A C. T U. A L. L Y

Attorney General Bill Barr seems to be at it again. This time he is not only obstructing justice in defense of the President, but also in defense of himself.   I am of course referring to the July 25th phone call between the President of the United States and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump mentions Barr several times.   Clearly, this is a matter that screams for Barr’s recusal.   Equally clear, he will not recuse himself, knowing what happened to former Attorney General Sessions.   But that’s not all that’s troubling me.   What’s troubling me is how the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice decided—without even opening an investigation—that the phone call did not involve a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act.   Remembering that Volume 1 of the Mueller Report dealt with this issue, I decided to use it as a guide to see if the DOJ made the right decision.   I don’t think it did. First, the crimi...

Our friend R gave us a subscription to the London Review of Books , which includes a blog that pops up in my email from time to time.   An article by Elizabeth Chatterjee called Green and White Nationalism caught my eye.   https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2019/september/green-and-white-nationalism?utm_source=LRB+blog+email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190910+blog&utm_content=ukrw_subs_blog&fbclid=IwAR2qBbOQc7YlsJd_LbjukeYIgv9mI9NCFmjReCyfiIgrd2toWZl-iJv2A_U   It’s about eco-fascism, the connective tissue that binds together themes that have been floating around in my mind and this blog for some time now:   white nationalism, racism/eugenics, and immigration.   But more than that, Chatterjee links these to climate change and warns: The political left has spent decades urging the right to take climate change seriously. We may live to regret it. Faced with the climate crisis, what kind of political solidarities can transcend the appeal of na...