This is what it looks like when an entire social class feels like it can do anything it wants with no consequences. Even the smartest, most tough-minded people turn into bumbling incompetents in those circumstances.

Mike

Bingo.

This is a problem, I think, both for the regime that is too weak to enforce its own laws- and for the people who rely upon that weakness for their own power and prosperity.

The public at large has noticed- at least a significant fraction- and consequences will follow.

I recall Nixon complained- paraphrasing roughly from my faulty memory- that what he did was trivial compared to what was done against him.

But his enemies got away with it, cleanly and quietly. So what jumps out at me about all this isn’t that the Deep State went after Trump the way they did. It’s how bad they are at it.

They’ve pretty much destroyed the reputation for the FBI, while failing miserably to get Trump removed from office. Even worse, with the “Five Eyes” program, they can reportedly use legally gathered intel on Americans provided by those particular foreign governments- yet they still found nothing useful against Trump, except perhaps the hilariously phony Steele dossier. The Mueller investigation was an embarrassing mess, apparently led by a senile old man- or perhaps I should say “not led.”

That’s just not what success looks like.

Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rosenstein, McCabe, Strzok, Rice, maybe a few others (though it might be fair to say that for Hillary, it won’t be necessary).

Yep, if history is any precedent—and if the current zeitgeist is still geisty—this on-the-face-of-it-drastic-measure would render them practically untouchable. (Albeit, in more ways than one.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx3QmqV2pHg&list=RDCx3QmqV2pHg&start_radio=1#t=15

(On the other hand, they’ll undoubtedly yowl—why not?—that they’re victims of a fascist, Trumpian political vendetta and seek asylum in Beijing, or preferably Wuhan).

Then, of course, we have Senator Lindsay Graham, shooting his mouth off on his probably thousandth TV appearance, bloviating about how he is going to haul all the key players in the Coup attempt before his committee, and to grill them.

How many times has he made this entirely empty promise–six times, ten times, a dozen?

And yet, no hearings are ever held, no witnesses are ever called, or grilled.

Congress has become a joke, and some government employees know that they can defy Congress with impunity, can just refuse to show up, can thumb their noses at it, can sneer at members, can ignore questions, play dumb, spew obvious lies, and get away with it.

* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/house-republicans-send-letter-wray-demanding-documents-operation-flynn-provide-fbis-bill-priestap-joe-pientka-interviews/

For years of outrage, the right turns the other cheek, hoping things get better. But it never gets better, only worse, more outrageous, more sinister, more contemptuous and gloating, more violent and menacing at us.

Because we won’t fight to destroy evil among us, at the highest reaches of federal government, because we blanch at blood-letting and bicker amongst us, the USA is done.

We are proved unworthy of our posterity. We lack the courage to do the needful things in our own defense. We have become whimpering old dogs to a Great Republic once founded by lions.