In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

This is the question that pestered me all weekend. I just don't think you'd have to tweak Waldorf too hard to come up with William Barr, especially with the turned-down-mouth, lips-pulled-in expression of disgust that he's most commonly made during public appearances with Trump. His latest gig as surrogate for Merrick Garland on questions about the Mar-a-Lago raid raises the continuing question for me that he never took the position of Attorney General under Trump in good faith -- I suspect there was actually a back-channel deal among Barr, McConnell, Romney, and assorted other Senate RINOs to confirm him in 2019 on the basis that, like Jeff Sessions, he wouldn't actually implement Trump policies. I would also go a little farther and suggest that Barr isn't so much an apologist for Garland as he is an apologist for the deep state. In fact, I would suggest that the example of Barr is a refutation of the notion that the deep state is some sort of conspiracy theor...

As reported by CNN, A federal judge threw a wrench Monday in the Justice Department investigation into potential mishandling of documents from former President Donald Trump's White House by granting his request for a special master to review evidence seized from his Florida home last month. The win for Trump temporarily prevents the Justice Department's investigative team from accessing the thousands of documents -- some of which are marked as classified -- taken from Mar-a-Lago. US District Judge Aileen Cannon cleared the way for a third-party attorney to review all the seized materials, not just for documents covered by attorney-client privilege -- the circumstance in which special masters are usually used -- but also for potential executive privilege concerns, a move the Justice Department has said would be "unprecedented." Good news for Trump, right? Well, not so fast! Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy at the National Review manages not just a glass-half...

When I posted on the unhappiest-looking guy in public life, William Barr, yesterday, I wasn't aware that Trump and his people would respond to Barr's Friday comments about the Mar-a-Lago raid. As it turns out, their response is remarkably substantive, and it actually throws the question back to Barr. (The photo above is from yesterday's story at the Epoch Times on the response; it was taken at the event on June 1, 2020 in which Trump and other officials walked from the White House to the burned-out St John's Episcopal Church across the park following a BLM riot. You can see how on board Barr was with the event, although in hindsight, the walk, simply displaying support for our institutions in the face of disorder, was entirely appropriate.) The Epoch Times story notes, “I can’t think of a legitimate reason why they could be taken out of the government, away from the government, if they’re classified,” [Barr, ] who was attorney general during the Trump and Ge...

I was originally going to title this post, "Why Is William Barr So Angry?" but after Thursday's Dark Brandon speech, I realized everyone's angry, not just William Barr. Still, just before I changed my title, I was searching the web for images of an angry William Barr, and I discovered there are a lot of them. A lot of them. Barr is basically a professional angry guy. Let's look at his background. According to Wikipedia, William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney who served as the 77th and 85th United States attorney general in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump. Born and raised in New York City, Barr was educated at the Horace Mann School, Columbia University, and George Washington University Law School. From 1971 to 1977, Barr was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency. He then served as a law clerk to judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia C...

Here's Biden's problem, and I think it's clear enough that even he recognizes it. The slimmest of Democrat majorities in Congress have shielded him from investigations over the past two years. If he loses either house in the November elections, Republicans will control key oversight committees with subpoena power, which will at best threaten his prospects in 2024 -- but there are potential avenues of investigation that could reach a "Nixon standard". This phrase has come up in connection with potential Trump offenses that could have been uncovered in the Mar-a-Lago raid (but so far have not) -- but I'm not the only one who's seen parallels between Nixon and Biden as well. A quick web search suggests that there's never been a clear definition of a "Nixon standard" for impeachment, but of course, Nixon was never impeached, so his case can't be a precedent anyhow. Nevertheless, legal scholars in the Clinton impeachment came up with this ...

Just the other day I had a post on the revival of the former A&E Live PD show , now on a new channel, Reelz, as On Patrol: Live . Just a day later, it was an item on regular news : A&E filed a lawsuit seeking to block rival network Reelz from airing “On Patrol: Live,” which it claims is a blatant ripoff of its own show, “Live PD.” Both shows feature live footage from police ride-alongs, both are hosted by Dan Abrams, and both are produced by the same company. A&E canceled “Live PD” — one of its top-rated shows — in June 2020, at the height of protests over the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Reelz debuted its version of the show last month. In the lawsuit, A&E argues that “On Patrol: Live” copies nearly every aspect of its own show’s format, down to specific catchphrases. The Reelz show even occupies “Live PD’s” old time slot. My wife and I resumed watching whatever you want to call the show as soon as we heard about it. The accounts are completely corre...

I didn't intend to spend any time on Mikhail Gorbachev's passing, but the dog days of summer being what they are, and the whole range of opinion on any subject being as obtuse as it's been, Gorbachev is one of the most interesting subjects around -- which I guess says something. The first observation to make is that the Ukraine invasion has proven to be a last, desperate, feckless gesture of Soviet revanchism. The tanks that rolled into Ukraine in February carried Soviet flags in addition to their Zs for victory, neither of which has worn well. This was the system Gorbachev intended to preserve and reinvigorate. The conventional obituaries have missed the point. Here's The Guardian : Mikhail Gorbachev, who has died aged 91, was the most important world figure of the last quarter of the 20th century. Almost singlehandedly he brought an end to 40 years of east-west confrontation in Europe and liberated the world from the danger of nuclear conflagration. So...