COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

GOP, Time to Man Up - Get Kenyatta

Watergate, Trumpgate — Time to Counterattack



I can’t help it. I keep reading story after story, hearing harangue after harangue on the television that the Trump/Russia “collusion” is our era’s Watergate, or maybe even worse. My conclusion, after all of this palaver, is that the news stories are right. What’s happening with Trump today is Watergate all over again.

Only it’s the real Watergate. It’s not the fake history Watergate in which RN was committing terrible crimes and was kicked out of office by brave reporters hiding in garages and a heroic Congress.

The real Watergate was where the greatest Peacemaker the nation has ever known, a man with stupendous accomplishments in foreign affairs, the opening of China, the salvation of Israel, the détente with the Soviets, a President who gave us the EPA, the greatest school desegregation there has ever been, and brought America from chaos to order and progress — was deposed in a coup d’état waged by the mainstream media — notably the three major networks, the New York Times, the Washington Post, allied with what we now know as the Deep State — a permanent, powerful prosecutorial bureaucracy hooked up with a Democrat Congress. That coup d’état ousted the President who won by the largest margin in history in 1972. And what was the great crime that Mr. Nixon did?

Why, that no one knows. It all started with a burglary at the Watergate office building in which a group of Cubans broke into the DNC HQ. No one at all even alleges that RN knew a thing about it in advance. What did he know? That some of his friends knew about it. What was the crime again? That he mentioned — just mentioned — asking the CIA to pull the FBI off the chase. Bad, to be sure. But bad enough to kick out the biggest vote getter in history, who had set the stage for ending the Cold War and saving the world from Armageddon? As bad as smashing Mrs. Clinton’s computer and throwing her emails into the drink and lying to Congress about Benghazi? And how did they do it to Nixon? They got the cool kids, the ones at the anchor desks at the networks, to look solemn and say that RN was a bad guy. They got a special prosecutor appointed whose sole aim was to ruin Nixon. When Nixon fired that wildly partisan prosecutor, to try to get some balance at Justice, that was called a “massacre.”

They did what prosecutors can always do. They asked Nixon’s aides tens of thousands of questions and — of course — found inconsistencies and evasions and got guilty verdicts on lying to the bureaucracy. Thus, they had a “trail” of crimes leading to RN. But of course any prosecutor can do that with any target.
So when RN flew off to San Clemente in August 1974, we had a new form of government: the mass media and the prosecutorial arms of the Deep State were running things. God help us, we got Jimmy Carter.

Ronald Reagan had so much charisma that he made the Constitution live again. And Bush 41 was a powerhouse of Constitutionalism as well. But then we got the willing pawn of the Deep State and the media, the lusty Clinton, and then Bush 43, who deserves special mention in a separate tome, and then Mr. Obama, who was so beloved by the Deep State and the mass media that they would have gladly crawled under that Oval Office desk like that Monica Lewinsky woman that Clinton barely knew.

And then we were supposed to have Mrs. Clinton, also worshiped and loved by the Deep State and the media. But by a miracle, we got Trump. It was too cruel for the Deep State and the MSM to bear.

And so now we get Watergate, Part Deux. A trivial or more likely non-existent misdemeanor of “collusion” with the Russians (who used to be the left’s bestest friends). Then the mass media discovers its Americanism and hate for Russia. Then the Deep State gets involved and FBI agents conspire with the media to try to create a massive crime where there is nothing. They actually are so arrogant about it that they leave a paper trail leading straight to Mr. Obama, shown for the millionth time to be a liar. And the whole company of mass media conspirators are not abashed. No. They’re on the air 24 hours a day saying Trump is a traitor, casually saying he’s mentally ill (I actually saw a woman on MSNBC do that today — the hostess of the show did not bat an eyelash), rustling up a special Torquemada to get prosecutions out of Trump aides by asking them thousands of questions. The goal, of course, to drive him out of there. Nothing is off limits: making cruel fun of his son, making up stories about his penis size (yes, I’ve seen that happen, too, on national TV — that’s where we are today), fabricating tales about fights between Trump and his wife. The goal is the same as the goal was with RN: to torment him so much that he leaves and goes back to his riches.
Will it work? I don’t know because no one has ever stood up to a mass media and a Deep State as violently hostile as this one. But if anyone is going to do it, it will be Trump. And in the meantime, when do we get the Special Prosecutor to go after Mrs. Clinton and her gang of evidence destroyers and perjurers? Come on, GOP, man up. You totally betrayed the Peacemaker. Let’s not do it to Trump, the Constitutionalist. Let’s take back power from the beautiful people and return it to the People.

The Deep State and MSNBC are in full cry. Time to counterattack.

50 comments:



  1. Amateur Hour @ 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

    The Cadet boasted on the campaign trail that his White House team would feature the "best people in the world."

    But his claim is being undercut by revelations that 30 to 40 people in the White House have yet to secure permanent security clearances a year into the administration and could potentially be unsuited to such high-level jobs


    The MASSIVE Security Breach at the White House is explosive.

    The President claimed he DID NOT KNOW of Porter's challenges with regards to his background and lack of fitness for the White House job.

    So WHO AUTHORIZED Porter remaining on the job without the proper Security Clearance, if not the President?


    Lock 'Em Up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't be distracted by facts, it is the FBI that investigates security backgrounds.

      Delete
    2. .

      And according to the FBI (Wray), they notified the White House of Porter's 'relationship problems' on 4 different occasions.

      The response? -...crickets...-

      .

      Delete
  2. IRONY

    Tribe and prejudice
    Murithi MutigaTue 4 Nov 2008 08.20 EST


    Barack Obama's likely accession to power is a redemptive moment for Kenya's long-oppressed Luo tribe

    Barack Obama's likely accession to power is a redemptive moment for Kenya's long-oppressed Luo tribe

    Kenyan perceptions of Barack Obama differ subtly on ethnic lines but his election might help unite the nation

    If Obama was born and raised in Kenya, he would have little chance of being elected president because of the accident of his birth.

    His father was a member of the Luo tribe, one of the nation's largest but also most oppressed. It is no accident that while Obama's candidature has drawn huge excitement in the whole of Kenya, the depth of feeling runs infinitely deeper in the west of the country where the Luo live.

    For them, it is a redemptive moment: Locked out of leadership at home for so long, a son of theirs seems set to ascend to high office in the most powerful nation in the land.

    Yet Obama's election could also prove a wonderful opportunity for Kenya and other countries in the region. It could offer them a chance to debate their troubled history of ethnic division and the lessons people here can take from the Democratic candidate's evident success in triumphing over the contours of identity politics.

    It could also yield an opportunity to debate the years of opportunistic, divide-and-rule policies by the elite that have laid the ground for vicious ethnic suspicion that is played out not only in the occasional outbreaks of fighting but in everyday decisions that people make: From their choice of brides, to their favourite drinking joints to the identity of the employee to receive a promotion.

    In Kenya's case, the story goes back to the years of the struggle for independence from British rule in the first half of the last century. The British had tried to isolate the Mau Mau freedom fighters, who were predominantly from the Kikuyu tribe – Kenya's largest – with a policy of divide and rule based on ethnicity.

    But at independence, there was broad unity among the various communities: Indeed, the main Luo leader Jaramogi Odinga declined an offer by the British to take office and insisted that they should release the most senior pre-independence figure Jomo Kenyatta (a Kikuyu) who then went on to be the nation's first president.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      IRONY

      Tribe and prejudice

      The KKK and David Duke stand behind Donald Trump 100%.

      .

      Delete
  3. ROOTS

    The British had tried to isolate the Mau Mau freedom fighters, who were predominantly from the Kikuyu tribe – Kenya's largest – with a policy of divide and rule based on ethnicity.

    But at independence, there was broad unity among the various communities: Indeed, the main Luo leader Jaramogi Odinga declined an offer by the British to take office and insisted that they should release the most senior pre-independence figure Jomo Kenyatta (a Kikuyu) who then went on to be the nation's first president.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Put that bumper sticker on your humankind Prius.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Last week, I speculated that something looked suspicious in the market movements. This morning:


    A whistle-blower told U.S. regulators that a scheme to manipulate the VIX, the volatility gauge thrust into the spotlight last week during a wild trading session, costs investors hundreds of millions of dollars a month.

    A Washington-based lawyer told the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission -- the nation’s top markets regulators -- in a letter Monday that his client found a flaw that allows traders “with sophisticated algorithms to move the VIX up or down by simply posting quotes on S&P options and without needing to physically engage in any trading or deploying any capital.” Billions in purportedly ill-gotten profits have been scooped up by “unethical electronic option market makers,” according to the letter.

    The client wasn’t identified by name. He’s held “senior positions at some of the largest investment firms in the world,” according to the letter written by Jason Zuckerman of Zuckerman Law, who has appeared on Washingtonian magazine’s list of top whistle-blower lawyers in the nation’s capital.

    Use of VIX derivatives has surged as money managers look for ways to hedge gains during the bull market. The gauge, which measures the cost of using S&P 500 options as insurance against stock swings, has gained widespread use especially since 2004 when Cboe began introducing futures and later on options tied to the index. Those products unleashed a new kind of hedging instrument into the financial system, allowing investors to make bets on market volatility.


    From Loony Tunes Bloomberg news

    ReplyDelete
  6. Have you seen the official portraits of Barry and Micheal, I mean Michelle?

    What's next, black lights?? I blew some reasonably good Pinot Noir out of my nose when I first saw them. Thank God those hateful people are out of the White House.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hopefully they will put a plaque under these portraits signifying "Jan 20, 2008 - Jan 20, 2017" as "The Experiment That Failed Miserably."

      Delete
    2. It is about as bad as it gets. Michelle the belle looks like the star of the black rendition of "Alice in Wonderland".

      Delete

  7. .

    Oh, my god!

    Someone has punched old Ben's ticket to Crazy Town.

    The conspiracy theorist is back this time in the person of 73 year old Ben Stein, ex-Nixon speechwriter and co-chair (along with Pat Buchanan) of the Nixon Apologist Club, a man who just presented us an alternate history to die for. Poor old Dick Nixon, picked on by the 'deep state', the media and the Dems. If only it wasn't for those damn tapes. He is right about one thing, it does sound eerily familiar.

    In Ben Stein World, Nixon is a persecuted hero and saint...

    "the greatest Peacemaker the nation has ever known..."

    He did 'open China' and 'save Israel' but at a price, he ended 'detente' with Russia and brought the US closer to the edge of nuclear war than since the Cuban missile crisis. He is also the president that secretly escalated bombing in North Vietnam in '71 and '72 and then lied about it to avoid public condemnation.

    "a man with stupendous accomplishments in foreign affairs..."

    Right, one of his major accomplishment like Trump's 'defeating ISIS, came when he sold the South Vietnamese down the river in Paris.

    "...a President who gave us the EPA..."

    Hilarious, and ironic, given that one of the first thing Trump did as president was emasculate the EPA.

    "...the greatest school desegregation there has ever been and brought America from chaos to order and progress..."

    Right, along with 'forced busing', a policy that led to white flight from the cities and even more segregation there than existed before.

    "That coup d’état ousted the President who won by the largest margin in history in 1972..."

    Ben like some here believe, hey, if this guy agrees with the things important to me, I can give him a pass when it comes to a few 'technical legalities. Those damn tapes.

    Nixon would and did agree, ‘If the President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal’.

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
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    1. {...}

      Do you want a crime? Do you want and incident that tells you all you need to know about Richard Nixon? Here it is...

      Recently declassified tapes and documents from President Nixon’s archives exploded a bombshell about how Nixon framed and slandered a distinguished U.S. military commander in Vietnam, Air Force Gen. John Lavelle.

      In 1972, Lavelle became Nixon’s fall guy for obeying what turned out to be the commander in chief’s own top-secret orders to expand the bombing of North Vietnam in late 1971 and early 1972.

      Nixon didn’t want to take the heat for that decision, unpopular with critics of the war—so Lavelle was sacrificed as the scapegoat, stripped of two of his four stars, and sacked...


      Did Nixon realize it was a bullshit, chicken-ass move? Sure he did.

      This decision clearly bothered Nixon. It was too late for remedial action, but Nixon’s conscience was obviously pricked after Lavelle was hung out to dry.

      Oval Office tapes released in recent years show Nixon telling National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger: "I don't want to hurt an innocent man” … "Frankly, Henry, I don't feel right about pushing him (Lavelle) into this thing and then, and then giving him a bad rap … "I just don't want him to be made a goat, goddammit."


      So despite this, did Nixon do anything to help reestablish Lavelle's reputation, grade, financial losses? Hell no.

      Yet, Nixon refused to ‘fess up that he had authorized the escalated bombings. In fact, he resorted to a bold-faced lie to hide his own guilt and finger Lavelle—telling a June 26, 1972 press conference the stepped-up assault on SAM missile sites in the north “wasn’t authorized … It was proper for (Lavelle) to be relieved and retired."

      Those damn tapes.

      Yet, Ben stein still argues...

      ‘If the President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal’.

      Time for Ben Stein to retire and enjoy his money.


      [Appendix 1 (From previously unpublished Nixon tapes)

      Nixon: "Gee, Henry, I sure wish I wasn't forced to stick it to Lavelle. He's been a good soldier. Loyal."

      Kissenger: "That's very noble of you, Mr. Nixon. It's unfair that you are forced to make these kinds of difficult decisions; but you know that the media, and Dems, and the 'Deep State' would hang you out to dry if they knew. Just think of it as Lavelle's turn in the barrel."

      Nixon: "I guess your right, Henry. Thanks. Say, on your way out, ask Rose Mary to bring me another cup of joe."


      .

      Delete

  8. MAASIVE Security Breach ...

    Even MORE MASSIVE attempt at a Cover Up


    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/13/17007892/rob-porter-white-house-story-what-we-know


    MASSIVE ... HISTORIC ...
    REALLY HISTORIC

    Security Breach & Cover Up

    ReplyDelete
  9. Both those 'portraits' of the Obamas are very dad.

    What we use to laugh at as 'the rat on the run' wanted poseter for Jack Hawkins was much better.

    Like Quirk's P.O., the wanted poster for breaking probation was good too. In the photo Quirk was really attractive to women. Not dangerous, it advised, watch out of scams of all kinds....

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sorry to read this -Reverse Trump Effect? Remington Arms Files For Chapter 11

    JAZZ SHAWPosted at 2:31 pm on February 13, 2018

    A particularly depressing bit of news from my old stomping grounds growing up crosses our desk today. Remington Arms, one of the nation’s most venerable manufacturers of firearms, is in serious financial trouble and has reached an agreement to file for bankruptcy protection. And according to Bloomberg’s coverage of this story, the main reason they’re citing for their fiscal woes is… Donald Trump.

    This particular case of assigning blame is probably different from ones you’ve seen in the past, however. Normally we’d hear about Washington passing some new regulation which harms businesses. In this case, they’re saying that President Trump is such a fan of protecting Second Amendment rights that people aren’t in as much of a rush to run out and buy firearms because, unlike during Obama’s tenure, they’re not worried that the government will be coming to take them away.....


    https://hotair.com/archives/2018/02/13/reverse-trump-effect-remington-arms-files-chapter-11/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Oh, and the lawsuits regarding a concerning a defective firing system mechanism on their signature 700 series rifle didn't help much.

      .

      Delete
    2. .

      ...the lawsuits concerning a defective firing system...

      Delete

  11. Pennsylvania governor rejects Republicans’ new congressional map


    ...
    Unless Pennsylvania's governor and lawmakers are able to work out their differences by Thursday, the state Supreme Court will take control of the redistricting process with the help of Nathaniel Persily, a redistricting expert at Stanford University who has worked on redistricting cases in a number of other states.


    The court will have to move quickly. Any new map will need to be in place before Pennsylvania voters head to the primaries in May.


    Republicans forced to comply with the Law.


    Har de har har

    ReplyDelete
  12. BIG hands, one extra finger.

    https://imagesvc.timeincapp.com/v3/mm/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com%2F2018%2F02%2Fbarack-obama-national-gallery-portrait1.jpg&w=1100&q=85

    Other than that, and just about everything else, your average run of the mill portrait.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nah, it's just a shadowing effect on the portrait.

      Delete
  13. American Thinker offers a chart vie Sheryl Attkinson for those who, likeQ Quirk are sailing uncharted seas -

    February 13, 2018
    FBI-gate: The Outlines of the Story Are Coming into Focus
    By Thomas Lifson

    Thanks to the work of smart and hardworking (non-mainstream) journalists, we can peek just a bit over the horizon and see where the story of the weaponization of the FBI via a senior-level cabal is going from here. I use the word "story" deliberately, because that is the way public opinion forms itself on major political affairs. The progressives in the media and politics have long understood this. The cast of the story is now set, and some dramatic plot points have been identified. The ending hasn't been written yet, of course, but the villains are identifying themselves or being exposed, and some of the heroes are emerging. We are on the cusp of a drama much bigger than Watergate breaking open, and its story elements are compelling.

    In the calm before the storm breaks, the mainstream media and the Democrat attack squad from the House Intel committee [i] are in the midst of utterly discrediting themselves. Once the story breaks into the open, indictments will be handed down, and the witnesses, hostile and cooperating, will be heard in hearings and in court. They have worked together to cover up and distract from the story, but the truth will out, and now it is becoming clear how that will happen.


    The fake controversy over the ten-page Schiff memo is keeping the morale of the #resistance crowd up, but Schiff himself will go down in history as the guy who kicked sand in the eyes of the investigators. All that media effort in pushing the phony narrative of Russia collusion will make them into dupes and laughingstocks, once the solid evidence is brought to light that a conspiracy to push that phony narrative was run with key members of the Clinton machine working hand in glove with the cabal.

    Sharyl Attkisson has done us a great favor in identifying the dramatis personae who formed the FBI "secret society" that protected Hillary and spied on Trump. She has organized a chart depicting the senior-level personnel changes at the Justice Department during the campaign, the Russia probe, and the Clinton email probe, highlighting in yellow the individuals James Comey appointed.....chart


    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/02/fbigate_the_outlines_of_the_story_are_coming_into_focus.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quirk if you can drive all the other writers out of your mind and just concentrate on what Sharyl is telling you all will become clearer and more focused in your mind.

      I'm almost certain she can help you.

      Always lookin' out for you......

      Delete
  14. The FBI director, Chris Wray, contradicted the White House on Tuesday about when the bureau had completed a background investigation of former Donald Trump aide Rob Porter, who resigned last week following allegations of domestic violence.

    ...

    The White House deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, last week blamed what he said was an incomplete FBI inquiry for the failure to identify the alleged abuser.

    “In the case of Rob Porter, we relied on the background check investigative process,” Shah said on 8 February, in his first-ever turn at the Brady briefing room lectern. “That process hadn’t been completed, so we were relying on the information that we had.”

    Wray contradicted that account Tuesday.

    FBI Director Wray on Rob Porter background investigation: "We administratively closed the file in January. And then earlier this month we received some additional information and we passed that on as well."

    ReplyDelete
  15. .

    Conspiracies, and cabals, and 'secret societies', oh my!

    Thanks to the work of smart and hardworking (non-mainstream) journalists, we can peek just a bit over the horizon and see where the story of the weaponization of the FBI via a senior-level cabal is going from here.

    Right. Over the horizon, past the rainbow, and into La La Land.

    I guess Lifson and Ms. Atkisson haven't heard the 'secret society' story has ben debunked. Gotta try to keep up when you are a member of the (non-mainstream) journalism. Or, maybe not.

    Bob, do you ever get tired of embarrassing yourself with the over-hyping and over-promising?

    .

    ReplyDelete


  16. Could it be those 250,000 refugees from Puerto Rico making their presence known?


    For the third Florida bellwether election in a row, the Republican candidate lost to the Democrat, giving activists and elites in both parties a sense that the GOP’s political grip is slipping in the nation’s largest swing state heading into President Donald Trump’s first midterm election.


    Or just a new found distaste for the Party of Trump?


    Aside from her big 7.4 percentage-point win, what made Margaret Good’s victory Tuesday night over Republican James Buchanan so significant was that it took place in Florida’s 72nd House District. It had been held by a Republican in Sarasota County, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 12,000, or about 10 percentage points. Buchanan, the son of local Congressman Vern Buchanan, also had an advantage in name ID.

    And Trump had carried the district by 4.6 percentage points in a state that he won by just 1.2 points in November.

    But now Trump is too toxic even for Sarasota, say Democrats ...


    It would be better, for Republicans, if it was a Puerto Rican wave.
    But, what if 2018 is the "Year of the Woman" in electoral politics?

    What if "College Educated White Women" continue the Dump Trump trend ...

    It will lead to Impeachment, come 2019.

    Clinton redux, but in the first term



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And the "Punchline" of Mr Mueller's "Joke" has yet to be told!

      Delete
  17. Just trying to be of some help, Quirk. I expected and anticipated you would run into some initial psychological resistance to the new and unknown. It's the way people always have been when confronting the new.

    We can work on it together and get you through and up to speed.

    There has to be at least a minimal level of co-operation on your part though, please for you to keep that in mind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      I expected and anticipated you would run into some initial psychological resistance to the new and unknown.

      New and unknown?

      Nonsense.

      There is nothing new or unknown here. We have been seeing it here for years, Deuce and his immigrants, Doug and his MSM, you and your 'muzzies'. There's nothing new in that. Autre? Bizarre? Conspiracy theories? Sure. New and unknown, naw. It's become all too commonplace and predictable.

      .

      .

      Delete
    2. All of ours beat "They are all Dicks" as a topic.

      It that one doesn't tire a reader easily....

      Delete
  18. I can't get Fox or any of the others today. Been down all day.

    Unusual, and irritating.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You'll have to become a "reader", bobbie.
      Even if it is a strain for your brain.

      Delete
  19. One most ponder ....
    How will this be blamed on Mr Comey, or Mr Mueller, by the Trumpets?

    FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday contradicted the White House’s account of its handling of domestic abuse allegations against former top Trump aide Rob Porter, setting off a new round of controversy for the embattled administration.

    In testimony on Capitol Hill, Wray said the FBI delivered its first report on Porter to the White House in March 2017, months before officials said they first learned about problems during his background check for a security clearance.

    Wray told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the bureau “administratively closed the file” on Porter last month, undercutting claims by White House officials that the background check was “still ongoing” at the time the allegations surfaced publicly


    Mr Wray being the "Best" possible Director of the FBI, having been appointed by the President.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      The cabal must have chosen Wray to attack Trump on this issue in their Sunday morning Secret Society meeting and brunch (followed by latest video on Big Foot hunts).

      .

      Delete
    2. I notice right off your use of the word 'cabal'.

      The what does this word 'cabal' reference in your usage of it ?

      It might open a door, even if only a closet door, into your strange mind.

      Delete
    3. And if you have video of Big Foot hunts please share.

      Delete
    4. .

      Why, it's used in the same way Mr. Lifson uses it in the AT link you put up.

      It's not a word I use often since I am not prone to conspiracy theories. However, it seemed a perfect work with which to mock you nitwits.

      .

      Delete

  20. MASSIVE SECURITY BREACH

    @ 1600 Pennsylvania Ave


    Promises Made - Promises Broken

    ReplyDelete
  21. .

    Trump's lawyer says he paid that porn star the $130,000 out of his own pocket.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Generous.

      What's the going rate in Detroit ?

      Two hundred bucks ?

      Delete
  22. .

    Another Political Lynching?


    Netanyahu says he is being framed in a politically motivated lynching

    Netanyahu: I am not a crook

    JERUSALEM — Israeli police on Tuesday recommended that Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted on bribery and breach of trust charges in a pair of corruption cases, dealing an embarrassing blow to the embattled prime minister that is likely to fuel calls for him to step down.

    Netanyahu angrily rejected the accusations, which included accepting nearly $300,000 in gifts from a pair of billionaires. He accused police of being on a witch hunt, vowed to remain in office and even seek re-election.

    "I will continue to lead the state of Israel responsibly and loyally as long as you, the citizens of Israel choose me to lead you," an ashen-faced Netanyahu said in a televised address. "I am sure that the truth will come to light. And I am sure that also in the next election that will take place on time I will win your trust again with God's help."

    The recommendations marked a dramatic ending to a months-long investigation into allegations that Netanyahu accepted gifts from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer, and suspicions that Netanyahu offered to give preferential treatment to a newspaper publisher in exchange for favorable coverage.

    The recommendations now go to Attorney General Avihai Mendelblit, who will review the material before deciding whether to file charges. Netanyahu can remain in office during that process, which could drag on for months.

    But with a cloud hanging over his head, he could soon find himself facing calls to step aside. During similar circumstances a decade ago, Netanyahu, as opposition leader, urged then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign during a police investigation, saying a leader "sunk up to his neck in interrogations" could not govern properly...


    .

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  23. .

    Two Peas in a Pod?

    With annexation gaffe, Netanyahu blunders into first real crisis with Trump

    Netanyahu raises hackles in Israel and in Washington by implying he has been having discussion with the US on annexing parts of the occupied territories

    Not since blaming the mufti for the Holocaust has Netanyahu made such easily refutable claims, and the rare misstep suggests he may be letting legal woes get the best of him

    Netanyahu’s surprising blunder is likely the result of two separate problems he faces: mounting political pressure from his pro-settlement constituency, and the sword of Damocles that is the expected police recommendation that he be indicted on two counts of corruption. The more he is pushed into a corner by the corruption probes, the more he may seek to court the pro-settlement crowd to rally around him...


    .

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