Open thread for night owls. What Digby said: Barr is 'the most odious of Donald Trump's henchmen'

Heather Digby Parton at Salon writes—Bill Barr could well be the most odious of Donald Trump's henchmen:

People in the media and politics bemoan the cynicism of our age, saying that people vote for a liar like Donald Trump because they believe all politicians lie and he's just more colorful about it. This era is producing men and women of such grandiose mendacity that it will be a miracle if the next generation believes that anyone in politics is even capable of acting in the national interest.  It's possible that Robert Mueller may be the last of his kind in the GOP and I'm not all that sure about him either. We'll have to see how this plays out to know whether Mueller pulled too many punches but for the moment he's all we have left of  a "just the facts ma'am" Republican straight arrow.

You certainly cannot say the same for his friend William Barr, the new attorney general. He has proved to be the most rank partisan in that role since John Mitchell, Richard Nixon's attorney general, who spent 19 months in jail for his part in the Watergate scandal. Even though I had my suspicions that Barr had spent too much time in the right-wing fever swamps, based upon the notorious unsolicited memo he sent to the White House and his comments to the news media, like most people I was hoping that he would be one of those old-school "institutionalist" types who would look at the evidence in the Mueller report and be as appalled by this norm-busting, law-breaking, power-abusing president as the entire world has been since it was released.

It turns out that we were not cynical enough. Not by a long shot. Rather than acting as an independent upholder of the law, serving the people, Barr is proving to be the most servile of all Trump's henchmen. He's not even as independent as the multiple yes-men in the administration who failed to follow Trump's orders but stayed on anyway. Barr seems to see himself as the president's trusted legal consigliere, helping him to avoid getting caught for his crimes. The president truly has found his new Roy Cohn, Trump's notorious mentor and personal lawyer who was eventually disbarred for egregious unethical conduct. [...]

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Hey you ever notice how news that shows the president as not completely corrupt is eventually completely refuted?

— 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫 (@beardedstoner) May 1, 2019

BLAST FROM THE PAST

On this date at Daily Kos in 2003—Dems to filibuster Owens:

Be still my beating heart, the Dems are going to filibuster another Bush Judicial nominee—the odious Priscilla Owen!

I must admit being a bit taken aback at this newfound moxie in the Senate's Democratic delegation, but I like it.

The new filibuster target will be Priscilla Owen—a Texas judge and home-state favorite of the president's—who was nominated for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Democrats have called Owen, who sits on the Texas Supreme Court, an anti-abortion, pro-business judicial activist whose opinions and rulings are overly influenced by her personal beliefs.

"Her record is so egregious that we have no choice but to filibuster," Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said.

It's surprising the GOP doesn't agree, considering they rant and rave against "judicial activists". And by all accounts, Owens is one of those. Indeed, none other than White House counsel Alberto Gonzales—then a justice on the Texas Supreme Court—accused Owens of "unconscionable judicial activism."

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Trump's suing Deutsche Bank, now. Because something. Dumb & Dumber are back again with a new version of same, terrible frame-up job. New report catalogues a brazen pattern of the Sauds helping students flee serious criminal charges in the US.

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