Watergate was about "What did the president know and when did he know it?" ... Since there was 20 min of tape missing it was ASSUMED that he was covering up that "he knew". Oh, and the media as well as the then much less willing to be obvious Democrat State hated Nixon, so he just had to go.
At least we don't have to wonder if BO was inolved in using the FBI to attack the opposition party during the 2016 election ... we have it on text!
Newly revealed text messages between FBI paramours Peter Strzok and Lisa Page include an exchange about preparing talking points for then-FBI Director James Comey to give to President Obama, who wanted “to know everything we’re doing."
Naturally, anyone paying attention has only know that the FBI (and all government) - media collaboration is "business as usual". No reason to call it "collusion" -- come on, it has been obvious since Watergate, but if you are old enough to remember Dan Rather destroying his career using fake documents to "prove" the fake story about how good a fighter pilot W may have been 30 years ago.
The BO birth certificate and the story that W was supposedly not a very good fighter pilot were similar, however one is NOT requiured to be a "good fighter pilot" to be president, but one at least used to have to be an American citizen to be president!
In the world of fake government agencies and fake news however, "what difference, at this point, does it make?" That was "Herself" Hillary responding to a question about 4 dead, including the US Ambassador to Libya being killed on her watch. Let's face it, relative to the government bureaucracy and the US media, she was right! Nobody cares about US Ambassadors and Navy Seals relative to Hildebeast getting what she wants -- the elite having their way is what BOistan stands for.
What is "new" is how obviously it is now all done. They are STILL certain they hold all the cards and have all the power, players like HillBilly and BO. So they broke all sorts of secrecy laws, obstructed justice, and used federal law enforcement agencies to attack their political opponents? Why not? "Rules" are for the little people ... not the Hillarys and BOs of the world!
The biggest "news" in all of this to me is that we all KNOW how Democrat Party, Administrative State and Media collaboration work against the opposition party. It happens EVERY DAY! Just look at the markets the past few days and think back to '09.
In '09, BAD news was always due to W and GOOD news was always due to BO. Market down, BUSH! Market or anthing else up/good, BO!
Now it is simply the opposite. Markets DOWN (or anything bad), TRUMP! Markets UP (or anything good), BO!
Try to even imagine Trump ordering the FBI to investigate the Democrat candidate in 2020. First of all, like Nixon trying to use the IRS against his political enemies, they would REFUSE ... as well they should! But when BO had the IRS attack conservative groups, they did not refuse -- they DID IT, and then took the 5th and everybody walked away.
Between Watergate and BO, at least the Democrat - Deep State - Media triumvirate had the decency to throw some fig leafs on and deny that they were collaborating! It's in the open now, and neither Democrats at the party or support level care -- they WANT a one party state. They no longer see any advantages in any diversity of ideas -- they are openly shutting down any dissenting ideas being discussed even at a university.
We are ALL largely brainwashed at this point. As evidence, I ask you; What exactly did the Russians **DO** to influence the election????
A few fake Facebook Accounts? Some fake news stories more fake then the many 10's of fake stories that have been exposed on CNN? Which and how many people saw those and were "influenced by them"? Trump supposedly "colluded" to do what? To get more emails from some unsecure Hillary or DNC server released? The Democrat/Deep State/Media triumvirate tells us that "Russian influence in our 2016 election" is a most grevious FACT!
What was that influence, and how many votes did it affect?
The base charge is a JOKE, it is like making an issue about how good a fighter pilot W was. It's a McG
uffin! ... a device to create a story that all the brainwashed will follow.
The original "toady" was supposedly the assistant who ate a toad asserted to be poisonous, so his master could display his acumen at "bringing the toady back to life". I'd rate the true magic as eating the toad and keeping it down ... ribbit!
The linked article is a litany of how each action that appears "strange" to us as taken by various syncophants, boot lickers, ass kissers, and other assorted bureaucratic vermin from the Deep State of the BO years, would merely have been "smart career moves" -- if wicked witch Hillary had just taken over the BO swamp as expected.
How could Lynch in the middle of an election have been so silly as to allow even the appearance of impropriety? Answer: There would have been no impropriety had Hillary won — an assumption reflected in the Page-Strzok text trove when Page texted, about Lynch, “She knows no charges will be brought.” In fact, after a Clinton victory, Lynch’s obsequiousness in devising such a clandestine meeting with Bill Clinton may well have been rewarded: Clinton allies leaked to the New York Times that Clinton was considering keeping Lynch on as the attorney general.
Things were going GREAT in the middle of '16 for BO, the Clintons and the entire Adminstrative / Deep State .... Trump was the candidate they WANTED to run against. They PICKED HIM ... in the judgement of the apparatus of "The Party" (TP-D) , running against Trump was a GIFT! My view is that Slick met with Lynch in Phoenix to show off the power of the Clinton machine. "Yes we CAN have a meeting between the former president and the sitting AG who is (supposedly) investigating the former first lady now running for president! See what kind of POWER we Clintons have? It is only going to grow when the Hildebeast wins, so PAY YOUR BRIBES NOW! to the "Clinton Fund" ... funds, for Clintons!"
"Herself" winning was a forgone conclusion, settled science, a metaphysical certainty ... EVERYONE who "had a brain" and was a member in good standing of TP "knew it to be so".
Needlessly weaponizing the Obama FBI and the DOJ was akin to Hillary Clinton’s insanely campaigning in the last days of the 2016 campaign in red-state Arizona, the supposed “cherry atop a pleasing electoral map.”
In short, such hubris was not just what Peter Strzok in August 2016 termed an “insurance policy” against an unlikely Trump victory. Instead, the Clinton and Obama officials believed that it was within the administrative state’s grasp and their perceived political interest not just to beat but to destroy and humiliate Donald Trump — and by extension all the distasteful deplorables and irredeemables he supposedly had galvanized.
I don't believe that BO so much did the "weaponization" as he allowed it to beconme obvious. There was no need to hide it anymore. He was "The One", and his handpicked successor was taking the reins of power from his royal hand. He and the Clintons pulled all the strings and the folks in the Adminstrative / Deep State were just manuvering for better jobs under the new assumed new Dark Lord.
So is Trump the "anti-TP"? Able to actually win over the "Agents" of the Deep State? No idea ... but it is an idea worth savoring once in awhile.
Being an avid NPR listener, I've OFTEN been reminded of the HORROR of Nixon possibly erasing a WHOLE 20 MINUTES of tape! The man was simply evil.
For decades, most "conservatives" harbored the belief, that increasingly became a "hope", that eventually became a "memory", that people on the left actually had "standards" that they would apply with some reasonable semblance of similarity to ANYONE, independent of political party. That was in America. BO was finally the proof that we no longer live there, thus BOistan.
In BOistan, we know that all sorts of documents relative to various Clinton escapades from Arkansas, up to and including many thousands of e-mails while she was Secretary of State, are just "missing" ... they must have been "wiped, like with a cloth".
If you are on the left, this bothers you not at all -- it is considered "smart" even. "They have never been able to PROVE anything on the Clinton's"! Politics has become such a "team sport", that people act like fans rather than the voting EMPLOYERS of temporary politicians that we at least once kidded ourselves would be held to "standards" ( that used to be a word in America ).
The conservative way up through Slick Willie, and even attempted with BO on Gun Runner, Benghazi, Lois Lerner IRS, etc, was to still imagine this "standards thing" worked both ways -- which it became increasingly obvious it did not. The IRS scandal is really the most troubling, along what was seen in Wisconsin. These cases show the Administrative / Deep State is certainly part of "The Party" taking direct action against the opposing political party. Actions which VERY much echo how the National Socialist party in Germany and the Communist party in the USSR operated.
The linked article lets us know that hundreds of text communications between Democrat political partisans who first worked to exhonorate Hillary, and were then moved over to smear Trump, "were not retained". Shocking! Round up the usual suspects!
The FBI did not retain text messages exchanged by two senior officials involved in the probes of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for a five-month period ending the day a special counsel was appointed to investigate possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to a new congressional letter.
How do nations become totalitarian? You grow the government to the point where it's employees are a major political force on their own. Then, if you are really really stupid, you allow them to be unionized so that their union can be a huge source of funds and shock troops for the dominant party of government. You make it totally OK -- encouraged even, and eventually a de-facto requirement for all government employees to be members of "The Party" (TP-D). "Joining The Party" becomes a rite of passage for those seeking jobs with the government.
Eventually you get to where we are now -- even supposed "enforcement" parts of government are just organs of TP. We all KNOW this of course, we just don't want to see it made as obvious as Lois Lerner, the Wisconsin Kristalnacht, and now this example from the FBI makes it. Most would like to kid themselves that TP ( "The Party"-D) is "different" than what the National Socialist or Communist political parties were. Certainly -- and the Nazis / Communists were and are "different" from each other too, however what they had in common and do with TP, is POWER ... raw, amoral / immoral lust for power. The only TP ideology that matters is POWER ... "diversity, welfare, equality, abortion, free sex, attacking religion, open borders, not IDing voters, etc" are merely tools to increase power.
The shared purpose of all our alphabet agencies at this point is REMOVE TRUMP! -- if they happen to get any other things done, it's accidental. The FBI, NSA, Justice Department, CIA, etc are merely wholly owed subsidiaries of the D party, just like the media.
BOistan is a simple, and increasingly dangerous place to not be a member of TP!
The Wizard of Oz is often an apt metaphor for the machinations of "The Party" (TP-D) ... the best scene is "the man behind the curtain" ... sometimes even when we see that Oz is just a media illusion, they decide to change up "the man behind the curtain" to further confuse the weak minded, as in this case ...
In his column McCarthy shows the Times sending its previous origin story down the memory hole. The Times has sent it down the memory hole in order to rewrite the history it previously served up. The Times has a new origin story in the putative collusion case. Where once was Carter Page, now is George Papadopoulos.
Because TP has so much power, and because the bulk of that power is unacknowledged -- eg. the media is supposedly "unbiased", the Administrative / Deep State is still supposed to be fiction, BOTH the "powers behind the curtain", AND "reality" itself are regularly manipulated.
Take Benghazi -- four Americans, 3 SEALS and the US Ambassador were killed, the US Embassy was overrun. These are actually FACTS in the real world -- both political sides agree that these happened. However in the Benghazi case, TP tells us that not only are we to pay no attention to the "man behind the curtain", but to reality itself! Nothing to see here folks "all caused by a movie" ... move along. The FACTS hang in some limbo land where "nobody is responsible". Four lives are lost because of ???? . well in this case, maybe a movie ... "But, what difference -- at this point, what difference does it make"?
In the Russian collusion case, 18 months after we were aprised of the supposed "crime", we still have nothing at all to show for that "crime". Even stranger, let's assume "collusion" was real. What pray tell was the mechanism to influence the election? The Russians bought some Facebook Ads? They helped some news outlet somewhere put out a "fake story"? They put drugs in the water in IA, WI, MI and PA? HOW did they "manipulate the election"? The mind boggles -- we are daily being hammered with the importance of investigating the "collusion to subvert our 2016 election" yet, could someone give us SOME idea as to what such "subversion" would entail?
So it is hard to figure out "how", it is impossible to figure out "why". The core of the Russian economy is energy -- they paid upwards of $50 million to "The Clinton Fund" (funds for Clintons) to capture 20% of the urainium in N America. We know that the Russians have spent 10's of millions funding anti-fracking groups. So riddle me this, which candidate was anti-fracking?? Yup, Hillary -- Hillary WINNING was in the best interest of the Russians! Bernie wiunning would have been even BETTER! My guess is that their e-mail hacking was in hopes of helping Bernie -- but of course the primaries were RIGGED! Poor Russians, stuck with pro-fracking Trump!
My mind goes back to the possibility of floridated water ... perhaps that is how they "subverted the election"???
We live in a nation where most of the media -- NY Times, WaPo, the TV networks, CNN, NPR, etc are fully dedicated to the advancement of TP and it's agenda to the exclusion of all else -- especially "facts". The fact that BO was saying that any questioning of the election was tantamount to treason just over two weeks prior to the election in 2016 is WELL down the memory hole! Over a year later, questioning the election is a full time job for most of the MSM ... although any sort of hint as to "how" the nefarious Ruskies might have pulled it off is conspicuously missing, let alone "why". Motive? TRUMP! It seems plenty for the MSM -- their power comes from unicorn farts.
The McCarthy column is well worth the read ... we are so far down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass and following the yellow brick road that any attempt for most of the public to see any sort of facsimilie of "reality" from here is quite impossible.
Could it be that enough people voted for Trump in mostly "red" areas that care VERY little about Russians, Facebook, the MSM, TP, or really ANY kind of news ... "fake" or otherwise to get him elected, and now, even though we were ASSURED by the MSM that he would ABSOLUTELY wreck the economy, the Dow has gone over 25K?, they are really finding things not so very bad after his election at all?
"Deplorables" get confused -- because we have been assured that it isn't going to go below zero anymore, we ran out of oil in the 1970's, Reagan blew us all up in the 1980's, and the "era of big government" was over in the late '90s ... it is just too confusing for us stupid folks!
I covered what happened here, breaking down doors of conservatives in the early AM hours, gag rules, illegal use of private information to target other conservatives -- exactly what was supposed to be MOST abhorrent to ALL Americans! At least "McCarthyism" was about a foreign threat -- this was ONLY about partisan politics! This is the "The Party" (TP-D) using the government against it's political opponents -- just as we see now with the Deep State attacking Trump. Unsurprisingly ...
One tidbit your non-Wisconsin readers may find interesting: the administrator of the now-defunct GAB was Kevin Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy acknowledged a few years ago he was a confidant of the IRS’s Lois Lerner. They communicated frequently. Having a front row seat viewing the Troubles in Wisconsin the past seven years, I have seen the eerie the parallels between the John Doe and the Mueller investigation in D.C.
There isn't really anything surprising at all here -- prior to Trump, Scott Walker was the only leader that has shown the courage to take on the Deep State (at the WI state level) -- he very MILDLY reduced the cronyism between TP and the public unions and was saddled with statewide strikes, vandalism, threats of violence, lawsuits and a recall election.
On Sept. 14, 2016, the Guardian published some 1,300 pages of court-sealed John Doe-related documents. The liberal British publication used the cherry-picked, leaked records in a story that arrived a couple of weeks before theU.S. Supreme Court decided it wouldn’t weigh in on the Wisconsin matter.
Let me repeat the conclusion to my post on the report last week. The wrongdoing detailed in the WisDoJ report is of the deeply fascist variety that exceeds my poor powers of denunciation. Suffice it to say that it combines the instruments of tyranny — physical torture omitted — in the service of the suppression of conservatives. The story is shocking almost beyond belief. One might ask where the outrage is, but at this point we should probably ask if anyone is paying attention.
Democracy doesn't so much "die in darkness" as it dies when a single political party controls the media, education system, legal system, and the federal / state bureaucracies as TP does in BOistan.
The second link does a good job of some summary ...
The Hillary Clinton "Russian Reset"
BO cancelling missile defence for Poland
BO assuring Medvedev on an open mike about "flexibility" after 2012 election
BO laughing at Romney about the "1980's want their foreign policy back"
BO trusting the Russians to enforce his "Red Line"
Urainium One
The DNC funded "Trump Dossier"
As the second link closes with ...
America is facing an existential crisis, one where it appears the same institutions designed to provide law and order and national security are guilty of wholesale corruption — and possible treason. Either the Trump administration will root out the rot, or the electorate will be faced with the undeniable reality we live in a nation where “justice” consists of one set of laws for the rich and powerful, and another for everyone else. A nation where Congress conducts toothless hearings, those who should be investigated conduct the investigations, and utterly corrupt media censoranything inimical to their own interests and those of their ideological allies.
Absolutely no one can justify the sale of the main ingredient used in nuclear weapons to the Russians. Either the swamp gets drained — or the entire nation drowns in it.
Readers of this blog know this already -- 2016 was the Flight 93 Election, wether or not Trump can turn us back from BOistan is highly in doubt. The "double standard" is really TP vs non-TP. It wasn't that Weinstein was wealthy and powerful, Bill Cosby was that at one point too -- it was that although Harvey was safe as long as TP controlled ALL the levers --- Hillary Lost.
We live in such a corrupt tribal state that news that the DNC / Clintons funded the "Dossier" that kicked off the Special Counsel attacking Trump is not front page blaring headline news like Watergate, Iran Contra, or what Scooter Libby did or did not know about a "covert" CIA operative named Valerie Plame who drove into Langley every day and had her husband write Op Eds for major news outlets to maintain her "deep cover".
This ought to be flashing along the bottom of every screen on every network in BOistan!
After much pain — after much lying, Clinton style — the Washington Post reported on Tuesday evening that the Trump Dossier was commissioned by the smear outfit GPS Fusion at the behest of the Clinton campaign. It was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Tom Perez, the current chairman of the Democratic National Committee wants it to be known that the DNC’s “new [post-election] leadership” (Perez and Minnesota’s own fast-talking hustler Keith Ellison) know nothing. They all sound like Mafia types. Nobody knows anything.
NOTE, the Washington F*ing Post is reporting this! The DNC has ADMITTED IT!
In the last two weeks we have found smoking guns proving that the Clinton Fund and the BO administration knowingly sold 20% of our urainium reserves to Russia for bribes and kickbacks, AND the DNC has ADMITTED that they colluded with the Russians to smear Trump!
Oh, and as a bonus, we now know for certain the IRS in fact targeted conservative groups for political reasons under BO. That was always obvious to anyone that was awake though -- and the sleepers are not going to be concerned about it anyway. As long as they get their "free stuff" or stay on the Administrative State gravy train, why in the world would they care if the Administrative State is a weapon against those that disagree with it politically?
"Sauce for the goose" ...
But never mind -- nobody cares in BOistan. We are through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole and LOST IN SPACE! 90% of the public just knows what their tribe is, and "justice" is when their side wins!
We have indicted Manafort for "lying to the FBI and money laundering"? SERIOUSLY? We all know the Clinton Fund (Funds for Clintons) was a direct shakedown operation that amoung other things took 10's of millions DIRECTLY from Russian sources. How about being endicted for not even bothering to TRY to launder your bribes?
Here is Hillary lying under oath 3 times -- I'm sure that if we did a family compilation, we could find at least 10s of examples ... "I never had sex with that woman ..."
BOTH sides either follow the law or THERE IS NO LAW! Which is one of the mottos of BOistan.
I've covered the fact that tens of millions of dollars flowed to "The Clinton Fund -- Funds, for Clintons" so that Russia could abscond with 20% of our urainium resources -- the "Urainium One" deal itself is a matter of public record. The documentation of the bribery and kickbacks as well as documentation of the BO DOJ turning a blind eye is what is covered in the linked column and in the articles from "The Hill", a middle of the road political publication.
The congress and the president need to PROSECUTE Crooked Hillary -- if not Slick and BO as well.
Yes, the Deep State, including all the lifer bureaucrats at DOJ, FBI, CIA, commerce, state, etc, etc will do all they can to save "their people" the Clintons, etc, and it may well not be possible to get Hillary in prison and some sense of justice returning to BOistan, but it should be attempted.
BOistan is a VERY corrupt place -- certainly the vast majority of the Republican party is just as in on it and corrupt as "The Party" (TP-D). As least Trump will tweet out the truth -- it remains to be seen how many will take the time to understand just how high level and well documented the corruption really is. The media will be doing everything they can to suppress this.
This somewhat longish column is a poster child for an attempted left wing analysis of "what went wrong"? How did they discover that something went "wrong"? Trump was elected. The wordy article leads us on a merry chase of how this terrible thing might have happened -- it is written by Kurt Anderson, who is a writer that graduated from Harvard and founded "Spy" magazine. An example of what "Spy" was about:
Founded by Kurt Andersen and E. Graydon Carter, who served as its first editors, and Thomas L. Phillips, Jr., its first publisher. After one folding and a rebirth, it ceased publication in 1998. The magazine specialized in irreverent and satirical pieces targeting the American media, entertainment industries and the mocking of high society.[4] Some of its features attempted to present the darker side of celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Steven Seagal,[5]Martha Stewart, and especially, the real-estate tycoon Donald Trump and his then-wife Ivana Trump.[6] Pejorative epithets of celebrities, e.g., "Abe 'I'm Writing As Bad As I Can' Rosenthal", "short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump",[7] "churlish dwarf billionaire Laurence Tisch", "bum-kissing toady Arthur Gelb", "bosomy dirty-book writer Shirley Lord" and "former fat girl Dianne Brill" became a Spy trademark.
Strangely, although Anderson finds Trump to be a disaster of the first order, a quick read of the paragraph would indicate that Kurt and Donald ought to be bosom buddies ... "former fat girl Dianne Brill"? Indeed. So what IS the shape our peril according to Kurt?
By my reckoning, the solidly reality-based are a minority, maybe a third of us but almost certainly fewer than half. Only a third of us, for instance, don’t believe that the tale of creation in Genesis is the word of God. Only a third strongly disbelieve in telepathy and ghosts. Two-thirds of Americans believe that “angels and demons are active in the world.” More than half say they’re absolutely certain heaven exists, and just as many are sure of the existence of a personal God—not a vague force or universal spirit or higher power, but some guy. A third of us believe not only that global warming is no big deal but that it’s a hoax perpetrated by scientists, the government, and journalists.
Kurt certainly seems to have a solid view of "reality" -- to the extent we can discern it's base, the key point seems to be strong materialist atheism -- creation, angels, heaven, and "a personal God" (we will assume he means Jesus) come in for special snark. For those of us that believe in Christ being God made Man, the "Word of Kurt" (WoK) calling him "some guy" seems just a bit presumptions. Somehow, I'm guessing he is far less snarky about "allah" ... at least around Muslims. They don't love their enemies, they kill them.
Kurt goes on a long discussion of how "America" has gone "haywire". So why is it that Kurt's ideas on this are supposed to be of interest to anyone at all? Kurt does a great job of answering the reason for that right up front -- there is really no reason to read the rest of it.
Why are we like this?
The short answer is because we’re Americans—because being American means we can believe anything we want; that our beliefs are equal or superior to anyone else’s, experts be damned. Once people commit to that approach, the world turns inside out, and no cause-and-effect connection is fixed. The credible becomes incredible and the incredible credible.
So what are the qualification of one of the founders of "Spy" magazine to give us a psuedo-intellectual tour of history? He is admittedly Ivy League educated, but certainly not philosopher, theologian, scientist, political scientist, or even sociologist; on what does he stand to provide us the answer for the deep meaning of "haywire". Clearly KURT believes that Trump defines "haywire", however what expertise, philosophy, revelation, equation, data, "standard", dream, etc is Kurt standing on as he says it? I'd argue it is exactly like Potter Stewart's definition of pornography ... "you know it when you see it'.
Kurt HIMSELF has clearly stated "expert's be damned" -- The WoK is being proffered as useful because he himself finds his own views to be "equal or superior to anyone else's". He invalidates his own case right up front.
My view is that we forgot that "the fear of God is the BEGINNING of all wisdom". Transcendence, something unchangeable and beyond mere matter -- TRUTH. A book that points out where we left the track is from my perspective is "Ideas Have Consequences" and the point and which we first became unglued was in the 14th century.
"This was a change that overtook the dominant philosophical thinking of the West in the fourteenth century, when the reality of transcendentals was first seriously challenged."
Without SOMETHING that is at least very close to an eternal principle, we ALL lack any place to stand to make any sort of judgments at all! Science leaps from the precipice that says "the universe is ORDERED, and results that we see today are assumed to be repeatable across time and space". The foundation of science is INDUCTION -- "it worked today, it will work tomorrow, and it will work anywhere for all time".
The difficulty with this is PERSPECTIVE. The Thanksgiving turkey postulates that humans are a benevolent species that cares and provides for turkeys. On the very day in which the turkey's "proof" has gained the status of maximally proven scientific "fact", the induction crashes and the turkey finds himself at a meal in which he is the guest of honor. The turkey lacked the perspective of a larger view -- as do we humans relative to eternity.
The other problem is of course that right/wrong, beauty, consciousness, love, etc are completely outside the realm of science, as science is about STUFF ... material, matter. Human life is founded on human consciousness -- right, wrong, up, down, inside out, or non-existent, it IS what WE perceive as humans!
Kurt certainly views HIS consciousness as a superb basis for analysis ... as do we all unless we recognize a power greater than our own perspective (eg. "the fear of God" or maybe "fear of Kurt"??).
Let's look at Kurt's "analysis" a bit":
Meanwhile, over in sociology, in 1966 a pair of professors published The Social Construction of Reality, one of the most influential works in their field. Not only were sanity and insanity and scientific truth somewhat dubious concoctions by elites, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann explained—so was everything else. The rulers of any tribe or society do not just dictate customs and laws; they are the masters of everyone’s perceptions, defining reality itself. To create the all-encompassing stage sets that everyone inhabits, rulers first use crude mythology, then more elaborate religion, and finally the “extreme step” of modern science. “Reality”? “Knowledge”? “If we were going to be meticulous,” Berger and Luckmann wrote, “we would put quotation marks around the two aforementioned terms every time we used them.” “What is ‘real’ to a Tibetan monk may not be ‘real’ to an American businessman.”
Therefore, Kurt's "reality" would also be relative ... however, since he wrote this long article, we are to understand that it isn't really. Somehow, "The WoK" is privileged. (See "reality based" above}.
So what kind of heresy has failure to accept the WoK unleased?
Even the social critic Paul Goodman, beloved by young leftists in the ’60s, was flabbergasted by his own students by 1969. “There was no knowledge,” he wrote, “only the sociology of knowledge. They had so well learned that … research is subsidized and conducted for the benefit of the ruling class that they did not believe there was such a thing as simple truth.”
Ever since, the American right has insistently decried the spread of relativism, the idea that nothing is any more correct or true than anything else. Conservatives hated how relativism undercut various venerable and comfortable ruling ideas—certain notions of entitlement (according to race and gender) and aesthetic beauty and metaphysical and moral certainty.
Ah, "simple truth" --- or as we can see from the column, "the WoK". Sadly, the evil American Right thought that there WERE ultimate truths ... like the Word of God, which included Genesis, now known to fail the "reality based" test, according to the WoK. So the decried "relativism", as now apparently so does Kurt -- it's just that he finds any "relativism" according to the "Word of Kirk" to be bad -- therefore, he is a "rightwing fundamentalist" in relation to the "Word of Kirk"!
"Just before the Clintons arrived in Washington, the right had managed to do away with the federal Fairness Doctrine, which had been enacted to keep radio and TV shows from being ideologically one-sided. Until then, big-time conservative opinion media had consisted of two magazines, William F. Buckley Jr.’s biweekly National Review and the monthly American Spectator, both with small circulations. But absent a Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh’s national right-wing radio show, launched in 1988, was free to thrive, and others promptly appeared."
Here I think we arrive at the crux of the matter. As long as whatever was being stated was duly approved by a part of the Administrative State lodged comfortably in the womb of the Federal Communications Commission, all could be certain that only Administrative State, Union Approved, Ivy League vetted, Davos Certified, "truth" would be provided to the masses. Everything was "ideologically SINGLE sided", which was "the good", and the idiots that provided the alternative comic relief -- Bill Buckley and the American Spectator, were "fringe" --- as heretics ought to be!
Did his voters know that his hogwash was hogwash? Yes and no, the way people paying to visit P. T. Barnum’s exhibitions 175 years ago didn’t much care whether the black woman on display was really George Washington’s 161-year-old former nanny or whether the stitched-together fish/ape was actually a mermaid; or the way today we immerse in the real-life fictions of Disney World. Trump waited to run for president until he sensed that a critical mass of Americans had decided politics were all a show and a sham. If the whole thing is rigged, Trump’s brilliance was calling that out in the most impolitic ways possible, deriding his straight-arrow competitors as fakers and losers and liars—because that bullshit-calling was uniquely candid and authentic in the age of fake.
Perhaps there really were consequences to Slick Wille having BJs in the oval office, lying about it, and skating. Maybe calling a vast power grab and re-distribution scam called the "Affordable" Care Act, "affordable" even though it added a grab bag of new benefits to health INSURANCE thus being certain to radically increase the cost, was slightly disingenuous. However, saying that "If you like your doctor you can keep him", "if you like your insurance plan you can keep it", etc was TOTALLY a direct lie which anyone that paid any attention understood to be a LIE ... or to put it in Kurt's words, "a show and a sham".
I personally know MANY people that budgeted for retiring with healthcare TOTAL costs (insurance + deductables + co-pays) of $8K for a 60 year old couple, finding that they needed $22K for insurance along, PLUS, another 8-10K for deductables and co-pays. $30K vs $8K ... PER YEAR!
Slick Willie ushered in the age of fake. BO made it the standard.
So what do I believe caused America to "go haywire", and turn into BOistan?
We have to stand on SOMETHING! As John Adams said: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other". That morality was founded on Jesus Christ -- we never had any other rock to stand on, and sorry to say, the WoK isn't much of a substitute.
So what does the "word of Kurt" say on this point?
What is to be done? I don’t have an actionable agenda, Seven Ways Sensible People Can Save America From the Craziness. But I think we can slow the flood, repair the levees, and maybe stop things from getting any worse. If we’re splitting into two different cultures, we in reality-based America—whether the blue part or the smaller red part—must try to keep our zone as large and robust and attractive as possible for ourselves and for future generations. We need to firmly commit to Moynihan’s aphorism about opinions versus facts. We must call out the dangerously untrue and unreal. A grassroots movement against one kind of cultural squishiness has taken off and lately reshaped our national politics—the opposition to political correctness. I envision a comparable struggle that insists on distinguishing between the factually true and the blatantly false.
What is "reality"? Is it matter only, with meaning defined by induction? Kurt, founder of "Spy" magazine firmly believes in the "World of Kurt" ... if you follow Kurt, you too can be "reality based". Isn't that special?
Choose ye this day whom you will serve ... Kurt? or something larger? Trump is only a very temporary occupant of the highest office in what is at this point the failed state of BOistan. I believe that God is bigger than Kurt, Trump, and BOistan, so God is my choice as the basis for reality -- eternal reality.
The term "appparatchik" comes to mind as I observe Comey. It used to be a common term used relative to officials of the USSR -- strong Communist Party members that worked in the state bureaucracy. "The Party" (TP-D) is socialist rather than communist at this point, however they don't seem to have much love of private property, so I assume that socialist is just as far as they are willing to go at present.
If one wants to know what a DC swamp creature looks like, Comey is a great example. Self serving to a fault, master at "CYA" (Cover Your Ass), lies impeccably and of course a loyal member of TP. Here is a more perfect picture of "apparatchik / swamp thing".
So he proudly volunteers! that he created a memo that was properly "declassified" and then leaked it in hopes that it would initiate a special prosecutor! Marvelous. If anyone foolishly had any doubt that the Deep State alphabet angency arms of TP are manufacturing anything they possibly can to take down Trump, this is way more than plenty to show what the Deep State is up to!
So, what we have here is a fired FBI director, who leaked private material to the press, so he could get his friend appointed as a special counsel in order to take retribution on the President – with the aid of a department full of federal lawyers who would have rather seen Hillary in the White House. And we are supposed to believe this will be an objective, unbiased investigation?
The unaccountable Administrative State breeds things like Comey -- it MUST be made to be accountable if we are to return to being America, let alone become great again!
Reading this article gives a little bit of insight into why even SKIMMING the swamp in DC is a task of difficulty levels that defy imagination.
There are few better examples than the EPA post of Scientific Integrity Official. (Yes, that is an actual job title.) The position is a legacy of Barack Obama, who at his 2009 inaugural promised to “restore science to its rightful place”—his way of warning Republicans that there’d be no more debate on climate change or other liberal environmental priorities.
When the State **IS** the "church" and one of it's major tenets is faith in "Anthropogenic Climate Change" (ACC) ... I still await the "official encyclical" which replaces AGW "Anthropogenic Global Warming" with the more current ACC, since ANY difference in "weather or climate" (interchangeable when used by proper "scientists") is now assumed to be anthropogenic.
The huge CA drought was due to ACC, now the heavy rains are also due to ACC. We assured that AGW caused Katrina and that we would be breaking hurricane records until it cooled -- only then we broke records for NOT having hurricanes, which was also attributed to ACC. From heavy snows to no snows, or from record breaking cold to record breaking warmth are due to ACC. What part of "change" is it that you are missing?
More weather instability is due to ACC as is more stability (like droughts lasting years). ACC explains everything!
When you run a religion (especially one without a Living God) keeping your message pure is critical. Apostates, heretics, deniers, and other vermin must be rooted out at all costs, and if possible made to suffer. Certainly this has been well understood since ancient times, so it is no real surprise to see it ongoing in the case of "The Party" (TP-D) and its State Religion of "Progressivism (regressivism)".
You have to love the left -- they pull no punches and there is no amount of other people's money that they will not spend in their cause -- and why not. It has always been so for true believers.
Beginning with FDR, flexing it's muscles in Watergate, and growing more powerful ever after, The Party (TP-D) has created, nurtured, and made it's main instrument of power the Administrative or Deep State (DS). No matter what temporary occupant sits in the White House or party sits in control of Congress, the Deep State abides, and it is not a comfort to those that loved America, liberty, or morality. As the linked New Yorker column puts it:
Washington is a lawyer’s town, built on protocols and rules. If this tends to make happy-hour conversation in the city a little more pedantic than the American norm, then it also has its advantages, among them a fanaticism for records.
As I've often written, lawyers in the US are "The House" as in the gambling sense, and the number one rule of gambling is "The house WINS!". It has to, or there would be no Vegas, State Lotteries, or Casinos dotting the landscape. At any moment, lawyers are always the majority in all the legislatures and the US congress, plus they have their own branch of government, and since at least the early '70s, they also own the now most powerful "hidden in plain sight" branch of government, the Deep State.
The common thread is lawyers. Both political parties are significantly by and for lawyers, with TP being especially by and for lawyers. I'm not trying to say that lawyers are "bad people", merely that as lawyers, they have been schooled to view the world in a very specific way, and that way is not what America was -- lawyers are indeed people, but WE THE PEOPLE are not to be subserviant to a ruling lawyer class. This is why government was to be strictly LIMITED!
In addition to the question of whether Trump’s Presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government, there is now the question of whether he interfered to stop an investigation—whether he, as President, obstructed justice.
As the excellent cartoon at the top reminds us, "obstruction of justice" is "TP normal". IRS decides to target conservatives ? Lois Lerner takes the 5th, a bunch of computers turn up wiped, and BO declares it over -- hey, don't expect the Deep State to investigate itself!
BO's justice department goes after a conservative reporter trying to find out about leaks? Well, most people don't even know it happened -- and it is CERTAINLY no concern for goodness sake! The "good guys" (BO) went after the "bad guys", (Fox News) ... nuff said! What is the use of having a huge weapon like the DS if you can't use it to destroy your enemies?
Many "progressives" have pointed out how "scandal free" the BO disaster was ... to the blind, coal tar and snow may as well both be pure white! BO decided the investigation of Hildebeast on 60 Minutes "She had no intent to break the law, and no secrets endangered national security" -- oh thank you great and powerful BO for decaring the conclusion of FBI "investigation" prior to it being over! (no "obstruction" there!)
BO ENDORSED HILDEBEAST ON JUNE 9th and Comey didn't fold the investigation until July 5th! Now, ostensivly, it was Slick Willie meeting with his boss on a plane in AZ on June 30th that convinced Comey"it's over", rather than the POTUS endorsing a person under investigation by the FBI, but REALLY folks! The POTUS ENDORSES a person under active FBI investigation to take his job and that is NOT "obstruction"? Hello? Welcome to BOistan! Does not endorsing her for POTUS more than "imply" that "she is a nice lady and I hope the FBI can get by this so she can take my job". Even TP has not YET put in a CONVICTED felon ... many of them are felons, they just don't do the "conviction thing" because, well ... TP!
Anyone that is semi awake understands that in TP controlled BOistan, anyone that is not a TP member in good standing is someone that TP would see as needful of "investigation" -- and certainly, a president that is non-TP REQUIRES "investigation".
Perhaps the "BOistan Constitution" should just say that "in the unlikely event that a person that is not a TP member in good standing is elected, a set of "Special Prosecutors", "Commissions", "Independent Councels", "Czars", etc must be immediately appointed to investigate what are clearly "high crimes and misdemeanors", because someone not sworn to fealty to TP has ostensively gained power!" To TP, that is certainly a MAJOR crime!
We really didn't need to investigate BO ... his own book made it clear he wanted to destroy "the colonial powers" -- and he did a hell of a job on at least one of them!
Can Trump beat these bastards? Who knows, but BOistan SUCKS!
In the early '70s, at what then Democrats considered the nadir of their power, having fallen from owning the presidency, plus huge majorities in congress including over 60 votes in the Senate during most of the '60s, to losing the presidency in a landslide to Nixon for a second term, the Satanic Political Grail was discovered -- "Scandal and Coverup".
It is a brilliant strategy really -- always applicable as long as political power is your only objective and you are willing to destroy your very nation to get it. It only requires a "leak" (or a news outlet willing to imagine a "leak"), enough media and political people to keep the story going, a public willing to rely on the word of a felon (most of the base leaks are felonies) over the word of their elected officials, and as we have seen over the last 40 years, a political party stupid enough to not understand Lucy from Charlie Brown.
Sometime around '92 after "Iran Contra" had drug on from the '80s long enough for an indictment of Cap Weinberger to be issued 4 days before the '92 election, the Charlie Brown of political parties -- the R's, figured out that Lucy and the Democrats have similar interests.
One of the key "Lucy questions" is as follows":
"To the central question, are there Republicans who have the guts to challenge Trump and one day go to the White House la Nixon, like Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott and Robert Griffith and tell him in person: "It's time to go.""
This is where Slick Willie enters the picture. While Nixon may or may not have committed any crimes, the "standard" that the supposedly highly concerned and moral D's and the MSM had established was "lying to the public, and doing a coverup". Such a standard was asserted to be "patriotic and bi-partisan", however the Slick Willie affair (pun intended) would give us total proof it was not.
There aren't any Democrats that put the nation ahead of political power, so perjury, direct lies to the American people, any sort of "decency" as a presidential standard, etc went completely out the window in the late '90s. The D's and the MSM (but I repeat myself) made it clear that this idea of "courage" in this context was actually a one way street that they were willing to laughingly call "courage" when R's hung themselves, but nothing that a D ever even considered. ("Democrat Morals" see situational, see oxymoron, see power)
So, under BO, lying about films causing Ambassadors to be killed, using the IRS to attack your politcal opponents, extra Constitutional exec orders, spending funds never appropriated by Congress, being sued, and losing, etc, etc became "business as usual". Not even worth having a discussion with the D's about enforcing the Constitution -- that isn't something they do. POWER is their game! 24K emails show up missing at the IRS and Lois Lerner takes the 5th? Ho hum ... what parts of Deep State, D, and MSM do you not understand?
And thus we descended into and now live in BOistan.
Firing an FBI Director is actually completely within the scope of a president's authority -- if you check carefully, the FBI is under the executive branch. When Slick Willie fired William Sessions on July 19th, '93, it was such a sad event that it caused Vince Foster to commit suicide. The Snopes attempt to call the FACT that the firing happened one day before old Vince turned up dead is a "mixture of true and false", BECAUSE there **IS** no suspicion involved! How true your "fact" **is** from the left depends on how unfortunate it may be -- if it is really unfortunate, enven direct facts like dates are only "mixed". (also, your definition of "is")
As my readers know, we live in a country where "facts" are now completely partisan. It is extremely true that correlation does not equal causality. It does not however follow that correlation is completely un-interesting when one party is involved and total proof of wrongdoing if the other is implicated.
In our present insane universe, "where there is smoke there is fire" has to first be poltically tested -- D involved? Smoke unrelated to fire. R involved? Truism stands -- GOTTA be SOMETHING there!
The Deep State is in "go for it mode" -- probably up to guys like "we do whatever it takes for the media to like us" Johnny McCain if they can take Trump down. We knew this would happen after all ...
It is a documented FACT that all of the conversations of Trump and his associates were recorded -- because ALL conversations over US phone / data lines are recorded!
"Secret government documents, published by the media in 2013, confirm the NSA obtains full copies of everything that is carried along major domestic fiber optic cable networks."
Since ALL of our communications are digital these days, that is ALL. Here is the key paragraph from the linked article.
Thus, in 2016, when Trump says the surveillance of him took place, Obama needed only to ask the NSA for a transcript of Trump's telephone conversations to be prepared from the digital versions that the NSA already possessed. Because the NSA has the digital version of every telephone call made to, from and within the U.S. since 2005, if President Obama last year wanted transcripts of Trump's calls made at any time, the NSA would have been duty-bound to provide them, just as it would be required to provide transcripts of Obama's calls today if President Trump wanted them.
I disagree that the NSA would currently provide the information to Trump ... at least not without leaking that they provided it and that Trump is misusing the security apparatus of BOistan. I believe the Administrative/Deep State (ADS) is the last (and arguably the most important) Democrat held part of the US government. The ADS may or may not be the "enemy of the people", but it is certainly the enemy of Trump! (and Republicans)
So Trump needs "evidence" to make the claim that BO spied on him. The FBI is investigating Trump for possibly having "connections to Russia". EVERYONE ought to have this video locked in their brain!
So did the FBI investigate Obama? In 2013 he WELCOMED the Russian proposal to get more involved in Syria. I assume the FBI has LOTS of tapes from conversations between BO and his surrogates on the topic of Russia, "Red Lines" and Syria! Why were none of those "leaked"?
Hillary, Podesta and the DNC set up insecure servers and they were hacked. The PROBLEMS came from:
Hillary clearly stated there was nothing secret on her server (because it was illegal for there to be anything classified on the server) -- there were at least 10's, if not hundreds of documents found to be classified on the server AFTER Hillary had made multiple illegal attempts to "wipe" it. For anyone else, this was JAIL TIME for a FELONY!
The problem with what was leaked was THE CONTENT for the DNC and Podesta. It proved they rigged the primary for Hillary, cheated on the debates, that the "Clinton Fund" was a quid pro quo "diving for dollars" for the Clintons, and a bunch of other seedy stuff.
One of the most interesting disclosures concerns how the CIA can cover its tracks by leaving electronic trails suggesting the hacking is being done in different places — notably, in Russia. In fact, according to WikiLeaks, there’s an entire department dedicated to this. Its job is to “misdirect attribution” by leaving false fingerprints. If you’ve been at all skeptical about the recent levels of Russia-related hysteria, promoted heavily by U.S. intelligence agencies, alarm bells are probably going off in your head.
So BO directly tells the Russian ambassador in '12 that he is going to "have more flexibility after the election". Gee ... Did he know he was going to win? Maybe the Russians were helping him. Why not? Is this the sort of accusatory stream that only runs one way? What "evidence" did anyone have about Trump INFLUENCING the supposed "hacking" prior to the eavesdropping on the phone conversations -- which BTW didn't provide any evidence of "collusion" either.
And what would "collusion" be? "I'll have more flexibility to work with you after the election"?
WHOMEVER did the hacking and leaking of Hillary, her staff and the DNC, it was the result of:
Either their illegal servers, or their insanely poorly protected servers.
The ISSUE was about what was ON the servers and in the emails -- that they had classified documents on private servers, shook down campaign contributors and rigged their own primary for starters.
In the case of Trump however, he and his incoming administration were using phone lines that OUGHT to not have been tapped -- or even if you are OK with the government recording all the calls and emails that flow, should not have been EXPOSED -- the leaks were from THIS country, and in the BO administration / Administrative Sate. Were there to be any sort of even handed treatment here, the PROBLEM (according to the media and the D's) would be the SOURCE OF THE LEAKS, not the CONTENT. BO DEFINITELY relaxed classified restrictions, basically encouraging "leaks", and the source is the NY Times.
As Inauguration Day approached, Obama White House officials grew convinced that the intelligence was damning and that they needed to ensure that as many people as possible inside government could see it, even if people without security clearances could not. Some officials began asking specific questions at intelligence briefings, knowing the answers would be archived and could be easily unearthed by investigators — including the Senate Intelligence Committee, which in early January announced an inquiry into Russian efforts to influence the election.
The "blaming the Russians" for "manipulation" is blaming their (supposed) intelligence gathering -- we are supposed to pay no attention to the content of what was leaked in those cases.
In the Trump case, there has been NO CONTENT beyond "they talked", and that "looks bad" -- to Democrats, the left, and cranks like McCain.
So where was that standard when the video above was happening?
Naturally, "The Party" (TP-D) which controls the entire government bureaucracy, legal system and media is well acquainted with prosecuting their political opponents -- in fact, it has become pretty much their standard operating procedure, as the 16 incidences listed in the article point out.
Equally unsurprising is the fact that they find the idea that any loyal TP member in good standing might face prosecution as COMPLETELY abhorrent and beyond the pale. If such was possible, TP would not be TP -- the totalitarian owner of legal and extra-legal prosecutions for whatever deed or, "rumor" that TP happens to think might gain them something. It really doesn't make any difference what Bill and Hillary have done -- they loyal members of TP, which means that THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW ... and both they and other TP members are very proud of the fact that they have "never been prosecuted".
They are all one big happy crime family -- move up in TP, and you too can be immune to prosecution. It seems stranger and stranger that everyone doesn't just "get their minds right", and it seems pretty certain that Hildebeast will be sure that a lot more DO learn to kneel before her once she gets her sceptre.
If we had the time, we could go on for at least 100's, and probably thousands or even millions. The case of the small time political person that speaks out in the opposition to TP, and suddenly finds themselves with a very nasty IRS audit, EPA summons, zoning trouble, etc is pretty much a standard in the dwindling Republican ranks. "Keep your head down" is the mantra if you dare oppose TP.
Having Ted Kennedy highly visible for a long time in TP was a big plus. It is IMPORTANT to show the little people that if you have power you can ACTUALLY get away with murder! It is like the Mob roughing up and killing some folks to be certain that everyone understands who the REAL bosses are. TP is the BIG mob -- they need folks like Ted or Bill and Hillary around just to prove that they are above the law and you are not.
It looks grim right now for any opposition to TP. That is the way it has pretty much been since FDR, with a short small glimpse of hope during the Reagan years and the Gingerich House. Death of dreams, people and nations always tends to be dark -- it just goes with the territory. The powerful like to see their opposition TOTALLY removed -- they really don't want to even HEAR an opposing view!
TP is rather comfortable prosecuting their political opponents, and even if Trump should win, they will go on doing so. They own the legal system and the administrative law system -- even if they were to lose the WH, their power is so great as to make any real opposition for at least decades a total impossibility.
Sometimes in that blood-drenched world a dark knight arises. You don’t have to admire or like this knight. But you need this knight. He is your muscle and your voice in a dark, corrupt and malevolent world.
Such has been the argument of nearly every demagogue since the dawn of time. Aaron Burr claimed Spain threatened the U.S in 1806. A. Mitchell Palmer exaggerated the Red Scare in 1919 and Joe McCarthy did it in 1950.
It was also the argument of every actual protector of the people from real vermin since the dawn of time -- Demosthenes, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan. Let's look at Demosthenes in 342 BC
It is this fate, I solemnly assure you, that I dread for you, when the time comes that you make your reckoning, and realize that there is no longer anything that can be done. May you never find yourselves, men of Athens, in such a position! Yet in any case, it were better to die ten thousand deaths, than to do anything out of servility towards Philip [or to sacrifice any of those who speak for your good]. A noble recompense did the people in Oreus receive, for entrusting themselves to Philip’s friends, and thrusting Euphraeus aside! And a noble recompense the democracy of Eretria, for driving away your envoys, and surrendering to Cleitarchus! They are slaves, scourged and butchered! A noble clemency did he show to the Olynthians, who elected Lasthenes to command the cavalry, and banished Apollonides! It is folly, and it is cowardice, to cherish hopes like these, to give way to evil counsels, to refuse to do anything that you should do, to listen to the advocates of the enemy’s cause, and to fancy that you dwell in so great a city that, whatever happens, you will not suffer any harm.
Brooks seems to argue that even after BO, "we dwell in so great a city that, whatever happens, you will not suffer any harm".
Brooks obviously believes that there is no such thing as "too much government". Were EVERYTHING -- each sentence and glance, scripted by "experts" in Washington, or presumably by such icons of wisdom as himself, the world would be a "better place".
There is no danger in the path we have trod the last 8 years to Brooks. Churchill was a FOOL for the better part of a decade for speaking out against Hitler and what Churchill saw as "rising peril". He was a pariah! Indeed, a "demagogue", as was Reagan for claiming that the USSR would be consigned to "the ash heap of history".
I have to allusions that Trump will be seen as anything like Demosthenes, Churchill or Reagan, HOWEVER, to argue that those who point out that there is danger in the rise of government / Deep State and the destruction of the Constitution are somehow demagogues merely for the FORM of their argument is intellectual malpractice at least and most probably pure calumny.
BTW ... McCarthy was RIGHT! He may not have been as "smooth" about it as BO and Hildebeast locking up the guy that made the movie that they blamed for Benghazi, but he was WAY more CORRECT about the "Communist Menace" than they were about "Benghazi being caused by a movie!".
Peggy scores a good one here on the rise of Trump. Things like the buried IRS scandal tell us something of how far the culture of corruption in DC has sunk.
A high official in the IRS named Lois Lerner targets those she finds politically hateful. IRS officials are in the White House a lot, which oddly enough finds the same people hateful. News of the IRS targeting is about to break because an inspector general is on the case, so Ms. Lerner plants a question at a conference, answers with a rehearsed lie, tries to pin the scandal on workers in a cubicle farm in Cincinnati, lies some more, gets called into Congress, takes the Fifth—and then retires with full pension and benefits, bonuses intact. Taxpayers will be footing the bill for years for the woman who in some cases targeted them, and blew up the reputation of the IRS.
Nixon WANTED to use the IRS to go after his "enemies" -- even then, the IRS employees where all Democrats, so they squealed. Today, they don't squeal ... they do the job, then a coverup, then take the 5th and retire with full benefits and BO's eternal gratitude.
Which brings us to the State Department Office of Inspector General’s report involving Hillary Clinton’s emails. It reveals one big thing: Almost everything she has said publicly about her private server was a lie. She lied brazenly, coolly, as one who is practiced in lying would, as one who always gets away with it could.
When Nixon was impeached, the BIG issue was "lying to the American people". During Iran Contra, the task was to catch Reagan in a lie and do another impeachment. Then came Slick Willie -- suddenly, lies by the president were OK. While D's brought back the "Special Prosecutor" for the Plame affair during W's administration and constantly talked of "Bush lied, ...", after Slick Willie, the idea of "truth in the presidency" was a bit wistful at best. BO made lying and lips moving the same thing -- nobody expects truth from the presidency or all of DC for that matter.
So DC became a certified cesspool, so why would anyone expect Hildebeast to NOT get away with lying?
It is widely assumed that Mrs. Clinton will pay no price for misbehavior because the Democratic president’s Justice Department is not going to proceed with charges against the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
This is what everyone thinks, and not only because they watch “Scandal.” Because they watch the news.
That is the civic decadence they want to see blown up. And there’s this orange-colored bomb . . .
Should Trump shock all and win, both parties, the entire Deep / Administrative State, and 90% of the media will be out for his skin the day after the election. There are WAY too many bodies buried WAY too shallowly around our hypercorrupt government -- it is going to take a BIG bomb!
The linked article is long, but it is WELL WORTH the read!
I've given to both Scott Walker and WI Club For Growth, so I suppose my home could be next. I'm not sure how well I would do in that scenario -- some chance I'd end up in a body bag, almost no chance I wouldn't be roughed up some.
THIS is what has happened to what used to be America!
Once these things happen and the government officials escape long jail sentences, they WILL happen again! I suspect that odds that they will get those sentences are VERY low, but that is SAD beyond belief! We now live in a country so politicized that the hatred for Scott Walker is enough that people are willing to stand by while their neighbors homes and lives are attacked by the very government that is supposed to serve them as an act of political vengeance!
Speaking both on and off the record, targets reflected on how many layers of Wisconsin government failed their fundamental constitutional duties — the prosecutors who launched the rogue investigations, the judge who gave the abuse judicial sanction, investigators who chose to taunt and intimidate during the raids, and those police who ultimately approved and executed aggressive search tactics on law-abiding, peaceful citizens.
No doubt a "progressive" reading this is CERTAIN that it will not happen to them! I tend to agree -- the odds against some sort of conservative usurpation of power that was equivalent to this is highly unlikely for the foreseeable future -- but anything is possible. Future Mormon and Hispanic Catholic coalition rises to over 50% of the voters and has their way? It IS unlikely -- but I'd ask "progressives" to consider -- What if it was YOUR home being invaded? !! Even if you truly believe that this won't happen to you, is it not pure evil to stand by and allow it to be done to others? How did we slip this far??
What is obvious from the article is that THE RULE OF LAW HAS BROKEN DOWN! If the prosecutors, judges and investigators that did this fail to get LONG jail sentences, then we have to all realize that this is going to happen more and more frequently and on a wider scale until any voices that oppose a single party system operated by unionized government workers have been silenced!
The CORE of this problem is the reality of public employees unionizing -- FDR recognized this danger, but he apparently failed to understand the problem with "progressivism" -- it MUST keep "progressing", there is NEVER "enough"!
"All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," ... "It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management."
"The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations,"
"The employer, is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters."
If the government can't be trusted to provide fair working conditions and wages for it's OWN employees without them needing to resort to a strike and collective bargaining, how could it possibly be trusted to administer the laws of the land, control commerce, trade, assistance to the poor, elderly, how much water your toilet flushes, declare the CO2 you breath out an environmental poison controlled by the EPA, etc, etc? In FDRs view, the Government was the "ultimate good" -- how could it possibly be OK for it's own employees to strike?
But the temptations of vast amounts of campaign contributions to be funneled into the Democrat party, along with a strong national organization that linked federal, state and local government workers into one giant voting and political action block was just too great to be ignored, so the monolithic AFSCME union was created.
Legal corruption on a massive scale -- the prosecutors, judges, investigators and the street cops that kicked in the conservatives doors were either members of the union itself, or typically had family members that were. Walker took on a legalized MOB -- the State version of "The Godfather"!
Reagan said it best, "When government is not limited, man is not free"!
Take the time to read through the linked article. THIS is what those of us that have a tiny vestige of independent thought are up against -- and our odds don't look good at all!
