Low Barr

While we're all fixated with the coup d'état the Donald is in the midst of perpetrating, maybe folks haven't bothered to pay closer attention to another little news tidbit. The U.S. Senate confirmed William Barr as the next Attorney General of the United States. Here's a few things to mull about our new AG as he assumes his post, as taken from an article on the website of Democracy Now:

• As Attorney General (1991-93) under President George H.W. Bush, Barr "was involved in the pardon of six Reagan officials for the Iran-Contra scandal..." 
• He "...oversaw the opening of the Guantánamo Bay military prison, which was initially used to indefinitely detain Haitian asylum seekers." 
• "Barr also openly backed mass incarceration at home and helped develop a secret Drug Enforcement Administration program which became a 'blueprint; for the National Security Agency’s mass phone surveillance effort."
• He's just as pro-incarceration, anti-civil rights and anti-immigration as Jeff Sessions.
• Barr openly supported Trump's anti-Muslim ban.
• And, yes, he inappropriately weighed in with his interpretation of presidential authority as it relates to Trump's options in reaction to special counsel Mueller's ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign/administration's possible collusion with Russia.

Etc., etc., etc.

This is not the guy I want to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer. Actually, this is not the guy I want as a hall monitor in my kids' school. Instead, let him spend the rest of his career raking in big bucks to make some fat cats even fatter.

When the question is inevitably asked, "He couldn't possibly be worse than Sessions, and definitely nowhere near as bad as Whitaker?" I have to answer, "Uh-yeah!" Why? Because unlike his predecessors, (1) he has already served as AG and knows his way around federal bureaucracies in general and the Justice Department in particular; and (2), unlike most bottom-of-the-barrel scraping knuckleheads appointed by Trump, he might actually be really good at what he does. That should give us all pause, given his track record.

So once we get through Trump's attempted takeover of the U.S. Government, we might want to turn some of our attention to the DOJ where Barr will be looking to accelerate Trump's agenda with greater efficiency, competency and, at least for now, support from Trump himself. If you thought we couldn't go any lower, then you better buckle your seat belts and be prepared for the worst.