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Work in progress. Lots to think about during the last year. Insurrection,Twitter, pandemic, God and country, voting, number 45, even toilet paper threw us all into a tailspin.
We need to get America's middle class back on track instead of handing everything to the mega wealthy and then hoping something trickles down to the rest of us.
Judge Strikes Down New Trump Rule Cutting Off Food Stamps For 700,000 Americans
Pence is another Trump, just different looks. So beware folks!!!!
Letters to the EditorNorthwest VoicesOpinion
Attorney General William Barr: ‘America deserves better’
Oct. 6, 2020 at 4:44 pm Updated Oct. 7, 2020 at 9:25 am
By Letters editor
The Seattle Times
Recently, James D. Herbert, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, became the first sitting federal prosecutor to speak out against the abuse of power by Attorney General William Barr. This brave act has inspired me to add my voice.
I am also a current Justice Department attorney. I am writing to express my own personal views, not those of the Justice Department, about a subject that is important to all Americans: Barr’s corruption of a great American institution.
Prosecutors are supposed to do their jobs without regard to party or politics. Barr, however, is turning the Justice Department into a shield to protect the president and his henchmen. He misled the American public about the Mueller report. He meddled to spare Roger Stone and Michael Flynn from the consequences of their crimes. He demeaned career prosecutors in a speech at Hillsdale College in Michigan.
Barr does these things because his goal is to protect his master, rather than the American people. The power of the Justice Department is too great to be in the hands of a person like Barr. America deserves better.
Michael Dion, Seattle
Sleepless in Seattle, the Mayor Durkan remake
Sep. 18, 2020 at 4:01 pm Updated Sep. 18, 2020 at 4:01 pm
By David Horsey
Seattle Times cartoonist
U.S. Attorney General William Barr, despite promises made during his Senate confirmation hearing to be an independent voice for law and justice, has proven to be a perfect consigliere for a president of the United States who operates like a mob boss. Barr has intervened repeatedly to protect cronies of President Donald Trump who have run afoul of the law and has encouraged Trump’s most authoritarian impulses.
The A.G.’s skewed view of justice has been further exposed by a New York Times report that says Barr asked federal prosecutors to look into the possibility of prosecuting Mayor Jenny Durkan. Her crime? Allowing a protest zone to operate undisturbed for several weeks this summer in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. This follows comments from the president that branded Seattle, Portland and other cities caught up in ongoing protests against police violence against Black Americans as lawless places run by anarchists.
Besides eyeing the mayor for prosecution, Barr also expressed his eagerness to charge violent protesters with sedition, a crime that has been invoked to stifle dissent at various times throughout American history.
“Ultimately, this is not a story about me,” Durkan said in a formal response, but about “how this President and his Attorney General are willing to subvert the law and use the Department of Justice for political purposes.”
There is great irony in this attack on the mayor from the political right since she is currently the target of a recall effort driven by left-wing groups that accuse her of approving overly-aggressive police tactics against demonstrators. Durkan seems to be caught in a Goldilocks paradigm; Barr and Trump say she is too soft, activists say she is too hard and voters may conclude that she has done things just about right.
See more of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey