Monthly Archives: October 2020

The Chief Justice strikes again:

Mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania — a critical state for President Donald Trump’s reelection chances — will be counted if they are received within three days of Election Day even if they do not have a legible postmark, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

Four justices dissented from the order, signaling that the court was equally divided, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the court’s three liberals.

The ruling is a loss for state Republicans who sought to require that only ballots received by Election Day be counted.The highly anticipated order could set the tone for other pre-election challenges and highlights the fact that once again Roberts has moved left to side with his liberal colleagues in an area where he has a very conservative record. It also comes just two weeks before Election Day and intensifies the Supreme Court confirmation battle over Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who could well prove to be a deciding vote on election night challenges. [CNN/Politics]

While the other conservative Justices look like they’re taking orders from the Republican National Committee, Chief Justice Roberts appears to believe in being independent. That the liberal wing appears to be solidly in lock-step is obviated when the Chief Justice joins them.

While the accession of Barrett to the Court, apparently inevitable, will diminish the Chief Justice’s role, it won’t eliminate it. He can still argue for the positions he prefers, writing stinging dissents which signal the legislature concerning future law.

Another article discussing nervous Democrats who insist on remembering 2016 in the wrong way:

The polls are once again delivering feel-good boosts to Democrats: Joe Biden beats President Trump by 10, 11 or 12 points nationally, depending on the day. His edge in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin averages eight. Propeller-heads promise better than 4 in 5 odds of a new president next year.

But then the partisans remember they have been here before, four years ago this week. The conflicting emotions can be overwhelming.

“I am feeling anxious and trapped between a sense of unbridled optimism and sheer dread,” said Abington Township, Pa., Commissioner Bill Bole, who like many Democrats never thought Trump could beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was stunned when he did. [WaPo]

It’s easy to be overwhelmed with the emotions of past shocks, but it helps, in situations like this in which a repeat is feared, to concentrate on the substantive differences between last time and this time. Here’s what I’ve found useful:

1. Now voters know Trump. He was an unknown quantity last time. Now, his conduct and lack of honesty are well known.
2. His conduct gives voters ammunition to use on Trump voters. If you know a Trump voter, ask them if they’re religious, and if they are affirmative, then ask them to explain how their religion can possibly excuse them voting for a brazen and chronic liar. If not, I’m sure you can find another approach that uses that shitload of documented lies to crack open some daylight. The trick is to be prepared and anticipate retorts, prevarication, and other maneuvers by people desperate to bypass their own morality in order to vote their fears and/or avariciousness.
3. News organizations are smarter. A lie is now called a lie by reporters. The good ones tell readers their source for identifying the lie, so the reader can verify it. In 2016, too many readers just swallowed the lies whole, since they were not warned and they accorded with the biases, hidden or not, of the audiences.
4. Americans are smarter. Clinton was burdened with multiple lies told by Republicans and Russians. This time around, Democrats, moderate Republicans, and independents, all disgusted by the mendacity of a Republican leadership made up of third-raters, have learned to take in the news warily. The recently Hunter Biden article in the New York Post, a Rupert Murdoch property, has already been revealed to have dubious origins and a ridiculous story-line. QAnon cultists may point at it with enthusiasm, but the rest of us, on due consideration, will just shake our heads and disregard it.
5. Biden isn’t Clinton. It’s not fair to Clinton, but the Republicans had built a bad reputation for her over decades. Biden was not regarded as a threat after two impotent Presidential runs, was left alone, and now he’s on a roll.

I realize this won’t help the chronically nervous, but this is how I view it – optimistically, even if I’m disappointed in so many of my fellow citizens in buying into such terrible mendacity.

Curtilage:

But with the rise of the knock and talk have come more and more cases testing the boundaries of the consent on which they depend. Sometimes, officers appear with overbearing force or otherwise seek to suggest that a homeowner has no choice but to cooperate. Other times, officers fail to head directly to the front door to speak with the homeowner, choosing to wander the property first to search for whatever they can find.

This Court addressed the second sort of problem in Florida v. Jardines, 569 U. S. 1 (2013). There, the Court recognized that a home’s “curtilage,” the area immediately surrounding it, is protected by the Fourth Amendment much like the home itself. [592 U. S. ____ (2020), Associate Justice Gorsuch]

It took the Trump Campaign a month to figure it out, but reality concerning Minnesota – that is, that 17 point lead for Biden – may be setting in:

The Trump campaign slashed another $1.1 million in reserved ad time in the Minneapolis-St. Paul TV market this week (initially $1.25 million, now $129,000).

Initially reserved 812 ads, now airing just 49.

Continues a six-week trend.

— Theo Keith (@TheoKeith) October 16, 2020

And perhaps that means the avalanche of commercials will stop.

Trump recently made a joke about leaving the country if he lost, as I predicted he might. Keep an eye on Air Force One, starting in January.

I had heard that Biden planned to increase taxes on those making in excess of $400,000 a year in order to begin cleaning up – once again – after the Republicans’ financial mismanagement, as well as cover the costs, both necessary and the fruits of mismanagement, of the pandemic, but rather than run over to Biden’s website, I can conveniently point at Kevin Drum, who confirms it using the analysis American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank:

In 2021, everyone under $400,000 pays lower taxes, while the top 1 percent pays about $100,000 more in taxes. By 2030, every income group pays slightly higher taxes (about $50 per year at the median) while the top 1 percent pays $134,000 more.

The effect of all this on economic growth is essentially zero. AEI estimates that Biden’s plan would produce a minuscule reduction in GDP over its first decade and a minuscule increase in GDP during its second decade.

In other words, Biden has told the truth about his tax plan. How refreshing and unusual in the Trump era.

Sounds fine and dandy, doesn’t it?

But I’m actually a little unsettled. No, I don’t have an odd sympathy for the plight of the top 1%. My thought isn’t financial, it’s moral:

Elections should have consequences.

Now, I’ll also argue against myself and suggest that the imminent confirmation of Barrett to SCOTUS is a reproach to this group, the ongoing tragedy of the mismanaged Covid-19 pandemic a lesson for that group, etc etc.

But the truth of the matter is this:

We are all responsible for the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency.

For the outraged Clinton-supporting reader – such as myself – let me explain. We can partition the US population by their actions in the 2016, and how that makes them culpable for the ongoing disaster of the Trump Administration:

1. Voted for Trump: You actively voted for someone who had already revealed themselves as a business failure, an inveterate liar, and a worse than average reality-show actor (or performer, if I am to take my Theater Arts professor’s definition of acting vs performing to heart, for Trump has only one role he can perform). You should have known better. If you embraced some single issue to justify that vote, you should be heartily morally embarrassed.
2. I never vote. You, sir or madam, are a shirker of your civic responsibilities. It’s time to dump the Me-me-me attitude and participate. Remember, the right to participate in the selection of our leaders, even as illiberally implemented as it was initially (i.e., white landowners only), was one of the most important points of the Revolutionary War. And, by not voting, you enabled Donald Trump’s election.
3. I couldn’t stand Hillary, so xyz. I hear this from time to time, as if it’s necessary that your candidate is someone with whom you could sit down and have tea & crumpets. It’s great if you do, but when it comes to national leadership, competency is far, far more important than your need for personal admiration of your chosen candidate – and a little bit of research would have shown Clinton had that in spades, while Trump’s true competency is in lying. Just a wee bit of research. The only out I would give this group is that if they raised questions of corruption in the form of the Wasserman-Schultz scandal.
4. I voted Clinton, why are you penalizing me? Because – and I include myself here – you didn’t do enough to persuade everyone else to vote for Clinton, the highly endorsed and highly competent candidate, over Trump, the already-evident chronic liar, cheat, incompetent, and mediocre actor. We didn’t pay attention to those who are discontented, fearful of a future that doesn’t seem to include them, and felt the Democrats had betrayed them. Granted, some problems are of herculean girth, such as single-issue voters who don’t understand they are the scourge of America, rather than its saviors. But more effort might have saved us from this giant blot on American honor.
5. I couldn’t vote, yet, so why penalize me? Think of it as a salutary lesson about shirking serious research and participation. Or, too bad, life is unfair and not in your favor this time (to borrow from Calvin & Hobbes).

Given that Trump and his enabling Republicans have left the nation with some monumental debts, and while acknowledging the top 1% have a lot of ways to avoid paying taxes, I think it’s necessary that all the tax-paying citizens of the United States should see an increase in their tax bill, and its source should be labeled. Sure, the Republicans would scream, but, by screaming This isn’t fair!, the Democrats can point out exactly how it IS true and fair.

We could call it the Trump Redemption Surtax, just to make it clear that this is a consequence of the 2016 election. And it would help pay off the mountainous Republican-sourced debt we are now carrying a little bit faster.

On the run from the repository of Ancient Evil Artifacts. Please return if found. Answers to the name ‘Tootsie.’

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty (2016) uses a contemporary setting to deliver a visually affecting but, in the end, punchless horror story to the audience. Thomas Kaiser, an unsuccessful artist, is tormented by dreams of someone named Briar Rose, a beautiful woman dressed atavistically, who tells him that, in his world, he must find and kiss her in order to rescue her. Waking from these dreams is an adventure reminiscent of the phenomenon called sleep paralysis, a mental state in which the dreamer thinks they are awake, cannot move, and a horror has entered their bedroom.

Thomas finds himself heir to a property named Kaiser Gardens, as his uncle has reportedly killed himself. Unfamiliar with the uncle and the property, Thomas arranges a visit. Soon he discovers, in a plot mechanism similar to that of Dr. Who’s crying statuary, that mannequins are pursuing him and his realtor, Linda Coleman, a woman who has her own set of issues with Kaiser Gardens. They escape the house with the help of a paranormal expert, Richard Meyers.

A little research suggests that Kaiser Gardens’ hidden rooms may hold Briar Rose, and they return, appropriately armed. While Linda and Richard distract the veiled monster of the house, Thomas’ Big Kiss is planted on Briar Rose’s cheek, and, in shameless literary foreshadowing, the Briar part of the name becomes more important than the Rose. And then the movie peters out, presumably hoping for a sequel or a TV series to leap out of the hidden rooms of Kaiser Gardens and save their collective financial asses.

Yeah, the story was weak. Any careful consideration reveals some big plot holes.

The visuals weren’t bad, but the characters were mostly unsympathetic, and for those who like to look for morals in their stories – like me – they came up mostly empty. “If you uncle committed suicide, then play not with his legacy” lacks that pithy punch you want out of a story.

If you like monstrous mannequins, this may be for you, but otherwise there’s not much going on here. Go watch Grimm instead.

The Lincoln Project and VoteVets present:

It occurred to me last night that the various state Bar Associations may have a role to play in the upcoming elections. We’ve been warned that if Trump finds himself on the short end of the electoral stick he may sue, claiming electoral fraud.

But such litigation must take place at the state level because that’s who is responsible for administering the election. Therefore, local lawyers must be employed to file the papers.

I suggest that the state Bar Associations should send out a reminder to all members that bringing suit without objective evidence of a mislead is a transgression against the professional standards of the profession, and that could lead to their disbarment, and thus their ability to earn a living as a lawyer.

Any lawyers out there want to confirm or deny the accuracy of my suggestion? Or even that it’s already happened?

Some pics taken from the car by my Arts Editor:

Georgia GOP leaders are very concerned about the race for the seat currently occupied by appointed incumbent Senator Loeffler (R-GA) and Rep Doug Collins (R-GA):

And this week, Sen. Kelly Loeffler took her move to the right to a new level: Touting the endorsement of a controversial House candidate from Georgia who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy and had been denounced by other Republicans before winning the GOP nomination in her race for making bigoted and racist comments.

“No one in Georgia cares about the QAnon business,” Loeffler told reporters defiantly, after pulling up to the event in a Humvee and sporting a baseball cap, with congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene by her side. “This is something the fake news is gonna continue to bring up — and ignore Antifa.”

Loeffler, an appointed senator and one of the richest in Congress, has been in a race to the right with GOP Rep. Doug Collins, an intraparty battle that has prompted deep Republican concerns that it could splinter the vote and help Democrats sweep Georgia and take the Senate majority.

It’s a scenario that GOP leaders have been privately fearing for months — and one they had sought to avoid at the beginning of the year. In private, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had counseled his top lieutenants and even President Donald Trump to ensure the party would unite behind one candidate and avoid a messy internecine battle that could imperil the crucial Senate seat, multiple GOP sources told CNN. [CNN/Politics]

And, while I expect the internecine battle to get even worse as a consequence of the call-them-liberals-and-eat-them culture currently dominant in the GOP, as I’ve previously discussed, I see no mention of the other possible effect of the two candidates’ frantic run to the right:

How many Georgia Republicans will finally have had enough and walked away?

That alienation may be the real pivot upon which Pastor Warnock’s campaign will turn, the math that may have been missed. From QAnon to their intimate clasp to Trump’s campaign genitals, some will love it, but others may be disgusted.

All Warnock has to offer is his stock in trade: moral leadership.

I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that, absent any unexpected developments, Warnock may win outright in November, much to the shock of the two GOP candidates.

Kudos to Kiwis:

A coronavirus sceptic who confronted New Zealand’s deputy leader on the campaign trail was met with a blunt response when the lawmaker called him a flat-Earther.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters was taking questions from a crowd at an election event in Tauranga this week when he was asked to prove that Covid-19 existed.

“We’ve got someone who obviously got an education in America,” Peters said, referring to the man’s apparent North American accent.

Peters continued by citing the mounting U.S. death toll from the virus — over 215,000 — and the rising case numbers around the world.

“And here is someone who gets up and says:’the Earth is flat’,” he added.

“Sorry sunshine, wrong place.” [Courthouse News Service]

Outside of the occasional earthquake, New Zealand continues to sound closer and closer to heaven on Earth.

Law Professor Michael Dorf of Cornell analyzes Justice Thomas’ recent rant concerning Obergefell v. Hodges:

… prohibitions on conduct often affect belief. We like to think of ourselves as rational, as deciding what to do based on what we think, but the process frequently works in reverse. Considerable psychological research shows that we form our beliefs based on our actions. That phenomenon partly explains the role of ritual in inculcating religious beliefs.

It also partly explains why racist religious beliefs are much less common today than they were before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In earlier times, religion was frequently invoked to defend slavery and later Jim Crow. The belief that the Bible authorizes slavery or mandates racial segregation was never outlawed and could not be outlawed consistent with the First Amendment. Still, that belief has almost entirely died out because actions based on it have been forbidden.

Accordingly, Justice Thomas is not wrong to think that legal protection for same-sex marriage could affect religious beliefs about same-sex marriage. Were he not so intent on waging the culture war, his statement in the Davis case might have been the occasion for a useful discussion on the subtle relationship between conduct regulation and religious (or other) beliefs. Unfortunately, however, on the Supreme Court as in other areas of our public life, subtlety is in short supply. [Justia]

I’m not even sure it’s irrational to think that lack of expression of a belief leads to the withering of that belief. We’re not creatures of contemplation, we’re creatures of action; indeed, I’m not sure a species composed primarily of the former could exist. What motivates action? Belief. Whether it’s belief that there’s a tiger in the shrubbery and it’s time to pull out the spear, or that God hates having Jerusalem occupied by non-Christians, and so it’s time for another Crusade, it’s belief, whether absolute or statistical, which is motivational.

Concomitant to this is the idea that belief is allied with good outcomes. When a belief’s required actions are suppressed, it is reasonable to believe that undesirable outcomes will occur; when they do not, then that belief properly suffers attenuation and extinction. Consider racial segregation: its gradual outlawing in public life did not lead to predicted long-term chaos. There have been no race wars, despite frantic, murderous efforts by madmen, and efforts to stir the pot by those who think their position in society is endangered. Public disruptions, in fact, can be traced to ongoing segregation, the racism behind segregation, and the injustices which flow from such despicable beliefs. And racism and segregation as valid ideas have completely lost their validity in intellectual society; those who continue to advocate for them are held in disrepute. The belief has been shown to be false, and we’re in that chronological space in which it’s dying out.

Place this in the company of the far-right fringe’s commitment to societal stasis, its fear of change, embodied in the oft-heard (in far-right land) worries about the erasure of the “American way of life,” and Justice Thomas’ rant is not irrational. Lacking expression, religious beliefs wane (and thus the protests at the temporary banning of in-house religious services during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite their identification as a common site for spreading the pathogen) in the absence of divine retribution. I don’t mean to say that Justice Thomas, or anyone else, is aware of this, as then it’d be plausible to argue they are religious frauds, and while some are, I don’t care to trod that road right now. But changing an underlying belief will lead to changes in actions, and that’s frightening for the rigid, the timid, and for those whose position in society depends on those underlying actions.

I’ve been watching but not talking about the most important races this cycle, those in the Senate, mostly for lack of time. I consider them the most important because the Senate confirms nominees to government positions, and if Biden wins the Presidential election, but Senator Mitch “No” McConnell (R-KY) is still the Majority Leader after the election, then Americans are in for a miserable four years.

That said, I’m not presenting a detailed analysis of the polls. moddesttraveler on The Daily Kos has a roundup of recent polls, and The Daily Kos‘ Morning Digest of political news also presents a fluid view of the races. I think, absent an unforeseeable disaster, we can expect the Senate to swing to the Democrats, and I would be disappointed if it’s not a 55 (including the two Independents) – 45 advantage.

Who still seems safe among Republican candidates? Incumbent Tom Cotton (R-AR), with no opponent, remains a shoe-in, so long as his shoe doesn’t have a hole in it. Idaho doesn’t seem to have any polls, so it’s impossible to be definitive, but it appears incumbent Jim Risch will breeze in – unless challenger Paulette Jordan has a hidden constituency.

It’s hard to see how Mitch McConnell himself will fall, although with 18 days left, there’s still time for him to stumble.

Polling for the Louisiana seat of Republican Bill Cassidy doesn’t seem to exist, but it’s one of those jungle elections, where a runoff with the top two will occur if no one reaches 50%. This style favors the incumbent, Cassidy, so I feel he has little to worry about. Senator Sasse (R-NE), who has been strategically criticizing President Trump, should have no troubles keeping his seat, nor should James Inhofe of solidly conservative Oklahoma, nor Senator Rounds (who?) of South Dakota.

And then there’s the surprises, which could go south for incumbents with the few days left and Trump’s amateurism coming to the fore. Senator Hyde-Smith (R-MS) is reportedly in an unexpectedly tough battle with Mike Espy (R-MS). Could Cassidy be in trouble as well? How about the Tennessee race for Lamar Alexander’s seat, who’s retiring? Will incumbent Cornyn fall to Heggar in purple Texas, after leading all this time?

This will be an agonizing three weeks for those Republican incumbents who are tied to Trump’s delusions.

Legatee:

one to whom a legacy is bequeathed or a devise is given [Merriam-Webster]

Devise?

Noted in “Rudy Giuliani was once compared to Churchill. Now he acts like a shady Watergate goon.” Karen Tumulty, WaPo:

But getting to the truth was never really the point for Segretti’s legatee Rudy Giuliani. He seems to have made a bet that getting this stuff into the water would be enough. Maybe an attack on Biden’s family could even trigger a Muskie-like reaction from the candidate, even though the polls indicate Biden is currently on track to beat an incumbent president, possibly by a big margin. The question now is whether Americans are any smarter at spotting what election interference looks like than they were in 2016.

Frankly, yes, I think a substantial portion of the electorate has wised up. Donald Segretti, mentioned above, was Nixon’s dirty tricks operative.

Gary Sargent on The Plum Line notes the Republican strategy for a Biden Administration involves inducing an extended recession by under-funding an economic rescue package now:

Indeed, as Eric Levitz points out, if Republicans can scuttle a robust package now, that would hand Biden a “deepening recession.” If Republicans hold the Senate and can block big stimulus measures at that point, Levitz continues, “Biden’s presidency would be over before it starts.”

And so, when McConnell chortled with glee at this week’s debate in Kentucky about the failure to pass more aid at a desperate national moment, it telegraphed what’s coming. And we’ve already lived through what happened when Republicans, led by McConnell, tried to cripple the recovery from a previous economic calamity that a Democratic president inherited from a Republican one.

But, if the Democrats in Kentucky are bold, they can take this information and e-mail it to all Kentucky residents. It’ll say,

“McConnell is working to undermine President Trump by not meeting President Trump’s demands for an appropriately sized economic rescue package. Do you approve of McConnell betraying President Trump?”

It’s worth a shot, as challenger Amy McGrath is not thumping McConnell, and in fact in many polls she’s behind.

This is one of the swirls that comes from embracing an outsider as President. He’s a narcissist that will embrace anything that’ll further his ambitions, and damn the Party.

But McConnell is an extremist as well, putting citizens at risk simply for Party advantage. I hope citizens of Kentucky get the message and give him the boot.

Professor Bobby Chesney on Lawfare reports on USCYBERCOM’s tactics with regards to TrickBot, a botnet (network of infected computers) able to deliver targeted functionality, if I understand Chesney’s description properly. I’m interested in the tactics USCYBERCOM’s utilizing:

A week before U.S. officials disclosed to the Washington Post that it had intervened against TrickBot, Brian Krebs had reported that something was afoot, drawing on the work of cyber threat intelligence firm Intel 471.

First, on Sept. 22 and again on Oct. 1, someone had managed to harness the TrickBot control infrastructure in order to issue a revised configuration file to infected machines, providing a new IP address for their C2 server. The idea was straightforward: Cut off the infected machines from the operators’ control by redirecting their C2 pathway to the address 127.0.0.1 (the “localhost” address, which in practical terms redirects software back to the local machine and, thus, functions as a dead end for communications purposes).

Second, Krebs reported that another intelligence firm (Hold Security, which tracks data that TrickBot harvests) had detected a massive increase in the volume of records yielded by TrickBot. The firm concluded that this was not the fruit of TrickBot’s own efforts but, rather, that someone had someone managed to inject a vast flood of apparently bogus records into TrickBot’s system, perhaps burying or obscuring the real records in the process. If nothing else, this move would have created a lot of resource-consuming headaches for TrickBot’s operators as they set about to fix the mess.

Chesney puts a positive spin on the tactics, but these are not the same as a cure, are they? Well, I’ve never worked in this particular field, but – in an anger reflex dating back to the 1980s and 1990s when I had to deal with the distant ancestors of cybercriminals in the BBS world – I’d rather find the geographical location of the criminals in question, and then send someone to translate cyber crime into real world consequences for them.

Given that’s almost certainly impossible, I’ll have to satisfy myself with the thought that TrickBot’s operators are exhausting themselves in keeping their criminal enterprise going. I hope more effective tactics are developed, and I get to hear about them.

Like just about everyone else who’s not in the Trump cult or not paying attention – there’s a disturbingly large number of the latter out there, I’m afraid – I’m hoping for a soul-crushing landslide loss for Trump.

Not that I hate Trump, but because that would be good for the United States and would burn down a Republican Party that has become a festering sore on the hide of the United States.

So, let’s assume that happens. If I could only have one lesson learned from this entire four year debacle by the electorate, what would it be?

It turns out that’s an easy question for me. It’s this:

Candidates for office who rely on magical thinking will be ignored and disdained by the American electorate.

I’ve talked about magical thinking before, and gave an informal definition here. After perusing definitions on the Web, I’m going to ignore them as too timid, and update my definition thusly:

Magical thinking consists of determining conclusions and positions based on religious or ideological assumptions, and then ignoring, misinterpreting, or otherwise abusing evidence that is not congruent with those conclusions and positions. This will also include fabrication of false evidence, claims of conspiracies without evidence, proclamations of divine interventions without diving fingerprints, and various other forms of dishonesty and delusion.

In other words, reality comes first. A promising candidate is someone who can earnestly promise that the positions they hold are based on current information, reasonable assumptions of human nature as well as mother nature, and is contingent on further information being presented.

That’s my hope for the learning process of the electorate. What’s your hope?

This actually made me laugh.

“Suburban women: Will you please like me?” he asked. “Please. Please. I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?”

– President Trump at a campaign rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

From Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

I’m beginning to wonder if that’s emblematic of Attorney General William Barr. Do readers remember William Barr’s appearance on the scene? He wrote a memo condemning the Mueller investigation; he gave a speech at Notre Dame, condemning contemporary culture. He was nominated and confirmed as Trump’s second full AG, succeeding the deeply unlucky and former Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)^[1]; the temporary AG who occupied the role between Sessions and Barr was so unmemorable and, well, Trumpian, that I’m not even going to look up his name.

Barr then stuck his fingers so flagrantly into the Stone and Flynn affairs that veteran prosecutors quit, and former DOJ employees signed unprecedented petitions asking that he resign.

Twice.

There was the humiliation of the Berman affair, in which Barr thought he could induce the SDNY Attorney to resign.

And, lately, there’s been the investigation of the Obama Administration, which is yielding … nothing, as Steve Benen on Maddowblog notes:

Donald Trump spent months trying to convince the public that there was a genuine controversy surrounding Obama-era “unmaskings,” at one point describing it as a “massive” scandal. The president’s political allies played along: Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has been an aggressive proponent of the story, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) went so far as to suggest earlier this year that the matter is “bigger than Watergate.”

The rhetoric never really made any sense, and the latest reporting from the Washington Post indicates that the manufactured scandal has effectively evaporated into nothing.

The federal prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr to review whether Obama-era officials improperly requested the identities of individuals whose names were redacted in intelligence documents has completed his work without finding any substantive wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the matter.

For those who might need a refresher, Barr’s office announced on Fox News in May that the attorney general had appointed John Bash, the U.S. attorney in the Western District of Texas, to examine “unmasking” practices, specifically within the previous administration.

And …

Now that John Bash’s probe has apparently exonerated the Democratic administration, Trump might be tempted to turn his attention to Connecticut U.S. attorney John Durham’s investigation into the Russia scandal probe, but that’s not working out well for the president, either. Multiple reports this week have said there will be no pre-election action in the Durham probe, and Trump himself conceded at a campaign event on Monday that these efforts will have to wait until after Election Day.

So here’s the thing. While I generally don’t take The Daily Kos contributors too seriously, I have to admit that I was fascinated by this Andy Schmookler entry that suggests AG William Barr may be … slinking off into the night. Abandoning ship.

And, you know, ever since AG Barr declared he was self-quarantining, I can’t say I’ve heard anything from him at all.

Now, he could be ill, or preparing some replacement October Surprise – hurry, hurry, AG, I need a laugh! – but let’s stipulate Schmookler’s idea. This is where it gets interesting, because it’s reasonable to them assume that Barr was taken in by Trump. Convinced by the propaganda that the Dems are evil and conniving – that is, propaganda from his own side – AG Barr has, on the one hand, come up empty time after time after time, while interfering in prosecutions to get Trump cronies spared from punishment, which all may prove Barr is just another magical thinker, gullible and, well, gulled^[2].

And quite possibly a highly toxic witness against Trump, if Trump is so foolish as to remain within the long hand of the law after his term is completed. If Barr is feeling, well, used.

I’m not sure I’d put any money on the above scenario being true, but it remains fascinating.

¹ Sessions is now panhandling in Athens, AL, having lost a primary run for his old Senatorial seat to Tommy Tuberville, whose main qualification for the Senate is that he was a college football coach. Oh, kidding, kidding – about only one of those items-of-disgrace.

² Yeah, that’s not a technical term. Or is it?

At least until next year.

Jennifer Rubin makes a prediction:

Future political scientists and campaign operatives may study this campaign for years to come as an example of how to turn a losing campaign into a party-killing, landslide defeat.

And their answer will be: Don’t be a barstool blowhard.

Barstool blowhards never need more information, never need more information, never change their minds, and are never wrong – in their own minds.

Spaghettification, when you get too close to a black hole. Especially when “you” are a “star.”

Erick Erickson’s latest email:

With yesterday’s start to the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings, now is a good time to remind Republicans that there is no reason to be reasonable about the nomination.

Reasonableness, of course, is what the Republicans are actually doing. They’re going through the process even if the opposition does not like it. The reality is the Democrats would be doing the same if the roles were reversed.

Oh, that’s right – Senator McConnell’s (R-KY) rules only apply to Democrats.

I didn’t bother to read the rest of his blather. Maybe he even addressed the question. But his IV of hypocrisy, dripping into his arm, makes it unworthy of anyone’s time.

A couple of lovely pics, courtesy my Arts Editor: