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."

Saturday, April 07, 2018

Welcome to the FBI, an Opposition Research Shop for the Hillary Campaign

Spectator

The left used to get very worked up about the CIA’s interference in foreign elections. Liberals would quote solemnly the work of Philip Agee, a CIA turncoat who wrote articles and books about the agency’s manipulation of this or that foreign election. But these days ACLU-style liberals shrug at the meddling of John Brennan’s CIA in the 2016 American election, mischief that the FBI is still trying to conceal.

It was reported recently that the FBI refuses to show Congressman Devin Nunes an unredacted copy of the origination document that triggered the probe into the Trump campaign. What is the FBI hiding? Paradoxically, nothing — that is, no classified information showing collusion between Trump and Russia. The FBI is simply trying to hide the embarrassingly partisan origins of its spying on the Trump campaign.

Were the redactions covering material harmful to Trump, that material would have been leaked by now. So the redactions can only be concealing the fingerprints of Hillary’s partisans in the Obama administration. The FBI will eventually have to fess up to the politicization to which it succumbed — that the most virulent Hillary partisan imaginable, John Brennan, had put pressure on FBI officials to start the probe, that a Trump hater, Peter Strzok, formally opened up the probe, that the smears of a paid opposition researcher for Hillary, Christopher Steele, contributed to the probe, that scandalous “intelligence-sharing” between Brennan and foreign intelligence agencies shaped the probe, and that FBI officials suspected the probe was unfounded but pursued it anyways at the insistence of Obama officials.

The FBI says it is redacting “sensitive information.” That’s true in an ironic sense: the FBI is very sensitive about the information, in that it illuminates the agency’s transformation into an opposition research shop for the Hillary campaign. Take her partisans out of the picture and the probe would never have started.
In an attempt to sanitize the probe, the media has attributed its origin to a drunken conversation between an Aussie diplomat and a minor Trump campaign volunteer. But that’s a joke. Maybe the FBI threw that into the pot at the last minute, but John Brennan had been stirring it for months before then. As Brennan told Congress, “we were uncovering information intelligence about interactions and contacts between U.S. persons and the Russians. And as we came upon that, we would share it with the bureau.” Notice his use of “we” in that statement. By “we,” Brennan meant his retinue of Hillary partisans at the CIA who had been shaking foreign intelligence agencies down for any dirt on Trump.

The British intelligence, in cahoots with Brennan and Christopher Steele (who was on Hillary’s payroll), figured largely into this mischief. In all likelihood it will come out that the “information” British intelligence shared with Brennan was just recycled Steele material. The “allies tipped us off to Trump-Russian collusion” storyline is a sham, designed to distract attention from a chain of Hillary partisans who in the thick of a campaign were circulating smears among themselves and calling it “intelligence sharing.”

It was the blinding, viscerally personal hatred of Brennan for Trump, perhaps more than anything else, that turned all those phony “tips” into a counterintelligence probe. In the grip of that kind of feverish antipathy, combined with his desire to continue as CIA director under Hillary, Brennan could convince himself of any Trump monstrosity and made it his mission to prod the FBI into harassing him. Anyone who doubts that hatred should just take a look at Brennan’s Twitter account these days. This week he is rattling on about Trump’s “self adoration.” Also take a look at the people he is following on Twitter. They make up most of the cast of Obamagate, from James Comey to Samantha Power to Sally Yates to Susan Rice, not to mention the newest cast member, Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough, whose exposure is yet another product of Nunes’s refusal to accept redacted material from the FBI/Justice Department.

But it wasn’t enough for Brennan to push the FBI investigation. He also had to publicize it, which he achieved through another person in Christopher Steele’s orbit, Senator Harry Reid, whose Super PAC, as the Daily Caller reports, was run by the very Hillary lawyer who hired Steele’s services. Brennan briefed Reid on the beginnings of the FBI investigation he instigated, knowing that Reid would leak the contents of the briefing to the press.

About this astounding meddling in an election by a CIA director, the Philip Agees of the left have fallen completely silent. But that makes sense. After all, how can old radicals inveigh against the CIA as a “wilderness of mirrors” when it is John Brennan’s reflection in it?

Devin Nunes (Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons)

18 comments:

  1. Do we really need an FBI ?

    Well, yes, alas, for some things.

    At least I can't think of a substitute that comes readily to mind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CIA Director Once Voted for Communist Presidential Candidate
    freebeacon.com/politics/cia-director-once-voted-for-communist-presidential-candidate/
    Sep 21, 2016 - CIA Director John Brennan voted for the Communist Party candidate in the 1976 presidential election. Brennan told a congressional panel last week that he "froze" while taking a CIA polygraph test four years later when the questioner asked him if he had ever worked with or for a group that was "dedicated ...

    Was CIA Director Brennan's 1976 Vote for a Communist Just a ...
    https://www.thenewamerican.com/.../24132-was-cia-director-brennan-s-1976-vote-for...
    Sep 26, 2016 - During a panel discussion Thursday at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual conference, CIA Director John Brennan (shown) was trying to make the point that just because an individual has an “activist” background, that wouldn't, or shouldn't, keep him from working for the federal ...
    CIA Director John Brennan Proudly Acknowledges That He Once ...

    https://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2016/09/21/cia-brennan-voted-for-communist/
    Sep 21, 2016 - Remarking on this last week during a panel discussion at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual conference, Brennan said: “I froze.... This was back in 1980, and I thought back to a previous election where I voted, and I voted for the Communist Party candidate." Brennan was responding to a ...


    Never trust a confused young man, ever. The switches in the noggin are out of whack. And always will be....

    ReplyDelete
  3. .

    He could insist on answering questions in writing, and if Mueller doesn't accept that he could fire the son of a bitch.

    Possible, but problematic.

    To get rid of Mueller, he would have to first fire Rosenstein something he might love to do but hasn't because of the political implications.

    His team could try negotiating an agreement to just submit questions in writing. That hasn't happened yet. There are questions of intent and state of mind Mueller would be interested in that would likely be hard to ascertain from written answers. That could be a reason an agreement hasn't been reached yet.

    Trump could go and plead the 5th. He could go and say he doesn't remember any of the details. Both carry political risks.

    He could refuse to go. But if he does that and Mueller issues a subpoena it turns into an extended legal battle that likely would end up in SCOTUS. Trump has a number of legal arguments he could use. Mueller has some precedent behind him. Trump has a conservative Supreme Court (though I don't know exactly what that would mean). However, in the past SCOTUS has ruled for the prosecutor as in the case of ordering Nixon to turn over his tapes. Result? A crap shoot.

    Either way it goes, this will likely take awhile. Shouldn't make a difference to Trump's base and the conspiracy theorists here but is probably a negative for Trump in general.

    .

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  4. The FBI refuses to show Congressman Devin Nunes an unredacted copy of the origination document that triggered the probe into the Trump campaign.

    What is the FBI hiding?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Vietnam Joins Team American

    Putin Is Overmatched And Frightened

    The tables are turning on Moscow. Putin for a few years intimidated the West. He took Crimea by force, fomented and fed a separatist war in Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region, and moved decisively into the Syria wars when former U.S. President Barack Obama stood back.

    Russia still has Crimea but is stalemated in the Donbas, and economic sanctions imposed for these and other aggressive policies are working. In Syria, the Iranians have military and political influence at least on a par with Moscow.

    The result of Putin’s gambles is what strategic theory predicts. An aggressive great power either intimidates smaller powers or provokes a coalition against it. The same is happening in Asia, where China is provoking a coalition of Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. In both cases, however, it is the United States that anchors the smaller country alliances. American leadership in the form of geostrategic guarantees against China and Russia is in the American national interest.

    https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2018/04/putin-overmatched-frightened/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Donald has invited The Pooty to an arms race.

      "You want to have an arms race ? We'll win."

      The Donald to Pooty

      Delete
    2. It's all Yeltsin's fault for turning things over to Pooty.

      Delete
    3. .

      Are you nutz?

      I guess in Trump-world an arms race is a good thing (just as a trade war is a 'good thing').

      Let's see. Russia took Crimea and still has it. They are still supporting the opposition in Ukraine. The Russian's, Turkey, and oh yea, Iran are currently talking about how to manage spheres of influence in Syria while the US is talking of withdrawing.

      But at least Iran the biggest bugaboo the US and our masters in Israel have has equal influence with Russia in Syria.

      Our relationship with South Korea and Japan hasn't changed in the last 50 years. While the US draws closer to Vietnam Russia draws closer to China.

      We already spend more on the military than the next 10 countries combined; yet, in the last two year's we've increased our military spending by double digits at the expense of productive investment in the education and health and welfare of our population while increasing our deficits in the process. This at a time we are adding a $ trillion to out national debt every two years a trend projected to continue for the foreseeable future.

      Right, we're doing super.

      In cold wars and trade wars, nobody wins.

      .

      Delete
    4. .

      Plus, as we assume the role of Grasshopper to China's Ant, our infrastructure crumbles and our roads and bridges we drive on (for now) fall apart as Trump proves willing to sacrifice everything else for a wall across our southern border.

      Genius.

      .

      Delete
    5. .

      The alt-right fairy tales continue.

      .

      Delete
  6. Try to catch Judge Jeanine's weekend show.

    She's hot as red hot iron, fellers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Guest: White House Spokesman Hogan Gidley.

      Love that name !

      Delete
  7. AHA!

    Dick Morris, often featured here, has it right. On Judge Jeanine he said Trump would have to be INSANE to sit down for a talk with Mueller. He said Trump should insist on written questions answered by written answers, and that is that.

    Mueller has no rationale not to accept that arrangement, other than he wants to entrap The Donald.

    Dick Morris is correct.

    Quirk is, well, a little confused on the matter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Further the story about Trump practicing replies to oral questions doesn't seem to have any real source at all.

      Where did that come from, The Washington Compost ?

      Delete
  8. Saturn Devouring His Children

    http://www.19thcenturyart-facos.com/artwork/saturn-devouring-his-children

    aka The Donald Devouring Another Cabinet Minister

    ReplyDelete