Carl Schmitt/Bill Barr

[Mark Kohut]

Where Dante places this administration:

*Bolgia Eight:* In this trench, the souls of Deceivers who gave false or
corrupted advice to others for personal benefit are punished. They are
constantly ablaze, appearing as nothing so much as living, speaking tongues
of flame.

*Bolgia Nine:* Sinners who, in life, promoted scandals, schism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism>, and discord are punished here;
particularly those who caused schism within the church or within politics.
They are forced to walk around the circumference of the circle bearing
horrible, disfiguring wounds inflicted on them by a great demon with a
sword. The nature of the wound mirrors the sins of the particular soul;
while some only have gashes, or fingers and toes cut off, others are
decapitated, cut in half (as schismatics), or are completely disemboweled.
Among those who are tormented here is Bertran de Born
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertran_de_Born>, alleged agitator of the Revolt
of 1173–74 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_of_1173%E2%80%9374>, who
carries around his severed head like a lantern.

*Bolgia Ten:* Falsifiers, those who attempted to alter things through lies
or alchemy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy>, or those who tried to
pass off false things as real things, such as counterfeiters
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_money> of coins, are punished
here. This bolgia has four subdivisions where specific classes of
falsifiers (alchemists, impostors, counterfeiters, and liars) endure
different degrees of punishment based on horrible, consumptive diseases
such as rashes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rash>, dropsy
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropsy>, leprosy
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy> and consumption
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis>.


On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 8:47 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> This administration is corrupt as hell, as is the whole Republican Party.
> Their prime goal is power ($$$).  All else is kabuki.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 7:27 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > makes for rather depressing reading
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/01/15/william-barr-the-carl-schmitt-of-our-time/
> >
> > US Attorney General William Barr’s defense of unchecked executive
> authority
> > in his recent speech to the Federalist Society had an unpleasant
> > familiarity for me. It took me back to a time in my life—during the late
> > 1990s, as a graduate student in England, and the early 2000s, teaching
> > political theory in the politics department at Princeton University—when
> I
> > seemed to spend altogether too much time arguing over the ideas of a Nazi
> > legal theorist notorious as the “crown jurist” of the Third Reich.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>