Not Sure I Believe Barr, Whatever He Says

2/14/2020

*-Pozzo and Lucky

Would somebody please tell Barr he cannot get it back, whatever he gave away in order to serve Trump?

It doesn’t work that way. Trump uses his lackeys and then he tosses them out. Later, some locate a glimmer or pretense of conscience, like Cohen in jail or Kelly out in the world, but by then the damage is done.

I’m not sure I really believe the fuss Barr is making about Trump’s interference in the Justice Department over the Roger Stone sentence. It could very well be a smokescreen to divert the thinking/caring half of the country. This current flap could be buying time for McConnell and the White Citizens Council to do more damage.

It’s too late for Barr, and maybe even too late for those of us who knew Trump as a wrongo, going back to his feckless-playboy days in New York, and tried to warn people. It’s too late for Barr because he has already wasted a year we could not afford.

It's too late for Barr in his slavish role as "My Roy Cohn," the nether force who advised the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Barr maligned Robert Mueller – his friend! – before Mueller’s report was public, thereby rendering it ineffective. Barr left his stink on a good public servant.

Maybe people informed Barr that he was looking horrible, that Trump was using him. Some of Barr’s old friends were going on TV and sighing that this is not the person they used to know. This is what happens in the monster movies when the core is removed.
* * *
Also, would somebody please tell Sen. Susan Collins that her social-worker cause isn’t working out. This wishy-washy senator from Maine said her vote to end the impeachment could very well teach a lesson to Trump. There is no such thing as a bad boy, Collins seemed to be saying.

Even if Collins and her pals in the Senate had voted to pretend to hear witnesses, the process might still be going on, and Trump would not be exacting revenge on the citizens who did their duty in sworn testimony.

Collins will figure out soon that heroes like Vindman and Yovanovich get to keep their reputations while she and Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski get to ride the Senate subway to ignominy.

How’s that reclamation project working, Sen. Collins? Maybe she will explain it to voters in Maine this fall -- if Trump allows elections to go forward.
* * *
Things could happen fast as I type this on a cold Valentine’s Day. Trump could fire Barr. Or, Barr could quit. Or, it could all be a smokescreen to validate Barr’s next round of enablement.
After watching these people in action, I trust nobody.
* * *
Pozzo and Lucky: Please see:
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/w/waiting-for-godot/character-analysis/pozzo-and-lucky

"My Roy Cohn":
tps://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/opinion/roy-cohn-trump.html

john mcdermott

2/14/2020 12:08:13 pm

He is Trump's lackey and was just doing Trump's bidding in the Stone matter. But then Trump, who can't resist gloating, embarrassed Barr on Twitter. Barr's message to Trump: knock it off, don't brag, you're making it harder for me to pull off this act. And you make me look bad.

George Vecsey

2/14/2020 02:02:10 pm

John: I remember how I used to smirk at Berlusconi with his bunga-bunga parties...but at least he had business and sports success with AC Milan, in addition to being a creep. Our guy has his Jeffrey Epstein/grab 'em side, and he endangers the whole world...and the evangelicals love him. I snicker at nobody, anymore. GV

Hansen Alexander

2/14/2020 12:16:39 pm

Dear George,

This is you at your best. Instincts working at high mode with exact writing. Nobody has captured Barr's lapdog service to Trump better than you have here. Even as a lawyer, there is no way I* could have explained it better or dramatized it better.

This says it all: "It’s too late for Barr, and maybe even too late for those of us who knew Trump as a wrongo, going back to his feckless-playboy days in New York, and tried to warn people. It’s too late for Barr because he has already wasted a year we could not afford."

It's too late for Barr in his slavish role as "My Roy Cohn," the nether force who advised the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Barr maligned Robert Mueller – his friend! – before Mueller’s report was public, thereby rendering it ineffective. Barr left his stink on a good public servant.

Yours,
Hansen

George Vecsey

2/14/2020 02:03:53 pm

Hansen, thanks, those words just show up on the screen, inspired by Our Fool. It's like batting practice. Best, GV

bruce

2/14/2020 01:06:15 pm

george,

no doubt in my mind it was a setup.

no way barr would've bushwhacked trump.

he, undoubtedly, informed the liar in chief what was coming.

probably was planning on getting stone a lesser sentence, but would be made to look like more of a lapdog than he's already shown after trump's tweet.

as for collins, dante had her covered in one of his circles of hell tho i can't remember which one....8th?

the most idiotic comment of the year so far was collins' saying trump learned from his impeachment. she was right, but wrong.

bruce

bruce

George Vecsey

2/14/2020 02:07:08 pm

She was a good obedient little Republican senator, and I am sure she now knows that her words will be in the first paragraph of her eventual obit, and will be the first question at every stop this fall in (which I can only assume will be) her last campaign. GV

Ed Martin

2/15/2020 02:48:07 pm

I posted a reminder on my FB page, of the memorable scene, where the character, shouts out, “I’m mad and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Many agree but do not want to joking visible silent protest in town. We have repeated Comstitutional violations, attacks on tellers of truth under oath, interference with a federal judge by attacking tweets, interference in Justice Dept. professional activities, etc. Even cutting More important DOD contracts for the porous wall, which violates Congressional Appropriation intent.

We all see this happening and the brazen cowards and reward seekers in the Senate do nothing. How, even before November, have a voice of protest loud enough to be heard?

George Vecsey

2/17/2020 08:27:27 am

Ed: thanks. I would say that beside "protesting" -- which I respect -- the other thing to do is persuade somebody you know that this president is dangerous. But the divisions are so strong, I don't know if civil personal discussion is even possible. I keep saying this guy will do the one thing that turns off more of his base -- but from watching the House and Senate Republicans, I do not know what that might be. Now 1,100 former Justice employees have called for Barr to leave. Does that resonate? Does anything? I'm not much help.
Regards home. GV

bruce

2/17/2020 08:56:11 am

george,

g'day.

like many i'm sure, i've been wondering what trump would have to do to lose support with his cult in both houses.

this might be nuts, but i find myself wondering if he could assault the members' wives/partners and get away with it.

he'd deny it with, 'look at her. do you think i'd be interested in that!?'

and they'd believe HIM.

pathetic.

bruce

don witheford link

2/16/2020 11:52:22 pm

George
I find your views on events in Washington convincing
I have been reading the 1997 book you wrote with Lorrie Morgan. A brilliant if very sad story. I have been a Keith Whitley fan since the mid-eighties and also appreciate Lorrie's work.

George Vecsey

2/17/2020 08:38:22 am

Dear Mr. Witheford: Thank you so much for noticing the book I helped Lorrie Morgan write. (PS: I am long retired from my newspaper career; the opinions are totally my own.)
The highlight of the Lorrie Morgan book was meeting Keith Whitley's mom. She had politely declined to be interviewed, but my wife and I were driving back to NY from Nashville and on a pretty Sunday, this time of year, I rang Mrs. Whitley and said we were "in the area" and she agreed to let us visit. She had a very nice double-wide on a sunny plain in NE KY -- and she was a total lady, showed us her mementos of her son, made us tea, greatly helped fill out my impressions of Keith (whom I never met.) I believe his name was mentioned in the recent PBS series on country music -- he never lived long enough to be a legend like Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams. (I wrote 2 or 3 pieces on that series a few months ago, on this site.) Thanks again for being in touch. George Vecsey

Alan Rubin link

2/17/2020 03:32:03 pm

AG Barr has too long a track record of being a Trump enabler to be able to verbally change his spots.

However, some DOJ lawyers are following the examples of Fiona Hill, Lt. Co. Alexander Vindman, Kurt Volker and others by speaking “truth to power”.

Although many of my friends disagree with me, I believe that there is a growing resistance to Trump’s presidency. Nothing will change among his core supporters, but they are not enough to re-elect him.

The Democratic candidates, I lean towards Klobuchar, should focus on issues wherever they campaign and discuss their vision for the country. They need not attack the president; just ask the locals if the president had delivered what he had promised.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Not Sure I Believe Barr, Whatever He Says

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