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Attorney General Bill Barr may seem like an aspiring fascist who’s turning the Justice Department into an arm of the Trump campaign, but when you scratch beneath the surface, he’s actually much worse somehow!
- Not only did Barr encourage federal prosecutors to go hog wild on protesters arrested for commiting property crime—up to and including sedition charges—he’s been looking for ways to arrest Democratic elected officials. Barr reportedly asked prosecutors in DOJ’s civil rights divisions to find out whether they could bring criminal charges against Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan over her refusal to declare war on protesters who established a police-free zone.
- Barr’s authoritarian fantasies don’t stop at throwing mayors in jail. A National Guard whistleblower told lawmakers that the federal officials who violently cleared protesters out of Lafayette Square for Trump’s bible photo-op (on Barr’s orders) had sought out more lethal weapons for the job. That morning, officials amassed thousands of rounds of ammunition, and tried to get their hands on an acoustic device or a “heat ray” weapon designed by the military to make people feel like their skin is burning. The Pentagon deemed that device too unsafe and unethical to use in the Iraq War, but who’s got time to worry about that when there are First Amendment rights to violate?
- Like his boss, Barr is an impressively multidimensional asshole. Here he is on Wednesday, casually comparing life-saving public health measures to slavery: “You know, putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.” (Japanese-Americans, among many, many others, would like a word.) In the same appearance Barr likened career federal prosecutors to preschoolers, repeated conspiracy theories about mail-voting, and dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement in stunningly offensive terms.
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Barr’s increasingly aggressive defense of divisive Trump administration policies comes as Trump finds ever-grosser ways to politicize the pandemic itself.
- On Wednesday Trump tried to argue that his coronavirus response was a great success when you ignore all of the dead Americans in states that didn’t vote for him: “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.” What’s cool about this psychopathic dismissal of human suffering is that it’s also a lie: There have now been over 90,000 deaths in red states, a total which itself would put us behind only Brazil in the global death-toll rankings.
- If there’s one silver lining to how horrendous all of this is, it’s that no Republican with a shred of a conscience can ignore it. Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence who served on the coronavirus task force, is the narrator of a powerful ad endorsing Joe Biden. Troye explains how from her front row seat, Trump’s pandemic response showed a “flat out disregard for human life” because his “main concern was the economy and his reelection.” Also, he was psyched about not having to shake hands with all of his disgusting supporters. Please send it to the uncle you no longer talk to.
Bill Barr’s Summer of Fascism and Donald Trump’s open disregard for American lives are two sides of the same coin: Trump and his allies have no concern greater than maintaining power, and no legal or moral boundary they won’t cross to make that happen. How nice would it feel to stymie them by making a few phone calls?
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On this week's Campaign Experts React, Dan Pfeiffer is joined by Alex Wagner, host of Showtime's The Circus. Dan and Alex react to The Lincoln Project's Susan Collins attack ad, Biden's digital ad on Trump's soldier remarks and a Trump ad that is VERY reminiscent of The Purge. Come for the analysis, stay for the video team's impressive color correction of Dan's wildfire lighting → youtube.com/crookedmedia
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Facebook appears to have no problem with content urging violence against American political movements, nevermind that similar content on the platform has already fueled real-world violence around the globe. As of Wednesday, a post calling for the government to “engage BLM & Antifa and wipe them out” had been shared 72,000 times. In 2018, Facebook’s failure to remove disinformation and hate speech led to horrific spates of violence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar—after human rights advocates had urgently warned Facebook officials about the danger. Facebook rumors have also led to offline attacks in Indonesia, India, and Mexico. There’s no reason to panic that the same outcome is inevitable here, but given what Facebook has already had to apologize for, it’s a shocking abdication of responsibility.
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- Former model Amy Dorris has accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her at the 1997 U.S. Open, alleging that he forced his tongue down her throat and groped her. That makes at least 26 women who have accused Trump of sexual abuse, for those nauseously keeping score at home.
- Trump’s businesses have charged the government more than $1.1 million since Trump took office, including room rentals for the Secret Service at his Bedminster, NJ, club while it was closed for the pandemic. (Monocle emoji)
- FBI Director Christopher Wray affirmed that Russia is involved in “very active efforts” to influence the election and denigrate Joe Biden. Wray also slapped down both Bill Barr’s claim that FBI agents work for him, and Trump’s claim that Antifa is a terrorist organization.
- Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe reversed course and agreed to provide in-person election security briefings to the Senate and House intelligence committees, after getting thoroughly yelled at.
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will give a speech at the Wisconsin State Capitol next week, in a Trump administration x GOP state legislature collab to turn the State Department into a campaign field office.
- OANN’s efforts to cover up its history of peddling Russian agent Andrii Derkach’s disinformation were relatably brought down by a typo.
- Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s USPS policies delayed nearly 350 million pieces of first-class mail in the five weeks they were in effect, according to a Senate report.
- Hey remember Netflix? Your last remaining joy? Jerry Harris from Cheer has been arrested on child pornography charges. Ok have a good one!
- New York City has delayed the start of in-person classes for a second time.
- In another testament to the virtues of yelling at people, the University of Georgia announced it will allow in-person early voting on campus, a day after saying it wouldn’t.
- An American woman on a bar crawl spread coronavirus through southern Germany and yes of course she is from Florida. We look forward to her primetime RNC convention speech in 2024.
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Today in Lives the Trump Administration Could’ve Saved But Chose Not To, the USPS had a plan to send face masks to every American, and the White House scrapped it. Newly released documents show that in April, Postal Service leaders were set to announce a plan to distribute 650 million reusable masks nationwide—enough to send five to every household. The Trump administration shut it down because, according to one official, “There was concern from some in the White House Domestic Policy Council and the office of the vice president that households receiving masks might create concern or panic.” A charming echo of the nonsensical excuse Trump gave Bob Woodward for not giving Americans the information they needed to protect themselves, and one that similarly leaves off the “[in the stock market]” clause that would make it true.
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A federal judge has temporarily blocked Louis DeJoy's delay-causing changes at the Postal Service, finding them to be “a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service."
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided allow the expanded use of ballot drop boxes and extend the absentee ballot deadline. In a separate ruling, the court kicked the Green Party candidate off of Pennsylvania’s ballot.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have introduced a plan to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt for borrowers in 2021.
Charitable institutions have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to help elections run smoothly (filling a void of governmental failure which should never have happened in the first place, but here we are).
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