Steve points out something that is very wrong about former Attorney General Barr deciding to tell the truth to Jonathan Karl, namely that he doesn't think there was anything morally wrong about trying to overthrow a democratic election, he just didn't think it was going to be successful. It occurred to me that there were a few other things:
I'd like to know more about how much of that he did, as with the multiple investigations of Crossfire Hurricane and its origins, harrassing people who Trump regarded as his personal enemies.
— Specter of Happiness (@Yastreblyansky) June 28, 2021
And of course if he want to start telling the truth let's hear about his role in surveillance of Times, WaPo, CNN, and House Intelligence Committee
— Specter of Happiness (@Yastreblyansky) June 28, 2021
He seems to have ordered up an awful lot of investigations for which there was no justification to satisfy his vindictive client. He looks more and more like John Mitchell to me.
A more complex thing was a very annoying "fact check" in Washington Post, where Glenn Kessler assigned four Pinocchios to Biden for saying that the 2nd Amendment didn't allow you to buy a cannon in the 1780s:
This "fact check" is beyond stupid and petty.
— Mark (Trying to Stay in my Lane) Mucci (@MLMucci) June 28, 2021
Most normal people know that the phrase "you couldn't buy a cannon" was a statement that the Second Amendment wasn't granting a Constitutional right to a cannon.
WaPo diminishes the meaning of "4 Pinocchios" https://t.co/aF3dl9cx2P
oops I'm the idiot, apparently evidence exists https://t.co/DxpGsKVC00
— Specter of Happiness (@Yastreblyansky) June 28, 2021
So that's not exactly private. The same goes for the cannon on privately owned ships (which they certainly needed for defense against pirates/privateers)--more like corporate ownership. And the ones in town squares fired in celebrations. Biden's point...
— Specter of Happiness (@Yastreblyansky) June 28, 2021
In fact it was settled law till 21st century that Constitution did not guarantee right to bear arms https://t.co/C1YupVS6jU What's really intolerable about Kessler's treatment is relentless focus on trivia and refusal to consider the issue, in which Biden is certainly right.
— Specter of Happiness (@Yastreblyansky) June 28, 2021
Kessler is really the worst, though Politifact often does this too. The point the president was trying to make is an important one: the Second Amendment wasn't a guarantee that anybody can have any gun they want, and no Supreme Court ever held that it applied to individual gun ownership at all until Scalia's decision in Heller (2008). Whether you could or couldn't buy a cannon in 1788, the Second Amendment had nothing to do with it. In not mentioning that, and in acting as if the cannon question had some deep scholarly significance, Kessler really does the debate a disservice.
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