TGIF 7/10/20

Ready for the week's good list/bad list fun and games? Let's dive in. 

First up? Snitty Snitty Bill Barr and his extortion/quid pro quo Human Resources debacle, surrounding the removal of US Attorney Geoffrey Berman from the Southern District of New York office. Berman testified before the House Judiciary Committee earlier this week, and his opening statement was a fun read, for sure. 

There was Barr's meeting invite, no purpose given; food was provided, but no one ate - a bad sign, for sure. Berman was pressed to take a different role within DOJ as a 'resume builder' - but he wouldn't have to do anything, "just sit there" until after the election to see what would come next. (That would look good on anyone's resume, don't you think?)  If Berman wouldn't take a different position, or resign, Barr told him he'd be fired - "and getting fired from my job would not be good for my resume or future job prospects," even though there were no issues with his performance.  

And then, of course, Berman found out via press release that he was "stepping down" and being replaced by someone from the New Jersey US Attorney's office, which "would have been unprecedented, unnecessary and unexplained." Berman then issued his own statement, basically stating rumors of his career demise were unfounded. And then, of course, there was the public release of a letter telling him he had been fired by Trump. I don't know about you, but the DOJ sounds like a place unlikely to make any 'best workplace' list - at least not for the next few months, unless you're sitting around doing nothing.

Staying in the 'Names Beginning with B' category, let's look at this story from Town Hall, the self-described "#1 conservative website." Here's the headline: Joe Biden Says Police Have 'Become the Enemy,' 'Absolutely' Should Defund Them - holy basement bunker, Batman - makes you wonder what's going on, doesn't it?

Have the mad lefties yanked him completely over to the dark side of progressive radical Marxist anarchy, just these few short months before the election, and just a few short weeks after he said this in a USA Today op-ed?

While I do not believe federal dollars should go to police departments violating people's rights or turning to violence as the first resort, I do not support defunding police. The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.

And then, he itemized several of those reforms. So, again, have the rioting, violent anarchists stolen Papa Joe? Hell no, they haven't - Papa Joe is still Papa Joe. Here's what he actually said:

Surplus military equipment for law enforcement, they don't need that. The last thing you need is an up-armored Humvee coming into a neighborhood - it's like the military invading; they don't know anybody, they become the enemy. They're supposed to be protecting these people.

And the 'defunding' part of the headline?

The specific question he was asked was this: "But do you agree we can redirect some of the funding?" And his answer was "Yes. Absolutely..." and he went on to describe some of his ideas on prison reform, having already given a number of ideas on how to change policing.

Clearly the #1 conservative website took a few words out of context and assumed that no one would actually watch the interview containing the alleged offensive comments. But wait -- they'd never do that, right? I thought just the #fakenews #MSM did that whole sound-bite BS, silly me.

And speaking of silly, remember that kerfuffle between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and NPR's Mary Louise Kelly? He called her a liar in a statement, he berated her in person, made her point out Ukraine on an unlabeled map, dropped a boatload of f-bombs, and more. Which made his comments about the Chinese Communist Party the other day pretty ironic - take a look. I added some emphasis for you.

What we found in China is the Chinese Communist Party was simply incapable...they're incapable of being transparent, of accepting criticism, of allowing reporters to ask them questions that they find uncomfortable that elicit the truth and the facts... They're afraid that the truth will be something that will not shine a happy light on what took place, and so instead they chose to hide and obfuscate and deny basic truth... this is the - this is a fundamental and fatal flaw for authoritarian regimes...

And speaking of fundamental flaws... sorry. And speaking of transparency, we've learned that the president has "aced" a cognitive test. We don't know when he took it, but we do know how he did - because he told his buddy Sean Hannity all about it

Hannity asked Trump whether, in his opinion, Biden had the 'alertness, trying to be charitable here, the strength and stamina...you're in the job, I'd argue the toughest job in the world..." After saying that Biden has been brainwashed by the radical left, and telling gloom and doom stories of a stock market crash, abolishing of the police, and the US ending up like Venezuela, he finally answered the question.

He hasn't taken any cognitive tests because he couldn't pass one.  I actually took one when I -- very recently, when I - when I was - the radical left were saying, 'is he all there? is he all there?' And I proved I was all there, because I got - I aced it. I aced the test. And he (Biden) should take the exact test, a very standard test. I took it at Walter Reed Medical Center in front of doctors. And they were very surprised. They said, 'that's an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did." But he should take that same test. 

For more on the nature of the test, here's Sarah Cooper to tell you about it.

TGIF, everyone.  Have a safe weekend.