So, how did all this counterintelligence investigating of Trump begin? — 33 Comments
To tell you the truth, I’m kinda surprised that we have found out as much as we have, since there are so many high level bad actors/“public servants”–boy, that’s a laugh–involved here, people who have every reason to cover up their actions, and a lot of power to do so.
It looks as if all of these conspirators–and that’s what they were–were banking on the almost sure win by Hillary and so, made little real attempt to hide what they were doing and/or, alternatively, they were just really, really stupid and, besides, had no tradecraft.
You can be pretty sure that what these top level conspirators were doing was not a secret to their colleagues in the overwhelmingly leftist oriented government organizations that populate Washington, D.C.
There may have been secret meetings in McCabe’s office, but I bet the conspirators let their feelings be known as they walked around their office and the building, and vented a lot as they went about their daily activities, and all those around them heard what they said.
When Hillary lost, they were reduced to scrambling to cover upon what they could, their main tool, it seems, delaying the inevitable.
What snow on pines said. Exactly.
“they were reduced to scrambling to cover up on what they could,”
Having worked in the State Department, I can just imagine the flurry of activity the morning after the election, as people look at each other and ask “what’re we going to do with all the stuff on file?”
And remember how we were assured there were “17 intelligence agencies who concur that the Trump campaign worked with the Russians”? You don’t hear much about that any longer.
I can only pray that people like Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, Blumenthal, and a whole bunch of others get rounded up. Not likely, I know, but long overdue.
A hobby I picked up was counter espionage, espionage, spycraft, tradecraft, assassination, infiltration, exfiltration.
For a zombie apoc survivalist, I sure do have a bunch of eccentric hobbies.
For the pros that work it as a day job, look at Edward’s Snowden’s videos. All kinds of stress and paranoia there.
Much more FUN as a hobby.
It looks as if all of these conspirators–and that’s what they were
i did say that 2018+ was going to be called the Age of Conspiracies…
involved here, people who have every reason to cover up their actions, and a lot of power to do so.
The FBI boys aren’t the Deep State’s top intel and elite agent assets. The FBI in this context act as keystone cops: a distraction.
The real operatives delete data on hard drives to the point where you not only cannot recover it, but you can’t even tell the dummy disinfo from the real true info.
With the internet and wiki leaks and Snowden, the intel’s secrecy is turned against them.
If I was the spymaster of the Deep State on this operation, I would use the FBI as pawns and stalking horses, to probe Trum’s defenses.
When all the defenses and reactions are revealed, then I would send in the Death Squads to terminate all opposition. A little bit of framing for High crimes and misdemeanors wouldn’t hurt either.
On top of that, false flags and foreign invasions or rumors of wars or wars, would also add to the confusion and chaos.
*** See how fun this is when played as a strategy war game.
Comey is just following the FBI textbook procedure for getting rid of a President written by Felt aka Deepthroat puppet master.
This Cohen was lucky the FBI didn’t decide to SWAT him. People ending up “dead” via SWAT raids isn’t all that rare. Would be nice way to end Cohen.
This is damning. To be sure, the MSM will not touch it.
What I find puzzling is that Nunes made no mention, at least in the segment aired here, of the Steele Dossier.
(He did mention, briefly, Sidney Blumenthal and Corey Shearer.)
Seems to me Nunes could have stuck a fork in the Steele Dossier during an interview such as this.
Mueller is compromised (he’s been compromised for months); but he will double- and triple- and quadruple-down, since his own role is supreme obstructor; supreme obfuscator; supreme coverer up. He has to take down Trump because he’s the last line of defense for the Obama administration and the Clinton presidential campaign.
He will have to; because, once again, there is nothing except the Mueller administration left to protect Obama and his thugs.
Nothing (that is, as long as the Democrats want to keep things “lawyerly”).
So I guess the whole “Steele Dossier started the Russia Investigation” is now up in smoke.
“Mueller administration” should be “Mueller investigation”….
CW2 is inevitable. Not even the USA’s bravest and mightiest Hero King will save the people now. The people cannot be saved from themselves.
Lock and load, keyboard warriors. It’s time to show the Leftist alliance what a real guerilla war looks like. They want to talk about Iraqi insurgents being DRAGON’S TEETH? Let’s show them a real dragon and its teeth.
“Those leaks do make senior law-enforcement leaders look bad. Actually, they make them look politically corrupt. The Horowitz report does not dispute that the DOJ call to McCabe took place or that it was meant to quash a legitimate FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation. If that is confirmed, it is a perversion of the Justice Department and its core function of unbiased application of the law.”
“Maria Bartiromo expressed amazement: “You’re telling us that in order for the FBI and DoJ to launch an investigation into so-called collusion between Trump and the Russians, there was no intelligence used? Then I don’t understand. How did this investigation start?” Good question! Nunes responded:”
“10. Is the president entitled to the confidentiality of conversations with the senior officers of his administration? I think he is. Comey does not. Comey is unconstrained by the rules that govern mere mortals.”
A reminder of why we are in this situation in the first place.
‘They Were Never Going to Let Me Be President,’ Said the Woman Who Thought It Was Her Due
BY JIM TREACHER APRIL 20, 2018
“Norm Macdonald, in addition to being the best Weekend Update anchor ever, is also a keen student of human nature. Last year he summed up the results of the 2016 presidential election with this koan-like observation: “People hated Hillary Clinton so much that they voted for someone they hated more than Hillary Clinton in order to rub it in.” I really think that sums up our current moment.
…
Her decades of lies and duplicity and power-hungry striving brought her just short of the finish line. That’s a continuing source of relief, even for a cuck RINO #NeverTrump traitor like me.
A lot of people on the left wanted Trump to get the nomination, for the same reason I didn’t want him to get the nomination. It was a serious miscalculation [by assorted Democrats]
…
He was wrong. So was I. The main difference is, I can live with it.
Which brings me to Amy Chozick’s upcoming book, Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling. (A clumsy, cumbersome title for a clumsy, cumbersome subject.) Chozick was and is a Clinton cheerleader, but I’d like to thank her for serving my delicious, satisfying breakfast of schadenfreude this morning.
As Gideon Resnick’s review of the book in the Daily Beast notes, the Clinton campaign was delighted at the rise of the man who ended up beating her:
From early on, the Clinton camp saw Trump as an enemy to encourage, Chozick writes…
Now, the same people who begged the GOP to nominate Trump are howling at the GOP for “normalizing” Trump. The Dems backed a candidate who was so awful that she lost to that guy, and they just can’t seem to accept that they did this to themselves.
That’s why, almost 18 months later, they’re still trying to get a do-over. That’s why they’re so obsessed with conspiracy theories about Russia, and who Trump slept with, and anything else that keeps them from taking a look inside themselves.
How could they be wrong? How could they have screwed it all up? They’re the good guys!
I leave you with this observation from Seth Mandel at the NY Post:
Incredible to me that someone who was handed a Senate seat and then for no reason at all made secstate and then had the path to a nomination bulldozed for her and then got the exact opponent she pushed for…still talks like this. Gross.
…
America didn’t let her be president. The filthy rabble wouldn’t do what they were told. They defied the people who claimed to know how to run their lives better than they did.
Sound familiar?”
A companion piece to Dyer’s other post, which has more application to Neo’s question, as well as Dershowitz’s censure of the Democrat’s support for the Mueller “investigation” aka “witch hunt” —
it begins with serious intel analysis of the Nunes revelation that there was no there there (no underlying legitimate intel product to set off the FBI investigation of Donald Trump) which is worth reading for the dot-connecting, particularly of Brennan’s possible role.
“The more the layers are peeled back on this, the less it looks like an investigation of Trump or his campaign. We can pretty much conclude at this point that it was not an actual “investigation,” as we would straightforwardly understand that term. It was not prompted by anything that merely came to the attention of the Obama authorities.
Rather, it involved allegations and incidents that had to be manufactured by set-up, every step of the way. It looks instead like an operation mounted against the incoming president — apparently because he was a Republican, and was deemed likely (perhaps especially likely) to make significant changes to national policy.
The real question now is what we will do about that. Do we turn away in exhaustion and move on? Or do we pursue this to the end of the line until we get answers, on important questions like how surveillance was being misused against U.S. citizens, and what enabled that to happen?
It’s up to us. I know I’m tired. But are we too tired to recognize historic outrages against civil rights, the rule of law, and constitutional processes when we see them?
If we are, it won’t be Hillary, the Obama administration, or the Russians who brought us down. It will be us.”
The Watergate “investigation” was not an investigation either, Aesop.
Americans are not so expert on tradecraft and conspiracies as some of us are.
It looks instead like an operation mounted against the incoming president — apparently because he was a Republican, and was deemed likely (perhaps especially likely) to make significant changes to national policy.
Trum was being used by parts of the Deep State to weaken another part of the DS. The child traffickers were being eliminated by Trum, which was dangerous to the part of the FBI that allied itself with the Leftist alliance.
Notice how given what the FBI is doing, that there isn’t much news of their prosecution of child rapist rings. Those rings contain a lot of Democrats like Epstein or even Clinton’s money.
It’s up to us. I know I’m tired. But are we too tired to recognize historic outrages against civil rights, the rule of law, and constitutional processes when we see them?
American conservatives have already been corrupted by Gramsci and Leftist Alinsky teachings. It is too late.
Unless people were to convert and repent of the Leftist/Lucifer teachings, I don’t see what options are available other than what I said in 2007-12.
“…so no one on the Left will read this article.”
I suspect that Dershowitz is currently “persona non grata”—and that’s an understatement—for a whole lot of people who may have thought differently not so long ago.
It’s a whole lot more than “not being invited to all the right dinner parties”.
It’s a matter of his becoming an “Enemy of the People” (since he’s likely to be perceived in our current black-and-white-world as defending “EOTP” numero uno).
Actually course he’s merely (merely!!) defending the law, as well as common decency.
I always he was a fool regarding Obama. Many decent people were.
But he’s shown himself a—rare, alas—person of principle.
What this means isn’t that the dossier wasn’t the start, but that there was apparently nothing other than opposition research and rumors- State Department info that is already directly linked back to Blumenthal himself, and the Dossier which we already know that Steele took to the FBI in July of 2016, and that John Brennan has also mentioned he had and encouraged the FBI to use.
This is important because you have had Brennan telling us for months that he was passing “intelligence” to the FBI, but he was apparently not telling us what that intelligence was- he was implying that it came from the US intelligence operations. We now know there was none that was developed by the US intelligence agencies- if there were, it would have been in the EC that Nunes is talking about. We also know that none of it was from the so-called 5-star group of friendly foreign intelligence services.
So, we are left, as Neo points out- in the dark as to why the counter-intelligence operation was opened in the first place. We are basically left with, by elimination, the dossier and the info Blumenthal was feeding Clinton people in the state department. The EC is basically blank because the people in the FBI knew they could not open an investigation on that information alone- it would be damning if put into the official record.
We now know why the House committee asked to see the EC- they already knew that it would be basically empty because the FISA warrants were empty of everything but the dossier, and Trump’s opponents had already retreated to the ridiculous position of the investigation began with Papadoupolos’ drunken talk being the beginning. Now, even that last part is now gone.
In other words, the investigation was opened with no predicate at all if your position is that the dossier wasn’t the instigator.
And, it is important to remember this- the dossier, when it was first released publicly, was claimed to have been the reason for the investigation by every single news outlet, but this story only worked as long as those lauding it could keep its origins, in the Clinton Campaign, from being publicized. Once we learned it was opposition research from the Democrats, then all of a sudden, the dossier played no role whatsoever in anything, and then when we learn it was the basis for the FISA warrants, the story changes again.
What story will the anti-Trumpers come up with next?
Correction to a comment above, which states:
“Big Note: He is writing directly for Gatestone, not being quoted from a WaPo or NYT piece, so no one on the Left will read this article.”
Mr. Dershowitz’ column, to which Mr. Meislin links above, was first published at The Hill. At the bottom of the piece, (but above the footnotes), the Gatestone Institute writes (my italics and boldface):
” Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of Trumped Up, How Criminalization of Political Differences endangers Democracy.
This article first appeared in The Hill.”
Once we learned it was opposition research from the Democrats
Republicans said that the opposition research was funded by GOP Establishment types. They were so certain of it.
They were wrong: again.
In sum, this was an attempted coup d’etat minus the tanks in the streets; an attempted coup that is still ongoing.
Such actions have to be discouraged in the most emphatic way possible.
Each and every person who participated in and is participating still in this attempted coup must be identified, prosecuted, and punished severely, to the fullest extent of the law.
The conspirators need to be fired from their positions and stripped of their pensions, perp walked, named and shamed, and serving long prison terms.
Moreover, each organization that participated in or helped further this attempted coup also needs to be thoroughly investigated, the conspirators rooted out, and the organization reformed, to make sure that they never participate in such an attempt again.
We’d better run down all the conspirators. charge ’em, try ’em, convict ’em and jail ’em, or this kind of thing will become “the new normal,” for our government, us, and our posterity.
Otherwise, no longer really a democratic Republic and a nation of laws not men, we will have devolved into a banana republic, where this kind of coup attempt will be a common occurrence.
Each and every person who participated in and is participating still in this attempted coup must be identified, prosecuted, and punished severely, to the fullest extent of the law.
That may be within the Deep State plans. If you react in this fashion, it will be easier to declare martial law and confiscate arms from the USA.
Moreover, each organization that participated in or helped further this attempted coup also needs to be thoroughly investigated, the conspirators rooted out, and the organization reformed, to make sure that they never participate in such an attempt again.
What are you going to use to enforce that? The Government?
We’d better run down all the conspirators. charge ’em, try ’em, convict ’em and jail ’em, or this kind of thing will become “the new normal,” for our government, us, and our posterity.
Traitors that become successful can no longer be labeled and charged as traitors.
we will have devolved into a banana republic, where this kind of coup attempt will be a common occurrence.
The US Republic is already dead or a banana. Ever hear of JFK assassination or Watergate? This stuff has been happening for awhile now. Abraham Lincoln, did he somehow live past the end of civil war 1? What about Reagan, nobody tried to kill him?
The Deep State has been getting rid of US Presidents for a lot longer than people want to imagine.
Snow on Pine,
Yes, if only there was an honest, trustworthy, constitutionally faithful governmental organization able to accomplish all that you desire. Who is available to do the rooting out, the reforming, the perp-walking, the trying, convicting, jailing, etc.? The FBI? CIA? We can only hope this all gets resolved with the guilty paying the consequences but the bad’uns seem to outnumber the good’uns.
Where do we look to repopulate DOJ, FBI, State?
Susanamantha-
Your question is a good one. This whole sorry episode had laid bare the apparently massive corruption in many of our Law Enforcement, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and perhaps other Executive Departments and Agencies as well–which seem to be riddled with corruption.
Forget the ritual “we’re talking only about the higher ups here, the rank and file would never be involved in this.”
As I commented earlier, those all around the conspirators very likely would have known something was or even exactly what was going on, because the conspirators themselves were likely spewing their hatred of Trump and the kinds of things they were considering or planning to do, to an all too eager audience of their overwhelmingly leftist “public servant” colleagues.
The conspirators probably felt very comfortable in doing so, because the knew that practically everyone around them was on the same page as they were, just not ready to commit any overt acts.
Did any of the lower level public servants in what were apparently several different agencies blow the whistle on the conspiracy? From what has so far been reported it appears few, if any, did.
You’re right.
Finding an Executive branch organization that is uncontaminated, and uninvolved in this whole mess that would have the expertise and power to be able to clean up the contaminated organizations looks to be impossible.
Thus, I wrote about what should happen, not what I think will happen.
What I think will happen is that a few scapegoats will be singled out and punished–and not punished very harshly at that, but that the majority of those involved will skate, and most in Washington will pretend that nothing of any real consequence happened for, if it had, they might come under pressure to take drastic steps.
If it happens, the lack of thorough investigation, vigorous prosecution, and punishment will be the death knell of our form of government.
For what is the central feature of a banana republic?
Isn’t it the constant coups or threats of coups?
If the first attempted coup here in the U.S. is not really punished–and severely, isn’t this an incentive for some other group of conspirators in the future to try to mount their own coup attempt?
Julie near Chicago Says:
April 24th, 2018 at 3:10 pm
Correction to a comment above,
* * *
Thanks – I missed the fine print.
Snow on Pine Says:
April 24th, 2018 at 6:29 pm
“The conspirators probably felt very comfortable in doing so, because the knew that practically everyone around them was on the same page as they were, just not ready to commit any overt acts.
Did any of the lower level public servants in what were apparently several different agencies blow the whistle on the conspiracy? From what has so far been reported it appears few, if any, did.
You’re right.
Finding an Executive branch organization that is uncontaminated, and uninvolved in this whole mess that would have the expertise and power to be able to clean up the contaminated organizations looks to be impossible.
Thus, I wrote about what should happen, not what I think will happen.”
* * *
“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
What lesson would I take from what is surely a coup attempt, and the “resistance” of the FBI and DOJ, and likely other Executive Departments and agencies to turning over documents that Congress had every legitimate right to request and then, finally, had to subpoena? Documents that were first requested sometime last year.
The lesson that I took was that there really is a Deep State, and that what the last year or so of evidence has pretty much proved is that I was very naive to believe that I still lived in the democratic Republic of our Founders, because an un-elected oligarchy-hidden within the shell of our formerly democratic Republic–has replaced it.
Interesting question, what organization in our society is still faithful to our Constitution and trusted by the people at large, is still relatively un-corrupted, and has the expertise, manpower, and the guts to clean up the other much more corrupted organizations.
Conspiracy Theories were first used to discount certain discrepancies over why the SS left JFK alone to be killed, without guarding and shielding his car.
That is because an actual conspiracy is an illegal act that involves 2 or more people.
If 2 or more people plan to do something, and it isn’t illegal, then where is the conspiracy? That is why they said it was a conspiracy theory, not because 2 or more people weren’t meeting, but because they said it wasn’t illegal what they were doing.
Except it is illegal, hah. They just never told anybody that.
After all, if conspiracies do not exist, why are so many people in jail because of conspiracy charges that prosecutors slapped on them? Lawyers and judges understand what a conspiracy is yes, but all you peasants can have are “conspiracy theories”… yes.
As for Pine’s question: the US military is still the best bet. Just like in Turkey, Egypt, etc. The military is usually the most apolitical, however, due to Operation Paperclip and Hussein’s purge of the military, there aren’t as many patriots and loyalists in key ranks as before.
To tell you the truth, I’m kinda surprised that we have found out as much as we have, since there are so many high level bad actors/“public servants”–boy, that’s a laugh–involved here, people who have every reason to cover up their actions, and a lot of power to do so.
It looks as if all of these conspirators–and that’s what they were–were banking on the almost sure win by Hillary and so, made little real attempt to hide what they were doing and/or, alternatively, they were just really, really stupid and, besides, had no tradecraft.
You can be pretty sure that what these top level conspirators were doing was not a secret to their colleagues in the overwhelmingly leftist oriented government organizations that populate Washington, D.C.
There may have been secret meetings in McCabe’s office, but I bet the conspirators let their feelings be known as they walked around their office and the building, and vented a lot as they went about their daily activities, and all those around them heard what they said.
When Hillary lost, they were reduced to scrambling to cover upon what they could, their main tool, it seems, delaying the inevitable.
What snow on pines said. Exactly.
“they were reduced to scrambling to cover up on what they could,”
Having worked in the State Department, I can just imagine the flurry of activity the morning after the election, as people look at each other and ask “what’re we going to do with all the stuff on file?”
And remember how we were assured there were “17 intelligence agencies who concur that the Trump campaign worked with the Russians”? You don’t hear much about that any longer.
I can only pray that people like Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, Blumenthal, and a whole bunch of others get rounded up. Not likely, I know, but long overdue.
A hobby I picked up was counter espionage, espionage, spycraft, tradecraft, assassination, infiltration, exfiltration.
For a zombie apoc survivalist, I sure do have a bunch of eccentric hobbies.
For the pros that work it as a day job, look at Edward’s Snowden’s videos. All kinds of stress and paranoia there.
Much more FUN as a hobby.
It looks as if all of these conspirators–and that’s what they were
i did say that 2018+ was going to be called the Age of Conspiracies…
involved here, people who have every reason to cover up their actions, and a lot of power to do so.
The FBI boys aren’t the Deep State’s top intel and elite agent assets. The FBI in this context act as keystone cops: a distraction.
The real operatives delete data on hard drives to the point where you not only cannot recover it, but you can’t even tell the dummy disinfo from the real true info.
With the internet and wiki leaks and Snowden, the intel’s secrecy is turned against them.
If I was the spymaster of the Deep State on this operation, I would use the FBI as pawns and stalking horses, to probe Trum’s defenses.
When all the defenses and reactions are revealed, then I would send in the Death Squads to terminate all opposition. A little bit of framing for High crimes and misdemeanors wouldn’t hurt either.
On top of that, false flags and foreign invasions or rumors of wars or wars, would also add to the confusion and chaos.
*** See how fun this is when played as a strategy war game.
Comey is just following the FBI textbook procedure for getting rid of a President written by Felt aka Deepthroat puppet master.
This Cohen was lucky the FBI didn’t decide to SWAT him. People ending up “dead” via SWAT raids isn’t all that rare. Would be nice way to end Cohen.
This is damning. To be sure, the MSM will not touch it.
What I find puzzling is that Nunes made no mention, at least in the segment aired here, of the Steele Dossier.
(He did mention, briefly, Sidney Blumenthal and Corey Shearer.)
Seems to me Nunes could have stuck a fork in the Steele Dossier during an interview such as this.
Mueller is compromised (he’s been compromised for months); but he will double- and triple- and quadruple-down, since his own role is supreme obstructor; supreme obfuscator; supreme coverer up. He has to take down Trump because he’s the last line of defense for the Obama administration and the Clinton presidential campaign.
He will have to; because, once again, there is nothing except the Mueller administration left to protect Obama and his thugs.
Nothing (that is, as long as the Democrats want to keep things “lawyerly”).
This will be a fight to the finish.
It always was.
Related (by Dershowitz):
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12215/mueller-investigation-civil-liberties
So I guess the whole “Steele Dossier started the Russia Investigation” is now up in smoke.
“Mueller administration” should be “Mueller investigation”….
CW2 is inevitable. Not even the USA’s bravest and mightiest Hero King will save the people now. The people cannot be saved from themselves.
Lock and load, keyboard warriors. It’s time to show the Leftist alliance what a real guerilla war looks like. They want to talk about Iraqi insurgents being DRAGON’S TEETH? Let’s show them a real dragon and its teeth.
ICYMI
VDH on Comey
https://amgreatness.com/2018/04/23/respect-unearned/
JE Dyer on Brennan
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/04/22/astonishing-date-former-cia-director-john-brennan-visited-fsb-russia/
Ricochet on Literature (no, really)
https://ricochet.com/512256/james-comey-walter-mitty/
Barry Meislin Says:
April 24th, 2018 at 3:56 am
* * *
When The Dersh quotes Thomas Moore, you know things are not going well for the Democrats.
Big Note: He is writing directly for Gatestone, not being quoted from a WaPo or NYT piece, so no one on the Left will read this article.
A few more on the topic of FBI & DOJ corruption.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/04/23/the_hidden_bombshell_in_the_mccabe_report_136882.html
“Those leaks do make senior law-enforcement leaders look bad. Actually, they make them look politically corrupt. The Horowitz report does not dispute that the DOJ call to McCabe took place or that it was meant to quash a legitimate FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation. If that is confirmed, it is a perversion of the Justice Department and its core function of unbiased application of the law.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/04/analyze-this-30.php
“Maria Bartiromo expressed amazement: “You’re telling us that in order for the FBI and DoJ to launch an investigation into so-called collusion between Trump and the Russians, there was no intelligence used? Then I don’t understand. How did this investigation start?” Good question! Nunes responded:”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/04/10-notes-on-the-comey-memos.php
“10. Is the president entitled to the confidentiality of conversations with the senior officers of his administration? I think he is. Comey does not. Comey is unconstrained by the rules that govern mere mortals.”
A reminder of why we are in this situation in the first place.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/never-going-let-president-said-woman-thought-due
‘They Were Never Going to Let Me Be President,’ Said the Woman Who Thought It Was Her Due
BY JIM TREACHER APRIL 20, 2018
“Norm Macdonald, in addition to being the best Weekend Update anchor ever, is also a keen student of human nature. Last year he summed up the results of the 2016 presidential election with this koan-like observation: “People hated Hillary Clinton so much that they voted for someone they hated more than Hillary Clinton in order to rub it in.” I really think that sums up our current moment.
…
Her decades of lies and duplicity and power-hungry striving brought her just short of the finish line. That’s a continuing source of relief, even for a cuck RINO #NeverTrump traitor like me.
A lot of people on the left wanted Trump to get the nomination, for the same reason I didn’t want him to get the nomination. It was a serious miscalculation [by assorted Democrats]
…
He was wrong. So was I. The main difference is, I can live with it.
Which brings me to Amy Chozick’s upcoming book, Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling. (A clumsy, cumbersome title for a clumsy, cumbersome subject.) Chozick was and is a Clinton cheerleader, but I’d like to thank her for serving my delicious, satisfying breakfast of schadenfreude this morning.
As Gideon Resnick’s review of the book in the Daily Beast notes, the Clinton campaign was delighted at the rise of the man who ended up beating her:
From early on, the Clinton camp saw Trump as an enemy to encourage, Chozick writes…
Now, the same people who begged the GOP to nominate Trump are howling at the GOP for “normalizing” Trump. The Dems backed a candidate who was so awful that she lost to that guy, and they just can’t seem to accept that they did this to themselves.
That’s why, almost 18 months later, they’re still trying to get a do-over. That’s why they’re so obsessed with conspiracy theories about Russia, and who Trump slept with, and anything else that keeps them from taking a look inside themselves.
How could they be wrong? How could they have screwed it all up? They’re the good guys!
I leave you with this observation from Seth Mandel at the NY Post:
Incredible to me that someone who was handed a Senate seat and then for no reason at all made secstate and then had the path to a nomination bulldozed for her and then got the exact opponent she pushed for…still talks like this. Gross.
…
America didn’t let her be president. The filthy rabble wouldn’t do what they were told. They defied the people who claimed to know how to run their lives better than they did.
Sound familiar?”
A companion piece to Dyer’s other post, which has more application to Neo’s question, as well as Dershowitz’s censure of the Democrat’s support for the Mueller “investigation” aka “witch hunt” —
it begins with serious intel analysis of the Nunes revelation that there was no there there (no underlying legitimate intel product to set off the FBI investigation of Donald Trump) which is worth reading for the dot-connecting, particularly of Brennan’s possible role.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/04/24/question-left-nunes-revelation-devastates-entire-russia-narrative/
“The more the layers are peeled back on this, the less it looks like an investigation of Trump or his campaign. We can pretty much conclude at this point that it was not an actual “investigation,” as we would straightforwardly understand that term. It was not prompted by anything that merely came to the attention of the Obama authorities.
Rather, it involved allegations and incidents that had to be manufactured by set-up, every step of the way. It looks instead like an operation mounted against the incoming president — apparently because he was a Republican, and was deemed likely (perhaps especially likely) to make significant changes to national policy.
The real question now is what we will do about that. Do we turn away in exhaustion and move on? Or do we pursue this to the end of the line until we get answers, on important questions like how surveillance was being misused against U.S. citizens, and what enabled that to happen?
It’s up to us. I know I’m tired. But are we too tired to recognize historic outrages against civil rights, the rule of law, and constitutional processes when we see them?
If we are, it won’t be Hillary, the Obama administration, or the Russians who brought us down. It will be us.”
The Watergate “investigation” was not an investigation either, Aesop.
Americans are not so expert on tradecraft and conspiracies as some of us are.
It looks instead like an operation mounted against the incoming president — apparently because he was a Republican, and was deemed likely (perhaps especially likely) to make significant changes to national policy.
Trum was being used by parts of the Deep State to weaken another part of the DS. The child traffickers were being eliminated by Trum, which was dangerous to the part of the FBI that allied itself with the Leftist alliance.
Notice how given what the FBI is doing, that there isn’t much news of their prosecution of child rapist rings. Those rings contain a lot of Democrats like Epstein or even Clinton’s money.
It’s up to us. I know I’m tired. But are we too tired to recognize historic outrages against civil rights, the rule of law, and constitutional processes when we see them?
American conservatives have already been corrupted by Gramsci and Leftist Alinsky teachings. It is too late.
Unless people were to convert and repent of the Leftist/Lucifer teachings, I don’t see what options are available other than what I said in 2007-12.
“…so no one on the Left will read this article.”
I suspect that Dershowitz is currently “persona non grata”—and that’s an understatement—for a whole lot of people who may have thought differently not so long ago.
It’s a whole lot more than “not being invited to all the right dinner parties”.
It’s a matter of his becoming an “Enemy of the People” (since he’s likely to be perceived in our current black-and-white-world as defending “EOTP” numero uno).
Actually course he’s merely (merely!!) defending the law, as well as common decency.
I always he was a fool regarding Obama. Many decent people were.
But he’s shown himself a—rare, alas—person of principle.
Should be, “I always thought…”
Heh…
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/carter-center-sued-providing-support-terrorists-defrauding-taxpayers/
Manju,
What this means isn’t that the dossier wasn’t the start, but that there was apparently nothing other than opposition research and rumors- State Department info that is already directly linked back to Blumenthal himself, and the Dossier which we already know that Steele took to the FBI in July of 2016, and that John Brennan has also mentioned he had and encouraged the FBI to use.
This is important because you have had Brennan telling us for months that he was passing “intelligence” to the FBI, but he was apparently not telling us what that intelligence was- he was implying that it came from the US intelligence operations. We now know there was none that was developed by the US intelligence agencies- if there were, it would have been in the EC that Nunes is talking about. We also know that none of it was from the so-called 5-star group of friendly foreign intelligence services.
So, we are left, as Neo points out- in the dark as to why the counter-intelligence operation was opened in the first place. We are basically left with, by elimination, the dossier and the info Blumenthal was feeding Clinton people in the state department. The EC is basically blank because the people in the FBI knew they could not open an investigation on that information alone- it would be damning if put into the official record.
We now know why the House committee asked to see the EC- they already knew that it would be basically empty because the FISA warrants were empty of everything but the dossier, and Trump’s opponents had already retreated to the ridiculous position of the investigation began with Papadoupolos’ drunken talk being the beginning. Now, even that last part is now gone.
In other words, the investigation was opened with no predicate at all if your position is that the dossier wasn’t the instigator.
And, it is important to remember this- the dossier, when it was first released publicly, was claimed to have been the reason for the investigation by every single news outlet, but this story only worked as long as those lauding it could keep its origins, in the Clinton Campaign, from being publicized. Once we learned it was opposition research from the Democrats, then all of a sudden, the dossier played no role whatsoever in anything, and then when we learn it was the basis for the FISA warrants, the story changes again.
What story will the anti-Trumpers come up with next?
Correction to a comment above, which states:
Mr. Dershowitz’ column, to which Mr. Meislin links above, was first published at The Hill. At the bottom of the piece, (but above the footnotes), the Gatestone Institute writes (my italics and boldface):
Once we learned it was opposition research from the Democrats
Republicans said that the opposition research was funded by GOP Establishment types. They were so certain of it.
They were wrong: again.
In sum, this was an attempted coup d’etat minus the tanks in the streets; an attempted coup that is still ongoing.
Such actions have to be discouraged in the most emphatic way possible.
Each and every person who participated in and is participating still in this attempted coup must be identified, prosecuted, and punished severely, to the fullest extent of the law.
The conspirators need to be fired from their positions and stripped of their pensions, perp walked, named and shamed, and serving long prison terms.
Moreover, each organization that participated in or helped further this attempted coup also needs to be thoroughly investigated, the conspirators rooted out, and the organization reformed, to make sure that they never participate in such an attempt again.
We’d better run down all the conspirators. charge ’em, try ’em, convict ’em and jail ’em, or this kind of thing will become “the new normal,” for our government, us, and our posterity.
Otherwise, no longer really a democratic Republic and a nation of laws not men, we will have devolved into a banana republic, where this kind of coup attempt will be a common occurrence.
Each and every person who participated in and is participating still in this attempted coup must be identified, prosecuted, and punished severely, to the fullest extent of the law.
That may be within the Deep State plans. If you react in this fashion, it will be easier to declare martial law and confiscate arms from the USA.
Moreover, each organization that participated in or helped further this attempted coup also needs to be thoroughly investigated, the conspirators rooted out, and the organization reformed, to make sure that they never participate in such an attempt again.
What are you going to use to enforce that? The Government?
We’d better run down all the conspirators. charge ’em, try ’em, convict ’em and jail ’em, or this kind of thing will become “the new normal,” for our government, us, and our posterity.
Traitors that become successful can no longer be labeled and charged as traitors.
we will have devolved into a banana republic, where this kind of coup attempt will be a common occurrence.
The US Republic is already dead or a banana. Ever hear of JFK assassination or Watergate? This stuff has been happening for awhile now. Abraham Lincoln, did he somehow live past the end of civil war 1? What about Reagan, nobody tried to kill him?
The Deep State has been getting rid of US Presidents for a lot longer than people want to imagine.
Snow on Pine,
Yes, if only there was an honest, trustworthy, constitutionally faithful governmental organization able to accomplish all that you desire. Who is available to do the rooting out, the reforming, the perp-walking, the trying, convicting, jailing, etc.? The FBI? CIA? We can only hope this all gets resolved with the guilty paying the consequences but the bad’uns seem to outnumber the good’uns.
Where do we look to repopulate DOJ, FBI, State?
Susanamantha-
Your question is a good one. This whole sorry episode had laid bare the apparently massive corruption in many of our Law Enforcement, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and perhaps other Executive Departments and Agencies as well–which seem to be riddled with corruption.
Forget the ritual “we’re talking only about the higher ups here, the rank and file would never be involved in this.”
As I commented earlier, those all around the conspirators very likely would have known something was or even exactly what was going on, because the conspirators themselves were likely spewing their hatred of Trump and the kinds of things they were considering or planning to do, to an all too eager audience of their overwhelmingly leftist “public servant” colleagues.
The conspirators probably felt very comfortable in doing so, because the knew that practically everyone around them was on the same page as they were, just not ready to commit any overt acts.
Did any of the lower level public servants in what were apparently several different agencies blow the whistle on the conspiracy? From what has so far been reported it appears few, if any, did.
You’re right.
Finding an Executive branch organization that is uncontaminated, and uninvolved in this whole mess that would have the expertise and power to be able to clean up the contaminated organizations looks to be impossible.
Thus, I wrote about what should happen, not what I think will happen.
What I think will happen is that a few scapegoats will be singled out and punished–and not punished very harshly at that, but that the majority of those involved will skate, and most in Washington will pretend that nothing of any real consequence happened for, if it had, they might come under pressure to take drastic steps.
If it happens, the lack of thorough investigation, vigorous prosecution, and punishment will be the death knell of our form of government.
For what is the central feature of a banana republic?
Isn’t it the constant coups or threats of coups?
If the first attempted coup here in the U.S. is not really punished–and severely, isn’t this an incentive for some other group of conspirators in the future to try to mount their own coup attempt?
Julie near Chicago Says:
April 24th, 2018 at 3:10 pm
Correction to a comment above,
* * *
Thanks – I missed the fine print.
Snow on Pine Says:
April 24th, 2018 at 6:29 pm
“The conspirators probably felt very comfortable in doing so, because the knew that practically everyone around them was on the same page as they were, just not ready to commit any overt acts.
Did any of the lower level public servants in what were apparently several different agencies blow the whistle on the conspiracy? From what has so far been reported it appears few, if any, did.
You’re right.
Finding an Executive branch organization that is uncontaminated, and uninvolved in this whole mess that would have the expertise and power to be able to clean up the contaminated organizations looks to be impossible.
Thus, I wrote about what should happen, not what I think will happen.”
* * *
“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
What lesson would I take from what is surely a coup attempt, and the “resistance” of the FBI and DOJ, and likely other Executive Departments and agencies to turning over documents that Congress had every legitimate right to request and then, finally, had to subpoena? Documents that were first requested sometime last year.
The lesson that I took was that there really is a Deep State, and that what the last year or so of evidence has pretty much proved is that I was very naive to believe that I still lived in the democratic Republic of our Founders, because an un-elected oligarchy-hidden within the shell of our formerly democratic Republic–has replaced it.
Interesting question, what organization in our society is still faithful to our Constitution and trusted by the people at large, is still relatively un-corrupted, and has the expertise, manpower, and the guts to clean up the other much more corrupted organizations.
Conspiracy Theories were first used to discount certain discrepancies over why the SS left JFK alone to be killed, without guarding and shielding his car.
That is because an actual conspiracy is an illegal act that involves 2 or more people.
If 2 or more people plan to do something, and it isn’t illegal, then where is the conspiracy? That is why they said it was a conspiracy theory, not because 2 or more people weren’t meeting, but because they said it wasn’t illegal what they were doing.
Except it is illegal, hah. They just never told anybody that.
After all, if conspiracies do not exist, why are so many people in jail because of conspiracy charges that prosecutors slapped on them? Lawyers and judges understand what a conspiracy is yes, but all you peasants can have are “conspiracy theories”… yes.
As for Pine’s question: the US military is still the best bet. Just like in Turkey, Egypt, etc. The military is usually the most apolitical, however, due to Operation Paperclip and Hussein’s purge of the military, there aren’t as many patriots and loyalists in key ranks as before.
“…up in smoke…”
McCarthy on the Steele Dossier (and many other things):
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/trump-russia-investigation-guilty-until-proven-innocent-new-standard/