A “pretty darn invested” Obama rallies the troops and gives them their talking points
Within moments of the Russiagate document release, the left and MSM chorused nearly the same thing almost in unison: this is a travesty of justice! And they weren’t talking about the wretched excesses of the state apparatus regarding the framing of Flynn, they were talking about Barr and the refusal to pursue the charges against Flynn. It’s a political vendetta! It’s the end of the rule of law! James Comey’s tweet, which I wrote about on Thursday, was a good example of this.
I’ve long thought that Obama has been a major player not only in Russiagate as a whole, but in the entire course of events, and in particular the media and Democrat spin, of the Russiagate-related reaction since he left office. I just don’t think he’s the type to walk away from politics or from protecting his legacy. Although he likes to play golf and relax, too, he’s still deadly serious about the same agenda he had as president. He may or may not be the sole and undisputed leader of the Resistance, but he’s certainly a very big – and still-respected – player in it.
For example, back in November Obama publicly warned the Democrat candidates not to go too far left. And although he was careful not to mention any particular candidate by name, it was clear who he was talking about:
In what seemed a rebuke of Warren and Sanders’ stances, Obama, who is still held in exceptionally high regard by Democratic voters, spent considerable time during his speech counseling against adopting left-wing populism as a party platform.
His implicit message was: don’t show your left hand so openly; dissemble like I did.
Also, there are indications that Obama was influential in coaxing candidates to drop out when they did, or at the very least to endorse Biden after dropping out, in order to stop Sanders (see also this).
Now we have the “leak” of a “private” phone call between Obama and some-bunch-or-other of those who worked in his administration. In an article written by none other than Michael Isikoff, who had his own role in Russiagate as one of the first to write about the infamous Steele dossier, Obama’s call gets across the ex-president’s opinions about the recent revelations regarding Flynn.
And guess what? It’s all about the violation of the “rule of law” – not the egregious and audacious violations committed by Obama’s own minions, of course, but the decision by the DOJ to cease pursuing any of the fake ginned-up charges.
Obama, that putative “expert” (that quotation mark key on my computer is getting quite a workout) on constitutional law, had this to say:
Former President Barack Obama, talking privately to ex-members of his administration, said Friday that the “rule of law is at risk” in the wake of what he called an unprecedented move by the Justice Department to drop charges against former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn…
“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said in a web talk with members of the Obama Alumni Association.
“And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”
Perjury? A first-year law student knows the difference between lying to the FBI – in a matter in which there is no evidence of any crime whatsoever, and the target is not allowed to have a lawyer or be read his rights or even informed he’s being interrogated as a target – and perjury. Obama knows it, too, so why did he use the word? He probably thinks it’s a good talking point because it sounds really bad, and he doesn’t think most people will care about the finer points.
Or maybe he’s just forgotten all the law he ever knew. But I go with: tactical lie.
The Obama statement is curious on various levels. First, the exhaustive search may have been hampered by the fact that Flynn was never charged with perjury. He was charged with a single count of false statements to a federal investigator under 18 U.S.C. 1001. I have previously wrote that the Justice Department should move to dismiss the case due to recently disclosed evidence and thus I was supportive of the decision of Attorney General Bill Barr.
Second, there is ample precedent for this motion even though, as I noted in the column calling for this action, such dismissals are rare. There is a specific rule created for this purpose. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a) states the government may dismiss an indictment, information or complaint “with leave of the court.” Moreover, such dismissals are tied to other rules mandating such action when there is evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or fundamental questions about the underlying case from the view of the prosecutors. I wrote recently about the serious concerns over the violation of Brady and standing court orders in the production and statements of the prosecutors in the case.Third, there is also case law. In Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U.S. 22 (1977) which addressed precedent under Petite v. United States, 361 U.S. 529 (1960) dealing with the dangers of multiple prosecutions. There are also related cases in Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U. S. 121 (1959), and Abbate v. United States, 359 U. S. 187 (1959). The Rinaldi decision involved a petitioner convicted of state offenses arising out of a robbery, who believed that the government should have moved to dismiss a federal offense arising out of the same robbery under the Department’s Petite policy. The Court laid out the standard for such motions. The thrust of that controversy concerned double jeopardy and dual jurisdictions. However, the point was that the rule is key in protecting such constitutional principles and that courts should be deferential in such moves by the Department: “In light of the parallel purposes of the Government’s Petite policy and the fundamental constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy, the federal courts should be receptive, not circumspect, when the Government seeks leave to implement that policy.”
There are also lower court decisions on this inherent authority. For example, in the D.C. Circuit (where the Flynn case was brought), the ruling in United States v. Fokker Servs. B.V., No. 15-3016 (D.C. Cir. 2016) reaffirms the deference to prosecutors on such questions. The Court noted that this deference extends to core constitutional principles…
Fourth, there are cases where the Department has moved to dismiss cases on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct or other grounds touching on due process, ethical requirements or other concerns. One that comes to mind is United States v. Stevens where President Obama’s own Attorney General, Eric Holder, asked the same judge in the Flynn case to dismiss that case. That was just roughly ten years ago. As with Flynn, there was an allegation of withheld evidence by prosecutors.
If Turley was Obama’s law professor and Obama his student, Obama would be getting a solid “F.” But Obama is no longer in school; he’s now the mostly-respected ex-president, speaking regretfully of all the sad things that have been happening under Trump’s watch, and lamenting the abandonment of the Obama-type “rule of law.”
Obama is a sanctimonius, arrogant, dangerous, viper.
What really is without precedent – at least in the US, although not in certain countries usually referred to as “banana republics – is the way in which Obama used the DOJ and the FBI and the entire state apparatus to spy on and destroy an incoming president of the opposing party. Watergate was a tea party compared to this.
And indeed, as Obama pointed out (and he should know) “when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”
Obama also managed to add this:
In the same chat, a tape of which was obtained by Yahoo News, Obama also lashed out at the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as “an absolute chaotic disaster.”
Can you imagine any previous president saying something like that about a successor? I’ve been around a long time, and I never heard anything of the sort until Obama. There was an unwritten rule, one that ex-presidents of both parties followed, not to say anything particularly bad about a successor, even though the ex-president might be sorely tempted. And another rule was for ex-presidents to throw away partisanship during a crisis.
But Obama thinks such rules were meant to be broken – by Obama.
Last night, when I looked at the comments to that Yahoo article, I didn’t see any that supported Obama. They’re all on the order of “you’ll get yours, you lying POS.” But I am certain that plenty of people are buying what Obama and the MSM are selling.
And here’s an audio of that fortuitously “leaked” “private” call:
The last passage on the tape is fascinating, too. Obama says:
So I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do. Whenever I campaign, I’ve always said, ‘Ah, this is the most important election.’ Especially obviously when I was on the ballot, that always feels like it’s the most important election. This one — I’m not on the ballot — but I am pretty darn invested. We got to make this [a Democratic victory] happen.
“Pretty darn invested” – well, that’s certainly an understatement. He’s “pretty darn invested” indeed; seeking not just to protect his legacy, to be able to tell President Joe Biden what to do, to have Biden choose as aides and cabinet members the old Obama crew and implementing the old Obama agenda (only carrying it further than Obama ever had time for), but also to protect himself from further revelations at the hands of Barr and Trump. If Biden is elected, all of the investigations into Obama’s role will be dropped like a radioactive potato.
Pretty darn invested.
The man who was witnessed murdering his wife by the neighbor is outraged his neighbor’s invasion of his privacy.
You gotta miss Harry Truman. He left office, decamped to the Kansas City exurbs (where Bess had been living p/t already), had no security detail until one was proffered him in 1965, had no pension bar that he’d earned for his World War I service, and wrote his memoirs in part because he and Bess needed the money. Presidential pensions were instituted in 1958 because Congress knew he was cash-poor. (They had way too much house, but it was a family homestead Bess had inherited, and she lived in it until she came to the end of her 97 years). When Medicare was instituted, they held a ceremony to register the first two beneficiaries – the Trumans (for whom the insurance came in handy). The amount of money they collected from the lecture circuit, corporate directorships, lobbying gig, &c. was around $0. I don’t think that very blunt and opinionated man had much to say to the papers about public affairs in his last 20 years, but you can check the biographies. What kills me about Truman is that he got into politics as a cog in the Prendergast machine, and he never broke faith with that; the sons of the Boss were among his closest friends. People babble stupidly about Obama’s Chicago Way, but Obama is nothing like a Chicago alderman, much more a scheming weasel of a college administrator. The man who played piano for 20-odd years in the whorehouse of Kansas City politics (and never saw anyone go up the stairs) is actually the icon of civic responsibility and patriotism – and one to which his successors have paid no mind.
This is partly the result of the GOP becoming dominated by DC insiders in the aftermath of the Reagan Administration. Those Republican/conservative fops are perfectly happy to take whatever scraps they get as junior partners in our political establishment without complaint. I’m no fan of either Mitt Romney or Ted Cruz but at least Cruz doesn’t kiss the asses of those who hate and despise him hoping to get a pat on the head in between kicks to the face.
Mike
“there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.”
Let’s look at that statement carefully. The dog-eating traitor did not say *convicted of* perjury, he said *charged with* perjury. In other words once you are charged you are guilty.
Even the Nazis and Soviets at least pretended to have trials.
And yes I know “dog-eating traitor” is pretty strong. But you don’t want to hear what I *really* think of Obama.
I listened to the tape to confirm. Yes he did say, “there is no precedent for someone who has been charged … just getting off scot-free”.
Obama is right about one thing. The rule of law in in danger. Very grave danger.
Art Deco
Nice comments about Truman.
Obama; he of of petulance and vanity. The blue dress has dropped. So lucky to have left the the White House 4 times richer than when he entered. How does that work exactly?
This has been Obama’s M.O. from day 1.
So is the cover-up.
So has the doubling, tripling, quadrupling down.
The Democratic Party and its MSM enforcers have been working for over three years to demonize Trump and anyone and everyone associated with him.
They continue to do so and will step up the flood of propaganda (though some might say that’s not possible), as needed.
It is now sorely needed, as some of the defences of the Obamaginot Line have been pierced and Biden is a walking liability.
And so the lies will have to be continued at full throttle plus some. Full warp speed plus some. They’re in “Give me everything you got, Scotty” mode.
And there will be no letup in this fight to destroy America.
Just as there can be no letup in this fight to defend America’s existence.
“Obama is a sanctimonious, arrogant, dangerous, viper. ”
Heh. Tell us what you _really_ think…!
I smell fear.
A viper indeed.
He gives snakes a bad name. A dog-eating traitor that is sanctimonious, arrogant, and dangerous? That seems to fit him pretty well.
Nixon paid for the Dnc breaking. Obama used tax payer paid thugs for his crimes! Yep you and I PAID for all this!
Yet here we are, I read years ago that Obama did not have a credit card that would work well enough for him to rent a car at the 2000 National Convention, it rang true at the time because he was barely a blip on the radar when he stole his 20024 Senetorial election. Neither he nor his wife seemed to actually earn real money as degreed lawyers from fine schools. However they have done rather well for themselves over the years. Weasels Cum Laude.
Trump should be complaining that Flynn was never convicted of perjury. And it is exactly in Crooked Cops charging innocent men that “rule of law” has problems.
Obama’s criminal FBI needs to be dismantled, and his criminal Dem gov’t goons need to be indicted. Then convicted and punished.
Plus him. He’s guilty, and was guilty of covering up Clinton’s illegal email.
I claim the key fear of the FBI over any Rep was further investigation into the illegal destruction of evidence the FBI did in order to avoid indicting, or perhaps even charging, HR Clinton of illegal email handling.
Bigger crimes after smaller crimes. That’s actually the way real criminals really are caught.
No indictments, no big deal yet.
How can I sleep thinking about this injustice??? !!! More rum. (Where has the rum gone? And I don’t even like rum that much.)
Roy died.. of Siegfried and Roy
Little Richard died..
You can bet that this wasn’t their first rodeo, and Obama was up to his neck in all of it. We know that starting at least a year before Trump got into office there was the concerted effort to frame Papadpolous, Carter Page, et. al., as Russian agents working for the Trump campaign. Even further back after the 2010 election where the Tea Party was a major cause for the Dems loss, Obama and company illegally used the IRS against them. I’d be stunned if they didn’t already start using these under cover tactics during the 2012 election. Romney was such a wimp that it didn’t matter, but it certainly continued after the election. After Admiral Rogers told Trump he was being wiretapped it came out that a large number of unauthorized parties were freely accessing the secret NSA database for unknown (hah!) reasons. There was also Hillary’s Illegal home brew server, so secure a taxi driver could crack it, that no one knew about, though Obama did have his own private email account on it. Bleh, it makes my stomach churn.
Has Judge Sullivan said anything or acted yet? Is there any reason he can no longer pass sentence on General Flynn? Or is it still within his discretion? For whatever reason(s), he seems to really, really dislike Flynn (thinking of that blistering dressing down in open court he gave Flynn when he told the General that he could also be charged with treason).
I don’t interpret that Obama is in fear. I’m not sure his ego would allow it. His public messages against being too far left are admonishments for Progressive voters and operatives – not for Bernie or Lie-awatha (whom he would undoubtedly be speaking to directly). He’s telling them to wait for after election day to lay their hand down, just as they did in 2012.
One accomplishment Obama can claim: I think this is the first time in modern history that an outgoing administration actively plotted harm for the incoming one, and the evidence is now starting to roll out, for those interested. Methodically, deliberately using all the powers of intelligence-gathering that were available. A triumph of tribe over country, even to hasten the destruction of that country. Sedition.
I thought Obama was an empty suit the first time I heard of him.
Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city’s most popular black call-in radio program.
I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:
“He said, ‘Cliff, I’m gonna make me a U.S. Senator.’”
“Oh, you are? Who might that be?”
“Barack Obama.”
Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.
Obama came through the Chicago mafia-type organization and learned his tactics there. I’ve always wondered who he was and who was behind him. We may never know,. He seems to have learned the Alinsky handbook.
He is untouchable because of his racial bona fides. Can the Democrats figure out a way to beat Trump this fall ? Cheating is too obvious. It might work with Congress but this is not the 2016 Congress with all the fellow travelers.
“ Obama is a sanctimonius, arrogant, dangerous, viper.”
I would have called that an exaggeration or worse at the beginning of his administration. But now I think it’s precisely correct.
He is untouchable because of his racial bona fides.
No he isn’t. The GOP just doesn’t have the guts or the sense to touch him. That is, to tell the public what he has done and what he believes.
He is a sanctimonius, arrogant, dangerous, viper- and also a corrupt, deceitful traitor. The obtusely ignorant democrats who think he is the lightbringer need to have all that rubbed in their idiot faces, every day, all day, until it sinks in.
Today, it needs to be rubbed in by people like Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, and whatever nullity is the present GOP House leader. Previously, it needed to be said by such folks as Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, often and always.
Sean Hannity doesn’t count. Random people on the internet such as myself don’t count. No inhabitant of the conservative ghetto counts. I still remember Hannity pointing out in 2008 that he broke the Reverend Wright story about Obama weeks before it became a scandal, but it didn’t matter until Hillary Clinton started losing primaries and she had her media surrogates cover it. If I recall, Obama stopped winning primaries once that became public knowledge, but it was too late to stop him. In that example, it needed to be John McCain talking about it until Obama had to repeat John Kerry’s 2004 Swift Boat Vets performance and disappear- but of course McCain wouldn’t do anything to harm his beloved democrats.
Leftists aren’t going to tell the public about their corruption and treason themselves. Neither is their pet media. It needs to be some set of people who can break through the bubble of ignorance that surrounds rank-and-file democrats. That is, the political leadership of the GOP, such as Donald Trump. In my opinion, his willingness to do exactly that is why the hate him so much, not because of what they claim in their endless lies about him.
Anyone recall when Andrew Breitbart himself offered a large sum to expose The List of Obama’s media dupes collectively protecting him? And Journo-List was, if I recall correctly, accidentally exposed? And 200 journalists and hardcore Leftist academics and think tankers (to coin a term) were all exposed as a chorus of witless group-thinking mobsters?
Does any one doubt that there is a Journo-List 3.x? Or 4.0? More prize money for the New Expose?
More Obama-guided “weapons of mass distraction”:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/the-addled-mind-of-max-baucus.php
I would really like for somebody to take a look at what type of surveillance/pressure tactics were being used on the Romney campaign back in 2012. Seems to me that the Obama administration is sputtering because they may have gotten away with this stunt already.
I have never believed that Romney lost. I have always believed that election was stolen.
I’m just going to say, Obama is a POS, and I’m glad he gets to see all of his legacy go up in smoke.
Tape?
The “Dual Jurisdiction” rule was pretty thoroughly broken by Clinton in going after the cops who saved Rodney King’s life. The female CHP officer was about to shoot him when the four LAPD officers intervened and took him down with non-lethal methods. They were acquitted by a local jury, then retried in front of a downtown LA jury and convicted of the same actions but under “civil rights” scenario.
It’s not that he’s “pretty darn invested” in saving his own legacy. He’s signalling the media and Dems that THEY have been insufficiently defensive of his legacy. Note the first thing he said on that call: “The news over the last 24 hours …has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” … He wants them to use the word “perjury”.
This call was like a Bat SIgnal. Marching orders. And I’m sure he was surprised it was leaked. Yeah. Right.
Although off-topic for this thread, I’ve pasted Ed Driscoll’s post (at Instapundit from Sunday morning here because it is germane to the comments on several of the recent threads and, like me, we need to be reminded of his work.
I had forgotten about Groseclose’s book but it is perhaps more topical now than when it was first published in 2012:
Quote MBunge: “ This is partly the result of the GOP becoming dominated by DC insiders in the aftermath of the Reagan Administration…”
Actually, I’d venture to say it was bitter-clinging Clinton hold-overs GWBush deemed not to fire after the 2000 election. These antagonistic scolds have been embedded a long while and their influence and attitudes permeated their successors. Many of these ‘servants’ bided their time and thought the 0bama-Clinton philosophy would permanently lock in their bureaucratic and administrative hold. Obviously, Trump’s election blasted that hubris but unleashed the criminality of leftism inherent in the system. (Monty Python reference intended)
I don’t know if Obama is panicked. I don’t know if he thinks of himself as vulnerable. We’ll see if at least some of his operatives are punished.
On another note, the Instapundit had a link this morning to a Reuters report that Mexico is pushing for answers on the Fast & Furious gun-running scam. Glenn Reynolds’ comment: Trump Should Extradite Eric Holder.
Obama came through the Chicago mafia-type organization and learned his tactics there.
See Elaine Krewer (a lapsed newspaper reporter in Illinois, currently resident in Springfield) on this point. Obama is nothing like a Chicago alderman. Ward politics is labor intensive retail work which incorporates a great deal of face-to-face interaction. An old school precinct captain would spend three evenings a week visiting with neighbors about their various small problems. Obama is too introverted for that sort of work apart from his motivational deficits.
I’m no fan of either Mitt Romney or Ted Cruz but at least Cruz doesn’t kiss the asses of those who hate and despise him hoping to get a pat on the head in between kicks to the face.
Romney’s a pest, but he is not implicated in the machinations of the Capitol Hill nexus. Up until a year ago, he’d never lived in Washington. He grew up around Detroit, undertook mission work in France, got his schooling in the Bay Area, Salt Lake City, and Boston, and made his career in Boston for the most part (with sojourn in Salt Lake City).
The problem with the Republicans after Newt Gingrich was run out of town was that they never had a plurality in either house of Congress large enough that the shabby careerist element couldn’t prevent reforms. This was particularly true in regard to the Senate, with it’s inane parliamentary rules. (I’ve heard defenders of House Republicans say that you saw again and again a piece of reform legislation would land in the laps of Senate Republicans, where it would die). This scenario plays out in state legislatures as well. It’s a reasonable inference from his life and career that Dennis Hastert was a Republican because that’s the mode in Kendall County, Illinois; because he found Democratic Party clients less than appealing; and because he wasn’t on board with various and sundry stupidities liberals are always ginning up out of their imaginations. That doesn’t mean he had any well considered set of principles that would tolerably tell you what to do and what not to do. Hastert-types are down with inertia. It’s because of these types that the National Endowment for the Arts never goes away, that subsidies to rural electric rates never go away, that we never liquidate any federal landholdings, &c. It’s also why travesties like the current system of federal employee recruitment, promotion, and discipline is never repaired. It’s also why our haphazard jumble of federal agencies is never sorted properly, and ditto congressional committee jurisdictions. Hastert was also a crook, albeit one who stuck to legalized graft.
“So I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do.”
-Obama
That right there.That’s the money quote. He’s trying to say, without being obvious about it, that they all need to hang together or they will all hang separately.
Seems to me, the thing to do is as follows:
1. Prosecute the heck out of everybody other than Obama;
2. Send them to jail for decades whenever possible;
3. When Obama himself is the last standing, and all the others are jailed, get them to detail his involvement, take everything they admit he knew or contributed to the coup attempt, and then, ITEM BY ITEM, with EVERY UNFLATTERING DETAIL described in terms exactly matching the wording of the statutes that make them felonious, pardon president Obama. But don’t do it all at once. Declare one minor bullet-point item to be pardoned on Monday, and another Tuesday, and so on. One per day, Monday through Thursday (skip Friday), and then the following Monday through Thursday, et cetera. If an item is big enough to require an extra day of discussion, then skip a day after that item is released. If another news story unexpectedly competes for the country’s attention, stop doing pardons, and then resume them, on the next slow news day. Make sure pardoning Obama for all his felonies — in excruciating detail — takes six weeks, a new item being described every time the news slows down. And have president Trump, when concluding the announcement of the pardon, say nice and conciliatory things about Obama so that none of it sounds particularly hostile: Daggers coated in honey. Oh, and with each day’s Obama pardon, include the pardoning of 1-2 overly-sentenced African-Americans currently in prison.
Then, in the end, DON’T pardon Obama for some final odd item. Not something huge. Something petty and irritating and low-class. Let him be found guilty of that one thing, then (grandly) pay his fine for him, but make sure there’s at least one conviction on the books, alongside the overpowering ongoing stink of “all the stuff he had to be pardoned for.”
The idea is to constantly remind the public of the whole nasty coup attempt for months on end, not in an angry tone-of-voice, but a sweet one. Just as Trump constantly says complimentary things about Putin while having carnal knowledge of the Russian economy from behind, or about Xi while tightening the screws on trade, so too should Trump say conciliatory polite nothings about Obama while urinating spectacularly on Obama legacy until the whole thing is sodden.
I’ve no idea whether any of that can get done, let alone all of it.
But I’d love to see it.
These people carried out a coup attempt in my country, those arrogant blood-bloated ticks. Because their coup methodology was nonviolent, I don’t particularly wish any harm to the individuals. I’m not a French Leftist, so I see no benefit from having Comey and Clapper guillotined, when they could just easily spend the next thirty years in prison, and after that, some median-quality retirement home.
No, I just want their ideology and priorities and dreams discredited — no, crushed. Crushed beyond recognition, beyond remembrance. And because they used corrupt lawfare as their weapon, I want them flattened by the gradual turning of the wheels of (real) justice.
I want my great-grandchildren to learn in school that the early 21st century was the last gasp of some peculiar ideology called Leftism, something that’s no longer a thing. When they ask what it was, I want their teacher to shrug and say that it basically held that power overruled facts, that women could be men by simply thinking they were, that virtue-signalling was the same as virtue, that there was one set of rules for the elites and another for the plebes, and various other weird things. I want them to point out that it was the kind of thing Orwell was worried about in the book 1984, and that because human civilizations tend to repeat mistakes, every generation needs to be cautious lest such an ideology rise again…”however distant that possibility may now seem.” I want secular historians to talk about Leftism the way church historians currently talk about Collyridianism or Albigensianism.
One more thing: I forgive them.
Does that seem odd?
I forgive them, because they’re humans, and it’s hard to be a human and not be a fool or a knave or both; still more in the corridors of power. There but for the grace of God go I.
But forgiveness means to relinquish enmity, to will the good of the other. I do will their good; but I strongly suspect their good can only ever come through repentance; and that, through punishment sufficient to bring home the reality of their misdeeds. (Setting aside that punishing the coup is needed for the health of the Republic.)
So I forgive: I hope and pray that, helped by the reality of their imprisonment, Clapper or Comey or one of the other clowns might yet, somehow, not be damned. I don’t know that any one of them is half the man that Chuck Colson was. But at least there’s some precedent.
Mike K., Art Deco:
Please read my take on Obama’s early political career in Chicago and Illinois, Emil Jones, etc..
This was released to work the judge. Go along with Barr and we’ll Monica you.
And whatever’s left will get Ralph Nader’d.
East Bay Jay:
Could be, John Roberts seems to be malleable in that manner; statements from Democrat senators and editorials in the NYT or WA Post seem to work on him.
Neo:
I’m on the Canadian right, which is substantial, actually, despite what you may have heard.
Personally, I think that Obama is, and always has been, lazy. He ain’t no Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods or Wayne Gretzky.
He outsourced, pretty clearly, his foreign policy to Susan Rice, and now he’s got to defend — nobody in a top job positions oneself to defend; one positions oneself to attack.
And, honestly, nobody picks Joe Biden to be their running-mate. I have been confounded by that choice for years, but it’s pretty clear now that Biden was a clueless cut-out between Obama and the Clintons — a deal, in essence, that Hillary would get the nomination after Barack was done.
Donald Trump is quite a bit tougher than he once was, but he’s as tough once, as he ever was.
Personally, I think that Obama is, and always has been, lazy.
People keep confusing ‘lazy’ with ‘apathetic’ or ‘inattentive’.
He outsourced, pretty clearly, his foreign policy to Susan Rice, and now he’s got to defend
A senior executive will outsource just about anything.
People seem to forget that Ronald Reagan was one of our more capable presidents. That’s because he knew how to build a personnel operation which would put his people in the apparat, and he knew how to inspire his workforce. An executive who works 18 hours a day (and such claims have been made in re Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter) is notable for (1) allowing subordinates to run him or (2) no talent for delegating or (3) no talent for setting priorities or (4) some combination of the above.
Reagan never claimed to sit at his desk more than about 40 hours a week.
And, honestly, nobody picks Joe Biden to be their running-mate.
They do if they find capable people anxiety-provoking. They might also do something like that in a fit of carelessness (see GHW Bush’s selection of Dan Quayle, a man who had no business being anything but a back-bench member of Congress).
Jeanne B: “Like a bat signal” That’s great, that’s it exactly! Echoed by Fractal Rabbit.
David Southam: in retrospect I can see easily why Obama picked Biden as VP for two reasons. 1) He appealed to the old Democrat white blue-collar constituency which has always been Obama’s weakest point politically and 2) he is a less-than-stellar intellect so would not overshadow Obama’s massively exaggerated “brilliance”. Obama has always surrounded himself with dim political hacks for that exact reason. The only really smart person in his inner circle is Valerie Jarrett who he kept in the background with considerable help from the MFM.
Well, neo, I’ve been a party to lawsuits to get people knocked off the ballot and seen my own petitions get knocked off. It happens in New York politics. Nuttin’ personal. I don’t think that makes him ruthless. He just doesn’t have the most thoroughgoing regard for appearances and didn’t care to keep Alice Palmer as a friend. She, on the other hand, was expecting deference in response to her dithering (and filed defective petitions because people get into the habit of cutting corners).
Prior to 2007, he was a candidate in one (1) competitive election and in that election given a bloody good hiding by Bobby Rush. It’s a testament to how demobilized core city electorates are that he had only token opposition if that in his state legislative contests. In his campaign for the U.S. Senate, moles in the Illinois court system teamed up with the media to publish confidential information derived from his opponents’ divorce cases. The Illinois Republican Party decided to wing it by recruiting Alan Keyes, who wasn’t an Illinois resident and who had only faced a general electorate once before (in 1986, when he was a less peculiar man).
The media had it’s thumb on the scales for him from 2004 onward.
Conditions for him in 2008 were just about optimal. (1) You have a general resistance in the electorate to giving the incumbent party more than two terms in the White House; (2) the Bush Administration was tainted by its actual mistakes; (3) the financial crisis came to a head during the campaign, and the confused public blamed the incumbent President’s party rather than the nexus of politicians which had promoted and protected unsound practices at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; and (4) John McCain was suboptimal in executing his functions; someone who puts grifters like Steven Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace in charge of his campaign is not making the best judgments – nb Sarah Palin wanted nothing to do with Wallace, so it’s not like her defects were esoteric. You couldn’t ask for a more tilted playing field, but he did no better than did George HW Bush in 1988.
Well, it was something of a coup to actually win the nomination in 2008. Then you look at who ran against him. Other than Bill Richardson, none of the candidates that year had any business running; only Richardson had served an apprenticeship in an executive position. Of course, that’s no impediment as far as Democratic voters are concerned. Aside from Richardson (who was dogged by a pay-for-play scandal), you had in Messrs. Biden, Dodd, and Gravel a trio of mediocrities (one of them a sad wreck who had been out of office for 27 years); you had in John Edwards a skeevy ambulance chaser who seemed for all the world like John Ritter’s parody of a presidential candidate; and you had Felonia von Pantsuit. Here’s an alternative hypothesis: Obama was Spam-in-a-can, and David Plouffe knew how to run a marketing campaign.
He appealed to the old Democrat white blue-collar constituency which has always been Obama’s weakest point politically
See Wm. Schneider on VP candidates. Your single best guess is the VP candidate will net you 2% of the vote in the VP candidate’s home state, and nothing in other states. If you’re trolling for votes, cadging three electoral votes you were likely to win anyway is unclear on the concept. The real danger, per Schneider, in VP candidate selections, is to land someone who will be a distraction and an embarrassment. (Even the risk of that may be overstated; See Bush-Quayle, 1988).
The only really smart person in his inner circle is Valerie Jarrett who he kept in the background with considerable help from the MFM.
What’s Darth Jarrett ever done which would indicate she has more ‘g’ than, say Leon Panetta or Susan Rice?
Art Deco:
That’s about VP candidates ordinarily. I believe that if Biden is the nominee, his VP pick will take on huge and outsize importance because nearly everyone knows he’s likely to be removed for health reasons and that person would be likely to become president if Biden were to be elected.
Art Deco:
He got his mentor kicked off the ballot, not just anybody. And he got all his other primary opponents kicked off the ballot as well. All at once, first time around. And smiling the whole while and pretending that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
Now, that’s unusual.
Not only that, but when he got to the state legislature, he told Jones of his political ambitions, Jones was impressed and Jones did everything he could to promote Obama and screw everyone else, including giving Obama credit for all their work.
Later (and I have many posts about this) there was more, such as this stuff. Yes, he had plenty of help, but Obama was a player, and a dirty player at that, from the very start.
He got his mentor kicked off the ballot, not just anybody. And he got all his other primary opponents kicked off the ballot as well. All at once, first time around.
I can tell you how this can be (and, I believe usually is) processed intellectually and emotionally. I’m not inside his head. I’ve known dear, non-ruthless people who’ve done this and had it done to them. Street level politics can be messy.
I don’t know what kind of history the two of them had. Keep in mind first she endorses him, then she pulls the rug out from under him. Somebody was bound to feel bad at that point. Remember, it’s not just him, it’s everyone who helped circulate his petitions. It looks a shade different if you’ve been on the inside.
If the wiki biography on Jones is accurate, he was the President of the Illinois Senate for the last two years of Obama’s time there. Not sure what sort of influential position he held prior to that. I would assume the mole in the court system was a patronage employee with ties to Obama’s backers. What’s disgusting about all that is that the media were willing to publish the material and protect their sources. The mole should have been exposed and fired, and a mess of people involved subject to civil or criminal process. Another thing that’s disgusting is that there appears to have been no boomerang in public opinion injurious to Obama.
One other thing. Hellary had a slight advantage in popular ballots in 2008, while Obama had a slight advantage in pledged delegates. The preference cascade for Obama at the convention was consequent to the superdelegates breaking sharply for Obama beforehand. Making sense of why political professionals favored Obama even though (as Geraldine Ferraro and Billy Jeff pointed out) his candidacy made little sense from the standpoint of working politicians is something I haven’t seen anyone do, though I imagine some academic political scientist has tackled the question.
It is a perfect summation of the man’s character that he allows an Obama Alumni Association to exist. It is a perfect summation of the duplicity of the media that this is the first I’ve heard of it. If there had been such a thing as “The Gipper’s Guys” or “Old Bushies,” the screams of outrage and “cult of personality!!!!” would be audible on Mars.
Neo minces no words: “Obama is a sanctimonius [sic], arrogant, dangerous, viper.”
We live in a soon-to-be desperate time. Like Hoover lost to FDR and socialism swept America, Trump may well be defeated by the Wuhan, yes Wuhan, virus that enables a Democratic victory of the Congress and the White House.
An interesting and very unhappy prognostication: https://theweek.com/articles/913411/dark-decade-ahead
R.C., your view of SparkleFarts’ pardons is sensible, but Barr may have considerations leading to a different approach.
I’ll wager, Barr would prefer to avoid spurring black jurors to vote to acquit Brennan etc., to help save SparkleFarts from prosecution (which would be forestalled by an early pardon).
If black jurors know that SparkleFarts will be safe, regardless of their verdict, they’re quite likelier to convict Brennan etc. (as “dirty cops”), than if they feared that SparkleFarts could be next on the menu.
FOAF said “Obama is right about one thing. The rule of law in in danger. Very grave danger.”
Not to mention the reputation of Harvard Law.
Indeed, if folks at https://theConservativeTreehouse.com/2020/05/10/sunday-talks-sidney-powell-discusses-details-behind-doj-dropping-flynn-case/?replytocom=8189742#respond are right, DJT may be able to defend a pardon of SparkleFarts, by pinning the whole thing on Hillary, and her decades-long pull with the Deep State:
“She knows ropes better than SparkleFarts, so she managed to set him up, while also trying to set me up!”
Like Hoover lost to FDR and socialism swept America,
The ratio of federal expenditure to domestic product stood at about 0.065 in 1939 and federally owned enterprises were limited to the postal service and some hydroelectric authorities.
At https://theConservativeTreehouse.com/2020/05/10/sunday-talks-sidney-powell-discusses-details-behind-doj-dropping-flynn-case/?replytocom=8189916#respond , reader Bill Durham elaborates on the idea of Durham spinning SparkleFarts as a patsy:
“I would be willing to pass on Obama officials, to nail the FBI and CIA plotters. Think of a *DC jury*!!!
Durham could *paint Obama as a victim*, and point the finger right at the CIA and FBI. Take TDS out of the equation. Guilty verdicts and plea deals.”
Art Deco:
I’m not getting your point, exactly. Do you think Obama wasn’t ruthless? He was not just ruthless, in my opinion, but what he did was also unusual. It’s not unusual to get a person or two kicked off the ballot, but every one of them? I seem to recall there were at least five or so, all running in the Democratic primary. He ran unopposed. Not only that, but except for Bobby Rush, who defeated him, every other opponent of Obama’s until 2008 was taken off the ballot as well. His primary opponent when he ran for Senate (Blair Hull, who was leading against Obama), and his Republican opponent (Jack Ryan), both kicked out of the race through accusations (spousal abuse, etc.) that Obama or his aides apparently engineered (unsealing divorce record, etc). The GOP had no time to replace Ryan with a viable candidate, and ran Alan Keyes at the last minute, whom Obama trounced.
Rush is the only real opposition Obama ever faced until McCain.
Again from Bill Durham, at https://theConservativeTreehouse.com/2020/05/10/sunday-talks-trey-Gowdy-discusses-doj-and-fbi-misconduct-in-flynn-case-it-doesnt-have-to-go-all-the-way-up-to-the-president/?replytocom=8190805#respond :
“Gowdy is giving good advice. Durham needs to focus on Comey McCabe Brennan. Take away their **Obama shield**. Nobody in DC is convicting Obama Rice Yates. Go after the old **white guys**.
A DC jury will convict Comey McCabe Brennan, if team Obama sends signals. This is the path. Get team Obama to throw Comey McCabe Brennan **under the bus**. Even Gowdy is trying to broker a deal.”
Do you think Obama wasn’t ruthless?
I’m pointing out that the petition challenges are not per se an indicator of ruthlessness. The trading in the divorce papers are an indicator of a vicious lack of scruple. Note, the newspapers are covering up for the perpetrators.
I don’t think Obama is ‘ruthless’ in the same way gangsters are. He might have the makings of a lying and crooked prosecutor, but he practiced law for too short a time to determine that. I’m not insightful about people, but it seems to me that liberals can be (and in a vicarious way, often are) persuaded their moral excellence is such that rules simply do not apply to them. Several of us have been killing time tangling with a partisan Democrat (who owns a contracting business in Alachua County, Fl and whose son is an AUSA in San Francisco) who has been trying to push the notion that Flynn is a guilty man treated fairly. He really doesn’t have an argument, but he tries to make up for that with sheer repetitive persistence. Manju usually slinks off when he’s been whipped.
Many decades ago, the social psychologist Z Barbu was critical of the notion that political parties and political conflict reflected conflict between social classes delineated by economic factors. He made use of the raw material of interwar Roumanian politics to advance his notions. He was critical of people who tried to fit the Iron Guard into a class-conflict model, maintaining that the Guard recruited people who were alienated for idiosyncratic reasons (say, being short or being born illegitimate).
I think we’ve come to a point where one can evaluate the Democratic Party as a collecting pool of certain character types. You can look at it other ways, but this is one. Obama has always struck me as a deputy-dean-of-students type. In my experience, people who work in school administration at any level are seldom square shooters, at least if they’re in student affairs or faculty hiring. Deception, humbug, idiocracy, CYA, and vindictiveness are the order of the day.
And, from reader Shyster, at
https://theConservativeTreehouse.com/2020/05/10/sunday-talks-trey-gowdy-discusses-doj-and-fbi-misconduct-in-flynn-case-it-doesnt-have-to-go-all-the-way-up-to-the-president/?replytocom=8190912#respond :
“… If it looks like there is a serious focus on Obama, and I mean serious, the demonrat powers that be **will sacrifice** Comey, McCabe, Brennan and Clapper, through anonymous document drops and leaks, all to **protect the Queen Bee Barry**. Go after the Obama, and the subordinates will be sacrificed.”
To me, getting the combo of Comey, McCabe, Brennan and Clapper are much more important than getting SparkleFarts, who is probably just *Pritzker’s tool* anyway.
The may well be any number of other ways to get to that Fatso, given his immersion in the Chicago Way.
Insofar as Barr has limited ammo and *time*, this is better spent aiming for the means, by which guys like SparkleFarts are tempted to exploit these D.S. agencies.
Then if DJT wins in Nov., clean house vs. the big $$ guys who’ve been milking the system for decades, e.g. Fatso, Zuckerpig, Soros, etc.
Going after SparkleFarts before Nov. risks driving up black turnout, and losing the election in pursuit of an unnecessary vendetta vs. one brat.
More thoughts:
1) Does anyone really think that Hillary would’ve been much different on this, had she been PoTUS in ’09?
2) Recall, DJT made noises years ago, about declassing the JFK files. If he does that in ensuing months, to show D.S. guys as up to their necks in the coverup, if not the original murder, much of black America will be all-but ecstatic, about the ruining of the D.S.
All the more so, if he can connect that murder/ coverup to that of MLK.
about declassing the JFK files. If he does that in ensuing months, to show D.S. guys as up to their necks in the coverup, if not the original murder,
Oh, for crying out loud. Obsessives and fantasists have been beavering away for 56 years to try to manufacture a complicated event out of a straightforward event. How much failure do you chaps have to register before you figure out you’ve had the wrong idea?
Trump not losing the election is way more important than getting any of the Deep State traitors in 2020. After re-election, gloves can come off.
Art Deco – Stupendous comment given i have had to sit and listen to that stuff since my birth… a constant droning ignoring half century of all manner of other things… a singular event that really didn’t change much other than have the CIA invent the term ‘conspiracy theory’ (NY times revealed), and and endless stream of stuff over people, who got old and died while it went on…. right now we have doctor defenestrations in Russia… china on the border clashing with India… china in the china sea causing problems for Vietnam, Indonesia, and more… and the obsessive compulsive problem of discovering what happened to someone who died so long ago, and who the people connected to it and more have also mostly died… and the people interested have gotten old and getting closer to dying too.. watched a video yesterday of average americans who could not answer basic questions… what kind of economic systme do we have… what party was lincoln, who won the civil war, what does WWII mean, and on and on… we really dont realize how much feminisms take over of school for equality has made people dumber than doorknobs… to the point a bachelors degree equals a high school diploma (barely) and confers almost NO behaviorial plusses… how they all just sign on to things that when told the substance think its crazy, but yet, support it anyway.. how duplicitous it is as if you are rooting for the high school football team..
“…ruthless…”
Not that it matters all that much, buy—yeah—he’s ruthless.
Utterly.
How do we know?
Because he’s untouchable. And he knows it.
Because he’s the brightest one in the room. (Actually, the brightest one ever to sit in the Oval Office.) And he knows it.
Because he has the media in his pocket. And he knows it.
Because he’ll do and say ANYTHING he wants, truth or fiction—no matter what—and he’ll get a pass on it. And he knows it.
(He’ll not only “get a pass on it”, the usual suspects in the media and the nation will be fawning all over him for saying it. And he knows it.)
Because he’s not going to let any chickens**t Israeli leader push him around. (For that matter, he’s not going to let any perversion of the Truth bother him one bit—though he might admit that “the optics” were a bit less than optimal.)
Because he’s on “the right side of history”. And he knows it.
He knows ALL of this. And then some. (And no, you don’t even have to ask him.)
But mostly? Mostly because he’s purely, simply UNTOUCHABLE.
And can get away with what he wants.
(Now, one might wonder who else might possibly think like this….)
Yep, absolutely UNTOUCHABLE….
That is…
…until he isn’t.
(To his great credit, though, he did cash out rather nicely following his no-scandal-no-malarkey-no-nonsense presidencyship.
That’s right. The American way! Well good for him… Is this a GREAT country or what?…Heh…)
Further to what R.C. said, every time Obama accepts a pardon the Trump administration needs to hammer home the point that is that offering a pardon carries with it an imputation of guilt. Accepting it amounts to a confession of guilt.
We’re not a banana republic or the Soviet Union. As much as I despise and loathe Obama we can not get into the habit of imprisoning former Presidents. Or worse, putting them in front of a firing squad. The point of a pardon is to serve the greater good. Obama is an insect who is not worth squashing. He deserves to be reviled and loathed for the low character that he is, though.
“… to serve the greater good…”
Well that’s reassuring. (I always wondered why Marc Rich was pardoned….)
Good to see you back, Steve!
Steve57:
Second to Barry Meislin, glad to hear from you again.
Art Deco on May 10, 2020 at 8:02 pm said:
Like Hoover lost to FDR and socialism swept America,
The ratio of federal expenditure to domestic product stood at about 0.065 in 1939 and federally owned enterprises were limited to the postal service and some hydroelectric authorities.
************
My point, Art, was the FDR era birthed socialist stuff. “Federally owned enterprises” are not relevant.Your counter that these (socialist) programs were small potatoes ignores the birthing of Social Security, for example. It’s like you are complaining that a 6 week pregnancy does not look like 9 month pregnancy. The FDR era changed the thinking of many Americans to look to the State. The CCC provided employment of millions….the Gramscian march continued. Then along came LBJ with Medicare/Medicaid. So the discretionary portion of the Federal budget, which includes Defense, is ever smaller as these entitlement monsters enlarge.
I think you argue for arguments’ sake.
Deco, on “beavering away for 56 years to try to manufacture a complicated event out of a straightforward event….”
How “straightforward” was it, that Ruby was allowed to get w/in inches of the Suspect of the Century (Oswald), while a whole damned basement of cops, Feds etc. daydreamed?
When you and your kind dismiss reasonable doubters as “Obsessives and fantasists”, you attract as much suspicion as do the MSM crowd, who dismissed Nunes and his allies (on this SpyGate stuff) as Obsessives and fantasists.
Check out Dorothy Kilgallen’s death in 1965. She was digging in to details no one else had studied, for various reasons, I’m sure, about the Kennedy assassination, Jack Ruby’s shooting Oswald.
aNanyMouse, Meemsie:
The evidence against the JFK assassination conspiracy theories is absolutely overwhelming, incontrovertible. Every one of their theories has been thoroughly debunked.
My previous posts on the subject can be found here, here, and here.
Check out Dorothy Kilgallen’s death in 1965. She was digging in to details no one else had studied, for various reasons, I’m sure, about the Kennedy assassination, Jack Ruby’s shooting Oswald.
No, she wasn’t. She was writing a book on murder trials she’d covered. There was a chapter in it on Jack Ruby. That’s not the forum you choose if you have something exceptional about which to write.
She had one too many drinks and took one too many sleeping pills. Her relatives are at this point practiced at putting off nuts trying to get interviews from them.
My point, Art, was the FDR era birthed socialist stuff.
The people responsible for ramping up federal expenditure between 1939 and 1974 are those sitting in Congress at the time.
How “straightforward” was it, that Ruby was allowed to get w/in inches of the Suspect of the Century (Oswald), while a whole damned basement of cops, Feds etc. daydreamed?
Go ahead and watch the video. They were unprepared and not expecting much of anything. Oswald was only exposed briefly and a dozen different people present could have shot him dead, had they a mind. . You didn’t have metal detectors in public buildings in 1963.
When you and your kind dismiss reasonable doubters as “Obsessives and fantasists”,
The ‘reasonable doubters’ begin with inductive reasoning, rather than flights of fancy about the Dallas police rubbing out Oswald by subcontracting the job to a local nightclub owner.
Josiah Thompson and Cyril Wecht have attempted inductive reasoning. Thompson’s primary argument has been properly refuted – some time ago. Wecht’s is a minority viewpoint among forensic pathologists.
Art Deco:
LOL about FDR the New Deal and the path of US history regarding the expansion of the Federal government. FDR was just a disinterested party? Hoot! Those darned congress critters got out of control again!
“His implicit message was: don’t show your left hand so openly; dissemble like I did.” – Neo
If I’ve been reading things right, the Democrats aren’t rejecting Bernie because he’s a socialist (really a Communist), but because he is OPENLY a socialist.