Total Authority
Well, our Attorney General, William Barr, is making headlines.
Seriously. I took a scene shot of that because otherwise you would not have believed it.
In a new interview with right-wing talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, Barr threatens to throw the DOJ’s weight behind businesses to sue states and cities that fail to open up quickly enough. Barr’s premise is that Trump, as always, has taken a wise and measured course: “I think the president’s plan for getting the country back to work is really a very commonsensical approach that is based on really assessing the status of the virus in each state and each locality, and then gradually pulling back on restrictions.”
Yeah, yeah, posting LIBERATE! in all-caps is a helluva wise and measured course.
Okay first, when did all the state-rights Republicans flip the hell over to “we’re coming to make you work or die”?
And secondly, if they do sue the states that feel it’s not safe to re-open, what the hell do they have? A piece of paper signed by a third-rate judge who Trump appointed? Whoa, that scares me worse than dying a horrible death gasping for air as I watch the disease spread to my family over a $10 an hour job?
Is Barr gonna send one of his chubby buddies in funny glasses to make me go to work? Are little lawyer Barr-clones gonna come to my house, make me get dressed at subpoena point, and drive me to work at my receptionist desk?
Barr knows damn well he does not have that power but saying he does on talk radio makes his winkie two inches longer and 5 inches is a whole damn lot, I’ll have you know.
Aaarrrgh! They make me crazy with their starving little egos. Barr, listen up cowboy, you are short, you dress funny, and you walk like a penguin. I refuse to take you seriously to start with, and then this crap comes prancing out of your mouth on My Little Pony wings and you want me to react favorably? Nope.
LOL. Thanks. I needed that!
1Will he sue me to make me go shopping or to a restaurant? I’m staying home ’til July and he can’t do anything about that. Sue Me!
2I expect plan is to order all federal employees and contractors back to work (down to cafeteria and receptionist’s) whether state has stay at home order or not.
3Then if workers or the state try to enforce stay at home order the DoJ sues on some specious terms and after a little forum shopping get a straight line of demented donnies judges to hear cases right up to scotus where the dishonorable 5 will jump to and give the ruling that the doddering don dictated to them over the phone.
States rights is a prickly piece of fruit to chew on. Forcing pain and privation on on those who won’t behave like the mega or MAGA lathered up base is more than a futile gesture. Cutting off avenues of of redress i.e. not holding corporations accountable for employees contracting infection in close quarters also makes for extended recession, depression or worse… It shows the insanity of this orange clown and his minions in three dimensional technicolor failure as a man, a leader or even as a higher order of the ape family.
4Given that the Supremes weakened the Commerce Clause to attack ObamaCare, I’d be interested to see what Federal law/ regulation Barr plans on using in his suits.
5They wasted too much time doing anything about the virus and didn’t even think about the finance side. Now they suddenly realize there’s way too much sand on the beach and are afraid of the tsunami that’s headed their way.
6Sounds like the rich overlords are finally figuring out who makes them rich- the folks at the bottom staying home.
7If Dr. Trump & Dr. Barr issue decisions based on medical assessments, can the rest of us now slap them with subpoenas & legal opinions on their actions and statements?
I mean, the need for medical education, training, and passing the board seem to have gone out the window, so why not?
8But…but…won’t increasing his winkie by two inches make it two inches long? Very kind of you to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I think if it was measured…well, never mind.
9https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/columnist-details-a-compelling-theory-about-why-trump-is-attempting-a-desperate-hail-mary/
10They’re scared; their house of cards is in danger of collapse the longer the shutdown goes on. Socialist ideas are now becoming main stream. More of us are starting to see the absurdities of our system. Anybody who thinks America’s overlords are going to let this continue is smoking something funny. They KNOW many more will die if they rush this now and they don’t care. It’s an accepted loss in their eyes.
11Just thinking about how important the November elections will be. So many clowns will be looking for work. I don’t think Fox News has enough room for all of them. Well then there’s Sinclair broadcasting, too. At least I won’t have to hear from them every day.
12Evening J.J.
13I’ve got a different take on this. f**king trump has been the anti-federal government messiah for 3 years by dismantling all federal oversight agencies from within. Put lobbyists for the groups being overseen in charge of the cabinet level agencies overseeing them, and it’s purty easy to point out the ineffectiveness of those agencies. What
f**king trump has done is therefore genius in singlehandedly pointing out his superiority over federal bureaucracy.
Well hell. If he can show the world he’s controlling the federal government in spite of all the pesky checks and balances, he’s obviously the right choice to TAKE A FIRM HAND in dictating how Individual States decide for themselves how best to determine the actions, freedoms, and restrictions for themselves. With directions from him. For themselves.
The saddest part, to me at least, is that a lot his fairly intelligent connoisseurs could read that last. And be good with it. Proud of it probably.
14In that worldview, everything I said is righteous. And anything contradictory isn’t just UnAmerican.
It’s ultimately worse.
It’s weak.
Bill “The Blob” Barr is racking up impeachable offenses at an alarming rate. This one appears to me to be a violation of the 10th amendment, if acted on.
Yes, I posted the obvious just so I could call him “Bill The Blob.” The crap we can come up with when we’re bored and creative, lordy, lordy!
15I do, however, think Nancy Pelosi needs to get Bill The Blob in front of a series of House hearings to resecure the House’s oversight role. That, and maybe spank him on his massive fanny a bit.
16The big threat here isn’t that the third-rate judge you mention is going to rule in favor of the Trump administration, it’s that the courts, all the way up to SCOTUS, might declare the dispute to be a political question that the courts are not competent to settle. If it can’t be settled in court, as for example secession in 1860 was thought to be a political question, it has to be settled on the battlefield, only this time the bad guys get possession of the US military, and we just get the California militia.
17Megasoid, you are so right. As James Loewen and Edward Sebesta document in “The Confederate and neo-Confederate Reader,” in their secession documents the slave states attacked the right of free states to outlaw slavery at home.
18Barr is proof that the cutest kittens fart rainbows.
Seriously!
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