Just used by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) in the hearings to hold attorney general Barr in contempt:
sword of Damocles - is a figure featured in a single moral anecdote commonly referred to as "the Sword of Damocles,"[1][2] an allusion to the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. Damocles was an obsequious courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a 4th-century BC tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily.
The anecdote apparently figured in the lost history of Sicily by Timaeus of Tauromenium (c. 356–260 BC). The Roman orator Cicero may have read it in the texts of Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. He used it in his Tusculanae Disputationes, 5. 61,[1] by which means it passed into the European cultural mainstream.
[ Basically, to have a sword positioned over you, hanging by only a fragile thread, that could fall on the person and kill them at any time, as they remain in a sustaained position of imminent peril. ]
Hobson's choice - is a free choice in which only one thing is offered. Because a person may refuse to accept what is offered, the two options are taking it or taking nothing. In other words, one may "take it or leave it". The phrase is said to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England, who offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all.
Both allusions to the position Democrats have put attorney general William Barr in, with constant threats and slanders of his character and partisanship, pressuring him to release the redacted portions of the Mueller report, which is in itself a federal crime if he were to do it. Which naturally Barr cannot do, but not doing it, the Dems are able to accuse Barr of hiding the truth, and allege he is doing so for partisan reasons to protect Trump.
When in truth Dems are trying to discredit Barr to prevent him from indicting people like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr and Nellie Ohr, Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates, James Brennan, James Clapper, and others in the Clinton campaign and Obama administration who
actually did collude with Russsian government officials and
actually did obstruct justice to exonerate Hillary Clinton and falsely accuse Trump to cripple his campaign and presidency.
The irony being that Barr is pursuing equal protection, and equal punishment, under the law, and Democrats are trying to prevent that to benefit themselves politically. They only want Republicans prosecuted, and are corruptly leveraging the power they have to get Democrats a free pass, and to destroy those in pursuit of actual justice and equal protection under the law.
If Lois Lerner had been prosecuted in 2013, Democrats would not have been emboldened to the abuses of FBI, DOJ and the FISA court surveillance on the Trump campaign, and sabotage of the Hillary Clinton prosecution, that they have indulged in since.
