William Barr

Who Won The Week? 1/19/20

Fandango22 Comments

10CC3057-4EEA-4C80-B8C1-700C0FC6C906It’s time for another Who Won the Week prompt. The idea behind Who Won the Week is for you to select who you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

This week I am choosing Rachel Maddow.

D59D7C8A-28E3-4ED0-9661-409C38C10F1FYou know, as I said in this post earlier this month, I am a big Rachel Maddow fan. But this week, on Wednesday and Thursday nights, Rachel had an exclusive interview with Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. In his first televised interview since being indicted, Parnas unleashed a series of explosive allegations against top members of the Trump administration, among them that Trump knew “exactly” what Giuliani was doing in Ukraine. Parnas also implicated Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General William Barr, saying that they were “in the loop” as far as the Ukraine quid pro quo effort went.

I don’t know what, if any, impact Rachel’s interview with Parnas will have on the Senate impeachment trial of Trump, which starts on Tuesday morning. But boy oh boy, it certainly does make Trump look guilty of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Will the Republican Senators continue to wear blinders and stand by Trump, or will some of them finally say that enough is enough? As Rachel Maddow is wont to say, “Watch this space.”

And now it’s your turn, folks. Who (or what) do you think won the week?

Strange and Scary Mind

Fandango11 Comments

I no longer recognize the country I love and in which I live. There is an ocean full of irrefutable evidence that the President of the United States has attempted to strong-arm the leader of a foreign county (Ukraine) to conduct an investigation into a bogus claim relating to corruption by Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden. It’s a clear violation of federal election laws to accept aid or assistance from a foreign government to influence an American election.

The draft Articles of Impeachment issued today by the Judiciary Committee include the abuse the power of the President’s office and obstruction of Congress in its investigation of Trump’s conduct regarding Ukraine. Yet virtually all Republicans in both houses of Congress see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil when it comes to Trump.

F06933EC-F64C-443A-B457-46F1C697C158So while he may be impeached by the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, thanks to his unwavering support by the Republican majority in the Senate, he will skate, basically granting Trump the powers of a dictator.

The Toilet Assumption

Aside from that, this vacant-minded moron has directed his EPA to “look very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on.” This after Trump claimed that Americans have to flush the toilet 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once.1B32878D-BF4B-4A84-BBBE-9B1339B966FBWhen was the last time it took you more than one flush to take care of your business? I can only surmise that Trump is so full of shit that it takes 10 to 15 flushes to drain his swamp.

A Friend in High Places

The Department of Justice Inspector General released a report of the IG’s review of the origins of the FBI investigation into potential conspiracy between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The report tended to exonerate the FBI, as the investigators found “no documentary or testimonial evidence” that FBI officials were driven by political bias against Trump when they opened the probe.

03A6CAE1-6CD1-413C-9A3C-E2D4D9DA908FBut that didn’t stop Attorney General William Barr from rejecting that key conclusion of the investigation conducted by his own agency’s watchdog.

Barr, in a lengthy statement, called the FBI’s investigation into Moscow’s interference “intrusive” and said it had been launched “on the thinnest of suspicions.” Barr’s behavior since he assumed his AG role makes it appear that he believes his primary purpose is to protect Donald Trump, rather than to protect the interests of America and the Constitution.

Tweet Barrage

Our very busy president managed to fire off 105 tweets and retweets tweet on Sunday afternoon and evening. One of his retweets included this delusional, ego-boosting image of Trump’s head Photoshopped onto the torso of Rocky Balboa.20BC845F-18C0-4A24-A404-3EFB5918F2BCIt’s hard to fathom what goes on in that dark and murky pool of this man’s strange and scary mind.

Written for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (live), Word of the Day Challenge (ocean), Ragtag Daily Prompt (vacant), The Daily Spur (friend), Your Daily Word Prompt (purpose), and Daily Addictions (pool).

Talk About Fake News

Fandango8 Comments

740DE7BB-1519-4B9C-91C6-0FB57F6B4A69Donald Trump tweeted a photo showing him allegedly putting a medal around the neck of the “hero dog” that participated in the raid that ended up in the death of ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The reality, though, is that the photo didn’t really happen. Someone photoshopped a picture of the hero dog over an Associated Press photo of 2017 Medal of Honor recipient James McCloughan.155D33C6-1612-480B-A824-C872149925DCIn fact, the hero dog has never been to the White House and is back on duty despite being injured by an electric cable during an explosion at the raid, according to U.S. Central Command.

And, by the way, this was not the first instance of photoshopping of official White House photos. Here’s one that photoshopped Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton out of a photograph, replacing him with Attorney General William Barr.6C1003F6-A4CD-4AE3-99CD-BD9EC58EA958Well, as Trump once said, “Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. … What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

“I’m Appalled”

Fandango28 Comments

Attorney General William Barr said that he was “appalled” to learn of financier and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein’s death (allegedly by suicide) while in federal custody awaiting trial.

The sincerity of Barr’s comment reminded me of this scene from the movie “Casablanca.”

One-Liner Thursday — Mazie Barr the Door

Fandango18 Comments

90A0CA11-BB85-44ED-AAF4-6D04FE62BE84I know that I usually post one-line quotes on Wednesday in response to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt. But yesterday, at the televised Senate Judiciary Committee hearing involving Attorney General (and Trump ass-kisser William Barr), Democratic Senator from Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, said this to Barr:

“Mr. Barr, now the American people know you’re no different than Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrificed their once-decent reputations for the grifter and liar who sits in the Oval Office.”

Oh Mazie, you go, girl!

But she didn’t stop there. She went on to say:

“But now we know more about your deep involvement and trying to cover up for Donald Trump. Being attorney general of the United States is a sacred trust. You have betrayed that trust. America deserves better. You should resign.”

Oh snap!

Unfortunately, the President believes that he is a dictator who is above the law and who can do whatever he wants to do — legal, ethical, moral, or otherwise. And the Attorney General of the United States, along with the Republicans in Congress, are his enablers. Barr isn’t going to resign, Republicans are not going to suddenly develop spines and scruples, and Trump isn’t going away anytime soon.

Sad.