbe not. Have a good 'un.
Just offering a different perspective... Trump was always a gentleman to his opponents. Until they attacked and he punched back which is a first since Newt or Reagan. The media clearly attacked him at all times and he simply pushed back instead of taking their shyte. The thing that kills me is that he was willing to work with democrats, say, on immigration; "I will grant amnesty for 2M illegals, but I want a border wall." They emphatically said no and shut down the government. The 2M number is what they had talked about for years and then? No.
Another was McCain who actually campaigned on dismantling Ocare in 2018 and then abruptly thumbed down at the moment of repeal. All to spite Trump after telling voters he would do it.
When you are not dealing with reputable people, well, Trump was right to get nasty. I work with some executives who make Trump look humble; that is who they are: HIGHLY competitive, ladies and gentlemen until the other side gets nasty, very successful and competent, and treat others as professionals - until their adversary goes dark.
This is the real Trump and the rest in leadership at the federal government, including Barr, are incompetent at other than self preservation. Remember, Barr was AG when Ruby Ridge went down and an innocent mother was shot in the face and a 14 yr old boy was shot in the back by his employees.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/08/19/the-day-i-went-head-to-head-with-donald-trump/#624a2a035570
I too enjoyed the interview but I respect and generally agree with Barr. And I agree with all you said above but with one critical difference. I'll support Trump if it is my only republican choice but DeSantis is a better option.
I sympathize with the fear and anger Trump feels, we are absolutely in a battle for the soul and preservation of the America I want to my kids to live in. And if we do not stand up for it against this neo marxist orthodoxy that the Democrat Party has devolved into, the country will likely degenerate into a hard left, fascist state with excesses that will likely cause it to self-destruct and take down the rest of the somewhat free world with it.
Here's my point of difference, he doesn't listen to the people he himself chose to surround himself with. It is not, oh they are Rino's or they are from the swamp, it is that he wants to rule and not lead. We need someone with his toughness but also who has enough self-control and wisdom to lead us out of the abyss we are falling into. The problem is so large, so complex, so intractable, that only a strong leader, who knows how to listen to, and follow good advice when he gets it will be successful. There will be hard to explain, new ways of approaching the problem, that will need both a hard and a soft touch. I think DeSantis' legislative work is a good example of that. If you haven't read it, read the Anti-Woke ACT here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/7/BillText/er/PDF
I too would prefer DeSantis, but the Mar-a-Lago raid pretty much makes this Trump's nomination if he wants it. The cynic in me wonders if that was the intention as the left fears DeSantis more than Trump in 24.
Yeah, I wonder the same. Biden’s handlers are quite sophisticated.
and corrupt
I love DeSantis as well, but the big money donors are already 'giving'. Trump belongs to nobody and that is precisely why he was ousted. The "Liberal International Order" - Globalism - must proceed with the decline of America.
An excellent interview, and professionally done. It's the type of piece we'd have seen in the Washington Post or New York Times back when they were actual news organizations rather than adjuncts of a political party.
So happy to be supporting Bari's journalism instead of those other outfits. I'll be forwarding this article to several friends who still (inexplicably) rely on MSM sources, with a note that says, "Here's what an objective, professional interview looks like... since you don't get that sort of thing anymore from your preferred news sources."
I'm not sure even Barr was against Trump per se, he just hated him blasting everything out via Twitter.
Trump could have have given a five minute press conference every day, not tweeted and probably won going away. (as long as he didn't get too crazy in the 5 minutes)
He blasted out on Twitter precisely because the likes of Barr did not follow orders and leaked their narratives to their favorite rag.
Oh, and he gave pressers every.single.day.
And in fairness Trump tweeted to get around the MSM.
You may not agree. Likely won't. I think that's just a lame excuse for Trump's outrageous behavior on Twitter. And I believe the *main* reason Trump tweeted like he did was simply because he was narcissistic. Granted, I'm not a psychologist, but I don't think it takes one to see that.
I don't Twitter much but I did hear that his aides were doing some of the tweets. That said, Trump seemed to disrespect the office of president while at the same time loving the country and doing good for it. Sort of like a bi-polar effect.
He definitely had his highs and lows, that's fer sure, Ma'am...
Agreed!
"When I read Barr's comment, he pretty much says that the policies were good, but his diplomacy was not. In my career I learned to separate personality from performance. Many in this country can't do that."
You should learn to do it, Jon, IMO.
The policies are the shallow part of governing. The leading is the main thing, and Trump was one-a the worst leaders this country has ever seen.
So that balances out. And no. Anyone that thinks he's ONE-A THE BEST OF ALL TIME?
It balances out, but on balance, not in his favor. Jan 6 he showed his true colors. Skunk.
Outside of the Germany, France, and Canada Trump was absolutely respected by the rest of our world's leaders, especially the Middle East.
China, NoKo, Iran and Russia and Russia respected him too, or at least took him seriously.
They respected him and his controlled unpredictability.
I'm not so sure.
Point is, his unpredictability was like a lotta his actions. Totally UNcontrolled. He was a "high-flyin, I'm number one, and everybody get outta my WAY, kind-a guy. Despite the number of bankruptcies, I assume he was successful. But, see? BILLIONAIRES can get away with a lotta that kind-a *crap* that most people learn to stay clear from.
In "The Leader of the Free World?" That kind-a BILLIONAIRE crap is a DISadvantage.
That is precisy why Barr and the rest of the federal barista's hated him. He was uncontrollable and that is the way it should be. Same as Reagan and Nixon; they successfully took Nixon and Trump out using the FBI.
China, NoKo, Iran and Russia respected Trump? I'm not so certain.
Now Trump respected *them* no doubt. All the totalitarians. But, IMO, Xi played Trump for a fool, for example, when the Wuhan virus came out. Xi "respectfully" declined to cooperate with Trump right at the beginning. "No," and that was the end of the call.
The rest is history, as "they" say.
All our politicians any more are millionaires on their way to becoming billionaires, whether from business or mysteriously 'made' during their time in office. Bartender and economic genius AOC is now reportedly 'worth' $29m
Naw, it takes a certain kind-a ruthlessness to become a Billionaire.
Granted, a *lotta* the politicians these days have that kind-a ruthlessness. But I don't think that's most-a them. But, then, ICBW about that. Been wrong before a time or two. ;-)
I have tried yo refrain from comments antagonistic to yours on this article. I understand your prejudice and am not likely to reach you with reason, but for heaven's sake man you said formulation of policy is the easy part, that "leadership" is the hard part. History is replete with charismatic leaders who were awful - Hitler, Jim Jomes, that odious little Dr. Fauci.
Lynne - agree. For us out here in society-land what matters is the policies instituted that affect us. For that I like Trump, also I personally thought he was funny.
I'd say most of the hatred for him has nothing to do with what he actually did but is Dems venomous talking points - racist nazi fascist etc. thrown at him like childish schoolyard taunts.
Weeeel, here's where I hafta disagree with Ya, Ma'am.
I agree there's a lotta venomous talking points. No doubt.
But there's a lot more *wrong* with Trump that really *does* matter. And I think more wrong than there is right, IMO.
Yeah, I noticed that. I appreciate it. But I'm not at *all* sure *You're* amenable to reason.
I'm not saying Trump *wasn't* charismatic. And Your examples make my point about the results.
I wouldn't even require Trump to be muchuva leader if he could-a only acted like an *adult.* It wasn't in him. Character of slime mold, and all that. Yeah, that's the hard part in most people's lives. Living up to principles. Some have trouble more than others, Yours one-a the least troubles of all.
But Trump?
I do not think Trump was charismatic. Far from it. I think Barr's analysis of Trump was spot on. All of it. But, like Barr, I think Trump was very much needed and his policies were very good for the country. Had Trump been afforded a modicum.of respect, which the office deserves, by the Dems or the MSM he might well have had an opportunity to be more "Presidential". But he was not afforded that opportunity from day one (remember that odious Comey did not even eant to brief him)and so he tweeted. BFD. I think he demonstrated how meaningless the press really is. And at some level I think this demonstrates the old substance or appearance dilemma. I equate Trump's policies with substance and I will take that over appearance any day.
I dunno what BFD means. And I agree with Barr too. I guess we interpret it differently.
No, it's not a question of substance or appearance. Or rather, You've got the two mixed up.
The *substance* was him not turning power over. The appearance was his charisma. That's how he duped You all into thinking he was great because of his policies. He didn't get respect, because he didn't deserve it, for the most part.
But, yeah, the office deserves some. He never made any effort to assume the office, as an adult would, was the problem.
So. Yeah, I take substance over appearance every day. Trump had no substance, is the fact of the matter. Was he needed at that time? He served a useful purpose. I think I learned a lot about the political/economic/social situation from him. That's history.
Today, I don't see why You can't see what I'm "saying" here.
jt I have not been duped and I do not appreciate the insinuation. I will not respond further.
Biden is as Biden has always been, mean and inconsiderate to the American people. He believes he is above us all and doesn't have the sense to hide it. He's the biggest moron the White House has ever seen. He makes Bush Jr. look like Einstein.
lol Lynne! Barr's comment that the Bush baby was the greatest leader just about made me choke.
that is no easy task ! making Bush look like Einstein
Sorry, but Biden being Biden doesn't in any way justify what Trump did and *is.*
jt - disagree on that. When our only viable choice is the lesser of two evils then comparing them is all we have and so yes, is justified.
Yeah, we disagree on that.
Me? I don't see any *lesser* of two evils when both are down in the same gutter.
You can always vote for whoever You wanna, of course. But it'd take a "miracle" for me to vote for either of 'em.
Then what do we do? We’re going to get stuck with one or the other
You're describing the very real problem of "the evil of two lessers." That's where we are right now.
If you consider lecturing about skin color (Obama) day in and day out the trait of a great figurehead.
When Barr says Trump turned off key constituencies, he means he pissed off the deep swamp: Barr included.
The thing is, the government is not supposed to be a constituent of itself.
Bari has indulged in the anti-Trump market long enough. Time to move one. (I know, that won't happen - too much money to make from it.)
The DC blob considers what's good foe them is good for America
They actually think they are the US. I am convinced they see the rest of the country as nothing but an abstraction.
I have an insider's view on what they think, because many members of my family have a permanent case of TDS. So I have to disagree with you. They see the rest of the country not as an abstraction but as something very real and terrifying, i.e., an incorrigible mass of half-witted dirt farmers, miscreants, religious fanatics and members of the KKK. Yes, it is that bad.
The day that Bill Barr came out and said he didn’t think there was enough fraud to overcome the results I accepted that as the truth. I trust what Barr says. That doesn’t mean that the Democrats didn’t use Covid as an excuse to change election rules to favor themselves, because they did. And it doesn’t mean that Zuckerberg’s $375 million dollars didn’t help the Democrats, because it did. What it means is that the Republicans didn’t do enough in the months before the election to fight these activities from happening, maybe intentionally. We should learn from these mistakes. Bill Barr was a good and honest AG, unlike Garland. I hope Trump retires and stays out of the election. He’s just too chaotic.
Therein lies the conundrum. Because I agree with your last two sentences.
I think Barr doesn't want to find fraud, because there was plenty of it from what I've read. I also don't think Barr as looked into it very deeply and just assumes things about election fraud.
Ponder on this pilgrims: let's say that there is irrefutable proof that the 2020 POTUS election was stolen during vote counting. Let's say that proof is highly disseminated. What would happen? The repercussions would be beyond 9/11+Pearl Harbor - globally.
It is much safer to just say "nothing to see here, move along".
That's why Republicans need to play the game. It will never be clean and fair. Accept and adjust.
I think there's a distinction between "fraud", prosecutable on a Fed level and what some of the discrepancies were. Allowing drop boxes uncontrolled? State responsibility. Allowing a billionaire to come in and spend 100's of millions to get out the vote in blue districts? State responsibility. etc, etc, etc
Bees - they see us pretty much as we see them, but instead of dirt farmers we see them as half-witted child groomers, miscreants, climate-religious fanatics and founders of the KKK
I don't see my family or progressives in general as any of those things you mention. (Founders of the KKK?) And I know many, because I live in Liberal Land. I volunteer at a local church and the parishioners I work with are nice and kind people. Problem is, they’re woke up the wazoo, complete with the dopey pronouns. It’s a problem of intellectual and emotional capture induced by fear and a hefty portion of white guilt.
Progressives are not groomers, generally speaking, but through their dead-eyed, brain-dead, unquestioning support of gender ideology, they empower the groomers. The problem is, they don’t believe there are groomers. When you’ve been told over and over again that Chris Rufo and James Lindsay are nazis, you don’t check for yourself. That’s the difference between them and me. They live in a comfy media bubble from which they never stray. Even Substack is suspect. Fear has made them incurious and very sure of themselves. It’s a wonderment.
The Dems founded the KKK
Deplorables desperately clinging to our Bibles and guns.
I've got a good grip on mine lol.
Me too.
Gosh get out of that family. You sound completely isolated. It sounds terrible!
Take it from me: you can't divorce your family. You can laugh at them, though - without comment. Be sure to NEVER comment, no matter how much they bait you. Drives them out of their minds, so at least you get a little bit of retribution that way. And they leave you alone about politics.
Well gee, that sounds familiar. I mistakenly uttered Tucker Carlson’s name once at dinner, and my brother-in-law almost had a coronary. We had to talk him down with a piece of chocolate cake..
You right Doc the best medicine is not to take the bait. But what seriously drives me mad is when they all scream blue murder at the injustices of Covid vaccine and mask mandates or Dr Fauci’s incessant lying , or worse still the raid on President Trump’s home which they all thought was a total witch hunt on the President - yeah go figure I’m living in a nuthouse🤣🤣
Haha…nah, it’s shocking and disheartening, but I love my family. There are some very kind people among them.
It’s an interesting exercise in tolerance and detachment, because despite the perfect world they envision, this country will never conform to their rigid beliefs. Anyway, I’m way too old to start over.
I struggle with two D Sisters. I'm pretty sure Older-Sister is Woke, so I don't talk with her much about anything that I find interesting. (Come to think, it's been a while since we chatted in emails.)
I yelled and swore at Younger-Sister last call. Doesn't do either of us any good. Normally I don't get frustrated by any-a that, but that day it was too much.
We're all in our 60s and 70s, so yeah. WAY too old to start over.
a profitable abstraction. They are the ultimate bean counters, disconnected from the damage but there for the paycheck.
I don’t see how people got that Barr is anti-Trump. He gave his account of what he experienced and gave his opinions about Trump, negative AND positive. I found him authentic and Bari did a great job with her questions.
Indeed. This addiction to "..I'm so shocked who would have thought they'd do his to poor little me.." speaks directly to some deeper damage holding us in thrall to forces that mean us ill. At the core, the POWER does reside with "..we the people.." People and institutions willing to lie directly in our faces have no respect for our lives or our country.
Your comment is interesting to me because somewhere in the interview Barr was asked if he would vote for Trump again if he was up against suggested Dem challengers and he answered yes..
I still say DeSantis will not run in 2024 and if I were him I wouldn't. WHY would he?
He's leading a state that loves him. The national media can't touch him really. Once he hits the campaign trail all bets are off. They will devour him. Why would any sane person want to deal with that in today's society?
I agree. The country will be better off if DeSantis stays right where he is so our governors can observe and copy his approach to policy and take as much advantage of states' rights as he does. The problem is that not every elected official is as confident and clearheaded as he is when it comes to dealing with the media and progressive rhetoric. He's immune to bullying.
DeSantis is still young. I think he will eventually run but maybe not in 2024. He seems open to a bigger office but another term in Florida might make him stronger.
So - who would be an alternative to Trump? It seems like we have a sad dearth of leadership/sane people anymore, whether GOP or Dems. Partisanship has taken over and I think Barr covered that well.
Hmmm - Maybe Barr?
God forbid!
Wow, thanks. I was unaware. You can’t make this stuff up.
Yes, no one in their right mind would subject themselves and their family to the attacks associated with running for public office. This is why we have terrible candidates running for public office. The brain drain in American politics is stunning and We The People are suffering terribly from it.
But alas, this is intentional.
Agree 100%.
I agree, but I sure wish he would. I am so over all things Trump. Can you imagine what his campaign will sound like? This time around it’ll be about all the terrible things that were done to him. That sure isn’t what independents will want to hear. I voted for him twice, and I don’t want to be forced to vote for him again because obviously I can’t ever vote for a democrat after the places this admin has taken us. 2024 will be all be about revenge for Trump.
I agree, no more Trump. He’s done his job and is now a liability to all sane conservatives.
I voted for him twice and I don't want him to run again. I just wish the Democrats and the media would have just ignored him. Instead they put him back in the spotlight 24/7. Most people were ready to move on.
I will say this, because so many people had reservations about the election outcome the Democrats did zero things to try and make future elections more secure. It's as if they accept how elections are run now as being completely free from fraud. That will never fly with many Trump supporters.
DTS. The opposite of TDS. No, that will never fly with Deranged Trump Supporters.
Me? I give more credit to what Barr says than to what Trump says, any day of the week.
So, you agree with Barr, that Trump's policies were solid and he should be proud of his accomplishments?
Yeah. I've said plenty-a times he did a lotta good things. Learned some more today..
Linda - my thoughts exactly. Trump has a chip on his shoulder now (and rightly so, but still) and half the country hates him. It would be chaos.
But at this point I'd cut off my hand before I'd vote for a Dem. Voting for one Dem means you vote for them all and Pelosi is just too vile. She's like a geriatric Chucky.
I wish everyone could get behind a third party candidate. Libertarian would be my choice.
I like your thinking on this--and really do wonder whether DeSantis in actual fact has more power as governor of this model state than he would lodged in the Deep-State mess of Washington.
I'd like him to continue to set precedents for other states to deal with the culture wars for the next four years, and then take it up a level.
I think his positions regarding K-12 and Universities are spot on, and could accomplish at the state level what the Feds could never accomplish.
True, but he is the most electable Republican for 2024. If he doesn’t run, GOP is in trouble.
I agree
I feel exactly as you do.
The citizens of that state love him. He's doing a great job. The national media really can't touch him. I would stay there, but that's me.
the tease of the throne gets em every time.
Ego
Narcissism
Power
Any, all, or combo of those gets them all the time
You realize, right? You're describing Trump to a T. From Your comment above:
"Why would any sane person want to deal with that in today's society?"
I suppose that's the best justification to ending up with Trump as the nominee. He *hungers* to deal with it.
In fairness, that describes most of our presidents lol
Of course that's Trump- I never said otherwise. But his policies were good, thousand times better than Biden IMO. But like I said I don't want him running again. I would like to see the next candidate have similar policies.
That'd be nice.
But there's Trump in the way of any-a that, right? IMO, he's the *only* R that could *possibly* lose to a D. Me? Too close, and too far away to call.
To save the Republic!
I like DeSantis but being a good governor is not the same as going up against the DC Bureaucratic machine, fresh off the destroy Trump campaign. Our State Dept, Intel Agencies, and all the alphabet agencies have experienced new found clout and power having bested Trump. I consider what was done to Trump by these bureaucrats to be Treason if as seems to be the case they were intentionally lying in an attempt to remove a duly elected President.
Why would he? Because he wants to be President. All governors of big states salivate at the idea of being President. It's one of the traits that got them to where they are at now lol.
If you hadn’t noticed, DeSantis is rallying in other states. No one does that if their eye is only on remaining governor of one state.
I think it’s good that both DeSantis and Youngkin are helping out in the senate races. If those people win, then it is good for their resumes. If they lose, then at least they introduced themselves to the voters in other states. And if the guys they help win, they get good time tokens from the voters and the elected officials.
Plus, they can rally in other states without the baggage Trump carries at this delicate time.
DeSantis is running in 2024.
William Barr can dissemble, shuffle, shuck, and jive all he wants. I am not a young player, and I still have a very good memory; I not only remember election night 2020 perfectly, I remember the months leading up to the election, with Trump rallies - sometimes three or more per day - attended by tens of thousands, while Biden couldn't get three men, a boy, and a dog to listen to him without hanging a pork chop around the boy's neck for the dog. I have reviewed the videos and cell phone tracks of people who made repeated trips after midnight to ballot dropboxes. I have reviewed the video of suspended vote counting - never EVER done before - with subsequent ushering-out of observers, followed by suitcases of ballots appearing from under covered tables - the coverings themselves even illegal. I have reviewed cases where courts flatly refused to hear evidence - not evidence, proof - of fraud, lest it then be immortalized in the public record. I watched testimony of experts who were able to scan ballots to determine if they had been folded - necessary for them to be mailed instead of just photocopied - who were dismissed and their offers refused. I watched a live demonstration of a white-hat hacker's invasion of a Dominion voting machine from the next room. I reviewed traffic logs that showed Dominion machines' over multiple jurisdictions synchronizing to reveal exactly the same percentages for Trump on every one and synchronized percentages on each for Biden. I was born at night, but not LAST night. I know what happened as well as I know I'll take my next breath, and so do millions - no, tens of millions - of others.
Bill Barr is a lifelong product of the Unelected Deep State, is more than anything committed to preservation of the Permanent Deep State and defending it against damage from those "temporary" politicians who change every four years. He is bright - very bright, and he managed to hold the line for a while. But a great number of people are awake now - not woke, awake - and it may be possible, just may, to restore this great Nation to honesty and integrity. This Republic needs a giant enema, and while Barr may not be the first evacuated, if there is a God in heaven, I believe that his time will come.
Well said, sir.
Jim. And, when did you say you were declaring…………..
LOL. I always say I want to be king, not president, not prime minister. King, so if I say it, it happens. But only 24 hours. Any longer and I might start liking it.
But after 24 hours, I'll give you back a nation that nobody under a hundred years old will remember. And a nationwide rope shortage to go with it.
Thank God some more common sense today!!!
Having read his book and listened to all of this interview, I'm not inclined to accept your opinion of Barr. He says he had the justice department investigate the claims of fraud but found them to be dead ends, unsubstantiated, finding no irregularities that would have come close to changing the outcome of the election. I doubt your review of the "evidence" went any deeper than his, or that you had the privileged access to the evidence needed to determine its veracity beyond a reasonable doubt. So I have a hard time understanding what real motive Barr might have had for undermining claims of fraud given his qualified support of Trump and his policies, your characterization of the man notwithstanding. It doesn't add up. On the other hand, I can easily believe that this was Trump's election to lose and he did just that. I voted for him because Mike Pence was on the ticket, the only sane and sensible candidate I saw in the debates, and because I could see that what was coming with Biden as President would be much worse (though I only saw the half of it at the time).
I could refute that line by line, but today's article by Conrad Black sums it up very well:
"It seems clear that in the 2020 presidential election, where Trump could have prevailed in the Electoral College if 50,000 votes had flipped in Pennsylvania and any two of Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, that millions of ballots potentially passed through hands that could not be identified. All of this occurred in swing states where rules were changed ostensibly to facilitate voting during the pandemic. But in the case of a number of states, contrary to the Constitution, these changes were determined not by the state legislatures but by executive branches or state judiciaries. In every one of the 19 lawsuits launched to attack these questionable changes to voting and vote counting rules, the judiciary, including in the case of the Texas attorney general’s action against the swing states and supported by 18 other state attorneys general, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear any of these cases on their merits; they were disallowed for technical reasons, some of those quite spurious."
William Barr, like many others born, bred, and raised in the DC Swamp, is absolutely dedicated to preservation of the Deep State - which, as I have said, he views as sacrosanct - "career officials," as opposed to those "temporary" elected ones. That someone steeped in decades of loyalty to those institutions would put his finger on the scale in favor of preserving them "adds up" quite well, thankyouverymuch.
Well said, Jim. As George Carlin said "It's a big club.... and you ain't in it." Indeed, they are about preserving the establishment and the D.C. corrupt business model. Trump was disrupting trillions of that Swamp - your tax dollars back into your pockets - and had to go.
Is this the same Conrad Black who was convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007 and spent time in jail? Sorry.
No, he's the same one who is the "big guy" in his son's sale of his country to the Chi-coms. Don't mention it.
You dont find irregularities if you dont look for them. He didnt audit a thing. Just a 'gentlemans' wink among fellow government employees who profit from not rocking a boat.
There were 10s of thousands of signed affadavits from poll workers no legal entity even entertained. Easier that way. For Barr.
Your characterization of Barr doesn't make sense to me given what I've read and observed. There were plenty of irregularities due to changes in the voting rules during the Covid crisis. Barr acknowledged as much and that they did provide opportunities for fraud. Democrats have seen those opportunities to be in their favor and so oppose reasonable measures being taken since by some states to help ensure the integrity of the process. When Barr's staff did look into the irregularities they didn't amount to fraud on a scale that would have made a difference in the outcome. As for the "10s of thousands of affidavits", where are they? How do we know they're legit? We've been told many things like this and have been told things about what we're seeing in obscure online video and commentary indicating voter fraud as if there could be no larger context that would cast doubt on what we're being told. Forgive me for being skeptical. I'm not new to the games played on the internet either. It's made me all too familiar with the way many people are led to believe what they want to believe no matter what their political persuasion.
Fair comment. This is just me personally... Donald Trump was up by 800,000 votes at 9:30 pm in PA. And then they stopped counting in the six swing states where they have never done that before. Watch '2000 Mules' which highlights how republicans have used the same tactics. Common sense. Bill Barr, probably rightly, had no interest in walking into a shitstorm where every force in America was waiting to attack him. I was afraid to go into battle on behalf of this nation and into I went. You gotta do what is right. Please consider this:
https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/author-of-the-mega-viral-thread-on
Likewise, You find irregularities, if that's all You're looking for.
No, you find them if they are there. And of course, with more than a hundred million votes, you WILL find them. That's not the question. The question is, "Were there enough irregularities to change the outcome?"
Unequivocally yes.
Sorry, but Your one-a the DTSs I've mentioned before.
Trump knows all. Trump *is* all. Nothing else matters.
No sir, Trump knows he doesn't know all, he knows what actually works and doesn't for ALL Americans not just the ruling class.
C'mon man. I guy that couldn't even get 50% of the vote doesn't know what actually works. Or he would-a adjusted, the way Barr recommended. He couldn't. He lost because-a that.
And he was the opposite of being for ALL Americans, right?
Man, no offense, but you have to switch to decaf - and at least look at your posts before you hit "send."
Don't waste your time with jt. He's trolling any inkling of a positive comment about Trump and saying everyone has TDS or DTS. I think he might be an actual paid troll, but not sure. He writes oddly (because-a) and just seems off. I would ignore his comments entirely.
Funny, that's what I just suggested to him in my comment before this one.
I'd advise same for You. But I'll also note You call me a troll because You have no logical arguments against what I "say," right?
Why's that?
DTS. Deranged Trump Supporter.
I don't think You could conceive of even one bad quality of Trump that makes him unfit for office, right? And there's more than one. I think some 80 or 90K of them, meaning the votes against.
"I think some 80 or 90K of them, meaning the votes against."
I hate to keep wasting space on this Substack asking for clarification, but could you explain what that means?
You do know that K means thousands, right? Did you mean millions?
Ooops. I always make a lotta mistakes. Because, as I've stated before numerous times, I NEVER look at what I type. I never claimed to be a writer, and I don't write the way they do.
IOW, yeah, I meant M. You got the point, didn't You. I rest my case. ;-)
I don't mean to pick on you, but in my court you just forfeited.
I have a friend who says that: "It's just me being me." My response? "That's no excuse. If you can't do better, then be somebody else."
Typos happen; everybody knows that; everybody has trouble with commas. But writers write. If you are going to write, then write. Don't excuse your dirty pants at dinner by saying, "I've been working on the car all day." Change your pants. Proof your copy. Check to see if you are using acronyms (my pet peeve) whose meaning is known only to a few - or one.
Sorry, everybody. EOF (End of File)
lol Jim - agree about the TLA's
(three letter acronyms)
Sorry pal. I've seen that kind-a advice. I wrote on Medium.com and read more advice than I care to think about.
All I gotta say is I'm not gonna do it Your way. I have NEVER have written that way in spite of all the advice and am not about to start now. I don't claim to BE a writer. If that offends Your sensibilities, then I advise You to skip over my comments.
In the meantime, I'll write by instincts and not put a whole lotta thought into what I write at all. Sorry. But that's the only way I know.
Agree with the Trump energy and momentum, and the shenanigans on election night. It's like certain states saw 2016 happening again and had to shut down and regroup. Very suspicious.
What? Can you say that in English?
"I think Trump did serve a historic purpose: He was sort of the wrecking ball and against progressive excess. People were mad about it, and they wanted a no-nonsense person who would be a wrecking ball, and he did that."
Our political establishment has failed working Americans and benefited the Davos crowd. Think John Kerry flying a private jet across the Atlantic to accept an award for his environmental activism and now Democrats say we need higher energy prices. That's the kind of thing that makes people angry.
So, um, when will we get an interview with someone who isn't a lackey for the establishment?
I like Bill Barr well enough. I figure there was nothing he could do within the law about the election. But when he says Trump wasn't "disciplined" enough, he's not really saying what you and I would think: meaning Trump needed to put his phone down and text a whole lot less, maybe read a few history books and law articles. What Bill Barr means is Trump didn't "play the game." And it is all a game.
And Chris Wray is a vermin of the swamp. Trump's biggest fault was picking people from within the swamp to head the swamp, and as much as I want to give Bill Barr the benefit of the doubt, he is no less a swamp creature than anyone else, just perhaps not as scaley.
Trump's greatest virtue - his willingness to be a bare-knuckle fighter when no one else was willing - has gained him tremendous loyalty. But it's also his greatest failing. As Barr notes, he had his day in court. Perhaps if he had made better use of it, things would have been different. Perhaps if he had "played the game," we wouldn't be having this debate. The "game" is not playing to the emotions of your constituency. It's proving your case.
Proving election fraud on a major scale doesn't happen through anecdotal evidence, a few here and a few there. After a few hundred such, can we assume - or at least, strongly suspect - there's a "there there"? Sure, but that's not evidence.
Indeed the window is short, which is why Barr notes correctly it's a bad idea to waste it. Not wasting it requires discipline. Which was lacking.
Has the country been damaged? Certainly. And it's fairly evident that if Biden had confidence in his 80 million votes there is much he could have done to stamp out fraud and restore public confidence in the integrity of the election. But bear in mind it's his team that wants to abolish the electoral college. Those who wish to change the rules rarely waste energy enforcing them.
Republicans would be wise to take Barr's observation to heart, be disciplined, and make good use of the short window between the midterms and 2024.
I can agree with about half of this.
ICBW, but I believe, just from what You've written, that You're one-a the people with tremendous loyalty to Trump. Me? No problem with that. It just indicates how to read what You right. Very glad to see You recognize some-a his failings. Actually agree with most-a what You "said."
When you said you agreed with about half (or most?), you had me curious because I thought you’d tell me which half, one way or another. That would enrich the debate.
Instead, you want to guess at my motivations. I can’t think of anything less interesting.
Gimme a break. I've likely posted a couple hundred comments or more. And You wanna *berate* me because mine wasn't in sufficient *detail* for You.
Your motivations come out pretty clear. And I might-a even decided to fulfill Your wish. You made that impossible. As You say, how uninteresting.
No. Sorry.
Anybody who looked at Trump realistically would see that Barr saw the situation through and through. Unless You think he would recommend Trump read a book. I don't think Barr is *that* silly. But, yeah, Barr meant what people would *think* he meant, because he's talking the truth of the situation that anybody can see.
Two things can be true at once: (1) Trump is a buffoon who is easy to persecute and not very professional nor "presidential," and (2) Barr only cares about those facts in so far as they affect the mass's buy-in of the status quo power structure and, perhaps, his party's chances at returning to power.
Okay, if You wanna be technical about it, there's *always* two things that aren't aligned which can be true at once.
That's a meme that's overdone, as far as I'm concerned.
I agree with most, but I'm not at all sure that Barr only cares about the status quo. And can You see any good reason why he *shouldn't* care about his party's chances at returning to power.
I'm guessing You're not as concerned about that as he is, if You're thinking on supporting the buffon who is not only *not* presidential, but unfit for the office.
That meme is far from overdone. It's something people have forgotten. We're constantly trapped in a prism of two ideas, as Greg Gutfeld puts it so well.
And speaking of prisms of two ideas, there's a difference between supporting and voting for. If the Democrats give me no choice (meaning they run another "anointed" candidate like Hillary or Biden) and Republicans choose Trump, I'll vote for Trump again. But that's what people miss. We haven't had a "presidential" president in a long time. From Clinton onward (Clinton being the first president I can remember well), they were all unfit for office, more in it for the glory or the prestige or the money than for the public service. They all have the same narcissism as Trump. The only difference is Trump is more open about it (vastly more open). And Trump is by far the least immoral/amoral among them, though that is frightening to say given what he did for a living.
I care about what things *are*. Barr is all over the right about being outraged about the raid on Mar-a-Lago, but the right has a right to be outraged. Bill Barr says we need to vote people in to change things, but forgets the precedent of 2020 where we're all supposed to forget the shenanigans, from the censorship to the last minute rule changes to, yes, fraud however much there was. How do you "vote people in" in a rigged system? Barr's a smart man, a very smart man, so why is he not asking the most simple of questions.
I have news for Bill Barr. The Republican party is now the inconvenient party. It's not that it's more noble. It just didn't win the game of musical chairs. The Democrat party is useful at the moment because of its divisive dedication to idpol and will continue to be because the "deplorables" are flocking to the Republican party, and by "deplorables," I mean the mass of working and middle class that see the wild transfer of wealth upward in the guise of "public health" or "social justice" or "climate change," that are tired of the rules for thee but not for me approach we've seen over the last three years at least. If Bill Barr wants to save his party, he'll open his eyes. It's slated as the villain in this Hollywood piece, not because it did anything wrong or right, but because that has to be the story to keep the elite and the permanent state in power.
When I said "no matter," I just meant there's a real nice TGIF out there already.
I can see You're very passionate about this. But I think it colors Your perception about what Trump is. I find a lotta very complimentary things about Trump. I don't see anything the *isn't* complementary.
So I can't accept, at face value, how You imply that You may vote for Trump but You're not necessarily a supporter.
There are some things You "say" that I agree with. But the overall tone? Not so much.
I think it's You who should open Your eyes. Bill Barr isn't interested in keeping the elite and the permanent state in power. And he sees a lot clearer where the pitfalls are and what needs to be done.
If we knew Bill Barr a little better, I don't think he'd disagree with You on very much. Just the crap about the election being stolen and the aftermath of all that which Trump did. I think he has his eyes wide open and sees things pretty clear, since he was there at the time.
The only thing I'd disagree with Barr about is that I *probably* could never get myself to vote for him. I want the Rs to do well, but I'm not as attached to the party as he is. Other than that, I can't find much to disagree with him about.
No matter.
So what is Trump to you?
And I have a little trouble understanding how someone can't understand the difference between a voter and supporter. The only people I've come across who don't seem to be able to see that difference are the ones with TDS. There's always a difference between a voter and a supporter.
Are you sure you read the entire interview? I don’t see the “lackey for the establishment” here.
I read the entire interview and thought he came off very well. Until this jumped off the page:
BW: Is it possible that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t die by suicide?
AG BARR: No.
Huh.
I think he HOPES it’s true that Epstein died by suicide.
As a very deliberative attorney I think he speaks quite precisely when he wants to. And then there is his family connection to Epstein...and how many connections to Epstein's clients? Which is to say, I see good reasons to wonder how far from the swamp and its stench Barr truly is.
You seem to know something I don’t.
Well, I suppose I'll ask you a question in return: Who do you think I mean by the "establishment"?
I don’t see him as an “establishment” (traditional power structure) figure as much as a Constitutionalist. Case in point 1: he says clearly it was up to states to pursue claims of voter fraud. That is, by law, correct. And that has happened, in Wisconsin, Florida, and Arizona. Case in point 2: he correctly calls out both sides for their extra-Constitutional excesses: the impeachments, the riot at the Capitol.
Barr has great respect for the office of President, and while supporting Trump’s policies, deplored Trump’s irrationality in the role. I pretty much agree with that, and also agree Trump’s actions now risk a pivot to more rational governance as he pursues his detractors for electoral vengeance. Gotta move on, gotta figure out how not to get even, but to win.
So you really only have two choices with Bill Barr: establishment lackey or so naive it's painful. I suppose there's a third: myopic. None of those choices are good. I read the article article quickly but then I went searching for terms making sure I didn't miss something, and I didn't. I can explain why I call him a lackey with the following: You *cannot* talk about the last election w/o addressing the abuse of emergency powers to change election procedures, the censorship of the New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop, the abuse of the security services, and "Zuckerbucks." Bill Barr is pretending that the only thing of note in that whole election was that Donald Trump refused to concede. It wasn't. That was an election that would make banana republics go "Damn, wish I'd thought of that." And Bill Barr is only worried about what happened because it made "Republicans look bad."
As I said, I like Bill Barr just fine, but he's so deep in the DC swamp that he has no idea why people were enraged and none of that bothered him. It seems like he thought it was just "business as usual," and maybe it was, just a little too in-your-face. Trump might have lost the ballot count (might, I'm having more trouble with the idea that there was no measurable fraud the more Democrats push to make the "pandemic" election rules, which were little more than a free-for-all, permanent), but that does not in any way mean the election was anything remotely resembling democratic and wasn't "rigged."
The problem with the above and with the undermining of our institutions with what Barr calls partisanship but I think is closer to servitude to a very specific subset of interests (the establishment) that are really pretty apolitical is that a country, let alone a democracy, *cannot* survive without faith in elections and faith in our governing institutions. Trump did not shake people's faith in those. The Democrats, the Republicans, and the bureaucrats did in their quest to keep up this game where they give lip service to serving their constituencies but behind closed doors serve themselves and their donors. And Bill Barr is part of that system and has been for a long time. It doesn't mean I hate him. He's just part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
And the reason he defended Trump up to that last stretch is that Trump is not really a threat to the elite either. The people Trump attracted are, but Trump is not. Unless because of him people start to realize how crooked the system actually is and people start going to the source of the problem, which is to say to Capitol Hill. That is where Trump lost Barr. However corrupt the system is, Barr still can't think outside it.
I can hear your passion and I share your concerns about the integrity of elections. I just don’t interpret Barr’s words and actions the same way you do. On a scale of 1 to 100, I would still put Barr at about 80 for upholding the Constitution, and trying to do what was best for the country.
You didn't even try to take in what the Lady wrote, did You.
Deranged Trump Supporter, probably.
I dunno the Lady in the Lake *personally* but i *seriously* doubt she thinks there are no guilty people in prisons. But to You guys, that's just the kind of attack I would expect You to make.
Sorry. I don't read the NYT or watch CNN. I just read the interview with Barr, and that answers all Your questions.
I'm afraid that it's You who isn't gonna see what You don't look for. Reread the interview. It's all in there.
Not really. Not sure where you’re coming from in the second part of your comment.
"These ideas—that Trump was working with Putin; that he received unfair help in the election from Russian meddling—were ideas that many supposedly serious people endorsed every single night on television and in our newspapers. These ideas were mainstream. "
Only someone from the Democrat-media complex could say that those ideas were mainstream. And they would have to be intellectually dishonest to believe them. They knew that in all the overblown "reporting" they did on Russiagate that there was no evidence of collusion at all.
How can Barr say how deranged people are against Trump and then say there was no fraud which would have exactly been in lockstep with the derangement?
And the biggest tell on fraud? The screams of the left when legislatures want to have rules about requiring voter ID and how to request a ballot and how to return a mail in ballot. If there is no fraud, there wouldn’t be any screams of frustration.
Regardless, I’d just like to move on. We need a neutron bomb so we can start over.
I think red counties need to form a new country, and the blue counties on the left coast and New England form the own countries. I don't see how we go forward with election fraud unchecked. Why should we all have to be subjected to the Democrat party that is now setting the narrative to throw out the Constitution? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/opinion/liberals-constitution.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur
LA - there's a book series by a conservative author, a dystopian version of the US where the country fractures into different zones based on politics and culture. The author is Kurt Schlichter. I read part of the 1st in the series. Not great literature but an interesting premise in the EndofheWorld/Apocalypse genre.
I already answered this fantasy of Your's. Don't make me repeat it here.
So, the CLINTON Administration tried to hang Putin around President Trump? Not one word about about President Obama's administration going along with it - no mention of overlooking Putin's foray into Crimea, Hillary's bungled Russian reset. Really?
Obama definitely in on it - read Kim Strassel´s book (WSJ)
"But Trump did it [fired Comey] at the height of the Mueller investigation. Do you think that it was unwise to do so then?" Barr answers accepting this incorrect factual predicate.
Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017. Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017.
Good catch Paul
I scratched my head over that, and then Barr didn’t correct her. Mueller was appointed because Comey was fired. How soon we forget details of history.
It seems telling that both sought to obscure this fact, perhaps it was an honest mistake. Trump fired Comey only 4.5 months after his inauguration, and it is reasonable to see the immediate appointment of Mueller as payback or as a tool to prevent repercussions for such things as the Carter Page wiretap and the taking of the Steele dossier seriously. If so, mission accomplished.
Another one coming out of the woodwork to diminish Trumps success of exposing the DC swamp for what it is. A bunch of lying no good SOB's who could care less about those of us who grind it out everyday and play by the rules.
Pathetic.
Barr did squat to hold any of the swamp to account for their BS.
I don’t see it that way. He appointed John Durham as a Special Counsel, the correct way to investigate the origins of Russia Collusion, in my opinion. He seems to me to be a by-the-book Attorney General. He gives ample credit to Trump’s policy initiatives and places blame squarely where it belongs: on progressives, who rationalized their tactics and on Trump’s own intemperance. I think we can all agree with his statement that if Trump could have simply restrained some of his unseemly behavior, he would have been re-elected and would have been a truly great President.
It wasn't Trump's behavior; it was his mouth. That's all. He said out loud the things a lot of us were thinking, which is what made him as popular as he was. His actions were good; his decisions were for the most part very well done.
Nup. His mouth was just *one* the worst parts of his behavior. It was his behavior that led him to be such a poor loser. Actions good? Decisions good?
If he'd made the decision to listen to Bill Barr's advice, I'd say that his decision would-a been good.
would-a......
Who writes like that? What does that even mean? Where are you from?
Ooops. Always mistakes.
A small town a fair bit outside-a the capital of Ohio.
I already answered Your question, but You're too lame to notice.
I write like I talk. Like I "said." You have to *listen* if You wanna comprehend what I write a little better.
Ad hominems again. That the best You can come up with.
Well, yeah. It's the best You can come up with.
And this is the typical reply from the MAGA crowd here.
You guys wanna claim You're in favor of "thought, reasoned discussion?"
Nup.
You don't like the Way I write? Skip my comments. Do us both a favor.
Pass on by. Your personal attacks don't even register.
And Durham has done what ? Not a god damn thing.
Hope you like the Progressive Kool-Aid. I'll pass.
Yup.
At some point, people are going to have to face reality. Not every single person that says what you don’t want to believe about Trump is a lying liar. Barr didn’t have to take the job. He did take it because he felt Trump was being persecuted and wanted to correct the historical record concerning Trump and the Russian collusion hoax. He was, perhaps, the only person that Trump hired that had an ounce of integrity.
Trump has the personality that Barr described. He wasn’t a mellow leader. He had mental faults that were electorally devastating. He was so egotistical that he held the J6 rally at the Capitol, knowing full well that the swamp would set him up in some manner. He only considered his own ego. He didn’t think about how a riot would effect every single Republican across the nation and how it would degrade the party. He was not a thoughtful leader. He can’t win again. Get over it.
Feel better ?
Not really. It’s sort of sad that people won’t accept the fact that Trump had a nasty temper, treated people that were there to help him like shit and couldn’t understand that the swamp really was a swamp out to get him. How many different people that worked for Trump have to say he was a lousy leader before it penetrates some voters minds that it’s possible those people are telling the truth?
Lol ! Get a life Karen.
And this is the typical reply from the MAGA crowd here.
You guys wanna claim You're in favor of "thought, reasoned discussion?"
Nup.
What exactly is the MAGA crowd ?
And this is the typical reply from the MAGA crowd here.
You guys wanna claim You're in favor of "thought, reasoned discussion?"
Nup.
I wish Bari would have asked him about Zuckerburg's 400 million dollar donation to help finance local elections in swing states and the impact on the 2020 Presidential election along with voter harvesting.
Nor did she ask him why he facilitated the cover up of Hunter Biden's laptop thereby interfering in the election.
Interesting read, Sounds Like Muller was a placeholder brought in for gravitas while underlings crafted the script. After his testimony I always suspected Muller never actually read the Mueller report. IN regards to RINOS and such, I think Barr is making a mistake about why goer's get upset. For decades now there has been a wing of the Republican Party that never met a war or a wiretap they wouldn't support, toss in free trade and platitudes about how awesome Regan. All the while America's interest suffer, working and middle class find life harder and harder and The DC crew and surrounding areas become engorged. I was just reading about how the student loan forgivable is going to be a boondoggle to congress and white house staffers and I would assume the host of NGO workers who hover for that sweet Fed money. Trump said "F You" and wouldn't listen! Sure and most Trump supporters including myself would say so what, who is the perfect President ? Clinton, a man who sexually exploited women and abused his position, W Bush, really? Obama, Barr has an issue with radical progressives, how about the guy who turned Title IX into a weapon against women and due process. Either way thanks for the interview was quite enlightening.
Andrew Weissmann was Muller’s pit bull and is leading the charge today on the FBI raid of Trump’s home.
Years ago right after after Muller's team was put together I was at a speaking event with Howard Dean and Ed Rollins, Dean and Rollins were chuckling about Trump better be ready since these guys were brutal.
Weissmann was the guy that ignored the Brady rule when going after some of the investment banks for Enron. Those guys landed in jail for a while before Sydney Powell got them out. Her book, Licensed to Lie, was very good. Weissmann is plotting his ascension to Director, FBI. It’s clear as day.
Bill Barr is an opportunist. Trump was in many ways a terrific president but he was vulgar which set off major pearl clutching by the self-satisfied elites. What about the millions of Americans who voted for him? Don't they deserve a proper election review?
Didn't they deserve to have 4 years of governance from the man they voted for without constant fake accusations from the Dems? Why aren't the people who created the Russia hoax - which traumatized and divided a nation -- going to jail? Barr in his own way is no better than Sam Harris. The people deserved to know the truth -- and Bill was a coward who wanted back on the DC/ Martha's Vineyard dinner party circuit. Not a hero. Not a genius just TDS in a Conservative suit. Trump is a flawed guy who brought peace and prosperity not to mention hope for the working class. I call bullshit on Bill Barr.
Vulgar statements and tweets definitely explain the attitudes that will shape a policy. I voted for Trump the first time because of Hillary Clinton's statement "What does it matter (how they died)" because to have that sentiment about the death of an ambassador and his staff in Benghazi is a tell about how her administration would value the lives of people serving in the military. I also believe that her comments reflected a policy that cost US military and their allies lives in Afghanistan under Biden. Trumps vulgar tweets and statements were also a tell that cost him the election with thoughtful pearl clutchers!
I call bullshit, too.
"Trump is a flawed guy" is minimizing what he's done to the point that You've taken Mt. Everest and made it into a mole hill.
The guy was such a sore loser he tried to overthrow the election. That's not a flaw. That's a man who has the character of slime mold. He's still doing damage to this very day.
After being called a Nazi, Putin collaborator, the dubious impeachment plus being the focus of a Dem controlled attack-dog media who lied constantly -- how would you behave?
Biden is also "slimey" in a multitude of likely criminal ways connected to Hunter, JFK was a sex addict who risked national security with his screwing around and Bush lied the country into a misbegotten war that killed hundreds of thousands and maimed and killed young Americans. Not to mention the PDB that warned of 9/11 before it happened that was ignored by Bush and Condi.
Trump's narcissism and Vegas-type bad taste plus sketchy business deals pre-Whitehouse aren't any worse than these guys. He's just not part of the club and threatens the on-the-take grift in DC.
Read the Time Magazine piece about how virtually everyone from Big Tech, to media, to all the DC muscle firms ganged up to ensure Trump lost. They actually proudly admit that. You actually believe given their hatred of him, they wouldn't have rigged the election.? You forget they rigged the primaries against Bernie.
Of course Trump was a sore loser. He felt he was cheated. Because of corrupt Dems and media nothing about his presidency was fair and that should be acknowledged regardless of how distasteful he is.
Bravo!
I referred to that Time article elsewhere. You missed the point of the article.
Yeah, they rigged the primaries against Bernie, but they won the ability to do that in court. Turns out the DNC can run the primaries any way the wanna, no matter what.
How does that pertain to Trump running in '24?
All that about Biden is well and good, but it means nothing to me because the chances I'd ever vote for Biden are slim to none. The chance of me voting for Trump is from slim to less than zero, so there is that.
Okay, I acknowledge a lotta what he got was unfair. To the *extreme.* As Barr pointed out, You notice.
But how would *I* have behaved. That's pretty simple. Like an adult. That Trump couldn't, and probably never can, do that is really sad.
In 2016 a few days after the election, the Swamp (led by the FBI and CIA, and abetted by the DoD in collusion with the Democrat party and the Clinton campaign), created and circulated a fabricated assessment that concluded that Trump was a Russian asset. The point of this assessment was to delay or block Trump's inauguration. Nothing has been done to investigate this. Now, that is some bullshit.
That *sounds* like BS to me. But I wonder if that was referring to the Trump quote "talked" about on this thread: https://www.commonsense.news/p/bill-barr-calls-bullsht/comment/8631218 May or may not need to be an investigation.
But let us look at what actually *did* happen. Power was handed over peacefully. Trump was certified the elected leader and he took office.
That didn't happen Jan. 6.