Culture Of Treason

Two sets of laws

Posted on April 17, 2020April 17, 2020 by Mike

Averting our eyes from the unpleasant truth.

There should not be two standards of justice in this nation—a slap on the wrist for the politically correct who do wrong, while Gen. Michael Flynn’s whole life has been upended for allegedly lying to the FBI.

Flynn has lost his house, livelihood, and reputation. Meanwhile, in contrast, there is a high ranking FBI attorney who allegedly doctored an email to obtain a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrant for raw political sabotage, who has yet to be punished.

Writing over the weekend an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (April 11-12, 2020), Sen. Ron Johnson, (R) Wisconsin, noted: “The Steele dossier already ranks as one of the dirtiest political tricks of all time.” The falsified Steele dossier became the pretext by which some FBI officials appear to have obtained FISA warrants.

How can this nation continue to have two standards of law and order? Two standards of judgment? Punishment of conservatives for alleged wrong-doing versus wrist-slapping of liberals for woeful violations of the law.

Dr. Frank Wright, the president of D. James Kennedy Ministries, points out, “Lying has become so endemic in our time that many times when some politicians speak, it’s a given that some of what they say is not necessarily the truth—but rather it’s so-called spin. However, we’ve learned recently that there is serious deception among key government leaders—even in the FBI.”

“MANY” times, is it? Only “SOME” of what they say? We only learned of the FBI’s systemic malevolence “recently”? You’re either being way too kind here, or you’re perilously naive.

Veteran journalist and author Robert Knight said to me in an interview for Christian television: “When I was growing up the FBI were the heroes….and now the FBI has grown into this enormous organization whose powers are far-reaching, and whose powers could be abused if political partisans get a hold of it, which apparently is exactly what has happened.”

“COULD be abused”? “IF political partisans” etc? Can anyone possibly imagine that such wholesale, Pollyanna-ish shying away from obvious realities might be the right way to deal with them effectively?

Knight added, “I don’t recall any time in American history where the FBI was used as a blunt political instrument.”

Then you know very, very little about the FBI, my friend. Just because you thought of the FBI as “the heroes” when you were growing up doesn’t mean they actually were. Read up on how J Edgar Hoover ran the organization and you should realize that the problem was always your too-credulous perception of it. The FBI really hasn’t changed all that much, other than to become bigger and more powerful over time. Reckless, arrogant thugs they were, and reckless, arrogant thugs they will remain.

“There’s a pattern of corruption here that’s far and deep. And Americans are wondering if anybody’s ever going to be punished for it.” Bob said these words in the summer of 2018. To my knowledge, no one involved on the left has yet been punished.

Oh, I seriously doubt many Real Americans who weren’t born yesterday are really wondering all that much about it, Bob. They’re pretty confident that no Leftist Deep Stater will ever be punished for any infamy they might commit, either heinous or trivial. Unfortunately, they have plenty of evidence to back up their bitter cynicism, I’m afraid.

Rain on the parade

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 by Mike

A splash of cold water on that slim hope I was talking about the other day.

Once again, it was goosebumps for diehards when investigative reporter John Solomon told Fox News host Sean Hannity that U.S. Attorney John Durham was issuing subpoenas on behalf of a grand jury. Twitter pulses raced. Former CIA Director John Brennan was closer than ever to a rockpile in prison stripes, wasn’t he? Comey, Ohr, Kramer, Simpson, Clinton were sweating bullets, right?

I will be jubilant if I’m wrong, but I continue to doubt it. I don’t expect the anti-Trump conspirators to be indicted and tried for sedition or treason or any other serious crime by Attorney General William Barr’s Department of Justice. Nothing we have seen to date points to it.

What should also temper expectations, however, is a hard look at history. When it comes to the Swamp’s subversion of the Republic, issuing subpoenas to bring witnesses before a grand jury means nothing more than issuing subpoenas to bring witnesses before a grand jury. Indictments, trials, and convictions have always been exceedingly rare.

Consider the grand jury convened in the spring of 1947 to hear sensational charges of subversion inside the federal government by Elizabeth Bentley, a key American defector from Soviet intelligence. Ex-KGB courier Bentley would offer testimony against numerous federal government officials, bureaucrats, and others from those early days of the Swamp in connection with espionage rings run inside the U.S. government by Soviet intelligence.

Although the names were completely unknown to the public at the time, the Bentley grand jury witness roster was, as Evans and Romerstein write, “a spectacular line-up, an all-star team of Soviet agents, Communists and close-in fellow travellers.”

As the list demonstrates, this was indeed a Who’s Who of traitors working for Stalin, for the KGB, for communism and globalism inside and around the federal government, including Soviet agents Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. These two top FDR administration officials were instrumental in the creation of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, helming them both, respectively, in the globalist institutions’ early days.

The most stunning thing about the Bentley grand jury witness list, however, is that no one on it, not even the later-notorious Hiss or White, was indicted for anything.

Why were there no indictments? The reason is quite simple. The government failed to call a witness who could corroborate any of Bentley’s grave charges even though such a witness was already well known to it. That witness was Whittaker Chambers. His testimony about Hiss and White alone would have been crucial to the federal case. “Yet though the FBI was well aware of what Chambers knew and could have told the grand jury,” the authors write, “for over a year prosecutors refused to call him. Hence no second witness in the case—hence no indictments.”

Why didn’t prosecutors call Chambers? FBI records, Evans and Romerstein write, “provide a suggestive picture of attitudes at the Justice Department that guided the grand jury process.”

For example, federal prosecutor Thomas Donegan “was of the opinion Chambers testimony would not be helpful.” Helpful to what?

Oh, I’m pretty sure we can guess the answer to that one easily enough.

Given the FBI’s interview with Chambers to date, it would have been clear that Chambers’ testimony would have been exceedingly “helpful” in pursuit of indictments. Even after Chambers and Hiss sensationally battled in Congress in August of 1948, however, prosecutors refused to call “the former Soviet courier who would become the most famous witness in the Cold War.”

The record indicates that the Department of Justice did not want indictments.

I’m trying real hard to come up with a solid reason to believe that this time around might be different, but I’m coming up empty. Then as now as ever as always, the Deep State looks after its own.

The link I used above is to an archive.is snapshot of the original, which is locked away behind a paywall. As such, it may or may not work for ya, I dunno.

Is this something?

Posted on April 10, 2020April 11, 2020 by Mike

I remain skeptical, but my skepticism felt a mite woozy for a sec just now.

AND I LOVE IT.

Laura Ingraham broadcasts the second part of her interview with AG Bill Barr (majority transcribed below). In this segment we can get a sense of where the DOJ is going with the ongoing investigations by U.S. Attorney John Durham into spygate and the current status of FISA against the backdrop of the prior administration abuse.

BARR – “I think the president did the right thing in removing Atkinson. From the vantage point of the Dept. of Justice, he had interpreted his statute; which is a fairly narrow statute that gave him jurisdiction over wrong-doing by intelligence people; and tried to turn it into a commission to explore anything in the government, and immediately report it to congress without letting the executive branch look at it and determine whether there was any problem. He was told this in a letter from the department of justice, and he is obliged to follow the interpretation of the department of justice, and he ignored it. So I think the President was correct in firing him.”

INGRAHAM – What can you tell us about the state of John Durham’s investigation? People have been waiting for the, the final report, on what happened with this, what can you tell us?

BARR – “Well I think a report y’know, may be, and probably will be, a by-product of his activity; but his primary focus isn’t to prepare a report, he is looking to bring to justice people who were engaged in abuses if he can show that there were criminal violations; and that’s what the focus is on. And, uh, as you know, being a lawyer yourself, building these cases, especially the sprawling case we have between us that went on for two or three years here, uh…, it takes some time, it takes some time to build the case.”

“So he’s diligently pursuing it, uh.. My own view is that, uh, the evidence shows that we’re not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness, there was something far more troubling here; and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted.”

INGRAHAM – “The president is very frustrated, I think you, you obviously know that; about Andrew McCabe, uh, he believes that people like McCabe and others just were able to basically flout the laws, and so far with impunity.”

BARR – “I think the president has every right to be frustrated, because I think what happened to him was one of the greatest travesties in American history. Without any basis uh, they, uh, they started this investigation of his campaign; and even more concerning actually, is what happened after the campaign; a whole pattern of events while he was President. uh, So I, to sabotage the presidency; and I think that, uh, or at least had the effect of sabotaging the presidency.”

As I said, I remain skeptical, and will hold to my previous assertions that my faith that justice might be served will only be restored by seeing higher-level Deep State weasels frogmarched off for a stint in the greybar hotel wearing those pretty chrome bracelets with the short chain connecting them around their wrists, helped along on their journey by a close-packed phalanx of burly, unsmiling gentlemen in dark suits and sunglasses.

Admittedly, though, Barr made all the right noises in this interview, and he has been all along. Maybe it’s all just some sort of bait-and-switch, hide-the-sausage connivance or something, a ploy to keep stringing us all along for a while longer. But those are some pretty strong words, the parts I boldfaced especially, and they’re enough to keep hope a-flickering even yet. We’ll see, I guess.

Update! More support for cautious optimism.

First of all, it seems apparent that the Durham investigation has completed most of its evidence gathering–whether documentary or through interviews. That doesn’t mean the investigation is finished. There is also the question of putting together a prosecutive case, and that will probably involve complicated negotiations with the lawyers for the persons being investigated. That, in turn, could lead to further substantive investigation. But the bottom line is that at this point Barr appears confident that he knows what happened and, most likely, who was behind it. As Barr says, this is a “sprawling” case.

Second, Barr several times refers to things that “they” did. Not things that “were done.” So, multiple human perpetrators. That points toward the strong likelihood that a conspiracy case is being pursued that will encompass an attempt to “sabotage the presidency.” As Barr says, this is a “sprawling” case. And this case is very much focused on developing a criminal prosecution of the conspirators.

Third, Barr says that, while Durham’s “primary focus” is not on preparing a report, a report will “probably” result from Durham’s investigation. That’s important. IMO, the American people deserve a report that lays out the narrative of how a group of highly placed federal government operatives conspired to “sabotage the presidency.” Such a report would be unusual coming from a prosecutor, but this is an unusual case that goes to the heart of our constitutional order. The American people deserve to have a report that they can read and readily understand, rather than having to glean the narrative from complicated testimony, court proceedings, and documents written in bureacratic language and, possibly, released without full context. The release of the Papadopoulos interview is a down payment, as are no doubt the firings of corrupt Deep State operatives such as Dan Coats, Michael Atkinson, and others.

We can but hope. And then, should our hope prove vain, we can but head to Mordor On The Potomac en masse with pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers, and plenty of good, stout rope.

Trump FINALLY cleaning house?

Posted on April 9, 2020April 9, 2020 by Mike

Mucking out the stalls in the Deep State stables.

President Trump often refers to government waste as part of the Washington “swamp” he has vowed to drain – but the phrase has also become shorthand for bureaucratic resistance to his agenda and policies. Putting inspectors general, or IGs, under the microscope is the latest push in Trump’s post-impeachment purge of government officials whom the president and his conservative supporters say have worked to undermine his agenda and sabotage political appointees’ efforts to carry it out, several sources familiar with the discussions have told RealClearPolitics.

Heightened monitoring of IG investigations and their findings has yet to lead to anyone’s ouster, but key administration officials and Trump allies are urging the president to do some housecleaning and get rid of Obama-era watchdogs sprinkled throughout the administration. Several acting inspectors general appointed during the Obama administration are still operating at key government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Treasury Department.

“The federal bureaucracy has gone to war with the Trump administration, and their people have targeted and taken out many Trump’s officials,” a former White House official told RCP. “Those who are naturally responsible are the IGs, and they are complicit in their inaction.”

“The IGs, many put in place by the Obama administration, empower the deep state to go after the administration. … It’s absolutely nuts,” the former official added. “If [officials] were scared of the consequences of breaking the law, they wouldn’t go after the Trump administration like they do. That’s why you have the deep state gone wild. No one is watching the watchdogs.”

Note that this article is from March 10th. Now let’s have the author bring us up to date:

Breaking: Trump is firing 7 IGs in one fail swoop, sources confirm to @RealClearNews. Most likely will be the IGs that were appointed by Pres. Obama or beforehand. He wants his own people in those positions now. Trump during his briefing said he has "put in 7 names" for IGs.

— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) April 7, 2020

Good. At the risk of sounding like a broken record here, I’ll say it yet again: By now, there should not be so much as a single Obama stay-behind left in place anywhere in the Executive branch. Period. Hopefully, Trump is thinking of this as nothing more than a good, if way overdue, start.

Trump’s biggest blunder has been to let these ill-intentioned saboteurs keep their jobs; he shouldn’t have, and that mistake has proven very expensive indeed—not just for him and his agenda, but for the entire nation. Cristina reminds us that Reagan, at least, wasn’t suckered by the nefarious Deep State weasels:

Flashback: On day one of his administration president Ronald Reagan fired all IGs. The usual suspects were up in arms but the Reagan presidency went on just fine. Hiring or firing IGs is the president’s prerogative.

On Inauguration Day, Mr. Reagan sent notice to Congress that he had removed 13 inspectors general and two acting inspectors general in 15 agencies.

He said that the discovery of fraud, waste and mismanagement of Federal funds was an ”important priority” of his Administration and that it was essential for him to have the ”fullest confidence” in the ability and integrity of each inspector general.

Why, it’s almost as if the President thinks he might have some kind of influence over the Executive Branch or something, innit? But we know that’s a purely preposterous notion, risible on its very face. After all, no less an expert on the Constitution’s explicit separation-of-powers mandate than Adam Schitt says so.

Schiff: President Trump’s decision to fire Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson is yet another blatant attempt by the President to gut the independence of the Intelligence Community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) April 4, 2020

Quick civics lesson for partisan-axe-grinding shitlib ignorami: the “intelligence community” isn’t supposed to be “independent,” actually. It is but one subdivision of what is known as the Executive Branch. Its personnel serve at the pleasure of their boss—the President—one of whose job titles is Chief Executive. So in other words, Trump can fire any of ’em; he can fire none of ’em; or he can fire every single gott-damned one of ’em, entirely at his own discretion or whim. For any reason, or for no reason at all. And whichever route he chooses to go, the Congress has not one single gott-damned thing to say about it. Period, full stop, end of fucking story.

Or, cutting right to the chase: Fuck off and die, Shitthead. Five minutes ago wouldn’t be soon enough to suit me.

China syndrome

Posted on March 22, 2020March 22, 2020 by Mike

Tucker expands on some of those Bigger Problems I mentioned below.

There are serious long-term problems facing America, as we’ve told you about for years on this show. Thanks to outsourcing, this country no longer has the same reserve of stable middle-class manufacturing jobs we did even 30 years ago.

In coastal cities, housing has become astronomically expensive. Prices are rising far quicker than wage growth. And most tragically, an opioid epidemic kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. One of the chief reasons for that is a synthetic opiate called fentanyl that is smuggled in from abroad.

Now, these might seem like unrelated problems, but they’re not. A single theme unites them — a systematic decision by many of our country’s most powerful leaders to sell out America to China.

Those jobs that were outsourced, they went to China. Those rising home prices, all-cash Chinese buyers are a major contributor to that, though it’s almost never said out loud. Fentanyl — made in China with the knowledge and tacit approval of the Chinese Communist Party.

China is no longer simply an economic rival of the United States; it’s becoming a dangerous enemy. But instead of protecting us from this threat, an existential one, our leadership class collaborates with the other side.

The scariest part is that as China has grown more powerful, America has grown more dependent on it. Outsourcing our manufacturing power brought American companies big short-term profits. Head to Florida, and you’ll see the houses they’ve built with those profits. But in the long run, that decision made this country dangerously dependent on a nation that seeks to displace us on the world stage.

The saddest and most infuriating part is that none of this needed to happen in the first place. China didn’t just one day magically overtake us. Our leaders made that possible. They abetted it. They profited from it. They betrayed us.

And Americans voted for ’em anyway, and will again too. Which makes this depressing splash of cold-water reality look more relevant than ever:

Justice delayed is justice denied

Posted on March 16, 2020March 17, 2020 by Mike

Just do it, Mr Prez’nit, sir.

So now it is reported that, after destroying his life & the life of his wonderful family (and many others also), the FBI, working in conjunction with the Justice Department, has “lost” the records of General Michael Flynn. How convenient. I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2020

This can’t come soon enough. Who wouldn’t be outraged at public servants, with tremendous power over citizens’ freedom, being free to lose records as they please and still expect court systems to uphold their charges and recommendations? Incompetence fine for me, charges stick like glue to you?

It’s an absolute outrage that the FBI in this electronic age can “lose” a record at all. These people ought not to be able to file anything at all until all their notes are archived, documented, and backed up. That’s just basic. They’re required to follow the law, same as all the people they charge, and if they can’t keep a record, it’s time to punish them and throw each and every one of their claims in the trash. Keeping a record is basic; it dates back to the bureaucrats of the Egyptian papyrus era.

And here’s the real thing: nobody loses records like this anyway. What we are seeing is a cover-up. Got some records that make you look bad? Quick, lose them. How convenient to hide dishonesty.

I repeat: when all the “mistakes” conveniently cut in only one direction, to the detriment of only one side in a dispute, then they aren’t “mistakes” at all.

Backstory update! You’ll doubtless be shocked—SHOCKED!—at who’s behind the persecution of Flynn, and why.

The long suffering General Michael Flynn served briefly as President Trump’s National Security Advisor (NSA). In order to understand Flynn’s long legal journey over the last three years, one must be aware of the animosity President Obama and his top intelligence officials felt toward him.

Flynn had served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during the Obama Administration from July 2012 to August 2014. Throughout his tenure, Flynn found himself strongly and frequently “at odds with the administration’s policies on ISIS and the Iran nuclear deal, among other things, which put him at odds with the Obama-friendly deep state.” Following his ouster, Flynn’s public remarks deepened the rift. For instance, in November 2015 during an appearance on Fox News, ” Flynn called for an investigation into the ISIS intel-skewing scandal, recommending that it “start right at the top.”

SHOCKING! as all that is, you’ll be even more SHOCKED! to see that Paragon Of Moral Virtue James Comey rears his ugly, ugly head, as do others of his fellow Klown Kar Koup conspirators. In sum:

Okay, boys, so tell us again why the government continued to prosecute Flynn. Solomon explains that U.S. District Judge Emmett Sullivan, who has presided over the case has “so far has concluded that the exoneration of Flynn on the Russia collusion charge wasn’t relevant to his conviction since he pled guilty to a different crime, making a false statement to the FBI.”

Not relevant? He lied to the FBI about a crime he didn’t commit?

Flynn was caught in a perjury trap. The FBI had been looking for a way to charge him with a crime. Although they would have preferred Russian collusion, they settled for lying to the FBI.

So, ten days into Trump’s presidency, the FBI knows that General Flynn did not collude with the Russians. Yet via leaks to the media, the most notable being The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, Americans were led to believe the opposite. Ignatius published excerpts from Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition and presented a “false storyline of Flynn as a Russian stooge was broadcasted across the nation.”

As Vaughan says, the WaPo leak was an actual, by-God felony—“the only serious crime to have emerged in the Russia investigation“, according to Deb Heine way back in 2018. The disgusting denouement:

Solomon spoke to Powell and was told the DOJ provided her with “three sentences from the DOJ memo.” Powell “has been unable to get the full document.”

Uncle Peter, my smelling salts!!

“It’s just horrible,” Powell said. “They gave us a little three line summary of it and the letter and told us it existed but have refused to give us the actual document, which I know means there’s a lot of other information in it that would be helpful to us.”

I’d say that one’s about as safe as assumptions ever come, yeah.

This isn’t the totality of what General Flynn has endured over the last three years, but it provides a good understanding of what Obama’s lieutenants set in motion at the end of his administration. The Mueller team continued the farce, finally forcing Flynn into pleading guilty to one charge of lying to the FBI.

If anyone deserves a pardon, it is this man, who served this country for 33 years. But, at this point, it would almost be better to force the holdovers from the Mueller team to answer for the missing documents and all of their lies.

Now now, methinks you might oughta embrace the healing power of “and” there, Miss Liz’beth; t’ain’t no reason it can’t be both, you know. In truth, it MUST be both, if even the most infinitesimal degree of faith and trust in American justice and the institutions charged with upholding it is ever to be restored. At the very, very least, though, Trump MUST pardon Flynn, sans condition or caveat, and let the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Left howl itself bloody-throated over it. They’re going to anyway, which by itself is confirmation that it’s the right thing to do.

Civility now not!

Posted on March 6, 2020March 6, 2020 by Mike

Hate speech and explicit threats of violence from “statesmen” Chuckles Schemer.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to face censorship for threatening Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

Schumer is facing backlash after he issued a threat to the two justices as the high court readies itself to rule on cases relating to abortion regulation.

“I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer, 69, said Wednesday at a rally for abortion rights. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Schooomer naturally lied his ass off trying to walk his hateful blunder back once he was called out on it, but Cruz ain’t having any:

“That is an unambiguous threat. Now, whether it’s a threat of political retribution, or something even worse, that’s not clear. But whatever it is, it’s judicial intimidation,” Cruz said, adding that he believes the comments are unacceptable. “The Senate should seriously consider taking disciplinary steps. When you have the leader of one of the two parties going to the steps of the Supreme Court, threatening and trying to intimidate Supreme Court justices, that undermines the rule of law, it undermines the judiciary, and it’s just flat-out wrong.”

Ahh, but you’re missing something, Ted: vile Democrat-Socialist creatures such as Schemer give not a single shit about such arcane irrelevancies as the rule of law, and never have. Sefton reminds us that it’s certainly nothing new:

What’s equally sickening is the moral equivalency in claiming Schemer was merely responding to Trump’s “attacks” on the Wide-Load Wiseass Latina and Ruth Bader Meinhoff. Ridiculous on the face of it since Trump was responding to attacks on him and his response was both non-threatening as well as appropriate, given both of their open animosity and vitriol of the President and his administration. The blowing way past the red line of Schemer’s statement, at least from my recollection and knowledge of historical criticism of SCOTUS, is unprecedented but it’s not unique. You’ll recall Obama’s thinly veiled threat and rebuke of the court, specifically aimed at the time at Justice Samuel Alito at a State of the Union address and when before the last foul word left his mouth, Schemer leapt to his feet, clapping like a retarded seal.

So what’s going on here? Is this a deranged reaction to being helpless as one of the Left’s sacraments, baby-killing dressed in drag as women’s health and freedom of choice potentially smashed like the golden calf? Or is it the totality of their complete failure at taking out President Trump hitting them square in the face? Whatever is going on, the words coming not from some unhinged troll in his parent’s basement but from political and cultural (allegedly) leaders have chilling and in many cases deadly effects, as we have seen now time and time again. That said, I am no fan of Laurence Tribe but I applaud his unequivocal rebuke of Schemer, who is a longtime friend and fellow traveler, and defense of what is supposed to be an independent court that is due the deference and respect of the other branches. But it’s the same old story. The Left observes the laws, traditions and customs of America as founded only when it advances their cause, and that’s virtually never. Other times it uses the Constitution as both a shield and cudgel to defend and attack us. That is, when they’re not wiping their ass with it.

Even mild-mannered Yertle McTurtle blasted the pernicious reprobate:

THE MINORITY LEADER OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE THREATENED TWO ASSOCIATE JUSTICES OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT, PERIOD. THERE’S NO OTHER WAY TO INTERPRET THAT. EVEN WORSE, THE THREAT WAS NOT CLEARLY POLITICAL OR INSTITUTIONAL. AS I’LL DISCUSS IN A MOMENT, THESE KINDS OF THREATS ARE SADLY NOTHING NEW FROM SENATE DEMOCRATS. THIS WAS MUCH BROADER, MUCH BROADER. THE DEMOCRATIC LEADER TRAVELED TO THE WORKPLACE OF THE TWO JUDGES, AND IN FRONT OF A CROWD OF ACTIVISTS, HE TOLD THOSE JUDGES YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SUPREME COURT BUILDING. AND YOU WON’T KNOW WHAT HIT YOU, HE SAID, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SUPREME COURT BUILDING. IF ANY AMERICAN HAD THESE WORDS SHOUTED AT THEM FROM THE SIDEWALK OUTSIDE THEIR OFFICE, THEY WOULD HEAR THOSE THREATS AS PERSONAL. AND MOST LIKELY THEY WOULD HEAR THEM AS THREATENING OR INCITING VIOLENCE. THAT’S HOW ANY AMERICAN WOULD INTERPRET THOSE WORDS IF THEY WERE DIRECTED AT US, AND THAT’S CERTAINLY HOW THE PRESS AND LEADING DEMOCRATS WOULD HAVE CHARACTERIZED THEM IF PRESIDENT TRUMP OR ANY SENIOR REPUBLICAN HAD SAID ANYTHING REMOTELY, REMOTELY SIMILAR. WE’VE SEEN MUCH MORE HAY MADE OUT OF MUCH LESS.

PERHAPS OUR COLLEAGUE THINKS THIS IS ABSURD. PERHAPS HE WOULD LIKE THE MOST GENEROUS POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION THAT HE GOT CARRIED AWAY AND DIDN’T MEAN WHAT HE SAID. BUT IF HE DIDN’T EVEN ADMIT TO SAYING WHAT HE SAID, WE CERTAINLY CANNOT KNOW WHAT HE MEANT. AT THE VERY BEST, HIS COMMENTS WERE ASTONISHINGLY, ASTONISHINGLY RECKLESS AND SUPPLEMENTAL IRRESPONSIBLE, AND CLEARLY, AS THE CHIEF JUSTICE STATED IN A RARE AND EXTRAORDINARY REBUKE, THEY WERE, QUOTE, DANGEROUS, END QUOTE. BECAUSE NO MATTER THE INTENTION, WORDS CARRYING THE APPARENT THREAT OF VIOLENCE CAN HAVE HORRIFIC UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.

IN THE MOST RECENT YEAR ON RECORD, MADAM PRESIDENT, THE UNITED STATES MARSHAL SERVICE TRACKED THOUSANDS OF THREATS AND INAPPROPRIATE COMMUTATIONS AGAINST THE JUDICIARY. THOUSANDS OF THREATS AGAINST THE JUDICIARY. LESS THAN THREE YEARS AGO, OF COURSE, AN UNHINGED AND UNSTABLE LEFT-WING ACTIVIST ATTEMPTED A MASS MURDER OF CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS AT A BASEBALL FIELD RIGHT ACROSS THE RIVER.

A SENATE LEADER APPEARING TO THREATEN OR INCITE VIOLENCE ON THE STEPS OF THE SUPREME COURT COULD LITERALLY BE A MATTER OF DEADLY SERIOUSNESS. SO I FULLY ANTICIPATE OUR COLLEAGUE WOULD QUICKLY WITHDRAW HIS COMMENTS AND APOLOGIZE. THAT’S WHAT EVEN RELIABLY LIBERAL LEGAL EXPERTS LIKE LAURENCE TRIBE AND NEIL KAGEL HAVE PUBLICLY URGED. INSTEAD, OUR COLLEAGUE DOUBLED DOWN, DOUBLED DOWN. HE TRIED TO GASLIGHT THE ENTIRE COUNTRY AND STATED THAT HE WAS ACTUALLY THREATENING FELLOW SENATORS, AS THOUGH THAT WOULD BE MUCH BETTER. BUT THAT’S SUFFICIENT.

AND THEN A FEW HOURS LATER, THE DEMOCRATIC LEADER TRIPLED DOWN. INSTEAD OF TAKING CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS’ SOBER STATEMENT TO HEART, HE LASHED OUT AGAIN AND TRIED TO IMPLY THE CHIEF JUSTICE WAS BIASED, BIASED FOR DOING HIS JOB AND DEFENDING THE COURT. LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN. HE TRIPLED DOWN AND HE LASHED OUT YET AGAIN…

Because of course he did. Question now is: will he get away with it, as he so clearly assumes? As so many other bloodthirsty, lawless Leftists already have?

Official censure is the mildest reprimand Chuckie Crazy Eyes ought to get. As a dangerously unhinged lunatic, he has clearly forgotten he’s a member of what was originally conceived as the more sober, reflective, and judicious branch of Congress. The crooked, power-drunk son of a bitch ought to be forcibly removed from the office he’s besmirched and degraded for so many long years—perp-walked out rockin’ a pair of those fancy chrome bracelets, with a burly, stone-faced US Marshall on each flank to prod him along.

Is this something?

Posted on March 3, 2020March 3, 2020 by Mike

Hmmmmm.

A federal judge Monday granted a request from conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch to have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sit for a sworn deposition to answer questions about her use of a private email server to conduct government business.

Clinton has argued that she has already answered questions about this and should not have to do so again — the matter did not result in any charges for the then-presidential candidate in 2016 after a high-profile investigation — but D.C. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in his ruling that her past responses left much to be desired.

Of course they did. What we’re talking about here is a person well known to be of extremely dubious moral character, with a sense of entitlement and privilege big as all outdoors—a narcissistic sociopath, really, one long accustomed to being able to get away with murder—literally, in this case. Whenever such a one’s self-interest isn’t served by full and frank disclosure of the truth but by obscuring it, that’s kinda what happens.

“As extensive as the existing record is, it does not sufficiently explain Secretary Clinton’s state of mind when she decided it would be an acceptable practice to set up and use a private server to conduct State Department business,” Lamberth said.

The judge went on to recognize that while Clinton responded to written questions in a separate case, “those responses were either incomplete, unhelpful, or cursory at best. Simply put her responses left many more questions than answers.” Lamberth said that using written questions this time “will only muddle any understanding of Secretary Clinton’s state of mind and fail to capture the full picture, thus delaying the final disposition of this case even further.”

Lamberth even gave some examples of lingering questions about Clinton’s emails, such as how did she come to believe that her private emails would be preserved under normal State Department processes, who told her this and when, at what point did she learn department records management officials did not know about the server, “[a]nd why did she think that using a private server to conduct State Department business was permissible under the law in the first place?”

She knew damned well it was no such thing. Her intention from jump was to flout the law so as to conceal the ongoing criminal actions of the lawless junta she was a part of. As always, she took getting away with it for granted; even if she did get nabbed, she assumed then, and assumes even now, that she’ll never face a serious reckoning. And why the hell not? So far, she’s been correct in every particular.

Given that the settlement attempts and records search took place after Clinton left office, the judge ruled that the deposition should focus on whether she intentionally tried to use her private server to evade FOIA and her understanding of the State Department’s record management requirements.

Oh, fer cripe’s sa….

DUDE, ever hear of Occam’s Razor, perchance? Because trust me, this is the pluperfect place to be applying it, which will suddenly make sorting out this whole kerfuffle a very damned simple project indeed. That’s because it IS simple, in truth, and it always was. To wit: Hillary!™ is nothing but a fucking criminal and always has been, a power-drunk reprobate who unswervingly believes herself to be above the law, wholly exempt from the trifling legalities the rest of us nobodies are held strictly accountable to. As such, she was but one of many Barrackorrhoids who felt/feel likewise, all working for a criminal junta that ditto.

Hats off and all to the judge for making this long-overdue move anyway. Still, though: amazing how hard it can be for some of us to recognize an obvious truth even when it’s staring them right in the eye, waving its arms around wildly, and yelling Hey, look, over here, over here!!, ain’t it?

Some things never change

Posted on March 2, 2020March 2, 2020 by Mike

Daniel Greenfield, as is his wont, jacks another one right out of the damned park.

The truth about disaster relief and pandemic management is that it hasn’t changed much between administrations. The Bush administration dealt with SARS in much the same way that the Obama administration addressed swine flu. And the Trump administration is doing most of the same things.

That’s because the actual decisions are being made by bureaucrats based on existing protocols.

The best example of this was the decision to fly back infected American passengers from the Diamond Princess. This fateful decision helped spread the virus inside the United States.

President Trump had been told that nobody with the coronavirus would be flown to America.

The State Department decided to do it anyway without telling him and only made the announcement shortly after the planes landed in the United States.

According to the Washington Post, as unfriendly an outlet to the administration as there is, “Trump has since had several calls with top White House officials to say he should have been told, that it should have been his decision and that he did not agree with the decision that was made.”

Who in the State Department actually made the decision? That’s a very good question.

It was yet another Obama stay-behind, natch, one Dr William Walters—a State Dept bureau-hack who seems to be of the opinion that officeholders elected by Duh Peepul count for naught. This asshole knows where the REAL power in FederalGovCo resides. He would be correct in that odious opinion, maddeningly enough. The crux of the issue:

You can vote one way or another and the real decisions that matter will still be made by the head of a directorate that is a subsection of a bureau that you never heard of…

And who is almost impossible to fire.

This is how the country is really run. And that’s the problem.

The underlying problem with our government is that it’s too big to control. Voting in an election or even sitting in the Oval Office doesn’t mean you’re in charge. The problem goes beyond the current obsession with the Deep State. The real issue has always been the Deep Industry or the administrative state.

If the coronavirus becomes a critical problem in this country, the blame will go back to an obscure arm of the State Department, but it will never be placed there. Whatever happens a year from now, no one outside a small professional class will have ever heard of the Directorate of Operational Medicine.

The media will spend all its time bashing President Trump, Pence, assorted cabinet members, and perhaps the CDC, without ever drilling down to the facts, even though it has them at hand. The media’s rule of thumb is that natural disasters and disease outbreaks are always successfully managed by Democrats and mismanaged by Republicans. Katrina and Maria were disasters, but Sandy was a success story. The coronavirus is a catastrophe, but the Ebola virus was brilliantly handed by smart people who are handling the coronavirus response. But it’s different because the guy in the White House is.

The truth is that all of these were mismanaged by the same agencies, many of the same people, and by a government infrastructure that excels at drawing up big budget proposals, but is inept at solving problems when they actually emerge, and just follow whatever protocols will cover its collective asses.

Just as after Katrina and Maria, watch for the outpouring of lies, the claims that New Orleans had reverted to cannibalism and that everyone in Puerto Rico was dead, will be matched and exceeded.

There will be a cure for the coronavirus. But there’s no cure for the spread of viral fake news.

There is however a cure for the decisions that led to a coronavirus problem in the United States.

It’s called the Constitution.

America was meant to have a small government under the control of the people, not the bureaucrats. The real disease is bigger than the coronavirus. It’s a fatal illness called big government. Unlike the coronavirus, it has a total mortality rate. No society that has succumbed to it has ever survived.

This one won’t, either. In fact, it’s entirely safe to say that it succumbed a long time ago.

Hey, they don’t call it the Surveillance State for nothing, you know

Posted on February 27, 2020February 27, 2020 by Mike

Rand Paul has an idea for a good start.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump told Sen. Rand Paul that he does not support a clean extension of expiring surveillance authorities, throwing the future of the program into doubt ahead of a fast-approaching March 15 deadline to re-up key features of the Patriot Act.

The Kentucky Republican told reporters that Trump made the comments to him on Wednesday, just a day after Attorney General William Barr told GOP senators that Congress should extend the expiring provisions regarding roving wire taps, lone wolf actors and the most controversial provision: call data collection.

Asked about the discrepancy between his conversation with Trump and Barr’s remarks to senators, Paul said there was “misinformation that got out from some people in the administration” about the expiring surveillance authorities.

“The president was out of the country and somebody mischaracterized his positions. I’ll leave it up to y’all to figure that out,” Paul added.

Paul said Trump is “very supportive” of his amendment to prevent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from targeting Americans, a reflection of conservative unease over the way the Trump campaign was surveilled in 2016.

“FISA warrants should not be issued against Americans,” Paul said on Thursday afternoon. “Americans shouldn’t be spied on by a secret court. I think he agrees completely with that and that’s the amendment that I’m going to insist on. I’m not letting anything go easy without a vote on my amendment.”

Paul’s amendment is all well and good as far as it goes; certainly, it’s a vast improvement over the Barr proposal, which McConnell and Graham also endorse. Myself, though, I’m with Sundance all the way.

Yesterday CTH warned of a scenario where congress would attempt to slip a clean renewal authorization into the Coronavirus appropriations bill. Today, that exact scenario was being discussed on Capitol Hill.

Following the conversation with President Trump, Senator Rand Paul is planning to propose legislation that would force reform to the current FISA authorities.

While CTH disagrees with the Rand Paul proposal, and would rather see the bulk data gathering/collection and opportunities for exploitation eliminated, at least Senator Paul is attempting to stop the system from being abused against political campaigns.

Two issues…and again CTH is not attempting to dismiss the righteous effort by Senator Paul…However:

(A) Isn’t it already illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional and grossly corrupt, to use FISA as a political surveillance tool? If so, why do we need another law or rule change to make it more illegal, more unlawful and more grossly corrupt?

(B) Why do only elected officials or candidates for office get protection from having their fourth amendment rights violated by exploitation of the FISA courts? Shouldn’t the same standard of protection apply to everyone?

CTH understands what Rand Paul is attempting to do, but it’s the FISA process being used against *any* American that is the problem. No American should have their constitutional rights travel through a secret court in order to usurp them. Let FISA apply to “non Americans”; and if there is a need for surveillance or collection of information on Americans, then let the government approach regular Title-3 courts for domestic warrants.

Unfortunately, we know all too well just how likely Deep State operatives are to relinquish as powerful a tool as FISA—a grotesque affront to absolutely every principle this nation was founded upon—has turned out to be for them.

“The un-American Deep State and the malevolent Obama administration”

Posted on February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 by Mike

Extremely apt nomenclature and some harsh reality courtesy of John Nolte.

There is no justice in this country, only them the persecutors and we the persecuted.

Democrats and their Deep State allies can lie and leak to destroy innocent people, they can destroy evidence, they can seek to manipulate and overturn democracy, and all they get are movie deals, book contracts, speaking fees, and cable news cash.

And now there’s this…

The Democrat frontrunner for the 2020 presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, was briefed last month that Russia is attempting to help him win the nomination.

Did you catch that?

Bernie.

Was.

Freakin’.

Briefed.

Briefed.

Bernie got a briefing, y’all — a heads up, a warning…

And you know what? That’s appropriate. That is exactly what should have happened. But…

If you’ll recall, that is not what happened to Donald Trump in 2016.

Nope, in 2016, the un-American Deep State and the malevolent Obama administration did not offer the Trump campaign a heads up, did not give them the courtesy of a briefing over potential Russian interference.

Oh, no…

Instead, the un-American Deep State and malevolent Obama administration chose to use Russian-interference-that-didn’t-end-up-interfering-in-anything as an excuse to spy on the Trump campaign using spies, to wiretap the Trump campaign using wiretaps, to commit perjury against the Trump campaign using forged warrants filled with perjury.

And then, after Trump won in an electoral vote landslide, the un-American Deep State and the malevolent Obama administration committed crime after crime (classified leaks, more perjury) to launch a coup against Trump by way of a three year drip-drip-drip investigation, even though the investigators knew the investigation was bullshit on day one.

We are second class citizens in our own country.

Sad to say, but I think most of us know that by now, or at least we should. Which makes the only pertinent question confronting us all the more unpleasant: What, if anything, are we gonna do about that? The answer:

It’s all got to come down… All of it.

Yep, ‘fraid so.

The truth about “neocon” NeverTrumpTards

Posted on February 19, 2020February 19, 2020 by Mike

The same old Vichy GOPe liberal phonies in conservative mufti: wrong then, wrong now, wrong forever.

Every bit of this — the grinding and gurgling economy of the legacy media and its temporary darlings — relies on this support structure of peer approval. Doubtful? You can most clearly see it play out live on Twitter, like a Discovery Channel exploration of an ecosystem made up entirely of mosquitoes. And the cool kids’ waterboys are the anti-Trump Republicans.

The Never Trumpers are a joke kept alive by this structure of self-support. They haven’t been correct on a thing in years, yet continue to earn their supper and an invitation to the party by wholeheartedly agreeing with their new patrons. They predicted ruin when the president was nominated and doom when he was elected, all while his poll numbers have continued to tick upward. They prophesied the shattering of the Republican Party all while it has maintained near-historic discipline in the face of a unified Democrat-media assault. They assumed the end of the economy because America reacted to unfair international trade practices, and terrible global disasters because Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords and killed Iran’s terrorist general.

All of their predictions are based on the conventional wisdom and assumptions of an insulted and excluded D.C. intelligentsia, and all are wrong. Indeed, Trump’s above decisions have resulted in the very things the Never-Trump Republicans once called for, including closing America’s sizable income gap and maintaining a strength and deterrence that are independent of entangling foreign powers.

These men and women are included for agreeing with a media that has been proven wrong over and over again, but there is no room for self-awareness. The two-or-so weeks of journalistic self-reflection that followed the 2016 election gave way to race-baiting, conspiracies, and inquisitions. A promised focus on the heartland and The New York Times’s apology to its readership gave way to The 1619 Project.

In what industry would this hubris survive except for media? Even in politics, a business filled with corrupt liars not even trying to deliver, its practitioners are held to task by elections. Not here. Unaccountable and self-satisfied, the club marches on, complete with back-handed back-slaps to the boys who carry its water.

Ace says this about this gaggle of contemptible rumpswabs:

“Neocons” were disillusioned Democrats who objected to their party’s excesses.

But never the basic philosophy or priorities. Just the excesses.

The neocons remade the Republican Party into something that Democrats could join — and control.

Now that we’ve taken their control away from them, and begun turning our backs on their preferred Democrat priorities for the GOP, they abandon it.

It was never anything more than a refuge of convenience for them.

Actually, I have my own theory: they’re wishy-washy vacillators who wet themselves in fear over 9/11. Many if not most of the aforementioned bunch had leaned liberal until then; the rest were content to play the role of perennial Noble Losers to their Democrat-Socialist overlords. And then 9/11 hit a bit too close to home, rocking their comfy world as Swamp insiders. The attacks upended everything, they grabbed the Neocon life preserver as the handiest way of coping with their stark terror. They were comforted by Dubya’s initial note-perfect response to the atrocity, and of course perpetual, futile half-a-wars far removed from the DC Elite playgrounds were always okay with them.

Now many years have passed without another mass-casualty Moslem attack against their Acela-corridor home turf, and they feel secure enough to let down their guard and get back to big-government business as usual…and then along comes this damned interloper Trump to crash the party and upset their apple cart all over again. Is it any wonder they’ve all come so completely unglued with hatred for the man?

More Biden bribery

Posted on February 16, 2020February 16, 2020 by Mike

Quid Pro Joe.

U.S.—Joe Biden’s campaign is struggling to motivate younger voters, but he has a plan: offering free AOL trials to anyone who shows up to his rallies.

“Come on by, say hi to uncle Joe, and grab one of our free AOL CDs,” Biden says in an ad for his campaign tour. “You know, the great thing about AOL is that you get so many hours of internets. Only squares use Compuserve, Prodigy, or MSN. We’re keen on America Online!”

The campaign has warned that it’s first come, first served, so you’d better hurry if you want to experience the lightning-fast speeds of AOL’s 56K dial-up service.

Later, you’re all invited to hop into Uncle Gropey’s flivver for a run downtown to the apothecary for a malted! On a slightly more serious note:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but my earlier Joe Biden theory is confirmed more and more every day. Let’s start from the beginning.

1. At first Biden is reluctant to run. But in the spring of 2019 he gets wind of Trump investigating his corruption in Ukraine – and he immediately enters the race on 4/25/19. On the trail he looks old, tired, and his heart just isn’t in it. Why do it then? Because it’s about a lot more things than simply running for president.

2. If Trump isn’t stopped, the entire Biden family’s dirt will come out. At this point, the only way to avoid or at least to delay it is Biden being in the race: the news of his corruption can then be discredited as usual electioneering and Trump’s dirty tricks.

3. Biden may not be the only one who took dirty money from Ukrainian oligarchs, plus Democrats used Ukrainian politicians to dig up dirt on Trump’s team in 2016. Now their lives and careers depend on their ability to stop Trump’s investigation and to muddle the issue. They also know they can’t beat Trump in 2020, all they can do is try to impeach him in order to shut him up. They have loyal spies in the White House and wait for an opportune moment to pounce.

4. Trump’s phone call with Ukraine becomes such a moment. The Dems quickly compose a play about a concerned whistleblower and stage it in the House. They charge Trump with exactly what they themselves have done – getting help from a foreign government in order to dig up dirt on a political rival, followed by a cover-up.

5. These charges only make sense if Biden is running against Trump in a general election, which he isn’t. As a minimum, he must be a frontrunner in the primaries, and so the DNC throws him into the mix of candidates and artificially inflates his status. The entire impeachment scheme is predicated on Biden running and winning the primaries. Without him posing as Trump’s rival, the Democrats won’t be able to claim that Trump wanted to steal an election. So old Joe must make a good face and keep running even if he eventually collapses and pays with his life to save the swamp.

6. The Senate acquits Trump and the Dems switch to harassing him about Roger Stone. It no longer matters if Biden is a frontrunner, he has outlived his usefulness. The DNC pulls the plug and the sad old Joe is done, unless the Dems can use him later to cheat Bernie out of a win. His numbers are in the gutter.

7. What are the Dems covering up in Ukraine? It must be big if they staged an impeachment and risked their entire political capital over it.

One can deduce how big it is from the now-absurd lengths to which the Deep State has gone to keep it suppressed. And now that they’ve been ballsy enough to laugh in our faces openly with the McCabe dismissal, you can be assured that we’ll never find out. Rounding out the absurdity:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was a key subject of the controversy related to Trump’s dealings with his country, says he is ready to turn the page on the scandal and even compared it to a ‘soap opera.’

According to the AFP, Zelensky told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday: “After the whole impeachment soap opera, I want to go (to Washington) and start a blank page on our relations.”

According to Marcus, during his CNN interview Zelensky severely undermined key arguments by Democrats in their impeachment efforts against Trump. For instance, by stating that he looks forward to meeting soon with Trump, Zelensky throws “cold water” on the suggestion that he was being extorted or unduly pressured in his July 25 phone call with the American commander in chief.

Undermined? Hell, he trashed their entire fucking case already, when he explicitly denied he had been pressured by Trump.

But no matter. Who cares? The whole creaky, clanking shitshow will continue to stagger along regardless for a good while yet, with the Democrat-Socialists launching ever-more-desperate attempts to unseat Trump; the Vichy GOPe whimpering nonsensically that their “true conservative principles” leave them no choice but to endorse a Communist for president; various DoJ “investigations” and “inquiries” marching eternally in place, issuing occasional vague reports that euphemize criminal acts as “irregularities” but can find no cause to indict, prosecute, and imprison anyone, ever, for anything.

The clock will be run out. As Uncle Gropey, confused and angry, is gently led off the campaign trail and into managed-care oblivion, general interest in his doings will gutter out. The Greatest Show On Earth—US Election Theater, wherein the candidates’ faces and names change but the shadowy bureaucrats who really run things are forever—will continue as before, dazzling and distracting the credulous few who still believe in such fantasies. Enemedia will pivot to the next lie, the next slander, the next OUTRAGE! of the week.

And the biggest, most outrageous scandal in American history will be allowed to die its quiet little death, to be buried next to its unavenged victim—the rule of law—without ceremony or resolution.

(Via Insty)

How the Trump admin went off the rails

Posted on February 15, 2020 by Mike

Personnel is policy.

Unlike a George Bush (either of them), Donald Trump arrived in Washington, D.C. with no connections to the DC policy establishment. In fact, he arrived after a bruising primary and general election that left him alienated from the GOP establishment. The GOP establishment might not have called his supporters “a basket of deplorables” but they nodded their heads and chuckled when they heard it. The same establishment had gotten rich and fat off illegal immigrant labor and outsourcing American jobs to wherever. They were used to keeping the GOP base in line with promises and crumbs (George W. Bush had GOP majorities for 6 of his 8 years, how much did they accomplish in regards to slowing illegal immigration or reducing abortion?) while delivering zero. When Trump arrived in Washington he was reliant upon the very same people who had opposed his election to staff his administration.

Some hard-core NeverTrumpers were hired in an attempt to placate factions in the GOP. Some cabinet secretaries, like, for instance, James Mattis and Rex Tillerson, pressed to retain Obama appointees or bring in registered Democrats with whom they had worked into senior policy positions. The head of the White House personnel office overseeing the hiring of political appointees went to an “end of the world party” when Trump dispatched Ted Cruz in Indiana. A guerrilla war was fought against the Administration by using the security clearance process to force out many of Trump’s most loyal followers.

Streiff then links to this piece, which fleshes things out a bit further.

In past administrations, a candidate’s allegiance to the president was vetted and considered a plus, if not a must. So why is the Trump White House filling any of these spots with people who have been openly (or privately) hostile to the president?

Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor summed up the absurdity of the situation on Fox News. “I think President Trump lost control of the whole appointment process in staffing the government shortly after the election,” he said. “He ended up appointing large numbers of people who subsequently brought in their friends, almost all of whom were opposed to Donald Trump and his agenda.”

Indeed, the appointment of never-Trumpers was aggressively championed and insisted upon by some senior Cabinet members. Some candidates were directly approved by the president himself, while others were proposed by White House political staffers as compromise picks with Cabinet secretaries. Many others slipped in because, despite their anti-Trump sentiments, they had not revealed — or were not asked about — their views in public. Some of the appointments appear to have been downright disastrous. Although many never-Trumpers hired early in the president’s term have departed, others have been elevated or reshuffled as new never-Trumpers continue to enter the administration’s ranks.

The permanent-bureaucracy insiders, in serving their own interests and safeguarding their sinecures, are keeping their eyes on the long term. Back to Strieff.

This, by the way, is not unique to Trump. Historically, party outsiders have failed or been co-opted by the system because, just like Trump, they arrive with a popular mandate but because they are outsiders, and threatening outsiders at that, the formal and informal levers of power are often out of their reach because they can’t put enough of their supporters in mid-level policy positions. When results don’t materialize, the reformer is turfed out by the voters and we all go back to the way it was.

Which, of course, is the desired outcome, the whole point. It’s the grimmest of ironies, and the neatest of tricks: the system has been so thoroughly rigged to serve the interests of its career players by thwarting any true outsider elected to clean out the rot—to “drain the swamp”—that it actually functions as a self-perpetuation mechanism, ensuring said outsider will be removed when he inevitably fails to get the job done.

Put another way, the Deep State ouroborus produces antibodies to counteract and flush away potential threats to its own continued existence and supremacy. Kinda daunting to think of FederalGovCo being so awesomely resilient, virtually immune to all but cosmetic, trifling reform or restriction. More daunting still, though, is the question of whether this systemic self-defense mechanism came into existence organically, just as a natural consequence of the gummint having metastasized far beyond its intended limits, or whether its establishment was the intentional, coordinated result of insider engineers who knew just what they were building, why they were building it, and how to build it right.

The latter scenario isn’t merely daunting but downright scary, in truth—because successfully animating such a monster would have required true genius on Dr Frankenstein’s part. A people who value Constitutionally-ordered liberty will need him to be something a good bit less than that if he’s ever to be defeated, his abominable creation laid to rest.

Two sets of laws

Posted on February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 by Mike

Or maybe just one set, actually. But it doesn’t apply to Deep State operatives, Democrat-Socialists at all levels, PantiFa goon squads, and Leftists generally—it applies only, exclusively, and most stringently to us.

Justice in Amerika is now officially a sad, unfunny joke. This is no longer arguable; it is ugly reality. And it is intolerable.

DOJ drops probe into former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
“It is an absolute disgrace that they took two years and put my family through this experience,” McCabe said Friday.

Words fail me. I just…can’t even.

The Justice Department has decided to abandon its efforts to seek criminal charges against former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to a letter sent to his attorneys.

McCabe’s lawyers were told last September that he should expect to be indicted on charges stemming from inaccurate statements he made to FBI investigators about his actions around the time of the 2016 election. However, no indictment was ever returned, leading to speculation that the Washington-based grand jury probing the matter took the rare step of rejecting charges.

Or—in plainer, more honest speech, with the weasel-wording left out—lying to the FBI. Y’know, the exact same thing as poor Roger Stone, who could righteously explain a thing or two to the scumball McCabe about being persecuted, I bet.

Prosecutors had been cagey since that time about the status of the investigation into McCabe, who has been a frequent subject of public attacks from President Donald Trump. In theory, they could have presented the case to another grand jury, but on Friday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington informed McCabe’s attorneys that it was giving up its quest to charge the FBI veteran.

“We write to inform you that, after careful consideration, the Government has decided not to pursue criminal charges against your client, Andrew G. McCabe,” prosecutors J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston wrote on behalf of the new U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Tim Shea. “Based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the Government at this time, we consider the matter closed.”

And with that, it’s now officially over and done. The only conclusion to be reached by any sentient being is that not ONE of the treacherous swine who actually, literally plotted to overthrow a duly-elected, legitimate President by nefarious and illegal means will ever face a reckoning for their crimes. None will face justice. None will suffer consequences. None will be duly punished. Comey. Clapper. Brennan. Stroozzzkkk. Page. None of them. Not a single one.

For TREASON. For SEDITION. For corruption so blatant, so arrogant, so patently wrong that even now, as cynical as I have become from observing this mind-warping shitshow, I still am shocked by it.

Not so much as a slap on the wrist. Not even a good scolding. Nothing. For any of them. Mark my words.

If I was Trump, I would resign immediately and flee this blighted, contemptible trainwreck of a country as fast as I possibly could, for anywhere at all, never to return or even once look back. The torment and persecution he and his family have endured for three long years—REAL torment, REAL persecution, something a lying asswipe like McCabe knows nothing whatsoever about, his self-serving whining to the contrary notwithstanding—were for absolutely nothing. His efforts and achievements are as pearls tossed before swine: Herculean labors undertaken on behalf of benighted fools wholly unworthy of them.

Game over, people. Gangster government won, America That Was lost. That’s a wrap.

Oh, and speaking of horsefaced cum-dumpster Lisa Page: expect to have lots more enraging victory laps like this one shoved down our throats in the days ahead, as longtime Deep State op Bill Barr allows the perps, one-by-one, to slip through his fat fingers.

Cheers, Andy. pic.twitter.com/9xy3hBEzqc

— Lisa Page (@NatSecLisa) February 14, 2020

“I am done being quiet.” Cute, very fucking cute. But why the hell not? She’s guilty as hell, free as a bird, and untouchable. Page and the rest of her cabal give not one damp fart what the dimwitted flyover rubes think or say about anything whatsoever. They don’t have to; they’re in charge, are going to remain in charge, and you oafish knuckleheads will just sit back and take whatever the DC Elite think you deserve to have dished out to you, foot the bill for it, then happily moo for more of the same. They know it now, having just received confirmation from the highest Swamp/DoJ authorities that they can do whatever they please with total impunity.

Sickening, that’s what. This country is finished, and it damned well ought to be.

No harm, no foul update! No matter how cynical you may be, you ain’t near cynical enough.

The Army will not launch an investigation into a decorated officer who was a key witness during the impeachment inquiry into President Trump and then removed from his White House National Security Council (NSC) position, officials said Friday.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Lt. Col. Alex Vindman will begin a stint at a military college later this year, but he will be moved to a short-term assignment in the meantime. McCarthy did not provide any details on the new assignment.

“Colonel Vindman was scheduled to come back to the Army. He was detailed to the National Security Council in about the May-June timeframe,” McCarthy said during an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “We brought him back, he’s got basically a bridging assignment for a couple [of] months…and then will be heading on to a senior service college this summer, and there’s no investigations of him.”

Because of course there aren’t. Deep State rats look out for their nestmates, don’tchaknow. His “fired” twin brother was himself shuffled into another cushy sinecure at the Army General Counsel’s Office, so that he can continue the vital work of keeping “democracy” safe from The People’s unwelcome input or influence.

Funny how all of our “victories” seem to be short-lived, quickly and quietly magicked into defeat by further sly, behind-the-scenes jiggery-pokery by TPTB, innit?

But hey, I’m happy that the heroic Doughboy twins landed on their feet after only a couple of days out in the cold, I really am. As long as dangerous malefactors like Manafort, Stone, and Flynn each pay their debt to society with a good, long stretch in lockdown for their heinous “crimes,” we can all rest assured that “justice” has been served. Right?

*SPIT*

Pissed off update! Lou Dobbs lays into ’em.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs went off Thursday on Attorney General William Barr following Barr’s criticism of President Donald Trump for his tweets.

“I guess I am so disappointed in Bill Barr, I have to say this. You know, it’s a damn shame when he doesn’t get what this president has gone through, and what the American people have gone through, and what his charge is as attorney general,” Dobbs said.

“Where the hell is the report? Where the hell are the indictments? Where the hell are the charges against the politically corrupt Deep State within the Justice Department, the FBI, and why in the hell aren’t we hearing apologies from someone in that rancid, corrupt, department about what they permitted?” he asked.

He also said, “To hear this attorney general complain about this president, who’s fighting every one of those damn people to do the right thing and get this country straightened out. And it’s his mission to do so, not to carp about his boss.”

“And by the way, I don’t want to hear any crap about an independent Justice Department. This Justice Department, as does everyone, works for the president. It is part of the executive branch.”

Bang! Zoom! Couldn’t have said it better myself. Good on ya, Lou.

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