# William Barr has resigned **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 14, 2020, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057 "2020-12-14T22:45:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/61 "2020-12-15T15:48:50Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > And now we have two scenarios where sexual proclivities decided a Presidential electon. Hey, can we not wrap “sexual proclivities” into a discussion of William Barr? Just sayin’ ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/62 "2020-12-15T16:15:33Z")
The Venus Butterfly Effect. ---
**Author:** ![Mdm.President](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@Mdm.President](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdm.President)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/63 "2020-12-15T16:30:18Z")
It was totally copied and pasted from a facebook page, that’s why I put quotes around it. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that wasn’t good enough or clear enough. I posted it entirely as a sad response to the statement that only the president still thinks Trump can win. Every person I know that voted for him STILL thinks it’s in the bag because of crap like this: (also copied and pasted from facebook not as a source of valid info but as a reflection of the crap people are spreading) ~~snip~~ ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/64 "2020-12-15T16:40:52Z")
**Modnote** : In the future please use the quote function of the board or link to the article which will produce a snippet also. No matter what, we don’t allow more than a shortish excerpt of someone else’s work. You need to source the quote also. I’m removing your unsourced quote above. _This is just a guidance, not a warning. Nothing on your permanent record._ ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/65 "2020-12-15T18:44:31Z")
For some reason, everyone still seems to think Trump is sane. I don’t know why. He truly believes he’s won, he believes it more now than he did in the distant past of almost 6 weeks ago. The fact that he’s still fleecing his supporters does not mean he’s not also fully delusional. Cult leaders fleece their supporters while truly believing that they are God’s chosen prophet all the time. He’s insane. He also has no sense of optics, how his efforts appear to an objective outsider. If he did, he wouldn’t have kept Guiliani on after the Four Seasons debacle. I think I may have underestimated a group of his advocates, the Christian prayer circle crowd, Pompeo, Pence, MacEnemy. I thought they would stick with him for the legal battles but leave once he crossed over into sedition, but now I’m not so sure. I was wrong on the some of the details in the predictions I made. I missed the exact nature of the Supreme Court challenge and I thought he’d be focusing more of his efforts on trying to”lock up” Obama and Biden ( although maybe he was, and maybe that’s one of the reasons he fired Barr). But I think the next 5 weeks are going to be epic crazy. I think there’s a chance, not an overwhelming chance but I’ll put it at around 30%, that he ends up promoting sedition to a degree that even the Republicans can’t ignore, and they’ll have to 25th Amendment him. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/66 "2020-12-15T18:52:41Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I think I may have underestimated a group of his advocates, the Christian prayer circle crowd, Pompeo, Pence, MacEnemy. I thought they would stick with him for the legal battles but leave once he crossed over into sedition, but now I’m not so sure. They’re in a cult. Cult members will follow the leader, no matter where he takes them, even if that involves murder or suicide. Examples from the past are legion. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/67 "2020-12-15T18:55:10Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > But I think the next 5 weeks are going to be epic crazy. I think there’s a chance, not an overwhelming chance but I’ll put it at around 30%, that he ends up promoting sedition to a degree that even the Republicans can’t ignore, and they’ll have to 25th Amendment him. I agree with the first part, but not the second. Epic crazy to be sure. But Republicans are going to be divided into two camps; The first will go right along with the crazy and the sedition. The second will just stick their fingers in their ears and pretend it’s not happening. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/68 "2020-12-15T18:58:21Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > > > Hey, I’ve often said that a White house intern neglecting her dry cleaning led to the Gulf War. > > Can somebody remind me what was the backstory here? Cleared up with subsequent posts. When I hear Gulf War, I picture the 1991 war led by Bush Sr. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/69 "2020-12-15T19:03:08Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > Clinton left his seed on Monica’s dress. She saved the dress and did not wash it. God I foget her name but she turned it in to the Starr investigation, proof of Clinton’s affair, impeachment hearings proceeded. I suppose that Buck’s theory is that enough people lost faith in the Democrats that it resulted in a few hundred fewer votes in Florida in 2000 and Bush became President. In chaos theory this is known as the _ **buttoned-fly effect** _. The sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state (Clinton’s pants fly buttoned or unbuttoned) of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state (the Gulf War). ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/70 "2020-12-15T19:06:41Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > even if that involves murder or suicide. The idea of Trump and his cronies chugging the flavor-aid and doing the Joffrey really brightened my day, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/71 "2020-12-15T19:34:25Z")
Never mind ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/72 "2020-12-15T20:07:09Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > He truly believes he’s won, he believes it more now than he did in the distant past of almost 6 weeks ago. The fact that he’s still fleecing his supporters does not mean he’s not also fully delusional. Cult leaders fleece their supporters while truly believing that they are God’s chosen prophet all the time. I don’t think he believes he won, or doesn’t believe he won. I don’t think he thinks at all about objective truth. He doesn’t believe in objective truth. He also doesn’t think long term–no more than a few weeks ahead, at the most. He just does whatever he has to do to keep the ball rolling one more day, one more hour, one more minute. Keep the mark in the room, keep the ball rolling. Sure, you may be creating new problems for tomorrow, but deal with those tomorrow. If you have to contradict, back-track, redefine reality, that’s no big deal because you have no beliefs to reevaluate. Truth is whatever you want it to be at this minute and it doesn’t matter what it was yesterday or this afternoon. And this strategy has worked really, really well for him. People can’t anticipate what he will do, because it’s entirely responsive. You can’t out plan him, he doesn’t plan. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/73 "2020-12-15T20:13:15Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > 10 quatloos says by June, Barr will be in front of Congress explaining how he was secretly holding back Trump, and that really, he should be thanked for helping demonstrate the danger inherent to a powerful centralized government and unchecked executive authority. If you think that, you don’t know Barr. His life’s work is all about unchecked executive authority. It’s his interpretation of the concept of “unitary executive.” People called Barr a toady to Trump, but in reality I think he’s more a toady to unchecked executive power. Trump just happened to be on the political right and sitting in the Oval Office. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/74 "2020-12-15T20:28:25Z")
> [@BippityBoppityBoo](#): > > Re: above. > > Thanks for modding that. Now I’m sorry I wasted a lot of my time and effort reading that post. Yes, he did the right thing to mod it. That said, the Streisand Effect compelled me to look up that Rudd character on FB so I could read what had been redacted. NOT a productive use of my time, as it turns out. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/75 "2020-12-15T20:35:05Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > > > even if that involves murder or suicide. > > The idea of Trump and his cronies chugging the flavor-aid and _ **doing the Joffrey** _ really brightened my day, thanks. Interesting idiom, but can you unpack it for me? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/76 "2020-12-15T20:43:40Z")
Joffrey Baratheon was a boy king from Game of Thrones who was a huge spoiled asshole that literally caused a war on an unchecked impulse for cruelty when he’d already won. He was later killed by poison and had a genuinely miserable choking death scene, ending up purple and splotchy at his own wedding. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/77 "2020-12-15T20:48:22Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > He was later killed by poison and had a genuinely miserable choking death scene, ending up purple and splotchy at his own wedding. Basically looking much like Mitch McConnell. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/78 "2020-12-15T20:51:57Z")
Now that you make the comparison, I literally can’t fathom who is the worse person. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/79 "2020-12-15T23:32:00Z")
I’m sort of like you on this. I made a lot of errors predicting Trump’s behavior and all of them are because I didn’t understand how Trumpy he was, and how Trumpy his followers would or could become. I don’t think even Sarah Kendzior saw all of it. She sure did make a lot of prescient calls, but I feel like a lot of this was less an extension of an existing phenomenon than a bizarre mutant that emerged from insane people having broadly unchecked power as well as access to internet resources whose impact I don’t think we totally understand. From here on out, if you think things will get weirder and scarier, you probably won’t be wrong, but I’m giving up trying to characterize exactly what it will look like. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057/80 "2020-12-15T23:36:09Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > If you think that, you don’t know Barr. His life’s work is all about unchecked executive authority. It’s his interpretation of the concept of “unitary executive.” Well, you may be right about that, but I also happen to know he’s a big fat liar with a deeply vested interest in ass-covering. It’s one thing to shill for a unitary executive when you’re backed by a unitary executive. Quite another when your party is out of power and you’re sitting in the dock having to answer for crimes against the constitution. Not that I have any real illusions about Biden going for the throat, but I reckon it’s nice to dream. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-barr-has-resigned/928057.md?page=5)