DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus William Barr and our new Autocratic governance.

I've said for some time that Barr is complicit in Trump's persistent and determined undermining of American norms and the separation of powers. I think he has politicized the DOJ and it's a terrible precedent that he has set.... it will get further exploited and his example will be used again in the future by a Democratic or Republican president and it will be to the determinant of the country.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/william-barr-founders-constitution-autocracy.html

It's a good article and raises serious talking points - not the least of which the point that when Barr was applying to be attorney general that the president is the executive branch. One paragraph as an example:

I have a question of nomenclature for you. You keep talking about autocracy. When you talk about autocracy, what exactly do you mean? I guess I want you to unpack it and tell me when you started using that word.

I don’t know quite when I started using that word, but it was around the time that I saw that there was this systematic effort to free the president from the limitations upon his use of power that have always been sort of in the water we drank and the air we breathe. And one of the very first things that started down that road with Bill Barr was when the president, not liking the fact that Congress had declined to appropriate money for his border wall, declared an emergency, and then immediately said, This isn’t really an emergency. I just want to do it quicker. And Barr’s Justice Department went to court to defend his ability to do that. So what is that? That’s the appropriations clause. The Constitution says that the Congress appropriates money. Congress repeatedly, explicitly refused to appropriate that money. And the president says, Forget it. I’m just going to go ahead and do it anyway. So that’s one example of a power being overridden. Then, throughout 2019, there’s this vast array of acts to stonewall efforts by the Congress to do oversight, to get information, to get documents, to talk to witnesses, even in connection with the impeachment. And they basically just said, Nah, we’re not going to give it to you. Of course, another element of it is, well, we don’t like the Mueller report, so we’ll just override it.

So the list goes on and on and on. And what it amounts to is a systematic effort by this administration, under the direction of Bill Barr, to dismantle the checks and balances on the system. When you eliminate virtually all the checks and balances on the president’s power, what do you have left? You have an autocrat.

Donald Trump hints he could fire FBI director over Antifa disagreement
The Independent
Graeme Massie
,The Independent•September 18, 2020
Director Christopher Wray testifies before the House Homeland Security Committee (EPA)
Director Christopher Wray testifies before the House Homeland Security Committee (EPA)
Donald Trump dropped his strongest hint yet that he could replace his own FBI director in their continued Antifa disagreement.

The president publicly criticised Christopher Wray this week for comments he made to Congress about Antifa and Russian interference in the upcoming elections.

Mr Wray angered Mr Trump when he told US lawmakers that he viewed Antifa as an ideology not a terrorist organisation, which put him at odds with the White House.

In the hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, Mr Wray said that he regarded Antifa as a “real thing” but denied it was a terror group.

- ADVERTISEMENT -

“We look at Antifa as more of an ideology or a movement than an organisation,” said Mr Wray.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Mr Trump took the opportunity to go after Mr Wray, who he appointed in 2017, and refused to rule out firing him.

“Antifa’s a bad group. And they’re criminals and they’re anarchists and they’re agitators and they’re looters and rioters,’ said Mr Trump.

“And when a man doesn’t say that, that bothers me. I wonder why he’s not saying that.

The president was then asked directly if he planned on firing him as FBI director.

“We’re looking at a lot of different things. I did not like his answers yesterday,” said Mr Trump.

“Im not sure he liked them either,I’m sure he would probably agree with me, Antifa is bad, really bad."

Mr Trump also jabbed at Mr Wray for testifying about Russia’s “very active efforts” to meddle in the upcoming election, but not China’s.

“The big problem is China, we can have others also and I’m not excluding anybody, but the big problem is China and why he doesn’t want to say that, that certainly bothers me.”

The president has repeatedly sought to downplay Russian efforts to interfere in US elections in his favour, at one point even publicly backing Vladimir Putin’s denials over his own intelligence agencies’ conclusions.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-hints-could-fire-024750699.html

Nothing to see here.

Wait, I only saw Jesters' post and not yours.

Obama already weaponized the DOJ, or Politicized it, you worry about politicizing it as a precedent, and Obama has already weaponized it, so you can't re set a precedend that is already there.
AG Rom Emmanuel, some of the things he did or refused to do, I'm talking about.
Not prosecuting those who obstructed voters, putting some good guy in jail for selling guns or not selling guns to Mexican drug cartels which later shot at US officials,
NO! I don't know the details, but I DO know weaponizing the DOJ? Yeah 8 years of Obama? Sure we've already had it.

That's what Trump wants you to think. Nothing here, just Russia helping him, ANTIFA not a threat at all, Barr and Trump election meddling with post office and scaring people about mail in voting. Nothing to see here, just fascism on the rise...

Facism from the democrats side, I think, either way, bringing the government down in spite of the will of the people.

j/c:

I am not as educated on politics as most of you guys, but I see a ton of posts about how bad Russia is. I'm not arguing that point, but why is there not more talk about China? From my limited readings, China seems to be far more dangerous than Russia, mainly due to all the ties they have in almost every aspect of our society?

Because China is about economics.

That’s a fight capitalism wages with the help of government. Which by the way, republicans have done a terrible job doing under trump.

China isn’t trying to change our way of life. Russia is.

Russia is our greatest adversary. They are the ones who actively meddle and attempt to hack voting booths. They help cause massive division in the Middle East, as well as threaten our allies in Western Europe. They are the active warfare threat, whether on the ground or currently cyber.

The fight with China is an economic fight. That’s two different situations that requires two different strategies, fought on two different platforms.

I disagree given from what I have read. But again, I am not the political expert you are and not as objective as you are.

I think China has their hands in almost every thing we do. I think we owe them untold dollars. I think they are probably the most exploitative nation in the world. Folks in Hong Kong might agree.

I have a sneaking feeling that the spotlight on Russia instead of China as our most dangerous enemy has a lot to do w/the liberal media and the Democratic party.

oh ok. you wasn't actually trying to ask a question, you just wanted to put yet another "blame the lib" narrative out there.

and i fell for it again.

Gee, I wish I could be more like you, because you know, you never play "blame the GOP game."

China is a much bigger enemy of the United States than Russia, but you keep drinking the Democratic cool aide.

anyways,

Barr pulled a really good con when during his confirmation hearing with his whole "i don't have anything left to lose" rhetoric.

what he really meant, apparently, was that he was more than happy to be Trump's henchmen. trying to intimidate people, attempt to confirm his conspiracy theories, etc.

Obviously independents and liberals had nothing to do with Sessions recusing himself from the Russia probe and ultimately stepping down. However, i think enough time has passed to admit that the country was better off with Sessions as AG than Barr, as crazy as this ends up being.

Sessions at least tried to keep the DoJ somewhat independent, and knew where the line was. Barr just doesn't care one bit. there's nothing he won't do to run interference for Trump.

Trump thinks these institutions are for his personal use. it's why he trashes Wray, his own hand-picked FBI director, non stop. it's why he trashed Sessions non-stop.

It's why he trashes anybody he hires non-stop the last 4 years. you don't work there to make the country better. you work there to confirm whatever pops up in trump's head.

umm...you're the one blaming the liberal media for whatever. i mean, you're really proving you don't even know the fundamentals of what you're talking about.

i laid out for you why Russia and China are two different situations. i've got into a bit of detail as to why.

you've gone into ZERO detail. and you know why?

because you already admitted you don't know much about this. so i don't understand how somebody who doesn't know jack crap - not even the basics - can have such a strong opinion on why China isn't talked about as much as Russia.

that would be like me having a strong opinion on computer programming...despite not knowing the basics of computer programming.

if thats the kind of crap you taught students, i'm glad you aren't a teacher anymore.

if you're so concerned about China, make a thread about them.

you seem to always wonder why something isn't as big as you think it is, but then never do anything about it.

okie dokie.

and by the way, here's some more information for you, ya know, cause you admit you don't know much about this topic.

Barr wasn't brought in by Trump to deal with China. Trump was specifically brought in by Trump to run interference on the Mueller report and anything else dealing with Russia and the election.

that's also a big reason as to why in THIS thread, nobody is talking about china.

but carry on.

This is the thing about you and the left. You can't just discuss the issues. You constantly resort to personal insults.

But, I guess, that is a sign of higher emotional intelligence.

I’m literally discussing the issues while you whine about nothing.

You haven’t responded once to the details. You’re doing exactly what people who don’t know what they’re talking about do.

What? You brought up some stupid crap about teaching. You acted like economics were not important. You completely ignored the claws that China has on almost every aspect of our nation. You would not even talk about Hong Kong and China's oppression.

Typical left BS. All hot air and no substance. You can go ahead and make another personal attack such as the earlier teacher reference, but I'm done responding for now. I said what I wanted to say and I am not going to lower myself to exchanging persona insults.

Bottom line..........in my opinion...........China is a bigger enemy than Russia.

umm, didn't you say i was drinking the kool-aid?

now you wanna turn around and play victim.

god you are so fake.

Depends on 2 things. How you define threat and what you are reading.

If you consider threat in an all encompassing term then yes, China is probably the biggest threat as far as biggest global competitor. Most of what they do is what any country does to secure their place in global society. As far as I can tell, the biggest thing they do wrong is the "stealing" of intellectual property. I put stealing in quotes because they are not sneaking unknown into a company to to obtain the information. The information is being given "voluntarily". Voluntarily is in quotes because it isn't truly voluntary but coerced. China tells companies that you cannot sell in our country unless you partner with a Chinese company. Because of the billions of people in China, companies agree and in the process have to allow the Chinese company access to otherwise proprietary information/technologies. These companies then share that information with other Chinese companies - I think companies that the same mother company own. This is my understanding.

Russia on the other hand cannot compete economically with us or China. Their threat is a direct threat towards our Democracy. The most wrong thing that Russia is doing is trying to interfere with our election process. This is not opinion, this is fact. The confusion lies is the uncertainty as to whether or not the trump campaign conspired with Russia in 2016. China likely has similar if not better ability to interfere, but to date there is no substantial evidence to suggest that they have.

As for who you read, if you read MSN etc it is all about Russia because they hate trump and despise Republicans. If you read things like breitbart and Fox then it is all about China because they had Dems/libs and love trump and will echo trumps message and that message is China = Bad, nothing wrong with Russia. Trying to find a good non-partisan source is so hard now a days. Business insider is pretty unbiased, some shows on POTUS radio (though definitely not all) - Micheal Smerconish leans right but is very very fair, Dan Abrams is really far and unbiased as well. Alternatively, I try to read both CNN and FOX to hear both sides and come to an independent conclusion based on the arguments, but that double the time investment.

Fair response.

For the record, I try not to read much from Fox or CNN. When I research a topic, I do my best to read as many articles as I can from more reliable sources. I then look for patterns that are based more on fact and less on propaganda.

China is a real threat. And it is nothing new. I think their control of American businesses and various media outlets shield them from the scrutiny they deserve.

One last word, it's a huge mistake when folks like Swish try to downplay the role economics play globally. Getting distracted by "feelings" and social justice.

Follow the money to find out who the true exploiters are.

Bro what the hell are you talking about?

I literally mentioned economics with China and you once again blatantly ignore that.

I call you names because you deserve it. And you STILL won’t make a thread about China. All you do is whine, no action.

Your aggressive attitude is a deflective technique. I know you mentioned economics. But, you are downplaying the significance of it. China has gained control of much of our business and what we are told. Hell, they control what we think. Money is the driving force and to pretend it's not is ignorant.

You literally said the same thing I said yesterday.

But you asked WHY they aren’t catching as much attention as Russia. This is a thread about Barr, and Barr was brought in to covers trump ass on Russia.

If you want to talk about China, since this is a thread about Barr, make a thread.

If not, shut up.

You have no authority to tell me what to do. And, I'm not surprised that you don't want the ugly truth about China.

Shut up.

LOL...........yet another example of the left having "higher emotional intelligence."

Lol bro you use to send PMs threatening to meet up and fight.

Please lmfao

This is hilarious. We are in the middle of our presidential election process. It's Russia who backs Trump. Every decision and the direction our nation will take moving forward is dependent on the outcome of this election. Our very election process is under attack by Russia with direct help from Trump.

China has us by the balls economically. That's because they're smarter bout business and trade.

The person screaming the loudest trying to distract away from the fact that our democracy being under attack doesn't even want to start a thread to discuss it. Just like he usually does he would rather go from thread to thread trying to regurgitate the same thing in an effort to take away from what's going on.

He's played the tough guy, threatened people physically and even threatened to sue a board member. Not he's trying to play some victim?

"You can't tell me what to do, you're not my real dad!"

Same old crap every day. Clowning on Vers becoming the new Vambo is now a daily occurrence. When did defending normalcy and the American way of life become a partisan thing? And now we are supposed to argue who is the greater threat, Russia or China (Vers distraction tactic) in a thread about the much greater threat of having William Barr as AG.


Justice Dept. deems New York City, Portland and Seattle 'anarchist jurisdictions'

Democratic mayors and governors earlier this month bashed the effort to withhold funds from their areas as illegal and a distraction from Covid deaths.

The Department of Justice on Monday released a list of cities it has deemed "anarchist jurisdictions" under President Donald Trump's instructions earlier this month to review federal funding to state and local governments where violence or vandalism has taken place during protests.

That memo directed Attorney General William Barr, in consultation with Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, to identify jurisdictions "that have permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract these criminal activities (anarchist jurisdictions)."

On Monday, the Justice Department labeled New York City, Portland and Seattle such areas, though the department said it was still working to identify other jurisdictions that meet criteria outlined in Trump's memo.

"We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted when the safety of the citizenry hangs in the balance," Barr said. "It is my hope that the cities identified by the Department of Justice today will reverse course and become serious about performing the basic function of government and start protecting their own citizens."

As part of its rationale for labeling the cities as such, the Justice Department cited city councils voting to cut police funding, the refusal to prosecute protesters for charges like disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, the rejection of federal intervention, and law enforcement officials suffering injuries during violent outbursts.

Democratic mayors and governors earlier this month bashed Trump over his latest effort aimed at what he calls "Democrat-run" cities and states. They said it was illegal for the executive branch to unilaterally withhold funding from their jurisdictions and that Trump was merely seeking another distraction from the U.S. coronavirus death toll, which has now topped 200,000.

"It is another attempt to kill New York City," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters during a late-night conference call earlier this month, adding Trump "better have an army if he thinks he's going to walk down the streets in New York."

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee called Trump's efforts "the latest baseless, petty and divisive move by President Trump to distract from his abject failure to protect Americans from COVID-19."

"With more than 185,000 lives lost on his watch, we won't forget," he said. "The president cannot and will not defund us. He is not a dictator and laws still apply to him."

At the time, a White House official said the effort was aimed at withholding grant money from such jurisdictions it deemed to be "anarchist."

"We're not going to keep providing those funds from the federal level if they're not using them," the official said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice...ctions-n1240600

Love how the gang sticks together. You can't discuss topics rationally. You insult, name call, and gang-up on anyone who doesn't follow along w/your BS. Y'all are classic bullies. Big mouths and no backbone.

Pointing out facts can be a point of contention. Unless of course you deny that you threatened to sue a board member and wanted to fight swish. Now you play the victim. Inconvenient truth is not an attack. They are facts.

I thought you promoted truth and facts?

And I've got plenty of backbone. Just in case that's another in your list of veiled threats.

As a former teacher, I was taught how to identify bullying behavior and even witnessed students who would bully others. One of the classic examples of it is when bullies attack another student and then assign even more labels to that student if that student points out the bullying.

I find it comical that those who constantly practice middle school bullying techniques think that they are the ones who have a "higher emotional intelligence."

This crap has been going on in this forum for a long time. There are a group of bullies in this forum who immediately start insulting, using name calling, and ganging up on anyone who dares to speak out in opposition to their one-sided beliefs. Higher emotional intelligence, my ass!

You're the butt of all the jokes.

There is that higher emotional intelligence thing again.

Sometimes people get stuck on something traumatic and they just can't move on... Acceptance is the first step in healing.

You know how to identify a bully because you were a teacher? That whole looking in the mirror thing can be difficult.

Would you say challenging someone who disagrees with you to fight as being a bully? How about threatening to sue someone when you get offended? Would that qualify?

Close. Incorrect.

They are close to having us by the nads because they pay their workers next to nothing. AND can sell their products cheaper. And what do too many Americans do? Demand higher wages, more vacation, etc, so that they can buy the cheaper products.

The problem for China is, they can't feed their people, so the U.S. hit them where it hurt: Food.

Many on here went ballistic on this......"it's going to hurt our farmers....etc etc" And yes, short term it has, and will. But, long term, it should work, according to the Ag industry.

Remember China deciding to not buy our soybeans? But with in a couple of weeks, they were buying our soybeans from S. America? And within months started buying soy beans from us again?

That is how a new trade deal is worked. They use their power (cheap products because they don't pay workers for crap), and we use our ag. power, because they can't feed their people.

I've explained it at least twice on here. I've spoken personally to a gentleman that is on a couple of Ag commissions - fed. - and what he said would happen has, in fact, happened.

I don't disagree with you completely. But let's be honest here. China found other sources to but their food from during Trump's embargo. The new trade deal hasn't worked. What china did was once again smart on their part.

They bought our soy beans elsewhere. You don't think that's a smart move on their part? there people were not going hungry. They managed to feed themselves without a trade agreement. That's why unlike Trump claimed, a trade agreement with China was not "easy or quick". And arch, most of the third world pays workers next to nothing. That's why so many of the products we buy don't just come from China but many Asian nations.

Here's a huge portion of the problem that nobody sees playing as big of a factor as it does. Over 40% of Americans have less than $400 saved for an emergency. They can't afford to buy American products in the first place. Until that is fixed there's really no actual hope of turning this around.

I edited this to give you another example. China has already made deals with African nations. They are building infrastructure in Africa in exchange for trade deals. Africa in the richest continent left on the globe in terms of minerals and precious metals.

They have set themselves up for long term economic riches moving forward. Us? Yes, like it or not, China is holding the lead in the future economic power of the globe. And it's really not that close.

I think you missed the part where China is still buying our beans. They caved early on. i know, I know, 'but trump....' That is your bottom line.

And I guarantee if Obama had done it, you would've supported it.