CNN says it’s all over, Barr has done what he was hired to do and protected President Mob Boss for the next year and a half. David Leonhardt at the Times says Mueller blew it.

It’s now clear that he mishandled the end of the Russia investigation.

Mueller naively trusted that William Barr, the attorney general, would act honorably and patriotically, as well, and let Barr decide how to handle the initial release of Mueller’s report. Barr, of course, wrote a letter that misled the public about what was in the report, creating a perception that the investigation cleared President Trump.

“For 27 days, the debate over Mueller’s findings was twisted by Barr’s poisonous distortions that implied a

This happened yesterday:

Tonight I’m going to retweet all the abuse I get for calling out misogyny on twitter today in @HumanRightsCtte. It will be instructive. So fasten your seat belts we’re in for a bumpy ride #onlineabuse https://t.co/WPRFo1rSVz

— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) May 1, 2019

And another https://t.co/bx38b9bY04

— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) May 1, 2019

And another one https://t.co/bx38b9bY04

— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) May 1, 2019

It got boring fast.

Ok 20 minutes of that was enough. Off for a G&T. Thanks to all the wonderful women & men who have sent me msgs of thanks or support today. They far outweigh the abusers. I believe in #FreeSpeech & respectful debate. That’s all #onlineabuse @HumanRightsCtte

A city of ten million people is rapidly sinking, which is a little worrying since it’s a coastal city.

THIS WEEK, AMID devastating flooding, Indonesia announced it’s planning to move its capital out of Jakarta, which really is nothing new—the country’s first president was talking about it way back in 1957. Part of the problem is extreme congestion, but today the city of more than 10 million is facing nothing short of obliteration by rising seas and sinking land, two opposing yet complementary forces of doom. Models predict that by 2050, 95 percent of North Jakarta could be submerged. And Jakarta is far from alone—cities the world over are drowning and sinking, and there’s very

Barr says he has a headache.

Attorney General William Barr is no longer expected to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, the committee’s chairman Jerry Nadler announced, following a dispute between House Democrats and the nation’s top law enforcement officer over whether Barr would publicly face questions from committee staff.

In comments to reporters on Capitol Hill, Nadler also said the Justice Department told the committee it would not comply with its subpoena for the full, unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller, a subpoena which had a deadline of Wednesday to comply.

So much for an independent Department of Justice.… Read the rest

Gee…that certainly sounds like a president who is above the law.

Wild from Barr: If the president feels a proceeding is unfounded, "the president does not have to sit there constitutionally and allow it to run its course. The president could terminate the proceeding and it would not be a corrupt intent because he was being falsely accused." pic.twitter.com/SMpiIXia92

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 1, 2019

… Read the rest

Barr is continuing to reveal what a wholly owned subsidiary he is.

Attorney General William Barr told senators today that he is not in the business of determining when lies are told to the American people.

The remark came after Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, cited evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report about President Trump’s interactions with White House Counsel Don McGahn and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Here’s that exchange:

Blumenthal: “The Mueller report establishes that quote substantial evidence supports the conclusion that the President, in fact, directed McGahn to call Rosenstein to have the special counsel removed. That’s in volume 2, page 88. In your view, did President Trump on those occasions and others

Originally a comment by latsot in the Miscellany Room.

UK police forces are increasingly demanding that victims of rape and sexual assault hand over their phones and account details under the threat of their cases being dropped if they don’t.

Let’s be entirely clear about this. Someone making an accusation of rape (or any other crime) has a certain burden of evidence. For example, she might have to produce evidence that she was in the same place as the alleged rapist at the same time. In this case, she might choose to allow police to access the location data from her phone service or the police might obtain a warrant to perform a time/location limited search regardless of permission. … Read the rest

What we’re watching right now is the top legal official in the US bending all his expertise and establishment cred (which he has a lot more of than Jeff Sessions ever did) to protect a malevolent unhinged criminal and make sure he (said criminal) gets to stay in the job where he can kill us all and destroy most of the planet.

Chris Cillizza notes that Barr lied to Congress about Mueller’s view of Barr’s summary:

Mueller sent a letter to Barr on March 27 expressing concern about the ways in which Barr’s summary document described the evidence surrounding obstructive behavior. Mueller did not make issue with any of the factual statements in Barr’s four-page letter but rather the

From the Barr hearing:

Lindsey Graham is reading quotes from FBI officials saying anti-Trump things in 2016 … much like the anti-Trump things Graham was saying in 2016. "I think Donald Trump is a con man,” he said then.

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) May 1, 2019

Brian Williams just broke into @MSNBC's coverage of the Barr hearing to correct Lindsey Graham: "The chairman of the Judiciary Committee just said that Mueller found there is no collusion. That is not correct."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 1, 2019

There may not be a member of this Administration with more to answer for than the Attorney General.

His confirmation occurred only a few months ago. Yet in that short time, Barr’s

Mueller’s letter to Barr:

I previously sent you a letter dated March 25, 2019, that enclosed the introduction and executive summary for each volume of the Special Counsel’s report marked with redactions to remove any information that potentially could be protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure that concerned declination decisions; or that related to a charged case. We also had marked an additional two sentences for review and have now confirmed that these sentences can be released publicly.

Accordingly, the enclosed documents are in a form that can be released to the public consistent with legal requirements and Department policies. I am requesting that you provide these materials to Congress and authorize their public release at this time.

Oh yes?

As many of us suspected & have been saying – but still WOW. https://t.co/jhUPFuFTvd

— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) April 30, 2019

Reading.

At the time the letter was sent on March 27, Barr had announced that Mueller had not found a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials seeking to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Barr also said Mueller had not reached a conclusion about whether Trump had tried to obstruct justice, but Barr reviewed the evidence and found it insufficient to support such a charge.

Days after Barr’s announcement, Mueller wrote a previously unknown private letter to the Justice Department, which revealed a degree of dissatisfaction with the public discussion of Mueller’s work that

Erm…forget something?

This looks like it's going to be a great panel on Thursday at the BBC, with @meghamohan, @UglaStefania, @Mazharul82 & @PeterTatchell, moderated by @hugo_greenhalgh https://t.co/TjEqPEnDyI

— Rachel Savage (@rachelmsavage) April 29, 2019

Just one small problem – no L.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1123272445216141314

I now make it a practice, if ever asked into a panel on LGBT questions, to say “Who are the lesbian participants?” It shouldn’t be necessary. This is SHAMEFUL.

— Philip Hensher (@PhilipHensher) April 30, 2019

Oops, embarrassing.

Hi, I’m one of the organisers of Thursday’s InterMedia UK event. As organisers, we’re taking on board all points raised re: host / panel line-up, & acting accordingly to ensure the best possible representation of voices. More

Rebecca Solnit is seeing a lot of unconscious bias going on:

I’ve just spent a month watching white male people in particular arguing about who has charisma or relatability or electability. They speak as if these were objective qualities, and as if their own particular take on them was truth or fact rather than taste, and as if what white men like is what everyone likes or white men are who matters, which is maybe a hangover from the long ugly era when only white men voted. It’s a form of self-confidence that verges on lunacy, because one of the definitions of that condition is the inability to distinguish between subjective feelings and objective realities.

She points out that … Read the rest

Meanwhile…

A Virginia judge has ruled that statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson in Charlottesville are war monuments that the city cannot remove without permission from the state.

In a nine-page ruling obtained from the University of Virginia School of Law website, Circuit Court Judge Richard E. Moore said neither the intentions of the people who erected the statues nor how they make people feel change the fact that the statues pay homage to the Civil War. Moore cited state code in his ruling that says it is illegal for municipalities to remove such monuments to war.

Gotta keep those monuments to war, because war is such a great thing.

The ruling comes

For my Freethinker column this month I wrote about Trump’s idiotic claim that Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest generals ever and is universally revered by all the many generals Trump talks to in the White House. Eric Foner wrote about the legend of Lee in August 2017, after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville:

[O]f course, what interests people who debate Lee today is his connection with slavery and his views about race. During his lifetime, Lee owned a small number of slaves. He considered himself a paternalistic master but could also impose severe punishments, especially on those who attempted to run away. Lee said almost nothing in public about the institution. His most extended comment,

How the rules change when it’s Our Crook in the chair.

There is a world of difference between how Republicans viewed oversight when Barack Obama was president and their support of Trump’s obstruction. I know, because for five years I worked for Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

In a 1957 Supreme Court ruling, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “The power of Congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power is broad … It comprehends probes into departments of the federal government to expose corruption, inefficiency, or waste.”

During my time on Oversight, the chief justice’s words were often cited as justification for our vigorous supervision of the Obama administration. Led by Representative

Top argument skills.

The difference is between women who are transgender and those who are not, what we call cisgender women.
There is no difference between women and transgender women or betwern women and cisgender women.

— Morgane Oger (@MorganeOgerBC) April 27, 2019

“This is the difference.

There is no difference.”

Got that?… Read the rest

Street harassment in France:

French courts have handed down 447 fines in the past eight months under new laws to tackle street harassment of women.

The “outrages sexistes” law was passed in August 2018, and allows for on-the-spot fines of up to €750 (£650).

The first fine was handed down a month later to a man who slapped a woman’s bottom on a bus and made lewd remarks.

I can’t help wondering (not for the first time) what the point is. Did he think that would prompt her to have sex with him right there on the bus? Surely not. So, what, then? Just expressing a little casual hatred and contempt, because he couldn’t have sex with her right … Read the rest