Attorney General seems not to understand First Amendment; denounces hooligans

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Sat Nov 16, 2019, 08:19 AM - Edit history (1)

He didn't use that word, but he might as well have. If only Radio Tirana were still around. It could have aired the speech. Kids today will never know the fun of listening to shortwave broadcasts coming from beyond the Iron Curtain.

RT thehill: AG Bill Barr: "Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they call 'The Resistance' and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the executive br…

Link to tweet

Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers the 19th Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture at the Federalist Society's 2019 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DC
~ Friday, November 15, 2019

[Iterate]

1. Still, the Bolsheviks did it better.

Today I learned that filing a court challenge against caging children is sabotage, and that insisting on separation of powers is leftist undermining of the rule of law. Wouldn't have guessed that.

All this time I thought I was just an unknown child of the enlightenment, easily thrilled by Franklin or Paine. But no, not so. I'm a saboteur and need a new saboteur hat. Thanks for the upgrade Billy.


A hat tip from a fellow shortwave junkie. Ahhh, the smell of hot tubes at 2AM and the weight of a headphone cable thick enough to power a small house.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. You're bringing tears to my eyes. I can smell that huge rectifier tube now.

All my tube SWRs were junkers, really, nothing special. But the fun of hearing the North Koreans and marveling at how such a thing was even possible in the first place? Priceless.

I've recently returned to AM DX'ing, have acquired a 1968 nothing-special Panasonic AM-FM portable. For some reason, the selectivity on that radio is remarkable. As you recall, AM-FM receivers from the 70s almost universally had awful AM reception. The FM was great, but the AM was strictly an afterthought.

More about my Panasonic here: Cee Eff Zed Emm -- CFZM

Thanks for writing.

[UpInArms]

2. Cry me a river, mr you should be disbarred

Let’s do a flashback ...

August 10, 2012

Now Greg Sargent at The Plum Line is sounding the alarm over a revelation in “The New New Deal” by Grunwald. Vice President Joe Biden told the author that during the transition, “seven different Republican Senators” told him that “McConnell had demanded unified resistance.” This was after the 2008 election but before Obama and Biden took office.

“The way it was characterized to me was: `For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’ ” Biden says.

Nevermind the nation was falling off the fiscal cliff. Nevermind the global economic system was hanging in the balance. Nevermind we were on the verge of another Great Depression. When the nation needed single-minded focus, the Republican political establishment put power over the national interest.

So, the next time you hear Republicans and conservatives bloviating about the “failures” of the Obama presidency, remember the role they played in them. And remember how their resistance hurt the country they are elected to help govern.

[csziggy]

4. Gee, so the GOP's resistance beginning in 2008 doesn't count, I guess

Robert Draper Book: GOP’s Anti-Obama Campaign Started Night Of Inauguration
04/25/2012 02:53 pm ET Updated Aug 10, 2014
By Sam Stein

<SNIP>

According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) — who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.

For several hours in the Caucus Room (a high-end D.C. establishment), the book says they plotted out ways to not just win back political power, but to also put the brakes on Obama’s legislative platform.

<SNIP>

The conversation got only more specific from there, Draper reports. Kyl suggested going after incoming Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for failing to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes while at the International Monetary Fund. Gingrich noted that House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) had a similar tax problem. McCarthy chimed in to declare “there’s a web” before arguing that Republicans could put pressure on any Democrat who accepted campaign money from Rangel to give it back.

More: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-draper-anti-obama-campaign_n_1452899

Republicans had it in for Obama before Day 1
By Jonathan Capehart
August 10, 2012

<SNIP>

At first, we thought organized Republican recalcitrance against the president started in October 2010 after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) famously said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Then came Robert Draper’s book, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives,” this spring. As the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reported in April, the book reports on a dinner of leading Republicans held the night of Obama’s inauguration.

For several hours in the Caucus Room (a high-end D.C. establishment), the book says they plotted out ways to not just win back political power, but to also put the brakes on Obama’s legislative platform.

<SNIP>

Now Greg Sargent at The Plum Line is sounding the alarm over a revelation in “The New New Deal” by Grunwald. Vice President Joe Biden told the author that during the transition, “seven different Republican Senators” told him that “McConnell had demanded unified resistance.” This was after the 2008 election but before Obama and Biden took office.

“The way it was characterized to me was: `For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’ ” Biden says.

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/republicans-had-it-in-for-obama-before-day-1/2012/08/10/0c96c7c8-e31f-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_blog.html